The specification of The Croissant Diet is a living document. I plan to update it regularly as we learn.

The central tenet of the croissant diet is that a primary regulator of whole body energy flux is the ratio of saturated to unsaturated fat. The secondary tenet is that starch is a great delivery vehicle for saturated fat.

Corollary: It’s the PUFA, stupid. Probably also the MUFA. Replacing PUFA and MUFA with SFA can go a long way towards fixing one’s metabolism.

For the science behind the diet check out my series The ROS Theory Of Obesity.

My primary inspirations for The Croissant Diet were the protons thread at the blog Hyperlipid, where Peter has worked out the mechanism of action whereby saturated fat causes fat loss, Valerie Reeves thesis where she made mice very thin by feeding them a mixed diet high in stearic acid, my education at the French Culinary Institute and my studies of the traditional diets of dairy cultures in France, the US and Asia.

Rules And Thoughts

There are really only three hard and fast rules to the diet:

The diet is a high fat diet, just like croissants. The fats used should be very high in long chain saturated fat. The fat should be combined with a source of starch such as potatoes, white flour, pasta, masa flour, white rice or degermed corn meal. I’ll bet you didn’t know that when whole wheat is turned into white flour most of the highly unsaturated oil is removed from the grain? The French know a thing or two about food and they prefer white flour. The same thing is true of white rice, masa flour and degermed corn meal. Feel free to use any starch of your choosing.

Some other thoughts about the diet:

To get the maximum benefit I used the stearic acid enhanced butter oil – stearic acid is just a long chain saturated fat that is present in nearly every food. Is this necessary or would regular butter suffice? It probably depends on the individual, how much stored PUFA you have in your fat cells and your level of SCD1, among other things. If you were brought up in France 50 years ago you probably wouldn’t need the extra stearic acid but in America you have to compensate for decades of poor dietary advice and stored PUFA. Compared to the keto diet and the carnivore diet, The Croissant Diet has a mass appeal, it is easy and ingredients are available and cheap. Consider the mashed potato recipe at the end of this page. Peel, cube and boil potatoes, add a lot of butter and mash them. That’s it! It’s delicious and buttery and satisfying in a comfort food way. You don’t have to search out hard to find and expensive almond flour or pay up for grassfed ribeye. And everybody likes it. You are allowed to drink alcohol on it. In fact, I would argue that however much alcohol you drink now, you should continue to drink that much. Alcohol affects ROS production in the cell which affects redox balance which affects insulin signalling. If you change your drinking habits at the start of the diet you’re changing multiple variables and it makes it harder to tell if the diet is working for you. Can you have sugar on the Croissant Diet? Well, I’m not a huge fan of sugar but then I’m not a huge fan of white flour either. I can say that the French do and did. Probably a little is fine. I ate ice cream several times on the diet. Sugar increases your level of SCD1, which leads to your fat becoming unsaturated, which is counter to the point of the diet, so definitely keep it to a minimum. You could, of course, follow another diet such as keto while using the information about fat ratios found in The Croissant Diet to see if that helps your keto diet. But then there wouldn’t be anything terribly croissant-y about your diet so you’d have to find another name Eating at restaurants is very hard on The Croissant Diet. Everything in restaurants has vegetable oil in it. Eggs and pancakes? Fried in vegetable oil. Veggies? Sauteed in vegetable oil. Anything fried? In vegetable oil. Blue cheese dressing? Vegetable oil. Vegetable oil is croissant diet cryptonite. Even burgers at a restuarant, a fairly Croissant-y food, are often served with mayo or ranch dressing or some other vegetable oil based sauce. It’s best to stick to steak, baked potato and cheeseburgers with no mayo or other sauce. If you eat salad you should use a cream based dressing! Recipes to follow. Intermittent fasting is allowed and encouraged on the diet. I often did it on the diet just because I wasn’t hungry. But I’ve had other friends who dabbled with a stearic acid enhanced diet and became ravenous. Stearic acid ups your metabolism. It is very difficult to find low PUFA pork, chicken and eggs, unfortunately. Even if the animals are pastured/organic. I’m working on solutions to this so check back in. I still eat a lot of egg yolks for the other nutrition they contain – choline, B vitamins, vitamins D and K2, etc. We are in the process of making the stearic acid butter available for purchase. Unfortunately this is an expensive and somewhat timely proposition. If you help out with a pre-order, you will be the first in line once the product ships. We have sourced excellent quality butteroil – pastured and grassfed – that should be high in vitamin A and K2 and a decent source of vitamins D and E. We are getting close to being able to make the first run. We anticipate first product delivery in January.

