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the evidence is pretty overwhelming that
if you drink green tea regularly even a
single cup but ideally three to four
cups of green tea a day and if you you
know my great uncle who lived to
104 um he drank probably six maybe 10
cups of green tea a day um was healthy
until his very last breath and um it's
been shown that actually drinking green
tea regularly lowers the risk of colon
cancer lung cancer breast cancer brain
tumor and so there's a lot of evidence
human evidence that actually shows that
to be true um Tomatoes been shown to
lower the risk of prostate cancer we
talked about that
um uh and eating um good phytonutrient
rich green vegetables um also been shown
to be protective against a whole
flotilla of different types of cancers
and so one of the things I talk about in
my book and again it's you know this is
like a deep dive into this is well how
much should you eat how many servings do
you need to eat a week or if you eat
seafood um like what type of fish and
how often and how much fish should you
eat a day I'm I'm somebody like because
I came out of the you know the biotech
world you know like it's all about the
dose right and actually I think you know
one of the famous uh uh a Greek uh
philosopher is basically saying you know
the the poison is in a dose anything
that's too much or too little it's going
to be not enough or too much and so um
one of the things I've tried to do um
over the course of the last year here
frankly during the pandemic I spent a
lot of time thinking about how do I take
a lot of this information that's been
bottled up that like led to me to write
the book and get it out to people so I
actually created an online course and I
do master classes now to really get at
those sort of nuts and bolts of details
um of of of of things but um uh so I
would say follow the evidence there's
certain foods like green tea like tree
nuts like tomatoes like leafy greens
like seafood and and there's specific
types of seafood um you know it's not
just salmon um but even shellfish
actually and heck and hche and some of
these other things that consider so
again if you if you only listen to the
sort of the common Urban mythology you
hear the same things eat your salmon eat
your kale you know uh and and and it
goes so much deeper than that like you
you know you you prompted this a couple
of times you know is it as simple as
it's never as simple as the God is
always in the details and those details
allow us freedom to choose the things
that we might like it gives us more of a
repertoire to go into yeah I love that
speaking of details I mean we've had
we've had other researchers on the
podcast and they talk about you know
these really intricate details of our
physiology igf-1 uh mtor insulin do you
I mean do those come up at all in your
recommendations do you talk about you
know minimizing glycemic variability
with your dietary choice do you talk
about you know keeping insulin low not
spiking it with you know uh too many
eating the consumption of too many
carbohydrates added sugars and things
like that or is it more big picture for
you just you know prioritizing food
quality which is here's the thing which
is what what it sounds like to be well
here's the thing I'm a researcher so I
am into those details the glycemic inexs
the CRPS and all these other things that
a lot of people talk about but when I
actually try to communic unate to people
who are really interested in changing
their lives for the better just want to
optimize their health they don't want to
be told they don't need to know all the
they they want to feel more empowered
and so I try to kind of um up my own
game by trying to simplify the details
into things that people can use like and
if you want to have that convers you
know like if one wants to have that
conversation about the tomatoes and how
do you cook them and what happens to the
chirality the lopine molecule we can get
into that stuff but look I just told you
if you're a man and you want to lower
your risk of prostate cancer tomatoes
are great two to three servings half a
cup each time if you cook it it actually
makes it a little bit better for you and
if you asking me what's the most potent
tomato that I should choose from I would
say San Marzano Tomatoes actually have
the highest amount of lopine um and and
you know like I I like to actually
message in ways that make sense to
people that are really practical but
absolutely put me in the Olympic ring
and give me an ape and we can fence and
go into all those details I love it were
you a foodie before you became uh a
scientist like when when did those for
you
converge you know I first of all grew up
in a background my as my background is
Asian but I grew up in America I was
born here and you know I I ate a lot of
Fresh home-cooked Foods with fresh whole
plant-based Foods all the time um it was
a treat when I had a sloppy joe was a
very rare day when I had a lasagna or
whatever it was I mean I I used to covet
like you know those things like oh man
my friends are having all this great
stuff but I I really grew up eating a
plant mostly a plant-based um Whole
Foods uh diet um but I I also grew up in
a family and with friends who really
enjoyed eating and so um uh when I went
to college I Lov to explore foods and a
lot of people don't know this but um I
uh I enjoy cooking uh and
if you you in order to enjoy cooking to
in order to cook well you have to love
to eat like to eat and when I when I
finished College I did a gap year before
I went to medical school and I actually
and this is you know I hate to say it's
like 1984 I took a gap year and I went
to Europe and where did I live I lived
in Italy in Greece why specifically to
study the the culture and traditions of
food and how they related to health so
this is a long time ago before people
talking about the Mediterranean diet I
was living it by being there in in
Northern Italy and in in in traveling
all around I went over to Greece I even
went mountain climbing because that's
something that was a a hobby of mine
back then and I climbed up in the this
area called Mount AOS which is like the
Theocratic Republic of Eastern Orthodoxy
to get into monasteries to study how
