 How much alcohol is perfectly okay? You know if you've heard my show you've heard seen me on YouTube and Instagram. I haven't drunk since 2010 Not that I drank a lot beforehand, but I just quit for health reasons feel a million dollars because I haven't drunk But people are always asking me, you know, how much alcohol is okay Can I just have the occasional drink is it alright if I go out and get blind drunk on the weekend? And I'll still be alright everyone's always looking for like how much can I have it's like don't take my beer away from me Don't take my wine away from me so today we're gonna look at it from a Medical point of view if you like a physical nutrition point of view How does alcohol actually affect your health? How much is okay? Can we just have one or two drinks or is that? awful terrible And if it isn't how much can we have and what happens to the body when we drink alcohol and to help us figure that out I've brought in a Fellow by the name of Ben Kuma who is a performance nutritionist and educator He's the host of Ben Kuma radio in iTunes. He's a British lad. He's over just outside of London right now Ben how are you mate? Great to great to speak to you. Hello, mate. Thank you for welcoming me on to the show Yeah, great to have you now you and I are both We're fellow ruggers aren't we for the for the uninitiated that means rugby players I've played rugby for 20 years in Australia or played for Chiswick rugby club over in London and then played for Los Angeles Rugby club club for a couple years and you play rugby at the moment, right Ben? I do yeah currently still playing I'm still in I've still got all my limbs intact. So as long as they're intact, I'll chase the egg Who do you play for and what position do you play? May I just play for my local team? We're kind of Eastern counties, which is Just below the London leagues before national. So we're like basically eight leagues from the top professional rugby I play number nine. So I'm the I'm the gobbie one that runs around telling everyone what to do And being between the backs and the forwards may I love, you know, it's my kind of Social and physical outlet and you'll understand that you know the team environment the community It gives me focus in the gym as well, you know, I've got a reason to be in the gym rather than just looking good naked So, you know, I think sports an incredible thing and rugby. Yeah, it just gives me that buzz. Yeah Now one thing that people associate rugby with obviously is the camaraderie and the post-match drink Or the post-match drinking session Certainly when I played rugby in Australia England and in the USA You know, it was almost like at the end of the game your shower You've gone into battle you feel amazing afterwards or you know, you might be a bit injured or sore But you know, the endorphins are coming through and so what happens afterwards You go straight to the pub and then you drink lots and lots of beer And a lot of the times the MVP the most valuable player will have to chug Pitcher of beer or a pint of beer and there's some beer games and things in many clubs not all of them but in many and So that kind of drink drinking a lot of beer and camaraderie is very much associated with the sport Do you find that as well in your local pub team and have you over the years and and how much beer or alcohol Do you drink in in general? Sure, I mean in our club when I was younger so what I'm 29 now now when I was younger I played with them before went to university. There was a lot more of a drinking culture and Purely because the people in the club were younger they wanted to play the game They wanted to go out afterwards all going to town as a team and stuff and you know pick up chicks and do whatever And that that was the culture and the kind of team is all gradually aged and there's a lot less younger people So there's a lot more like all know I'm driving or I've got to go to me nann's birthday party Or I've got to go and do this there is less but you know the culture is still there And I think the big part of it is is the social aspect and I know there's this kind of counter argument of like We don't need to drink to be social and you don't but Ultimately there is nothing wrong with having a pint of beer or two as long as you know It's not affecting other things and you know, I'll finish the game I'll quite often have a protein shake because I don't I don't have an appetite after the game I don't really like whole food. I'll eat later. I'll have a protein shake And then I'll go to the bar and I'll have a pint with all my friends You know will share stories about the game wins about what part of our limbs are falling off as a result of battle and You know, I think this is kind, you know, this leads into me summarizing I suppose my view on alcohol is that we know it's a toxin to the body We know it has negative side effects. We know it affects people in different ways We know it could be a crutch for some people in terms of making them feel good Lowering their inhibitions all sorts of stuff now if people consume alcohol For the wrong reasons to to kind of get something that their life is not provided And then that's the first negative because the way that we think our psychology our mindset is paramount to our Optimal health the way we view our body and the actions that we take every day And then secondly to that as long as we can manage the health component of it now Yes, it's a toxin so if you consume too