Last week I linked to an article on The Huffington Post that was pretty negative regarding agave nectar and presented a bunch of info to back a claim on how it is worse for you than high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

Well, Andy over at Small Bites has another opinion on the matter. And honestly, his opinions have been ones I’ve come to respect and trust… and he really does back up what he talks about.

Since I started Small Bites, I have always said that, as far as I am concerned, “sugar is sugar is sugar”.  All sweeteners offer 4 grams of sugar (16 calories) per teaspoon.  The best thing you can do is limit all added sugars — whether it’s white sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup, honey, or agave.

That said, I don’t see the need to demonize agave, which brings us to this post.

Honestly, I was hesitant to present the original article because I do have reservations about The Huffington Post in general… but it seemed a worthy enough article that I figured I would move past my own prejudice and share it. Do I regret doing so? No, not really, but I think you are doing yourself a grave disservice if you don’t also read Andy’s article as well.

You Ask, I Answer: Agave Is The New Enemy? [Small Bites]

I’ve mentioned the site Small Bites before – Andy over there is a working on becoming a Registered Dietician and has a background in journalism. His straight forward approach to the various food and nutrition items he writes have been on my “must read” list for a few months now.

Well, a couple weeks back on another forum, somebody posted how nobody, not even “normal stomach” people should drink while eating as it washes the food out of their stomach…  I was skeptical (see my video on why when it comes to WLS types, Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink and Eat).

I figured I would pose the question to Andy, asking if there was any merit to the drinking/eating thing for non-WLS types. Here’s an excerpt of his response back…

None whatsoever.  This is why armchair nutritionists on online message boards should rarely be trusted.

I’m not trying to dis the person that posted this… honestly, I can’t remember which forum I originally read this to even go back now and bring it up again… I’m just hoping to clear the air here.

Andy also sent me his response by email, and included a bit about his own background,

…my nutrition curriculum included anatomy & physiology, biochemistry (general and advanced) as well as organic chemistry, so we definitely got into the nitty gritty of the human body! I certainly feel comfortable commenting on the physical aspect of your question.

And in his posted response, here is where he explains the physical differences here;

A regular stomach not only acts as a large reservoir of now-liquified broken down food (it can hold roughly 1.5 to 2 quarts!), but also transports that into the small intestine in a controlled fashion thanks to a powerful, ring-shaped muscle known as the pyloric sphincter.

Bariatric surgery results in the pyloric sphincter being bypassed during digestion, hence the possible complications.

As a pouched typed post-op, we’re familiar with dumping, but in this case someone with a defective phyloric sphincter can have the dumping he describes in his posting, and this would be the rare case where a non pouched person would want to avoid drinking while eating as they would likely experience the effects of dumping many of us are all too familiar with.

So go check out the full response as well as his other topics. Andy posts a lot but as the title implies, they are in Small Bites, so it’s a lot of great info in a quick reading format.

While I would much rather you spent all of your free time reading what I have to offer here at formerfatdudes.com, I can’t keep up with writing enough stuff to keep you properly entertained and informed. Especially when I spend a good chunk of my time reading other sites myself.

Sites like Small Bites.

Small Bites is kept up by Andy Bellatti who working on becoming a Registered Dietitian and also has a degree in journalism. His mission for the site is summed up as follows…

Andy Bellatti’s Small Bites blog aims to deliver information on a variety of nutrition topics in a straightforward fashion free of hype, magic bullets, and quackery.

In these times of information overload and self-appointed gurus who lack basic nutrition science concepts, Small Bites delivers precise and scientifically sound advice to help you achieve your health goals.

A couple of articles he put up recently really caught my eye and I thought I’d share them…

A lot of post-ops use flax seed for things like the infamous “Muffing in a Minute” and other cooking as a way to get some baked goods while minimizing their flour intake. I also use flax seed meal as an egg substitute in some of the baking I’ve done. One of the big deals people make about flax seed is the whole omega-3 fatty acids thing… which I know nothing about, but which Andy actually explains pretty well.

Bottom line is that there are three types of these omega-3 things, and we need them all. Flax seed is great for one of them, not the best source of the other two, so you either need to keep some fish in your diet or use supplements to round things out.

And in case you needed yet another reason to look in to WLS, or incentive to keep the weight off that you’ve lost, here he talks a bit about about the Numbers Game and how excess weight has been shown to be the MAIN factor in over 70% of all cases of heart disease and over 50% of strokes.

Both of these posts are good examples of the straight forward, no-nonsense style in which Andy presents some great information on a wide range of nutrition and health related topics.