Can Eating the Rainbow Boost Brain & Gut Health? | Dr. Deanna Minich

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Hey everybody. I am excited today because I have my good friend and also mentor who I've looked up to over the years, Deanna Minick. Deanna, thank you. Hello.

Good to be here with you.

It's great to be here with you as well. Thank you so much for doing this. So.

My pleasure.

You want me to call you Dr. Minick?

No, call me Deanna.

Call you Deanna.

We're colleagues and friends. You can call me by my first name.

Once again, honored. Honored. Deanna, give me your 76 second bio.

I'm a nutritionist, I'm a scientist, artist, author, researcher, lecturer, and I would say that my interests are in phytochemicals and also in connecting science to spirituality.

Nice. Is that 76 that you. I think we still have like 20 seconds to talk about.

I think I summarized it enough. I don't want to bore people, but basically.

No, it's great. And I remember. I mean, so for. For the practitioners and functional medicine champions, Deanna was actually one of the first instructors that I learned from when I was learning functional medicine. So that's why that's why all the honor of being in her presence.

So I'm old.

No, you're not. You're not actually.

Well, and I have learned from you. You've had. I love the creativity in your talks and how you talk about the cardiovascular system and all kinds of things. So I think we, we have learned from each other.

Thank you. Thank you. And one of the things that you're known for in your art, but also in your practice as a nutritionist is this concept of eating the rainbow. Tell us about that.

Well, you know, we can make nutrition really complicated, or we can make it simple and evidence based. And what I have seen is that things come and go in nutrition science. So I can cherry pick the science to support pretty much any argument I'd like to make. But the one thing that you and I could not arm wrestle effectively is the role of phytochemicals. And looking at fruits, vegetables, plant foods of various types and the benefits that they have, not just for, I would say, physiological benefit in the way of reducing the risk of chronic disease, but also for psychological happiness, contentment, flourishing, we are now seeing that there's that phytochemical food brain connection. So seeing the connection now between food and mental health. So it's not just a body aspect to eat the rainbow, it's a mind aspect to eat the rainbow as well.

And the phytochemicals, they're responsible for the colors in these fruits and vegetables.

Many times they are. Sometimes we can't see their particular wavelength. However, like if we think of there are some phytochemicals that are in the ultraviolet spectra, so we can't see that with the human eye. But within the visible wavelength range, we have things like carotenoids or the colorful orange and red and yellow pigments. We have chlorophyll, which we would see as green. So there are certain things that we see as color. But yes, when I'm talking about eating the rainbow, I'm talking about eating the color code of nature. Each color has its own functional signature.

So the colors you see and the colors you don't see.

Yes.

So how do you approach. You have somebody in front of you for a consultation and you realize this person really needs to eat the rainbow.

Yeah.

How do you.

Which is everybody, by the way?

Which is everybody? Yep. Some more than others or some more than others.

But for the most part, Americans are eating a brown, yellow and white foods diet. They wake up eating waffles, pancakes, pancakes, toast, bagels, cereal. I mean, a lot of brown and so you know, that food is devoid of what I would say, like life force, the fiber, the phytochemicals, the vitamins and minerals that we need for, again.

Being our best waffles or pancakes. Which one do you think is healthier?

Pancakes. Because I can embed into the pancakes fiber and lots of other things. Oh, you can. You can actually make rainbow pancakes. Pancakes by bringing in different fiber types, bringing in different fruits. The color that people don't tend to get in their diet is blue purple. So there was a survey done some years ago, and they found that the average American gets too little in the way of blue purple compounds, like 88% of people surveyed. And blue purple is the color of the brain. A lot of those blue purple compounds, those anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins, are helpful for learning, memory and mood.

Wow.

So top of the day. What do we want for breakfast? We want something with blue purple pigments. So bringing in those blueberries to pancakes would be one option.

Nice.

And then cooking them. Does cooking them matter?