monks or vegetarians live their lives
and I volunteered as a chef in a
monaster
um and you know and like was stirring
beans with this like canoe size spoon um
in this cauldron in this Monastery that
like cooked everything by fire um and so
you know like yeah I I am a foodie and I
I think that again this intimacy um is
something that's very personal to me as
it is to everybody but I love like
exploration I I just think that you know
um I would tell you I love food I
respect food I I wouldn't say I love to
eat so I'm not somebody that shovels
food down my mouth I I like to taste I
like to explore I like to understand and
I and I think that that's a a something
I like to share with people I really
appreciate that and I can I can totally
relate as well you mentioned as one of
your five pillars uh the immune system
and you know we've heard a lot about
inflammation inflammation is a feature
of the immune system uh it's not
necessarily bad it's not necessarily
good can you talk to my audience a
little bit about what inflammation is
and maybe the foods that can help dampen
inflam in the body because we know that
inflammation plays such an important
role in the ideology of chronic disease
absolutely so um first of all if we
didn't have inflammation we probably
would have died as kids because when we
cut ourselves you know on a swing set or
you know on building blocks or you know
a scuffle in the schoolyard or whatever
it is um you know that cut that you get
we fall off your bicycle you skin your
knee what's the first thing that happens
you get a little bit of redness it's
painful you get a little bit of redness
a little bit of swelling that
inflammation that's inflammation that's
our body's natural first line of defense
and inflammation uh is a is just one
part of our immune system it's the front
line and it's designed inherently to get
rid of bacteria that might enter the
body if we actually are injured so a
little inflammation is really really
important and what our body knows how to
do is to ramp up the inflammation
quickly which is why when you cut
yourself and you get that swelling
within seconds right definitely within
minutes and then what happens over the
course of a day or two days or three
days your body tones that down turns the
volume way down and then turns it off so
inflammation is a defensive part of our
immune system that our body turns on and
then turns off if you can't turn it off
you get chronic inflamation inflammation
and that's the problem that we see in
chronic diseases in diabetes we've got
chronic inflammation and heart disease
chronic inflammation cancer chronic
inflammation and chronic inflammation
triggers other diseases as well it's
kind of like um here's the analogy um we
know that when man humans made fire we
suddenly had the power to be able to
warm ourselves and cook our food okay um
and we want to keep that fire in a
little fire pit um and and that's where
fire was useful to us and we know that
you know after the evening you put the
fire out then you go out and forage or
whatever it is so turning it down at the
very end now imagine if the Fire doesn't
go out and worse imagine the fire pops
out of the fire pit and catches the
forest on fire now you got the Wildfire
right and this is what's going on in our
country right now we got these raging
wildfires going everywhere destroying
things that's what happens that's the
inflammation we were really talking
about but I I always try to point out to
people you don't want to eliminate infl
inflammation you want to kind of turn it
way down so what are some ways to turn
down inflammation using food again
here's the science um it turns out that
there's a lot of different food
substances that can turn down
inflammation green tea will turn down
inflammation um vitamin C simple vitamin
C which is found in so many foods can
also turn down inflammation so um red
bell peppers strawberries um guava uh
Tomatoes oranges citrus of course are
great sources of vitamin C I just gave
you a handful of things you could
sprinkle over the course of the day now
how do we know that vitamin c does this
again it's not theoretical like that's
one of the things that I try to bring to
the table is
you know what happens in a lab is in a
lab you know it's like Vegas you know um
stays in the lab but what happens in
people well that actually makes a
difference and you find it in the lab
and in people now you got my attention
well so Studies have been done with
people with inflammatory autoimmune
diseases where they've got like runaway
inflammation and there was a study in
Japan looking at lupus so in the Miyagi
prefecture in Japan there's like this
lupus Center where you know it's like a
lupus out of control and they found that
people women mostly with lupus who had
this chronic inflammation that if they
that those women who ate more vitamin C
containing foods like guava Tomatoes
strawberries you know all those kinds of
things bell peppers they had high levels
of vitamin C and they had lower levels
of inflamation as measured by CRP and
they had less lupus flares that's human
that's feasible and that can be
delicious as well yeah so I have to ask
um have have there been trials to look
at supplemental vitamin C and have they
seen the same results because that I
believe that that study that you just
referenced I mean it sounded to me like
like an
observational uh study right so have
they been able to tease it out and look
at and look at supplementary vitamin C
so so here's not not yet to my knowledge
and here's part of the problem once you
get to a randomized double blind Placebo
controlled clinical trial approved by an
Institutional Review Board in a hospital
and you want to get these PES with lupus
the the research um is now changing but
the old school way you're going to get
people to run away out of control lupus
at the end of their game okay uh and
then they're going to be also to be on
steroids and they're going to be on all
these monoclonal antibodies and now
you're not really studying kind of the
real world anymore you're you're taking
the train wrecks the worst of the worst
and trying to see if a vitamin is going
to make a dent I'm talking about people
that you know are living their lives
