The Best Diet For Your Brain with Max Lugavere

Coming up on this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. I looked through the medical literature and I determined the foods that were going to be the most accessible, the most available to people that are listening to this and watching this, that are going to serve a neuroprotective effect, foods that are literally superfoods for the brain.

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Yes, because he's so handsome.

And he's a sought-after speaker and given talks everywhere. So welcome, Max.

Thank you, Dr. Hyman.

It's an honor to be here. Oh, now, now, Max, I'm so excited about your new book, the Genius Kitchen Book, because one thing to know what to eat, it's another thing to know what to do with the food to make the food that you need to eat. So I love that you have written this and provided a guide for people to actually implement the strategies that you've discovered as a consequence of some, you know, trauma and hardship in your life from your mother. having a neurodegenerative disease, that you've really been inspired to dig into this rabbit hole, uncover what needs to be uncovered, and tell the story of how to heal our brains with food. And, you know, I, I, as you know, Max, I'm very passionate about the subject in my, one of my first books was the UltraMind Solution, how to fix your brain by fixing your body first. And the whole notion of that book is that actually our brains are not just these isolated containers stuck in our skull, separated by the blood-brain barrier, which nothing can enter or exit basically, which is what we were taught in medical school. but it is actually very influenced by every single thing we do, especially by what we eat. So tell us, Max, about how you first sort of came to understand that food and the brain are linked.

Oh, man, such a great starting point, Dr. Hyman. So as you mentioned, my mother at the age of 58 developed a rare form of dementia called Lewy Body Dementia, which is a progressive and curable condition that feels akin to having Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. same time. It affects one in five people with dementia and people might be familiar with the fact that Robin Williams actually had it prior to dying by suicide. And, you know, it's a very tragic condition to have and it made my mom's life incredibly difficult. But back when she first began showing symptoms, I had no prior family history of any kind of neurodegenerative disease. And so for me, it sent me down the rabbit hole to try to discover ways that I could potentially modulate my mom's diet so as to have a disease modifying effect because God knows the drugs that are prescribed for these conditions are minimally effective, if effective at all.

And they- that's a generous statement. Yeah.

Well said. Well said. They act as biochemical band-aids and- well.

No, they're more psychological band-aids because they actually don't really work.

Yeah. And in fact, they can make the situation worse because if they're not effective, it's not like they're having no effect, right? They flood the brain with various neurotransmitters, which can have an oxidative effect at the level of the synapse, which is where your memories, how your neurons communicate with one another. So, if the drug is not working, the patient really shouldn't be on the drug. But of course, doctors are always hesitant to de-prescribe. And in fact, I didn't see that once with any of the drugs that my mom was on. And by the end of her life, she was on a virtual buffet of pharmaceutical agents that I think, you know, it's my hypothesis that they made her worse. So that's why I began looking to food. I had had a lifelong passion for nutrition science and fitness. And so the first place that I looked when I dove into the medical literature was to see whether or not there was any kind of dietary pattern associated with reduced risk for the development of dementia. And in tandem with that, I looked to see whether clinical trials were showing any progress with regard to a dietary intervention that may work to slow the progress, the progression of the condition, and in tandem with that, whether or not a dietary pattern could potentially even prevent the onset of these kinds of conditions. And what I noticed, what I saw in the literature was that there was a ton of information. But unfortunately, Dr. Hyman, it takes 17 years on average for what's discovered in science to be enacted in day-to-day clinical practice. So for me, that was just something that was unacceptable. And I really, at that point, decided to plant my flag and to do what I could to disseminate this information to people of all ages.

Yeah, I think that's right. in the, in the sort of awakening to the role of nutrition in the brain because it's not something that most doctors even think about. Like when you talk to a neurologist, the last thing they talk about is diet, right? They may go, well, you know, diabetics may get more dementia because of sugar, but, or maybe we're trying to call Alzheimer's type 3 diabetes and maybe they'll tell their patients to reduce sugar, but there's really not a sense that food can be protective or therapeutic. And, and I think that's really a huge insight that you've come to, that I've come to, and, and, and the data is supporting this. You know, when you look at the, even sort of minimally, I think, nutritionally optimized diets, which I would say the Mediterranean diet is what is mostly looked at, but I would say that's a, like a minimally beneficial diet, that there's way better approaches that are upgrades from that. But, but just let's say Mediterranean diet, they've shown through the mind trial and other trials, the finger trial, that they actually can have a huge impact on both preventing and reversing cognitive decline. So I, I think there's no doubt about this. Now there's departments of nutritional psychiatry at Harvard, a department of metabolic psychiatry at, at Stanford. There's an increasing awareness that food plays a role, that our microbiome plays a role, that our food interacts with our microbiome. So it's all connected. And I think the data, you know, some of the data I've seen really recently about, for example, ketogenic diets and neurodegenerative disease are very impressive and brain cancer and neuro. So, you know, maybe, you know, the brain, we've all been trained that it consumes 25 of our glucose, but actually turns out it runs way better on fat. And, and I know for my patients, I've, I've actually seen dramatic results when we start to shift them towards that approach. I had a, one patient who had Alzheimer's and she was dwindling and we'd done a lot of work to help her. She'd gotten a lot better, but then something happened. She lost her husband. I put her on a ketamine drip. It was like the light bulb went off. Another patient I had had Lewy body dementia and was in capacity, had motor dysfunction, couldn't walk, cognitively really impaired, and her sugars were out of control. And she ate, she was a thin woman, but she was metabolically obese inside. She was skinny fat and ended up having you know, high blood sugars, and we put her on a ketogenic diet. And again, she came back to life. Her motor function improved, her cognitive function improved, she was able to walk without assistance. It was pretty impressive. So we literally had to have three people get her up out of that wheelchair to get her on the scale when she came to my office. And two months later, she was just walking down the hall of her apartment with no problem. So I think. I think we're just unfortunately not very trained in how to deal with nutrition as part of. part of our training in medical school. But what, what Max have you found that are the most powerful nutritional principles for keeping your brain healthy and just for a nutritious lifestyle? And then I want to get into what you call the genius foods are, because I think that's kind of interesting. Yeah.

Well, I mean, there's so many things that you brought up. I mean, the, so the, the glucose hypometabolism is certainly a feature in Alzheimer's disease to the degree that the Alzheimer's riddled brain has an inability to generate its ability to generate ATP, which is the energetic currency of cells, is diminished by 50% when using glucose as a fuel source. But its ability to use ketones is unperturbed. So that makes the ketogenic diet a therapeutic option for Alzheimer's disease, a really viable, at least area of inquiry. And they're doing this research, more research, larger trials are needed, but whenever ketones are available in the blood, which are derived from fat, right? The brain will use them. They get pushed into the brain. So the dietary pattern that is most lauded in the medical literature for its neuroprotective effects is, as you mentioned, the Mediterranean diet. But the way that it's described in the medical literature is actually kind of an aberration of the true Mediterranean diet, Terry pattern. Yeah, which is, well, they describe it in the medical literature as being a grain-based diet. But the thing is, the Mediterranean diet is protective in spite of grains. It's not protective because of the presence of grains.

That's an interesting thing.

Yeah, I mean, we don't have any biological requirement for grains, unfortunately. And yet we've been told for decades that it should make up the base of our diets, right? The USDA food pyramid, which is thankfully retired now. in full transparency. But the USDA MyPlate guidelines still implore us that depending on calorie needs consume up to 10 servings of grains a day, up to half of which may actually come from refined sources. And a serving of grains is a slice of bread. So literally, depending on calorie needs, the USDA is still telling us to consume.

