Origin’s Energy Gel Recipe

• 1 cup Brown Rice Syrup (try Lundberg’s Organic Sweet Dreams Brown Rice Syrup)
• 1/2 cup Barley Malt (try Eden’s Organic Barley Malt syrup)
• 1/4 cup Unrefined Coconut Oil
• 1/4 cup Organic Creamy Peanut Butter, all natural variety (without hydrogenated oils or sugar added)
• 1 tsp Sea Salt
• 1/4 cup hot water

1. Use a make-shift double boiler by placing a glass jar inside a saucepan. Fill the saucepan with water so that the jar is a little more than half immersed.
2. Combine all ingredients except for the hot water into the jar. Turn heat to med-low and warm mixture, stirring frequently, until it is runny and well combined, about 10 minutes.
3. Remove from heat, then remove the jar from inside the saucepan. Add the hot water to the mixture in the jar, stir and shake vigorously until well combined and no separation occurs.  Let cool.
4. Fill gel containers as needed for workouts. Store extra gel in the jar with a lid in a cool, dry place.

Yields 18 fluid ounces

The gel will stay liquid enough to easily squirt from your tube-like container during workouts or races. In cold weather, the gel may become quite thick. Test it out, you may need to add a little more water for a thinner consistency in cold weather, or try storing it close to your body for heat during a workout.

Low-down on the Nutrition

One ounce of this gel contains 150 calories, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1.8 grams of protein, and 5 grams of fat-  ratio of approximately 64% carbohydrates, 5% protein, and 30% fat. Mostly carbohydrates, but enough protein and fat to balance your blood sugar and keep it from spiking or dropping during a workout or race- which is crucial to maintain your energy!

Brown Rice and Barley Malt Syrups

The brown rice syrup, the main ingredient in the gel, is 46% complex carbohydrates (polysaccharides), 29% maltose (a disaccharide), and 25% glucose (a simple sugar). Brown rice syrup also provides .46 g of protein in 2 TBSP. The barley malt syrup is 76% maltose, 16% glucose, 6 % sucrose (a disaccharide), and 2% fructose (a simple sugar). Barley malt syrup also provides nearly 3 g of protein in 2 TBSP. Both of these syrups are slow and easy to digest and provide the body with an immediate burst of necessary energy (due to the simple sugars), and then lasting carbohydrates (the poly and disaccharides) to refuel your cells. These syrups are about half as sweet as sugar to the taste.

Unrefined Coconut Oil

I used coconut oil to run a marathon. Great stuff. I have a sensitive stomach when I workout, my body turns off digestion more than most. The morning of my big race, I ate two spoonfuls of coconut oil, a banana and miso soup. It was the perfect fuel for my marathon. Coconut oil belongs to a special class of fats called medium-chain fatty acids. These fats are not normally stored in your body as fat, but are instead quickly converted to energy. They also boost your metabolism. This makes unrefined coconut oil an excellent oil for weight loss and athletic performance, as it helps produce lean body mass.

Organic Peanut Butter

The Peanut butter provides valuable monounsaturated fats, protein, and flavor to the energy gel. Make sure to choose an all natural variety that only contains organic peanuts and salt. Avoid peanut butter with added sugar and hydrogenated oils (trans fat).

Sea Salt

Sea salt provides valuable minerals for electrolyte balance. A high quality sea salt is rich in potassium, magnesium, sodium chloride, and trace minerals.

To Better Rides

A balanced, nutritionally sound gel to keep you feeling strong and charged when it matters. I have been using this gel on mountain bike rides and love it.  It beats eating an energy bar that tends to sit in my stomach.  The inspiration for this gel recipe goes out to my brother Jarrett and husband Bryan, thanks for asking for it.

You can probably guess that I’m going to disagree.  That’s my gut reaction anyway.  If I’m fair, though, high-fructose corn syrup is an outstanding example of the confusion at the heart of much of the nutrition world.  Depending on whom you ask, high-fructose corn syrup can be shown to be the root of all evil or just another delightful way to sweeten our foods.  So which is it?

It’s Made From Corn

It’s true what our lady told her man- high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is made from corn, but that’s a definite oversimplification.  Making HFCS isn’t in the realm of making, say, maple syrup, which involves little more than drilling a hole into a tree and waiting.  In fact, it’s exponentially more complicated, to the point of being industrial.