Fat Ratios

All fats are a blend. If the mitochondria in your fat cells are metabolizing (oxidizing) a blend of fat that is sufficiently high in long chain saturated fats and low enough in unsaturated fats, enough free radicals will be formed to shut down insulin signalling in the fat cell. Insulin flips a switch in the fat cells that turns off fat burning mode and turns on fat storing mode. If insulin signalling is blocked, the fat cell stays in fat burning mode and energy (fat) will be lost from fat cells.

The croissant diet is a high fat diet that combines highly saturated fat with starch to produce weight loss. There are a lot of misconceptions about the relative saturation levels of various types of fat. All fats are blends of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. To do The Croissant Diet, you must seek out only the most saturated fat (SFA) sources, use minimal monounsaturated fat (MUFA) and avoid pulyunsaturated fat (PUFA) like the plague.

The following table shows the ratios of long chain saturated fats to unsaturated fats in a variety of foods. As you can see, butter has a significantly higher ratio than most other fats that are thought of as being high in saturated fat. This is true of all dairy fat, not just butter. Cream and cheese also have high ratios.

But something like lard (and therefore bacon), which is thought of as a huge source of saturated fat is actually not that saturated. Classic american corn finished lard has a MUCH lower ratio than does butter. Beef fat also has a lower ratio but still higher than lard. As you can see the fat ratio in lard depends VERY much on the genetics and diet of the pig. Trends in recent years have led to less saturated lard (pork fat). Unfortunately this trend often extends to the organic and pastured markets as well.

Chickens are what you feed them and in the US they are routinely fed soybean oil, which makes them grow faster. Again, this is unfortunately true of the organic and pastured chicken as well. This same problem unfortunately extends to egg yolks, one of the most otherwise nutritious foods in the world. Chicken today and pork from pigs fed dry distillers grains from the ethanol-for-fuel industry (ie the majority of pork produced), can have as much polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) as canola oil but with a SIGNIFICANTLY worse Omega 6 to Omega 3 ration that is often more than 20:1.

Ratio Stearic Acid Coconut Oil 2.83 2.5% Stearic Acid Enhanced Butter Oil 2.53 27% Wild Elk Backfat 1.86 23% Cocoa Butter 1.53 33% Butter 1.47 10% Beef Tallow (USDA) 1.00 19% Beef fat from a Ribeye Steak 0.80 13% Lard (From a pig I raised, wheat finished) 0.73 ?? Corn Finished Lard 0.59 13% Lard fed 16% Distiller’s Grains 0.32 8% Chicken Fat 0.34 5% Peanut Oil 0.15 2% Olive Oil 0.13 2% Corn Oil 0.09 2% Hazelnuts 0.08 2% Almonds 0.08 2% Sunflower Oil 0.07 4% Walnuts 0.06 2%

To do The Croissant Diet, I would recommend using fats with a ratio of Long Chain Saturated Fats to Unsaturated fats of 0.73 or higher. Most European pigs would have been finished on barley and therefore their fat would have been relatively low in PUFA compared to American pork. Low PUFA lard would have been the highest PUFA staple fat of the traditional French diet. But the majority of the fat (two thirds) should come from something as saturated as butter fat, as it would have been in all traditional dairying cultures (France, the US, Asia).

