by Siim Land
Also, the required intake of sodium will also fluctuate depending on your levels of physical activity, blood pressure levels, hydration levels, and what phase of the diet you’re at. Use them as guidelines for what’s the bare essentials. In the later chapter, I’ll talk about what would be the optimal doses for all the relevant nutrients and supplements.
But now let’s carry on with nutrient density, which is one of those topics that doesn’t get discussed that often.
Nutrient Density
The modern diet includes a whole lot of calories but not a lot of nutrition. In fact, most of the calories you can eat at a fast food restaurant or the supermarket are empty – they have virtually zero benefits on your long-term health and longevity. They don’t even significantly impact muscle growth as the macronutrient ratios are heavily in favor of making you more obese. There’s hardly any protein or amino acids but instead a lot of processed carbs, sugar, and fat, which is a recipe for insulin resistance and diabetes.
Diets with low amount of nutrients but high caloric density such as the darlings of the processed food industry don’t lead to full satiety because of their poor nutritional value. It doesn’t matter how many calories you eat, you’ll still be hungry and malnourished if you fail to get enough of the essential nutrients.
On the Standard American Diet with high amounts of processed carbs, grains, and low-fat meat, and dairy, you’d have to be consuming copious amount of calories to get your essential nutrients. Probably over 5000 calories to cover your basis, which kind of explains why people are so ravenous on these low nutrient foods.
It’s thought that humans prioritize protein when regulating food intake[576]. This is called The Protein Leverage Hypothesis, which is the idea that satiety is mostly regulated by protein. You eat until you get sufficient protein, which in the majority of cases falls somewhere between 20-30% of total calories.
Most processed foods and ingredients are low in protein, high in carbs, high in fat, and engineered to increase palatability. They’re literally designed by scientists to make you overeat because you’re not getting enough protein for satiety, no micronutrients, and way too many over-stimulating sugars and other ingredients that make you lose your sanity. Food manufacturers have a financial incentive to replace protein with cheaper forms of calories and manipulate with the other tastes. Can’t blame them... high-quality nutrient-dense food, especially meat and protein, is more expensive but it’s what your body runs best on.
However, the protein leverage hypothesis has a few flaws because you can eat a lot more protein than your body needs and still stay hungry. The term ’Rabbit Starvation’ describes a situation wherein a person in the wild would starve to death if they only ate lean proteins such as rabbits, very lean game, or just chicken breast without enough fat for calories. This would lead the body becoming malnourished and cannibalize itself, hence the starvation.
A diet with low carbs and low fats is a recipe for malnourishment and starvation. That’s what a lot of fitness competitors tend to do when dieting – they eat only broccoli, egg whites, and white fish with low carbs, low fat and high protein to really lose that last bit of fat. In the short term, it can work but I can’t imagine living in such a condition for long.
A much more reasonable thing to consider would be a protein + nutrient density leverage hypothesis that prioritizes the intake of essential nutrients. Protein’s a component but so are fats, vitamins, and minerals.
In general, a good ratio for protein is about 15-35% of your daily calories. The average Western dieter, unfortunately, consumes between 11-18% protein, which leaves them unsatiated as we can see. More about optimal protein intake during the anabolic and catabolic cycles in Chapter XV.
The critical component to eating just the right amount of food for your body’s needs is satiety. It’s the feeling of fullness and satisfaction – you feel that you’ve gotten all the necessary nutrients and are satisfied with the meal. This will also keep your body and brain energized for hours, potentially days. An unsatiating meal has empty calories that leaves you wanting for more. It’s what the entire processed food industry is based upon.
Getting a bunch of empty calories will leave you malnourished and unsatiated. However, there’s also the danger of getting too many nutrients but not enough satiety. For instance, MCT oil, whey protein, and dextrose powders are quite dense in nutrition as well as calories but I think you don’t feel very satiated after consuming them. Likewise, a multivitamin that’s said to cover all of your RDAs 300% doesn’t fill you up either.
In order to maximize nutrient density without over-consuming calories, you’d want to also prioritize the satiety factor of what you eat. So, what are the most satiating foods?
The satiety index of common foods was put to the test in a 1995 The University of Sydney study. Subjects were fed 240 calories (1000 kJ) of 38 different foods[577]. See Figure 76. Their perceived level of hunger was measured every 15 minutes and the final score was based on how much they ate at a buffet 3 hours later.
It turns out that the most satiating foods were potatoes, porridge, fish, red meat, and some fruit. The lowest satiety factor was on hyper-palatable foods like cake, donuts, chocolate, bread, pasta, cookies etc.
Figure 76 The Satiety Index of different foods
As you can see, potatoes are one of the most satiating things but if you cook them in oils and make French fries you’ll greatly lower the satiety index. The most satiating food groups are fibrous vegetables and protein that not only fill you up but also satiate you faster. Likewise, a high carb whole food based diet with not a lot of added fats can be quite satiating and healthy because of that same reason. This puts the calories in vs calories out module into a much bigger perspective. It’s much easier to over-eat starch and fat because, in nature, you rarely come across hyper-palatable foods that combine both carbs and fats. That’s why these primal urges make the person more prone to overconsume these combinations.
