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Language: en
today I'm going to talk about five foods
that can help to protect your vision for
most people vision is one of the most
precious of our senses if you're at your
rate uh the senses of smell touch taste
Vision uh and um hearing I think vision
would be pretty high up in most people's
list I know it's number one for me I
love to be able to see what it is that
I'm doing and it would really be
distressing to me if I couldn't see it
so I put Vision as one of my highest
priority senses so what's responsible
for our vision how does it connect to
what we eat um well I actually have been
involved with vision research for most
of my career uh because I was so
fascinated by the eye it's this tiny
little ball it's got a lot going on and
it connects to our brain so actually our
eyes are really an extension uh to our
brain brain health actually also means
Eye Health so I want to actually talk
about Vision first and then talk about
the foods that can help you um improve
and protect your vision so number one
when you have light which is you know
emanating from everything around us
light enters our eye okay goes through
the front of the eye it's called the
cornea it's like a like the like the
face of a watch and it goes through our
pupil which is the the Hole uh in our
eye and then it goes in through the
fluid that's in the back of the the eye
and then hits uh a carpet of nerves on
the back of the eye it's called the
carpet of nerves on the back of the eye
is called the retina and uh it's
actually called the neuro retina because
these Carpe of nerves are connected by
wiring to a big thick nerve called the
optic nerve so this carpet filled with
nerves receives light uh when light hits
the retina activates the nerves and all
of it goes into this big thick nerve
called the optic nerve which goes right
to our brain and this is actually how we
appreciate our vision this is what
vision is all about and how we see the
world around us and how well the retina
Works uh really uh makes a big
difference in terms of how well we
actually see now there's other parts of
the eye which are important for vision
as well for example in front of the eye
uh the uh light has to pass through the
cornea so if the front the the crystal
clear face of the eye
if the cornea is clouded uh you're not
going to be able to see very clearly and
then as that light passes through the
pupil right behind the hole the pupil is
the lens of the eye that helps to focus
the light and the lens has a problem
like with cataracts you're also not
going to be able to see very clearly but
I want to really talk about the retina
because this is really where diet
actually comes in now your retina's
critical Vision as I've actually told
you and a some of the most significant
research on dietary factors uh have been
done uh looking at retinol health and in
fact uh the national eye institutes in
the United States conducted a big
program called arids a r DS and there's
arids one and arids 2 and basically this
actually study um uh dietary factors put
together as a supplement so there's a
supplement called arids uh that uh is
beneficial for preventing vision loss
uh now let me explain to you uh that the
arids 2 study which is the most recent
one this was a clinical study that
involved 4,23 people age 50 to 85 so
this is really people in the second half
of their lives and that's the part of
the life where actually our retina
Health actually starts to uh suffer and
we need to protect it about half of the
subjects were female and and Erin 2 was
studied in 82 different clinical centers
over a long period of time and what it
was found is that people who are taking
this supplement that contained a lot of
different factors including lutein and
zanthin these are two bioactives that
you find your diet we're going to come
to that in just a moment um that people
taking the supplement could uh reduce
the progression of vision loss from a
disease called
AMD age related macular degeneration
this is where the layer of nerves the
the carpet of nerves on the back of the
eye of the retina begin to degenerate
and one of the biggest problems that
leads to vision loss is when blood
vessels that are feeding this carpet now
here's their nerves they need blood flow
they need oxygen they need nutrients
when the blood vessels that are feeding
the layer of retina actually start to
become abnormal and what happens is that
then you the vessels become very leaky
and fluid leaks out of the vessels the
fluid builds up underneath the carpet
it's kind of like if you had a plumbing
problem a burst pipe underneath your
carpet what would happen the water would
seep out the carpet would get soggy and
that's what happens to the retina the
car carpet of nerves in the back of your
eye and that sogginess the accumulation
of fluid um the the Leaky blood vessels
actually damages and destroys Vision
it's called macula degeneration because
the macula is the most sensitive part of
your vision it's where the most nerves
are actually and unfortunately when you
have macula degeneration it occurs right
where this most sensitive part part your
vision is in fact it's called central
