Ep. 169 - "Rainbow Diet: Nutrition for Body and Mind" - Dr. Deanna Minich

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Do you need help with your multifocal strategy? Learn more at the conclusion of this episode. Good morning, I'm Dr. Kerry Gelb and welcome to Wellness 1280 on Open your Eyes Radio. Please listen as it's discuss the newest information in the world of health, nutrition and sports Every Saturday morning 6am Central Time on AM 1280 the Patriot. Also, please share your thoughts by emailing me at Dr. Kerrygeldmail.com that's D R K E R O Y G-E-L-BMail.com and visit my new website wellness1280.com where we have all guests, links, Wellness 1280 info and previous shows. Wellness is taking over the Patriot Airways for the next hour so sit back and enjoy my interview with Dr. Deanna Minick. With hundreds of diets out there, choosing the right one can be overwhelming, frustrating and often ineffective. Most approaches focus only on what Dr. Minick calls the three musketeers of nutrition, fats, proteins and carbohydrates, while ignoring a critical component, the power of colorful phytonutrient rich foods. Dr. Minick's approach goes beyond macros to emphasize whole, unprocessed plant based nutrition that nourishes both body and mind for long term health. She is a nutrition scientist, certified functional medicine practitioner, international lecturer and best selling author. Her book the Rainbow Diet, now in its second edition, explores how the colors of foods can transform our health. Dr. Minick welcome to Open youn Eyes Radio and podcast with Dr. Kerry Gelb hi, Dr. Gelb.

It's so great to be here with you talking about one of my favorite topics, nutrition. And perhaps a close runner up is iHealth.

Well, I'm really excited to have you. You're a great, great writer, a great educator. I've seen you at IFM meeting speak, and you're really quite a great speaker and you've been in the supplement industry for a long time. I have to ask you about supplements because I take a lot of supplements and I know my listeners take a lot of supplements. How do we know a good supplement from a bad supplement?

Whatever company you're buying a supplement from, it should have third party testing. In other words, somebody else has to verify that that is a quality supplement. It can't just be the company saying that it's a quality supplement. I tend to tell people to get their supplements through their healthcare professionals because many times there are certain companies that just focus on healthcare practitioners and they have a higher bar of qual. So make sure that you do the rigor because you can be spending a lot of money on a poor quality supplement. And further, it could even be a contaminated supplement which you definitely don't want. So look for cgmp, which is a certification in good manufacturing practices. Again, cgmp, that would be a sign that the manufacturer would goes the extra length to ensure a quality supplement.

In eye care, we use a lot of omega 3s and there's triglyceride omega 3s, the ethyl ester, omega 3s, and a lot of our patients will go to a big box store, buy this giant jug of Omega 3s which are significantly cheaper than the triglycerides that we would recommend. Are they getting good quality from these big box stores where they're buying tons of these supplements at a very inexpensive price, which are probably ethyl ester omega 3s, or do you care that it's not that much of a difference between ethyl ester and triglyceride form?

What I think is most important is the total amount that people are getting and the proper ratios. And when I say proper ratios, looking at the ratio between EPA and and DHA and trying to get as concentrated as you can, and sometimes that can only happen through an ethyl ester form. Now, when you look at the studies comparing triglyceride versus EE or ethyl ester forms, what you see is that basically there's a little bit of a difference in absorption, but eventually they both get in. What is the natural form found in nature? Triglycerides. However, sometimes it could be a little bit difficult to concentrate a lot of those triglycerides because they're kind of bulky. So what I would say is, you know, again, back to your initial question of making sure you've got a good quality fish oil. If your fish oil smells stinky or rancid, that's a bad sign. What I also like is many fish oil products actually include antioxidants in it to prevent that rancidity. Whether it's vitamin E, sometimes you'll see a rosemary extract, sometimes just even natural carotenoids from the fish or the krill, like astaxanthin. So what I would say is, yes, best practice is to have a good quality fish oil because you're going to be taking higher amounts of that fish oil. Right. That's really important for eye health.

So there is some advantages to the ethyl estiform over the triglyceride form. I wasn't aware of that. Can you repeat that again? What were some of the advantages of ethyl ester and the downside of triglyceride being the big molecule? That's something that's new to us and I care.

