There’s nothing quite like the feeling of a spa treatment at home – and when you add Bentonite Clay into your beauty routine, you’re tapping into centuries of healing tradition. From detoxifying baths to deep-cleansing face masks, this mineral-rich clay nourishes, cleanses, and rejuvenates like nothing else.
I’ve been using Redmond Clay for 16 years because it’s one of the purest and most mineral-rich clays available. Harvested from an ancient seabed in Utah and left in its natural state – no additives, no heat treatments, no toxins – it’s exactly the kind of healing tool I trust in The Earth Diet.
Why Bentonite Clay Is a Beauty Essential
Helps clear acne & breakouts Unclogs pores & draws out impurities Calms inflammation & redness Controls excess oil Brightens dull skin Smooths uneven tone & texture Softens the look of scars & blemishes Supports eczema, psoriasis & skin allergies
My Signature Clay Bath Routine
Clay is one of nature’s original detoxifiers. Indigenous cultures have used it for centuries to draw out impurities, rebalance the body, and even soothe emotional tension. When you add it to a warm bath, it works on multiple levels – for your skin, your lymphatic system, and your nervous system.
You’ll need:
• ½ to 1 cup Redmond Bentonite Clay • ½ cup Epsom salts or Redmond salts • Warm (not too hot) water • 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar (optional, for deeper detox) • 10 drops essential oil (lavender, eucalyptus, or frankincense) • Wooden or silicone spoon (no metal it disrupts the clay’s charge)
How to:
1. Fill the tub with warm water. 2. In a separate non-metal bowl, mix clay with a small amount of warm water until smooth. Stir in apple cider vinegar if using. 3. Add the clay mixture and salts to your bathwater. 4. Add essential oils, light candles, and put on calming music. 5. Soak for 20–40 minutes, then rinse with warm water.
When to do it:
• 1-2 times a week for detox • 1–2 times a month for maintenance • After air travel • During detox or cleanse phases • When recovering from illness or feeling energetically drained
DIY Bentonite Clay Face Mask
This is my go-to for glowing, refreshed skin. It’s simple, powerful, and leaves your face feeling fresh, tight, and smooth.
1. In a non-metal bowl, mix clay and water with a wooden or plastic spoon until a smooth paste forms. 2. Apply in layers until your face is fully covered. 3. For a deep detox, leave on 1–2 hours. For a quicker refresh, leave on 30–60 minutes. 4. Rinse with warm water and pat dry.
The Science of Why Clay Works
Ionic Exchange: Bentonite clay is negatively charged, which allows it to bind to positively charged toxins (like heavy metals and chemicals) so they can be flushed away.
Lymphatic Flow: Stimulates circulation and helps the lymphatic system clear waste, reducing inflammation.
Mineral Replenishment: Contains over 60 trace minerals (magnesium, calcium, potassium) that support skin health, hydration, and repair.
The Ultimate Self-Care Gift
A bag of Redmond Clay is one of the best gifts you can give someone. Pair it with a beautiful wooden spoon, a mason jar, and a printed copy of these bath and mask recipes, and you’ve got a wellness gift that says: I care about your health, your skin, and your stress levels.
Use code LIANA for 15% off your next Redmond purchase.
Big Food uses our hard-wired drive for dietary diversity against us.
How did we evolve to solve the daunting task of selecting a diet that supplies all the essential nutrients? Dietary diversity. By eating a variety of foods, we increase our chances of hitting all the bases. If we only ate for pleasure, we might just stick with our favorite food to the exclusion of all others, but we have an innate tendency to switch things up.
Researchers found that study participants ended up eating more calories when provided with three different yogurt flavors than just one, even if that one is the chosen favorite. So, variation can trump sensation. They don’t call it the spice of life for nothing.
It appears to be something we’re born with. Studies on newly weaned infants dating back nearly a century show that babies naturally choose a variety of foods even over their preferred food. This tendency seems to be driven by a phenomenon known as sensory-specific satiety.
Researchers found that, “within 2 minutes after eating the test meal, the pleasantness of the taste, smell, texture, and appearance of the eaten food decreased significantly more than for the uneaten foods.” Think about how the first bite of chocolate tastes better than the last bite. Our body tires of the same sensations and seeks out novelty by rekindling our appetite every time we’re presented with new foods. This helps explain the “dessert effect,” where we can be stuffed to the gills but gain a second wind when dessert arrives. What was adaptive for our ancient ancestors to maintain nutritional adequacy may be maladaptive in the age of obesity.
When study participants ate a “varied four-course meal,” they consumed 60 percent more calories than those given the same food for each course. It’s not only that we get bored; our body has a different physiological reaction.
As you can see below and at 2:13 in my video How Variation Can Trump Sensation and Lead to Overeating, researchers gave people a squirt of lemon juice, and their salivary glands responded with a squirt of saliva. But when they were given lemon juice ten times in a row, they salivated less and less each time. When they got the same amount of lime juice, though, their salivation jumped right back up. We’re hard-wired to respond differently to new foods. Whether foods are on the same plate, are at the same meal, or are even eaten on subsequent days, the greater the variety, the more we tend to eat. When kids had the same mac and cheese dinner five days in a row, they ended up eating hundreds fewer calories by the fifth day, compared to kids who got a variety of different meals, as you can see below and at 2:35 in my video.
Even just switching the shape of food can lead to overeating. When kids had a second bowl of mac and cheese, they ate significantly more when the noodles were changed from elbow macaroni to spirals. People allegedly eat up to 77 percent more M&Ms if they’re presented with ten different colors instead of seven, even though all the colors taste the same. “Thus, it is clear that the greater the differences between foods, the greater the enhancement of intake,” the greater the effect. Alternating between sweet and savory foods can have a particularly appetite-stimulating effect. Do you see how, in this way, adding a diet soda, for instance, to a fast-food meal can lead to overconsumption?
The staggering array of modern food choices may be one of the factors conspiring to undermine our appetite control. There are now tens of thousands of different foods being sold.
The so-called supermarket diet is one of the most successful ways to make rats fat. Researchers tried high-calorie food pellets, but the rats just ate less to compensate. So, they “therefore used a more extreme diet…[and] fed rats an assortment of palatable foods purchased at a nearby supermarket,” including such fare as cookies, candy, bacon, and cheese, and the animals ballooned. The human equivalent to maximize experimental weight gain has been dubbed the cafeteria diet.
It’s kind of the opposite of the original food dispensing device I’ve talked about before. Instead of all-you-can-eat bland liquid, researchers offered free all-you-can-eat access to elaborate vending machines stocked with 40 trays with a dizzying array of foods, like pastries and French fries. Participants found it impossible to maintain energy balance, consistently consuming more than 120 percent of their calorie requirements.
Our understanding of sensory-specific satiety can be used to help people gain weight, but how can we use it to our advantage? For example, would limiting the variety of unhealthy snacks help people lose weight? Two randomized controlled trials made the attempt and failed to show significantly more weight loss in the reduced variety diet, but they also failed to get people to make much of a dent in their diets. Just cutting down on one or two snack types seems insufficient to make much of a difference, as seen below and at 4:44 in my video. A more drastic change may be needed, which we’ll cover next.
In this episode of the Health Detective Podcast, host Evan Transue, also known as Detective Ev, interviews Olivia Morrissette, a functional health practitioner and integrative health coach. Olivia shares her personal health journey, detailing the struggles she faced starting from high school, through college, and into her early career. She discusses her experience with various health issues, including anxiety, panic attacks, sinus infections, TMJ, fibromyalgia, candida, parasites, burnout, and endometriosis, and her journey toward healing with the help of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN).
Olivia emphasizes the importance of addressing both physical and emotional health and how finding the right functional health practitioner transformed her life. She also highlights the significance of personalized care and the inadequacy of one-size-fits-all solutions frequently found on social media. Olivia’s practice focuses on helping young women, particularly those in their 20s and 30s, who are struggling with similar symptoms or transitioning off birth control. She emphasizes the need for individual assessment and tailored approaches, using specific lab tests like the GI MAP, DUTCH test, and comprehensive blood work to diagnose issues like candida overgrowth, thyroid dysfunction, and leaky gut among her clients.
Olivia advocates for a balanced approach to health care, combining elements of Western medicine for immediate relief with holistic, root-cause solutions for long-term healing. She discusses the importance of being a supportive advocate for her clients and highlights a success story where she helped a client overcome chronic health issues, leading them to feel aligned with their body for the first time in years.
I debunk the myth of protein as the most satiating macronutrient.
The importance of satiety is underscored by a rare genetic condition known as Prader-Willi syndrome. Children with the disorder are born with impaired signaling between their digestive system and their brain, so they don’t know when they’re full. “Because no sensation of satiety tells them to stop eating or alerts their body to throw up, they can accidentally consume enough in a single binge to fatally rupture their stomach.” Without satiety, food can be “a death sentence.”
Protein is often described as the most satiating macronutrient. People tend to report feeling fuller after eating a protein-rich meal, compared to a carbohydrate- or fat-rich one. The question is: Does that feeling of fullness last? From a weight-loss standpoint, satiety ratings only matter if they end up cutting down on subsequent calorie intake, and even a review funded by the meat, dairy, and egg industries acknowledges that this does not seem to be the case for protein. Hours later, protein consumed earlier doesn’t tend to end up cutting calories later on.
