Chia Seeds, Quinoa, Flax Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds... 13 Seeds On Keto - Snacks (Fats, Carbs & Omega)🌻🌱

best 13 seeds on keto there's chia seed and flaxseed and pumpkin seed

that are enormous ly popular as Kido snacks but how good are they really for

keto and for health there's also a seed called quinoa that's very popular but

how good is that for Kido so today we're gonna answer all those

questions and more coming right up hey I'm dr. Ekberg I'm a holistic doctor and

a former Olympic decathlete and if you want to truly master health by

understanding how the body really works make sure you subscribe and hit that

notification bell so that you don't miss anything most people start low carb and

ketogenic lifestyles to reduce insulin and insulin resistance and to lose

weight and in doing that they can often reduce inflammation and reverse a lot of

other health conditions but if you eat the wrong kind of fat then you could

actually promote inflammation and offset some of the benefits that you otherwise

get from the ketogenic and low carb lifestyle so let's look at why that is

so I'll get into the ranking of the seeds in a moment but before I do that I

want to explain some of the basics and I urge you to stay with me on that and pay

really close attention because if you don't understand the basics of why the

different fats do what they do then you won't understand why I'm

ranking the seeds the way that I do and how much you can eat of each one and so

forth so let's dig into that there are two essential fatty acids in the body

it's an omega-3 called alpha linolenic acid and an omega-6 called linoleic acid

and both of them are necessary both are good but what's bad is when they get out

of balance when one starts to dominate and the best balance is a one to one

ratio and you can go as far as one to four and still stay in balance the

problem is most modern diets are about a 1 to 25 so

the Omega sixes are vastly dominant they're pushing the omega-3s way out of

balance and why does that matter because these essential fatty acids it's not

really what the body is looking for it needs them to turn into other things

that the body needs so this one can become arachidonic acid the omega-6 is

in the arachidonic acid pathway which can turn into prostaglandin 2 which is

pro-inflammatory and again we don't like too much inflammation but some

inflammation is necessary it's part of the healing process and at certain times

the body needs to do that but it doesn't need 25 times as much as the other

pathway the other pathway is the omega-3 and there the body can turn that into EP

a and eventually into DHA the epa turns into prostaglandins 3 which is a neutral

prostaglandin so it's not really anti-inflammatory but it is

anti-inflammatory in the sense that it balances the pro-inflammatory pathway

and then the DHA that is the thing that the body is ultimately looking for as a

building block because your brain and your nervous system is mostly fat and

the most important component of that fat is DHA it is the dominant building block

of your nervous system and if you don't have enough then the body has to

compromise the nervous system will compromise and put other fatty acids in

but it won't work quite as well so signaling quality will be compromised as

a result so a lot of plant proponents and a lot of vegans they think that they

can just eat any kind of plant omega-3 and the body will convert it into the

DHA that it needs and that's theoretically possible

but in reality it really doesn't work very well because less than 5% of the

ala gets converted into EPA and less than 0.5% gets converted into DHA so

even though you don't need a whole lot of DHA you would have to eat enormous

amounts even if you drank half a cup of flax oil per day you would probably just

barely make enough DHA and drinking that amount of flax oil is probably not

something that you want to keep up so the ratios in the diet still matter and

it's still important to get some plant omega-3s but not necessarily so you can

turn them into DHA but because these two pathways compete with each other there's

