Veg Mastery Program: Q&A 16 With Michael Klaper, MD. Topic: Foods That Age You. Copyright 2011 by The Vegetarian Health Institute

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Today, our topic is foods that have aging effects. We’re going to talk about three ingredients in particular. Our guest tonight is Dr. Michael Klaper. How are you doing, Dr. Klaper?

Dr. Klaper: Good. It is good to be here with you.

Trevor: I’m excited because we have a lot of questions tonight.

Let's just recap for anyone who may not have looked at the lesson yet. The three ingredients we’re going to be talking about tonight are white flour, trans fats and acrylamides.

Dr. Klaper, before we go into the student questions. I’ve got a few questions of my own that I’d like to ask you about eating these three ingredients.

Dr. Klaper: All right.

Trevor: So you mentioned in the lesson that whole wheat bread was a little bit better than white flour bread, but only marginally. As opposed to something like a whole grain bread, which is a lot better. Can you explain to us why whole wheat bread is still not really a healthful food?

Dr. Klaper: Any time that you grind any whole grain down to a very fine powder, you change the properties. Sugars will be absorbed more quickly, and it is more prone to oxidize because there are more of the flour granules exposed to the air. You end up with some rancid oils.

Not to cast aspersions on various entrepreneurs, but the folks who make “whole wheat bread” don't accomplish much with what they do. Many of them start with white flour and add in a little wheat bran in order to have that darker appearance.

The reality is that removing the wheat germ in the first place removes most of the vitamins and healthful oils. It’s not truly whole wheat anymore. They grind it so finely that there’s always a low grade rancidity going on.

If you're starving in Haiti after an earth quake, then whole wheat bread is better than nothing, but when we're talking optimal nutrition, it's important to note that it's a far cry from real whole grains.

In the bread there should be visible coarse grains – pieces of barley, flax and oats. Visible coarse grains means more of the germ is still there, and that rancidity is lower.

Trevor: Are there any specific brands that you can recommend of the whole grain bread?

1 Dr. Klaper: I’m always reluctant to do that. A lot depends on local availability. It's relatively safe to seek out a local small bakery in your town and get to know the bakers.

Ask them where they get their flour and get a look at it. Make friends with them and ask them which of their breads is most wholesome.

If you’re buying regular brands off the shelf, I believe I listed a few in the lesson.

Ezekiel breads are probably pretty good. I haven’t looked at a Roman Meal label lately. I’m sure they’ve got all kinds of preservatives in it. But it used to be fairly decent. Probably the Ezekiel or the sprouted grain breads are probably the best.

Trevor: In lesson one I recommended Manna Organics. It is similar to Ezekiel, but the one difference I noted is that Ezekiel uses yeast in most of their breads. The Manna breads do not. Both bread brands use sprouted whole grains.

Dr. Klaper: Yeah. Those would be the better ones to have.

Trevor: Great.

Let's move to the second aging food in our lesson – trans fats.

I was surprised when you indicated that butter was a food with some trans fats. It never occurred to me that it might have similar properties to being hydrogenated, like margarine. Is the trans fat in butter naturally occurring?

Dr. Klaper: Right. It’s one of the few naturally occurring trans fats. It’s called xenic acid. It’s a fairly minor amount – it's still quite different from when a package reads “partially hydrogenated.”

As natural substances go, butter is fairly benign compared to other animal products. If you actually do the chemical analysis however, you would find tiny amounts of trans fats in butter.

Trevor: Let’s say someone is an ovo-lacto vegetarian. Would the amount of trans fat in butter be a lot smaller than in margarine?

Dr. Klaper: Oh, no question about it. Margarine, almost by definition, is loaded with trans fats because that’s how you make margarine. Margarine is made by hydrogenating the vegetable oil. No question between the two. Butter is the “healthier” stuff with quotes around “healthier.”

Trevor: You know, for years I was a pretty strict vegan. I started to realize that sometimes the food that I would ask for in restaurants and other places was entirely vegan, but not necessarily healthy.