Up to 10 slices of bread every single day. That makes sense. Not really. You want to have dementia, obesity, cancer, heart disease, stroke. depression, infertility. Yeah, it's a great plan. Great plan.

10 slices of bread a day.

Well, here's the thing, Max. The Mediterranean diet, and this was really interesting, has been the most studied. But it is more complex and there's other components in it and may be beneficial despite the grains. But what was really interesting to me is that a recent study came out by Cara Fitzgerald, which was using a more functional medicine nutritional approach, using food as medicine. So it wasn't just, you know, eating an overall healthy diet, which the Mediterranean diet is a great upgrade from the traditional standard American diet, which is I'm gonna kill everybody and is killing everybody. And what they did was really upgraded the diet by increasing the phytochemical richness of the diet, increasing certain fibers for the microbiome, increasing certain the nutrient density of certain nutrients like methylation nutrients in the foods that we eat. So it was very specifically designed. And I think just as, as, you know, in pharmacology, we have a whole array of drugs each used for different conditions. Food is exactly the same. It's not one size fits all diet. There are very specific things that foods can do. And if each one is a medicine, then they need to be thought of differently and applied differently. And so, so from your perspective, you know, what, what's the upgrade? to incorporate the genius foods into a brain healthy and, by the way, life healthy lifestyle.

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, what I, what I did was I looked through the medical literature and I determined the foods that were going to be the most accessible, the most available to people that are listening to this and watching this, that are going to serve a neuroprotective effect foods that are literally superfoods for the brain. And I coined the term genius foods, which is not a scientific term, but It's the term that I've applied to the foods that are gonna give your brain the most bang for its buck with regard to neuroprotection, with regard to promoting neuroplasticity by providing important builder block molecules like the Cosa hexaenoic acid or DHA fat, which we know is one of the most important and yet under consumed structural building blocks of the brain. And so we can look to certain foods like avocados, for example. avocados at this point are pretty widely available. And avocados are a fruit that provide the highest concentration of fat protecting antioxidants of any other fruit or vegetable. Wow.

Yeah. This is of relevance to the brain.

Because the brain is made of fat, right, Dr. Hyman? The brain is made of fat, but not just any fat. It's made of a type of fat that is most prone to oxidation, most vulnerable to what's called oxidative stress. And so when you eat an avocado, which is rich in vitamin E, fat soluble antioxidant. It literally is one of the most powerful brain anti-aging foods that you can consume. It's also loaded with fiber, which makes it satiating and it helps support gut bacteria, which is promotive of a healthy gut microbiome. It contains potassium, which we know is really important for helping maintain a healthy level of blood pressure. And it also contains compounds called Carotenoids, which we know protect neural tissue both in our eyes and in our brain. This is one of the reasons why avocados and dark leafy greens are protective against age-related macular degeneration. They contain these carotenoids, which we now know also protect brain health.

So, that's one of my favorite foods, avocados. Yeah, the thing, my problem with that is it often comes in the form of guacamole. Unless you order the vegetable sticks instead of the chips, it's a danger zone for me because I can, I just kind of like those chips are, I don't like crack. I don't know why, but if anybody else has had those corn chip thing.

It'S like I can't eat them because I just can't stop. Yeah, I'm the same way. I think it's better to, for me, well, it's that slogan, once you pop, you can't stop. We know now, thanks to scientific research, that's a slogan with scientific backing at this point. That is a truism at this point, right? Because foods like tortilla chip chips are hyper palatable. They combine salt, fat, flour, and they're so calorie dense that it would have actually been a life saving food potentially for a hunter gatherer, right?

Well, that's why I actually, I'm afraid of Mexican restaurants now. I'm like, I'm gonna, and then someone orders, I don't order that, I usually don't order the chips in guacamole. Then someone's like, bring the chips. I'm like, oh no.

I'm the same way. I'm the same way.

You wanna crack addict, some crack. Yeah.

I mean, the thing is we feel as though we, I feel like there's this innate sense that we should be able to moderate our consumption of those Foods.

Right.

That's part of having a healthy relationship with food. However, I think what most people fail to realize and what's certainly not acknowledged by even our most esteemed Healthcare professionals and, and and those in the nutritional orthodoxy, it's that these foods are not designed to be consumed in moderation. They're hyperpalatable, and by the time you've filled yourself up on them, you've already overconsumed them. Unfortunately, people tend to experience a sense of moral failure when they're not able to stop eating the chips, right?

Yeah.

At a reasonable level of consumption. But that's because your brain has been honed by millennia where food scarcity was a real problem, right? We didn't have food security the way that we have now for the vast majority of our evolution. So, as I mentioned, those chips, as calorie dense as they are, would have been an amazing food for a hunter gatherer who didn't have access to GrubHub on their phones or a supermarket on every corner.

And that's why it's easy to eat an entire bag of corn chips, but no one's going to be binging on 12 avocados. Right?

There you go. Because avocados are, they're satiating in a way that, in a way that ultra processed foods simply aren't. Another example of a, of a brain food.

Before you, before you jump on the next example, I just wanna highlight what you just said because there's been an elegant study done by Dave, by Kevin Hall looking at feeding people an unlimited amount of ultra processed food or nourishing whole foods. and they let them eat whatever they want. And they tracked over a few weeks, they tracked their, their consumption and their, and their actual weight gain. And they found that the ultra processed food group essentially ate about 500 calories more a day than the people eating whole foods, and they gained obviously more weight. So, you know, it really speaks to this whole idea that, that there's some nutritional intelligence that we have that causes us to seek nutrients in our diet. The problem is when we don't find them, we keep eating more. It's like looking for love in all the wrong places, you know? And we, we end up just over consuming because we're not getting the nutrients we need. And we see this, like with kids, for example, we've talked about this on the podcast, who are iron deficient, they'll eat dirt. They'll eat dirt because dirt has iron. So in animal studies, and we've had Fred Provenza on the podcast. There's an innate initial wisdom where they're sampling maybe up to 50 to 100 different plants to get the medicinal properties of each of these plants to heal their body, to make it work properly, and they know when to stop. We don't, we don't have that intelligence anymore. And there was a study done decades ago, I think in the 20s, maybe of orphans. And I've talked about this in the podcast too, but the orphans were led to eat whatever they want, brain, kidney, liver, kind of they give them an array of foods that were nutritionally dense. You think kids wouldn't eat, right? But kids are gonna eat liver on their own or kidney. And then they, then they, then they kind of track what they did. And these kids were far at the end of this study were far more healthy and far more robust because they chose all this variety of weird foods that actually their body's own nutritional intelligence told them to eat. But we lose that as we get older because our brain chemistry, metabolism, immune system, microbiome, all of it's been high, hormones have been hijacked by the food industry deliberately. So when we, when you have that deliberate usurping of your own kind of internal guidance system and wisdom about what to eat, we end up in this chaotic state of constantly searching for ingredients and nutrients and compounds that we're needing to survive. We can't get from the foods, we just keep eating more and more and more. That's really the problem.

Yeah, that's the movement towards what's been called intuitive eating. That's why I think that that's such a short-sighted and not very evidence-based initiative. Because when I sample the pint of ice cream that's sitting in my freezer right now, intuitively what my body wants is to eat the whole pint.