So the reason why an ethyl ester format of fish oil might be beneficial is because you can typically get a higher concentrated level of certain of those fatty acids. Whereas with the triglyceride, which looks like an E, you know, you've got these longer fatty acids and it's just a larger structure to deal with. So many times you can't quite get that same degree of concentration.

Interesting. Now, the eye can be very representative of nutrition from somebody like you. How do you look at it as a PhD, someone who studies this? How do you look at it from someone that's not in the eye industry?

Yeah, well, to me, it's one of the first indicators of your nutritional status. The eye and the mouth are some of the fastest turning tissues, right? So they, they heal quickly, they change quickly. The iris is very sensitive. Some people with light eyes even notice that, that there's a color change from day to day, depending on the time of day, what they're eating. If you've got dry eyes, you know, so many things manifest through the eyes very quickly. So I think it's such a beacon of health for people to be looking at their eyes to see what's happening. Is the scara or the white part clear or is it bloodshot or kind of yellowish? You know, this could say something about just the overall health of the body, the systemic health, even the liver health. So I Think it's really important to look at the clarity of the eyes and the, the dryness of the eyes, any kind of visual changes of the eyes. Because the eyes, especially with all of us being on technology these days, we are seeing, and you're probably seeing this in practice more and more eye disorders. Right. Because we're against all of this technology with all of the artificial blue light. And this can be very damaging for the eye, which is very sensitive to light and darkness.

I mean, we, we look at the retina and we take photographs now just like this. We'll take X rays, but they're not X rays, they're photographs. And we could see the blood vessels at 8 microns and at 8 bronze. We could tell very early, well, whether someone's going to get cardiovascular disease if they're at risk for insulin resistance. Which is one of the studies that I've done. I was the lead author on that study to show that looking at inside the eye could tell whether or not somebody has insulin resistance because they have these little things on the blood vessels called microaneurysms. So the eye really is the true window to the health. And now that our technology is so good, we could diagnose disease so early. But I want to ask you just to back up a little bit, you know, about your book and where did you come up with the name Rainbow Diet, and what made you think about that?

Well, back to graduate school, I was studying carotenoids, which are the pretty pigments in natural foods. So we think of like a red bell pepper or an orange carrot or even dark leafy greens like kale. A lot of those colors that we see in nature are due in part to these carotenoids. So when I started to think about carotenoids, I started to think about phytochemicals or these plant compounds, which actually are comprised of a bigger number of compounds. I started to realize that people are not getting enough of these colors. So so many things in nutrition are very.

Hold that thought, Deanna. We're up against the break. This is Dr. For Open Your Eyes Radio. I'm speaking with Dr. Deanna Minick, author, the Rainbow Diet Book. We'll be right back. We're back with Dr. Deanna Minick, author of the Rainbow Diet, just re released second edition. Great book. Everybody go out and get one of those. And her Facebook is. She's on Facebook. Deanna Minick, her Instagram, which is great. Very colorful. The anime edge has a YouTube food and spirit. So we were talking about the Rainbow Diet and why you got started in the rainbow diet? I have to ask you, I know people that listen to this are going to say, how about lectins? You know, Gundry was big with the lectins that maybe vegetables aren't so healthy. Some of the carnivore people are saying, well, they get all the vegetables from eating meat. What's your opinion on that?

80% of the biomass on this planet is plants. And if you look at all of the preponderance of data, this is the only thing I feel like you can't really arm wrestle in nutrition is the copious data on plant foods and different markers of health. We need plants for minerals, we need plants for carotenoids, we need it for fiber. And so the only way that we would get them if we were following a carnivore diet is actually from the animal and that would be in very small amounts. So I think it's really important to have these plant foods, but it's also very important to cook these foods properly. And I think Maybe that's what Dr. Gundry is after with lectins. And if we think of oxalates, goitrogens, phytates, sure, all of these things can be an issue. Just like in meat. We could have issues with how we're cooking the meat, heterocyclic amines, carcinogens. So. So it's all about how we're preparing that food, the quantity of it, the combinations of it and who we are as an individual and what our personalized needs are.