Fiber-rich foods, on the other hand, can suppress appetite and reduce subsequent meal intake more than ten hours after consumption—even the next day—because their site of action is 20 feet down in the lower intestine. Remember the ileal brake from my Evidence-Based Weight Loss lecture? When researchers secretly infused nutrients into the end of the small intestine, study participants spontaneously ate as many as hundreds fewer calories at a meal. Our brain gets the signal that we are full, from head to tail.
We were built for gluttony. “It is a wonderful instinct, developed over millions of years, for times of scarcity.” Stumbling across a rare bounty, those who could fill themselves the most to build up the greatest reserves would be more likely to pass along their genes. So, we are hard-wired not just to eat until our stomach is full, but until our entire digestive tract is occupied. Only when our brain senses food all the way down at the end does our appetite fully dial down.
Fiber-depleted foods get rapidly absorbed early on, though, so much of it never makes it down to the lower gut. As such, if our diet is low in fiber, no wonder we’re constantly hungry and overeating; our brain keeps waiting for the food that never arrives. That’s why people who even undergo stomach-stapling surgeries that leave them with a tiny two-tablespoon-sized stomach pouch can still eat enough to regain most of the weight they initially lost. Without sufficient fiber, transporting nutrients down our digestive tract, we may never be fully satiated. But, as I described in my last video, one of the most successful experimental weight-loss interventions ever reported in the medical literature involved no fiber at all, as you can see here and at 2:47 in my video Foods Designed to Hijack Our Appetites.
At first glance, it might seem obvious that removing the pleasurable aspects of eating would cause people to eat less, but remember, that’s not what happened. The lean participants continued to eat the same amount, taking in thousands of calories a day of the bland goop. Only those who were obese went from eating thousands of calories a day down to hundreds, as shown below and at 3:22 in myvideo. And, again, this happened inadvertently without them apparently even feeling a difference. Only after eating was disconnected from the reward was the body able to start rapidly reining in the weight.
We appear to have two separate appetite control systems: “the homeostatic and hedonic pathways.” The homeostatic pathway maintains our calorie balance by making us hungry when energy reserves are low and abolishes our appetite when energy reserves are high. “In contrast, hedonic or reward-based regulation can override the homeostatic pathway” in the face of highly palatable foods. This makes total sense from an evolutionary standpoint. In the rare situations in our ancestral history when we’d stumble across some calorie-dense food, like a cache of unguarded honey, it would make sense for our hedonic drive to jump into the driver’s seat to consume the scarce commodity. Even if we didn’t need the extra calories at the time, our body wouldn’t want us to pass up that rare opportunity. Such opportunities aren’t so rare anymore, though. With sugary, fatty foods around every corner, our hedonic drive may end up in perpetual control, overwhelming the intuitive wisdom of our bodies.
So, what’s the answer? Never eat really tasty food? No, but it may help to recognize the effects hyperpalatable foods can have on hijacking our appetites and undermining our body’s better judgment.
Ironically, some researchers have suggested a counterbalancing evolutionary strategy for combating the lure of artificially concentrated calories. Just as pleasure can overrule our appetite regulation, so can pain. “Conditioned food aversions” are when we avoid foods that made us sick in the past. That may just seem like common sense, but it is actually a deep-seated evolutionary drive that can defy rationality. Even if we know for a fact a particular food was not the cause of an episode of nausea and vomiting, our body can inextricably tie the two together. This happens, for example, with cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Consoling themselves with a favorite treat before treatment can lead to an aversion to their favorite food if their body tries to connect the dots. That’s why oncologists may advise the “scapegoat strategy” of only eating foods before treatment that you are okay with, never wanting to eat again.
Researchers have experimented with inducing food aversions by having people taste something before spinning them in a rotating chair to cause motion sickness. Eureka! A group of psychologists suggested: “A possible strategy for encouraging people to eat less unhealthy food is to make them sick of the food, by making them sick from the food.” What about using disgust to promote eating more healthfully? Children as young as two-and-a-half years old will throw out a piece of previously preferred candy scooped out of the bottom of a clean toilet.
Thankfully, there’s a way to exploit our instinctual drives without resorting to revulsion, aversion, or bland food, which we’ll explore next.
In this episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition, host Evan Transue interviews Michelle, a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioner and co-owner of the Well Center in Armonk, New York. Michelle shares her family’s struggle with Lyme disease, colitis, and particularly, her son’s diagnosis of Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections (PANDAS). She describes the challenges they faced over the years and how they eventually turned to integrative and functional medical approaches to manage and significantly improve her family’s health issues.
Michelle emphasizes the importance of both traditional and functional medicine in treating conditions like PANDAS, highlighting the use of antibiotics alongside natural methods such as diet changes, targeted lab testing, and holistic healing practices. She shares success stories from her practice, including clients who saw significant improvements after addressing underlying issues like mold exposure, Lyme disease, heavy metal toxicity, and gut health.
Michelle’s journey led her to create the Well Center and offer a new program, ‘Thriving Together,’ aimed at supporting parents dealing with similar health challenges in their children. The podcast underscores the importance of early intervention, being proactive in health management, and the value of a supportive community for families navigating complex health issues.
Family got hit with PANDAS and Lyme: Topics
00:00 Introduction to the Health Detective Podcast
03:03 Introducing Today’s Guest: Michelle
04:36 Michelle’s Personal Health Journey
08:33 Understanding PANDAS and Its Impact
26:18 Philosophical Differences in Treating PANDAS
27:49 Understanding the FDN Approach
28:03 PANDAS Literate Doctors: A Balanced Perspective
29:20 The Rise in PANDAS Cases
30:34 Functional Nutrition and Medicine for PANDAS
31:43 Common Issues in PANDAS Patients
32:21 The Role of Mold and Heavy Metals
35:05 Parental Guidance and Dietary Changes
43:03 The Journey to Healing
44:44 Michelle’s Personal Story and Client Successes
48:38 Final Thoughts and Resources
Where to Find Michele Zipper
Go to our Health Detective Podcasts for more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one.
* A paper has been published, which claimed to show the effect of a single high-fat meal on blood flow.
* The subjects – 20 healthy men aged between 18 and 35 and 21 healthy men aged between 60 and 80 – were given a test meal. Four hours after this meal, blood tests were taken to measure glucose, insulin and triglycerides. Exercises to measure blood flow and blood pressure changes were also undertaken.
* The test meal was a milkshake comprising mostly heavy whipping cream, but also chocolate syrup, sugar, and powdered milk.
* The paper claimed that these were the first findings to demonstrate that raised blood fat, after a high-fat (predominantly saturated fat) meal, impairs both general vascular flow and blood flow to the brain.
* The issues with this paper stemmed from the test meal – the milkshake. It included all three macronutrients. It included all three natural fats. It included sugar. It included caffeine. It included an unnatural carb-fat combination not found in real food. It delivered intake in liquid (rapid) form. It contained a high number of calories and a higher fat proportion than any fast-food takeaway. The single high-fat meal description is thus correct, but it implied that fat was responsible for outcomes and we cannot say that it was.
In Thermography Could Reveal the Truth for Silent Health Signals, Rebekah Lund, the founder of Bloom Wellness Center in Houston, Texas, delves into her background, explaining how her mother’s career as a traditional naturopath and nutritionist influenced her path into holistic health. She began as a clinical thermographer in 2009 and later expanded her expertise by becoming a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner in 2020.
Her wellness center offers non-invasive breast and full-body thermography, advanced ultrasound screenings, and functional health programs focused on gut health, hormone balance, and overall vitality. She further elaborates on how thermography serves as a critical, non-invasive tool for identifying health issues that might not be detected through conventional methods, explaining its utility and effectiveness, especially when used in conjunction with other diagnostic tools.
Rebekah recounts how thermography helped pinpoint issues for patients, even those with perplexing symptoms that traditional methods failed to diagnose. Additionally, she discusses the role of thermography in integrative health settings, emphasizing its effectiveness in highlighting systemic issues that might otherwise go unnoticed. Throughout, she stresses the importance of combining thermography with traditional and functional diagnostic tools to offer a comprehensive health assessment.
Rebekah holds a distinct perspective on mammograms and breast health. She points out mammograms’ limitations, particularly for women with dense breast tissue, advocating for a more holistic approach that incorporates various screening tools like thermography and ultrasound. She touches on the nuanced debate within the medical community about the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of conditions like DCIS (stage zero breast cancer), urging a balanced approach. Additionally, Rebekah highlights the significance of gratitude in managing health stress and anxiety, promoting it as an often-underestimated but powerful tool for holistic well-being.
Thermography: Topics
00:00 Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast
00:53 Introducing Today’s Guest: Rebekah Lund
01:36 Rebekah’s Journey into Holistic Health
09:28 The Role of Thermography in Health
13:30 Thermography: Diagnostic Tool or Complementary Assessment?
18:55 The Importance of Preventative Health Measures
22:39 Mammograms vs. Thermography in Breast Cancer Detection
25:10 Discussing Mammograms and Imaging Tools
26:20 The Controversy of Overdiagnosis
27:01 The Importance of Using Multiple Imaging Tools
31:04 Breast Implants and Imaging Challenges
32:21 The Role of Thermography in Breast Health
43:36 Client Case Studies and Success Stories
49:44 Final Thoughts and Gratitude
Where to Find Rebekah Lund
Go to our Health Detective Podcasts for more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one.
In this Unknown Infertility episode of the Health Detective Podcast, host Evan Transue interviews Olivia, a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN) practitioner and hormone specialist, who shares her personal journey of overcoming infertility. Olivia battled unknown infertility while navigating a stressful career, finding no help from conventional medicine. By turning to a functional approach, focusing on gut health, nervous system regulation, and foundational aspects of health, she was able to conceive naturally within 12 weeks. Her experience led her to switch careers and devote her work to helping other women uncover hidden factors affecting their fertility and optimize their health for conception.