Oh, yeah.

So, so I, I agree with you that we need to get back to, we need to get back to foods that are, that are less industrially processed. And you bring up an interesting point. I mean, the, the over, the tendency to over consume Ultra processed Foods. I think it's really important for people to know the three things that make a food satiating.

Yeah.

Because then they can use this as a tool in their own lives. The first thing that makes a food satiating is protein content. So there's actually the protein leverage hypothesis, which stipulates that our hunger mechanisms are driven in large part by our necessity for protein, which is an essential nutrient, right? And not just any type of protein, high quality protein. And the protein leverage hypothesis, I mean, people should remember that protein can be used powerfully to leverage as a way to kill hunger. And unfortunately, ultra processed foods are depletive of protein. in part because protein is the most expensive macronutrient. So typically with ultra processed foods, what you get is just carbs and fat, some combination of energy rich carbs and fat, right? And so protein is crucially important. One of the major factors that makes a food satiating, the second aspect would be its fiber content because fiber mechanically stretches out the stomach. It's not an essential nutrient, but it does draw water, it does absorb water, and so it stretches out the stomach, which turns off the release of the hormone ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone. Usually ultra processed foods are depleted of fiber, right? It's one of the reasons why your average American today consumes between six to 10 grams of fiber every day, whereas one of our hunter-gatherer ancestors probably consumed about 150 grams a day.

Yeah, that reminds me of that study by Dennis Burker where he looked at hunter-gatherers who'd moved to the city and became urbanized in Africa, to their hunter gatherer neighbors and the hunter gathers had stool weights of four, of two pounds and the city dwellers had stool weights of four ounces. Their poop was just a little hard poop. And the reason is all the fiber and the tubers and the nutrient dense food. So you said fiber is not an essential nutrient. It, it isn't for us, but it's essential for the microbiome.

Yeah.

Our microbiome is essential for us to stay healthy.

So in a sense it is really.

Essential nutrient.

It is, yeah, through the, through the lens of, of the microbiome. Absolutely. It is. And it, it certainly makes life better. Studies show that people who consume more fiber have reduced inflammation. They live longer. So it's, it's definitely a, I would call it a conditionally essential nutrient. Absolutely. That we, that we definitely want to look to consume more of. And then the third factor that makes a food satiating is its water content. because when water ceased to be available for hunter-gatherer, the second best place that they would look to get their, to meet their requirements for hydration would be food, right? Food is actually a viable source of water and shelf stable, ultra processed foods are, are depleted of water because water impedes a food's shelf stability because it allows mold to grow. And so these are the three factors that are, that are all but missing in ultra processed foods and, and always very present in minimally processed whole foods. So definitely worth seeking out, you know, any of those nutrients ideally on our site.

Didn't you miss the most satiating nutrient of all on our site? Fat.

Fat is satiating, yeah. It slows the absorption of food, it slows gastric emptying. So that's why, well, most high protein foods are gonna have a fat source, right? grass-fed beef, for example, is a good source of healthful fat. Wild fatty fish, great source of fat. And so fat is fat basically, here's what fat does. Fat prolongs the satiety effect. The protein fiber are very satiating, but fat prolongs that effect so that you're not hungry 30 minutes later. So it's definitely good to look and find healthful sources of fat.

And by the way, the thing that makes you hungry is sugar. Is basically when you, when you eat a lot of carbs and sugar, you just get hungrier and hungrier because you produce more insulin, which triggers all these secondary downstream biochemical challenges, changes that actually lead to increased hunger. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. Something I get more and more excited about every year is personalized medicine. When I began practicing functional medicine over 20 years ago, it was clear to me we have to look at how unique each body is. Now with the technology advancing in amazing ways, we can truly take that concept to the next level. One of the tools I recently discovered that can help us all do that from home is InsideTracker. Founded in 2009 by top scientists in aging genetics and biometric data from MIT, Tufts, and Harvard, InsideTracker is a personalized health and wellness platform like no other. It's purpose-built to help you live a longer, more productive life. Their cutting-edge technology analyze your blood DNA lifestyle to give you highly personalized recommendations. Then using the app, you can track your progress every day. Inside Tracker tells you what to do and why, so your health goals are clear and actionable and most importantly, based on exactly what your body needs. My team took Inside Tracker for a spin and really loved it. They discovered some important things about their health that led them to stop procrastinating when it came to certain parts health, like, for example, finally taking vitamin D supplements after seeing they were deficient, or eating more iron-rich foods due to low ferritin and hemoglobin, and making an effort to embrace stress reduction techniques after seeing high cortisol levels. Health is not black and white, and your wellness plan shouldn't be either. If you're curious about getting your own health program dialed into your unique needs, I highly recommend checking out InsideTracker. Right now, they're offering My community 20% off at inside tracker.com forward slash Dr. Hyman. That's Dr. Hyman inside tracker.com that's I n s I d e t r a c k e r.com slash Dr. Hyman D R H Y M A N and you'll see the discount code in your cart. Now let's get back to this week's episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. So the more you harvest you eat, the more you want to eat. And the less you eat, the less you want to eat. I mean, you know that from your own experience. So do I. It's like, wow. God, that bagel doesn't look like food to me anymore, or that muffin doesn't look like food or cookie. Why would I ever eat a cookie? It's not that you're depriving yourself, it.

Just stops looking appealing. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Dr. Hyman, there was this really fascinating study that I'm sure you're familiar with. You might have even talked about it on your podcast, but they basically took, scientists took two porridges. They were controlled for carbohydrate content and calorie content. It was just two wheat porridges that were identical in terms of their overall nutrition facts. but the difference was the degree of processing. So one was a more coarsely ground porridge and the other was a more finely ground porridge. And it's the finely ground porridge that sent subjects blood sugar through the roof and led to a higher release of insulin. But what was most interesting about that study was that in the post-absorptive state, so after they consumed the more finely ground porridge, the finely ground porridge sent their blood sugar below baseline. which the more coarsely ground porridge didn't do. And when your blood sugar goes below baseline, what that is is reactive hypoglycemia. And that can trigger in people that are susceptible to anxiety, it can trigger anxiety, it can increase hunger, that sensation of hunger. And that was, the capacity for the food to do that was driven purely by the degree of processing that the food had undergone. The more finely ground porridge was more akin to a sugar, Right? Because it was just so easy for the subject's bodies to assimilate. Whereas the more coarsely ground, the less processed version of the porridge actually sent, brought subjects blood sugar back down to baseline really smoothly and, and evenly. So that's why you definitely want to avoid added sugar to the best of your ability. Um, and also reach for foods that are, that are less processed because this is not about calories. This is not about carbohydrate content. This was purely about the, the degree of processing that that food is undergone. Yeah. So it's, so great point. Yeah.

I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, it goes without saying, people listening to the podcast understand by now that, you know, the ultra processed food is the number one killer on the planet. Like if you wanna do one thing to improve the quality of your health is never eat ultra processed. And what is ultra processed food is basically, basically anything that comes from a factory unless you recognize the ingredients. and the, and I always, the rule is if you, if you can basically cover the front of the package and just read the ingredient list and know what it is, probably okay to eat, right? If it says tomatoes, water and salt or sardines, olive oil and salt, you know what's in the can. But if it's got 45 ingredients, most of which you can't pronounce or in Latin, and you have no idea what.