vision it's uh when that vision is
blocked there it actually uh ruins your
central vision so if you're watching
this video here's your central vision if
I put this right here and you couldn't
see anything except for the perimeter
look I'm blocking your central vision
you're just seeing my fist you can see a
little around the edges that's what
happens in a ma degeneration everything
else is black in the middle and blurry
that's a real problem you can't read a
book you can't recognize um a face of
your spouse your partner your relative
friend grandchild uh you can't read
can't drive can't play golf this really
is interfering with quality of life in
in a big way so having a supplement that
actually can reduce progression of this
disease into the wet form which is where
the blood vessels leak and start to grow
abnormally and they can also bleed is
really a big breakthrough for uh an
Opthalmology which is the field that
studies your vision now you can get the
Arid supplement from your
drugstore uh or you can order it online
uh and in addition to lutein and zanthin
vitamin A uh which is retinol rotino
acid actually has been found to be uh
very important for vision as well so
let's talk about the five foods that are
able to help uh preserve and protect
your vision the first food are eggs eggs
contain lutein and zanthin these are two
of the bioactives that are found in the
supplement arids too they can actually
help um prevent progression of vision
loss from macular degeneration when we
as we're aging and um what's wonderful
is that it's found in the egg yolk in
fact these bioactives are carotenoids
that make the egg yolk orange so if
you've ever eaten eggs and you and you
look at the egg yolk and it's just
bright yellow like the sun that is
actually an egg that doesn't really have
the richest amount of corat oil so lanth
what you really want are eggs that are
come from pasture raised or free range
um hens that are able to eat anything
they want uh they eat the things that
hens eat and from the plant-based foods
that the hens eat they get lutee and
zadan it and they actually put it into
their eggs the hens put that healthy
carotenoids into the eggs and then when
we eat the eggs we actually get the
benefit or eyes actually get the
benefits so that's what I recommend that
you actually look for eggs that come
from pasture raised or Freer range hen
so when you crack open the the egg and
look at the yolk it should be um a dark
it should be really rich orange dark
orange even even red orange like the
blood moon that's what I actually say um
if you have a friend who has chickens
and hens that lay eggs you might want to
ask from ask them if they could provide
some of the eggs for you uh okay now how
do you eat the eggs well there's a lot
of ways to actually eat eggs I like to
cook some and to tell you about Foods
and uh enjoyable ways to have them foods
should be about Joy so I like to
actually eat eggs that are hardboiled so
you know you can set a timer you boil
your egg and it actually makes the yolk
solid and also the egg white solid I
like that so when you peel off the shell
uh you have a hard boiled egg and I like
to bite off the top of it expose a
little bit of that um solid yolk and
then you can actually put a little
sprinkle of salt on there and just eat
that and that's that's a great simple
way to have a protein rich bioactive
rich lutein zanth Rich good for eye um
breakfast all right now if you really
want to fancy it up a little bit and
have a a nice culinary or gastronomic
twist to it try adding a little instead
of salt putting a just half a little
container of soy sauce or a dipping bowl
with soy sauce and you can dip the egg
into the soy sauce and eat that that's
got this nice Umami flavor from soy
sauce it's also got the salt in so you
don't need add extra salt to that so
that's boiled eggs another way to
obviously e eggs is to fry them like I
like Sunnys side up eggs I like the I I
like the uh the yolk um cooked a little
bit more um basically you're frying your
egg now rather than use butter which
actually is saturated fat that actually
is not really good for your retina your
vision because too much butter saturated
fat actually can lead to clogging of the
arteries I actually uh when I fry eggs
which I sometimes do I will use extra
virgin olive oil because number one it's
a healthy fat healthy oil and it's full
of polyphenols and those polyphenols
also get into the egg so I'm actually
adding to the health of the egg as well
now of course you can scramble eggs as
well again I don't use butter I would
use extra virgin olive oil you don't
need very much of it just a little bit
and and whip up the whip up the eggs um
uh and then uh beat the eggs and put
them in there
and uh stir stirfry them up into a
scramble or scramble up the eggs and
that's a great way to actually get ltin
and zanthin now if you don't like eggs
for breakfast or any meal actually
frankly another way to get the zanthin
and lutein good for the eye uh from eggs
it's not in a breakfast food is in egg
noodles a lot of people don't know this
but egg noodles compared to regular
noodles have six times more of these
