Tom Denham

Here is the relevant rule: Fruit juice as a sweetener. Some products or recipes will include fruit as a sweetener, which is fine for the purposes of the Whole30. (We have to draw the line somewhere.)If you drink the juice, you are not using it as a sweetener. You would be violating the Whole30 rules. Don't do it.

Let me elaborate.. a syrup made from dates is not acceptable during a Whole30 and a crappy idea at any time because sweetening your food with such a product erodes health. It does not make anything better. Making a puree with dates in order to sweeten your food is maybe 10 percent more acceptable than using a date syrup. You know where 10 percent better leaves you? Ninety percent away from where you belong if you want to be healthy. The person behind the dessert recipes thinks eating a frozen date helped her during her Whole30. This is not true. Feeding a sugar craving keeps the craving healthy and strong. The Whole30 approach to sugar cravings is to starve them unmercifully until they die. There is no room to negotiate with a sugar craving. They are cunning and powerful. Trying to placate a craving with just a little something has ended many Whole30s prematurely. Don't listen to the soft crowd. Listen to the old timers. Go cold turkey regarding sweetness. Let me explain where it really is okay to use something to sweeten your food... when you are making pickles. Here is a good recipe for making quick, refrigerator pickles... Submerge your sliced cucumbers in a mixture of half apple cider vinegar and half apple juice plus spices like salt, garlic, peppercorns, etc and let soak for 12-24 hours. Making pickles is an acceptable time to use a sweetener during a Whole30. Seriously.

I have loose stools or diarrhea a lot. Sometimes I go weeks with solid stools, but sometimes I spend a lot of time with looseness. I have come to accept it as a normal part of life. If I have real diarrhea, I try to remember to take OTC meds and one dose usually tightens things up. I probably take meds less than once per month. I should probably take something a little more often, but I forget. This is really different from when I ate 3-4 bowls of Fiber One cereal with soy milk per day. I am much, much healthier nowadays than I was back then, but my bowels behave differently on veggies and fruits.

Jennie-O sells 7 different turkey burgers. Several of them are Whole30-compliant, but not all of them. For example, the Savory Seasoned Turkey Burger has sugar as an ingredient. You MUST check the package of each turkey burger and not just accept that Jennie-O in general is okay.

Yes.

Amber is right. We have refined our comments about kombucha over time. At first, I would not buy any GT Dave's product that listed more than 2 grams of sugar in the macronutrient report section, but the issue is added sugar, not the sugar from the original fruit ingredients. I still avoid the higher sugar drinks because I don't like them as much. I recommend avoiding the drinks like Guava Goddess because the sweetness may embolden sugar dragons, but they are officially acceptable.

Losing all interest in food for days at a time is not normal at all.

The ideal post workout food is probably chicken breast and baked sweet potato. I prefer the convenience of canned fish, so I use sardines or tuna packed in water. Sardines and tuna are not as lean as chicken breast, but still lean enough to digest fast, at least the ones packed in water. I prefer the taste of fish packed in oil, but I take stuff packed in water for my post-workout meals. The recommendation for a pre-workout meal is protein and fat. Probably the ideal pre-workout food is a boiled egg or two. I skip the pre-workout meal a lot, but one boiled egg or a small handful of nuts are what I eat.

Your pre-workout routine sounds okay. The big question is what you eat after working out. The purpose of the post-workout meal is to help you recover as quickly as possible. Your body is especially ready to eat after a hard workout and what it wants is protein. This meal needs to be eaten within 15-30 minutes of the workout ending because the muscles are especially open to food at that time. This meal needs to include lean protein. Lean because fat slows digestion and you need this protein to get to your muscles quickly. Protein because that is what the muscles want. Starchy carbs are an optional part of post-workout meals. If you need to revive your energy stores, eating a starchy carb like sweet potato helps. If weight loss is more important to you than energy, you can skip the carbs in the post workout meal. If you complete a workout and then drive home and prepare a meal so that you are eating 45-60 minutes after your workout, your muscles have closed their "special window of openness" by the time you eat. Similarly, if you eat a meal within 15-30 minutes that includes a lot of fat as comes with whole eggs or avocados, your digestion is slowed and your muscles are not fed in a timely fashion. Your recovery suffers when this happens. I personally thought the idea of a post-workout meal was silly when I first heard Dallas and Melissa say we should eat them. I ignored the recommendation for at least a year until I was at a nutrition seminar and they explained why it was important in a way that made sense to me. I started eating a post-workout meal and noticed that I experienced less muscle soreness over the course of a week of workouts. Eating lean protein immediately after a workout really made a noticeable difference for me. I don't bother with a post-workout meal after a yoga class or a slow 5 mile run, but if I hit the gym to do a kettlebell or barbell routine, I eat a can of tuna packed in water as soon as I finish. I used to eat sardines, but the owner of the gym told me I could not eat sardines inside the building. I often drive home from the gym after eating a can of tuna, prepare a meal, and then eat again within about an hour. Adding more food with fat after a post-workout meal is okay as long as the lean protein has a good head start on the next meal.

