I finally got around to grinding up the multi-vitamin into a powder and seeing if it affected the taste of Keto Chow – it doesn’t. As soon as I can switch over my production pipeline I’m going to start incorporating it into the mix. There will likely be a transition period for a few weeks where the more popular flavors (I’m looking at you: Rich Chocolate) get swapped over almost immediately and the more exotic flavors are switched slower. I’m planning on putting a sticker on the updated ones, something along the lines of “No more vitamin pill, it’s in the mix!”. This will make things easier for everyone and I’ll stop forgetting to include the vitamins when I ship out a week. It will also null the questions about using a different vitamin which really wasn’t a good idea anyway.
I’m investigating adding Magnesium Glycinate (2g/day) to the mixture to raise the levels of magnesium. I recently got a really fun muscle cramp in my leg and while researching the cause and remedy I discovered that I probably need more magnesium. Keto Chow already has 555mg of magnesium (132% RDI) per day but some digging shows that on a ketogenic diet you probably need 300mg over the RDI. This change brings the total in Keto Chow above 900mg a day. I did a fair amount of research into the different forms of Magnesium. I could have added more magnesium citrate but the citric acid can act as a laxative. I ended up with wanting to go with either Magnesium Malate or Glycinate – both are highly bio-available and without the issues of some of the other forms of magnesium. I would have preferred the Malate but it was difficult to get in bulk powder form, whereas I can get the Glycinate in big bulk packages (and it also comes in smaller packages too).
So I’m currently testing both changes together: powdered vitamin and additional magnesium. I’m also testing a third change, this time to the fish oil. The stuff I usually take requires 5 fish oil pills, There’s a slightly more expensive one that I only need 2 per day. It also has an “enteric coating” that makes you not burp up fish taste. Taking the two is a bit easier. If all goes well in the test I’ll switch over the fish oil pills I sell from 35 for a week to 14 for a week. I’ll have to take new product pictures.
Are you using anything crazy industrial to grind up the vitamins or could I use something at home to get the job done do you think?
Just putting about a half bottle in a blendtec and letting it go nuts.
Will you also be updating the recipe to 1.0.4 and including new ingredients to source from Amazon or wherever?
Yes I will. This is all assuming the tests go well. I’ve passed out some vanilla to family and neighbors that are also doing Keto and having them “beta test” it to see if they like/don’t notice the changes. If a bunch can taste the vitamins (and don’t like it) or whatever then I’ll pull the plug.
I’d be happy to beta test some Rich Chocolate since that’s what I drink almost every day. I’d be eager to see if there’s any real difference in taste.
Love the ideas for adding in the vitamins and more magnesium. I just wanted to comment on the fish oil part. I have been using Dr. Tobias omega 3 fish oil 2x/day since I started instead of the 5 per day that was on your recipe. I did some research before going with these and I think they contain the same amount as taking the 5/day brand. They also have the coating that you mentioned, although I can say that it only seems to work about half the time. I thought maybe you had stumbled upon the same brand.
You mean the coating only works half of the time?
Chris,
I am a little confused on the amount of sulfur in the mix. Your ingredients show 3.3 grams from the protein mix, but I am having a hard time validating that. Where have you found the information for the amount of sulfur?
Thanks,
Trevor
It comes from the amino acids in the protein powder. There’s a lengthy discussion about it on http://discourse.soylent.me/t/sulfur-in-cysteine-and-methionine/10626/14
The short of it: if you have a properly balanced amino acid profile (such as whey has) they you’ll get the right amount of sulfur without any additional supplements.
If the vitamins work out, can I send you this giant bottle of unpulverized vitamins I just bought? I don’t want a discount, I just want to use that space for more bags of Keto Chow. It’s a little kitchen.
If it’s unopened and the kirkland signature ones, I’ll even buy it from you at the same cost I get it, though at that point you’d probably just be better off returning it. Opened stuff I can’t use because of health regulations.
Hey Chris and others, Re: Fish Oil Pills
These are the ones I’ve been using: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F5ZV6W6
They’re so tiny, not the usual fish oil horse pills. Each is %85 Omega-3 (500mg) and mostly EPA at that. No fishy burps.
Some pills like the ones you linked from Costco say ‘1200mg’ but you go look and the EPA+DHA Omega-3’s make up only half of that ( 600mg or so.)
Now go read the review for those pills by ‘RWM’; it should be the first.
He goes through almost every Fish Oil pill you can buy, how they’re made, ‘coatings’, pros and cons and price per mg of each.
Have you thought of using vitamin powder instead of blending up pills? I was thinking of the “boosts” you can get at Jamba Juice, where they add a scoop of powder to your smoothy.
I have yet to find a provider of it that I can get anything smaller than 1000 kg.
Does that mean you are also manually opening the capsules of K-2 that I see in the DIY recipe? If so, that’s got to be a lot of manual labor!
Your posts have really inspired me to jump on the keto band wagon!
I actually used to do just that. Then I got a blendtec blender (totally a business expense). 2-3 seconds and the capsules are all broken up, then I just run it through a sifter and throw away the shattered remains of the capsules. I can do 200 at a time. Not ideal but still workable.