The short version of this process is still fairly long, so bear with me.  In order to minimize your boredom, I’m going to skip the processing of corn into cornstarch and use cornstarch as the starting material.  First, cornstarch is treated with an enzyme called alpha-amylase.  This enzyme breaks cornstarch down into shorter chemical chains, which happens to a further degree when the cornstarch is treated with yet another enzyme, glucoamylase.  These enzymes come from bacteria and fungus, respectively, making them making them relatively inexpensive.  The third enzyme, glucose-isomerase, is very expensive, and is used to convert the glucose in the cornstarch into a mixture of glucose and fructose (mixture A).

Next, the mixture is refined with carbon filters and ion exchange, and liquid chromatography is used to increase the percentage of fructose in the mixture.  Finally, this high-fructose mixture is blended with the aforementioned glucose/fructose mixture (mixture A) and viola, high-fructose corn syrup is born!

Simplifying HFCS to the point where “it’s made from corn” is akin to calling it “natural”, a word not used in the commercial, but frequently thrown around the rest of the pro-HFCS website (which is coincidentally sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association).  Technically, you could call this process and resulting mixture “natural”, especially considering that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has no formal definition for the word “natural”, but do you even know what liquid chromatography is?  Do you know what a tree and bucket are?  Which of those scenarios seems more “natural” to you?

As for the moderation part, I’ll give them some credit.  Part of me immediately thinks this is an excuse, as the same argument could be made for any number of dietary and lifestyle practices.  But yes, sure, high-fructose corn syrup is fine in moderation.  The issue is that we don’t consume it at that level.

American Consumption Doesn’t Qualify as Moderation

As of 2005, soda, made with high-fructose corn syrup, was the number one source of calories in America.¹ According to the USDA, the availability per capita (how much was available to be consumed per person) of high-fructose corn syrup increased 10,673 percent from 1970-2005.⁹ Today, a majority of the sweeteners used by food and beverage manufacturers (55 percent) are made from corn.¹ That reliance means that HFCS is found in a vast number of products, including salad dressings, cookies, breads, juices, cereals, granola bars, candies, condiments, crackers, pastries and cakes, chocolate, yogurt, ice cream, jams and jellies, sauces, and chips.  Of the money Americans spend on food, 90 percent is spent on processed foods.¹ If we eat this many processed foods made by manufacturers that rely so heavily on high-fructose corn syrup, can we really call that moderation?

The Calories are the Same

Okay, so maybe the idea that high-fructose corn syrup and sugar have the same number of calories means something, but it’s only a fraction of the story.  If calories were all nutrition was about, you certainly wouldn’t need my help.  Let’s look beyond this distracting oversimplification and talk about how this compound differs from sugar and how those differences affect your body.

Here’s where I have to get technical again for a moment.  The differences between HFCS and regular table sugar are twofold.  There is a small percentage difference in fructose concentration, with table sugar being fifty percent each glucose and fructose, and high-fructose corn syrup at either forty-two percent fructose or fifty-five percent fructose (the remainder in either case being glucose).   There is also a difference in whether the glucose and fructose are bound together.  In table sugar, they are bound to one another, and in high-fructose corn syrup, they aren’t.   Again, depending on whom you ask, either of these differences can be made into a major issue or dismissed as a minor detail.  It appears that the answer lies somewhere in between.

To illustrate what I mean let’s look at soda, since Americans drink a ridiculous amount of it.  Most sodas have HFCS in them, and studies show that it is the free (unbound) fructose within HFCS that causes the metabolic differences between HFCS and sugar.^{5, 6, 7} Sugar stimulates a hormone called insulin to be released, which goes into your blood, picks up the sugar from the things you eat and drink, and stores it tidily away in your cells (after fulfilling the body’s energy needs).  Free, unbound fructose in HFCS doesn’t stimulate insulin to be released.  Thus, rather than being digested into blood sugar, HFCS seems to end up being converted to trigylcerides (a form of fat in your blood) and fat tissue.

Aside from direct conversion to fat, this bypassing of insulin stimulation causes other problems.  Because insulin isn’t released, it can’t enhance the production of another hormone, leptin.  Leptin regulates appetite control and metabolism.  Because fructose fails to stimulate leptin, your brain doesn’t receive the signal that you’re full.  If you are not receiving the signal that you are full, you are more likely to overeat.  Therefore, despite the fact that sugar and high-fructose corn syrup match calorically, they certainly are not the same thing.

In the United States, soda is predominantly sweetened with HFCS, whereas many other countries are still using sugar.  Does that mean you should start importing your soda?  It’s not that easy, as unfortunately there also are downfalls to consuming excess table sugar.  Regardless of the intricacies in their chemical structures, too much of any sweetener means too many calories consumed.  But remember that it’s not just about calories.  Too much sugar leads to weight gain (especially around your middle, as the belly is the first place excess sugars are stored), increases in total cholesterol and LDL or “bad” cholesterol, and a condition called insulin resistance.  Long-term insulin resistance may lead to diabetes, heart disease, cancer, insomnia, carbohydrate craving, depression and mood swings, migraine headaches, heartburn, and irritable bowel syndrome.

