Recently on Facebook, I asked the all too important question:
“If you ate a bowl of oatmeal and a banana, approximately how many hours would elapse before you start getting hungry?”
This question is not intended to be some sort of paradox or trick question. It was posed specifically to evaluate the inherent metabolic distinctions among the general population. As I anticipated, the responses were extremely varied. I had received literally dozens of responses to this single question.
The answers ranged from people experiencing an immediate lack of satiety, to total satiation for many, hours.
Check out some of these very different responses to the question: “If you ate a bowl of oatmeal and a banana, approximately how many hours would elapse before you start getting hungry?”
- “It’s my breakfast of choice, Michael. Keeps me full & satisfied & energized until at least 1 or 2pm (given a 7:30am breakfast), and I can easily go until dinner if needed w/o feeling slow or unfocused. Kickstart to the day.”
- “I would still be hungry.”
- “5 hours”
- “Once I eat carbs/sugar its like a snow ball effect. I crave more and more. So I would say in 30 minutes I get hungry. I get a spike of short gratification and then I get a crash.”
- “If I ate processed Quaker oatmeal, about 30 minutes and then I’d eat the whole box lol”
- “At least 5 hours, unless it’s the week BEFORE my cycle then I’m hungry all the time.”
- “Oh, probably 8 hours.”
- “I’m hypoglycemic at the best of times, but porridge sets me up for 4 to 5 hours!”
- “2 Hours”
- “Wow, I’m shocked by some of these responses! A medium bowl of steel cut oats and half a banana would last me at least 4 hours.”
What Does This Mean & Why Is This Important?
The driving point behind this post is to illustrate that we are all metabolically unique, and we each need to address our diet from a highly individual perspective. How my body metabolizes the carbohydrates and sugars from oats and bananas may be radically different than your body. If a food is metabolized at different rates and speeds, how can anyone believe that there is such a thing as universally “healthy diets”, “ideal diets” or “optimal diets”? If foods are metabolized at different speeds and rates, this means that the nutritional bickering and fighting over which diet is best for people is all nonsense. Unless the diet debate takes into account the highly individual metabolic tendencies of each individual in question, how can someone argue that humans need to be eating “vegan”, vegetarian”, “paleo’, “Atkins”, “macro-biotics”, or any other fad diet?
The correct nutrition practice is only applicable to, and based upon your individual metabolic requirements.
We all need to eat food in order for our cells to generate energy for all of its myriad of functions. Food, and the nutrients derived from food are the substrate for biological energy production. All biochemical pathways in the body are driven by nutrients.
The “macro-nutrients” are the major substrate for energy production within the cells. These are:
- Protein
- Fat
- Carbohydrate
The majority of nutrition experts will lead you to believe that humans should be eating one specific way. And the variation of what the so-called “experts” recommend is rather dramatic. Look at the different diets that exist. Curiously, its as dramatic as the different responses to the oatmeal and banana question. Hmm? What if every nutrition expert actually metabolizes oats and bananas differently? Doesn’t this then explain why there are so many different diets?
If humans should be eating the same type of diet, doesn’t this suggest that the biological responses to certain macro-nutrients should be very similar? Shouldn’t everyone experience the same degree of meal satiety from oats and bananas? If humans should eat the same foods, shouldn’t oats and bananas be metabolized at the same rate by everyone?
Instead what we see is a remarkable variation, with 2 extremes that are diametrically opposed to one another.
Two people can eat a high carbohydrate meal consisting of oatmeal and a banana. Person A is satiated for 8 hours, while Person B is starving in less than one hour. This is a rather dramatic difference. It is evident then that the rate of glucose utilization is rather rapid for Person B, and rather slow for Person A. And then between these two extremes, glucose utilization is varies from person to person.
Could you imagine if Person B was told by their healthcare provider to “eat more carbohydrates and fruit, and go vegetarian!” Can you say hypoglycemia and blood sugar roller coaster? Can you say erratic, inefficient energy production? What if person A was told to eat a Paleo diet: consisting of lots of meat, fat, and low in carbohydrates? Can you say: sluggish, belly fat, cranky and tired?
What This Means For You
You can’t eat someone else’s diet and expect to be healthy! You can only eat what your body actually needs to be healthy! If you ARE healthy through random, “grab bag” nutrition, it is only accidental, like winning the lottery. But nutritional gambling doesn’t pay off, nor does it teach you why you need to be eating a certain way.
Instead, you require an intelligently designed nutritional strategy that is tailored to your body’s unique metabolic requirements. Such a system does exist, and has existed for several decades. We refer to it as the end of nutritional guessing games, the end of nutritional dogmatism, the end of “one size fits all” approaches, and instead the beginning of REAL individualized nutrition.
Do you really need to eat bananas and oatmeal to be healthy? Click HERE to find out…
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