Jeffrey Bland explains how superfoods like goji berries and chia seeds contain plant compounds that evolved as immune defenses and can modulate human immunity. Himalayan Tartary buckwheat, a 3,500-year-old crop, contains over 100 times the phytochemicals of common plants, making it a potential tool to rebalance immune function.
Questions this video answers
Approximately 3,500 years (in China).
"Some hundred or so" phytochemicals (phrasing from the speaker).
He states they are "more than a hundred times higher" than in any other common edible plant.
Chapters
Immunity plus superfoods. Goji berries, chia seeds. These sounds very kind of unusual to the average individual. What do they have in common? What we say is they have a uniquely different nutrient content that has something to do with their ability to improve health over a standard food of commerce. And then we can ask, well, what are those characteristics? And we can dig deep into food chemistry and ask, what exactly is about them? What's their personality that gives them the ability to have extra special positive effects? I want to take this back a step, however, because as you know, in Big Bold Health, our focus is on the immunity. And we know that the immunity is the central feature that then signals to the rest of the body how it wants to perform the function of our immune system. So we might ask the question, do these superfoods have anything to do with immune function? And once you ask that question, you then ask the question, what are the characteristics of superfoods that have the greatest effect on improving our immune system? And it happens to be in those superfoods that are able to respond to a hostile environment through the activation of their own immune systems. Oh, what is, what is an immune system of a plant? Plants have immune systems. They have innate immune systems just like humans do. But that immune system is locked into a different kind of architecture than it is in our body. It's locked into the production of the secondary metabolites of plants that are called phytochemicals. Certain phytochemicals are known to be the immune system of plants or part of the immune system of plants. And they help to defend the plant against infection. And all the things that plant can't run away and hide, it has to sit there and fight because it's in the soil. And these phytochemicals that are found in these plants that have survived in hostile environments for millennia, they have evolved these extraordinarily adept immune systems through their phytochemicals. And some of them are better than others. One of those that we have found that is extraordinarily interesting is this ancient plant food come 3,500 year history, actually in China, called Himalayan Tartary buckwheat. So Himalayan Tartary Buckwheat evolved on the slopes of the Himalayan mountains in very kind of poor soils, really hostile, climactic conditions. Obviously no fertilizer, no pesticides, not irrigated. It survived as a central food product for more than centuries, for millennia. And it has kind of been lost in terms of its extraordinary value. Now, why is it extraordinary value? Because the portfolio of phytochemicals that are produced by that plant happen to be specific in their composition for modulating the immune system in humans. So eating the immune system of that plant gives the immune system of us humans a benefit. And that benefit is both through the innate immune system and the adaptive immune system by balancing the immune system in humans. So we have been spending at Bigwald Health quite a bit of time really digging deeply into understanding what we have learned about the immunocompetence of these individual phytochemicals that are found in Himalayan Tertiary buckwheat. Things like two hydroxylbenzylamine and quercetin, rutin, diosmin, hesperidin, luteolin, this portfolio of some hundred or so different phytochemicals, which, by the way, in that plant are more than a hundred times higher than any other common edible plant. So that this plant has the super immunity. And so we would call it a super food. So this construct is something that really goes back and traces our lineage and our root history, things that we lost over the cultivation of just a few crops to produce the food supply of today, soy and wheat and corn. Today we're looking at what really constitutes a superfood. So we can modulate the singular problem that we've got in our society today with regard to its health, and that's a dysfunctional immune system. So a functional immune system in a superfood plant can be used to improve the functional immune system of individuals in need. That is how we're developing our community with Big Bowl Health. We hope you'll stick with us through our whole educational program to personalize your immune health.