much There'll be a negative side effect at a point and that'll be different in certain people life I have two or three drinks and fine anything more than three drinks and I'm gonna pay for it in some way Bit tired feel quite dehydrated in the morning, you know, a couple of things. I'm just not a hundred percent So I never really go over that barrier unless I've made a conscious decision to say, you know, I'm going for a night out You know, I'm going out my friends, you know, and that happens like every three or four months And to me it doesn't bother me because it happens so if infrequently But you know, I I manage the effects of the alcohol and largely in terms of someone being interested in body composition I'll also manage the caloric impact of that So if I want three pints of beer and I'm drinking, you know, high in the can for example I know that there's two hundred eighty calories in a pint and that's got quite a caloric Damage to my daily intake and that's something I'm aware of so I kind of a cat account for it and I make it part of, you know, my daily calorie intake and Yeah, that's yeah, that's kind of how I sum up alcohol Yeah, well, I am the creator of the 30 day no alcohol challenge And I encourage people to just to quit for 30 days just to see and feel the immense health benefits that that people get from it But I never say people should quit drinking forever I mean, I've taken a pretty what is considered to many a radical stance, which is I just stopped drinking I just haven't drunk in five and a half years And I feel amazing because of it I'm sure I could go and have a few beers and a couple of wines and I'd be perfectly okay My life wouldn't change that much But the 30 day no alcohol challenge is really to just knock people out of this routine where they've got the habit of drinking Two three drinks a night or a drink here binge drinking on the weekends and going past those three days So I'm never saying quit drinking and alcohols the devil and never drink again It's more like just take a slowly but surely routine pretty much what you just described the occasional drink here He's absolutely fine But what I really want to figure out now is how does alcohol actually? Affect our health when we actually take in a drink whether it's a beer or a wine or a liquor And we put these toxins into our body What is actually going on in our body when when we when we consume that then from a from a sort of a from a health Point of view what's going on? Sure Before I actually answer that I just want to pick up on the point you made about your challenge and the kind of the kind of rationale Because I'm a massive believer in making people Or showing people how good they can feel and that that's basically what you're doing your program's going Let's take all this away because I believe you'll get more energy your sleep better God your sex drive will probably improve like loads of stuff and I love that That's why I try and get people to eat a whole food really good diet as possible for a really good stretch of time to show them When they eat a bad food Well, it's not let's not put it bad because we don't want to label foods in that manner But when we eat a food that might have a negative physiological effect and effects in some way just like alcohol I want you to see how that makes you feel and I call it the spectrum of health So people Oscillate between feeling alright and feeling a bit pants every day and you want to increase that spectrum of health where they start feeling Really good every day. So when they go back to that feeling of you know pretty pants. They're like, oh my that's how I used to feel I Used to feel like that nearly every day and that's kind of for me the realization for people of how powerful nutrition and lifestyle intervention is So your question How does alcohol, you know What happens when we consume it now I'm not an alcohol expert, you know, I will preface this So, you know alcohol comes into the body. It's processed by the liver now When we consume alcohol the toxins will slow down the rate at which everything else happens in the body So it now it now creates basically a toxic burden on the body for a period of time So that's why the severity of what we do In terms of the amount of drinks we have we'll usually lead to a worse and worse hangover because your body is still going man I've still got to get through all this stuff. I've got this like, you know The garbage can which is toxins is overflowing. So I've got to get through this now I use an example in myself. I know if I have three drinks, it's absolutely fine By the time my body's reached seven o'clock the next morning all those toxins have gone I'm not really dehydrated now as soon as I start having four or five My headache might get worse my tiredness might get worse Seven eight nine. I'm going to start feeling a bit queasy because your body is having to deal with all this stuff on top of All the other stuff it's having to do through your diet Now if your diet is not very good doesn't have a lot of nutrition antioxidants Factors that can help flush tops into the liver. You're going to struggle even more You know, and that's when people's hangover might be, you know Two days three days because their body's efficiency to process the toxins won't be as good, right? In actual fact the National Institute of Health over here in the US says it takes Up to seven days for the body to remove the toxins from alcohol Which is pretty