You know, I think it's amazing that all the different colors have different nutrients. And myself, when I give patients diets, I give them a list of foods and I give them a list of why each color, what the benefit of each color. So patients walk out of my office with that type of thing. But in general, I notice when I eat vegetables, vegetables, more vegetables, I feel my life feels better. I have more life satisfaction. I know that my risk of chronic disease, my immune system is going to be better again. It helps the mood, it really does help my mood. But in general, tell us about some of the benefits of why eating vegetables are good for us.

Yeah, and I think that most people have heard that already. So that's nothing new. What's new, when we look at the science of plants and eating plants, is that eating plants, just like you just said for yourself, can actually make you feel better. There is a food and mood connection, especially with blue, purple colored foods. So in the rainbow diet book, I go through the color code of nature Red foods to help with inflammation. Orange foods to help with reproductive health and hormones. Yellow foods to help with gut health. Green foods for the heart, and blue, purple foods for the brain. So if we miss a color, or we just keep eating the same color over and over again, the same, same food, and we don't diversify the diet, then we're not getting enough of these phytochemicals for the microbiome, for our immune system, for all of these different body systems, which ultimately can not only reduce your risk for chronic disease, but can also reduce your risk for mental health issues, which I think is newer information for people.

This with my patients, most patients eat like five foods, and they just eat it over and over again, the same five food.

So it's true.

A list of foods and say pick different ones. So you. You're diversifying what you're eating. What kind of tricks do you have to help people eat different varieties of foods?

Yeah, I make it a game. So one of the fun things I like to do with my groups is I give them a tracker and I say, I want you to get 55,0 unique foods per seven days. Every seven days, I want you to have 50 unique foods. So what does that mean? Let's just say you eat apples and you go to the store, and just like you were saying, big box store, all one variety in one big bag, and people can just pick up the bag of apples. But what you can do to diversify, one hack would be instead of buying that big bag of apples, pick different varieties of apples quickly. Right? Like a Granny Smith apple, a Red Delicious apple, a pink lady apple. Each of those apples, even though it's still an apple, it has different phytochemicals based on the variety. So that is one way to diversify the diet. And if you think of apples, some of them are green, some of them are more pink, some of them are red, some of them are a deep red. Those colors are tracking to different concentrations of phytochemicals. So make sure that you are eating the skin of that apple where a lot of those phytochemicals are hanging out. So that would be one way to do it, is to track and actually try to increase the diversity. Try one new food every week as well. I'm sure that there's something that you haven't had in a while, maybe shop at a different grocery store, use spices, use herbal teas, which tend to have different, com, I would say, compositions of phytochemicals. So you're getting a variety even in something like herbal tea.

So which apples have the most phytonutrients? From my reading, it's Gala and Granny Smith. Am I right on that or am I wrong on that one?

I believe. You know, there's a great book called Eating on the Wild side by Jo Robinson where she kind of looks at each of those apples and uses the scientific literature. It can change. It can change seasonally. Keep this in mind that not every apple is going to have the same amount of phytochemicals every year. Right. You're going to have different ones depending on where they're grown, the time of year that they're harvested, which is why don't fixate on one type of apple because it has the highest phytochemicals. Focus on the variety so you get the spectrum of phytochemicals which all seem to work in harmony. That's how nature works as a diverse blend, not just hammering on certain ones. Right. So I think eat seasonally. This is another pearl that everybody really needs to hear. When you eat seasonally, you get greater amounts of nutrients. And that has been shown in a variety of different studies with different foods.

Now, the spinach grown in 1950 compared to spinach grown today has much different amount of nutrients in it. Can you talk about the devolution of nutrients and vegetables?

Yeah, that is something to think about, that whether it's one orange from the 1950s, now we need eight oranges to make up and get that same level of vitamin C. You know, this is due to the depletion of minerals and just over farming in the same area, we always have to go back to the soil. How and where was that food grown? That is why we think about organically grown food or regenerative type of agriculture, which looks at the cultivation of the soil, because that food is only as good as the soil that it was grown in, because that's what supplies the nutrients. It's kind of like your body. You're only going to be as fortified as what you're taking in. Right. So food is like that soil for us. So we have to focus on the soil. We need to ensure that we've got enough minerals. And I think that people are just coming up too short. And not only are our soils depleted, we have increased need because our environment has become more toxic. So now we have. We're struggling because we're in this place of needing to override a lot of those toxins with minerals and with vitamins, but we're not getting enough in the diet, which then circles us Back to what you were saying about supplementation, right?