What’s a Person to Do?

The easy answer is to limit your intake of all sweeteners, including high-fructose corn syrup.  Many of those against HFCS point to the mirrored increased consumption of HFCS alongside increased rates of obesity and diabetes as proof that HFCS is detrimental to your health.  It would be nice if it were that simple, but it seems that HFCS is only a part of the overall picture of the changes that have taken place in the Standard American Diet (SAD), including increased portion sizes and increased intake of processed foods.

Ideally, your diet would consist of whole foods and your sweet tooth would be satisfied by small amounts of fruit and natural, unrefined sweeteners like honey, stevia, maple syrup, agave nectar, brown rice syrup, date sugar, Sucanat, vegetable glycerin, and xylitol.

The big question: Was our lady correct to brush aside the unarticulated concerns of her man?  I ultimately return to the principle that guides me whenever science doesn’t offer a simple and easy answer; the less a food is processed, the better.  Given that you can’t drill into a kernel of corn and wait for high-fructose corn syrup to come spilling out, I’d say she say she shouldn’t be so quick to bite into that popsicle.

¹ Mercola, Dr. J. (2009) Don’t Believe the Hype — Fructose Truly is Much Worse Than Glucose, from Natural Health Information Articles and Health Newsletter by Dr. Joseph Mercola Web Site: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/05/16/Dont-Believe-the-Hype-Fructose-Truly-is-Much-Worse-Than-Glucose.aspx
² Forristal, LJ. (2003) The Murky World of High-Fructose Corn Syrup from The Weston A. Price Foundation Web Site: http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html
³ High-Fructose Corn Syrup from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
⁴ U.S. Consumption of Caloric Sweeteners. (2008), from USDA Economic Research Service Web Site: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Sugar/data.htm
⁵ Bray, GA, et al. (2004). Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity. American Society for Clinical Nutrition, 79(4), 537-543.
⁶ Elliott, SS, et al. (2002). Fructose, weight gain, and the insulin resistance syndrome. American Society for Clinical Nutrition, 76(5), 911-922.
⁷ Schwarz, J-M, et al. (1989). Thermogenesis in men and women induced by fructose vs glucose added to a meal. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 49(4), 667-674.
⁸ Two Bites TV Spot. (2008), from SweetSurprise.com Web Site: http://sweetsurprise.com/videos/two-bites
⁹ Wells, HF & Buzby, JC. Dietary Assessment of Major Trends in U.S. Food Consumption, 1970-2005 (2008), from USDA Economic Research Web Site: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB33/

Carbohydrates All Turn Into Sugar

First, let’s talk about what carbohydrates are.  Vegetables, fruits, grains, breads, pasta, sweets, juices, sodas, beer, wine, potato chips and most other snack foods are all classified as carbohydrates.  They all break down into simple sugars in the body once we consume them.  But all carbohydrates are not created equally. Carbohydrate foods such as soda and candy are devoid of fiber and nutrients, and they contain a lot more sugar than vegetables or whole grains, causing our blood sugar to rise rapidly once eaten.  High blood sugar puts the body into red alert and our body sends a team to deal with it immediately.

The Power of Insulin

The most powerful member of that team is the hormone insulin.  Insulin has the very important job of regulating and transporting sugar in our blood.  We need a constant supply of sugar in our blood, but it is also dangerous to have too much.  Insulin protects our blood sugar levels by delivering sugar to areas of the body where it is needed for energy, or in excess, stores the sugar as fat.

It is very important for our brain to have a constant supply of sugar in order to function properly, so the body satisfies the brain’s need for sugar first.  Next, insulin takes sugar to our muscles to be burned for our physical needs of movement.  Our muscles also have the ability to store carbohydrates as glycogen for energy needs in the immediate future, so next, sugar goes into these glycogen stores.  If there is still sugar leftover, insulin puts it into fat storage, which typically goes to our waistline, or stores it as triglycerides (a “bad” type of cholesterol).

If we continually eat too many carbohydrates and the wrong kind of carbohydrates, our blood sugar is always spiking too high and then dropping too low instead of staying in a balanced state.  High blood sugar means high insulin levels.  High insulin levels mean intense sugar cravings.  Intense sugar cravings lead to an addiction to sugar and poor quality carbohydrate foods. That addiction leads to hypoglycemia, diabetes, adrenal exhaustion, mental instability and weight gain, to name a few.  High insulin levels also mean that another powerful hormone, glucagon, cannot do its work in burning fat.