normally not in a hospital and are just
trying to get their stuff under control
right and and so that's where these
observational studies
um are to your point their important
hypothesis generation but the hypothesis
should be tested but the hypothesis is
also easily tested by people as soon as
they hear about it in their home that
night when they after they hear about it
um food has immediacy so what I would
say is that we should all be eager to
conduct our own clinical studies on
ourselves if we think that there's a
study um and good science uh that
actually points a finger towards a
Direction that we can actually get
behind yeah one of the most I think uh
typically when people think of
inflammation and and supplements that
are commonly uh talked about uh that
think fish oil omega-3 fatty acids what
are your thoughts on those as a
potential
anti-inflammatory um the the the fish
oil has been studied as a supplement um
uh and you know I think that the large
body of evidence is that it does have
good anti-inflamm fatory benefits it
lowers
CRP um it can improve arthritis symptoms
of pain and swelling and lower
medication uh needs and it also seems to
have some improvement in Dementia in
clinical trials like prospective
clinical trials and they think it's by
lowering inflammation as well so again
um yet another kind of I would say brick
to put on this wall that what we eat can
make a difference but here's what I what
I would tell you like some people um
love to take supplements I know people
who you know they that's their thing
they want to take a bunch of pills in
the morning and and they feel good about
them and I'm I'm okay with that but if
you can eat if you can get the if you
can get the same substance from a whole
food and get your protein um and get
diversity because our bodies are
designed for diversity we're not we're
not onetick ponies you know so um uh if
you can get omega-3 fatty acids from
eating salmon anchovy hake sardines
Manila clams you know I think that's
great because you're you're getting
you're testing your body you're you're
you're you're stretching your body's
repertoire of responding to the things
we're putting into it in ways that
activate your health of enses and that
that that's my own personal way of
actually trying to get Omega-3s yeah I I
would definitely have to agree with you
because you're also getting all these
other as you mentioned protein but even
on top of that there's all these
additional nutrients um that are
strengthening strengthening the the
entirety of the system you know take
salmon for example
loaded by the way here here's a cool
piece of research a lot of people don't
know um cbass which also contains
omega-3 fatty acids have been found by
researchers in Guang Joo to actually
contain a they think it's a peptide but
it actually it's in the meat itself and
and you know only recently discovered
that actually speeds up wound healing
and so like that that's a really cool
idea and and and that's to me you know
scientists get excited by the unknown a
lot of people think that scientists
spend all their time talking about all
the stuff they know the brainiacs
actually when you get a group of
scientists together like when I have
when I get together for dinner with my
my Science Buddies you know it's not
that we geek out talking about all the
stuff that we know like Engineers you
know like we scientists biology
scientists actually SP spent a lot of
time talking about what we don't know
yeah you did you know did you know what
we don't know like how do we how would
we answer this question and that's what
I would say is um so exciting about food
and health
we are really at the beginning of a new
era of really being able to truly
understand not only what's in our food
but how our body responds to what we put
inside it and metabolism is a whole
other dimension of this that is coming
down the pike as well yeah and we know
it's so important especially over the
past year metabolism and metabolic
Health has really come into the
spotlight as being something that we all
need to be ought to be conscious of
think about this aquarium that's got
fish that you want to keep these are
your pets and it's also got um
overgrowth of algae you know like that
completely overgrows the tank and that
algae is going to kill the fish right
you get enough Gunk growing in that tank
you're going to kill the fish so what
can you actually do to clean up that
tank you want to get rid of the algae
but you don't want to kill the fish
that's really probably the best analogy
of this micro environment situation in
any organ that we have in our body where
you want to get rid of the cancer cells
but you don't want to actually um kill
the healthy cells Well turns out that
cancers are exquisitly sensitive to um
uh blood vessels as I as I told you and
if you cut off the blood supply to um
cancer uh it's it's kind of like uh
lowering the bubbling uh the the air
system into the aquarium so you got
enough just for the fish but not enough
for the for the algae to grow uh and the
body knows how to make that diff diff
difference so for example blood vessels
that are feeding normal cells are really
well constructed did like a like a think
about a house that the architect really
made really strong it's got good pilings
it's got good infrastructure the frame
is really solid the windows are really
nailed down tightly and a cancer when it
grows blood vessels to it doesn't do it
really well so that's like a crappy
contractor that that cut all the corners
and so basically the house the the blood
vessel system feeding the cancer is like
a like a crappy house when the hurricane
comes
okay guarantee you that the vessels that
are feeding the cancer are going to come
flying apart but the ones that are
feeding the healthy cells the well
constructed ones are going to stick
around they're going to outlast the
storm and that's basically what we can
actually do with
anti-angiogenic drugs now foods can do
the same thing there are many things in
Foods these bioactives we talked about
that you know Mother Nature laced into
plants you know kind of like Mother
Nature's Pharmacy with an f um uh
actually can actually um help to mow the
lawn and get that tame those blood