So that's one of the reasons why it's good to supplement if you know how to supplement and you're using the right type of supplements. But people want to know what's the best way to eat vegetables? Is it fresh, is it raw, is it steamed, is it cooked? And frozen vegetables? Frozen vegetables. Because I think I saw once that broccoli frozen really isn't so good that it loses some of the nutrients. So if you could talk about each.

One of those, I think it's a great question. I get that question all the time. What I would say is the Goldilocks principle. And the Goldilocks would be just right. What would you do most of the time that could give you the greatest benefit? Because quite honestly, there's no easy answer. Water soluble vitamins like vitamin C or B vitamins, they're going to come out if you cook them. So they're better if you eat certain foods raw. However, if you don't cook certain foods like carrots or even, you know, broccoli to some extent, you can't get the vitamin A, which is important for the eyes. You can't get a lot of those fat soluble carotenoids. And even some of the fiber stays locked up in the plant unless it has a little bit of heat. So my basic premise is focus on color. So when you have broccoli and you steam it, you steam it until it is bright green, right? So you're not going to overcook it, you're not going to undercook it and create digestive distress because, you know, some people get a lot of gas and bloating if they eat too many raw veggies. I think for digestive reasons it's really good to just kind of lightly steam the food and in some cases cook it a little bit more. Look at the color. You don't want to make it so bland or where it's losing the color, you want to keep the color. That would be your sign.

You know, sometimes when you get lettuce and the outer part is the greenest and then the inner part is the least green and. But tend to throw out the outer part because they don't want to have contaminants. Tell us about that.

Try to aim for lettuce where it's loose. You know how sometimes like Bibb lettuce, when you look at some of the lettuce heads, you can see that some of them are a bit more loose, which is a better idea than some of the tight heads of lettuce, which don't get exposure to the sun and don't have as much chlorophyll and color. And so you're right, the outer part is going to be higher in phytochemicals. In those cases, look for the brown green purplish leaves. That's where you would be getting the greatest variety in lettuce and a lot of the bitter greens too, like arugula, which could be very good for the gut.

And how about when we shred carrots, are we actually causing the carrot to have more nutrients because we're putting. Because of the concept of hormesis?

Yes. I love that you brought that up. And I do talk about that in my rainbow diet book, that if you shred carrots or cut up the carrot in any way, but best if you're making small micro shreds, you'll actually increase the phenolic acids, which that is a category of phytochemicals that are very protective and good for you.

Frozen food. Frozen. Does it lose something when they freeze it? Good or bad? Frozen versus fresh?

The answer is depends. So for blueberries, great. No problem to freeze blueberries. For broccoli, like you said, with broccoli, they have to blanch it. They have to apply a little bit of heat and sometimes you lose some of the nutrients, but you're still getting good things from that broccoli. So if the only way you're going to get vegetables and fruit is to freeze it, that's still okay.

We're up against the break. We're talking with Dr. Deanna Minick, the author of the rainbow diet. We'll be back after the break. This is Dr. Kerry. Go for open your eyes Radio. Macuhealth your science.

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We're back with Dr. Deanna Minick, author of the rainbow diet. She also has a Facebook, Instagram, Amazing Instagram, lots of colors and YouTube. Food and spirit. So I want to ask you about the peel. A lot of people, they take the peel and they throw it away. Should we be keeping the peel or should we eating the peel? How about all the pesticides? Can we clean the pesticides off?