It does. Sometimes you actually potentiate or increase the phytochemicals in food through cooking. Because what happens in a plant is many of those things get bound up to fiber, and we need just a little bit of heat to break them apart from the fiber in order to liberate them for our absorption, to bring them into the body, essentially. So let me give you an example. Beta carotene in a carrot. If we just chomp on a raw carrot, that beta carotene is less accessible than if we were to cook it, which softens the carrot, liberates it a bit from that fibrous matrix, and then allows it to be better absorbed by our bodies. And often we need things like butter or oil, extra virgin olive oil in order to facilitate the uptake. Because certain of these phytochemicals are fat soluble, so they need fat, and others are water soluble, so we can lose them in water if we're cooking through water methods like boiling or steaming. So it kind of depends. I think, you know, the Goldilocks principle is something in the middle. You know, just steaming foods but not overcooking it, not having it raw, but just a little bit of cooking should be good.

Now, are there some vegetables that it's better to have raw?

Well, it so much depends on the application and the individual foods. But things like an apple, I think could be fine raw. Right. You know, just biting into an apple. But you could also get benefits from cooking an apple.

Okay.

Especially that peel. Again, more Pectin, it's more fibrous citrus fruits. You would damage the vitamin C and some of the bioflavonoids potentially if you were to cook those foods. So I would say, you know, just changing it up and seasonally eating foods maybe more raw in the summer or the warm months, and that's more consistent with traditional medicine practices, too.

Get back to the ancient wisdom.

That's right. And we need to bring that back.

Yeah. So what did they used to do? They'd say eat the foods, eat seasonally.

And eat according to your location. You know, I was just looking in my grocery store not too long ago, buying blueberries, actually, and just happening to look at the. The container of blueberries and noticing that the blueberries were from Peru, which is in a different season. And then I am up in Seattle, so I could be getting different phytochemicals that aren't actually benefiting my body. I want it as close to my location as possible and as close to that season in which those foods are normally harvested.

So you're really. You're eating the rainbow, but you're really cycling the rainbow, too.

Yeah. And just to back up for a second, my four principles are color, which is what we're talking about, the rainbow, creativity, diversity, and rhythm. And rhythm really speaks to the cycles, whether it's the lunar cycle, the seasonal cycle, the circadian cycle, or the circadian rhythm. You know, depending on what time of day we eat, that meal could be healthful or even potentially harmful and not as healthy as it could be eaten at another time of the day. We are now learning of the benefits of chrono nutrition as the overarching umbrella. So looking at the role of time on our biology, in fact, even in the literature, we see chronobiology, the impact of the clock on our different body systems and how we receive food and different nutrients. I was just giving a talk here yesterday about the chronobiotic effects of different phytochemicals in different foods and how different foods and vitamins could act as what I call circadian nutrients. So vitamin D, melatonin, polyphenols, they all have structures that. And they all kind of prime the body's circadian signal through, well, in some cases, the suprachiasmatic nucleus. So more of a brain effect, and others more of a gut effect, like the polyphenols. So they're both addressing circadian rhythm in the body and keeping us synchronized to time, even though we can be pretty sloppy about it. Right. Here we are in Vegas, lots of Artificial light at night, not so good for the brain or for keeping us in this harmonization of nature. Right.

Do you kind of have steps that you take? Like, maybe the first step is get off the junk food as much as possible and try to get the colors in. And then. Because how do you start applying the circadian rhythm of the food or even the seasons? Like, did you end up eating the blueberries?

Yes, I did.

Okay. All right.

So I had to in that. That time because I needed to get. So, yes, your question is a good one. In terms of hierarchy, like, where do you start? Do you kind of wrap yourself around this intellectual gymnastics of, like, time versus season and rhythm? Like, how do you do that? What I say is it's first very important to get the colors.

Okay.

So even if you have to get those blueberries from Peru or the carrots from Mexico, whatever it is, get the colors as best you can.

Okay.