vessels so that if they're growing
towards the cancer you can kind of prune
them back trim them back to normal and
it prevents the cancer from growing new
ones which is really really important
for cancer prevention that's just having
enough of that mure to prevent blood
vessels from overgrowing um is really
can be really important so what are some
of the things green tea um uh you know
which everybody knows as
antioxidants which can actually lower
your blood uh sugars um help to lower
your cholesterol lower your um stress
levels catac colomine actually is super
packed with these cakin egcg one the
main
polyphenol that is anti-angiogenic so
way back when when I got in this field
we had a test system where we were
testing Cancer drugs that could starve a
cancer by cutting off its blood supply
and on and one of the things that I did
is I actually dropped some green tea in
there and you it was shocking how
effective the green tea polyphenols were
in stopping those blood vessels that
were feeding the cancer uh and in fact
if I didn't tell the technician doing
the lab work that it was actually a
natural compound um and I told them it
came from a drug company they would have
like they would have been super excited
about it and started jumping up and down
and so again you know Mother Nature is
really really um good so polyphenols and
te uh egcg is one of them um Resveratrol
and red wine also another one um that's
actually really really powerful uh in
terms of uh being anti-androgenic
genestin the phytoestrogen and soy
actually can also cut off the blood
supply feeding breast cancer so it's
just the opposite of the urban legend
out there that soy is not good for you I
recently saw an article it was a cover
of a magazine that said you know soy
anti- nutrients or something like that
and I you know like I I my mind was
blown that somebody could actually say
that because most of the nutrients
including the proteins but also the
phytoestrogen and
soy again you know if you're a scientist
you take a look at this um and the
phytoestrogens look nothing like human
estrogens they're not dangerous they
actually block human estrogens and they
actually are also anti-angiogenic and
they cut off the blood supply to breast
cancers and this has been shown in human
patients breast cancer patients uh as
well um tomatoes have lopine so many of
the you know the same foods that we know
are good healthy plant-based sources of
nutrition we're now rediscovering that
many of the bioactives in them are also
powerful cancer blood vessel cutting
cutting off systems that cut off the
that starve starve a tumor you know the
really the point that I want to drive
home here is that you had this quote in
your original Ted Talk and he said as a
doctor I know that once a disease has
progressed to an advanced stage
achieving a cure can be difficult if not
impossible and the reason that you were
sharing this in the context of your
presentation and your Ted Talk was you
were helping people understand that this
is one of the main d of why you got
interested in the topic of food this is
something that we do two three times a
day and if that food could have just as
similar of an impact in some cases even
more so then it's not what's better food
or medicine they're both great but food
is something that we all have control
over and because of Education gaps in
healthcare practitioners again well
meaning they may not have the education
in food this is something where we're
empowered as consumers to start making a
difference in a dent because as most of
us know you know there's a there's this
area that's in between you know you
don't have cancer and you're diagnosed
with cancer right it's not like one day
you just show up at the doctor's office
and then cancer came out of nowhere it's
growing always sort of in the background
at least the conditions are until one
day something changes and then it has
that explosive growth so if we can make
a difference
now then we're more empowered to
actually change our health and hopefully
minimize or potentially even avoid some
of these chronic diseases later down the
path absolutely I mean you know my my uh
how I got into nutrition molecular
nutrition was was that
um you know taking care of patients who
were terribly sick what is incredibly
rewarding and giving them uh an answer
to why they're not feeling well and
helping them trying to get solutions for
that is is such an important privilege
uh to be trained and to be able to
actually do but you know um uh when I
started to see I'll tell you an
interesting story so I I was a doc at a
Veterans Hospital love taking care of
veterans most of my patients were their
50s and 60s and 70s and older uh and
many of them were um overweight uh if
not morbidly obese they had about heart
disease lung disease diabetes cancer um
uh the bone diseases I mean you name it
they there there were all the problems
that you would see in an older person
but the thing that really struck me as I
was writing prescriptions and sending
people to Specialists was the jux
deposition of these individuals who in
their second half of their lives you
know 60s and 70s terribly out of shape
riddled with disease you know and I was
trying to help them but I also looked at
these people and realize that you know
if I put on my spectacles of the time
machine the same individual going back
when they were 20 years old was cut fit
buff as a soldier in fact they couldn't
even serve in the military unless they
were in perfect shape right and so what
happened to these people over the course
of their decades over the course of
their lives is they've lost control of
their health and that's what made me
realize treating the horse out of the
barn is something worthy of doing but
why do we want to wait for that why
don't we actually prevent disease in the
first place and when you T when I was
thinking about prevention you know you
really can't think about drugs I mean
because drugs are expensive they got
side effects really difficult to develop
a preventative drug and who would want
that anyway um but food naturally lends
itself to prevention because that is
indeed the the intervention that we take
multiple times a day and in fact our
food is the intervention is the health