I doubt it. Most deli meats fail to measure up to the real, whole food criteria of a Whole30. The Boars Head website does not share ingredient lists online and that is a red flag to me. They do say, "For additional nutritional information, please call our customer service department at 1-800-352-6277."

You can eat the Clausen's but there are better choices available. Bubbies Kosher Dills are made with Cucumbers Artesian Well Water Garlic Salt Dill Spices

I don't worry about "natural flavor." When I am in a restaurant, I like to put French's yellow mustard on grilled chicken. I use something else at home, but like to smear yellow mustard on pork chops near the end of cooking.

There is some controversy about whether yeast extract is a "natural" form of MSG or not. MSG is one of the big things we recommend avoiding. I don't know which way to go on the controversy, but would avoid products containing it just to be safe.

You can plug alcohol in to the schedule similar to any other food with the exception that you probably don't want to have a shot of whiskey at breakfast, a glass of scotch at lunch, and a glass of wine with dinner unless your lifestyle is friendly to drinking all day. Actually, a few servings of your favorite drink should give you an idea of how your body responds. I was impressed with how much more detailed the reintroduction advice was in It Starts With Food than anything Dallas and Melissa had written before. Now I hear you guys asking for more details. Some of that is developing though our discussions here on the forum. I am kind of saying you may need to reintroduce for several days in order to have enough servings of a food to get a reaction if you are going to have one. And then I think you need several days of clean eating before testing a new food to let your body get back to baseline. If you crowd tests too closely together, you won't get as good an idea of how strongly something is affecting you.

Your gut flora adjusts to whatever you eat habitually. When you change your habits, your gut flora must adjust too, but those changes tend to be slow. Your digestion is probably disturbed right now because your gut flora is still good for your old diet, but has not grown in the proper ways to digest your new diet. That's why you need digestive enzymes and maybe probiotics. Many people can adjust without taking supplements, but for those who adjust slowly, the sensible thing to do is supplement. Many people no longer need supplements after their bodies have had enough time to adjust.

According to Wikipedia, "Yeast extract is the common name for various forms of processed yeast products made by extracting the cell contents (removing the cell walls); they are used as food additives or flavorings, or as nutrients for bacterial culture media. They are often used to create savory flavors and umami taste sensations, and can be found in a large variety of packaged food including frozen meals, crackers, junk food, gravy, stock and more... Yeast extract contains an amount of naturally occurring Glutamic Acid or Monosodium Glutamate." To read the entire article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast_extract Many believe that food companies use yeast extract to hide the presence of MSG in foods from consumers. Here is a clear statement of the issue: http://www.naturalnews.com/001528_dangerous_ingredients_yeast_extract.html You should avoid yeast extract during a Whole30 to avoid even small amounts of MSG.

Back when I made meat loaf in my pre-paleo days, I added shredded carrots to the meat instead of bread crumbs and used salsa instead of ketchup. I just thought salsa was better than ketchup. Still do.

I suspect your body remains in an adjustment phase. There is a good article at http://www.everydayhealth.com/digestive-health/foods-that-cause-excessive-gas.aspx about excessive gas. You might be having problems with the broccoli, cauliflower, bananas, and apples. Personally, I eat a similar diet, although with much more variety, and I rarely produce much gas. Your body can adapt to a new diet and get better at digesting the foods you eat. It just takes time.

I've only found the Bubbies at Whole Foods. Over in the dairy case.

Regarding the pickles... The Whole30 rules only list 3 additives/preservatives to avoid - carageenan, MSG or sulfites. That means the Clausen's are not ruled out, although better pickles exist. Until cucumbers came into season and I began making my own, I was buying Bubbies brand pickles and sauerkraut. They're really good. The problem with the V8 is not so much the ingredients as that it is processed and a juice. During your Whole30, we want you to adjust to eating whole foods. And we do not encourage drinking your meals or snacks. Note: I wrote this before the boss posted her note saying the V8 was okay, but my opinion remains the same... V8 is not a good choice.