Why do I recommend butter as the basis of the diet and not something even more saturated than that, such as cocoa butter, wild elk backfat or Cocoa Butter? The obvious reason is that butter is what you make croissants out of! But more importantly, butter has a lot of advantages as a dietary staple over the others. Butter provides a lot of fat soluble vitamins. It is an excellent source of vitamin A and vitamin K2. It is a decent source of vitamin E and is a source of vitamin D. The other fats high on the list have very little of these. Also, butter tastes better, but here’s the thing about that: the characteristic flavor of butter is provided by butyrate, a saturated fat that is only 4 carbons long. In addition to tasting good, butyrate is known to be beneficial to your intestinal flora. None of the other fats are a significant source of butyrate. Lastly, I live in dairy country (obviously some of you reading this won’t be from dairy country) and from my perspective I’d prefer to use a local fat rather than one imported from the tropics.

Coconut oil is an interesting topic in and of itself. It’s the most highly saturated of all of the fats but it’s mostly made of medium chain length fats. Some of these fats, in particular the 8 carbon length ones, are metabolized differently and its a little unclear to me how that would effect the croissant diet. My guess is it would work fine. Coconut oil is also VERY low in stearic acid – only 2.5%. There is a lot of literature out there suggested that stearic acid in particular is beneficial compared to other saturated fats. Do I believe that literature? Not really, but I can say the stearic acid worked well for me.

If you want to try the croissant diet with a vegan fat source I’d recommend cocoa butter. It’s VERY high in stearic acid – 33% – and has some vitamin E (less than butter) and little bit of vitamin K1. Also, it’ll give your croissants a little chocolately flavor. Also, chocolate croissants are definitely a thing in France, so historically you’re not way off. Cocoa butter is MUCH harder than butter. Why is this? Butter contains a significant amount of short chain saturated fats. These fats have lower melting points and bring down the overall melting point of the blend. Of course, you could probably melt down the cocoa butter and whisk in MCT oil to achieve a buttery texture in the same way that I did with the stearic acid enhanced butter oil.

Bacon Without the Corn Oil! Firebrand Meats Low-PUFA Pork CSA Almost all american pork – conventional, organic, pastured or otherwise, is high in polyunsaturated fats. Firebrand Meats is the first American meat company specializing in making low-PUFA pork. It is a subscription based service that is shipping to all 48 continental states. It’s based on a CSA (community supported agriculture) model, which means we need a bunch of folks to sign up to get production started. Signup is free, get a share today! Firebrand Meats Low-PUFA Pork

Foods To Avoid

Commercial Salad Dressing

Olive Oil

Avocado Oil

Avocados and Olives . Did you ever notice that many olives in the US are packed in other vegetable oils? It’s SO misleading.

. Did you ever notice that many olives in the US are packed in other vegetable oils? It’s SO misleading. All Vegetable Oils – Soybean, Corn, Canola, Safflower, Sunflower, Hemp, Flax, etc.

– Soybean, Corn, Canola, Safflower, Sunflower, Hemp, Flax, etc. Mayonnaise

Aioli

Sauces like ranch dip for crudities that are served at every work lunch and social get together. Also blue cheese dressing at restaurants.

for crudities that are served at every work lunch and social get together. Also at restaurants. Anything Fried or sauteed in a restaurant

Nuts

Oily seeds like edamame or peanuts.

Peanut butter and nut butters.

Whole grains . I understand that this flies in the face of conventional wisdom and I’ll get pushback on it. But the fact is the French eat white flour and Chinese and Indian peasants eat white rice. It’s a lot of trouble to convert the whole grains into the purified products. They do this for a reason: removing the bran and germ removes the polyunsaturated fats and lectins from the grains.

. I understand that this flies in the face of conventional wisdom and I’ll get pushback on it. But the fact is the French eat white flour and Chinese and Indian peasants eat white rice. It’s a lot of trouble to convert the whole grains into the purified products. They do this for a reason: removing the bran and germ removes the polyunsaturated fats and lectins from the grains. Low fat dairy . It raises insulin levels and I don’t really see the purpose.

. It raises insulin levels and I don’t really see the purpose. Plant based meats . These are inevitably high in vegetable oil.

. These are inevitably high in vegetable oil. Bacon , (I’m sorry!) lard and pork fat unless you know it was finished on a low fat grain like barley, wheat or peas without using any full fat protein sources such as soybeans. Old fashioned heritage breed hogs have firmer fat but diet trumps everything. If the pig is well finished, the rendered lard or bacon fat will be a firm solid at room temperature. You’ll be able to make a depression in it with your finger but it’ll require some pressure.