Olivia discusses her struggles with hormonal imbalances from a young age, including painful periods, hormonal acne, and anxiety. She emphasizes the crucial role of nervous system regulation in achieving hormonal balance and ultimately, fertility. Simple yet impactful lifestyle changes, such as targeted nutrition, detoxification practices, and stress management techniques, played a significant role in her successful pregnancy. Olivia also highlights the importance of considering male fertility factors and taking a comprehensive approach to reproductive health.
Now an FDN practitioner, Olivia utilizes a variety of lab tests, such as DUTCH Plus panels, GI MAPs, and HTMAs, to identify and address the root causes of infertility. She works closely with clients to develop personalized protocols based on bio-individual needs, leading to several success stories, including couples who have conceived naturally after years of struggle. Olivia’s story and her professional insights provide hope and practical guidance for those facing similar challenges, demonstrating the power of a holistic and functional approach to health.
Unknown Infertility: Topics
00:00 Introduction to the Health Detective Podcast
01:03 Meet Olivia: A Journey Through Infertility
03:21 Early Health Struggles and Hormonal Imbalances
05:00 The Impact of Career Stress on Health
07:42 Realizing the Need for a Functional Approach
11:33 The Turning Point: Seeking Functional and Holistic Solutions
18:41 The Success Story: Achieving Pregnancy Naturally
20:33 The Importance of Investing in Long-Term Health
22:12 Practical Steps and Lifestyle Changes
25:11 Understanding the Natural Process of Pregnancy
25:59 The Importance of Nervous System Regulation
26:35 Techniques for Nervous System Regulation
29:07 Becoming an FDN and Lab Insights
29:59 Postpartum Health Challenges
32:09 Working with Clients and Lab Preferences
36:27 Success Stories and Client Experiences
41:47 Balancing Career and Health
44:47 Final Thoughts and Advice
Where to Find Olivia Muschik
Go to our Health Detective Podcasts for more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one.
In this episode, The Truth About Prediabetes, Brenda Krohg shares her journey from being diagnosed with pre-diabetes in her twenties to overcoming it using the principles of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN). Brenda, a biomedical engineer with a focus in biochemistry, transitioned from the corporate world to functional health after struggling with undiagnosed health issues despite maintaining what she thought were healthy habits. Her story underscores the limitations of traditional medical advice and the value of functional lab testing in uncovering underlying health imbalances, such as gut issues and hormone dysfunction, which she successfully addressed to reclaim her health and energy. Today, she helps women achieve sustainable weight loss, balanced blood sugar, and lasting health through personalized, science-backed strategies.
Brenda discusses her earlier struggles with disordered eating, largely influenced by societal pressures and misguided advice from fitness influencers. Through extreme calorie restriction and over-exercising, she experienced chronic fatigue and weight gain, exacerbating her health problems. It wasn’t until she discovered FDN that she began to understand the complexity of metabolic health and the multiple factors that contribute to blood sugar issues, beyond just diet and exercise. By focusing on a holistic approach that includes circadian rhythm optimization, stress management, and gut health, Brenda successfully reversed her pre-diabetes and now guides her clients through similar transformations.
Through a client success story, Brenda illustrates the effectiveness of functional health practices. This notable case involves a diabetic woman who, through Brenda’s guidance, managed to bring her blood sugar levels back to a pre-diabetic range, all without resorting to medication. Brenda’s core message emphasizes the importance of prioritizing self-care and taking a proactive approach to health. Her journey and professional insights provide a compelling case for the holistic methods practiced by FDN, encouraging others to seek personalized and comprehensive strategies to achieve optimal health.
The Truth About Prediabetes: Topics
00:00 Introduction to the Health Detective Podcast
00:33 Meet Your Host: Detective Ev
01:04 Special Guest Introduction: Brenda Krohg
01:46 Brenda’s Journey: From Biomedical Engineer to Functional Health Advocate
03:04 The Struggles of Disordered Eating and Pre-Diabetes
I dive into one of the most fascinating series of studies I’ve ever come across.
Anyone can lose weight by eating less food. Anyone can be starved thin. Starvation diets are rarely sustainable, though, since hunger pangs drive us to eat. We feel unsatisfied and unsatiated on low-calorie diets. We do have some level of voluntary control, of course, but our deep-seated instinctual drives may win out in the end.
For example, we can consciously hold our breath. Try it right now. How long can you go before your body’s self-preservation mechanisms take over and overwhelm your deliberate intent not to breathe? Our body has our best interests at heart and is too smart to allow us to suffocate ourselves—or starve ourselves, for that matter. If our body were really that smart, though, how could it let us become obese? Why doesn’t our body realize when we’re too heavy and allow us the leeway to slim down? Maybe our body is very aware and actively trying to help, but we’re somehow undermining those efforts. How could we test this theory to see if that’s true?
So many variables go into choosing what we eat and how much. “The eating process involves an intricate mixture of physiologic, psychologic, cultural, and esthetic considerations.” To strip all that away and stick just to the physiologic variable, Columbia University researchers designed a series of famous experiments using a “food dispensing device.” The term “food” is used very loosely here. As you can see at 2:02 in my video 200-Pound Weight Loss Without Hunger, the researchers’ feeding machine was a tube hooked up to a pump that delivered a mouthful of bland liquid formula every time a button was pushed. Research participants were instructed to eat as much or as little as they wanted at any time. In this way, eating was reduced to just the rudimentary hunger drive. Without the usual trappings of “sociability,” meal ceremony, and the pleasures of the palate, how much would people be driven to eat? Put a normal-weight person in this scenario, and something remarkable happens. Day after day, week after week, with nothing more than their hunger to guide them, they eat exactly as much as they need, perfectly maintaining their weight, as shown below and at 2:36 in my video.
They needed about 3,000 calories a day, and that’s just how much they unknowingly gave themselves. Their body just intuitively seemed to know how many times to press that button, as seen here and at 2:48 in my video.
Put a person with obesity in that same scenario, and something even more remarkable happens. Driven by hunger alone, with the enjoyment of eating stripped away, they wildly undershoot, giving themselves a mere 275 calories a day, total. They could eat as much as they wanted, but they just weren’t hungry. It’s as if their body knew how massively overweight they were, so it dialed down their natural hunger drive to almost nothing. One participant started the study at 400 pounds and steadily lost weight. After 252 days of sipping the bland liquid, he lost 200 pounds, as you can see here and at 3:35 in my video.
This groundbreaking discovery was initially interpreted to mean that obesity is not caused by some sort of metabolic disturbance that drives people to overeat. In fact, the study suggested quite the opposite. Instead, overeating appeared to be a function of the meaning people attached to food, “aside from its use as fuel,” whether as a source of pleasure or perhaps as relief from boredom or stress. In this way, obesity seemed more psychological than physical. Subsequent experiments with the feeding machine, though, flipped such conceptions on their head once again.
When researchers covertly doubled the calorie concentration of the formula given to lean study participants, they unconsciously cut their consumption in half to continue to perfectly maintain their weight, as seen here and at 4:24 in my video. Their body somehow detected the change in calorie load and sent signals to the brain to press the button half as often to compensate. Amazing!
When the same was done with people with obesity, though, nothing changed. They continued to drastically undereat just as much as before. Their body seems incapable of detecting or reacting to the change in calorie load, suggesting a physiological inability to regulate intake, as shown below and at 4:40 in my video. Might the brains of persons with obesity somehow be insensitive to internal satiety signals? We don’t know if it’s cause or effect. Maybe that’s why they’re obese in the first place, or maybe the body knows how obese it is and shuts down its hunger drive regardless of the calorie concentration. Indeed, the participants with obesity continued to steadily lose weight eating out of the machine, regardless of the calorie concentration and the food being dispensed, as you can see here and at 5:19 in my video. It would be interesting to see if they regained the ability to respond to changing calorie intake once they reached their ideal weight. Regardless, what can we apply from these remarkable studies to facilitate weight loss out in the real world? We’ll explore just that question next.
Call on these sweet and savory recipes the next time you’re in a crunch.
Taste Profile: Sweet
Chia Watermelon Cooler From The Clean Plate Serves 2 A quick pull-together blender recipe that’s chock-full of summer.
NOTE: This is not a huge protein snack, but a light refreshing drink filled with plant-based do-gooders, vitamins, minerals and some healthy fat and fiber. A healthful sweet treat.
1/2 cup plus 1/4 cup coconut water (I like Vita Coco) 2 tbsp chia seeds 1 pound seedless watermelon, cubed zest and juice from 1 lime
Add watermelon cubes, 1/4 cup coconut water and lime zest and juice to the blender and blend until smooth. Add the rest (1/2 cup) of coconut water and chia seeds to the blender and let sit for 5 to 10 minutes. Pulse to combine. Serve over ice.
Cookie Dough Energy Balls Modified from Oh She Glows, Everyday Makes a dozen balls Decadent, easy and clean. This is a good protein + healthy fat snack. I love love love them.
4 pitted dates, soaked for a couple of minutes 1 tbsp maple syrup 1 tbsp peanut butter (natural, no additives) 1/2 tsp vanilla 1/4 tsp sea salt 3 tbsp seed trio (chia, flax + hemp) or (3 tbsp of one of them would work fine, too) 2 tbsp chocolate chips 1-2 tablespoons nut milk as needed to thin
Mix together using a food processor until all ingredients are well incorporated. Roll into balls. These should be stored in the fridge or freezer.