extraordinary Essentially what they're saying is is that you have a beer or a glass of wine or liquor Those toxins are staying in your system for seven days afterwards now You might might not even feel the effect of that But there are still remnants of that drink floating around your system for those days So if you're wanting to work and be at a live in an optimum level Even if you have a drink a week ago, you're still probably just cleaning out some of the toxins in there, okay? so I Always look at it like this. I always just say plain and plain and simple alcohol is a poison plain and simple It's it's a poison now. It can give you this temporary pleasure Okay, gives you this illusion if you like of a temporary high But you are gonna pay for that you're gonna pay for that afterwards and like you said Ben It slows down the rate of everything else in the body like you said it creates a toxic burden on the body for a period of time So that's going to affect the way that your metabolism works your ability to be able to burn fat It's just gonna make you lethargic And again the occasional drink here and there no big deal really But if you're doing that with regularity things start to get a little bit different, right Ben? definitely and it is You know, it's the consistency to a good lifestyle that leads to even more ongoing improvements And it's the same with alcohol and in you know negative habits that we if we consistently do that it creeps up on us We're not gonna get into that really good positive catch 22 cycle with we're feeling good every day You know, it would be very easy for you to start having you know one or two drinks once or twice a week And then that lifestyle habit might change to two or three times a week three or four times a week because you're not seeing any Effects and because that change would be so gradual you'll never really see the full Ramifications till you have a bit of a rain check one day and go actually no, I'm operating at 90% now I'm not I'm not really feeling this So I think anything when it comes to anything negative that we have in our diet because And this is where the the kind of ambiguity comes with kind of we'll call it bad stuff We'll call it alcohol Processed food toxins on our air toxins in the shower gel all this kind of stuff It's very hard to draw a line where this stuff actually has a negative effect Like all the deodorants that we're using at what point is that level that we spray all that stuff on our skin we're gonna have a negative effect and it's kind of that unknown and that's why I think you would agree with me and that Everyone always has to listen to their body You have to listen to the messages coming out the back end and that if something is honestly having even a slightly negative effect You know that your body is going to be under stress. Yeah now at that point in time That stress might not be a problem When more and more stress comes into the tank because stress accumulates in the same way That bathtub in the taps are running which is stress is going to overflow Because your body is at a point where it's you know It's not it's not in a state to kind of fight it and I used to say with overtraining I think overtraining in the fitness industry is a big problem Especially I teach an awful lot of personal trainers and I know that personal trainers are training all the time Running around working all the time and not looking after their health now That's fine If you're just pulling through every day and you're just on the edge of like overtraining all the time But you get one or two night bad sleep something happens in your work environment You have an emotional upset and plan you're in a place where it's going to take you so much longer to recover because you're always on the edge Yeah, being that hyper stress state and it you know It's the same with alcohol our alcohol can put the body in a place where it's it's always struggling to keep on top of things And that's why I think that the best feedback to all we have is just Honestly listening to our body and all the kind of symptoms and daily fluctuations it has yeah, absolutely I mean if you're waking up tired and lethargic and you're having a restless night Then maybe it's just the glass of alcohol you have the night before I always say this people don't understand people go I've got sleep problems. I've got sleep apnea. Oh, there must be something wrong I'm really stressed at the moment and they don't realize that it's actually in many cases The nightly glass of wine before they go to sleep because here's the thing alcohol may actually help you go to sleep quicker Like you drink it. I'll let you go to sleep, but it doesn't it doesn't you don't get into that good REM sleep You should be nap. There's a cycle to the way that you fall asleep There's a cycle to the way that you sleep 90 minutes after being asleep There's a cycle to the way that you're sleeping an hour and a half before you wake up And so that drink may indeed knock you out and like make you go to sleep But you're not it's not the way that you're supposed to sleep And so you might still get seven or eight hours But when you wake up because you've gone to sleep the wrong way you're feeling tired and lethargic and a little bit irritable So I always try to point out like all it takes is just one simple glass of wine or one beer Each night that little habit can literally be having a huge effect on everything to do with your life Your sleep pattern you