, (I’m sorry!) unless you know it was finished on a low fat grain like barley, wheat or peas without using any full fat protein sources such as soybeans. Old fashioned heritage breed hogs have firmer fat but diet trumps everything. If the pig is well finished, the rendered lard or bacon fat will be a firm solid at room temperature. You’ll be able to make a depression in it with your finger but it’ll require some pressure. Chicken fat , which also means skin-on chicken and chicken wings, especially deep fried ones from a restaurant. But even more especially the veggie oil based “blue cheese” they’re served with.

, which also means and chicken wings, especially deep fried ones from a restaurant. But even more especially the veggie oil based “blue cheese” they’re served with. Most commercially produced pastries/cookies/crackers . They always seem to find a way to slip some veggie oil in there. Sometimes it’s a small enough amount that you can live with it if the cracker is to be used as a vessel for cheese. If you can find a pure butter croissant from a local baker, you are ahead of the game.

. They always seem to find a way to slip some veggie oil in there. Sometimes it’s a small enough amount that you can live with it if the cracker is to be used as a vessel for cheese. If you can find a pure butter croissant from a local baker, you are ahead of the game. Artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners raise insulin levels about as much as sugar does, and the traditional French wouldn’t eat them. If you REALLY need something sweet, why not just use a little regular sugar? Don’t overdo it, of course.

What To Eat

Butter, Ghee, Stearic acid enhanced butter oil, Beef Tallow, Cocoa butter, heavy cream . These are the top choices of fat. Ghee or the stearic butter oil are good choices if you want butter but have issues with dairy protein. Cocoa butter is a good choice for vegans.

. These are the top choices of fat. Ghee or the stearic butter oil are good choices if you want butter but have issues with dairy protein. Cocoa butter is a good choice for vegans. Full fat dairy . Sour cream, Full fat yogurt, full fat cheeses, triple creme.

. Sour cream, Full fat yogurt, full fat cheeses, triple creme. Purified starches like white flour, white rice, masa flour or pasta . Starches do a marvelous job of absorbing saturated fats.

. Starches do a marvelous job of absorbing saturated fats. Popcorn . Popcorn can absorb a ton of butter! Of course you have to pop it yourself on the stove with butter or stearic acid enhanced butter oil.

. Popcorn can absorb a ton of butter! Of course you have to pop it yourself on the stove with butter or stearic acid enhanced butter oil. Peeled potatoes . All of the old school cookbooks I’ve ever read said to peel them first. I trust the ancient wisdom.

. All of the old school cookbooks I’ve ever read said to peel them first. I trust the ancient wisdom. Eggs, especially egg yolks . Egg yolks are amongst the world’s most nutritious foods and a great source of choline, which helps transport fat out of the liver, which is probably important on a high fat diet that allows alcohol and sugar.

. Egg yolks are amongst the world’s most nutritious foods and a great source of choline, which helps transport fat out of the liver, which is probably important on a high fat diet that allows alcohol and sugar. Ruminant meat . Beef, goat and lamb. Interestingly, the bugs that live in the rumen actually hydrogenate (saturate) the oils fed to ruminants. So even if the farmer feeds the cow corn oil, the cow turns it into stearic acid. Neat trick, huh? So ruminants are NOT what you feed them. Red meats are very high in minerals, B vitamins, especially B12, and choline.