Taste Profile: Savory
Walnut Garlic Dip Modified from Giada De Laurentiis, Eat Better, Feel Better Serves 4 A tasty dip with great flavor.
1 1/2 cup tasted walnuts (dry toasted in skillet) 1 garlic clove, minced 1 tsp sea salt 1/2 cup canned whited beans, drained and rinsed 1 tsp grated lemon zest 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice (from 1/2 lemon) 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 2 tbsp chopped mint (or other fresh herb) Chopped veggies for dipping.
In a food processor, combine all ingredients except fresh herbs. Add 1/4 cup water and puree until nice and smooth with a dipp-able consistency. Mix in herbs at the end. Drizzle with a little bit more olive oil and serve with lots of colorful veggies.
Hard Boiled Eggs Topped with Olive Spread Modified from Oh She Glows, Everyday An up-leveled snack. These are SO good, you’ll surely want to eat more. A balancing snack that’s filling and satisfying.
8 large pastured eggs, hard boiled (boil in water for 12 minutes (at altitude, in Denver)
For Olive Spread (the magic) 1/2 cup mixed pitted olives, small chopped 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil, slivered 2 tbsp small chopped nuts (I like pistachios, but pine nuts or almonds would work well) 1/2 tsp grated orange zest 2 tsp juice from orange 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil salt and pepper to taste
Split the hardboiled eggs into halves, keeping the yolks in place. Top with the chopped olive spread.
Boost your food consistency and ensure a successful food lifestyle with these proven habits.
At Healthy Nest Nutrition, we help clients make positive changes around their relationship with food. This includes habit building, creating consistency, saying no, saying yes, reframing alcohol and diving into food therapy. Each of these self-care boundaries and light-touch aspects of food can make or break your plan. Getting clear on your strengths and boosting your weaknesses is super helpful for consistency and success.
Use these self-care boundaries to boost your food consistency and ensure a successful food lifestyle:
1. Stick Up For Yourself
Your voice matters. But you need to use it to speak up for yourself, especially when it comes to food. Whether you’re at a party, ordering in, or deciding which restaurant to go to with friends, family or colleagues, it’s important to advocate for yourself and make sure you have accessible nutrition and food choices that fit your plan. This is a practice and it gets easier the more you do it.
2. Prioritize Healthy Habits
August is National Wellness Month. It’s a great time to focus on self-care, stress management, and healthy habits to improve overall well-being. When something feels good and nourishing in your body, listen to the cue and keep it up. Consider it a gift to yourself.
3. Meal Prep
Yes, meal prepping for the week ahead is a form of self-care. Building in calendar time for food prepping, planning, shopping and cooking is a gift that keeps on giving. Meal prep gets a lot easier with time because it’s a lot easier to manage a busy week with food prepped and ready to eat or cook so you don’t have to scramble when you’re really busy.
4. Savor Mealtime
Prioritizing the social aspect of dinner and slowing down to enjoy REAL food, your loved ones and community is a true gift. No matter how busy your home life is, try and take the time to chew, appreciate and digest. This promotes good digestion, social connection and longevity. Start with one to two slow dinners a week and find your sweet spot.
5. Take a Walk
Take a beat and walk for 20 minutes before or after dinner. Moving is very powerful for hormone balance, blood sugar balance, insulin sensitivity, and mental well-being. Just 20 minutes helps both mental and physical health. Movement keeps you engaged and present to the moment, which includes food decisions around your next meal.
6. Listen To Yourself
Only you can choose to listen to your inner self. Sometimes others talk louder and you have to weed out the noise. You have a choice to listen to yourself, but don’t really have a choice to demand responsibility from others (friends, family and/or colleagues). This is also a practice that gets easier when you do it. What do you need in your next meal to feel good? Veggies for fiber, vitamins, etc.? Protein for fullness and balance? Healthy fat for meal satisfaction? YES, YES and Yes, please.
Sometimes better nutrition is more about the food and life frameworks you’ve created for yourself. Are your boundaries helping or hurting you? We get into it in our Custom Nutrition Program.
Reach out for a complimentary consultation to see if Healthy Nest is right for you. The Custom Nutrition Program includes 4 weeks of menus + recipes, up-to-date science, and help with planning, prepping, quick cooking, hydration, exercise and stress management. It’s the real deal and will help you get to your best diet and lifestyle.
Our top tips and tricks to reverse insulin resistance and a prediabetes diagnosis.
Insulin resistance and prediabetes are closely related, but are distinct conditions. Insulin resistance is where cells don’t respond properly to insulin, while prediabetes is a condition where blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.
Unfortunately, insulin resistance is often a precursor to prediabetes and, if not addressed, can progress to type 2 diabetes.
The Hard Facts
Studies show that about 40% of adults aged 18 to 44 have insulin resistance.
Obesity and being overweight are major contributors to insulin resistance.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 98 million adults in the United States have prediabetes. This represents about 1 in 3 adults. That’s a lot.
Prediabetes is a risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
About 81% of those with prediabetes are unaware of their condition.
The Good News
Insulin resistance and prediabetes are both considered lifestyle conditions. That means, with diet and lifestyle changes, you can become more insulin sensitive and the prediabetes marker, a 3 month glucose level-HbA1C, can decrease into the normal range.
4 Questions You Can Ask Yourself to Quick Check Your Insulin Sensitivity and Circulating Glucose
Do you have difficulty losing weight, especially around your waist? Excess body fat, particularly abdominal fat, is strongly linked to insulin resistance.
Do you frequently crave sweets and carbohydrates, and feel hungry even after meals? These can be signs that your body isn’t effectively utilizing glucose for energy due to insulin resistance, leading to the need for quick fixes in the form of sugary or carbohydrate-rich foods.
Do you feel sleepy after eating or shaky when going without food for several hours? Fatigue and sleepiness after meals or experiencing shakiness between meals can be indicators of fluctuating blood sugar levels.
Do any first-degree relatives (parents, siblings, children) have diabetes or a history of central obesity? A family history of diabetes or obesity, especially central obesity, increases your risk of developing insulin resistance.
Reversing Insulin Resistance and Prediabetes
To effectively reverse insulin resistance and prediabetes, focus on lifestyle modifications including a balanced diet including weight management, and movement.
Here’s how:
Prioritize whole foods: Include plenty of colorful fruits and vegetables EVERYDAY, as well as whole grains (not white), which are rich in fiber and nutrients. The Mediterranean diet does this quite well!
Manage carbohydrate intake: Opt for complex or slow-digesting carbohydrates (whole grains, legumes) over simple or fast-digesting carbohydrates (white bread, sugary drinks). Again, the Mediterranean diet really helps steer you toward slow carbs.
Increase fiber: Fiber from colorful fruits + veggies helps regulate blood sugar levels and improves insulin sensitivity.
Reduce added sugars: Limit consumption of sugary drinks, desserts and processed foods. That’s not to say you can NEVER have them, but limit them to once a week-ish.
Consider protein intake: Include protein throughout the day. This can be plant and/or animal, and is great for keeping you full, managing weight and maintaining muscle mass.
Stay hydrated: Drinking enough water can help regulate blood sugar levels and improve overall health. Lots and lots of water!
Physical activity: MOVE every day.Regular physical activity, such as walking, and a bit of resistance training really do assist in improving insulin sensitivity and help move glucose into muscles. A simple walk is impactful. Just 20 minutes a day is huge. If you can do more, great!
Weight management: Maintain a healthy weight. Excess weight, especially around the abdomen, is closely linked to insulin resistance. Even a small amount of weight loss (5-7%) can make a significant difference.
Prioritize sleep: Pay attention to your sleep consistency. Aim for 7 to 9 hours of quality sleep per night. Not getting enough good sleep can negatively impact blood sugar control. While wearing a continuous glucose monitor, it was stunning to see the difference a good night’s sleep made to lower my circulating glucose. Good sleep makes a big difference.
Manage stress: Chronic stress can elevate blood sugar levels. Practice stress-reducing techniques as best you can. Yoga, meditation, spending time in nature, and a gratitude journal are wonderful tools.
We Can Help
At Healthy Nest, we take the time to change your food habits and create a healthful lifestyle for YOU, that YOU can manage. Food changes are tricky, but we have calorie and macro suggestions, four weeks of menus + recipes, easy swaps, eating out and travel tips, and other lifestyle hacks that fold seamlessly into your current life.
We try to be efficient with time (4 hours total through the Custom Nutrition Program with all info easily accessible online and tailored to you. Our job is to develop a do-able, delicious AND sustainable food framework so that you can reverse insulin resistance and a prediabetes diagnosis.
This isn’t a one and done. Once you reverse the situation, you have to LIVE that way. We help you get used to eating for your health and we take that goal very seriously.
Why do some pine nuts cause a bad taste in your mouth that can last for weeks?
The reason I make pesto with walnuts instead of the more traditional pine nuts isn’t only because walnuts are probably healthier with 20 times more polyphenols, but also because of a mysterious phenomenon known as PMS. Not that PMS. Pine mouth syndrome is characterized by what has become my favorite word of the week: cacogeusia, meaning a bad taste in your mouth. You can get cacogeusia from heavy metal toxicity, seafood toxins, certain nutritional and neurologic disorders, or the wrong kind of pine nuts. “Termed ‘Pine Mouth’ by the public, cases present in a roughly similar fashion: a persistent metallic or bitter taste beginning 1–3 days following ingestion of pine nuts lasting for up to 2 weeks.”