When I was given the choice between margarine or butter I would have an internal debate. I didn't want the animal food, but I also didn't want the lab-made artificial food. If those are my only choices, in terms of health, butter is the lesser of two evils. I was balancing morals against my health. That is how I experienced it.

Dr. Klaper: I think that’s a valid call. It’s a rational decision to make.

2 Trevor: The good news is a lot of restaurants will have olive oil. If you're ordering baked potato or steamed veggies you can put on olive oil in place of butter or margarine.

Dr. Klaper: Yes, in small amounts.

Trevor: I guess if you were ordering pancakes though... You might not want to put olive oil on it.

Dr. Klaper: Exactly. That takes the fun out of it.

Trevor: Moving on to the third ingredient that we talked about in the lesson. Which is acrylamide. Is it ever appropriate to refer to it in the plural – as acrylamides?

Dr. Klaper: I’m not a chemist. I think acrylamide is a single molecule. There might be more of them. But I think there’s one molecule called acrylamide.

Trevor: Well, you mentioned at the top of that section that any starchy food that is roasted, baked or heated at a high temperature tends to have acrylamide form in it.

I looked on the FDA website to see their top twenty foods that have acrylamide. Near the top they listed coffee and soup mix. In one other place I also found nuts listed. I deduced that they must be referring to roasted nuts containing acrylamide.

I’m wondering about coffee or soup mix since they’re not starchy. Or are they starchy? How would they have acrylamide?

Dr. Klaper: Well, when you roast the coffee beans you’re creating some there. We're talking about very tiny amounts. They probably measure it per calorie. There are so few calories in coffee that the proportion of acrylamide to calories moves it up the list.

When we consider a cup of coffee the amount of acrylamide will be fairly low.

The same is true with the soup mix. It depends on the soup, but a lot of the soup mixes use potato starch or another starch to give it “body.” The starch is always baked in some way. I think we're still talking about fairly tiny amounts.

Trevor: Okay. That makes total sense. Coffee beans are roasted, nuts may be roasted, soup mix may contain roasted potato starch – and roasting is what causes the acrylamide to be there.

Dr. Klaper: Right.

I think that acrylamide content is not the biggest issue with these foods. Soup mixes tend to be full of mono-sodium-glutamate – MSG – and salt.

Trevor: What about low temperature baking? If you were able to bake something at 225 degrees or some low temperature...?

Dr. Klaper: As the toxicologists say, “The dose makes the poison.”

The temperature creates the acrylamide. The higher the temperature, the more will be formed. Baking something at 220 degrees is going to create a lot less acrylamide than 450. 3

Anything that is highly browned is loaded with acrylamide – potato chips and bread crusts are two obvious examples.

220 degrees is a fairly low temperature. It’s always safest to stay below the boiling point of water. 212 degrees Fahrenheit is a good temperature to stay under.

Anything you bake with water will help decrease the formation of acrylamide. If you're baking beans in water, or a casserole with a lot of water, the water will siphon off much of the heat. Even if you bake the casserole at 220 degrees, it will take some time before the contents actually gets that high due to the water content.

Dry scorching creates a lot of acrylamide, whereas wet low-temperature baking will create the least.

Trevor: So if were baking at 200 degrees, then it’s no worse than if you boiled?

Dr. Klaper: Again, with a caveat. Certainly, if there’s water around. Water is the key here – it really drains the heat away.

Trevor: So it’s not just the temperature setting. It’s also the presence of the water.

Dr. Klaper: Absolutely.

You can put water in a paper cup and hold it over a flame or a Bunsen burner. And the cup will not ignite because the water will keep siphoning the heat away into the water. The water will boil.

The cup won’t burn. The paper cup will not get up to 450 degrees and set on fire because the water wicks the heat away.

The same thing is happening around the beans and the peas and the soup there. They won’t get that hot because the water takes the heat.