care that we do for ourselves between
visits to the doctor's office I mean
we've come to
regard Healthcare as what we do when we
you know make an appointment and step
into the door and get weighed by the
nurse before we sit on that you know
that cold um paper filled table exam
table but in fact most of the health
care we're doing is uh between the time
we go see the doctor it's so true and if
we're fully gonna understand the impact
that food can have to going back to that
analogy you had why is it that this cut
healthy ripped soldier at the age of 20
and then you contrast them fast forward
a few years you know 40 years they're 60
years old and their systems are starting
to fail their angiogenesis in some cases
is out of control in some cases it's
under producing where it needs to be
what happened in the interim and and in
your book you really highlight that in
addition to angiogenesis there's really
there's with angiogenesis there's five
areas there's five sort of key areas
that we have to look at these sort of
systems in the body to understand what
happens when we go from being healthy to
being in a place of disease let's walk
through them starting off with the you
know you can pick which one you want to
start off with next and and we'll give a
little bit of an overview just like we
did with
angiogenesis yeah sure Drew I mean this
is such a great question I'll tell you
how I got into it because I think that's
the best way to to to to articulate this
for your viers um you know as a doctor I
was I was always trained to W wonder why
somebody got sick what did they do what
was going on in their bodies that led to
an illness and in fact most patients
always ask me you know like well so what
happened how did I get this you know how
did I contract this condition um and
that's how I was trained to think for
for decades but reality is um and and
and as a researcher that's what I was
looking at is what is the underlying
cause of illness but I think I I
discovered there was a much more
interesting question and that more
interesting question iswh don't we get
sick more often you think about it like
kids are usually pretty healthy and
actually when you're in the prime of
your life you're generally pretty
healthy yeah you might get a flu or
might get a cold every now and then it's
only when you get older that you start
getting sick and the more interesting
question is like why don't kids get
cancer more often than they do why don't
healthy adults get more heart disease
why don't they get diabetes you know
like more often than they do I mean some
people do at a younger age and so that's
really by turning that question about
why did I get sick into why aren't I
getting sick more often that led me down
this direct path to saying what is a
body doing to prevent illness and if and
and what is health itself if you know
the the the question the way that I
would use to answer the question what is
health is like yeah well you know you're
healthy if you're not sick and I think
that's how most people would answer it
turns out health is not just the absence
of disease health is the result of our
body working firing on all cylinders to
keep us that way into and ward off
illness and um and what keeps us healthy
what Wards off illness what is firing in
all cylinders are Health defense systems
now I found five Health defense systems
and I wrote about five in my book Eat
Deb disease
because I've worked in the drug
development field in each of these areas
Andrew Jenis is one of them let's talk
about all five of them first blood
vessels i' I've done drug development in
helping to grow blood vessels and stop
blood vessels second our stem cells I'll
come back to that I've done work Decades
of work in developing regenerative
medicine to try to regenerate organs uh
that's amazing what you can actually do
in the biotech world with that third is
the microbiome I've done research on the
microbiome with colleagues at am it and
elsewhere fourth is um genes our DNA and
most people think of our DNA as sort of
the genetic code um I've done gene
therapy so I I've actually helped to
develop Gene therapies um and fifth is
our immune system and our immune system
which is hardwired this is more
important than ever before in
immunotherapy for cancer for example is
one of the most powerful breakthroughs
in in medical in the medical world today
so I've got the street cred of doing
drug development in each of these areas
but rather than thinking about using
drugs to activate these systems if we
turn the sock in side out and take a
look at okay so how do these systems
actually defend our health bar
circulation prevents um uh to feeds our
prevents Disease by feeding our healthy
cells and preventing bad diseases from
growing like cancer our stem cells by
the way um you may not know this but all
of us have about
75 million stem cells that are in our
bodies at any given time we're actually
made it of stem cells because when when
we were in our mom's wombs the only
reason our bodies were able to even form
a human figure like you know the little
Playdoh that kind forms humans in the
womb is is because of stem cells and we
retain some of those after we're born
and we lock them up in our bone marrow
and in our skin and elsewhere and our
bodies regenerate continuously that's
one of our health defense systems
because you know you know as we age we
need to repair ourselves from the inside
out like we know
um our hair regrows for most people we
know that um even our G our mucous
membranes are are are this sort of skin
in our mouth where we grow anybody who's
ever you know um had a really hot uh
something hot piece of food and you burn
your mouth and like man like it it
totally screws you up next day you're
back to normal because your your skin in
your mouth your mucous membrane
regenerated okay it's like eating a
Dorito and you scrape the top of your
mouth next stay you'll be fine because
of
regeneration um but what's amazing is
that our organs regenerated from the
inside out if I took your liver and we
cut off 2third of your liver and left
one third left it would regenerate the
rest of the 2/3 just like a starfood to
regenerate an arm um your lung if I cut
off the tip of your lung um it would