Sensory-Specific Satiety describes a hedonic adaptation that occurs when consuming certain types of food. Essentially, if you eat only a single thing with its own taste and consistency, for instance just potatoes, then you’re going to get fuller faster than if you were to combine it with other ingredients. The rationale is that if you’re only consuming potatoes then you get used to its taste quite fast and that decreases your motivation to continue eating.
If you’ve ever tried to eat a bunch of any single food, then you can probably relate to how it eventually makes you sick. Even with some junk food – you can eat several bags of chips before you get sick but after a while, you’ll still feel disgusted by it. The same principle applies to other foods. Your taste buds tend to tolerate only a certain amount of a single type of sensory stimulation, which then makes you feel satiated. However, if you introduce another kind of taste into the mix while eating, then you’ll regain the desire to eat because it provides a novel sensory experience. As the saying goes: „there’s always room for dessert…“ That’s so true because even if you eat a bunch of potatoes, you can still eat something with a different flavour profile. Up until that point, you feel like you can’t eat anything anymore but after that first bite, you’re back in the game. This is a crucial thing to remember when trying to be healthy and not overconsume empty calories.
Whenever you’re cooking your meals or planning a diet, you’d want to limit the amount of sensory-specific stimuli in that meal. If you’re having steak, then just have the steak with some vegetables or eggs. Don’t add a bunch of different sauces and desserts because they’ll keep your taste buds constantly stimulated. Your brain will go: „Oh, this is something new! We better keep eating because it might give me some nutrients for the future“. In most cases, you’re not actually hungry – your sensory cortex is just getting hijacked by these novel tastes and keeps motivating you to continue eating.
It’s never a good idea to combine a bunch of different food groups for the sake of digestion either. In order to digest wha
t you ate, the gut needs to release certain digestive enzymes and a certain amount of stomach acid to break it down. By eating things with conflictive interests, you’re at least hindering your full potential for easier assimilation. That’s also one of the root causes of autoimmune disorders and gut issues – people eating the wrong foods in the wrong context.
On Metabolic Autophagy, you can eat a wide variety of foods and you’re not excluding entire macronutrients completely. Instead of combining them and eating all together you simply have to cycle between the ones you eat. That’s why the best diet is a cyclical one – you eat low carb keto most of the time and then on some days you have some carbs.
Principles of Food Combining
Don’t Combine Fats and Carbs – Not only will it hijack your sensory satiety but is also more dangerous to your health. Eating calorie-dense foods with high insulin makes it easier to store the food as fat and induce insulin resistance.
Combining Starch and Meat – Starchy foods like potatoes and rice require different enzymes and acidity than meat. Combining them together may cause some conflict of interest in the gut. The body will prioritize one or the other but in both cases, the other food that’s left out can begin to ferment in the gut if it stays there for too long. Starch and protein also spike insulin much higher. If you’re eating once a day it might not be that big of an issue as there isn’t much food in the stomach already. However, for optimal results, you want to eat meat with vegetables and starch with something easier to digest like fish or other plant-based proteins.
Don’t Combine Fruit With Anything – The simple sugars of fruit don’t require much digestion and they get stored as liver glycogen. If you do eat fruit, then you should do it on an empty stomach with empty glycogen. Eating fruit after a meal makes it easier to store it as fat and become fermented in the gut. Forever alone fructose…
Don’t Drink Your Calories – If you’re drinking juices, shakes, meal replacements etc. then you’re not really feeling that satiated afterwards. It’s better to limit liquid calories because it’ll bump up your daily calories while limiting satiety. The only exception might be like a green juice powder or some protein shake every once in a while.
Get Enough Fat-Soluble Vitamins and Protein – In order to feel satiated with fewer calories, you should focus on whole foods with fat-soluble vitamins and essential amino acids. This prevents cravings and binging. The best foods for that are meat, fish, eggs, and organ meats.
Promote Acidity When Eating Protein - To digest proteins and meats, you want to have higher acidity in the gut. This will help to break down the food and promotes digestion. That’s why combining meat with starch can also cause further issues – one promotes alkalinity and the other wants acidity. To promote hydrochloric acid (HCl) in the gut, drink a little bit of apple cider vinegar before eating, add it to your food, or take some digestive enzymes.
Don’t Drink While Eating – Drinking a lot of water before, during, or immediately after the meal can dilute stomach acid and hinder digestion. This can cause undigested food particles to float around for longer and promote inflammation. It’ll definitely make you more bloated and constipated. You should wait at least 30 minutes after eating before having something to drink.
Limit ‘Healthy Desserts’ – Even though some foods can be ’low carb’ or ’healthy’, you’d still want to avoid snacks and desserts as often as possible. The problem has to do with sensory-specific satiety. If you eat a bunch of steaks and then have a keto nutbar, you may end up over-eating on the bar because of the new taste it provides, especially if it has some artificial sweeteners or the like. They should be a treat every once in a while but not the norm.