Trevor: Thank you. That really helps me visualize the concept that you’re explaining.

Let’s move on to the student questions. Lenore is asking: “Is there acrylamide in air-popped popcorn?”

Dr. Klaper: Yeah, probably. That stuff gets pretty hot. I would have to research that to give you an honest answer to that one. I have read that there is. It might just be a trace amount.

When the heat is added, the popping happens. It is during that time that the already popped corn is subjected to fairly high heat where the acrylamide forms. It’s not necessarily the popping itself.

I imagine if you can get the popped corn right out of the popper immediately, then the acrylamide will likely be minimal. It’s the sustained high temperature that causes the problem.

Trevor: On the USDA list popcorn is number 13 in the top 20. Of course, they don’t specify whether that’s being fried in oil or in an air popper or what.

4 Dr. Klaper: The oil-popped popcorn would have far more acrylamides than air-popped. Between the two, the air-popped would be by far the healthier one.

Trevor: This actually reminds me of a suggestion Elaine Love made on one of our very first calls. She suggested that if people like their cooked vegetables with oil on them, then they could steam them and drizzle oil on afterward instead of frying them.

Dr. Klaper: Yes. Excellent.

Trevor: In the same way, it sounds like the same thing applies here. If you were to pop the popcorn in oil then that would be worse than if you just air-pop them and then drizzle a small amount of olive oil on them afterward.

Dr. Klaper: You’re absolutely right, Trevor. That is correct.

Trevor: These are excellent distinctions. So then Lenore is asking: “What about in rice cakes? Is there acrylamide?”

Dr. Klaper: Probably so. I haven’t seen that written. I’m not exactly sure how rice cakes are made. But as a veteran who’s eaten many rice cakes, there’s no question those are starches that have been baked at fairly high temperatures.

It may be that they are only cooked for a very short amount of time, which would indicate fairly low levels of acrylamide. But anytime you apply starches to high temperatures acrylamide is formed.

There probably is a good dollop of acrylamide in rice cakes. That would be worth researching. I know a lot of vegans eat a lot of rice cakes.

Trevor: That’s because they have so much flavor. By the way, I was gong to suggest that one way to make sure there’s no acrylamide in your pop corn is just to boil it.

Dr. Klaper: Why didn’t I think of that. You could make a new product there: Boiled popcorn.

Trevor: Lenore has a couple more foods she wants to know about: “What about nuts cooked in a solar oven at 150 degrees.”

Dr. Klaper: Those would probably be okay. 150 degrees is not that high a temperature. The starch is pretty low in nuts. Nut are mostly oils and protein. I don’t think you would create a whole lot of acrylamide at that temperature with nuts.

Trevor: What about nuts roasted on top of a wood burning stove?

Dr. Klaper: Kind of the same answer. It depends on temperature, duration, kind of nuts, how hot the nuts actually become inside, etc. It’s a lovely treat to roast some nuts on the stove top.

If once a month you want to have a few nuts and have it as a treat and this is something enjoyable that you do as a family bonding activity, than I wouldn't let acrylamide stop you from that.

5 Most Americans are shoving in these processed foods by the pound every week. And they’re loaded with acrylamide. The corn chips, potato chips, breads and so on are loaded with huge amounts of acrylamide. These are the folks who are setting themselves up for cancers and birth defects in their kids.

It’s not friendly stuff to your chromosomes and genes. That’s the major concern.

The dose makes the poison. We shouldn’t be eating lots of chips and other junk. However, a few chestnuts off the wooden stove once a month is nothing to be concerned about.

It’s the volume and the amounts that people are eating that are at real issue here.

Trevor: I think that people will fall into two categories. There are people that will indulge occasionally when they understand how much is a reasonable amount. How much to indulge is a personal decision. There are other people who will never again eat any foods that have acrylamide because they’re so devoted to health.

We have a question from Bobbie. She says, “Please comment on microwave use with starchy foods. For example, what if you make a bowl of oatmeal in the microwave?”