catenoids ltin zanth and then regular
noodles not made with eggs now obviously
how you prepare the noodles and what
you're cooking with them uh you know
makes all the difference in the world
but um you want to do it in a healthy
way that's outside of the scope of this
video how to cook egg noodles but I
would just tell you that's another way
to get the lutein and zanthin so food
number one are eggs Food number two
sweet potato I love sweet potato all
right and sweet potato contains vitamin
A retinol
uh and this is actually also important
for retinol health and just one cup of
sweet potato contains guess what
1,920 micrograms of retinol activity for
retinol activity which is
213% of what you need for the daily
recommended value so basically just one
cup of sweet of cooked sweet potato
gives you way more than you need to be
able to get good healthy vitamin A which
is good for your eyesight now there's a
lot of ways to cook sweet potatoes one
of my favorite favorite is a simple cuz
I like to cook as simply as possible you
can bake them and you can bake them in
the oven uh it's kind of a put them in
the oven and step away you can wrap them
up in foil step away uh do something
else and then they'll be done and you
can actually have a nice simple sweet
potato uh lots of different ways to look
recipes to to eat it but I liked it
plain you can also add sweet potatoes to
a stew so if you're making a vegetable
stew can actually cut up sweet potato
and add it in there and that will
actually lend to uh the it will add
vitamin A to your stew you can also make
a soup I actually love sweet potato soup
um you can look up the recipe but I like
cooking down the sweet potato with a
little onion a little bit of Ginger uh I
cook it in vegetable broth makes it nice
and soft add a little touch of coconut
milk uh for richness a little paprika
apple cider vinegar can even chop up
some apples in there cook oil together
put them into a blender and puree it
really really smooth that actually is a
very nice uh uh sweet potato soup lots
of variations lots of ways you can spice
it up and create the flavor uh profile a
little bit differently but sweet
potatoes vitamin A chalk full of vitamin
A good for retinal Health good for
eyesight good for protecting your vision
now food number three colored greens now
colored greens are part of brassa and
Brass contains suor fanes these suor
fanes or natural chemicals are actually
really great for our metabolism they
lower inflammation they're good to help
us fight excess harmful body fat uh lots
of good reasons to actually have uh
collard greens as part of the so Brass
family but guess what collard greens
also have a lot of vitamin A in fact one
cup of Co cooked collard greens has 80%
of your daily value percent daily value
so it's a great source plenty uh in
collored green SN um collar greens are
cooked in a lot of different ways um I
always say try to cook your Healthy
greens in the healthiest way possible so
you're not taking something good and
you're and you're cooking in a way that
actually doesn't make it as takes away
from some of its health so what i' like
to do you take collared greens these are
big leaves uh and you kind of cut out
with a knife the stems you can pile up
you know the the leaves uh with the
stems cut out and then roll them up and
roll them up into sort of like a big fat
green cigar and then you can slice them
on a cutting board into a little strands
now you've got these strands you can
loosen them up and then take a cast iron
pan a little bit of extra virgin olive
oil a little bit of salt um a little bit
of garlic chopped garlic sauté and saut
the greens in that if you want to put a
little bit of vegetable stock in there
uh it's it actually is really good and
then you can add some red chili flakes
squeeze a lemon and now you have a kind
of a Mediterranean style uh collared
green sauté uh if you want to serve it
make it kind of Brazilian style you can
serve it with rice and beans beans are
good for your gut microbiome and there's
more research coming out now showing
that good healthy gut gut microbiome
healthy gut bacteria the 39 trillion
bacteria in our gut are also important
for actually protecting our vision and
helping to prevent uh macular
degeneration this is an area of research
that's still being worked out but
clearly gut health is brain health and
the eye is part of the brain uh as well
all right food number four cantaloupe I
love cantaloupes all right I got to tell
you I got a weat spot for cantaloupes I
I love me melons in general but
cantaloupe is one of my favorite a
really really nice ripe juicy cantaloupe
great source of vitamin A one cup of of
cut up cantaloupe has about 30% of your
daily value for retinol all right
retinoic acid vitamin A so it's a great
source and who only eats one cup of
cantaloupe right I usually when I'm
sitting on eating a cantaloupe and cut
up into cubes I'll probably eat one or
two cups actually and so you get
basically more than half of your daily
um value a vitamin A by just eating a
serving or or two of cantaloupe now I
like to eat cantaloupe plain but if you
want to actually get a little bit
fancier and do some interesting things