an enzyme that's the name is not important but Delta 6d saturates for

those who really need to know and the more omega sixes that you have in the

diet the more those omega sixes are going to suck up that enzyme and going

to dominate that pathway so if you have 25 times as much Omega 6s then there's

going to be 25 times as much of that enzyme allocated to this pathway versus

that one so the conversion is going to be terrible but if you eat more of the

plant omega-3s even if you don't convert a whole lot at

least you will limit the amount of the enzyme that goes into the

pro-inflammatory pathway so there's two reasons that you're looking to increase

your omega-3s one is that you can potentially turn some of it into DHA but

not much of that is going to happen the other reason is that if you increase the

omega-3s you will at least compete and reduce the omega-6 pro-inflammatory

pathway so when it comes to fat balance to balance these things out there's two

things that you're looking for one is to increase the DHA for brain food and the

only really powerful reliable way to do that is to eat fish and to take

fish oil then you can eat grass-fed beef and dairy and butter but it doesn't

really contain enough DHA to give a substantial boost to the amount it does

help a little bit and these animal products contain the finished version

the DHA what it does do is it's sort of neutral because you can eat the meat and

at least you're not adding a bunch of omega sixes you can also increase your

flax oil your your seed intake of the seeds that are very high in omega threes

and we'll talk about those and again they're sort of neutral in their benefit

they're not going to add a lot of DHA but they will be the they allow you to

eat a fat that doesn't contribute with omega sixes and they will compete a

little bit with this pathway and hold it back so those are all good things to do

but the only really substantial way is to eat fish and take fish oil

supplements the other thing you're looking for is to reduce the

inflammation and now the most powerful way is to reduce the total amount of

omega sixes and in doing that there's two things you're looking for is you

want to reduce your consumption of vegetable oil and those are the seed

oils it's everything that they use in commercial cooking so when you go out to

eat you can be sure that they're using these omega-6 vegetable oils because

they are so inexpensive you can also reduce your consumption of grain-fed

meat because when you feed the cow grass it ends up about a 1 to 1 ratio so

that's where it's neutral but if you feed it grain now it's gonna have a lot

of those omega sixes and now you're shifting the pathway over in this

direction again I know that was a little technical I hope that you could follow

because it's going to be so important now that we start looking

the different kinds of seeds and why we want to use more or less of them number

13 on the list is quinoa and it's not cuz it's a super terrible food but from

a keto from a low carb perspective it has 57 grams of net carbs so a lot of

people think of it as a grain and they use it as a grain so in that sense it's

better than most grains because it has a lot of protein and it is gluten-free but

on a keto diet you really can't eat quinoa because it's so starchy number 12

is pomegranate seed and again it's a very very nutritious food it's very

healthy but and a lot of people don't think of it as a seed even though it has

that name because it's really more of a fruit nutritionally speaking and on a

keto diet then it doesn't have hardly any fat but it has 15 grams of

carbohydrates and it's almost all sugar so you could have a couple tablespoons

maybe it's sort of like a berry if you keep it really limited because it's very

nutritious but you cannot eat a whole lot of it on a keto diet fat wise it

hardly has any fat at all so it's not gonna affect your Omega 6s or

inflammation or anything like that number 11 is safflower seed and that's

one of the most popular ones to make oil from cheap cooking oil it has 38 percent

fat so again all these numbers are out of a hundred grams of food which is

about three and a half ounces so all the numbers are in percentages of the amount

the weight of that food so safflower is 38 percent fat but thirty-four percent

net carbs it's a very very starchy it has almost zero

omega-3s and it has 28 percent Omega 6s so you can't eat a whole lot of

safflower before you start adding up the carbs and

you start adding up the omega 6's and pushing that inflammatory number number

10 is watermelon seed a lot of people like to eat those seeds and they are

quite nutritious but it has 47 percent fat 15 percent net carbs but it has 30

percent Omega 6s so again it's it's quite a bit of fat but most of it is

omega 6's which is the pro-inflammatory so let's just talk a little bit about

how much omega sixes are you looking for well there's not like an exact number

because it's going to depend on how much omega threes you get in your diet that's