Dr. Klaper: A microwave is comparable to roasting foods in an oven, high temperature baking, or frying. None of those are gentle with foods. All of those methods will create acrylamide and all sorts of free radicals. They’re all comparable.

Ninety seconds in the microwave shakes up the water molecules to heat up the food. I think that those ninety seconds will create less free radicals and acrylamide than deep drying, high temperature baking, and so on.

Now, if you leave something in a microwave for twenty minutes and really cook it dry, then you've created something dreadful. I wouldn't eat that, certainly. I wouldn’t eat bread baked in a microwave.

With oatmeal in the microwave you're driving hot water into the oats to soften the starches. The microwave itself is not directly damaging the oats themselves. They don't become Franken-oats. With brief microwaving, under three minutes, you've just heated up the water.

Using the microwave for long periods of time is something else entirely, and I wouldn't be eating that stuff.

The oatmeal gets a guarded thumbs up. That’s an appropriate way to use a microwave.

Trevor: Well, I appreciate you giving the honest answer and not the politically correct answer.

I think one reason she asked the question is that in your lesson you mention that heavily overcooking foods produces large amounts of acrylamide as does microwaving.

Dr. Klaper: Right. Picking up my last answer on the back side.

Let's say you make cornbread in a microwave, taking ten to fifteen minutes in there. In that scenario you're actually baking those starches, and you'd create just as much acrylamide as you would in a thermal oven.

6 That's different than ninety seconds to heat up some oatmeal. I don’t think you’re really damaging the oats at that point or baking the oats at that point. Actual baking of any carbohydrate in a microwave will certainly create acrylamide.

Trevor: Thank you.

We have another thought from Bobbie. She points out that when you’re eating seeds or vegetables, sometimes grinding, blending or juicing makes the nutrients more accessible.

For example, I’ve read that the beta carotene in carrots isn’t really that available if you eat them raw because you’re not breaking all the cells walls. Whereas if you juice the carrots, it’s actually more available.

Is there some accuracy and truth to that?

Dr. Klaper: Yes. I think that’s a valid point.

Trevor: Bobbie is wondering why this doesn't apply when grinding grains into whole wheat flour and making whole wheat bread?

Dr. Klaper: Very sophisticated question. Very good.

When you use the blender or Vita Mix, this is usually part of preparation of a meal that’s going to be eaten at that time. You blend up the sunflower seeds, make a pâté, put it on your lettuce wrap, and you eat it.

When making these things at home water is generally preserved. Much of the food's vitality is still present. When making your blended foods of various types, air hasn’t gotten into the food, and it hasn’t dried out.

Flour is just the opposite. You grind up the flour and then you store it some place – sometimes many months. In this dry medium oxygen has access to the oils in the wheat. You’ve created these very fine particles with lots of surface area to let the air work on.

That’s the difference. It’s because you’ve created a dry medium that’s exposed to air for days and days. That’s when the oxidation and damage happens.

If you were to freshly grind flour and bake bread immediately – well, there would still be acrylamide formed in the baking.

But if you freshly ground grain and put it into soup, there would be much less oxidized damage.

Trevor: That’s why I chuckle whenever I hear someone say, “Hey, look, I just made fresh bread.”

Dr. Klaper: It’s kind of an oxymoron.

Trevor: Unless they just stone ground the grain literally a few hours ago and then immediately began kneading the bread after they made the flour.

Dr. Klaper: You’ve got the concept. 7

Trevor: Bobbie says there’s a bread bakery here that advertises that they grind their own flour every morning. I had assumed that their whole wheat flour was exactly that. Whole wheat.

Dr. Klaper: Probably is. That’s the kind you’re looking for. It sounds like they’ve got some integrity. Absolutely, I would buy their bread, if I still ate bread. If I did, I would certainly patronize them as opposed to the folks from General Mills there. She’s got the idea.