What it is, they can't tell if it's a corn dog or a pop tart from the label, then you shouldn't eat it.

Absolutely. Real, real foods don't have extensive ingredients lists. They are the ingredients. They are the ingredients. Exactly. Exactly. Like an avocado doesn't have a nutrition facts label or an ingredient list. It's an avocado. No, it should have. It should have an ingredient list of.

Phytochemicals so people can see what they're actually getting. It should. You're right. But I mean, the, the, and the biggest irony is that they don't make health claims either, like avocados, grass-fed beef, wild salmon, eggs, the, you know, they don't, they don't make health claims.

It's the, it's the ultra processed foods, the kinds of foods that have ads on TV, right? Those are the ones that are making all the health claims. And yet those are the worst foods for you.

Generally true.

Yeah. So we've got, we've got a really beautiful insight here, which is one, that we should be eating phytonutrient dense food and we're gonna talk about some more genius foods. But two, the quality of our food and the ability to understand what makes us feel satisfied really are key principles. So protein, fiber, water, fat are kind of the secrets to keeping your metabolism healthy. and you said that, you know, there's, there's no biological requirement for grains. It's even a step further. I would say there's no actual biological requirement for carbohydrates. There's no, there's no essential carbohydrates. So there's essential fatty acids, essential amino acids, but there's no essential carbohydrates. So you literally don't have to eat any carbohydrates. But with that said, I often also say that carbohydrates are the single most important food for long-term health and longevity. and what I mean by that is that vegetables are carbohydrates. And they do contain some protein and sometimes fat, depending on the vegetable, but essentially they're phytochemically rich foods. So phytochemical richness is such a key principle that most of us don't pay attention to. And when you talk about a genius food, you're often talking about the phytochemical richness of the food. So tell us some more about other genius foods that we should be focused.

On, particularly in terms of the brain. Yeah, so I mean phytochemicals are, are abundant in avocados, dark leafy greens, but because we already talked about avocados, I feel like it's, we should ping pong and talk about a, a good protein source, like a grass finished beef, I think is a, a powerful brain food, for people. It's, it's actually one of the more controversial recommendations, but when you look at, at grass fed and finished beef, it's a, it's a great source of vitamin E, which I talked about as being a, a powerful fat protecting antioxidant. You find three times the vitamin E in grass finished beef, as you find in grain finished beef. It's also a great source of a compound called creatine, which supports brain energy metabolism. So people who don't regularly consume creatine, which is found naturally in beef and fish, and you give them supplemental creatine, you see an improvement in their cognitive function. So we know that dietary creatine plays an important role in good brain health and good brain function. Our brain's level of creatine tends to decline with age and is also apparently depleted in carriers of the APOE4 allele, which is the most well-defined Alzheimer's risk gene. So I'm a big advocate of, in general, foods that contain creatine naturally. Grass-fed beef is a viable source.

So let's pause there for a minute because I agree with you. I'm just, just putting it out there. I think there's so much confusion about meat. And as we were joking before the podcast, it's not the cow, it's the how. Can you, can you break down for us the conversation that, that is raging today, which is that one meat, if we eat it, is going to cause heart attacks, cancer and death and shorten your life. And two, that it's the worst possible thing we can do for the planet.

Mm-.

And it's obviously very inhumane. So how do we, how do we, how do we tackle those three arguments against meat? Because you just said something that was really important, which is that meat is an essential part of our diet for keeping us healthy, particularly our brain health and our muscle health and so many other things in our immune system. How do you navigate this land minefield of controversy between, you know, meat eating and veganism?

Yeah, it's a great question. And it's a question that requires a nuanced answer. But the reality is that we have no good evidence to say that beef is unhealthy. We have lots of evidence to the contrary. We have mechanistic plausibility suggesting that beef provides very important nutrients, nutrients that in particular tend to be under consumed today. like vitamin B12, zinc. The problem is that much of our nutritional recommendations come from their origins are what's called nutritional epidemiology, which is one of the primary tools used in nutrition science because getting people to adhere to various diets as part of clinical trials is just not feasible for the human animal. Right? So that's just the, that's not a tool that's very viable with regard to nutrition science. So instead what we look at is nutritional epidemiology, observational studies. We look at populations, we see what they eat, and then we associate those observations with their health outcomes. And the problem with meat is that it's mired by the observations associated with meat consumption is mired by what's called healthy user bias. So people who consume more meat tend to smoke more, they tend to be more sedentary. And this is true with all meat, but it's certainly true and especially true, rather, with processed meat consumption. So processed meat consumption, if you would imagine what processed meat, the form that processed meat takes in the standard American diet, it's hot dogs, it's chicken nuggets, it's Subway sandwich. That's processed meat, right? So you take a meal- what is.

There, 38 different ingredients in a chicken nugget or something?

Yeah.

Most of which are not chicken.

And people are consuming these food products, these food-like products with an abundance of white refined flour, with a soft drink, with a large fries. They're doing unhealthy things in their lives, generally speaking, because I mean, somebody who's eating fast food on a regular basis, I mean, is probably not adhering to the most optimized lifestyle. So, observationally, that's what we tend to see. But now, observational research is getting better and better and better, and we're able to for those different variables. And what you see is that when people consume meat and overall diet quality is high, meat consumption is not associated with any of those bad things, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, nothing like that. And that makes perfect sense because meat is a pristine source of protein, an abundance of micronutrients which we know support metabolic health, which only one in 10% of the US population has metabolic health, right? Because nine in 10 have some degree of metabolic illness. And, and I'll just, you know, to cap it, there's no, there has been no randomized control trial to show us that red meat consumption is, is, is causally related to any negative health outcome. Again, the opposite is true.

So, I mean, the only, the only mechanistic thing that's been looked at is TMAO, which is looking at a metabolite that comes from eating certain compounds in meat that are produced by certain bacteria in the gut that's going to be linked to increased risk of heart attack on a mechanistic level. What do you think of that data?

TMAO is also abundant in fish and fish consumption is associated with better cardiovascular health and certainly better neurological health. So we can't, we can't just isolate these mechanisms and then make these leaps in terms of our assumptions about those foods.

Well, at Cleveland Clinic, when they did this study, it was fasting because they, they looked at what happened, you know, when they, you know, fed vegans meat, like nothing happened because their microbiome was already pre-built up with, with healthy microbiome because they're eating a lot of plant foods and plant rich foods and fiber, which is good. And, and also he found that if you drink wine and have false vinegar and olive oil, you actually mitigate the effects of meat on TMAO production. cause of all the various kinds of phytochemicals in there. Also, if you marinate meat, it actually decreases some of the compounds that can happen when you grill it, although grilling isn't probably a good idea in general around meat. Slow cooking is better. And also, the data really ignore some of the conversations, ignore some of the data that really is contrary to what we're hearing around the badness of meat. For example, there was a large study looking at 11,000 people. half of who are vegetarians, half meat eaters who all shopped at health food stores. So if you're shopping at a health food store, you're more health conscious, you probably have better health habits. You also, you know, are eating more plant foods. And within a plant rich diet, meat actually isn't harmful. And they found that the risk of death for both groups was reduced in half. The PURE study also was done that looked at large meat consumption and protein, and it was the carbohydrates that really were driving so much of the problem. And so the problem with these observational studies is they're one, they're not causative in terms of their conclusions and they're often confounded by a lot of problems that make it look like there's a problem, but there isn't. And in these studies, you know, we've had problems with these studies before, like the Nurses Health Study that showed that all women who took hormones, Premarin, had reduced heart attacks and strokes and didn't have an increased risk of cancer. and when they actually did a randomized controlled trial, the Women's Health Initiative, which was a billion dollar study over a hundred thousand women, they found that, gosh, it was the opposite. That actually the hormones were killing women. They were causing cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and all the earlier data from the observational study was completely overturned. So I think we have to be really cautious. They can often point to problems, but the effect size has to be big. For example, smoking the effect size for smoking and lung cancer was a hazard ratio of 20 to 1, which means a 2000% increase. When we talk about changes in meat, you're talking about for colon cancer, for example, you're talking about with processed meat only, you're talking about a 1% absolute increase in risk. 1%. And if you go from five to six, you go, oh, that's a 20% increased risk. Sounds bad, but 20% is meaningless unless the hazard ratio is at least to two, you know, two, which is basically 200% increase, it's pretty much garbage and I wouldn't pay attention to it.