As I discuss in my video Pine Mouth Syndrome: Prolonged Bitter Taste from Certain Pine Nuts, thousands of cases have been reported, and it doesn’t seem to matter if the pine nuts are raw or cooked. Could the cause be an unidentified toxin present in some varieties of non-edible pine nuts? Indeed, “out of more than 100 species of the Pinus genus, [only] 30 are considered to be edible by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.”
Researchers analyzed pine nut samples from consumers who had fallen ill and found that, indeed, they all contained nuts from Chinese white pine, which is not reported to be edible. That tree is typically used only for lumber. You can see photos of inedible and edible pine nuts below and at 1:36 in my video.
We don’t know it’s the Chinese white pine nuts, though, until we put it to the test. Researchers gave study participants six to eight Chinese white pine nuts. Most hadn’t ever heard of pine mouth syndrome, and they all developed symptoms. We still don’t know exactly what it is in those nuts that causes such a bizarre reaction. We know to stay away from those kinds of pine nuts.
So, what kinds of pine nuts are on shelves in the United States? All kinds, apparently, “including those associated with pine mouth.” You can see more examples below and at 2:19 in my video.
Unsurprisingly, hundreds of cases of PMS have been reported in the United States. Most of the implicated nuts “were predominantly reported to be labeled from or originating from Asia, and in most cases China,” as seen here and at 2:30 in my video.
The European Union demanded that China stop sending them toxic nuts, which they did beginning in 2011. “This export restriction likely resulted in a global export restriction of these species to the US as well,” given the decline in cases going into 2012, as shown below and at 2:47.
Rare cases still occur, though, as evidenced by an active Facebook group entitled “Damn you, Pine Nuts.” The primary reason I made this video is to allay fears should this ever happen to you. “There are no proven therapies for PMS. The only treatment is to cease ingesting implicated nuts and to wait for symptoms to abate.” Thankfully, pine mouth syndrome appears to be benign and goes away on its own.
* The results of a diet clinical trial have just been published by authors from University College London and University College London Hospital (UCLH).
* The trial aimed to compare two diets both meeting the UK ‘Eatwell’ Guide (EWG) recommendations – one would be based on minimally processed food (MPF); the other would be based on ultra processed food. Both diets would be consumed for eight weeks.
* The trial was based on a flawed assumption – that the UK ‘Eatwell’ Guide is healthy. It is not. It is deficient in several nutrients. It was designed by the UPF industry.
* The trial recruited 55 staff from UCLH. The typical participant was a female nurse with an average BMI of 32.7 who was consuming 67% of her diet in the form of UPF at baseline.
* The trial was a crossover design. Participants were randomised to do the MPF diet or the UPF diet first and then to switch to the other diet after a four week washout period in between.
* To meet some of the EWG recommendations, both diets were designed to provide 2,000 calories per day, <35% fat, c. 50% carbohydrate, c. 15% protein, fewer than 6 grams of salt per day, at least 30g of fibre per day and 5 fruit and veg a day. The amount of MPF and UPF in each diet was intended to be the only difference between the diets. All food was delivered to the participants at home to ensure adherence to the diets.
* The trial was “ad libitum”, meaning that people could eat as much as they liked. To achieve this, 4,000 calories were provided each day – double what should have been needed. This lost control over what was actually consumed.
* The outcome was that the diets actually consumed differed from each other in calorie intake, fat intake, carbohydrate intake, protein intake, salt intake, free sugar intake, fibre intake and fruit and veg intake and likely more factors of which we’re not aware.
* The results claimed that the MPF diet generated double the weight loss of the UPF diet. Both weight losses were small – 1.84kg vs 0.88kg – and the UPF numbers could have been confounded by water retention and other factors in favour of the MPF diet.
* Sweeping claims were made in the discussion section of the paper. None of them withstood scrutiny. The specific inclusion criteria for the participants made the results non-generalisable. Providing all food made the results non real-world. The fact that every aspect of the diet changed, not just the one being measured, made the claims invalid for MPF vs UPF.
* I predict that this paper will be much cited as evidence that i) dietary guidelines should be followed and ii) that a new recommendation should be added to these guidelines telling people to avoid UPF. It has not made the case for this.
Introduction
Clinical trials in the nutrition world are rare and so they are usually worth reviewing. This week’s note is about a clinical trial that made news headlines. It’s worth reviewing for what didn’t make the headlines. Up front, I should say that this was an impressive project, which would have taken time, effort, money and commitment. I applaud the researchers for their endeavour but there were many limitations and issues. I fear it will be much cited in the future to make claims that it shouldn’t.
The trial was called UPDATE, which was a loose acronym for “investigating the effects of Ultra-Processed versus minimally processed Diets following UK dietAry guidance on healTh outcomEs.” The paper about the trial was published on 4th August 2025 in Nature Medicine. It was called “Ultraprocessed or minimally processed diets following healthy dietary guidelines on weight and cardiometabolic health: a randomized, crossover trial” (Ref 1). The lead author was Dicken. There were 21 authors named on the paper. All but two were affiliated to University College London (UCL) and/or University College London Hospital. One of the non-UCL authors was Dr Kevin Hall. He is worth noting as he has conducted a number of crossover clinical trials in the field of diet, weight and health and four of his papers were referenced in this paper. Another author was Dr Chris van Tulleken who has written a book called Ultra-processed PEOPLE (Ref 2).
UCL published a press-release about the trial on its website, entitled “Less processed diet may be more beneficial for weight loss” (Ref 3). The widespread media reporting of the paper matched the UCL statement closely. I saw a number of articles that ran with the same headline about “double weight loss.” The CNN headline was “Eating minimally processed meals doubles weight loss even when ultraprocessed foods are healthy, study finds” (Ref 4). A medical news site reported “Weight loss doubles when eating minimally processed foods over ultra-processed alternatives” (Ref 5). The New York Times ran with “Avoiding Ultraprocessed Foods Might Double Weight Loss” (Ref 6). We’ll see how UNimpressive even double weight loss was in a moment.
We need to define processed food and what was meant by minimally processed and ultra processed food in this study. Then we’ll cover the basics of the study – the aim, what it did and who it involved. We’ll cover the diets that were intended to be consumed and the diets that were actually consumed. We’ll move on to the results and then I’ll share my concerns about the trial and the legacy that I forecast it will leave.
Processed food
There have been a number of attempts to define processed food and to categorise different degrees of food processing. The NOVA system is commonly used and it was used by Dicken et al for this trial. The NOVA system was first presented in a 2010 paper by C. A. Monteiro et al (Ref 7) and further papers have been published by Monteiro and colleagues since. The Dicken et al paper referenced the Monteiro et al paper from 2019 (Ref 8). Monteiro et al identified four categories of food processing. Supplemental Table 1 in the 2019 paper listed all foods in the four categories (Ref 9). I’ll share the title, description and a couple of examples in each group below and then I’ll share a diagram from this 2022 paper to illustrate the four groups (Ref 10).
Group 1) Unprocessed or minimally processed foods.
Unprocessed foods are edible parts of plants (fruits, seeds, leaves, stems, roots, tubers) or of animals (muscle, offal, eggs, milk), and also fungi, algae and water, after separation from nature. E.g., an apple, a steak, a mushroom.
Minimally processed foods are unprocessed foods altered by industrial processes such as removal of inedible or unwanted parts, drying, crushing, grinding, fractioning, roasting, boiling, pasteurisation, refrigeration, freezing, placing in containers, vacuum packaging, non-alcoholic fermentation, and other methods that do not add salt, sugar, oils or fats or other food substances to the original food. E.g., white rice, pasteurised milk.
Group 2) Processed culinary ingredients.
Substances obtained directly from group 1 foods or from nature by industrial processes such as pressing, centrifuging, refining, extracting or mining. E.g., oil from olives, starch from corn.
Group 3) Processed foods.
Products made by adding salt, oil, sugar or other group 2 ingredients to group 1 foods. E.g., canned vegetables in brine, salted nuts, smoked meat or fish, fruits in syrup.
Group 4) Ultra-processed foods.
Formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, that result from a series of industrial processes (hence ‘ultra-processed’), many requiring sophisticated equipment and technology. E.g., confectionery, cakes, biscuits, ready meals, instant soups etc.
Most people aren’t getting enough of this key nutrient
(Photo: Recipes: Ashia Aubourg; Design: Ayana Underwood)
Published August 16, 2025 06:17AM
When I began my career reporting on nutrition, nobody could’ve prepared me for how many high-protein stories I’d end up writing. It seemed like everywhere I turned, whether it was an influencer on TikTok or newly released scientific research, the health world’s biggest recommendation was to load up our plates with protein-dense foods. While we need protein, fiber should get just as much of the spotlight.
I interviewed nutrition experts to learn why fiber is essential for overall health—and get their thoughts on some high-fiber recipes.
Fiber Keeps Glucose Levels in Check and Supports Gut Health
Fiber is a carb, and there are two types: soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber dissolves in water and, according to most studies, helps lower your glucose levels and cholesterol, says Rhyan Geiger, a registered dietitian based in Phoenix, Arizona. Insoluble fiber, on the other hand, is the “roughage” found in plant-based foods that supports healthy digestion and bowel movements, she explains.
“You’ll find soluble fiber in foods like oats, lentils, apples, berries, and flaxseeds,” says Kerri Louati, a registered dietitian based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “Insoluble fiber is especially abundant in foods like leafy greens, carrots, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.”
