It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

So, no question/request too big or small 😎

❝I want to learn more about macros. Can you cover that topic?❞

That’s a little broader than we usually go for, given the amount of space we have, but let’s give it a go!

Macronutrients, or “macros”, are the nutrients that we typically measure in grams rather than milligrams or micrograms, and are:

• Carbohydrates
  • …and what kinds, of which usually the focus is on how much is sugars as opposed to more complex carbs that take longer to break down. See also: Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?
  • …and of the sugars, the interested may further categorize them into sucrose, fructose, etc. See also: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
• Proteins
  • …of which, the amino acid make-up is generally considered a matter of micronutrients. See also: Protein: How Much Do We Need, Really?
• Fats
  • …and what kinds, i.e. monounsaturated vs polyunsaturated vs saturated. See also: Saturated Fat: What’s The Truth?
  • …and then the interested may further categorize them for their fatty acids / triglycerides profile, etc. See also: What Omega-3 Fatty Acids Really Do For Us
• Fiber
  • …which often gets ignored by people counting macros, as “stuff that doesn’t do anything”, despite it in fact being very important for health. See also: Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)
• Water
  • …which again tends to get disregarded but is very arguably a critical macronutrient. See also: Busting The Myth of “Eight Glasses Of Water A Day”

In terms of how much we need of each, you can read more in the above-linked articles, but:

• General scientific consensus is we need plenty of fiber (30 or 40g per day is good) and water (highly dependent on climate and activity), and there’s a clear minimum requisite for protein (usually put at around 1g of protein per day per 1kg of body weight).
• There is vigorous debate in the general health community about what the best ratio of carbs to fat is.

The reality is that humans are quite an adaptable species, and while we absolutely do need at least some of both (carbohydrates and fats), we can play around with the ratios quite a bit, provided we don’t get too extreme about it.

While some influence is social and often centered around weight loss (see for example keto which seeks to minimize carbs, and volumetrics, which seeks maximise volume-to-calorie ratio, which de facto tends to minimize fats), some of what drives us to lean one way or the other will be genetics, too—dependent on what our ancestors ate more or less of.

Writer’s example: my ancestors could not grow much grain (or crops in general) where they were, so they got more energy from such foods as whale and seal fat (with protein coming more from reindeer). Now, biology is not destiny, and I personally enjoy a vegan diet, but my genes are probably why I am driven to get most of my daily calories from fat (of which, a lot of fatty nuts (don’t tell almonds, but I prefer walnuts and cashews) and healthy oils such as olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oil).

However! About that adaptability. Provided we make changes slowly, we can usually adjust our diet to whatever we want it to be, including whether we get our energy more from carbs or fats. The reason we need to make changes slowly is because our gut needs time to adjust. For example, if your vegan writer here were to eat her ancestrally-favored foods now, I’d be very ill, because my gut microbiome has no idea what to do with animal products anymore, no matter what genes I have. In contrast, if an enthusiastic enjoyer of a meat-heavy diet were to switch to my fiber-rich diet overnight, they’d be very ill.

So: follow your natural inclinations, make any desired changes slowly, and if in doubt, it’s hard to go wrong with enjoying carbs and fats in moderation.

Learn more: Intuitive Eating Might Not Be What You Think

Take care!

Q&A with the 10almonds Team

Q: Very interested in this article on CBD oil in the states. hope you do another one in the future with more studies done on people and more information on what’s new as far as CBD oil goes

A: We’re glad you enjoyed it! We’ll be sure to revisit CBD in the future—partly because it was a very popular article, and partly because, as noted, there is a lot going on there, research-wise!

And yes, we prefer human studies rather than mouse/rat studies where possible, too, and try to include those where we find them. In some cases, non-human animal studies allow us to know things that we can’t know from human studies… because a research institution’s ethics board will greenlight things for mice that it’d never* greenlight for humans.

Especially: things that for non-human animals are considered “introduction of external stressors” while the same things done to humans would be unequivocally called “torture”.

Animal testing in general is of course a moral quagmire, precisely because of the suffering it causes for animals, while the research results (hopefully) can be brought to bear to reduce to suffering of humans. We’re a health and productivity newsletter, not a philosophical publication, but all this to say: we’re mindful of such too.

And yes, we agree, when studies are available on humans, they’re always going to be better than the same study done on mice and rats.

As a topical aside, did you know there’s a monument to laboratory mice and all they’ve (however unintentionally) done for us?

❝The quirky statue depicts an anthropomorphic mouse as an elderly woman, complete with glasses balanced atop its nose. Emerging from two knitting needles in its hands is the recognizable double-helix of a strand of DNA.❞

~ Smithsonian Magazine

See The Statue For Yourself Here!