Yeah, it's relative, it's relative versus absolute risk. And you see these studies or you see, you see the headlines all the time that egg consumption is associated with a 14% increased risk of cancer, for example. And so that, and that, that makes, that puts people on high alert about egg consumption. But as you mentioned, I mean, that, that leads to, such a tiny increased risk of absolute in terms of their, with regard to their absolute risk that we almost can't take it seriously, right? Because nutrition, because the tools of nutrition science aren't foolproof, right? We use food frequency questionnaires, which are not the most reliable way to ascertain this kind of data to begin with. So it's very tenuous at best, and that's why I think it makes more sense to integrate a food that we know that our ancestors have been consuming since we've had ancestors, right? Since the dawn of humanity, humans have been omnivorous. And also, I would add that beef consumption, the dreaded beef consumption, has actually declined in the United States over the past 40, 50 years.

And yet, chicken consumption's gone up, which may be worse for you actually.

Yeah, I mean, it's factory farmed chicken.

Was high in Omega-6s. It's full of antibiotics, it's full of arsenic. It's not, not health food.

Yeah, and most people consume it as fried chicken, right? Chicken dishes, which who knows what constitutes a chicken dish, but rates of obesity, rates of type two diabetes, rates of Alzheimer's, keep climbing.

Exactly, and I think the meat conversation is a much more nuanced conversation, and one of the exciting things to me lately is looking at regeneratively raised beef, because grass-fed beef is fine, but grass-fed they could be eating one kind of grass, right? They could just eat hay, let's say. But when you look at an animal that naturally seeks out food, it usually picks three or four main courses, right? Main plants for their protein and their nutrient needs. But then they select from, you know, 20 to 100 different plants in small doses. that are their medicine. And so they have an innate knowledge, like those little children eating organ meats and brain of what they need to keep their bodies healthy. Now, we've lost that. We've lost our nutritional wisdom. And there's a wonderful book, Fred Provenza wrote it called Nourishment, which I talked about and have him on the podcast a couple of times about how do we reclaim our nutritional wisdom from animals and understanding how we can reset our brain chemistry and our hormones and our metabolic function and our microbiome to actually crave the right food and using a wide sampling. And so when these regeneratively raised cows that are sampling from dozens and dozens of plants, we eat them, it turns out that they have a very high level of phytochemicals, which you think, oh wow, phytochemicals means plant chemicals. Well, why are there plant chemicals in meat? Because they eat the plants and it ends up in their meat. They even get, they're even metabolites of those compounds that may be more beneficial. So for example, I was in Sardinia last summer. and all the goats and sheep were eating all these wild plants. And they, they knew that they actually had to take them to eat this plant and this plant and this plant and this plant because they knew the milk and the cheese would taste better if they actually fed them these different phytochemically rich wild plants. Now they weren't thinking, oh, these are phytochemicals, this is food is meant. They just like, if they eat this, it tastes better. But the beautiful thing about flavor, this is where our flavors senses have been hijacked. The beautiful thing about flavor is is phytochemicals follow flavor. That's what gives the plants their flavor is these phytochemicals. And so the more phytochemicals, the more flavor. So if you eat a vine ripened tomato in August grown in your garden with cherry tomato and pop it in your mouth, it's like an explosion of flavor. If you buy some cardboard square tomato that's been sitting in the warehouse for a year and it's like grown in.

These shitty soils, I mean, it tastes like cardboard. It looks like a tomato, but it doesn't actually taste like a tomato. yeah, and I'll add that it's absolutely true that animals are actually a great source of phytochemicals, but what I think is worth adding is that they also provide a very highly bioavailable source of these phytonutrients, which are not otherwise all that bioavailable. So for example, when an animal, when a cow eats grass that contains carotenoids, plant pigments like lutein and zeaxanthin, which we know protect our eyes, and protect our brain and help preserve our brain function. You can ingest those same compounds in dark leafy greens, but they require fat to be absorbed. So if you're eating dark leafy greens without a fat source, you're not actually absorbing any of those important phytochemicals that we know help protect our brains, right? But when they are metabolized and stored in the adipocytes, the fat tissue of animals, they're highly bioavailable because they're stored along with fat. They're stored in their fat tissue and they become highly bioavailable to us. In fact, there was a, a great study that showed that egg yolks. Egg yolks are a wonderful source of these kinds of compounds as well. Oh, my God.

Cholesterol. Yeah.

The dreaded, dreaded dietary cholesterol. But an egg yolk is literally, I call eggs a cognitive multivitamin. a multivitamin for your brain because nature has packaged everything required to grow and sustain a healthy brain within the egg yolk. It's no wonder that egg yolks are a rich source of cholesterol because the brain is a rich source of cholesterol. 25% of the cholesterol in your body is accounted for by your brain. Now, you don't have to eat dietary cholesterol to support brain health, certainly not, but foods that have dietary cholesterol in it foods that are a source of cholesterol also tend to be a source of nutrients that are particularly supportive of brain health. And that's absolutely true for egg yolks, which contain again, a little bit of.

Everything required to sustain a healthy brain. That's right. I mean, I think about an egg is it's essentially all the nutrients to create a new life. So it's kind of a pretty cool thing. It's like, and, and, and I think, you know, the saturated fat thing too is such a, is such a rabbit hole. Uh, people, what about meat and saturated fat and heart disease? and there's many, many studies that have shown that really there, there really isn't a link, particularly with meat because it actually raises stearic acid, which doesn't raise your cholesterol. It's actually carbohydrates that raise your cholesterol, believe it or not. Sugar and starch are the worst for your cholesterol pattern. And the, the other thing that's kind of funny I always joke about is that breast milk is 25% saturated fat, but the American College of Cardiology says we should be only having 5% of our diet as saturated fat. So does that mean we should ban breastfeeding because it's 25% five times the saturated fat that's in breast milk? No. Why is there so much saturated fat in breast milk? It's not a design flaw. It's actually needed for the brain development, for neurological development, for hormone development. It's a critical compound in our biology. So it's kind of makes me laugh.