going to offset the balance but you probably want to keep the total

consumption of omega-6 fats somewhere under 20 or maybe even 15 grams a day so

when you look at something that has 30 or 28 grams of Omega 6s that means if

you ate 50 grams if you just had two ounces of those you already maxed out

your allowance of Omega 6s for that day number nine is poppy seed it's a very

tasty little seed that you can use sort of as a spice you're probably not going

to eat any huge quantities of it so carb wise you're not really in any danger if

you have a teaspoon as part of something the Omega 6s will add up pretty quickly

though at 28% number eight sunflower seeds so 52% fat pretty low on the net

carbs 11 grams but it has 23 grams of Omega 6s 23% Omega 6s so sunflower seeds

is one of those things that once you get going you can probably eat quite a lot

so the Omega sixes and the inflammation is going to add up pretty quick

number seven is sesame seeds and even if people don't sit and crunch a whole lot

on sesame seeds it's very popular in Middle Eastern cuisine something called

tahini and in moderation again it's not bad but it has 12 grams of carbs which

isn't gonna be adding up too much but again if you're trying to stay under 20

grams of omega sixes then even even an ounce is going to give you like 7 or 8

grams so again realize that these numbers you're gonna have to fit them in

to your daily budget just like you fit the carbohydrates in a ketogenic diet so

it counts everything that you eat all sources for that day so everything to

this point I've done in red which means that I pretty much recommend you stay

away from it some of it you could do from a keto

perspective some of it you could do from a omega-6 perspective but overall I

really wouldn't suggest you eat a lot of these you could have a little bit here

and there and the same holds true for some other seeds that I've found in my

research like fennel seed and mustard seed and cumin seed and fenugreek seed

etc even if they run a little bit high on net carbs then you're not going to

consume they're more like spices so you're not gonna consume a lot of them

so feel free to use those you would probably never eat more than a teaspoon

of any of those at one time but now we're at number six so now we're getting

into the more recommended range so number six is hemp seed and this one is

kind of a big maybe because a lot of people love hemp seed it's one of those

highly promoted superfoods and I've used some of it in in smoothies but I'm

starting to think twice about this because it's promoted as having more

omega-3s and more Omega 6s like more of the essential fats than any other of

these seeds which is true when you add them up there's a lot it's 35 grams and

it even looks like a pretty good ratio they promote this and they say oh look

it's like a two to two and a half to one ratio between omega-3 and omega-6 so

that would fit right into the one to four ratio but here's the problem if you

put a couple of ounces of that in your smoothie now you already have 15 grams

of omega sixes this omega-3 the 10 grams 10% of omega-3s can compete a little bit