For the most part. Okay. Yes, you do want to be eating the peel because that's where most of those phytochemicals are hanging out. So if we decide to just peel potatoes, peel carrots, it's like we're throwing out valuable nutrients. So what would be a better idea is if you can buy certain foods in their organic format and if you can't afford organically grown food, go to the EWG.org website, that stands for Environmental Working Group. They have a list of clean 15 and then they have the Dirty dozen. So if you have to select which foods to buy organic, there is a strategic way to do that so you can get guidance from that website. But then I even still wash my organic food. So if I have a cucumber, I am going to rinse that in biodegradable soapy water. Then I'm going to wash it off, I'm going to dry it off and then I'm going to cut into it. So I do think it's important to wash vegetables because you can be getting toxins. Even if it is organically grown, you can still be bringing them in. So just do the best you can. Don't. I would say don't stop eating vegetables and fruits because of the potential for contamination. Because again, we just have a more polluted environment. We're going to find this in many places. So diversification, washing your vegetables would be key.

All right, everyone's going to want me to ask you this question. How about when you buy vegetables and they say it's triple washed, do we still have to wash them? Or we could trust that or does anybody know the answer to that?

Well, many times like when I think of that, I think of lettuce or I think of carrots, like baby carrots. Right. You know, I still think maybe you don't have to apply such rigorous washing to those foods, but maybe just rinse them off before eating them. I think that might be just best practice. You know, one of the foods I think about would be lettuces and sprouts, which tend to get contaminated if you're not handling them properly. So I would say even if it says that they've been rinsed, I would still say just to. I just take a colander and I just kind of rinse them off in, in some water. I don't apply soap typically if they've already been pre washed. And that's just, I have not seen a study, but that's just more or less my practice.

And how about rhythm of eating? Tell us about that. What would be the best way to eat? And what time do you recommend people stop eating before they go to bed?

I love that question. You know, in the Rainbow Diet book, I talk about four principles. Color, creativity, diversity and rhythm. Most people overlook rhythm or the when of eating. Because you could have a very healthy meal and eat it way too late at night and actually cause a lot of issues, even though it's comprised of a lot of healthy foods. So if you look at research from people like Dr. Sachin Panda and other people that study the circadian rhythm, what we see is that you give your body about an hour after waking in order to kind of get your digestive system going. You know, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. If we're talking about eye health, you need to be thinking about hydration, right? So when you first wake up, making sure that you've got hydration and you're drinking about 8 to 12 ounces of water and then after about an hour of waking then to have a breakfast, right, and then possibly a lunch in that middle time of the day and then an earlier dinner so that you give yourself enough cushion, like two to three hours, you're not eating a large meal before bedtime. That's usually in sync with the circadian rhythm. So as it gets dark, you don't want to be eating a lot. And that has to do with some hormones like melatonin and insulin. You know, you want to just let your body kind of relax and just, just have an easier way to sleep. You don't want to have a full belly when you're laying in bed.

Here's a tough question, because a lot of people, they get hungry when it gets dark. They're not hungry all day long and they're hungry at night and they don't eat a lot during the day. They might have a breakfast or a lunch or miss breakfast, but at night they, they eat everything in sight. Do you have any tricks to stop that?

I would be talking with them about their day and why is it that they're so hungry at night? Is it because they neglected to eat during the day? I see that so many times where people are too busy at work and they just, they just get off to a running start for their day. They have a quick smoothie maybe or hard boiled egg and then they're, they're not eating much for rest of the, the rest which is not so good and then they pile up at night. So I think it's important to be thinking about preparation, having snacks at certain times of the day and having something like a nutritional smoothie, maybe like a protein powder, some fruit, some kind of fat source in there that can create some, just some better nutritional balance through the day so that you're not gorging at night and just, you know, that's not so good for the digestive tract and it's also not so good for sleep. So be thinking about front loading your day rather than end loading your day. It's not to say you can't eat at night. And I would say check with your health care practitioner because if you have unstable blood sugar or other health issues like you take medications at night and you need a little bit of food, you just need to be aware of that. But I don't think that having a large meal at night is necessarily a good practice. And when we think of eye health, just like you said, we need to be thinking about our blood sugar that directly ties into eye health.

Juicing versus smoothies. Can you talk about that? Because with juicing you get a lot of different colors, but you could make it so sweet you could make your triglycerides go nuts versus. Versus a smoothie. Talk to us.