Why Aren’t People Eating Enough Fiber?
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, most people eat only about half the recommended amount daily. There are a few reasons for this. One is accessibility—many Americans have greater access to processed foods, which tend to be more affordable and widely available than whole foods like fruits and vegetables, Louati says.
Another major factor is awareness: some people just don’t know which foods are high in fiber or how much they’re supposed to eat, she says. So if high-fiber foods aren’t easily visible or available, they’re often left off the plate.
How Much Fiber Should You Eat in a Day?
Rather than focusing on one type over the other, the goal is to eat a balance of both. That’s why, when it comes to the recommended daily intake, both insoluble and soluble fiber are lumped together, Geiger says.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, adults should get between 22 and 34 grams of fiber per day.
4 Delicious High-Fiber Snack Recipes, Approved By Nutritionists
Geiger says that adding plant-based meals to your diet is a great way to meet your fiber intake goals. I kept that in mind while searching for recipes to try. After I made them and tried them for myself, I asked my experts if these recipes got the green light. Spoiler: they did.
Plus, these snacks are super easy to make and carry, so you’ll definitely want to bring them with you on your next outdoor adventure.
This recipe delivers a two-cup serving of smoothie and provides nearly 12 grams of fiber. (Follow along with me as I make this delectable smoothie in the video below.)
“Seeds are a fiber-rich food,” says Yvette Hill, a registered dietitian based in Boulder, Colorado. Chia seeds, hemp seeds, and even the tiny seeds in berries contribute a solid fiber boost, plus the addition of dates helps bump up your intake even more.
If you want an added fiber boost, Louati recommends using frozen raspberries as your berry base. Just one cup has over 11 grams of both soluble and insoluble fiber. So if you swapped out the mixed berries for raspberries, this recipe would deliver about 17 grams of fiber.
The Verdict: Filling, Creamy, and Naturally Sweet
This recipe doesn’t include any added sweeteners, so I was a little hesitant about the flavor at first. But after spending a few minutes blending it up and taking a sip, my doubts disappeared. The date and berries added a honey-like sweetness, and the texture came out creamy. I packed it in an insulated water bottle to keep it cold and sipped it as I powered through my hike.
2. No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Bites
I love any kind of sweet treat that comes in miniature form. So when I came across a TikTok recipe for fiber-rich no-bake chocolate peanut butter balls by @abyssiniawellness, I was all in. The video didn’t include exact measurements, but I got the gist of her recipe. (This recipe yields about ten bites.)
Snack-able balls made with oats, coconut flakes, ground flaxseed, dark chocolate chips, peanut butter, maple syrup, protein powder, and cocoa nibs. (Photo: Ashia Aubourg)
Scoop about ten portions of the mixture and roll each one into a ball.
“Oats are rich in soluble fiber,” says Louati. “Flaxseeds are another fiber powerhouse, offering nearly four grams of mostly soluble fiber per tablespoon.” While the small amounts of coconut flakes and cacao nibs aren’t particularly high in fiber, they still add about five grams in total to the whole recipe and bring great texture to these bites.
Each chocolate peanut butter ball offers about four grams of fiber, and snacking on a few throughout the day can satisfy your sweet tooth and help you get closer to your daily fiber goals.
The Verdict: Chewy and Irresistible
These no-bake chocolate peanut butter bites took less than ten minutes to mix and roll. From there, you can let them firm up in the fridge, or, if you’re impatient like me, dig right in. I loved the chewy texture and cocoa-nutty flavor. I packed a few in a container, and whenever I needed a quick snack during my hike, they were easy to grab and surprisingly filling.
3. Crudités to Go
Recently, while hosting family, I planned a mountain trail outing for all of us. To get everyone ready, I packed a variety of snacks, including crudités (which, in French, means raw vegetables).
I found the recipe in The New York Times, and what I appreciate about this crudités idea is that it’s more of a guide than a strict formula, letting you mix and match based on what you have. For a personal-sized version with nearly 16 grams of fiber, I recommend filling a container with a range of veggies and add-ins.
A container filled with raw carrots, sweet peppers, and cucumbers, steamed broccoli and green beans, plus sides of kimchi and hummus. (Photo: Ashia Aubourg)
Ingredients:
½ cup baby carrots
2 small sweet peppers (whole)
½ cup cucumbers (sliced)
½ cup steamed broccoli
½ cup green beans
¼ cup kimchi
½ cup hummus
Recipe:
Place all of the washed and steamed vegetables in a container.
Then, add the sides like kimchi and hummus to the same container.
“A crudités platter is a beautiful and practical way to load up on fiber-packed vegetables,” says Louati. “Not only does it offer a vibrant display of colorful, nutrient-rich foods, but staples like broccoli, carrots, and kimchi deliver a generous dose of fiber.”
The Verdict: Refreshing and Satisfying
Getting more than half of the recommended daily fiber from a snack is always a huge perk in my book. Beyond the 15 grams of fiber in this personal crudités plate, I appreciated its light and refreshing taste. During a break on my hike, munching on crisp cucumbers and dipping cold carrots into cool hummus made for the ideal recharge. I also loved being able to use up leftover veggies from my fridge before they went to waste.
Pastelitos, or empanadas, are one of my favorite ways to sneak in veggies or legumes. So when I found this recipe from Fab Everyday, which fills flaky dough with a Puerto Rican-style lentil mixture, I was sold before I even tried it.
To make these pastelitos, use pre-made empanada dough to save time—or make your own using this recipe, which I’ve tested and am a fan of.
Pastelitos filled with lentils and potatoes, seasoned with sofrito, spices, and tomato sauce. (Photo: Ashia Aubourg)
In a pot over medium heat, combine one 15-ounce can of lentils (drained and rinsed), one-fourth cup of sofrito, three minced garlic cloves, half a teaspoon of oregano, half a teaspoon of salt, and one-fourth teaspoon of black pepper.
Sauté everything for about four minutes. Then stir in one cup of parboiled diced potatoes, one cup of tomato sauce, and half a cup of sliced pimento-stuffed green olives. Cook the mixture for another five minutes, then remove it from the heat and let the filling cool.
Heat about two inches of avocado oil in a frying pan. While the oil heats, place the empanada dough discs on a clean, lightly floured surface. Spoon about half of a cup of the lentil mixture onto one half of each disc in a half-moon shape. Fold the dough over the filling, pinch the edges to seal, and crimp with a fork. Repeat with the remaining dough discs and filling.
Using a thermometer, once the oil reaches 350°F, add the empanadas in a single layer, being careful not to overlap them. Fry the pastelitos until they turn golden brown on both sides.
“Empanadas aren’t usually thought of as a fiber-rich meal, but adding lentils changes that completely,” says Louati. “Lentils and other legumes are excellent ways to boost fiber.” The amount of fiber in 16 of these pastelitos is approximately 83 grams, and each empanada contains about 5 grams of fiber. If you have two or three of these, you’ll get between 10 and 15 grams of fiber.
The Verdict: I’m Obsessed.
I fried up a batch of these empanadas, wrapped them in aluminum foil, and brought them along on one of my favorite trails. Since it was around lunchtime, I found a comfy picnic table before starting the hike, ate about two pastelitos, and then set off. These handhelds weren’t just flavorful—I loved the aromatic sofrito, the savoriness of the tender lentils, and the buttery, flaky dough—they were also surprisingly filling. I managed to complete a three-hour walk, sipping water the whole time, without any sudden hunger pangs creeping in.
After digging into a bunch of fiber-rich recipes (and testing them outdoors!), I’ve found that loading up on this carb can be simple, satisfying, and pretty delicious, especially when you let plant-based ingredients take center stage. If you’ve been stuck in a wellness rut and are looking for small ways to nourish yourself, these recipes pack in the flavor and will help cement fiber into your daily routine.
Ashia Aubourg is a freelance food writer. She has years of experience working in kitchens, non-profits, tech companies, and farms. Ashia’s writing appears in Eater, The Kitchn, Cuisine Noir, Food & Wine, America’s Test Kitchen, Food52, and more. Before becoming a journalist, she completed her Bachelor of Science in Food Studies and Policy Studies from Syracuse University. Her hands-on background and fascinations involve outdoor cooking, foraging, and stewarding gardens.
An inside look at FDN’s “Test, Don’t Guess” approach and why graduates are building six-figure practices
The functional health space is full of practitioners promising to “get to the root cause.” Yet clients often find themselves bouncing from one protocol to the next, spending thousands with little to show for it.
Reed Davis has a different story. After 10 years running “thousands of labs on thousands of people” in clinical practice, he noticed something: some clients got dramatically better while others didn’t. The pattern wasn’t random—it was methodical.
That observation became the foundation for Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® (FDN), which has now trained over 5,000 practitioners worldwide.
From Clinical Frustration to Clear Methodology
Davis’s original mission was straightforward: “My job when I first started was to find out why someone was ill versus just treating or managing their symptoms. In other words, what are the underlying causes and conditions so that they could heal themselves?”
Those 10 years of hands-on work revealed crucial patterns. “I ran thousands of labs on thousands of people, and with great mentorship, made my own observations about who got better and who didn’t, and developed a methodology from that.”
The breakthrough came when Davis realized the broader impact possible: “Finally after 10 years, I realized the greater impact that would occur if I could teach other practitioners the model, the methodology.”
His mission crystallized: “To educate people and practitioners how to get well and stay well so that they in turn may educate others.”