wake up tired you grumpy irritable that affects your relationships You're not as productive that affects how much money you make you're not as happy that affects the people who come into your life Because happy people attract other happy people if you're unhappy you will attract unhappy people and then so it's this whole big spin-off effect Now having said all that I don't want to be bashing on alcohol completely, right? I am bashing on the habit of drinking alcohol, but the occasional drink is is okay, so For the listener or all the viewer who wants to have the occasional drink Let's figure out what is okay, and what is not okay What drinks have the most calories and are the worst for you then and which drinks have the least You know the least the detrimental effects for you and just before you answer that just a reminder We're talking to Ben Kummer You can find him at Ben Kummer comm b e n c o o m b e r You can follow him on Twitter at at Ben Kummer. He's a nutritionist and educator And he's got the UK's number one health and fitness podcast on iTunes So make sure you check him out at the Ben Kummer radio or at Ben Kummer radio. I should say so Ben What what's what has the least amount of calories in alcohol? What has the has the worst? So any time a drink has a higher alcohol volume it has more calories So if you can pair volume, let's say a pint of beer to liquor If even if you've only had 20 if you've had 25 mils of liquor Then that is going to be less calories than a pint of beer But volume wise if you had a pint of liquor then there's tons more calories in that So for example, you might have a gin and slimline tonic and it might only have about 80 calories Which is a drink for most people now if you have a pint of cider Which is again a drink for most people it can be up to 300 calories because cider is so high in sugar Because of the way it's processed the fermentation, etc. Um, so kind of like You know Yeah beer and cider basically the most calorific There are some lower calorie beers that Heineken is very low calorie Sorry high calorie Budweiser is about half the calories of Heineken. It's a lot lower So I think in terms of like what's okay. I think people obviously want to be aware of the calories Like it's very rare. I drink cider purely because I know how calorie calorific it is and that steals food from my diet And I like food So I tend to go for like a kind of a mid-range beer or I have like a gin and tonic gin and slimline tonic Or absolutely love wine and and wine's kind of in the middle You know smaller glass of wine you're looking at Sort of 150 calories and then it'll just increase with this the size of the bottle basically Yeah, well, here's the thing if you have a large glass of wine a Pinot Grigio, there's about 225 calories in there. That's the same number of calories you get from like a ring donor from a chocolate donor if you buy So I like to use this analogy But I when people go out on a Friday night at the end of work and they have five six drinks they're essentially putting about a thousand calories into them at least a thousand calories and that is the equivalent of say four or five donuts or Three or four slices of pizza and when you use that analogy and you try to have people Understand that then they're like, oh my god. So every time we're going out on a Friday night I'm essentially eating a pack of Krispy Kreme donuts or a box of Krispy Kreme donuts or half a pizza Now most people when they have four or five drinks They have half the pizza with the drinks or they're more likely to have the kebab on the way home If you're in London, there's all those like Turkish kebab stores outside of underground outside of underground stations People are always eating those things at the last minute So so know that again if you have the occasional beer the occasional Heineken the occasional glass of wine 150 300 calories here or there no big deal but when you start getting up to three or four glasses Then you're starting to put in like boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts into you And if you can just remember that Maybe that'll prevent you from you know going overboard each each time, right Ben Definitely, and I think that off the back end of that if you have one two possibly three drinks I don't think it would lead to too much Effect in terms of blood sugar level But as soon as you start to have too many drinks or too many drinks that are sugary If if if that if if you haven't eaten for a while Then you're going to become hyperglycemic very quickly because the amount of sugar in it So that's when you walk out of the bar and go oh my god I'm absolutely starving because your blood sugar level is so low from the drinking and that's when people make bad choices Because when we're really hungry, what is your body crave? Croce sugar? It's just a natural response It's not it's not you not having a lack of willpower anything the body is naturally designed to eat something little very quickly digest Into energy and that's quite often sugar or something that's very calorie dense So that's when you know the alcohol could be a big problem Is that we have a couple and it makes us want to go and eat all the stuff that we don't really or shouldn't eat Yeah, it's not necessarily the alcohol that you're drinking that's causing you The the caloric problem. It's the crap food that you eat Because you've had the two or three drinks, right? The blood sugar sugar levels are low now you