Day 22, past the half-way point! I started Macadamia Nut oil today. It REALLY adds a roasted macadamia nut flavor to the shake. The one I’m drinking now, the flavor is completely overpowered by the oil. I like macadamia nuts but I’m guessing that by the end of this week of doing the oil, I’m not going to want to eat the nuts for a few months, which is a shame. Got my blood tested today, sometime on Wednesday or so I’ll have those results and add them to the spreadsheet.
Let’s talk about Magnesium. Keto Chow 0.9 up to 1.5 used an off-the-shelf Magnesium/Calcium Citrate+D3 powder. Starting with version 1.9 and up through 2.0.2, we’ve been having magnesium citrate mixed in with the vitamin/mineral mix. Magnesium citrate has good bioavailability but has a downfall: in high doses (higher than you get doing Keto Chow 3x a day), it acts as a laxative. People who are sensitive to this effect, or are already on the edge of having “bowel issues” can have problems with the citrate. To fight that, we are switching from citrate to magnesium malate in Keto Chow 2.1. On top of that, I’m increasing the amount of magnesium. Keto Chow 1.9 had 693.3mg a day, 2.0 has 736mg a day, and 2.1 is slated to have 806mg a day. Essentially it’s 2.0 plus the amount of magnesium I was getting in the magnesium malate pills I took before bed. Yes, it’s entirely for my own personal benefit so I don’t have to take an extra pill at night =)
So why Malate? Well, the most common form of magnesium supplements is magnesium oxide. By weight, magnesium oxide is 60% magnesium which means you add 1000mg to your product and you can legitimately claim on the label that it contains 600mg of magnesium. It’s also exceedingly cheap. And… it sucks. Only about 4% of its elemental magnesium is absorbed from magnesium oxide. Let’s take the 736mg of magnesium a day in Keto Chow 2.0 – 4% of that would only be 29.4mg that your body would be able to actually absorb. The citrate version we currently use and the malate version of the future both are readily bioavailable and nearly completely absorbed. If you see a “health” product that uses magnesium oxide, put it down and run away because they plainly don’t care about your health and only want to make the label look good.