Be Mindful of What You Eat – Most importantly, don’t eat mindlessly and sporadically. If you do eat, then sit down and actually enjoy it. Feel all the flavours and sensory stimuli take you over and be present. This will make you more grateful for what you eat. Eating more slowly will also enable the satiety signals to reach your brain faster without eating unnecessary calories.
Figure 77 Eat more nutrient dense foods with higher satiety and fewer calories
The goal is to prioritize nutrient-dense foods that promote satiety and cover your essential nutrients. This way you’ll feel fuller with fewer calories and you don’t have to keep eating to reach satisfaction. What foods are best suited for that? Fibrous vegetables, animal-based proteins, and some healthy fats but not too much.
Eat Less Move More?
Another reason why it’s thought that the average modern human is overweight has to do with eating too much and moving too little. It makes sense if you stick to the idea of calories in vs calories out. Our early ancestors moved around all day and didn’t eat a lot, which is why they didn’t get obese.
Modern-day hunter-gatherer tribes and subsistence societies don’t seem to be burning that many calories despite being lean and active most of the day. In fact, studies have found that the Hadza foragers in Tanzania, Africa have the same average daily energy expenditure than Westerners despite their physical activity level being greatly higher[578]. This may seem like a paradox as the Hadza are lean and free from diabetes. How can these very active foragers subsist on less food while still physically performing at high levels? Part of it has to do with their environment – they’re forced to move and stay in motion so they could feed themselves and survive. Another component is nutrient density – they’re eating higher quality food with more nutrients that allows them to get more nutrition from less quantity of food.
The Hadza eat quite a limited variety of foods from the wild – primarily meat and tubers in the dry seasons and more berries and honey during the wet seasons. This is enough to cover their average daily caloric intake of 2600 calories for men and 1900 calories for women, which is roughly the same as in Western populations.
Natural selection favors adaptations that make the organism become more efficient with its energy resources. Although physical activity burns calories it’s eventually going to make your body adapt to that demand and, after a while, you’ll be burning less energy from the same type of activity. This is perfect if you were to live in an environment of nutrient scarcity and dangers. However, it’s not that ideal for living next door to supermarkets and unlimited amount of food.
Caloric restriction and causing less oxidative stress on the mitochondria are one of the few known ways of increasing lifespan in many species as we already know. That’s why your goal with nutrition and exercise should never be to just burn calories and over-eat afterwards. You may potentially out-exercise a bad diet but it’s not optimal for longevity.
Instead of thinking: „how many calories I can get away with without getting fat,“ you should think: „how much nutrient density can I get from as few calories as possible to build lean muscle, burn fat, and promote longevity.“ That’s a completely different perspective from what mainstream fitness advice tells you. Don’t live and exercise to eat but eat to live and exercise.
While you don’t have to start living like a Hadza, there’s still quite a lot of wisdom to be learned from the diets of hunter-gatherers. Namely that nutrient density plays a key role in the sustenance of any diet. Eating foods with more micronutrients and fewer calories allows them to stay fit and physically strong without suffering from starvation or energy deprivation. This is a good thing as it’ll help to maintain a lower caloric intake, which has been shown to be inductive of longevity.
You shouldn’t aim for a completely ancestral way of eating either because the hunter-gatherer diet is very opportunistic and doesn’t take into account the general goal of life extension. Instead, here are some principles to remember when trying to maximize nutrient density for health and longevity.
Maximize Nutrient Density – You should aim for eating foods with the highest nutrient density that will give you a bunch of essential vitamins and minerals without having to eat too much. The best foods for that are organ meats, whole eggs, fish, vegetables, herbs, and spices (See Figure
77). A more specific overview of which foods to eat in Chapter XV.
Avoid Empty Calories – There’s no point in eating foods that don’t give you a lot of nutritional value but come with a hefty caloric load. Obviously, processed food, even the „healthy kind“ has a much lower nutrient density than whole foods. I’m talking to you low carb paleo bars. The idea is to also keep your overall daily caloric intake relatively moderate as to not tax digestion, mitochondrial functioning, or accelerate aging. Instead, you would want to always stay around your maintenance calories even when trying to gain muscle and strategically cycle your caloric intake.
Eat Plenty of Protein – High-quality protein should be central to every meal because of its satiety factor and benefit on lean muscle. On this program that includes resistance training and intermittent fasting, you don’t have to worry about overstimulating mTOR with protein because you’re already in an effective metabolic autophagy state. The daily protein requirements are typically quite low and not optimal for muscle or even longevity for that matter. A higher protein diet tends to be better for body composition and predictably on metabolic health as well. In reality, it’s only high relative to the extremely low RDA of protein. When doing the more advanced type of intermittent fasting, then you’d need to be consuming slightly more protein as well to trigger more anabolism within a smaller time frame. In general, you would want to aim for 0.7-1.0 g/lb of lean body mass. There’s no additional benefit for muscle growth for going beyond that. Sometimes you may find yourself going up to 1.2 g/lb whereas at others you’ll be at 0.6 g/lb, depending on which stage of the anabolic cycle you’re in.