Yeah, well, if you were to say, Deanna, which of the two would be better for people? I would say a smoothie because it's got a lot more complexity. It's got fiber. I mean, I really create a lot of. I make sure I have a lot of fiber in my smoothie so that there's a slow release of any sugars. Right. Let's just say you're going to do juice, though, because I got to say there are some great studies on pomegranate juice, grape juice, concord grape juice especially, especially for the brain, learning and memory. If you're going to do juice, then you're going to want to do a smaller shot of juice at the middle or the end of the meal. Right. So that you kind of have this larger meal upon which now you bring in the juice. It's not juice on an empty stomach. It's about smart nutrition and coupling of these foods and bringing in the juice after the fact. Right. So then that'll chase in and kind of come in slowly. You don't want the juice first thing on an empty stomach and then the food because then you're going to see that initial spike in blood sugar.

And do you, do you recommend any type of juicer or if you're going to do it at your, at your house, you can do it yourself. Any specific brands that you might recommend?

One thing to look for is not everybody can juice at home. Right. So if you are looking in the stores, like, what would be good? Number one, definitely. If you can, this would be one of those organic choices because so many things, when you concentrate them into juice, you're just concentrating whatever else is in there. And what I try to do is if I'm going to buy organic juice, I look for glass jars and I look for when things are on sale, right. So many times you'll see that even at large supermarkets, healthy supermarkets, you're going to find things on sale. So look for Concord grape juice. I do think tart cherry juice is a great one. And you don't need a lot. You need a tart cherry juice concentrate. And then you just take a little bit of that and then you put it into your 8 to 12 ounces of water. So glass jar. Now look, because read the label. When I was nine years old, my mom got really into health and she taught me about label reading when I was nine. One of the things I see with juices is that they put in apple juice as a filler because apple juice is cheap. So many times what you're going to see is that grape juice will have apple juice listed. And it's like, well, why is that? You wouldn't even know it looking at it because it looks purple. But grape juice is expensive if it's done right. And so again, you don't need a lot of grape juice, but read the, the actual ingredients to be sure that it's not filled with sugar or even filled with apple juice, which is just diluting the grape.

You mentioned before protein powder. How do we know good protein powder from bad? Should it be undenatured? How do we know which one's the good one? And what kind should it be? Whey. Which type should it be?

I was just going to start there, the source of it, right? Because what I would say is diversification of protein is important because so often when I was in clinical practice, what I would see is people would just do the same protein powder day after day, and then lo and behold, they would have an allergy or they'd have some intolerance to that protein powder. So what I think is good is to rotate it and try different ones and see what works for your body. Not everybody can tolerate whey. Some people can. Even if they have a, a dairy intolerance, they can do whey. What I don't like about some whey proteins is that many times you're going to see artificial sweeteners added to them because it's kind of like for the bodybuilder market, they focus on lean muscle mass. And so, like, there's a whole market around that. And many times they put other things in there. We don't want that. We want it in its pure form. So my Best practice here is I'm going to say what I said to your first question, which is go through your healthcare practitioner, because there are some health professional brands that do subject that protein powder to more scrutiny so that it's not hexane extracted. You know, you don't get all the chemicals. And what you want to aim for is about 12 to 15 grams per scoop if you can. You know, there's all the rage around protein right now, which I do think is important, depending on age. But of course, you know, you can also add in things to your smoothie, like a scoop of almond butter, or you can bring in just other sources that aren't in a. A typical protein powder blend. Right. In order to amp up your protein.

I see that some of the proteins, casein. I mean, that seems like that would be like the worst possible thing. Now, correct me if I'm wrong because of leaky gut and intestinal. Yeah, it seems like that would be the worst choice, but correct me if you disagree and tell me what you think about that.

Well, casein comes from milk, right? So many people do have an issue with milk protein. So whether you have lactose intolerance or just if you have a lot of gut issues, you might want to forego dairy altogether. What might be better for somebody like that could be rice and pea protein, like a blend, or even, you know, people sometimes are allergic to soy protein. So you might actually have to work with a practitioner to figure out what protein powder would be best for you, especially if you're going through a gut healing program or if you have an autoimmune condition.

We have to worry about arsenic with pea protein.

Well, that's why if you go through a good brand, typically they would be testing for all kinds of toxic elements. Right. Not just arsenic, but the whole battery of different ones.

