Top 10 Amazing No Carb Foods With No Sugar

Hello, hello, all champions. Today we're going to talk about the top 10 foods with no sugar and no carbs that matter. And the reason I say matter is going to become apparent very soon. We're going to do a countdown in no particular order. So this is not a ranking. And we're going to start with number 10, which is meat. And that includes things like beef, fish, chicken, wild game meat, etc. And when we look at the amount of carbohydrates in these food, it is zero for all of them. But like I said at first, we don't really care so much about a food having zero as having zero carbs that matter. So why do we care whether it has zero or whatever it has? So what it really comes down to is that different foods affect blood sugar differently. So the more carbohydrate and the more processed the food is, the quicker your blood sugar is going to rise. And then what's going to happen is we're going to release insulin to bring that blood sugar down. So when we have high blood sugars and fluctuating blood sugars, blood sugar, roller coasters, that is associated with all kinds of health problems with mood swings, with energy swings, etc. So what we care about food is how does it affect blood sugar and how does it affect insulin? Because that affects our metabolism and our energy supply and so forth. But here's what a lot of people don't understand. A lot of people think that carbohydrates are evil. That we should only eat food with zero carbs. And that is not what I'm saying. If we compare carbohydrates to protein to fat, then carbohydrates contain glucose. There are different types of sugar, but primarily carbohydrates contain glucose that can very, very quickly become blood sugar. And this happens very, very fast. So if we look at the insulin response in terms of an arrow, the size of this arrow is huge because it's a combination of a large amount of glucose that gets into the bloodstream very fast. Those two factors influence how much glucose, how much insulin we're going to release. Now, if we look at protein, then we have to understand that there is no such thing really as a zero carbohydrate food because all foods, including protein, can turn into glucose. Protein contains something called amino acids that primarily they're supposed to become body tissue and hormones. But the excess, the things that we can't fit together and utilize as tissue to make body parts, the excess amino acids, all of them get turned into glucose. And the thing to understand though is this happens very, very slowly, much slower than with carbohydrates. It's a smaller amount and there is a delay. So the amount of insulin response is much, much smaller. And then when we look at fat, fat is kind of interesting because people think that well, fat is just fat and fat per se cannot get turned into glucose. However, there is something called glycerol. And if we look at a fat molecule, we store them and we eat them in a form called triglycerides. That means that there's three fatty acids, tri, but then there is a backbone of glycerol. And this glycerol has three carbons that we can reattach and make glucose from. And therefore, even fat actually produces glucose. Not fat per se, but the way we store fat as they try glyceride. So this glycerol turns into glucose, but just like with protein, there's a delay and it's a much, much smaller amount. So if we compare again, the carbohydrates has a huge response, the protein has a moderate and the fat has an almost negligible impact on blood glucose and insulin. But this is why we can fast for days and even weeks without eating any carbohydrate because there's enough glucose indirectly available through this glycerine backbone, glycerol backbone. So if we understand this, then there is truly no food that is really zero carbs because all food with a caloric value can be partially turned into glucose. The only truly zero carb foods are water, tea and coffee, thanks with no caloric value. So what we need to focus on is not the zero carb foods as much as low carb foods and slow carb foods. Another thing that there's a lot of confusion about is net carbs and why that matters. So when I talk about net carbs with different foods, I'm talking about the available amount of carbohydrate that we can turn into energy per 100 grams of food. So total carbs, when we subtract the fiber, then we get net carbs. And why do we subtract the fiber? Because it is not available to humans to digest and turn into energy. We can't metabolize it. So a lot of people on low carb diets, they hear that, well, don't worry about net carbs. Just look at the total carbs and if you're looking to go low carb or even ketogenic, that should probably be around 50 grams of total carbs. But some of that is fiber. So if we subtract the fiber, then we would end up with 30 grams of net carbs. So a lot of people, they say, well, to get to a ketogenic state, then you need to be around 30 grams of net carbs. And again, these are not absolute numbers. Those are rough numbers that work for a lot of people, but not everybody. But here's the thing we want to understand about this is that if you only look at total carbs, then you may not understand what the food is doing to you. So one