want to eat now It's easier to grab the Snickers bar from the gas station now It's easy to grab the packet Doritos or the cheetahs or whatever or the girl Let's just get a quick slice of pizza, especially if you're in New York City There's pizza places all around the place. Everyone's walking. It's a walking city It's easy to just you know fall out of a pub or a bar and just go I'll just grab a quick slice of pizza. That's the rule the problem lies From a caloric point of view tequila as I understand it has actually got the least number of calories in it is the cleanest So were you aware of that bin? Well, yeah, it is I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't get really excited about it If you start to compare it to whiskey, you know gin that kind of stuff is it's not that different You know, if it's a 40% ABV then it's going to be very similar to another 40% ABV alcohol Which is like vodka for example So it's you know, it's not going to be much different. I know that The paleo community got really excited over this for a while and everyone was recommending drinking tequila, lime and soda Because it meant you could sort of have more So to speak so yeah, but I you know, I think we're looking at very small margins there Okay, what what food should we be eating before a drinking session? Let's say someone knows they're gonna go out. They're gonna have at least a few drinks. What foods should they be eating and when? To try and limit the the pain or suffering they're gonna feel or just you know to keep this the sugar levels in check Now if someone if someone wants to feel drunk then You know, and that's why some people drink simple as then not eating a huge amount is gonna mean that you're gonna spend less money Now if you're someone that wants a couple of drinks and doesn't really want to feel the ill effects Or doesn't want to have to or doesn't want the feelings where they're gonna eat bad food afterwards Then I would say you want something very fibrous something that's going to fill you up You definitely want a protein source in there You definitely want a couple of very fibrous vegetables and then in terms of carbohydrate and fat intake I think you need something that kind of works for you. So when I teach diet and nutrition I teach people to eat kind of a macronutrient balance that makes them feel good So we don't want fluctuations in energy. So I want something very Fibrous protein good protein contents is going to fill people up then that way. Hopefully we are blood sugar levels keep nice and stable Throughout that kind of couple of drinks now if anything you might want to air on the side of it being slightly lower Carb because you're gonna have a load of carbs in the alcohol So if you had a high carb meal and then loads of carbs in the alcohol again That might have a bigger effect on your blood glucose levels and lead to more more kind of negative effects So I think kind of a protein veggie low low ish carb approach before you eat would be solid Okay, so when you're talking protein, it can be something like chicken breast piece of steak fish Is that what you're referring to? Yeah, 100% and if anything you you might want to air on the side of a lower calorie meat like chicken turkey fish Because you might want to be trying to offset the calories that you're gonna drink from the alcohol Okay, you start having steak sweet potatoes Cooking coconut oil and this kind of stuff then you might really struggle to kind of you know keep your calories within check Okay, and when you say fibrous vegetables What's the difference between fibrous vegetables and vegetables or how do you how do you separate that? What do you mean? Yeah, so there's some vegetables that have a greater fiber content than others But same with fruits like for example If a fruit or a vegetable tends to have a tougher a rougher texture And less fluid in it in terms of fluid when you eat it in the mouth It tends to have more fiber. So for example an orange is something that's really juicy Doesn't really have much kind of cellular structure doesn't really have much fiber and he has about 1.5 grams I think per orange now a mango when you eat a mango There's all this stringy stuff in it or this fibrous material that you almost have to chew through despite it being juicy That's an indication. There's got a lot more fiber So there are loads of tables on the internet that people can download You know type into Google fiber in vegetables and you'll just see per hundred grams all these fibrous vegetables And just try and pick, you know vegetables that have a good fiber content because you know We all need that we all know that we need to eat a lot of fiber to be healthy It's good for the gastrointestinal tract So to focus on these kind of vegetables in that diet would be a good thing anyway Okay, so before you're going drinking protein vegetables are talking about chicken turkey fish and Fibrous vegetables even if you're not going drinking you should be eating this stuff anyway What about post session people wake up with a hangover in the morning? They've got a headache the dehydrated a lot of people especially when I lived in the UK It was like let's go for a greasy breakfast, you know, let's go get bacon eggs toast baked beans You know the greasy breakfast will cure the hangover other people like to drink Gatorade Or Powerade or any of that kind of stuff Some people go for pancakes I got a famous pancake place here called the griddle cafe