What “Test, Don’t Guess” Really Means
FDN’s signature phrase goes deeper than just running lab tests. Davis explains the problem with how most practitioners approach testing:
“A lot of people say, ‘well, I already test. Yeah, I run tests too.’ But they’re guessing which tests to run based on symptoms.”
This creates what he calls a “sounds like method.” If symptoms sound like thyroid issues, they run thyroid tests. If it sounds like digestive problems, they test the gut.
“So they’re using a sounds like method to determine which test to run. And so therefore, they’re not getting as comprehensive an assessment.”
The result? “They’ll think they found the problem and treat the paper and hope the person does better. But if the person appears with new complaints… they’ll run another test. So now you’re on a new cycle of test, treat the paper, test, treat the paper, test, treat the paper.”
FDN takes the opposite approach: “We insist on trying to identify multiple healing opportunities in the testing phase.” Instead of chasing symptoms, practitioners look for causal factors that might be “very far upstream, very far removed from where the symptoms occur.”
But running multiple tests isn’t enough. “You have to also observe how those causal factors are affecting each other, creating a state of multiple metabolic chaos. And so that’s more or less our job—to sort out metabolic chaos by looking for multiple causal factors and healing opportunities.”
How FDN Differs From Other Programs
When prospects compare FDN to popular programs, Davis draws clear distinctions:
“What we teach is how to get the data that will actually drive an individualized program versus a generic program.”
He breaks down the competition: “These programs teach general protocols. They have a hundred diets, and I’m not sure how they determine which diet for which person. And most of them are more of a coaching… active listening and motivational strategies and ways of getting people to do what their doctor’s telling them to do.”
“Neither one is even close to FDN in terms of running the labs, getting the data, and truly identifying the healing opportunities that an individual needs to know about.”
The focus on what Davis calls “bioindividuality and metabolic individuality” drives everything: “The FDN protocols have an effect on every cell, tissue, organ, and system simultaneously, so people simply are getting well.”
Built on Practical Experience, Not Theory
Davis emphasizes that FDN is “taught based on practicalities, based on methodology” rather than academic theory. The methodology “was developed over a 10-year period in an office observing who got better and who didn’t.”
“We’re teaching you practical, step-by-step methodology that does work, and it starts with yourself and working on yourself,” he explains. Students complete the program with personal experience using the protocols they’ll recommend to clients.
The structure reflects this hands-on approach: “It’s a self-paced course where you work on yourself as part of the learning process with lots of one-on-one mentorship.”
The Six-Figure Claim: Confidence Based on Results
Davis makes a bold statement about graduate earning potential: “We believe if you’re not earning 6-figures in your first 6-12 months, you’re doing something wrong.”
His confidence comes from repeated success stories: “I am very confident in it, because I’ve seen people do it over and over and over again, and I’ve personally done it.”
In fact, he suggests the potential is higher: “The six figures should be actually multiple six figures. So I can teach you how to make a hundred thousand dollars, which is six figures every three months.”
This earning potential reflects the value FDN practitioners provide through data-driven results. Davis teaches what he calls “a model of working part-time and doing multiple six figures in business… working from your own hours, working your own hours from anywhere that you have an internet connection.”
What Separates Successful Graduates from Struggling Ones
Not every graduate achieves the same results. Davis attributes the difference to mindset and approach:
“I think their personal point of view and self-worth and self-awareness and maturity and ability to handle… ability to face challenges and their ability to confront issues. And it’s all, for me, it’s all about self awareness and self development.”
Struggling practitioners often get “caught up in what they can’t do” instead of taking action. His advice is direct: “Just go out and apply the principles, go out and get a customer, help that customer, and learn from that and get another customer, and another customer, and another customer.”
He notes that struggling practitioners get hung up on structure and logistics instead of helping people: “People that get hung up on all of the structure, the legal entities and these kind of things… aren’t getting it. They’re really, you just need one customer to start doing some good in the world, and you’ll have some revenue from that.”
Building a Waiting List Practice
Successful FDN practitioners understand that a waiting list practice requires professional boundaries. Davis explains:
“A waiting list practice means you pace yourself and tell people that they have to wait and make an appointment. You create some exclusivity around your availability.”
Practically, this means never saying “call me anytime” because “if you say, call me anytime, it means you have nothing to do. You’re not busy and you’re not creating any kind of responsibility anywhere.”
Instead: “You say, my hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from one to five. How does next Wednesday at one sound to you? That creates some availability… that you’re a professional and that you have hours.”
The key is limiting appointments: “You’re only going to have nine appointments a week. Nine appointments a week, maybe 10, but anything over that, and you could get burnt out. And so you only want to have nine or 10 appointments per week. So those are exclusive and that’s your availability.”
Open Enrollment Philosophy
Despite the program’s $12,997 price point, Davis maintains an inclusive enrollment approach. When asked why FDN accepts almost anyone, he responds:
“Why would I turn anyone away? Is the better question. Why would I turn away a mother of three who just wants to learn to take care of herself and her kids? Why would I turn her away? The answer is there’s no good reason.”
Some students enroll “to learn the methodology for their own health and their families. And if that’s all they do with the education, work on themselves and their families, that’s worth the price of admission.”
But the ideal candidate is someone who “already has the clientele that they could tap into and uplevel their services, get better results, increase their reputation, and increase the revenue by adding these additional FDN services.”
The most successful? “The person who’s upleveling their skills can graduate and typically has more success than someone coming from a different background.”
Justifying the Investment
When prospects hesitate at the $12,997 cost, Davis puts it in perspective:
“It’s an investment that will have a return on investment, ROI, in a very short period of time. One can get their tuition back… with very few paying clients.”
He contrasts it with traditional education: “The only thing one could compare it to fairly would be a two to three year post-grad education. So a master’s or even PhD. We’ve had it compared to master’s programs that cost $60,000 and take a couple years out of your life.”
“I can teach you in 10 months what it took me 10 years to develop. And that’s remarkable. That is the bargain, if I’ve ever heard of one.”
What Graduates Discover
During postgraduate interviews, Davis consistently hears something that surprises him:
“They all seem pretty thankful that they could even learn it, like there’s nothing available to them anywhere, and they are just amazed that they didn’t have to go to college for six years or eight years.”
The revelation for many? “That there is a methodology, that there is a way that they too can help others. It really blows their minds, first of all that the labs are available and the interpretations that they’ve learned… that they can now go out and do it and help others.”
Many tell Davis that “FDN was the answer that they’d been searching for” and that it “ended that cycle of trial and error.”
Future Vision and Core Values
Looking ahead, Davis has ambitious but clear goals: “We’d like to see in the next three, five years, 25,000 FDN practitioners, certified and out in the world doing the good work.”
He’s equally clear about what FDN should never become. His biggest concern? Over-regulation: “I wouldn’t want it to become too regulated such as vocational institutional requirements. I want to keep it open to anyone that’s willing to learn and practice it on oneself or on others professionally.”
This reflects his broader philosophy: “We want to keep the handcuffs off of people.”
The Bottom Line
Davis sums up FDN: “FDN is a methodology and way of thinking that uses functional lab work—the data from functional lab work—to identify healing opportunities so people can deal with the true underlying causes and conditions, what’s really wrong, instead of just treating the symptoms or managing the symptoms.”
After more than a decade of training practitioners, Davis has built something specific: a methodology grounded in clinical experience that consistently produces results for both practitioners and clients.
Microwaving is probably the most efficient way to reduce agaritine levels in fresh mushrooms.
There is a toxin in plain white button mushrooms called agaritine, which may be carcinogenic. Plain white button mushrooms grow to be cremini (brown) mushrooms, and cremini mushrooms grow to be portobello mushrooms. They’re all the very same mushroom, similar to how green bell peppers are just unripe red bell peppers. The amount of agaritine in these mushrooms can be reduced through cooking: Frying, microwaving, boiling, and even just freezing and thawing lower the levels. “It is therefore recommended to process/cook Button Mushroom before consumption,” something I noted in a video that’s now more than a decade old.
However, as shown below and at 0:51 in my video Is It Safe to Eat Raw Mushrooms?, if you look at the various cooking methods, the agaritine in these mushrooms isn’t completely destroyed. Take dry baking, for example: Baking for ten minutes at about 400° Fahrenheit (“a process similar to pizza baking”) only cuts the agaritine levels by about a quarter, so 77 percent still remains.
Boiling looks better, appearing to wipe out more than half the toxin after just five minutes, but the agaritine isn’t actually eliminated. Instead, it’s just transferred to the cooking water. So, levels within the mushrooms drop by about half at five minutes and by 90 percent after an hour, but that’s mostly because the agartine is leaching into the broth. So, if you’re making soup, for instance, five minutes of boiling is no more effective than dry baking for ten minutes, and, even after an hour, about half still remains.
Frying for five to ten minutes eliminates a lot of agartine, but microwaving is not only a more healthful way to cook, but it works even better, as you can see here and at 1:39 in my video. Researchers found that just one minute in the microwave “reduced the agaritine content of the mushrooms by 65%,” and only 30 seconds of microwaving eliminated more than 50 percent. So, microwaving is probably the easiest way to reduce agaritine levels in fresh mushrooms. My technique is to add dried mushrooms into the pasta water when I’m making spaghetti. Between the reductions of 20 percent or so from the drying and 60 percent or so from boiling for ten minutes and straining, more than 90 percent of agaritine is eliminated.