grow right back and what we're starting
to realize is that the The Playbook of
human biology is being WR is being
Rewritten because when you and I were
kids I'm sure our grade SK School
teachers taught us the same thing
starfish and salamander regenerate but
people don't wrong people regenerate and
so now we can actually try to coax this
regeneration to go faster it's one of
our defense systems but um and while
biotech people are trying to figure out
ways to make us regenerate foods can
also cause us to prompt regeneration as
well which is really cool um foods like
chocolate foods like dark cacao like
dark chocolate cacao polyphenols can
actually stimulate regeneration um
there's all kinds of other uh uh uh
biotech kind of things that can actually
do this but Mother Nature has laced um
things that can be regenerative like
ursolic acid and fruit peel can coax our
stem cells to come out of our bone
marrows to to stimulate regeneration as
well I mean imagine a future in which we
understood how to match the uh the
substance in a food that naturally
occurs
with something that we need like brain
regeneration for dementia for example
that would really be a
GameChanger and so that's where the
future of understanding our B's Hardware
self- defenses for regeneration goes
microbiome you know we've got like 39 uh
trillion bacteria in our body most of
them in our colon and we know that when
our gut bacteria is healthy it controls
our hormones it controls our cholesterol
metabolism it controls how our how our
body uses blood sugars when we screw up
our um gut bacteria it screws up
everything like literally we've got an
ecosystem inside our body that if we
don't take care of that ecosystem um it
destroy it wrecks the rest of our body
and and something that's stunning to
know for example is that um uh uh is how
vulnerable the system is artificial
sweeteners like you find in a diet soda
can in 24 hours overnight start to
destroy your gut microbiome the healthy
gut bacteria start to change they don't
like that artificial sweetener because
they're trying we don't absorb those
those calories right those are the those
are the non-caloric sweeteners so we get
the taste in the front end in the back
end we don't absorb it so we don't get
the calories but guess what our bacteria
are eating those things too and they
don't like it we're poisoning the field
when those bacteria um don't like it and
they start dying it affects our
metabolism it affects um even our
hormone our brain hormone so we want to
keep our our our gut defense system
which is tied to our immune system by
the way really really healthy um our DNA
is another defense system um people
don't realize this but we make 10,000
mistakes in our DNA every single day
that causes mutations which then can
cause cancer so fortunately our DNA
system defends us by fixing itself and
our immune system of course is um like
an our ultimate Shield um to prevent us
from bad guys coming in from the outside
whether it's covid or whether it's the
flu or whether it's you know some other
uh uh germ but also our immune system
protects us from bad guys on the inside
of our body and that's those cancers
that we started talking about our immune
system conducts surveillance to take out
those bad guys inside our skin as well I
know you're a big fan of olive oil I
want to talk about olive oil and why
it's so beneficial but before we get
olive
oil in the spirit of the kind of foods
that we should think about limiting when
we are in our Supermarket or our grocery
store and we're looking around to
purchase oils to cook food in to
sprinkle on food to pour on our salads
what kind of oils should we try and
avoid and then what sort of oil should
we try and buy in stats you know so this
like the debate about our artificial
sweeteners um is a loaded topic and so I
I want to just start you know this
component of our conversation by saying
the jury is still very much
deliberating what oils are harmful to
you and and are most harmful to you U
but I think that it's less controversial
what uh oils are better for you and good
for you I want to you know for your
listeners I want to kind of give people
some real practical things just kind
into the science of petroleum products
which is what o oils are let's talk
about this rule number one regardless of
what oil you actually have what I would
say is don't have too much of it because
oils are fats and fats can be healthier
but there really isn't such a thing as a
healthy fat that you should like drink
lots of it every single day okay so the
point is that there are healthier oils
but you should we should all limit the
amount of oil that we actually intake
into our body all right number one
number two is that and this is actually
broadly speaking is don't reuse your
oil okay most oils that are reused when
we heat them to cook whether we're
actually you know uh I mean again deep
frying is generally something that's not
very healthy the process of deep frying
actually changes the chemical the
natural chemicals that make up oil in
the oil itself and then paint it onto
the food stick it onto the food so we're
eating some of the change chemicals when
we actually eat deep Pride food now look
I mean I I've had I've had some awesome
fish and chips um when I visited England
before um and and again and again as we
talked about you know every now and then
if you're you spend most of your time
Shoring up your health defenses raising
your own bar you know having a rare
treat it's totally fine but when you fry
things in hot oil you're also changing
the chemical structure of things that
entire Browning golden Browning crisping
of food actually Chang changes the
chemical structure of the food itself
and in ways that are potentially
carcinogenic and so just need to be
careful about that the third so so I
think you know like reusing oil here's
the thing that's kind of like a little
risky you go to a restaurant to eat you
have no idea if they're reusing their
oil over and over and over again you
know um I mean think think about in uh
Asian restaurants whether it's an Indian
restaurant or a Chinese wrest they've
got these gigantic Vats where they're
frying tasty little bits up um but they
may be reusing that oil for days so um