At how reductionist we are and how limited our thinking is about all this. Yeah, and dairy fat in particular. Dairy has the highest concentration of saturated fat of any naturally occurring fat source. and yet the consumption of full fat dairy is consistently associated with better cardiometabolic health, reduced risk for cardiovascular disease, for example. And I think actually one really interesting thing about dairy fat with regard to brain health specifically is that in dairy fat, the triglycerides, the fats that are found in dairy fat are actually wrapped up in a bubble called milk fat globule membrane, which directly supports brain health. I mean, you think about a neonate, right? Like a growing animal, a calf, for example. It's drinking milk, right? To support the needs of its developing brain. And so milk fat globule membrane, which is this component found in heavy cream and full fat milk, it's actually rich in compounds like phosphatidylcholine, which we know is really important to serve as a, one of the most important structural building blocks of the brain, right? It's, it's the backbone of the phospholipid bilayer, right? The phospholipids that make our, that, that help make healthy new brain cells, brain cell membranes. It's also milk fat globule membrane rich in a compound called sphingomyelin, which has the suffix is myelin, right? So it, it's, it's one of the most important core components of the myelin sheath, which helps to insulate your neurons. So all of these compounds are found in full fat dairy. and this is one of the reasons why they suspect that full fat dairy actually has a neutral, if not a beneficial role with regard to cardiovascular health. So don't be afraid of dairy fat.

It's, it's, well, here, I would agree. And I would, I would add a caveat just as meat isn't meat, isn't meat. Dairy isn't dairy isn't dairy. And so most of the dairy we consume today is Factory Farm Dairy, which is a abomination for the planet and for the cows in terms of humane treatment. They're also fed an unnatural diet. They're often milked while they're pregnant and they're often obviously pumped up with hormones and antibiotics and are often milked while they're pregnant, which actually increases the hormone load. And also then it's pasteurized, which is not a bad thing, but then it's homogenized, which may be a bad thing. And what was really interesting is that, is that When you look at dairy consumption, the, the, effect of homogenization versus non-homogenization is huge on the lipids. So you take the same amount of milk and you give it to, and this studies have been done and you give it to adults and see what happens to their lipid profile. If they have un, un homogenized milk, they have a beneficial effect on their lipids. If they have homogenized milk, it's the opposite. so there's, there's really, it's really not just the cow, it's the how, it's what do they do with the milk after? And it's also, you know, where, where, where, what are you eating? Is it A2 casein, A1 casein? A1 casein is really the result of hybridization of cows. The basic, the kind of sort of uniformity of the, the genetic genetics in cows. I mean, most Holstein cows are pretty much genetically the same. and they're all often fertilized by just a few bulls. They get the semen and they inseminate them. It's like, so it, they're basically bred in a way to produce more milk, but the consequences is the unintended consequence was to breed out the A2 casein, which turns out to be a lot less inflammatory, a lot less upsetting digestively, a lot less triggering of a lot of adverse effects related to, to milk. And A2 casein is found more in sheep and goat milk. So it's, it's, again, I prefer sheep and goat milk or goat milk products or mouth products that tend to be more grass fed, they tend to be, you know, less processed. They tend not to have antibiotics and hormones. They tend to actually have the H2K casein. And so where people can't tolerate regular dairy, they do tolerate goat and sheep. So again, it's, it's, it's so nuanced. It's not what the food is, it's the quality of the food. And that's really in the Pegan diet where I wrote about how it's not just what you're eating, it's understanding the quality of that food, whether it's, you know, a wild elk or a feedlot cow, whether it's a you know, tomato that's grown in a regenerative way on an organic soil, or whether it's a box tomato, or whether it's a dairy that comes from, you know, industrial cow farming, or whether it's wild goats or sheep, like it's very different. I've never tried milk a wild goat.

No. And also goat, goat dairy, goat fat is a rich source of medium chain triglycerides, which we know is, is, is useful in terms of elevating blood levels keytones.

So.

Right. Yeah. So give us some more.

Give us some more tips about some of the genius foods. And then I want to talk into some of the Practical aspects of the genius kitchen, which is so wonderful because it isn't. It's just not this abstract conversation about all these things. It's like, okay, well, now what do I do? What do I do when I go in my kitchen? How do I get the right Foods? What do I do with them? How do I upgrade my whole kitchen environment so that I actually default? Stay healthier. I mean, it's really brilliant. So, so let's dive into a few more genius foods and then we'll get.

Into the kitchen story. Absolutely. So dark leafy greens, I think are really important. And I always love to draw people's attention to arugula. If you live in the UK, I think arugula's called rocket. Yeah. Which has always been kind of comical to me, but, but it's one of the top sources of dietary nitrates, which we know is really important in terms of supporting the nitric oxide pathway, which helps reduce our blood pressure. and help increase blood flow. This was actually the role that blood pressure plays in brain health was recently highlighted by a study called the Sprint Mind Trial, which is a seminal study in the field of dementia prevention that showed that people that had hypertension when they were pharmacologically treated for their hypertension, so with a drug, they saw a significant, significant risk reduction for the development of mild cognitive impairment, which is often considered pre-dementia. Now, thanks to recent very high quality meta analyses, we can see that exercise is just as effective for blood pressure as medication. So that to me, making sure that your blood pressure is within a nice healthy range, that's one of the best things that you could do in terms of preserving and improving your cognitive function. And arugula, foods that are rich in nitrates directly support having a healthy blood pressure because they boost nitric oxide.

That's amazing.

Yeah, it's quite important. And it's also really interesting from the standpoint of the microbiome because foods like arugula, beets, rich sources of nitrates, humans actually don't have the ability to reduce nitrates to nitrites, which are the nitrite is the compound that actually enters that pathway. We rely on oral bacteria. to do that. So it's one of the major reasons why, I mean, you should slow down chewing for many reasons because digestion begins in the mouth, but we rely on oral bacteria to make that conversion. So when you're eating arugula, when you're eating beets, it's the oral bacteria that help create that nitric oxide gas. And in fact, this is a major reason why we need to stop using antiseptic mouthwash. Because when you use antiseptic mouthwash, you're nuking the bacteria. that actually help you derive a neuroprotective and cardio protective effect from your food.

So basically have bad breath and you're not going to get dementia, is that the idea?

Bad breath. No, good oral care is about reducing the consumption of added sugar and getting rid of the refined grains, which are highly cariogenic, directly support Streptococcus mutans, which is one of the most powerful cavity causing bacteria in the mouth, directly supported by eating sugar and consuming refined grain. So cut those out of your diet and your teeth should be.

Yeah. I'm teasing. I'm teasing.

Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. So I think, I think that's so, it's so, it's so critical that, that we understand that, you know, the, the right sort of kinds of foods. And I, I think the, the thing I just want you to clarify is people have heard, oh, we should stay away from nitrites and that causes cancer. and that's in processed meat. So can you just help people unpack what you're talking about? Cause I think it can be confusing between nitrates, nitrites and cancer.

Yeah, absolutely. So they're actually chemically identical. When we consume nitrates, the oral bacteria convert those compounds, which we want to occur, to nitrites. They remove an oxygen molecule. So that reduction process creates nitrites, right? So beets, arugula, rich in nitrates, which end up becoming nitrites. Processed meats are preserved with nitrites because, and this is actually something that is one of the better aspects of food, the industrial processing. We've learned how to preserve meat so that the spread of botulism has been reduced, right? But the issue is that when in the presence of certain proteins, certain compounds called amines, and when subjected to high heat, these nitrates in meat get there's the potential that they get converted to compounds called nitrosamines, which are carcinogenic. I'm not concerned with them when we're not cooking them. And also when you eat a diet that's rich in vitamin C, that also prevents the conversion of nitrites to nitrosamine. So again, it's not something that I would be concerned about. A, you're consuming them in moderation, B, you're not cooking them. So this is one of the reasons why bacon is still something that, you know, you wanna make sure that they're not, that you're buying nitrite free meats in general. Uh, but I think like everything in, in nutrition, the answer is a little bit more nuanced is, you know, than just avoid processed meats, right? You wanna avoid the meats that have nitrites in them, which are generally gonna be present in the form of sodium nitrite. They have a lower, you'll, you'll see less when they're, when, processed meats are preserved with celery extract. So they, they provide naturally occurring nitrites, but also manufacturers now will add a little bit of ascorbic acid, which is vitamin C, which help prevent that conversion.