here on Sunset Boulevard near where I live And that's there's always got a line out the at the side of that You know 50 yards up the street on Sunset Boulevard every Saturday and Sunday morning of people They're ready to go and smash a whole big or you can eat pancakes with whipped cream and What's the maple syrup and sugar and all this kind of stuff So what's what's the worst thing we can eat to cure a hangover and what should we be eating to cure a hangover I Don't think there's a perfect answer There is nothing that you're gonna eat that's gonna cure your hangover as simple as that the body's got to be given time to Reduce those toxins and flush them out of the liver the big thing your body's gonna want when it's hung over It is fluids and fluids with electrolytes in it and maybe a little bit of sugar So drinking you know very mineral rich water is gonna help you can put a little bit of honey in that as well You could drink something like coconut water or maple water, which I know is starting to come into the market That is gonna help rehydrate the cells faster help the liver flush out toxins But you know again when you come to breakfast and this is the same way you got a hangover or not You should be in a breakfast that makes you feel good that makes you energize The worst thing you want to do when you're hung over is eat a meal That kind of looks like a good idea on the surface because it's gonna give you that momentary satisfaction Like you know you want the fry up you want the pancakes whatever if that's gonna make you feel even worse even more tired Your hangover is just gonna suck even more so hydration and just a meal that makes you feel good As I understand it when you're hung over it you're actually your body is inflamed And so any kind of anti-inflammatory food I Loads to say this but pill like ibuprofen can also help you so fish oil even just taking a few extra fish oil Pills which reduces inflammation can certainly help and then I've been tied told ibuprofen or any kind of anti-inflammatory Can also help with a hangover is that your understanding Ben That is true to a degree. I personally wouldn't recommend an ibuprofen I don't think it's something that people should take unless it's really necessary I think there you'd be a lot better off taking co-cumin which has very similar and Pretty much identical effects to ibuprofen in a way in terms of the effect on the inflammatory pathways in the body Like co-cumin is incredible I've not heard of co-cumin before is that like turmeric is that was that the same thing? Yeah, turmeric. Yeah, so it's the active compound in turmeric So getting some of that into your breakfast would be amazing Like, you know, we're now talking about kind of almost aid in the body in this kind of inflammatory state You know something like a smoothie in the morning might be really good So a little bit of protein powder some frozen berries some spinach You know, you might get a co-cumin or tumeric capsule. So you didn't have to put curry powder in your your smoothie You know get some coconut water in there That would be incredible Credibly hydrating and it would give you loads of antioxidants to start helping the body mop up or the rubbish is in the bloodstream Is co-cumin something that you would only take when you're in that inflamed state or can you actually add that into your daily diet? No, you can add it into a daily diet I recommend it for a huge amount of people especially people that play a lot of sport or go to the gym Because we're constantly in an inflamed state to a degree, but it doesn't have a Adaptation blocking effect. So for example Antioxidants that are in high doses around training. So if I took do you have baroccas over there like those vitamin C tablets? Yeah, I'm not sure they sell them over here. I know the ones you're talking to a talking Physi Yeah, they're born they're called airborne over here. That's the big brand It's called airborne you pop the pill you stick it in the water and it dissolves and sparkles. Yeah So that's high dose vitamin C now taking that around the training window would blunt the adaptational effects especially with cardio based activities. So You know, I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend any of this stuff around training, but co-cumin doesn't seem to have that response So, yeah, again, I never recommend anything high dose antioxidant wise around a workout But you know in the diet, it just seems to be positive Hmm. Oh, I might try that actually. I mean I have a I work out in my mornings I know you work out in the evenings. Don't you post 4 p.m. But I like to work out in in the morning And so I'll work out in a fasted state Usually and when I come back, I'll make in my Vitamix spinach kale Chia seeds grass-fed butter coconut oil Obviously water and ice and then I'll throw a macaroon to a few other little things there to magnesium magnesium pill I'm couple vitamin D. I'll just throw throw that in to mix it up there, but if I added Announcing it right here curcumin if I if I added curcumin post workout, is that gonna be beneficial to me then? I'm not gonna say yes or no the reason why is I haven't looked at curcumin in the literature around the workout window Now it does affect the inflammatory far pathways and the inflammatory pathways you want to be active post workout to allow Electation so in theory, I would say no I would say it'd be better off taking it later on in the day Just in case there is a