reused oil not good for you for sure and
and the stuff that's fried in oil can
also change in time so let's start now
talking about just like the the
properties of oils themselves this is
where I think rather than kind of
walking into the quick sand of trying to
say is palm oil better than corn oil is
coconut oil dangerous for you you know
like we can weade into that jungle with
you know but I think you need a machete
to cut your way out of it and so the
best way to think about it help to give
clarity is you know are there any
healthier oils to use and how to use
them and this is where I think olive oil
really stands out number one it's part
of a healthy pattern of eating that's
been revered for thousands of years and
that's in the Mediterranean traditional
Mediterranean diet and the olives are
seasonal they're pressed the extra
virgin olive oil contains not just fat
poly monounsaturated fatty acids which
are better for your body and less
damaging for for your cardiovascular
health but there's a lot of polyphenols
that come from the olive itself now a
lot of people don't understand this but
when you look at olive oil the reason we
say extra virgin olive oil Evo you know
that's what the that's what supermarkets
and what restaurants are proud to use
now is because it's not just fat it
contains the polyphenols from the oil so
if you were to actually by the way this
is a good experiment to do for for your
listeners buy a little container of
Olives from your grocery store pitted
make it easy for yourself and literally
you know take it home and and take a a
heavy
glass or take a a board like a like a
heavy cutting board and press those
olives yourself and you'll actually see
if you press hard enough you'll see some
oil come out of it now in a in an olive
oil factory I mean that that's that's so
you can actually appreciate where your
food comes from where your olive oil
comes from now when you actually press
it you'll see that you've crushed the
olives and some of the bits from the
olives are actually in the olive oil the
reent olive oil tastes so good it's got
that you know kind of um peppery
vegetable kind of quality to it um it's
got a Umami flavor it's not because the
fat is flavorful it's because the bits
of Olives that were crushed in there are
actually in there flavoring it now those
bits and the stuff that comes from the
meat of the olives contain the
polyphenols one of which is hydroxy
tyrosol hydroxy tyrosol sounds like a
very complicated chemical name you don't
your listeners don't need to memorize it
by any means but you should know that
that comes from the olive
now olive oil will have some of it only
about 20% of the of it but if you
actually press that Olive 80% goes into
the olive water and and it's stuck in
the pulp and so one of the things that I
always say is that you know if you
really love olive oil and you want to
get the most out of it um just eat the
whole Olive you know and you can
actually cut up an olive and you'll get
a little bit of fat you'll get all that
flavor and you'll get a lot more of the
polyphenol now if you're going to cook
with ol olive oil I I I always say go
for extra virgin because of that reason
I would say don't deep fry but but you
can spr you can put put some on uh to
food you can actually sauté with it not
too much all the studies show that about
three tablespoons of olive oil that's
sort of like what you probably that's
around the max of what you'd want a day
so nobody's drinking olive oil and then
the other thing that is if you want to
choose which olive oil because I get
overwhelmed when I walk into a store and
I see all these like a whole wall full
of olive oils right everybody's
marketing here's what I do again I pick
up the Olive and oil and I look at the
ingredients what do I look for I look
for mono verial olive oil monovarietal
means it's made with just one kind of
Olive and I look for the one kind of
olive that that that oil is made from
from three different varieties of Olive
in Spain Spanish olive oil I look for p
p i c l picu olives among the highest in
in polyphenols in the oil so the olive
oil will be loaded second um Greek olive
oil um the coroni olive which is from
the pelonis it both both of pyan Cori
are very common olives so that's a good
news it's not very expensive highest
amount of poly one of the top three
polyphenols and the third for Italian
olive oil I look for um uh oil that's
been pressed from a monover varietal
called
morolo and that comes from Umbria and
there that's less common harder to find
a little pricier but I just gave you
Three Olives uh pel Cori morolo uh that
are not most of them are not good eating
olives but they're great for olive oil
they're packed with polyphenols if you
get olive oil that is monovarietal
pressed only from each of those you can
be guaranteed that you're getting sort
of the top
the sort of the coo too of the
polyphenols in the olive oil yeah I love
that I I actually in in my kitchen as we
speak now it's the PQ Olive it's a Well
I would have called it a single origin
but that's because I'm probably used to
picking coffee but as you were
describing that there was such a
wonderful energy in your voice and your
body language it reminded me of like a
wine connoisseur talking about the
different varieties of wines or a or a
coffee coniss talking about that you
know I get the single origin bean from
this particular Farm but I guess it's
not that different is it it's about
going back to where does this come from
how was it processed what is actually in
my hand right now that I'm about to
buy yeah and and you know there it's
great pride that we as humans have
always had and it's still within us to
know something about the food that is
around us I mean you know uh if you talk
to a farmer they are proud of what they
have if you talk to a villager they're
really proud of what their Community
what grows around their community and
again I think that you know something
that maybe that we're fighting against
because I I want to draw back the jargon
that you raised at the beginning that I
think is helpful to think about what are
we what are we really fighting against
you know I think we're we're fighting
against our distraction from ourselves