We're up against the break. This is Dr. Kerry Gob. I'm speaking with Deanna Minick. Dr. Deanna Minick, the Rainbow Diet. We'll be right back. We're back with Dr. Deanna Minick. This is Dr. Gary Gel for Open youn Eyes Radio. We're talking about her book, the Rainbow Diet. And just eating in general, trying to make everybody healthy. That's listening to this program. So there's about 70% of the people who are deficient in different colored vegetables, whether it's green, red, white, blue, purple. I guess blue. Purple is the Most. About almost 90% of people are deficient in it. Let's start off with some of the red foods. Talk to me about Your favorite red foods and some of the benefits in those red foods.

Yeah, that's a great question. So when I think of red, I think of berries. So I'm thinking of strawberries, goji berries, raspberries, when those foods are in season, can be great. When I think of more vegetables, you know, for some people who can do nightshades, thinking of tomatoes or thinking. Which is a fruit technically, but, you know, we think of it and use it as more like a vegetable. So tomato. And also things like red bell pepper, which is pretty high in vitamin C. And we know that vitamin C is really important for the eyes. And what else? When I think of a red bell pepper, I also think of higher amounts of certain carotenoids that can help with night vision. So those red foods have some potential phytochemicals to help with eyes. So watermelon is also great. Just when I think of things like heart health. Beets. If you do beet juice, small amounts like we talked about before, or even cooked beets, that can be good because beets are filled with betalains, which are antioxidant compounds. Pounds that not many people know about, but they're incredibly great for many different body systems. So I would say that's kind of a short list of some of my favorites.

With beets and beet juice, we want to increase nitric oxide. So beets are really good for athletes. You know, you look at athletes, you look at their blood vessels, they really tend to be really good, and they increase the nitric oxide. Talk to us about the. The benefit of beet juice and maybe some nitrates that increase nitric oxide.

Yeah. When I think of beets as the root, the red root, or also beet greens. So these. These foods, as well as things like arugula or celery, are rich in what we would call nitrates. And some people might say, well, I thought those were bad. Well, there are naturally occurring nitrates. I'm not talking about sodium nitrite. I'm talking about nitrate, not the nitrites that are in.

In hot dogs.

Right. We're not talking about that per se. Right. We're talking about what is in nature and what is made by the plant. And there's some magic that happens in the mouth. If we have the right kind of oral microbiome, what can happen is that we start to take those nitrates. Let's just say we're chewing those greens. We're chewing those beet greens. Well, interacting with our saliva. And now we start to produce nitric oxide. Which can be an important, I would say it's important for opening up those blood vessels. So we, that's important. And it's important for the eyes as well. The eyes are part of the vascular system. Just like you were saying, you can tell if you are going to see cardiovascular disease in people just by looking at their eyes because of those blood vessels. Right. That's really important. So I do think that getting those, getting nitrates would be good. And there's a way to test to see whether or not you have enough in the way of this nitric oxide. Right. There are strips where you can put them on your tongue, you can look at the color change and you can get a sense of whether or not you're actually producing enough. But like you said, exercising, you don't have to be an athlete to have healthy levels of nitric oxide. You can simply just make sure you're exercising right. And getting that vasculature coursing with blood and priming it, it's so important. And if you think of it, your heart is below your brain. So it's going to take more work to pump that blood up into the eyes and into the brain. So it's really important to make sure that you're getting enough exercise and having some of the, whether it beet powder or a little bit of beet juice before activity. If you're having issues with exercise, of course, check with your doctor. But having a little bit of beets could help with making that exercise a little bit easier on your vascular system, potentially.

When you mentioned strawberries before, do we have to worry about histamines or does the vitamin C in the strawberries counteract the histamines?

Well, everybody's different. You know, strawberries are one of those higher allergy foods for some people and especially for children. What I have seen is typically children get rashes from foods that are too acidic. Things like strawberries or tomatoes, sometimes they grow out of that. Strawberries. The only thing I'm going to say about them is they tend to be laden with pesticides. If you do not buy them as organic, they're pretty high on that dirty dozen list. So just think about getting organic strawberries in season. And I like your comment about vitamin C. Yeah, strawberries do tend to be high in vitamin C. When you think of vitamin C, think of red and orange colored foods. Typically you're going to find more vitamin C in those foods and sometimes yellow as well. But yes, I, I think good to have strawberries occasionally when they're organic. And I even Eat the green part. I, I think that, you know, there we leave out so many parts of the plant, like even broccoli. When most people eat broccoli, they just want the floret. But if we were to cut up that stem and cook it a little bit, the stem has different nutrients than the upper part which looks like the tree. Right. So just be a little bit expansive about what you take in with the plant. I think that we waste a lot of the plant and especially what could.