cuz who likes to eat the same thing the
same way all the time I know we're
creatures of habit but I think if you
want to love your food to love your
health and love your vision health you
might want to try mixing it up a little
bit and if you're having guests over you
want to impress them try grilling your
cantaloupe so if you want to try
grilling cantaloupe that's a really
amazing way if you're having compy over
um just cut out the slice of cantaloupe
you know kind of like a boat of
cantaloupe all right um stick it on the
grill uh get some Grill lines on it uh
you'll get that you you'll start cooking
it a little bit and then uh squeeze some
lime and chili powder on it and now you
get this really zingy sweet delicious uh
slightly Smoky cantaloupe that'd be a
great kind of an appetizer uh to serve
people and have it on the on the table
for company the other thing you can do
if you want to make it more of a dessert
cantaloupe is great cut up along with
strawberries and chop up a little bit of
mint mix it together and you've got this
great really summery fruit dessert food
number five corn corn what say says
summer more than corn well corn actually
contains lutein and zanthin the same
thing that's important for protecting
your vision from vision loss from
generation and yellow corn has the
highest amount of ltin and zanthin blue
corn has the least all right so get
yellow corn and I love just fresh corn
on the cob you know you can pick out uh
the corn it's already uh got it's got
the covering on it the leaves on it you
peel it off uh rinse it off and just
boil it don't overboil it boil it just
to it's right you can look up on the
Internet how to actually do this and
then just eat a simple uh cup of corn
again rather than put butter on it which
is kind of a you know old tradition like
when I was growing up we always put
butter in our corn what I say is uh just
put a little extra virgin olive oil on
it and a tiny little bit of salt and
you'll get a really delicious flavor and
now you get the polyphenols from the
olive oil as well as the lutein and
zanthin from corn and by the way corn
protein new research shows corn protein
is also good for cognition good for
memory and so Corn's just a really
simple but great and healthy food
popcorn also a good source of dietary
fiber but let's talk about uh corn you
can make corn in a salad uh so cook your
corn slice off the kernels you want to
mix it with some beans some cooked beans
and chopped rubell pepper um add a
little bit of lime juice add a bit of
extra virgin olive oil now you got like
a room temperature salad you can serve
it's great summer or I actually love
corn soup now you can make a corn
chowder or you can make a smooth corn
soup
and uh I like a smooth corn soup you can
add a little bit of cumin and turmeric
for color and some spiciness a little
bit of a little bit of healthy spice uh
never hurt anybody and corn soup is a
great way uh to actually do that hey
just a real quick one here if you're
enjoying this video then you'll
definitely want to check out my free
recipe for a Carrot Top salad that's
right I said Carrot Top in the video
you've already learned that carrots are
a great source of carotenoids and
dietary fiber so now I want to show you
how to enjoy this delicious vegetable
from root through stem and guess what it
only takes 15 minutes to make it get the
full recipe it's completely free right
now in the caption below now back to the
video so uh now here are some of the
things uh that you can do to avoid
vision loss uh above and beyond sort of
the foods that you eat so we talked
about five foods that you can actually
eat to protect your vision but here's a
couple of other tips
uh to protect your vision as well number
one avoid excess salt all right salt in
our food tastes great but unfortunately
too many people eat too much salt I mean
if you go to a restaurant and you see
how they actually cook uh food go ahead
in an open kitchen and just watch the
person who's uh cooking and you'll see
often times when they put salt in a pan
they put a ton of salt in a pan does
taste good but over time excess dietary
salt gives us hypertension high blood
pressure the salt in your blood actually
causes fluid into moves fluid into your
bloodstream now you got like a huge
amount of of fluid in your body that
causes hypertension it stresses out the
lining of your blood vessels called the
endothelium and now your blood vessels
get hard and that is a setup
hypertension is called the silent killer
and it sets you up for heart attack and
stroke now hypertension in and hardening
of the vessels in your retina and
underneath that layer also can
accelerate vision loss as well so you
don't want to actually have too much
salt good for your brain uh to lower
salt good for rision as well now one of
the things is where a place that you can
often find excess salt is an ultra
processed food so along with all the
other usual reasons to avoid Ultra
processed foods protecting your vision
is another one because of the excess
salt that's often found in extra uh in
ultr processed foods another thing you
want to do uh to avoid is actually you
to avoid overeating because overeating
