Is there a way to improve stress, anxiety, and fatigue naturally? As a nutritionist, I biohack those with nutritional yeast flakes which are my go-to way of supplementation of B vitamins.
What is Nutritional Yeast?
The process begins by growing and cultivating the yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This yeast is selected because it's known for its ability to produce a variety of B vitamins, especially B vitamins like B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6 (pyridoxine), and B9 (folate).
The yeast is then added to a nutrient-rich medium, which often includes a sugar source, such as molasses, beet sugar, or sugarcane. The yeast consumes these sugars and undergoes fermentation. As the yeast ferments, it multiplies and produces various B vitamins and other nutrients.
Once the fermentation process is complete, the yeast is harvested, washed, and then heat-treated to deactivate it. This ensures that the yeast doesn't continue to grow or ferment when consumed.
After this deactivation step, it's dried and crumbled, resulting in the flaky or powdery product we recognize as nutritional yeast. This final product is no longer active and cannot be used for leavening bread or fermenting beverages, but it retains its rich flavour and nutritional profile.
Key Benefits
They have a nice savoury flavour which resembles cheese and many health benefits. Packed with B vitamins nutritional yeast helps improve mood, alleviate anxiety and depression, and is especially helpful during stressful times and PMS or when your energy levels are low. Beyond that, it helps improve immunity, sleep and the condition of your hair, skin and nails. It also provides trace minerals like zinc and selenium, antioxidants like glutathione and beta-glucans and essential amino acids (shoutout to all my vegetarians and vegans!).
How To Use Them
Sprinkle on top of your vegetables, salads, omelettes, soups, or stir into sauces.
Remember, to preserve those delicate B vitamins, avoid exposing them to high heat.
Nutritional yeast also comes in a capsule form if you prefer to take it this way.
Who Should Not Consume Nutritional Yeast
The yeast used in the production of nutritional yeast is not the same as the yeast used for leavening bread. These bread yeasts are not typically used in the production of nutritional yeast because their primary role is to produce carbon dioxide for bread rising, rather than to synthesize vitamins and other nutrients. Therefore, consuming nutritional yeast will not result in a yeast infection.
However, if you are allergic to yeast, nutritional yeast is not right for you. People sensitive to yeast may also not tolerate nutritional yeast well.
Also, if you are prone to migraines due to tyramine sensitivity, nutritional yeast will not be right for you as it is a product of fermentation and may contain the amino acid tyramine.
Which Ones To Choose
I strongly recommend getting the non-fortified nutritional yeast flakes. This is because in the "enriched"/"fortified" version, the product will have synthetic vitamins added and these are not only not as readily absorbed or as bioavailable as those obtained from natural food sources, or miss the necessary co-factors that work synergistically with the vitamins to make them effective, but may also lead to unpleasant health issues. For example, excessive intake of synthetic B6 can cause nerve damage.
Hope you enjoyed this post and found it informative!
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