food, for example, a mystery food that we're going to reveal in a moment would have 8.6 grams of total carbs. However, 6.8 grams out of those carbs are fiber, meaning you cannot turn that into energy, does not affect glucose. So the net carbs here are only 1.8. And the problem now is that if you only look at total carbs, you might look at this food and say, hey, I'm not going to eat that because it adds up the carbs too quickly. I can't eat very much of that before I hit my 50 grams. Whereas if you look at the net carbs, now you see that, hey, this is a very low net carb food, I can actually eat quite a bit of that. And there's some controversy about fiber. Historically, I think humans have eaten quite a bit of fiber. Now in the carnivore camp, they're disputing where the fiber is really necessary at all. I believe that for long term optimal health, I do think that fiber plays a role because fiber feeds our gut bacteria and our gut bacteria is tremendously important for our overall health. We need a large number and a large variety of gut bacteria. So fiber has no calories. It has no impact on blood glucose because we do not have the enzymes as humans to break it down. It does not impact blood sugar and therefore it does also not impact insulin at all. And as we talk through today, we also want to look at the bigger picture, the balance. How does the combination of different things affect each other? So fiber is something that will actually slow down absorption. The worst kind of carbohydrate would be glucose or sugar suspended in water, dissolved in water like a juice or a soft drink because there is nothing slowing that glucose down. But if you had a little bit of fiber or if you had some protein or if you had some fat, then that sugar is not as readily available. So that's going to slow down the absorption a little bit. And that would be a good thing. So when we have a certain amount, a small amount of carbohydrate with fiber and with protein and with fat, then it doesn't have the same impact. Food number nine is non-sweet fruit. And the reason I call it that is these are things that a lot of people think about as vegetables, but technically in the pure classification scheme of things avocado is a fruit. And these are the numbers we saw on a previous slide. So this is indeed the mystery food that I talked about. It has 8.6 grams of total carbs. It has 6.8 grams of fiber for only 1.8 net grams, which is amazing. so you can eat a ton of this food. It has plenty of healthy fats, tons of good fiber. And most of this fiber is the soluble kind that will feed your gut bacteria. Another great, non-sweet fruit is olives, which has 3.1 grams of net carbs per 100. And also tomato is also a fruit. Now, depending on the tomato, some of those could taste sort of sweet, but it's still a very low amount of sugar and net carbohydrates, 2.7 grams. Food number eight is leafy greens. And it does have a tiny amount of carbohydrate, but not to the degree that it matters. So lettuce has 1.2 grams of net carbs. It has tons of fiber, lots of water. And this carbohydrate is packaged inside fiber cells. So it takes a long, long, long time to release that glucose. And there is virtually no way to just eat lettuce and spite your blood sugar significantly. Parugula, very low, 2.1, spinach, 1.4, Swiss charred, 2.1. Cabbage, some people would probably put this in its own category, but I had room here. So I just lumped it together with the leafy greens. Cabbage, 3.3, and kale would be 5.2. Now, some of these that we want to watch out for is a lot of people are sensitive to oxalates, and then they might want to stay away from spinach. And kale, even though it's sort of classified in every list as this superfood that everyone should eat as much as possible, there are a lot of people who don't tolerate kale all that well. So just because someone calls it a superfood doesn't mean that your body is going to love it. So just keep that in mind when other people tell you what foods are good for you. Number seven is non-star-chef vegetables. So here we have one of my favorites is broccoli, very low, four grams of net carbs. We have cauliflower at 3.0. And these are tremendous good sources of potassium and various different minerals. Asparagus at 1.9, we have bell pepper. Depending on the color, it could be like with green bell pepper, probably around three. And the red and yellow varieties would be a little bit higher, probably around four. Also eggplant is very low to 0.9. Green beans, depending on some of the very slender ones. The French style would be maybe two grams. And some of the sugar snaps could be as high as five. But all of these foods are low starch, non-star-chef, very low carb foods. It'd be very difficult to spike your blood sugar significantly. So again, we want to focus on the carbs that matter in terms of insulin and glucose. Because like I said, they're very few true zero carb foods. Number six is berries. One of my favorites is raspberries at 5 net grams per 100. And a few berries go a long way. So this is five grams per 100. So if you have maybe 10 raspberries, that's probably like 35, 40 grams of total berries. So you get less than two grams in 10 berries. If you have blackberries, it's about