getting to know who we are and getting
what to know slowing down so we can
actually understand our own pace we're
getting distracted by the uh by the by
the pace of what we're expected to do
and so we've got no time for ourselves
right I mean every every young working
parent certainly feels that way you know
like man I'm so busy I don't have time
for myself and yet when it comes to Food
and Health we all need to have that time
for ourselves and I think we should take
great pride in saying what it is that we
actually love yeah a lot of people talk
about the health properties of
vegetables of course you promote all
kinds of vegetables which have different
impacts on the body but some of the time
we're told
to sprinkle or pour some olive oil onto
the vegetables because it helps us
absorb nutrients from them what's your
perspective on that in view of what
you've just said about oil and you know
perhaps not over consuming it even
though it can be
healthy yeah well there's two let's
unpack that because there's two things
that you were describing one is that in
Plants let's take a tomato as a great
example uh there are natural substances
natural chemicals like lopine lopine is
a carotenoid it helps to make the tomato
red um it has lots and lots of healthful
properties it's a powerful antioxidant
I've studied lycopene in a laboratory
and it actually can help starve cancers
by cutting off the blood supply um it
can slow the shortening of tiir to slow
cellular aging and it and it can protect
our DNA from even sunlight and
UltraViolet exposure lots of good things
about it now lopine actually is a
uh uh naturally occurs in a tomato on a
vine in a chemical form that our body
doesn't absorb that well so if you pick
a tomato off the vine and you cut it up
and you throw it into a salad it might
taste great just got some vitamin C in
it it's a great source of hydration and
great flavors okay especially if it's
like a homegrown heirloom type of
tomato but you're not going to get the
like you're not going to get as much
lycopene you're probably only going to
get maybe 20% of the lopine that's in
there but you want it like for me I want
to get as much much of the good stuff as
I can so here's what researchers found
if you wanted to convert that chemical
structure of lopine into a form that you
can absorb better your body can avidly
absorb what you want to do is you want
to heat the Tomato like in a pan and
with the heat will change the chemical
structure from a form your body doesn't
absorb that well into a form that your
body avidly absorbs loves to absorb it
now you go from 20% absorption to 80%
absorption you flip the you FP it around
completely upended that equation
completely now you're really absorbing
it now here's one additional thing
though how would you heat a tomato in a
pan you put heat it in water or nothing
no not really you put a little bit of
olive oil in it and why is that and and
it's because lycopene is a substance
that we call fat soluble it's a lipid it
loves to dissolve into fats so a little
bit of olive oil in tomatoes on a pan
sauteed so it's soft change of chemical
structure flavors are really great now
and you have that now when you uh eat
that tomato sauce sauteed in olive oil
the oil the olive oil with the lopine is
carried into your body even more
efficiently than if it were cooked in
water and so again that's an ex that's
just one example of thousands of how
oils with fat soluble Foods by the way
if you didn't want to look at olive oil
here's another common snack in the
United States anyway is kind of ter a
pagebook from Latin American Cuisine you
have these tortilla chips and then you
wind up actually having salsa and
guacamole the Salsa Salsa is often sort
of stewed down Tomatoes cooked down
Tomatoes served room temperature or
chilled and then the guacamole is just
avocado that's been smashed up now
avocado has a lot of healthy fats in it
it's it's it's a fat soluble veggie it's
actually quite nutritious remarkably uh
people eating avocado actually shrink
their waistline because
even though eating fat it actually makes
you it burns down harmful fat it's a
whole other story that be had but if you
have guacamole avocado with tomatoes you
get more lopine and so that happens to
be kind of a popular snack uh in the
United
States yeah I love that so the right
combination of foods can actually help
absorb the nutrients I think black
pepper also can do that right with s and
nutrients well right so black pepper so
this is an interesting thing we most of
us have heard that turmeric which is a
kind of a a root um when you cut it open
it's this bright beautiful bright orange
a lovely color and and turmeric is also
a dried spice used in Southeast Asian
Cuisine uh including Indian Cuisine is
where I first became acquainted with it
it um not only makes food beautiful it
actually makes food delicious it's got a
quite a lovely taste to it it's a it's a
spice inside turmeric is kirkin circumin
is one of those natural chemicals kind
of like lycopene it's one of those
mother nature's Treasure Chest Mother
Nature's Pharmacy with an F not a ph and
the the the the the circumin has a lot
of properties anti-inflammatory it's
antioxidant it cuts off the blood supply
feeding cancers um it uh actually is
helpful for your stem cells as well it's
it really activates almost all of your
body's Health defenses and it's good for
your gut microbiome so why not just you
know enjoy turmeric as a spice by itself
because it's so potent that our body
actually doesn't absorb everything that
it could in fact our body kind of it
kind of gets a lot of it gets flushed
out you know uh the tail end and so what
we want to do to improve our body's
extraction of the good um the good stuff
the the termic it turns out that if you
have fresh cracked black pepper all
right there's a substance in fresh
cracked black pepper called pepperine
pierine is one of Mother Nature's um
again you know these remarkable
chemicals that actually in influences
the body and piperine helps the body
hang on to the curcumin so if you have
fresh cracked black pepper with your
turmeric uh you you're actually creating
a onew punch that allows you to absorb
more of the curcumin sleep in cooler
temperatu