Jeffrey Bland and Mark Hyman discuss the roughly 25,000 phytonutrient compounds in foods that go beyond basic nutrition. Plants stressed by climate or soil conditions produce more protective chemicals, and wild or regeneratively grown foods concentrate them higher. Himalayan tartary buckwheat contains over 100 distinct phytochemicals.
So, Dr. Hyman, phytonutrients. There's a term that we know has something to do with plants, because phyto. What is your definition to patients about phytonutrients?
Well, Jeff, you know, you taught me all this. The key to health is not necessarily just focusing on protein, fat, carbohydrates, and fiber and vitamins and minerals. It's focusing on this mostly ignored class of compounds that are in food, including animal foods. By the way, we're going to talk about that. Even though it's phyto, it's from plants. These are consumed by animals, end up in their meat, and are modified by them and can have really beneficial effects for us. But these compounds are in the plant kingdom that are the plant's own defense mechanisms, their own immune system, their own ways of communicating, regulating, attracting bugs and birds and bees and all kinds of different activities that the plant has to do and has is all regulated by these compounds that are in plants that are for their benefit. But we've learned to adapt and use these compounds for our benefit. And there's 25,000 of these compounds in food. And you probably heard about them, right? You probably heard about blueberries being good for you and because they contain proanthocyanins, or you heard about green tea being good for you because it contains catechins, or you heard about, you know, maybe the latest superfood of maca or this or that. Well, these are all different plants that have different properties based on these phytochemicals that regulate every function in your body. So it turns out that they may not be, quote, essential to prevent a deficiency disease, but they're essential if you want to be healthy.
So I'm going to have to bring in a prompt here because Himalayan tartary buckwheat is a superfood that contains phytochemicals. And the unique feature is that they're over 100 different phytochemical because the plant in its genes have the wisdom to produce those phytochemicals for the immune strength of that plant. So it's more than just one at a time.
Yeah. And the thing to remember about phytochemicals is the weirder the food is, the more wild the food is, the more regenerative, organic the food is, the more the phytochemicals in our modern diet, even if you're eating fruits and vegetables, if they're grown in conventional ways and they're transported over long distances and they're harvested before they're ripe and they're stored long times in the shelves and you put them in your fridge and they eat them. Days later all that stuff starts to diminish. So the key to getting really nutrient dense food is to try to eat it as close to source as possible, as fresh as possible. Grown in ways that actually restore soil, which is how the plants extract the phytochemicals. I mean actually extract the nutrients to help them make the phytochemicals. And so you think about all those pieces it's really important to look at the quality of your diet and that's why Himalayan buckwheat is so incredible because it's, it's basically grown in a way that generates all these compounds that regulate our health.
It's interesting on the people that have asked on the package, why do we say growing in northern climate to maximize phytonutrient levels? Because when the plant is stressed the genes turn on the anti stress chemicals which are these phytochemicals.
It's sort of the idea that what does in cleaning makes you stronger. Right. The harsher the conditions the more the phytonutrients. Exactly.