the same. If you have strawberries, also about the same. And blueberries come in a little bit higher. It doesn't necessarily taste sweeter to the tongue, but it has almost twice as high in sugar at nine. Now what makes berries so unique and so attractive is not just that they are very, very low in sugar compared to other fruits, but also that they're much higher in fiber. And like we said, the fiber further slows down this small amount of carbohydrate. So raspberries have seven grams of fiber. Blackberries have about five strawberries, about six. And blueberries about four. So compared to other fruits, this is very unusual that they have more fiber than they have sugar in them. Other fruits are kind of the other way around. They probably have four, five, six times more sugar than they do fiber. So it's not just the amount of sugar. It is also how quickly it's absorbed. Number five is nuts. And here my favorite would be macadamia followed by pecans, followed by walnuts. And then a lot of people in the low carb community also love almonds and peanuts. So macadamia nuts have 5.2 grams of net carbs. Peacans have 4.3 walnuts, 7.0. So those are very low, especially when we look at how much protein, fat and fiber is in there as well. So this small amount of sugar is absorbed very, very slowly. Now almonds at 9.1 and peanuts at 13.5. So the amount of carbs doesn't necessarily turn these into bad foods. But a lot of people, as they start eating more and more almonds, they start getting reactions. Because almonds actually has something called lectins, that is a way that plants defend themselves from getting eaten. It's type of mild poison, if you will. And some people are very sensitive. And other people probably not so much. But it is something to keep in mind that if the more you eat of something, the greater the probability that your body will develop a sensitivity to it. And peanuts, same thing. They also have lectins. But furthermore, peanuts, of course, is not really a nut. It's a legume. It's more like a bean, like a kidney bean or black bean. It just has more protein and fat. So people sensitive to legumes and people sensitive to lectins can start reacting to peanuts. Number four is seeds. And they're sort of similar to nuts in their nutritional makeup. Nuts are probably more of a snackable food, whereas seeds would be more something that you would add to a food. They're maybe not as tasty to some people, at least not all of them. But flax, chia, hemp, and pumpkin seeds are my favorite that I eat on a regular basis. I sprinkle them on yogurt, for example. Flax has only 1.6 grams of net carbs. Chia has 4.4, hemp has 3.4, and pumpkin 4.7. So these are very small amounts. And again, just like nuts, there is a tremendous amount of protein, fat, and fiber in these. So these small amounts of carbs are going to be absorbed extremely slowly. So it really doesn't matter. We're not looking for a zero number as much as we're looking for whether it matters or not. Number three is fats and oils. So these are things you can cook with, but also things that you can supplement your calories. If you're really looking to be strict on a low carb or ketogenic diet, then you want to keep the carbs very, very low. You want to keep your protein moderate, and then the rest becomes fat. So you can fill up on fat after that. So extra virgin olive oil would probably be my overall favorite butter, coconut oil, MCT oil, lard, and tallow are other good versions. And these are all good because they require minimal processing. They come from a food source that is naturally very high in fats, so we don't need to expose these foods to high temperature, high pressure, and chemicals to get the fat out of it. And of course, being pure fat, these would have all have zero grams of carbs, zero fiber, et cetera. And one thing I want to point out, there's a lot of confusion about fat when we go on a low carb high fat diet that it's OK to eat fat. You don't have to be afraid of fat, but that does not mean that more fat is always better. You eat very low carb, you eat moderate protein, and then you eat fat to satiety. But that does not mean that more fat is better. If you are fine with a black coffee in the morning and that carries you to lunch or dinner, then adding butter to that coffee is not an advantage. It is only to help you transition. So if you go from a high carb or a moderate carb diet to low carb, then it's good to add a little extra fat to help you transition, to help you become fat adapted, especially the MCT oil. You can have just like a teaspoon of MCT oil to help you make some ketones, some quick energy. But the goal is to burn the fat off your body, not to burn the fat that you're eating. So the more fat you're adding in the diet, the less the incentive is to burn it off the body. Food number two is eggs. And eggs, we can eat them whole, but of course, humans like to mess with things. So we often break them apart into the white and into the yolk. And depending on your belief system, you might eat more or less of one or the other. But when we look at the net carbs, they're all very, very low in carbohydrates. So a whole egg has about 1.7% carbohydrate. Most of that is in the yolk percentage wise. So the