. Beef, goat and lamb. Interestingly, the bugs that live in the rumen actually hydrogenate (saturate) the oils fed to ruminants. So even if the farmer feeds the cow corn oil, the cow turns it into stearic acid. Neat trick, huh? So ruminants are NOT what you feed them. Red meats are very high in minerals, B vitamins, especially B12, and choline. Lean Meats like chicken breast or sliced ham. I spent a decade as a whole animal butcher so it pains me to say this but if you can’t find low PUFA chicken, and you probably can’t, you’ll have to use lean, skinless pork and chicken cuts. Lean meats are also high in minerals, B-vitamins and choline.

like chicken breast or sliced ham. I spent a decade as a whole animal butcher so it pains me to say this but if you can’t find low PUFA chicken, and you probably can’t, you’ll have to use lean, skinless pork and chicken cuts. Lean meats are also high in minerals, B-vitamins and choline. Vegetables sauteed in butter . Vegetables are a good source of fat soluble vitamins like beta-carotene and K1. But its hard to absorb those nutrients. When you saute the vegetables in butter, many of those vitamins end up in the butter oil, where they become close to 100% available. Feel free to serve them in a cream or cheese sauce. Vegetables are good sources of vitamin C and E, some B vitamins and some minerals.

. Vegetables are a good source of fat soluble vitamins like beta-carotene and K1. But its hard to absorb those nutrients. When you saute the vegetables in butter, many of those vitamins end up in the butter oil, where they become close to 100% available. Feel free to serve them in a cream or cheese sauce. Vegetables are good sources of vitamin C and E, some B vitamins and some minerals. Organ meats . The french love Pate. Liver is incredibly nutrient dense, and it’s even higher in choline than egg yolks. Also folate and minerals. Eat your liver.

. The french love Pate. Liver is incredibly nutrient dense, and it’s even higher in choline than egg yolks. Also folate and minerals. Eat your liver. Seafood . The French love seafood. Seafood is nutrient dense, especially in minerals and vitamin D.

. The French love seafood. Seafood is nutrient dense, especially in minerals and vitamin D. Pickled herrings in cream sauce . I just put this on the list because its my favorite. In truth herring is loaded with highly unsaturated Omega 3 fat (PUFA). But the standard american diet is very low in them and these fats are important for brain health so the herring can stay.

. I just put this on the list because its my favorite. In truth herring is loaded with highly unsaturated Omega 3 fat (PUFA). But the standard american diet is very low in them and these fats are important for brain health so the herring can stay. Bone broth and headcheese . Your antioxidant system relies on the amino acid glycine to produce glutathione, the body’s master antioxidant. Glycine is highest and most available in connective tissues and therefore gelatin. These are the best sources of usable glycine if you can’t find pork rinds or chicken skin with a good fat ratio.

. Your antioxidant system relies on the amino acid glycine to produce glutathione, the body’s master antioxidant. Glycine is highest and most available in connective tissues and therefore gelatin. These are the best sources of usable glycine if you can’t find pork rinds or chicken skin with a good fat ratio. Dark Chocolate . For an occasional treat. The French would give themselves a treat. Chocolate is high in magnesium and zinc, although also high in phytic acid, so the absorption of the minerals is in question.

. For an occasional treat. The French would give themselves a treat. Chocolate is high in magnesium and zinc, although also high in phytic acid, so the absorption of the minerals is in question. Zero sugar alcohols like dry wine or whiskey. Sugar free alcohol barely generates an insulin response and it produces ROS and so helps to knock out insulin signalling. Alcohol consumption leads to high levels of free fatty acids – a sign that your mitochondria are in fat burning mode. I want to reiterate that I’m not encouraging anyone to increase their alcohol consumption but if it’s already part of your routine, you can keep it.

Gray Area Foods

Fruit and fruit juice . I love fruit. But fruit is high in sugar and they drive up insulin production. They have a few vitamins and minerals but nothing you can’t find somewhere else. But the French eat fruit, often preserved with extra sugar, like on a fruit tart. A little fruit probably won’t hurt you.

. I love fruit. But fruit is high in sugar and they drive up insulin production. They have a few vitamins and minerals but nothing you can’t find somewhere else. But the French eat fruit, often preserved with extra sugar, like on a fruit tart. A little fruit probably won’t hurt you. Added sugar . This diet is patterned after the French diet of 1970. The average French person at almost 100 grams of sugar per day in 1970. Sugar brings zero nutrients. I don’t love dietary sugar as a healthy choice, but the French got away with it. If you fix the fat ratios in your diet you might be able to get away with a little sugar, too.

