Pro metabolic foods and fast metabolism snacks are the only ways you can actually increase your metabolism. Certain exercises can lower your metabolism but only food can increase it.

I had a question on Instagram recently – “why are you trying to eat so much fruit?”

This was in response to one of my snack pictures and caption explaining how I am trying to eat six cups of fruit a day.

Of course this flies in the face of current recommendations, which prefer vegetables over fruit – I think everyone know the five veges and two fruit rule offered by the Australian Government Dietary Guidelines.

The Ray Peat way of eating offers the following benefits of ripe fruits:-

– awesome balance of carbs, protein and fats

(when I looked into it further I had no idea that fruit actually had fat and protein, I thought it was all sugar as we’ve been told)

– easily digestible

– full of easily accessible nutrients

– softer soluble fibre (if the skins are removed)

– full of hydrating water

– less anti-nutrients

– metabolism stimulating

Before it’s ripe, fruit has negative compounds in it that prevent insects and birds eating it, however once ripened, all of these disappear. (Of course always choose good quality fruit, organic if possible, is always preferred.)

Leafy Green and other Vegetables on the other hand have:-

– indigestible cellulose – which may cause gut issues and bacterial overgrowth

– phytates – blocking mineral absorption

– lignans – cause gastrointestinal distress

– lectins – which damage the gastro intestinal lining and cause inflammation

– oxalates – which cause kidney stones

– pufas – causing thyroid and carbohydrate digestion issues

– goitrogens – disrupting the production of the thyroid hormone eg: cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli

So while vegetables do have some nutrients, they also have some of these anti-nutrients in them which cause all kinds of issues, as well as block many of the nutrients anyway. Often the amount of nutrients in the vegetables are so small, that you have to eat a lot to get any where near the RDA – like a cow chewing all day, except for the fact that we don’t have the four stomachs to handle all that cellulose. And it just means you are getting lots of the anti-nutrients too.

So veges really should be super well cooked and relegated to a little bit of decoration on the plate, rather than the whole meal or snack being based around vegetables only.

(The exception to this is fruit-like veges such as zucchini, cucumber, tomato, peppers and root veges like carrots, pumpkin & potato which have the least anti-nutrients like fruit.)

So this is why I’m getting into more fruit lately and here are some Peaty fast metabolism snacks  to keep you going…

Fast Metabolism Snacks

1. Grapes, nectarine & Camembert cheese
2. Raw carrot salad, with fresh lemon juice & Himalayan rock salt
3. Two medjool dates & a glass of organic skim milk
4. Half a cup each of blueberries, rice puffs, organic skim milk with a squirt of honey and shake of Himalayan rock salt
5. Sliced nectarine & pear with fruit dip made from ¼ cup cottage cheese, dash of skim milk, shake of salt and 1 TBS honey
6. Fried egg with mushroom, tomato and a glass of OJ with ¼ tsp bicarb soda
7. Cottage cheesy, olive dip with, apple slices, capsicum & carrot sticks
8. Cherries, kiwi fruit, and orange with a few cubes of feta cheese
9. Applesauce with cottage cheese cream
10. Fruit smoothie – any left over fruit you have in the house, with some coconut water – optional extras – hydrolysed gelatin, honey, skim milk and cottage cheese!

Note: make sure you get olives in brine and not sunflower oil.

Tell me your favourite fast metabolism snacks, so I can add to the list.

Happy, healthy snacking.

Kristy x

note: For more complete meal recipes, grab a copy of the Zen Beach Diet and have your breakfast, lunch and dinner sorted.