Trevor: For what it’s worth, the bread that I eat is usually Manna Organic. I realize there are people at all different stages of a transition to a healthier diet on this call, but you can see that we’re kind of walking our talk in terms of the healthfulness of bread and flour products.

In regards to Bobbie's last comment – if they're grinding their own flour, then will it be the kind of whole grain where you can see whole kernels of grain in the bread? Are you saying that it would be okay because it's ground the same day?

Dr. Klaper: Second part first. Yes, the freshness is a factor. It’s certainly a big plus.

As for the first part, it depends. There is a craft to everything, including grain grinding. A lot depends on how coarse the grains are ground. It depends on the types of stones that are used and how fast the stones are turning.

With coarsely ground whole grains the fiber still largely intact. There’s a lot of the wheat germ or oat germ that hasn’t been cracked and splayed open. Not exposing the wheat germ means less oxidization.

A coarsely ground whole grain bread is what I would be looking for. A good baker would know how to do that. You can taste the difference – it has a very crunchy, chewy, satisfying texture.

Trevor: Lenore is asking a question about pretzels. She’s wondering if they typically contain trans fats.

Dr. Klaper: Pretzels. Would they contain trans fats? They almost assuredly would for a number of reasons. I don’t believe they make them with butter. I imagine they’re going to use a vegetable oil.

If they’re commercial pretzels, I’m sure they’re using partially hydrogenated vegetable oil because they have a long shelf life.

To kind of mix up the issues here – boy, if you’re looking for a good source of acrylamide. Go for pretzels. Talk about a starch that’s been baked at high temperature.

They take white flour and bake it at high temperature, and that’s how you create acrylamide. They’d certainly be loaded with that.

Then I expect there’d be a good dollop of trans fats because there’s probably some sort of shortening or margarine in it. I put pretzels way down on my food list. They’re near the bottom. Sorry to all the beer drinkers out there. But they’re not a great food for you.

Trevor: I see pretzels are listed as number 14 on the list of top 20 foods with acrylamide. What you’re saying makes perfect sense.

8 Dr. Klaper: There’s lots of good reasons not to eat pretzels. We can do better than that. Even rice cakes are better than pretzels.

Trevor: We have a lesson that includes a recipe for kale chips. These are really delicious – just as good as corn chips or doritos, if not better. They're made from kale, so they are far healthier than other chips.

We provided two recipes for it. One is a raw recipe where it’s made in a dehydrator. One is a baked recipe. I’m just realizing now, Dr. Klaper, that if someone were to bake kale at 3-400 degrees, is there a chance that would produce acrylamide as well if that kale chips have oil on them?

Dr. Klaper: Not likely. Acrylamide comes from starches or carbohydrates that are baked. The amount in kale is really tiny. I don’t think you’re going to be creating much in the way of acrylamide from that.

Kale chips are a lovely treat. I don’t think there’s going to be much of a risk either from acrylamide or trans fats or anything like that with kale chips. It's a lovely idea.

If you’re really looking for the purest option, the dehydrated ones would be a touch healthier than the ones in the oil. However, I think you can eat both of them without a whole lot of guilt or concern. Let’s hear it for kale chips.

Trevor: Root vegetables are starchy, so roasted they would have acrylamide. Vegetables like asparagus or onions however, are not. Does that mean they could be roasted safely without creating acrylamide?

Dr. Klaper: You are very wise. By and large that’s certainly true.

So does it mean you can never eat potatoes? No, but of course you should cut them into chunks and steam them or boil them. If you’re concerned about acrylamide, that is the way to eat cooked potatoes. Don’t bake them. Don’t fry them.

If you’re going to be eating baked potatoes, don’t eat the outer crusty brown parts. That’s where the acrylamides really are. No matter what you heard about the nutrients being in the skin of the potato, don’t eat the skin of a baked potato.

Trevor: Then any root vegetable – pumpkin, squash, sweet potatoes, beets – they’re all potentially subject to acrylamide if baked at a high temperature.