Protein Creates Glucagon and Burns Fat

Glucagon’s job is to release stored carbohydrates from fat to be used as energy.  Eating protein rich foods triggers glucagon into action, but if insulin is too high, glucagon is blocked and cannot work.  If we choose high sugar carbohydrate meals and snacks without properly balancing protein, glucagon can’t work to break down fat stores because insulin levels are always high.  High insulin levels block glucagon.  Balanced insulin levels, hence balanced blood sugar, allow glucagon to work at burning fat.

Some Symptoms of Low Blood Sugar

• Craving for sweets
• Hunger
• Nervousness and irritability
• Exhaustion and drowsiness
• Depression
• Headaches
• Insomnia
• Forgetfulness, confusion, and indecisiveness
• Anxiety
• Heart palpitations and rapid pulse

Some Symptoms of High Blood Sugar

• Frequent urination
• Thirst
• Feeling weak or tired
• Blurred vision
• Dry mouth
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Weight gain
• Inflammation
• Fluid retention

Balancing Our Blood Sugar

Keeping your blood sugar balanced will keep insulin in check, glucagon working to burn fat, and will eliminate your sugar cravings once and for all.  In order to balance your blood sugar, you will need to eat healthy carbohydrates along with protein and fat with every meal and snack.  Healthy carbohydrate choices are vegetables, low sugar fruits and whole grains that are not refined.  Pair your choice of a healthy carbohydrate with a high quality protein such as chicken, turkey, or an egg, and a fat such as butter or avocado, every time you eat.  By doing this, you will avoid the blood sugar rollercoaster and avoid your body’s willpower being overrun by powerful hormones such as insulin.  You will lose weight because the hormone glucagon is able to do its work, and your sugar cravings will go away.  Freeing yourself from the addiction of sugar frees your mind so that you are relaxed, happy, confident and content; and frees your body to become energetic, strong, and on the road to optimal health.

Saturated Fats

Saturated fats are stable fats because there are no double bonds between the carbon and hydrogen atoms.  These fats resist rancidity and are solid or semi-solid at room temperature.  These fats are great to cook with because they can stand the stress of high heat without going rancid.  Examples of saturated fats are butter, beef tallow, coconut oil and palm oil.

Monounsaturated Fats

Monounsaturated fats contain one double bond between the carbon atoms.  They are relatively stable- more stable than polyunsaturated fats, but less stable than saturated fats.  They are liquid at room temperature and solid if put in the refrigerator.  They can be used to cook with at low to moderate heats.  Olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil and high oleic safflower oil are examples of monounsaturated fats.

Polyunsaturated Fats

Polyunsaturated fats are unstable and highly reactive because they have multiple double bonds between their carbon atoms.  They are liquid at room temperature and in the refrigerator.  Due to their unstable nature, they should never be used to cook with.  They easily go rancid when exposed to heat and light.  Most vegetable oils are classified as polyunsaturated oils; examples are corn, cottonseed, safflower, soybean and sunflower oil.

Damaged Fats

A damaged fat is any fat that is rancid, refined or hydrogenated (trans fat).  Saturated, monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats can all be damaged.  Damaged fats have been altered from their true form in nature and transformed into fats that the body cannot effectively utilize.  Saturated fats are least likely to be damaged because of their stable nature, unless they have been hydrogenated.  Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are the ones we really have to watch out for.  These fats can easily go rancid (oxidize) when exposed to light or heat because they are more unstable.  Oils sold in clear bottles are often already rancid.  Any oil that is refined is rancid and thus damaged.  Hydrogenated oils, or trans fats, are rancid and refined, definitely damaged fats.

The Process of Refining Oils

Ever wonder how we get corn oil?  It is difficult to imagine squeezing oil out of a corn kernel, but not so hard to imagine squeezing oil out of an olive. To make corn oil, corn kernels are heated and squeezed under high pressure, treated with chemical solvents to get every drop of oil out, then refined further through the processes of degumming, neutralizing, bleaching and deodorizing.  What’s left after the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants have been destroyed?  A rancid oil with damaging free radicals and harmful preservatives, devoid of any nutritional value.  Definitely not a health food.

In contrast, organic extra virgin olive oil that is expeller or cold pressed is an unrefined oil.  The olives are cleaned and then sent through a mechanical press without exposure to light or heat.  The oil is not processed any further and is packaged in opaque bottles.  The valuable nutrients in the oil remain intact and are not destroyed through processing.  Organic expeller pressed olive oil should be green in color and smell fruity.