Should we be concerned about the residual agaritine? According to a review funded by the mushroom industry, not at all. “The available evidence to date suggests that agaritine from consumption of…mushrooms poses no known toxicological risk to healthy humans.” The researchers acknowledge agartine is considered a potential carcinogen in mice, but then that data needs to be extrapolated to human health outcomes.
The Swiss Institute of Technology, for example, estimated that the average mushroom consumption in the country would be expected to cause about two cases of cancer per one hundred thousand people. That is similar to consumption in the United States, as seen below and at 3:00 in my video, so “one could theoretically expect about 20 cancer deaths per 1 x 106 [one million] lives from mushroom consumption.” In comparison, typically, with a new chemical, pesticide, or food additive, we’d like to see the cancer risk lower than one in a million. “By this approach, the average mushroom consumption of Switzerland is 20-fold too high to be acceptable. To remain under the limit”—and keep risk down to one in a million—“‘mushroom lovers’ would have to restrict their consumption of mushrooms to one 50-g serving every 250 days!” That’s about a half-cup serving once in just over eight months. To put that into perspective, even if you were eating a single serving every single day, the resulting additional cancer risk would only be about one in ten thousand. “Put another way, if 10,000 people consumed a mushroom meal daily for 70 years, then in addition to the 3000 cancer cases arising from other factors, one more case could be attributed to consuming mushrooms.” But, again, this is all based “on the presumption that results in such mouse models are equally valid in humans.” Indeed, this is all just extrapolating from mice data. What we need is a huge prospective study to examine the association between mushroom consumption and cancer risk in humans, but there weren’t any such studies—until now.
Researchers titled their paper: “Mushroom Consumption and Risk of Total and Site-Specific Cancer in Two Large U.S. [Harvard] Prospective Cohorts” and found “no association between mushroom consumption and total and site-specific cancers in U.S. women and men.”
Eating raw or undercooked shiitake mushrooms can cause something else, though: shiitake mushroom flagellate dermatitis. Flagellate as in flagellation, whipping, flogging. Below and at 4:48 in my video, you can see a rash that makes it look as if you’ve been whipped.
Here and at 4:58 in my videois another photo of the rash. It’s thought to be caused by a compound in shiitake mushrooms called lentinan, but because heat denatures it, it only seems to be a problem with raw or undercooked mushrooms.
Now, it is rare. Only about 1 in 50 people are even susceptible, and it goes away on its own in a week or two. Interestingly, it can strike as many as ten days after eating shiitake mushrooms, which is why people may not make the connection. One unfortunate man suffered on and off for 16 years before a diagnosis. Hopefully, a lot of doctors will watch this video, and if they ever see a rash like this, they’ll tell their patients to cook their shiitakes.
Healing Doesn’t Just Belong to Big Cities: Summary
Healing Doesn’t Just Belong to Big Cities features Lana Kirtley, a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner passionate about helping women address fatigue, hormone imbalances, and digestive issues, especially in rural areas. Lana’s journey is detailed, highlighting her struggles with various health issues such as skin problems, migraines, and adrenal fatigue. She eventually turned to alternative methods for healing, including hormone testing and bio-individual nutrition concepts from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN).
Lana emphasizes the importance of self-trust and perseverance in navigating one’s health journey, recounting her experiences growing up on a farm and understanding the limitations and strengths of both Western medicine and traditional practices. Throughout the interview, she advocates for tapping into local resources and building connections within communities to access quality food and care, even in rural settings. Lana also discusses her use of the BEMER device, a PEMF (Pulsed Electromagnetic Field) device that improves microcirculation, as a powerful tool in her health regimen.
Lana shares practical advice for those in rural areas on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle, such as collaborating with local farmers and utilizing home gardening and preservation methods. She stresses the significance of treating the root causes of health issues, particularly gut health, which is essential for overall well-being and proper hormone function. Lana urges listeners to invest in their health, maintaining that a healthy lifestyle and legacy are achievable and invaluable for future generations. She concludes by expressing optimism about the growing role and availability of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition health coaches.
Healing Doesn’t Just Belong to Big Cities: Topics
00:00 Introduction to the Health Detective Podcast
00:33 Meet Today’s Guest: Lana’s Background and Interests
02:21 Lana’s Health Journey: Early Life and Initial Symptoms
05:23 Discovering Functional Diagnostic Nutrition
07:15 The Turning Point: Hormone and Adrenal Testing
12:26 Embracing Natural Medicine and Overcoming Health Challenges
15:04 Reflections on Health and Wellness
23:12 Longevity and Quality of Life
23:51 Urban vs. Rural Living Dilemma
25:21 Health Tips for Rural Communities
28:44 Empowerment Through Self-Sufficiency
34:21 Introduction to BEMER Technology
41:26 Ideal Clients and Final Thoughts
Where to Find Lana Kirtley
Go to our Health Detective Podcasts for more informational and functional health-oriented podcasts like this one.
“Clearly, in spite of the widely held ‘belief’ in the health benefits of M. oleifera [moringa], the interest of the international biomedical community in the medicinal potential of this plant has been rather tepid.” In fact, it has been “spectacularly hesitant in exploring its nutritional and medicinal potential. This lukewarm attitude is curious, as other ‘superfoods’ such as garlic and green tea have enjoyed better reception,” but those have more scientific support. There are thousands of human studies on garlic and more than ten thousand on green tea, but only a few hundred on moringa.
The most promising appears to be moringa’s effects on blood sugar control. Below and at 0:55 in my video The Efficacy and Side Effects of Moringa Leaf Powder, you can see the blood sugar spikes after study participants ate about five control cookies each (top line labeled “a”), compared with cookies containing about two teaspoons of moringa leaf powder into the batter (bottom line labeled “b”). Even with the same amount of sugar and carbohydrates as the control cookies, the moringa-containing cookies resulted in a dampening of the surge in blood sugar.
Researchers found that drinking just one or two cups of moringa leaf tea before a sugar challenge “suppressed the elevation in blood glucose [sugar] in all cases compared to controls that did not receive the tea initially” and instead drank plain water. As you can see here and at 1:16 in my video, drinking moringa tea with sugar dampened blood sugar spikes after 30 minutes of consumption of the same amount of sugar without moringa tea. It’s no wonder that moringa is used in traditional medicine practice for diabetes, but we don’t really know if it can help until we put it to the test. People with diabetes were given about three-quarters of a teaspoon of moringa leaf powder every day for 12 weeks and had significant improvements in measures of inflammation and long-term blood sugar control. The researchers called it a “quasi-experimental study” because there was no control group. They just took measurements before and after the study participants took moringa powder, and we know that simply being in a dietary study can lead some to eat more healthfully, whether consciously or unconsciously, so we don’t know what effect the moringa itself had. However, even in a moringa study with a control group, it’s not clear if the participants were randomly allocated. The researchers didn’t even specify how much moringa people were given—just that they took “two tablets daily with one tablet each after breakfast and dinner,” but what does “one tablet” mean? There was no significant improvement in this study, but perhaps the participants weren’t given enough moringa. Another study used a tablespoon a day and not only saw a significant drop in fasting blood sugars, but a significant drop in LDL cholesterol as well, as seen below and at 2:27 in my video.
Two teaspoons of moringa a day didn’t seem to help, but what about a third, making it a whole tablespoon? Apparently not, since, finally, a randomized, placebo-controlled study using one tablespoon of moringa a day failed to show any benefit on blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes.
So, we’re left with a couple of studies showing potential, but most failing to show benefit. Why not just give moringa a try to see for yourself? That’s a legitimate course of action in the face of conflicting data when we’re talking about safe, simple, side–effect–free solutions, but is moringa safe? Probably not during pregnancy, as “about 80% of women folk” in some areas of the world use it to abort pregnancies, and its effectiveness for that purpose has been confirmed (at least in rats), though breastfeeding women may get a boost of about half a cup in milk production based on six randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trials.
Just because moringa has “long been used in traditional medicine” does not in any way prove that the plant is safe to consume. A lot of horribly toxic substances, like mercury and lead, have been used in traditional medical systems the world over, but at least “no major harmful effects of M. oleifera [moringa]…have been reported by the scientific community.” More accurately, “no adverse effects were reported in any of the human studies that have been conducted to date.” In other words, no harmful effects had been reported until now.
Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) is probably the most dreaded drug side effect, “a rare but potentially fatal condition characterized by…epidermal detachment and mucous membrane erosions.” In other words, your skin may fall off. Fourteen hours after consuming moringa, a man broke out in a rash. The same thing had happened three months earlier, the last time he had eaten moringa, causing him to suffer “extensive mucocutaneous lesions with blister formation over face, mouth, chest, abdomen, and genitalia.” “This case report suggests that consumption of Moringa leaf is better avoided by individuals who are at risk of developing SJS.” Although it can happen to anyone, HIV is a risk factor.
My take on moringa is that the evidence of benefit isn’t compelling enough to justify shopping online for something special when you can get healthy vegetables in your local market, like broccoli, which has yet to be implicated in any genital blistering.
Unclogs pores & draws out impurities
We appear to 
Might the brains of persons with obesity somehow 
It would be interesting to see if they regained the ability to respond to changing calorie intake once they reached their ideal weight. Regardless, what can we apply from these remarkable studies to facilitate weight loss out in the real world? We’ll explore just that question next.
Unsurprisingly, hundreds of cases of PMS have been 
My technique is to add dried mushrooms into the pasta water when I’m making spaghetti. Between the reductions of 20 percent or so from the drying and 60 percent or so from boiling for ten minutes and straining, more than 90 percent of agaritine is eliminated.
But, again, this is all 
People with diabetes were