To cancer causing nitrosamines.

It's only what you eat.

It's what you eat it with. Right. 100%. 100%. That's right. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's get into the kitchen cuz, you know, you're, you're, you're recommending a lot of cool stuff and there's a lot more ideas about genius foods in your book, but People are like, well, I'm not too comfortable in the kitchen. I don't really know how to cook. You know, what's sort of quick and easy and what's also sort of fun.

Give us some of your tricks for the kitchen. Absolutely. Well, first of all, I think, you know, beyond talking about what it is that we're at, we're eating, just cooking at home is such a powerful leverage point for better health. Studies show that people who cook more home, cook at home more as opposed to eating out more frequently have reduced risk for obesity, healthier body fat percentage, healthier metabolic markers, and improved family dynamics. So I'm trying to encourage people to cook at home more. You can cook the same meal at home that you would get outside and it's gonna have fewer calories, fewer fat calories, and less sodium overall. So not that there's anything wrong with sodium or fat, obviously, but we know that Americans tend to be overweight and calorie consumption is something that we all need to, I think, be a little bit more conscious of. So I provide a ton of recipes in Genius Kitchen that are easy to create using very easy to find ingredients, low cost, highly accessible. And I also provide, it serves as a wellness guide that helps people improve their digestion because if you're not digesting your food properly, you're being shortchanged, you're not reaping all of the myriad benefits of your food. I also teach people in the book how to create basic, like basic. So there's like a hundred plus recipes in the book that range in their complexity, but I also think it's really important for people to know how to make simple things, like for example, a grass-fed beef burger patty. Most people don't know how to make a simple burger patty. You go to the supermarket and sometimes you see these pre-mixed beef concoctions that have raw vegetables in the center, which are certainly not gonna caramelize by the time the meat is cooked. And so it's a big problem. I mean, with regard to cooking ground beef, which is one of the most cost-effective, low-cost ways to get grass-fed beef, right? Most people screw it up. So I teach people how to prepare really simple foods like that. I also, with regard to economizing, there are a lot of cheaper cuts that are available to most people in modern supermarkets that are delicious if only cooked properly. So I think we need to get, well, brisket is a good example of that. Blank steak is a great example. London broil, these are all low cost cuts that are not very delicious if you cook them quickly, but become amazing if you just learn how to cook them low and slow.

You can also low, yeah.

Low and slow. It's so important. Also, poultry is another type of food that benefits from low and slow cooking. And even in restaurants sometimes you see undercooked chicken cooked. It's cooked appropriately for food safety. But if you've ever bitten into an a chicken drumstick that's tendinous and has a lot of connective tissue, it's just that's chicken that hasn't been cooked properly. My friend. So, I talk about how economical it is to buy the whole bird and to cook the whole thing in the oven low and slow so that all of the connective tissue, all of the collagen melts down and becomes gelatin, which is really important. I mean, people spend a lot of money on collagen supplements these days to improve their hair, skin, and nails. But a joint that's under heavy load, like a chicken leg, for example, or the chicken thigh, has four times the collagen in it as a chicken breast. And so your food can actually be a natural source of collagen, which supports, I mean, it supports arterial elasticity. It's, as I mentioned, supports skin, supports wound healing. Chicken drumsticks are a great source of collagen.

Doesn't that collagen get pre-digested in your gut and just break down into amino acids or it does? It's all just hype, this collagen thing.

Or is there something to it? No, no, no. I mean, it does provide the precursor amino acids that your body will then reassemble to create collagen. So, for example, glycine. Glycine is actually considered conditionally essential. An omnivore ingests about two grams of glycine a day, and our bodies will synthesize about two grams of glycine a day. But mathematical models have shown that we actually, for metabolic health, probably require about 15 grams. of glycine for good health every day. And glycine is one of these important building blocks that our bodies require to synthesize collagen. Also, vitamin C plays a role in collagen synthesis. People who develop scurvy due to a lack of vitamin C in the diet, scurvy is essentially an inability to create collagen. So we can eat foods that help spur our bodies to create this important protein, which accounts for a third of total body collagen of total body protein.

So, what's your favorite like go to go to meal? Like you're just quick, easy, like, I'm busy. Let's go. I want some help.

I mean, honestly, I love sauteing up some dark leafy greens and throwing a burger patty on top, which is one of the reasons why I think knowing how to create a burger patty is so important. And I'll just tell people the way to do it is to just put the meat in the pan. You don't need any additional oil because there's the ground beef has plenty of fat on its own, so you don't need to add any oil to it, which I think is great. You throw it in the pan, you don't put any spices or anything on the burger patty. Once you throw the meat in the pan formed into the shape of a burger patty, you sprinkle some coarse salt on top, and then once you flip it, you sprinkle more coarse salt on the other side, and that's it. That's how you make an amazing burger patty, and I love to eat that on top of a bed of sauteed dark leafy greens, which I saute in extra virgin olive oil. It's actually a myth that you can't cook with extra virgin olive oil. In the Mediterranean region of the world, they use extra virgin olive oil not just to cook with, but they use it as a sauce. And somehow we've been, for some reason we've been told that the Mediterranean dietary pattern, as it's lauded in the Western medical literature, involves canola oil and all.

Of these crap oils and that you can't cook with extra virgin olive oil.

But that's a total myth, so.

Well, well, I'm gonna push back on that. Cause if it was, if you heat olive oil to a high temperature, you destroy a lot of the polyphenols and benefit beneficial compounds and you can oxidize it. So I would agree with you if you're cooking at low temperature, but not if you're stir frying at high temperature. And I, well, yeah, I tell you what, I tell you an interesting thing I did was I, I went and had my entire metabolome checked. And, and one of the things they find in metabolome is byproducts of food that have been metabolized in different ways. And so I had oxidized olive oil in my blood. I was always stir frying with olive oil, but I like to cook at high temperatures because I'm, you know, I was like brushing for time and I shouldn't be, but it's like I need to sort of change the oil, use.

Avocado oil or cook at lower temperature. Well, I'll say that it's much safer to cook at high temperatures with, with olive oil than it is to cook at high temperatures with a grain and seed oil, like a soybean oil or a corn oil. And you have to, you have to ask what olive oil is constructed with. that might predispose it to oxidation. And when you actually look at extra virgin olive oil, it's about 85% monounsaturated fat, which is very chemically stable. I mean, think about it. Avocado oil, which is praised for its high- Mostly monounsaturated, yeah. Is mostly monounsaturated, right? So if monounsaturated fat was prone to oxidation, avocado oil would not be a high heat cooking oil, right? And then 15% of extra virgin olive oil is saturated fat. which we know is highly heat stable. So, you're right in that the polyphenols might degrade to a point when you cook with olive oil at high temperatures. But what's not gonna happen with extra virgin olive oil, you can rest assured that it's not gonna become the cancer-causing mutagenic disfigured oil product that you get when you cook with soybean oil or corn oil to high temperatures.