. This diet is patterned after the French diet of 1970. The average French person at almost 100 grams of sugar per day in 1970. Sugar brings zero nutrients. I don’t love dietary sugar as a healthy choice, but the French got away with it. If you fix the fat ratios in your diet you might be able to get away with a little sugar, too. Maple syrup . This is kind of the same argument as added sugar except maple syrup provides a ton of manganese and a decent amount of zinc. Superoxide Dismutase uses manganese and zinc as part of your antioxidant defense!

. This is kind of the same argument as added sugar except maple syrup provides a ton of manganese and a decent amount of zinc. Superoxide Dismutase uses manganese and zinc as part of your antioxidant defense! Honey . Honey has some interesting health benefits, too.

. Honey has some interesting health benefits, too. Processed foods made with gelatin such as Jello or gummy bears . I can hear your eyes rolling but hear me out. Gelatin is the single best source of glycine. Glycine is typically the limiting factor in producing glutathione, the body’s master antioxidant. Are bone broth and headcheese healthier sources of gelatin? Absolutely! But gummy candies are very popular in France, so they make sense in The Croissant Diet. In fact, Haribo gummy bears are made in France. Some of them, anyway. Of course, when you buy gummy bears check the ingredients to make sure they’re made of gelatin and not pectin. Of course you could also make an aspic if that’s what you’re into.

. I can hear your eyes rolling but hear me out. Gelatin is the single best source of glycine. Glycine is typically the limiting factor in producing glutathione, the body’s master antioxidant. Are bone broth and headcheese healthier sources of gelatin? Absolutely! But gummy candies are very popular in France, so they make sense in The Croissant Diet. In fact, Haribo gummy bears are made in France. Some of them, anyway. Of course, when you buy gummy bears check the ingredients to make sure they’re made of gelatin and not pectin. Of course you could also make an aspic if that’s what you’re into. Ice cream . Full fat dairy plus sugar. I mean, sometimes you just need ice cream, amiright? Do you see the trend here? It’s ok to cheat a little as long as you don’t mess up the fat ratios!

. Full fat dairy plus sugar. I mean, sometimes you just need ice cream, amiright? Do you see the trend here? It’s ok to cheat a little as long as you don’t mess up the fat ratios! Pizza . This one is controversial. Yes, pizzerias use a little veg oil in the dough. But it’s not that much and the saturated fat from the cheese and pepperoni hopefully balance it out. I put pizza here on the list because it’s convenient and cheap. If you’re away from home and you’re hungry, well, a slice of pizza to tide you over now and again won’t destroy the fat ratios.

. This one is controversial. Yes, pizzerias use a little veg oil in the dough. But it’s not that much and the saturated fat from the cheese and pepperoni hopefully balance it out. I put pizza here on the list because it’s convenient and cheap. If you’re away from home and you’re hungry, well, a slice of pizza to tide you over now and again won’t destroy the fat ratios. Cheeseburgers . This is another convenient food that is easy to find (in America, anyway). It’s actually a fine croissant diet food, but you have to be careful if you buy a cheeseburger out of the house because restaurants love to put mayo, house sauces that are inevitably made of veg oil, mushrooms sauteed in veg oil, onion rings fried in veg oil, etc on the cheeseburgers.

. This is another convenient food that is easy to find (in America, anyway). It’s actually a fine croissant diet food, but you have to be careful if you buy a cheeseburger out of the house because restaurants love to put mayo, house sauces that are inevitably made of veg oil, mushrooms sauteed in veg oil, onion rings fried in veg oil, etc on the cheeseburgers. Beer, sweet wine, or mixed drinks with sugar. The same points about alcohol generating ROS are true but these beverages will drive insulin production. Since insulin signalling will be shut down in our fat cells maybe we don’t care, though.

How to Start the Diet and Monitor Progress

Like I say, I’ve only done this once to date. I would say to start by simply changing the fat ratios in your diet and increasing your fat consumption up to 50-70% of calories. Of course the diet worked in mice getting only 40% of their calories from fat so maybe upping fat consumption isn’t even necessary.