Most people are. I'm starting to see, as they take pictures of their meals. You know, that's really good. I want to see those colors, the hues. Because what ends up happening is many times people just eat the same color of food and that same food over and over again, like tomatoes. And they'll say, oh, I got my red. But what about beets and cranberries and strawberries? And, you know, just the complexity that ties into diversity. I would say that's the second principle to go by. So first, the rainbow. Secondly, and we know this from the American gut Project, how important diversity is. So we want to aim for 30 to 50 unique foods in seven days.

Wow.

Because the more diverse our gut microbiome is, the better our brain, the better our mood, the better our immune system, the less we have food intolerances and allergies. So we want diversity. And then the. I would say the third principle is really rhythm. This is where, okay, I've got the rainbow down. I am eating diverse, and now I need to be thinking about seasonal eating and thinking about my circadian rhythm a little bit better. Right. You can continue to tweak it in that way. So that's how I would approach it.

I hope you're enjoying the show so far.

I just wanted to take a quick.

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Yeah.

So do you think it makes sense to have kind of like a keto or whatever you call it, like a higher protein, get rid of a lot of the phytonutrients in plants and vegetables for a period of time? Is that something?

Absolutely. And just because I'm talking fruits, vegetables and plants doesn't mean I'm advocating vegan or vegetarian type of dietary pattern. I think we have to, in fact, back up a bit and look ancestrally, actually look at our genes. Where do our mitochondria come from? So we know that the mitochondria are the energy powerhouses, the harnessers of the cell. They come from the maternal line. So to ask yourself, what were my maternal ancestors eating? You know, I actually have brought that in for some people who want to take it to the next level and kind of look at their metabolic health, their endocrine health. Maybe they're constantly fatigued. And one interesting thing to try is to eat your maternal ancestral diet. So I have more Eastern European ancestry. I'm just going to give you an example so that people listening can kind of bring this home. But if I think of my mother, who is more Lithuanian and Eastern European, lots of beets. I know you like that. Lots of root vegetables, lots of meats and other types of tubers. Right. Well, that is something I. I tend to feel pretty good on.

Now, what about Those people now with 23andMe and some of the tests, what if they're all mixed up?

Yeah, like you. Well, and you have to think of, okay, I am a diverse blend, and I'm living in a certain location.

I'm half Polish, half Arab. What do I do?

Have both.

All right.

Bring those two together into a fusion. Right. And, you know, I think at the end of the day, you really have to see how your body feels with these things. And at different times of the year, like you're saying if somebody feels better with keto at certain times of the year or, you know, and when you travel, this is another thing, because you and I travel a lot. I always feel like, when in Rome, eat like the Romans. When I'm in Ireland, eat like the Irish. You know, don't try to impose my. My everyday habits, I really feel like get the microbiome of where you are to be resilient in that environment. So, you know, eating can be a very intellectual exercise. I can tell you that just from all of the scientific publications. But at the end of the day, you gotta be in sync with your body. And I think paying attention to nature, circadian rhythm, and just watching the rainbow and making sure you're getting it in, I think that that helps.

And you're second. So you had creativity.

Creativity, we didn't address that yet.

Yeah, let's talk about creativity.

You know, that's a big one. If you think of medicine, we used to talk about medicine in terms of the healing arts. What is creativity? Creativity is that state of flow. It's the state of coherence. Body, mind, spirit are synced up. Brain, heart, gut are in alignment. So when I'm speaking about intuition and you have to feel how your body feels, I'm moving more into that creativity place. But then there's also a practical aspect of creativity, which is, when was the last time you had a star fruit? How did you prepare it? Have you tried different spice combinations? You know, it's kind of like just shaking up your ruts. And I feel that people that are in food ruts are also in life ruts. So case in point, you know, the. The person who's eating oatmeal every day for 70 years of their lives are probably doing the same things. So if you want to change your life, change your food. If you want to change your food, change your life. Like, they work in a bidirectional flow. So creativity is just kind of like allowing yourself to be flexible, flowing. That's neuronal plasticity, heart rate variability, and even metabolic flexibility.