white has about 0.7 and the yolk has about 3.6%. But where a lot of people get into trouble, like bodybuilders, they hear the white egg white is where you have the protein. So they just separate out the yolk and other people hear that the yolk has all the cholesterol. So they cut it out. So we have all these people eating white omelettes and drinking egg white out of the box and so forth. But the key here is to understand that nature doesn't pack things together accidentally. Nature created possibly the most perfect, balanced food available to us. And it put the white and the yolk together. And the difference here is that there are different amino acids. There are different percentages and ratios of amino acids in the yolk and in the white. So when we eat them separately, we're not getting as good a balance. And when we eat the whole egg, we can utilize 49% of all the amino acids can turn into body tissues. They are so close in the combinations of amino acids to what our body needs to put together to make tissue that we can use 49%, which is the highest of any food that we can eat other than mother's milk. If we only eat the white, this drops tremendously. But because a lot of these combinations of amino acids we need are in the yolk. So they complement each other. And we only utilize 17% of the protein in the egg white. And what happens to the rest, if we can't make tissue, the rest of it turns into glucose, stimulates blood sugar, and insulin. So again, not nearly to the degree that a carbohydrate would, but it's still a whole lot more. And it's probably not what you're looking for when you're eating egg whites. And number one is dairy. And it's again, in no particular order, so I'm not ranking these, but dairy just illustrates a lot of these points so well that the combination matters so much. So we're going to look at skim milk, whole milk, half and half, heavy cream, and cheese. And we're going to look at them in terms of net carbs and in terms of fat, and then also in terms of percentage of calories from carbohydrate. But we'll start with these two. And in terms of grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams of food, or fat per 100 grams of food, if we look at milk, the skim, the whole, et cetera, all of these are basically low-carb foods. And they're at 5 grams or less. As we look at the fat, we see that skim milk obviously has virtually no fat. Whole milk has more half and half, has more heavy cream, has three times. And cheese is close to heavy cream in terms of fat content. So as the fat content increases, and in cheese, there's also more protein, the percentage of carbohydrate decreases. But still, it's not a tremendous change. The red bar is still kind of similar. But where it really becomes a makes a difference is when we look at the percentage of calories from carbohydrates. We're going to look at that over here. And in skim milk, we think of milk as sort of a protein, food, et cetera. But in skim milk, almost 70% of the calories come from carbohydrate, from lactose. So it's basically almost all sugar food when we look at skim milk. When we add back, or when we didn't take away some of the fat in the whole milk, now we drop tremendously so that already gets down to almost half of the calorie percentages. When we look at half and half, or cream, the percentages drop further and further. So we go from skim milk, which is a high carbohydrate food, to cream, which is a very low carbohydrate food. And then cheese would be the lowest because there is a lot of protein in there as well. But the key point here is like we talked about all throughout this video, is that it's not about the carbohydrates necessarily. It's about the carbohydrates that matter. So in skim milk, it matters tremendously because the carbohydrates are most of the calories. And even though the carbohydrates change, they don't change dramatically. They're roughly the same for most dairy products. However, when we look at the percentage of calories, we go from a high carbohydrate food to almost a zero carbohydrate food. And that's what we're after. The protein and the fat is going to slow it down. Another way to look at it, of course, is that with milk, skim milk, or whole milk, you could easily drink a cup or even two. And two cups of milk is going to have about 25 grams of sugar, a milk sugar, lactose. Whereas I'd be hard pressed to think that you could drink two cups of heavy cream or eat a pound of cheese in one sitting. So the more concentrated food is also going to satisfy you more so that you end up eating less. So there's so many different factors. You end up eating less. The fat slows it down and the percentages drop down as well. If you enjoy these graphics and these tables and would like to have your own copy, I put them together in a PDF for you. So there's a link down below that you can click and you can have your own version. And then obviously if you watch this video again, you can follow along and really get all the detail. If you enjoyed this video, you're going to love that one. And if you truly want to master health by understanding how the body really works, make sure you subscribe, hit that bell and turn on all the notifications. so you never miss a life-saving video.