The best way to know if the diet is working is to monitor your waistline! I did lose weight on the croissant diet but that was nothing compared to how my waistline changed. I have a friend who tried it and didn’t lose a pound but dropped a pant size in two weeks. I think I gained muscle, which made my weight loss less dramatic than my waist line reduction. This is consistent with what is seen in rodent trials with a high stearic acid diet – the mice fed the stearic acid have higher lean mass.

Get a good waist tape measure and measure your waist before you begin and see if you have any change after a week or a month. Of course you can also monitor your waistline by seeing if you can fit into tight pants or moving to the next hole on your belt. If your waistline isn’t changing, you can consider adding intermittent fasting to your routine.

Thoughts About Calories and Intermittent Fasting I think what I would say if you attempt the croissant diet is to eat only when you are hungry. I noticed after eating a croissant sandwich that I would immediately feel VERY satiated. Then I would have a twinge of hunger at the 2-3 hour mark. If you look at what happened in the Spanish study, you can see why this is. After a butter and starch meal, blood glucose rises and free fatty acids drop. Energy availability to your cells is pretty much determined by the combination of blood glucose and free fatty acids. The elevated blood glucose will return to normal by 2-3 hours after a meal. At this point free fatty acids will not yet have rebounded to pre-meal levels. Energy availability is now slightly LOWER than before the meal! But if, and ONLY if, the fat from the meal is mostly saturated and you can get past the 3 hour point, free fatty acids will soon rise to the pre-meal levels and hunger will disappear. Once your free fatty acids rise above pre-meal level, they will remain elevated for at least another 5 hours, or at least they did in the study and my experience reflected that. Once I made it through the initial hunger pangs, I wasn’t hungry again for a good long while. I found myself alternating between two meal days and one meal days. On day one I would eat a breakfast sandwich – a toasted, buttered stearic-acid-butter croissant with egg, cheese and sausage around 10 am. I’d feel a little hunger pang around 1 pm. It was august and there were a lot of plums around, so maybe I’d eat a plum, which would get my blood sugar back up with a minimal effect on insulin. After that I’d be fine until 7 pm. I’d eat another sandwich, perhaps a toasted stearic-acid-butter croissant with marinara, melted cheese and pepperoni. Sometimes I’d try to eat two but I usually couldn’t get through more than one and a half. On day two I wouldn’t be hungry in the morning so I wouldn’t eat. I’d typically have a “breakfast” croissant around 3pm. Those were the days that I would FORGET to have dinner, kind of literally, as in I’d wake the up the next day thinking, “What DID I have for dinner last night?!” But the next day I’d wake up hungry and have breakfast “early” again and the cycle would repeat. I didn’t set out for The Croissant Diet to be an intermittent fasting (IF) diet, but that is sort of what it turned into. I’ve done a lot of IF in the past and I’m not much of a breakfast eater, so it felt natural to me. Obviously, once the stearic acid was able to release my stored fat, there were plenty of calories to go around! Pulsing of The Diet Another thing that is in favor in the keto world is pulsing the diet. Many diets work great the first month or two and gradually lose their effectiveness. I can imagine this being the case for The Croissant Diet because the mechanism of action is based on generating Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) in the mitochondria. Your cells respond to increased ROS production by upregulating their production of antioxidant enzymes. For this reason I could see it losing its effectiveness after a couple of months. The diet worked well for me for 60 days. Then my life was turned upside down and I stopped following it reliably. Thanksgiving is next week followed by Christams and New Years and I suspect I’ll gain some pounds back, but that will give me an opportunity to test another pulse of the strict Croissant diet in the new year!

Brad’s Easy Button Recipes

Luckily, recipes that fit the croissant diet are all over the internet! But first I’ll give you my basic recipes.

Buttered Starch

I’m going to start off with a basic recipe first, though. This is a generic recipe for how to make any grain have the same macro ratio as croissants. The idea is that a half stick of butter provides 400 calories. To get the macros right we need to add 45 grams of starch, which will provide 180 calories. The final meal will have 600 calories total with 66% coming from fat, 30% coming from starch and the remainder from protein. Make sense?

Since butter is partially water and protein, you only need about 3 Tbsp of stearic acid enhanced butter oil to be equivalent to 4 Tbsp (one half stick) of butter. Conveniently, all dried starches have about the same density and starch content. So you usually just need a half cup!