but it can't undo the weight the the substance the the mass of omega-6 that

gets into the system so what's more important even than the ratio is the

total amount of omega sixes because the omega sixes are pro-inflammatory and

there's really no amount of omega-3s that can completely offset that the

other thing to realize is that both of these essential fatty acids are they're

necessary in small amounts but in very large amounts they become highly

reactive their poly unsaturated so they react very easily with oxygen under heat

and light so you're risking increasing your your oxidation your oxidative

damage in the body by using either of these they're fantastic and small

amounts but you don't want to just eat a ton of Omega 6s and then try to eat a

ton of Omega 3s to compensate it's really not a good idea you want to try

to keep the Omega 6s down get some high-quality Omega 3s into balance but

don't try to eat a ton of either one number five was a new one to me when I

looked into this and on paper it looks like the superfood and there's lots of

articles describing it as these superfood and it's called I think Sacha

Inchi someone called it Inka peanuts or

something like that and on paper it looks fantastic 50% fat

percent net carbs because all the carbs are fiber in this puppy and it has 24%

omega-3s it's the highest vegetable source of omega-3s on the planet and it

has 18 grams 18% of omega sixes so the ratio looks sensational and again by the

same reasoning that we just went through it still provides too much Omega 6s and

you can't just undo the effect of Omega 6s by adding a bunch of Omega 3s so have

some but have it in in moderation and don't think of it as a superfood number

four now we're getting into the pretty good ones and pumpkin seed has 49

percent fat it's very low in net carbs it has virtually no Omega 3s and 8 grams

of Omega 6s so again it's it's a very very nice snack it has lots of nutrients

and you could eat a lot a good bit like if you had 3 and a half ounces worth you

be at 8 grams for the days if you had half of that you'd be at 4 grams you

could probably fit a handful of pumpkin seeds into your budget and still stay at

it in a really good place inflammation wise but again it's very

easy to overdo and you want to keep it in mind so it's not like you can eat as

much as you want right but it's kind of recommended but not one of the top super

three that we're gonna go to next number three is cocoa nibs so what's that

well the cocoa bean that you make chocolate out of when you put it in cut

into pieces and you dry it that becomes cocoa nibs and some people use that as

candy I think it needs a little bit of sweetness it's sort of bitter it's like

taste pretty much like a hundred percent chocolate it's essentially what it is

but they still has some fiber and protein in it

but it's great to use for smoothies if you want like the whole thing if you're

gonna add some chocolate flavor to your smoothie and you want to hold the most

unspoiled chocolate you can find then cocoa nibs are going to be a great

source for that forty three percent fat net carbs are very low virtually no

omega-3s but only one point two percent Omega 6s most of the fat is saturated

which is a great fat it's stable it doesn't react it's neutral alright so

you probably can't eat a lot of cocoa nibs they they're bitter it's sort of

like you probably use a half an ounce or so in a smoothie but feel free to use

that it's gonna add lots of nutrients and it's not going to add hardly any

Omega 6s at the top of the list I'm gonna unveil number one and two at the

same time because they're sort of a tie for me it is number ones flax seed

number two is chia seed and different people are gonna have their their

favorite but let me tell you why I like the way I do and like I said I just had

to pick one but they're pretty much equal they are both high in fat they're

extremely low in net carbs you really can't eat enough of them to make a

difference in your carb intake the Omega threes are very high so again even

though you're not necessarily gonna make DHA out of them they will displace a lot

of the omega sixes you will eat a good fat that is not part of the Omega six

pathway and the Omega 6s are only six percent so the flaxseed has like a four

to one ratio and the Chia has a three to one ratio so some considerations about

this though is that the Omega threes are extremely sensitive they will go rancid

in a heartbeat that's why all the flax seed oil that they sell is in the fridge

in dark bottles under vacuum and the moment that you open the oil they only

last for a few weeks all right so you want to be very careful with these

they're protected by their shell but once you break the shell they go rancid

in a heartbeat so what I do anytime I use these I either use the whole thing

and I put it in a smoothie and break it right then and there or I grind them up

ahead of time and I store them in the freezer so that way they keep for

several months both of them are also fantastic sources of fiber so if you're

looking for good fiber both for gut motility and to feed the bacteria then

both of these are our awesome sources they're also containing what's called a

a gelatinous fiber so they can thicken things a lot of people like to put

tablespoon or two into water and just have it gel and then you can sort of eat

or drink that and all the fiber is sort of soaking up the water so that can be

quite filling but it also gives you a lot of nutrients so you could have a

snack that way flaxseed is a little more stubborn I don't know that you can

really soak it and and have it break the shell therefore with flax realize that

if you just swallow the seed it's pretty much a waste it's gonna go straight

through you unaffected so you have to break this the shell of the seed first

you could chew it if you have a lot of patience I wouldn't recommend it it

takes forever I would suggest you put it in a blender

or you grind it some other way right before you're gonna use it so recently

did a video on nuts on keto and I had a similar format but I also shared the

omega-3 to omega-6 ratio and I didn't do that here because I realized it was a

little confusing because it's not the ratio that matters as much as keeping

the total amount of omega-6 is down and I

hadn't really thought that through so if you go watch that video if I done it

again I would probably move walnuts down a good bit because they're very high in

omega sixes so even though the ratio looks good it's not that great it's sort

of like hemp seed or such a in Chi it probably would end up down in here

somewhere if you liked this video then you're

gonna love that one thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the

next video