mechanism, but I think to ease your mind I would try and look at the data Maybe you have a look at examine.com or something to see what the data is saying Okay, it has quite a potent effect on inflammatory pathways That's why they're now done a lot of research in people with gut issues osteoarthritis and joint conditions blood-based conditions with curcumin with you know nice positive results Why is Gatorade or Powerade or any of those kind of sports drinks? Why is that? Bad for a hangover or just in in general Because it's going to play around with your blood sugar levels a lot So, you know, it's raw sugar raw sugar is not I wouldn't say it's bad per se Sugar is the component that gets broken down from carbohydrates. We can't label sugar as bad per se Now if we're taking a Gatorade, we're taking in an awful lot of energy that has no Positive nutritional value. It's just pure sugar Now when you're hungover the sugars will help a little bit Because your blood sugar level will be very low But if you have a lot of that you're going to become hyperglycemic very quickly So that's why I would only ever recommend to me like Gatorade when you're doing intensive training or for a long duration Because it has a role and you know, they make these drinks for a reason But the reason isn't to walk around sitting on the couch driving the car or where you fancy a sweet drink to have 250 calories in a sweet sports drink. They're designed to be for during intensive training. So I Think it's going to lead someone to have not very good energy All right, orange juice. What's wrong with orange juice? Well calorie and sugar wise It's basically the same as a Gatorade a Gatorade side-by-side is going to have the same amount calories as orange juice Most fruit juices and tend to have around 10 grams of sugar per 100 mils So if you pick up a five on half a half a liter bottle, that's a lot of calories from just pure sugar It's extraordinary, isn't it? Like when you learn this stuff as I have in the last sort of few years It's it's actually everything you think you know is wrong Like this idea that you should drink power aid and Gatorade to reduce your hangover is wrong because you're just putting more sugar Into your body this idea that you should go and have a greasy breakfast and have a big glass of orange juice You're just putting sugar in your body this idea that if you're sick or drink lots of orange juice You know it's got lots of vitamin C to make you feel better. It's a nonsense You're just putting a whole bunch of sugar in your body Like you're actually making yourself worse by by drinking this stuff and when you learn this you just you just go How the hell did our culture and our society ever? Convinces that this stuff was good in the first place. There are brilliant marketers out there who've just made it so part of the Human psyche almost that you should have a glass of you know dairy milk With your cereal in the morning and a nice glass of orange juice. I mean the traditional American breakfast now, which is like Cow's milk cereal and a glass of orange juice which you see all these smiling kids in the TV commercials having fun The mum's giving them the food You just look at that and you just go that is the worst possible shit. You could be feeding your children Would you do that Ben? Definitely definitely and I think it's sad like I've actually got a post planned on Facebook in the fact that I Got often eat peppers just like an apple and I always get the strangest looks You know, oh my god, you're eating a pepper like that and I'm like at what point did our society? Yeah, get get to a level where it's something that I pick off a plant this natural is weird compared to if I picked up a chocolate bar That's completely normal. Yeah, that's we've been brainwashed by big pharma by companies that have a lot of money to make us think like that And it is sad and you know It's kind of painful in a way working in our industry because Common sense is very uncommon Let me read the label of this box and I wonder if it's beneficial for my child one if it's appropriate You know, you pick up lucky charms like what's in it apart from the added four or five vitamins that they've put in it It's beneficial to a child's health zero I mean, I mean I was in Whole Foods, which is seemingly one of the healthiest stores in the US here yesterday This is the Whole Foods on Santa Monica Boulevard a corner of Santa Monica and Fairfax in West Hollywood And it's extraordinary you go into that store and you look at the packaging and you look at the things And there's all the labels saying low fat yogurt and you go well, that's not good for you because it's full of sugar Anyway, and it should be high fat You've got low fat milk Well, if you're gonna drink milk drink almond milk like don't drink dairy in first place then you've got You know full of the cereal full of nutrients and vitamin C and vitamin B and all this complex carbohydrates and all this kind of crap And you're just like this is just the biggest scam in history It's like this these fancy words to try and trick you into believing that what you are eating or drinking is healthy and most of the time it is Complete garbage and is having an adverse effect on your health. How do we how do we prevent ourselves? I mean the education is obviously the key here right then but to the person who's going into the store going shopping How does this person, you know, it's it's you versus the supermarket. How do