Making buttered starch is easy, satisfying and delicious!

Ingredients

One half stick a butter (58 grams) OR 46 grams (3 Tbsp) of ghee or stearic acid enhanced butter oil

One half cup (~60 grams) of dry, dense starch such as unpopped popcorn, white rice, white flour, elbow macaroni, hominy grits or masa flour

Salt to taste.

Prepare the starch how you normally would and add the butter. That’s it! If I’m making buttered rice, I add the butter to the water in the beginning. Of course with popcorn I melt the butter in the pain then add the kernels. With pasta I boil it then add the butter.

I add salt to the boiling water of the pasta, I salt the popcorn at the end and with rice I usually add soy sauce at the end.

Mashed Potatoes

This recipe is the same concept as the starch except potatoes are mostly water so the ratio is way different. It produces a delicious, buttery mashed potato.

One half stick a butter (58 grams) OR 46 grams (3 Tbsp) of ghee or stearic acid enhanced butter oil

2 cups (300 grams) of peeled, diced potatoes

Peel and dice potatoes until you have two cups. Boil until tender. Drain the water, cube the butter and add it to the pot. Once the butter is melted, mash the potatoes with a hand mixer, a ricer or just with a wooden spoon. It will be greasy at first, but as you work the mixture, it will form a creamy mass that will pull away from the sides of the pan or bowl. Salt to taste. A nice thing about these potatoes is that they don’t stick to the plate so cleanup is easy!

Creamy Salad Dressing

People associate salad with healthy eating except salad is always drizzled with some kind of liquid-at-room-temperature oil. Ain’t no way that’s gonna drive enough superoxide production at the mitochondrial bottleneck to shut down insulin signalling in your fat cells, youknowwhatimsaying?! This is my solution if you’re a person who must have salad. I like salad, it’s crunchy. I eat it sometimes.

Ingredients

1/2 cup (115 grams) Sour Cream

1/4 cup heavy cream

A commercial seasoning packet like taco seasoning or ranch dressing mix, OR the adobo sauce out of a can of chipotles en adobo OR crumbly blue cheese

Salt (not necessary if using a seasoning packet)

Your favorite vinegar (optional)

Directions: Whisk the heavy cream into the sour cream. If you prefer a thinner dressing, add more heavy cream, If you prefer a thicker dressing remove some of the heavy cream after you’ve whisked it together. That’s a joke. Really if you want a thicker dressing, add more sour cream.

Now add your seasonings. If you have taco or ranch seasoning just add that until the flavor is right. If you want to make blue cheese, add a bunch of the crumbly blue cheese and mash it all around with a fork to incorporate the blue cheese flavor, then add salt to taste. Same thing with adobo sauce except you don’t have to mash it, just mix it in. With any of these, if you want a tangier flavor just add a little of your favorite vinegar. Other seasoning ideas… Ceasar dressing: add finely diced capers, anchovy paste, fresh minced garlic and aged Asiago.

Can this dressing double as a dipping sauce for crudities or fried things?! Absolutely! Just make it a little thicker.

Recipes From Around The Web

Of course it’s easy to find recipes all over the web that follow the basic macro ratios of the Croissant Diet – here are a few of my favorites. Of course, for all of these recipes you can swap out some or all of the butter for stearic acid enhanced butter oil to kick fat burning into overdrive.

Label Reading

If you’re looking at online recipes or buying prepared foods at a grocery store, what should you look for on a nutritional label?

Equal amounts of fat and carbs or maybe a little more carbs. More than half the fat is saturated.

It’s actually pretty simple. You want the carbohydrate and fat content to be similar. In a Croissant the ration of fat calories to carbohydrate calories is about two to one. Since fat contains 9 calories per gram and carbohydrate contains four, the recipe above would provide 44 calories as carbohydrate and 90 as fat. In addition you want half or more of the fat to be saturated. In this case 5 out of nine grams are saturated. Perfect. This nutrition info is from the butter pie crust recipe from Crazy For Crust listed above.

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