excess caloric intake sets you up for
metabolic syndrome metabolic syndrome is
a setup for type 2 diabetes and type 2
diabetes can lead to diabetic
retinopathy remember the retina is the
back of the eye that carpet and diabetes
can affect and damage the retina
especially the circulation the blood
vessels feeding that retina you get
leakage you get non-perfusion you've got
um blood vessels gr like crazy and you
can actually have bleeding in your
retina and that can wipe out your vision
as well so um avoid diabetes okay and
one way to avoid diabetes type two
diabetes is actually to avoid overeating
there's a lot of other ways uh that that
are involved with this as well but
overeating is a is a big one now there
are some other things you should look
for uh on your on an everyday basis to
make sure you're protecting your vision
for example if you have blurred vision
that's a symptom uh blurred vision is a
symptom of all kinds of eye diseases if
the blood Vision doesn't clear up or you
start seeing wavy lines and you're a
sight line better go see an eye doctor
all right um or if you can't see out of
one eye most people don't do this
because we just look out of both eyes
but you cover one eye and you can't see
anything all right but on this eye you
cover it you can actually see you got a
problem with one eye uh then you need to
see an eye doctor because one of those
eyes the one that's that's um that you
can't see out of well is going to have a
problem you got to go to an
opthalmologist that's an eye doctor who
then can actually give you a proper
diagnosis okay go to the eye doctor not
the optometrist the optometrist that you
measures your General Vision it can fit
you for eyeg glasses but you want to go
to the opthalmologist for medical
treatment uh and maybe surgical
treatment as well uh that's when you're
actually looking for the submission
symptoms uh that signify it's a red flag
you got to go to an eye doctor now when
you uh get to your middle age like 50
and above you should be getting an
annual dilated eye exam every year
what's a dilated eye exam that's
basically where they you know you go to
the eye doctor after they make you read
all the lines on the chart you know at
the back of the room then they actually
gives you some eye drops and those eye
drops will dilate your pupil all right
the black spot in your eye and then the
eye doctor will have you rest your chin
in kind of a while you're seated in kind
of a device and uh uh and they'll use
that uh to actually a slit lamp to
actually look uh at the back of your
retina they can see everything all right
um when you get a dilated eye exam by
the way which you know hopefully you'll
get a check out they'll look at your
retina they'll look at your immacula
they'll look at uh other parts to make
sure everything is looking good and
sometimes I also take a picture there's
a special scan called o Optical
coherence tomography it's kind of like a
CAT scan of the back of your eye but
it's really really fast and doesn't give
you radiation um and you can actually
check the the health of the the blood
vessels and the retina to make sure
there isn't fluid there but if you get a
dilated eye exam you're probably going
to need a ride home so better you know
have a friend or a family member take
you to the aactor they're going to drive
you back because once they give you the
uh eye drops to dilate your pupil it
takes a few hours before your pupil um
gets back in goes back to normal size
and when your pupil's really big um
first of all you're really sensitive to
light second you can't really see that
well so you don't want to be driving um
so get ride for a dilated eye exam all
right so here's a sum up number one if
vision is one of your most important
senses which I think it probably is you
want to actually be aware that there are
things you need to do to protect it and
in addition to taking arids or arids 2
that contain lutein and zanthin you can
use diet you can eat eggs uh the
colorful vegetables uh soet potato uh
collared greens corn cantaloupe we
talked about those there's many other
foods that actually have lutein and
zanthin and vitamin A you want to
actually get a regular eye exam with
your opthalmologist and and do an eye
exam at home you know cover up your eyes
and see if you can actually read well if
you can't you got blurred vision or uh
black spots or blurry spots you might
want to go see an opthalmologist and
after you see an opthalmologist I'll
tell you be compliant follow the
instructions of what they tell you
especially if you have any followup
visits all right you don't want to lose
your vision your eye doctor your
opthalmologist is there to take care of
your vision all right so it's up to you
to protect your vision your
opthalmologist will help you do it at
the medical level and there's foods that
you can actually eat in order to be able
to help protect your vision as well I
hope you learned something about your
vision and how to protect it thanks for
watching and I'll see you on the next
video hi there if you enjoyed watching
this video I know you'll love the next
one stay here and check it out and I'll
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