So, Deanna, we are gonna get you back on here soon for a much longer interview. I just wanna make sure that we can talk about the exciting news. Cause you have a book coming out, right?

I do.

All right, let's hear what's the name of your book?

It's called the Rainbow Diet, and it's a complete revamp of my previous rainbow diet book. And in fact, we've actually given a little bit of a window in just from this conversation. The four principles. Color, creativity, diversity, and rhy. All in there. And then I unpack the code of the colors. Red, connecting to inflammation and immunity. Orange, connecting into reproductive health. Yellow, into digestive health. Green into the heart, your space. Blue, purple into the brain. And then I do talk about brown and black and white. Because even though they're not technically part of the rainbow, they do have merit. And in fact, I kind of had to get over that because when I was growing up, my mom would say to me, the whiter the bread, the quicker you're dead. My mom was one of those health nuts in the 1970s. So I never thought that white foods could be good for you. White sugar, white salt, white flour. But in the book, I do talk about the healing benefits of certain white foods, the healing benefits of black foods along the blue, purple, black continuum. And I bring in brown through cocoa, and even coffee. Coffee has merit as well for certain people.

So how would you say this book like, so what is the main way that this book is different than the last one? What. What have you. What have you added? The things you mentioned, were they in the old book or not?

As. No, not at the forefront. The old book was more of a workbook, and it was more connecting to the principles of food. But this one is very hands on with the phytochemicals, the color code, and. And the functional signature.

So you could theoretically say, hey, I want to work on this organ or this, and then you just go. And can I skip around in the book and just find out?

You know, I did a survey many years ago. 80% of people have issues with the gut. So I can imagine that many people will be opening to the yellow chapter, which is all about digestive health. And what are the yellow foods that will help me with gut health. So, yes, you can use it as a reference book or you can read it from beginning to end.

And when's it launching?

January.

Wow.

So it's. It's coming up soon.

So can they get on like a waiting list or something? Is there.

Yeah, they can go on Amazon and sign up that way.

Okay. Just sign up for the book to pre order.

You can pre order the book.

Can't wait. I'm gonna have to get that autographed book for my own self.

I'll have to send you a copy.

That's. That's. That's awesome. Well, Deanna, thank you so much. I know you're very busy here at these events, and I appreciate that you took the time to come in and share this with. With everybody. How can people stay connected with you?

Sure. The easiest way is my website, deannaminick.com.

Okay.

And through that, people will find a couple of things. First, my social media stuff. So I usually play on Facebook and on Instagram.

All right.

Secondly, I have a blog, so if you're a little bit more techie and you like more of the science. That would be a good blog for those people.

Okay.

And I'm a little bit non traditional in the way of like how I look at things, so you might see a little bit of the crosstalk into different disciplines then the third thing that people can get from the site is resources.

Okay.

I love putting graphics together with the information as an educational downloadable tool. So on the resources tab people can find all kinds of things like my two page guide for women's health and that's just all like a free giveaway. I think it's so important to inform, inspire and educate. So that's there.

I really love your approach. I think in medicine they a lot of times they do try to come up with like a formula or a cookie cut and kind of approach. And yeah, it's very clear from what you're saying that there is so many levels to Seems like there's an exciting food can be an exciting journey, huh?

It is. I think food is a path to personal growth. Not only do people become nourished in their body, but they learn something about themselves. Like we were just talking about our ancestry or you know, I think when you try out different dietary patterns, you learn something about your behaviors. So again I feel like food is as much physiological as it is psychological.

Amazing. Deanna, thank you very much.

Thank you for having me. Great to talk with you.

Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Youssef Elyaman. We hope you enjoyed the show. Make sure you check out our website at www.fmpessentials.com for our blog and other content. If you enjoyed this show, please, please, please subscribe. Give us a like it helps way more than you could imagine. Thank you for watching. Follow us across all social media platforms. M.P. essentials HQ. Please don't forget to share this with your practitioner friends and we'll see you in the next episode.