The Process of Hydrogenation

The process of hydrogenation creates damaged fats.  For example, to make margarine, an already rancid vegetable oil is heated under pressure in the presence of hydrogen gas and a catalyst, usually nickel oxide.  This saturates the double bonds in the vegetable oil with hydrogen.  Because this process causes the oil to smell quite foul, it has to be deodorized.  The oil is gray at this point and has to be bleached.  Dyes and flavorings are then added so that the margarine looks and tastes like butter.

Hydrogenated fats are solid at room temperature, have a long shelf life and are cheap.  There is no nutritional value left in the oil.  In fact, hydrogenated fats are harmful and have been linked to all sorts of health issues.  They negatively affect your metabolism, increase cholesterol levels by causing damage to blood vessels and disrupt your immune system.  Hydrogenated fats have been associated with many diseases, including cancer, diabetes and obesity.

Foods with Damaged Fats

Many boxed and packaged foods contain damaged fats.  Manufacturers strive for long shelf lives with far off expiration dates so that foods stay “fresh” during transportation and storage.  We used to see a lot of hydrogenated oils in boxed and packaged foods; however, with the recently unveiled health concerns of trans fats, food manufacturers are trying to steer clear of trans fats and find alternatives. Buyers beware though; many foods labeled as “trans fat free” actually contain trans fats. You must learn to read labels carefully and look at the fine print.  Anytime you see “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” on a food ingredient label, that means the food contains trans fat. Manufacturers can legally get away with labeling a food “trans fat free” if it contains less than 0.5 grams trans fat per serving.

Preserved, refined oils are replacing trans fats in many boxed and packaged foods.  These refined fats are damaged fats and must be avoided as well. Again, we must learn to read ingredient labels.  If an oil in the ingredient label does not say unrefined, expeller or cold pressed you should assume it is a refined oil.  If an oil lists a preservative with it, that is a sure sign it is refined.

Foods that may contain damaged fats:

These foods should be avoided or carefully evaluated

• refined vegetable oils
• shortening
• margarine
• non-dairy creamer
• crackers
• boxed cereals
• breads
• tortillas
• muffins
• pancakes
• pastries
• cookies
• cake
• pie crust
• candy
• ice cream
• peanut butter
• chips

Healthy Fats

Chose stable saturated fats and unrefined vegetable oils for eating and cooking.  Saturated fats such as butter and unrefined coconut oil are great choices.  Butter is made simply by churning heavy cream.  You can make your own butter by shaking heavy cream at room temperature in a jar until it becomes solid.  Salt is often added to butter as a preservative to increase its shelf life; purchase unsalted organic butter for the most nutritious and freshest option.

Coconut oil is a very protective fat from the tropics where there is a high prevalence of bacteria and fungus in the food supply.  Coconut oil kept at room temperature for two years shows no signs of rancidity!  It is one of the most stable oils, as it is slow to oxidize, a healthy alternative to the many unstable vegetable oils.

Even unrefined (versus refined) vegetable oils should be used sparingly.  Purchase vegetable oils in opaque bottles that are labeled as unrefined, expeller or cold pressed and store them away from light and heat.  Many people like to keep their oils next to the stove because they are handy to cook with; however, heat damages the oil, causing rancidity.  Store oils in a cool, dark place.  Use unrefined olive oil as your main liquid oil in place of other vegetable oils.  Olive oil is  monounsaturated, a more stable fat than polyunsaturated oils, and it is easy to find in an unrefined state.

Cooking with Fats

Only certain fats should be used to cook with.  When sautéing under high heat, use butter, coconut oil, palm oil or tallow.  These fats are classified as saturated fats and can withstand higher heats without becoming rancid.  Olive oil should only be used for sautéing with light heat.  When baking, I recommend using butter in place of vegetable oils.

Healthy fats to include as part of your daily diet:

• organic butter
• organic ghee (clarified butter)
• organic cream
• coconut oil, unrefined expeller pressed
• coconut milk
• palm oil, unrefined expeller pressed
• olive oil, unrefined expeller pressed
• avocados
• olives
• nuts and seeds
• nut butters
• flax oil
• wheat germ oil
• salmon oil
• organic chicken fat
• organic lard
• organic tallow
• *unrefined expeller pressed vegetable oils such as avocado, canola, peanut, safflower, sesame, or sunflower

*use sparingly

Damaged fats are plentiful in our food supply and destructive to our health.  Knowing which fats to chose and which ones to avoid is key.  If you follow the recommendations above, you will be on the right track to making healthful choices about fats.