Dr. Klaper: Of course, pumpkins and squash aren’t root vegetables. Their starch content is much lower than beets, turnips or carrots. But you’re right – baking any of those at high temperature is going to create some acrylamide. They’re much better steamed or boiled.

Trevor: Lenore is asking: “Does your book Vegan Nutrition include many of the topics that you cover on the Q & A sessions with Trevor?”

Dr. Klaper: No, it does not. That was written twenty-five years ago when none of these issues were a concern at all. That was just a handbook for eating a vegan diet. My book Vegan Nutrition was about how to run a human body on vegan foods.

9 There are many recipes in that book with oil and salt and other ingredients I've learned more about. These topics we're discussing now are not in it.

Trevor: I have a list of starches and then a list of mildly starchy vegetables. Let me ask you about these. You already mentioned carrots and beets as being pretty starchy.

Dr. Klaper: There are different forms of starch. Carrots and beets are starchy, but also sugary.

Then it gets into plant physiology/anatomy. When you look at a carrot, it has a similar consistency to a raw potato, but the carrot has its consistency mostly due to fiber rather than starch. They’re different kinds of carbohydrates.

We put them under the same rubric – “starchy vegetables” – but carrots have a lot less starch than potatoes do. Just because it looks like a starchy vegetable doesn’t mean its starch content is that high. It might be mostly fiber.

I’m interested in your list.

Trevor: Another one on this list is mature starchy corn.

Dr. Klaper: Now that’s true starch. Absolutely.

Roasting dry corn at high temperatures to make corn tortillas out of corn flour will create acrylamide. That’s true.

Trevor: I guess corn bread would be the same story.

Dr. Klaper: Cornbread is a more moist process and may not be at as high a temperature. I wouldn’t be surprised if cornbread has somewhat less acrylamide there. When making corn tortillas the entire tortilla is put on a hot surface and really exposed to high temperatures.

Trevor: The one that surprised me most was artichokes. Would you consider that to have some starch?

Dr. Klaper: No. I normally wouldn’t consider it. Jerusalem Artichokes certainly have starch in them – I wonder if that’s what they’re referring to.

The standard artichoke people eat is a flower actually, and there’s very little starch in an artichoke. Plus, you don’t really bake them in high temperatures, you mostly steam artichokes. I’d be really surprised if there were a lot of acrylamide in artichokes.

Trevor: We have a question from Sue. She says: “Wow, this is really interesting. I’m not preparing any more ground foods. Mentioned among the foods that contain acrylamide is soft bread and breakfast cereals. What kind of bread is considered okay to eat?”

Dr. Klaper: As I mentioned, these nice hearty whole grain breads that we’re talking about – Ezekiel bread, etc.

10 I’m not a bread maker, but the center of the bread is almost wet when you bite into some of those. I’ve got a feeling that even in the oven the moisture content of those breads is pretty high. Those are quite moist breads.

We were talking about water keeping the local temperature from getting too high, and I suspect that these hearty moist breads are the best if rated by acrylamide content. The more the whole the grain is, probably the lower the acrylamide content.

White bread with a dark brown crust around it would be the worst, nutritionally and in terms of acrylamide content. Cornflakes and many other breakfast cereals are the same story as white bread. It's a tray of starch put over a flame.

Commercial breakfast cereals that are roasted and toasted are filled with acrylamide, of course.

Whole grain granolas and the raw granolas would be better than the roasted ones. Again, you’d want the ones that have not been exposed to high temperature flame.

Trevor: Since you bring up granola – doesn’t granola contain oil that’s then heated at a high temperature?

Dr. Klaper: Well, there’s granola and there’s granola. The granola from General Mills – absolutely. You don’t want to eat that. If it’s all crunchy and sugar-coated and crisp and brown. That’s acrylamide city, I suspect. You don’t want to be eating a whole lot of that.