you beat the supermarket when you walk into the supermarket? Well, if you're a general consumer, I think You know, it's tough because we're competing with people that have so much more power than us and influence and clever tactics and stuff But I just think so much of us need to exercise more common sense The way you walk around the supermarket and you you you buy for your health is look at a product and go Is there health-giving properties to this product? Did it once live? Did it once grow? Did it once swim? Was it, you know farmed and harvested or was it made in a lab? Has it had 20 ingredients added to it? Has it had stuff added to it to make or flavor it to the product? It originally was before it was grown on a tree and stuff and I think if we can start to exercise this level of you know common sense I think people would be far better off, but you know in change if you want to change something You've got actively and consciously focus on that element of change when people walked around the supermarket They're just on autopilot. They walk down this aisle. They grab that they walk down this aisle the child shouts Hey mum grab that they just grab it and they pay and they leave whereas people don't often go to the supermarket and go right You know, I'm looking for healthy nutritious food. What do I need to get? I need to buy some proteins Right, let's go down the aisle like and until you engage in that and start to exercise common sense You're never really going to get anywhere. You're not looking and accepting that change Well to get common sense it all starts with education. So You make sure you listen to Ben kuma radio in itunes, obviously if you Followed my podcast the James swanik show or you follow me on YouTube at James swanik You'll see I do a lot of stuff on this some health and nutrition have had a lot of health experts on the show As well it all starts with education. Just open your eyes Please open your eyes understand that and understand that a lot of the fancy terminology that these companies are putting on there like low fat healthy You know, you know FDA approved all this kind of nonsense. It's just a lot of the time. It's still crap for you It's still awful for you. So just make sure you keep listening keep following people like Ben Other experts and educate yourself because it will it will change your life So just to summarize what we're talking about here on alcohol Ben and then we'll wrap this up Obviously when you drink alcohol toxins slow down the rate of everything else in the body It does create a toxic burden on the body for a period of time But as Ben says it's okay if you're gonna have the occasional drink you're gonna have a couple drinks It's fine. It's no big deal But when you start to use it as a crutch the social occasions you start to use it as a habit Long-term you're just putting poison and toxins into your body Which are gonna slow you down from a caloric point of view. Obviously if you're drinking straight liquor like a Like a tequila or vodka that's obviously gonna be a little bit better for you Then if you're drinking pints of beer and cider which can have 300 calories in them and a lot of sugar If you are gonna go for beer Budweiser's got half the calories is Heineken Obviously, but again, just look at the label you that's one thing you can determine like they are very stringent and very Strict on saying how many calories in each beer. Just look at it go for a light beer. Maybe in terms of food You eat before drinking Ben suggests to eat lots of protein to keep your blood sugar levels stable things like chicken turkey fish and then fibrous vegetables things like or fruits as well talking about Then use the example of mango there, which is you're quite fibrous And then if you've got a hangover and you dehydrated lots of fluids, okay coconut water Maple water, maybe a bit of I'm gonna get the pronunciation on again curcumin curcumin You can have a smoothie protein powder spinach berries coconut water Please avoid the Gatorade and the Powerade. Please avoid the greasy breakfast Please avoid the the the the the orange juice because all you're doing is just putting more sugar into you And you're gonna have another insulin spike and you're gonna feel like crap after that as well Does that pretty much cover it Ben? All right, all right, well Ben Kuma, thank you so much Make sure you check out Ben Kuma Ben Kuma radio The podcast in iTunes check him out at Ben Kuma.com Make sure you send him a tweet at Ben Kuma right now and just let him know what you've got out of this I'm sure he will he will retweet that Ben, I enjoyed talking to you very much sir Yeah, likewise. Yeah guys if you want to engage just get on Twitter Tweet me a James. Tell us what you thought of the show It's nice to get engagement from people after the show their opinions Maybe maybe even tell us what you're gonna change as a result of today Like put your hand up and go, do you know what that really hit home? I'm gonna I'm gonna go away and I'm gonna think about this stuff And it's good to think that these things don't fall on deaf ears Yeah So just tweet out one thing that you learned today and just put me in there at James Swannick and at Ben Kuma And we'll we'll answer and respond and retweet Ben. Thank you very much sir from one rugger to another Across the pond. Thanks very much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you and to the viewer and the listener I will catch you on the next one