Blurbs are quick less than 2 minute reads under 300 words based on some interesting find here at Ketogeek and would share with you guys! These are short and quick practical takeaways from some of the studies we read. Science is always growing and piling on so one study or write-up doesn't equate to something set in stone. Lets continue to learn!
QUICK PRACTICAL ANALYSIS
Many people have the misconception that dietary phytates can be a problem based on how they can potentially interact with mineral absorption(1). For most healthy people dietary phytates may not be a major concern. One big misconception, however, is that phytates in almonds can be reduced by soaking them.
Based on this study(2), when almonds were soaked in water for 15 hours at 25 and 40°C, phytate and quercetin content is actually increased, significantly at 40°C. In other words, as far as phytic acid content is concerned, soaking increases that and hence making soaking a counterproductive step and practically speaking, just another headache.
Though the authors claim that the anti-oxidant levels did change because of soaking, it is important to note that we don't know if that's good or bad.
As a side note, quercetin has been shown to have some benefits in animal models but in humans, it hasn't been convincing yet(3). We also need to note that doses used in such experiments can be far higher than what people may be consuming as part of their diet because, in such experiments, isolated and concentrated compounds are used rather than dietary sources, which may have less of that compound available for digestion and uptake.
Next up, another recent study(4) also noted an increase in phytate concentration due to soaking while also showing no benefit of soaking on gastrointestinal tolerance or acceptance.
With that being said, brought up by Gabor Erdosi of Lower Insulin, a study(5) in conophor nut flour showed that boiling and roasting the nuts significantly(1) reduces oxalate, cyanide, phytate, tannin and trypsin Inhibitor with boiling yielding the best results
OUR TAKEAWAY
At Ketogeek, after confirming with our suppliers, we currently use coarse ground boiled and blanched almond flour in our Energy Pods which seems to be the best option when it comes to increasing nutrient bioavailability without substantially increasing the caloric load(6) and meanwhile potentially and drastically reducing the anti-nutrient and toxicological components in almonds.
OUR APPLICATION
CITATIONS
GRAPHS
- Graph from the study(5)
FAHAD AHMAD
Fahad is the founder of Ketogeek and hosts the Ketogeek Podcast, a world class health show about food, nutrition and health. He is into resistance training, Ashtanga yoga, calisthenics and various forms of training styles. Armed with a idealistic goals distilled in a world of realism, his goal is to help the world make a better place. He leads a life of extreme generalism or as he describes it, 'The Renaissance Lifestyle'.
“It never ceases to amaze me how prosaic, pedestrian, unimaginative people can persistently pontificate about classical grammatical structure as though it's fucking rocket science. These must be the same people who hate Picasso, because he couldn't keep the paint inside the lines and the colors never matched the numbers.”
― Abbe Diaz