Tell us how you really feel about those oils, Max.

Yeah. I'm not a fan of grain and seed oils.

Which is pushing against the orthodoxy because the traditional nutritional orthodoxy is that these seed oils and bean oils like soybean oil, canola oil, they used to call rapeseed, but bad name, so they gave a new name, which is better facelift for marketing canola oil. That those are essential and that the more people consume of those, the healthier are the less heart disease, the better the cholesterol. Those are all often observational studies, even some interventional studies.

What would you say about that? Yeah, the nutritional and medical orthodoxy can't see beyond the fact that these grain and seed oils do lower LDL cholesterol, which according to the orthodoxy is the end all be all indicator of cardiovascular risk, right? Yeah. So they're unable to see past that. And it's true that grain and seed oils do reduce your LDL. and ApoB when compared to saturated fats and certain saturated fats. Because as you mentioned, not all saturated fats, a fat is not a fat, is not a fat. Not all saturated fats are created equal, right? We have stearic acid, which has a neutral effect on cardiovascular risk. But there are other problems with grain and seed oils that we need to talk about. They're prone to oxidation and these oxidized fats integrate themselves into all aspects of our physiology. They get tugged along by lipoproteins in our blood. So you've got these lipoproteins that carry triglycerides and cholesterol around our bodies, dropping off nutrients, right? And when we ingest these oxidized fats, they get tugged around by these LDL, by these lipoproteins, by chylomicrons, by the LDL lipoprotein. and that makes them that, that gives them an inflammatory phenotype, makes them more prone to adhering to immune cells, which we know is early, an early occurrence in the development of atherosclerosis.

Right.

We know that they integrate themselves into our fat tissue and they provide the precursor molecules to our inflammation pathway. We also know that these grain and seed oils have a small but significant amount of trans fats, man-made trans fats. mm-, due to the production process, they undergo a step in the production process called deodorization, which creates trans fats. And we cook with them, they create, they, they become oxidized, they generate free radicals, and they also, what generates are also oxidative byproducts like aldehydes, certain of which we know are, are damaging to our mitochondria and promote cancer. So, yes, they reduce LDL, but there are all these other problems associated with them.

So, And again, also the thing that people miss is that most of the data around these have come from large observational trials, which are the kinds of things we talked about earlier in the podcast that can't prove cause and effect. And there was one study that was done, this was a fascinating study we've talked about in the podcast years ago, that there was a study done that was funded by the government back in the sixties. It was before we had medical ethics. And essentially they took people in a mental institution and randomized them to two groups. Basically they didn't have to give informed consent. They're like, okay, you guys are gonna eat this, you guys are gonna eat that. They basically gave half of them butter and saturated fat as a source of their fat, and the other half they gave corn oil. Now the Cornell group had a dramatically lower LDL, but for every LDL lowering they did, there was a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes. And this was a randomized interventional controlled trial that is able to prove cause and effect. And the results were kind of staggering and they were so staggering that the Orthodox at the time was, was so entrenched in the belief that saturated fat was bad that they refused to publish the study. And it wasn't published till 50 years later when an NIH scientist found out about the data that had been hidden. There was a basement somewhere. And went and found this guy, and there's a great Malcolm Gladwell podcast about this. went and found the son of one of the original researchers after his father died at a basement full of his stuff. And he found all the old data and tapes and computer program shit. They found it all in the basement. And based on that data, they published this study, which was really one of the very few interventional trials looking at saturated fat versus vegetable oil. So it's really pretty interesting.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's shocking. It was, that was the Minnesota, corner experiment.

Yeah, yeah, Minnesota corner experiment. Exactly. and I write about in my book, Eat Fat, Get Thin, but it's like, oh God, the fat story is so complicated and I'm glad I wrote that book, but it was so nuanced and I don't think people will get it. So summing it up, how would you advise people to really live a genius life, to make sure their kitchens are right and they're picking the right foods and how do they get into it right away?

Yeah, so again, I'm a big advocate of whole plants and properly sourced animal products. I think that if you integrate both of those into your diet, obviously there's going to be individual differences with regard to the tolerance of certain plant products, right? Some people might be better without, I don't know, lectins in their diet or nightshades. But in general, I think it's whole plants, it's fibrous vegetables, it's low sugar fruits, and the inclusion of foods like grass-fed beef, wild fatty fish, egg yolks, and the like. I think that these are all, they all serve important roles in the genius kitchen. We know that dietary protein is important. We don't want to be sarcopenic. We don't want to be old and frail. Dr. Hyman, there was a study that found that among people who were at high genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease, it was frailty that determined whether or not somebody would go on to develop the condition. We know that protein is crucially important and animal protein consistently is the highest quality, most digestible source of protein that nature has devised. Right. We can look at the digestible, indispensable amino acid score. We know that animal protein is important. So I don't like to dance around that issue. I think it's, it's great. It's highly bioavailable. It's very digestible. And then with plants, I think that individual experimentation is key, but in general, there's a lot of good to be had in, in plant products, whether we're talking about arugula or beets or cruciferous vegetables, which help your body detox, right? A lot of people spend money on expensive detox programs, but cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, these are some of the most powerful detoxifying foods available to a modern human. So making sure that the kitchen is rich in nutrient dense foods like some that I've just named, very, very important. And then also I think reducing our exposure to plastic. This is a sort of larger conversation, but in a nutshell, More frequent use of plastic exposes a person to.

A.

Broader array of endocrine disrupting compounds, which we know helps promote metabolic disease. And we know that the brain thrives when the body is in a state of metabolic health. So reducing your exposure to plastic, I think, is really important. And I give really achievable tips on how to do all of that in the new book, Ingenious Kitchen. So, Yeah, I think in a nutshell that's my 30,000 foot view.

Amazing, Maxwell. Thank you for your brilliance, your dedication, your research that has pulled out so much wisdom for all of us to learn from. Everybody needs to get a copy of the Genius Kitchen. It's amazing and I think you won't be disappointed. I think our philosophies are very similar. I call it the Pegan diet. You call it Genius Foods. It's basically the same thing, focusing quality, food is medicine, personalization, and not being too crazy rigid. So thank you so much, Max, for being on the podcast, for writing the book, and it's out. People can get it everywhere they get books. They can learn more about Max. Where should they find you online?

Yeah, so you can go to geniuskitchenbook.com to order the book. It's also available at every major bookseller. I'm very active on Instagram @maxlugavere. And then I also host my own podcast, which I've had the pleasure of hosting Mark a number of times. And it's called the Genius Life. So check me out. Fantastic. Yes, I'm friendly.

You are very friendly.

Likewise.

Thanks, Mac. I love you from the day I met you. You were just a little boy at the time, but now look at you.

I was.

I know. And so if you've been listening to this podcast and you love what you heard, share with your friends and family. I think We all need better brain foods and brain food tips. Tell us how you use food to help you and help your cognitive function and brain. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast and we'll see you next time on the Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into the Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. and I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter, and in it I share my favorite stuff, from foods to supplements to gadgets to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays. Nothing else, I promise. And all you have to do is go to Dr. Hyman.com/picks to sign up. That's Dr. Hyman.com/picks, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter and I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger longer. Hi everyone.

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