But in your local health food store, you’ll probably find the Frank Family granolas. They have raw granolas. Or those that don’t have a huge amount of heated grains. They have a lot of fruit in it and things. Get the granola that has the more raw grains or that hasn’t been subjected to a lot of high temperature cooking.

Trevor: Sue also asked about Cheerios. I think you’ve got the idea. Cheerios, cornflakes, most commercial cereals would be the same. My impression is that Muesli is like granola except with less oil and less heat. Do you know much about Muesli as comparison to granola?

Dr. Klaper: Yes, as far as I have seen, Mueslis are essentially raw. They’re rolled oats, rolled barley that’s been dried, a little powdered sugar, and some raisins. That’s pretty much Muesli. You can sometimes even find it without sugar.

I’m not a Muesli maven, but I believe most of the Mueslis are raw. They probably do roast some particular brands of Muesli out there. Of the breakfast cereals, Mueslis overall would be among the best.

Another good choice would be steel cut oats that you make oatmeal out of. But if you want a cold cereal, Muesli would have less acrylamide by far.

Trevor: So Muesli is a safer choice if you want a cold cereal. If you want a hot cereal, anything that you boil. For example, if you just mix some quinoa or amaranth. If you’re just boiling it in water, then that’s perfectly fine.

Dr. Klaper: Absolutely. Good choice.

11 Trevor: I thought it would be a good idea to go over some of the suggestions we gave in the lesson for avoiding acrylamide. You had provided several and I have a couple as well. One suggestion was to cook potatoes to a golden yellow and not brown.

Another is to toast bread to the lightest color possible, if you’re going to toast it at all. I don't toast my bread, but if you have to then toast it lightly.

When cooking your food, steam it, boil it, or make soups and stews. The water provides a safety factor.

Dr. Klaper: Absolutely.

Trevor: Avoid using the microwave, especially when cooking starchy foods. As we discussed earlier, that means avoid using it to cook for more than two or three minutes at a time.

Dr. Klaper: Yes.

Trevor: Minimize your intake of fried and processed foods.

And here is what I personally do when I’m at restaurants. If they serve a tofu, falafel or hummus sandwich or some kind of bean sandwich or tortilla, then I ask for the “guts” of the sandwich without the bread.

Instead of bread, I ask them to serve me the tofu, hummus, falafel or beans on romaine lettuce. This is better than wrapping it in some sort of a flour-based shell.

Many restaurants will do that. Even some fast food places will serve on greens instead of bread.

Dr. Klaper: Lovely idea. That’s just excellent. That’s how you change an industry by the way. Let your dollars talk for you. I think that’s a superb idea.

I would encourage people to have the courage to do that. Ask and you shall receive.

Trevor: Even at airports, I’ve had them do that. When it’s not on the menu, I notice that they have romaine lettuce or other greens. And so I’ll say: “Instead of using bread, would you mind putting that on a plate of romaine lettuce?”

Most of the time they’ll do it. Sometimes they don’t know what to charge – so they charge a fairly low price. They think green must be worth less than a tortilla shell, so they charge me a lower amount.

Dr. Klaper: That’s fine. Let them think it. Good for you. That’s just a great example, Trevor. That’s very illustrious for your listeners.

Trevor: Another suggestion is for people making their own sandwiches at home. Instead of using pita bread, tortillas or slices of bread, you can use collard greens, chard or Napa cabbage.

In lesson 16.6, we actually provided links to a few videos where you can watch people teaching you how to make those types of wraps out of green leaves.

12 Lenore has a question – a really good one – I had the same reaction when I read your lesson. She says: “I thought that nuts were more of a protein and fat rather than a starch.” She’s surprised that acrylamide is still showing up in roasted nuts.

Dr. Klaper: She’s absolutely right with her statement. They are more protein and oils. That’s correct. But there certainly is starch. You can buy peanut flour and there is certainly starch in it. It’s a much lower starch food than flour products, however.

Trevor: Well thanks a lot. That’s all we have time for tonight.

13