Be very good nutrition, very Good advice from Dr. Minick. Helps with inflammation. I know that people that have their knees are sore or where they would use an Advil sometimes cherry juice extract helps, but also has melatonin in it along with goji berries. Goji berries also have melatonin. Tell us about the melatonin in cherry juice extract and the anti inflammatory properties and can we use it? When can we use it instead of using an anti inflammatory like an Advil?

You know, it's so interesting. My husband was just having some, some back pain and we have some tart cherry juice in a concentrate that is in the refrigerator and he was asking me what do we have in the house that's anti inflammatory and of course my mind went immediately to that tart cherry juice. Now I know that you're mentioning melatonin. There might be smaller amounts of melatonin in tart cherry juice, which can be good. I mean, no doubt. It's just that it's variable. We don't know how much we're actually getting because again, plants aren't standardized to a certain level. Right. But the magic to me around tart cherry juice is the polyphenols. Many people have probably heard about polyphenols. Polyphenols are these larger compounds in plants, typically in red, blue, black and brown and a little bit in green. So you tend to find them throughout the plant kingdom, but a little bit higher in red foods. The tart cherry juice seems to have benefit for inflammation, right. It's filled with polyphenols which can be especially important for helping the gut with inflammation, which means that eventually the entire body can be helped through those anti inflammatory compounds. So tart cherry juice can be great as it relates to pain. I also think about turmeric when I'm thinking of, you know, what else can we do to help with inflammation. Right. Turmeric is if we look at a number of these different foods, red, orange and yellow. I think of tart cherry juice concentrate, I think of turmeric root and I think of ginger Root in combination to help as a 1, 2, 3 punch for helping with things like inflammation.

It was a good study with tart cherry juice with soccer players with muscle soreness. And the soccer players did quite well.

Yeah. Cherry juice with insomnia. And I think it was reducing inflammation so people can sleep better at night.

So taking some tart cherry juice at night before someone sleeps, would that help them because of the melatonin in it.

You know, probably just a little bit. But I don't like the idea of something too late at night. Right. Just before bedtime because, you know it's still high in sugar. So in that case it might be better just to do like a low dose plant melatonin supplement because then you know exactly what you're getting versus tart cherry juice, which can be. You don't know exactly what you're getting there.

Well, I'd love to have you come back on the show and talk about melatonin because I know you're a world expert on that and there's a lot of benefits of melatonin, not just sleep. But we don't have time for that. But people want to find out more about you, Deanna. How could they do that?

They can go to my website, which is DeanNamin.com and on the website I've got a bunch of resources, blogs. You mentioned my social media, which I do myself. So My Deanna Minick, Ph.D. facebook page is lots of nutrition. Instagram is kind of like my artistic canvas. So whatever I feel on that one. But I always, I love to help people with this information and that's why I put out the rainbow diet. It was really a labor of love. I tried to make it very practical and easy to understand so that people can put this into motion quickly.

That's great. I use it with my patients in the last 30 seconds. What do you eat? Do you eat meat? Do you eat?

It depends on the day. I eat seasonally.

You eat, see. Will you eat meat? Will you eat any types of meats?

Yes, I do. I eat, you know, my, I look at my ancestry. I have a lot of Scandinavian ancestry and I have visited my relatives in Sweden. And when I look at what my ancestors eat, you know, fish, seafood. So I do bring that in different, you know, venison. So yes, I do bring in different kinds of meats in and I rotate them.

We have to leave it there. I want to thank Dr. Deanna Medic for joining me today. This is Dr. Kerry go for Open youn Eyes Radio. It was a great discussion. Thank you, Deanna.

Thank you for having me.

Until next time. We'll see you next week. This is Dr. Kerry go.

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