My Favorite 5 Superfoods Belong in YOUR Diet

Hey everyone. Welcome to my weekly house call. Your chance to ask me your questions. And this week's question comes from Facebook. A reader asks Dr. Hyman, can you talk about your favorite superfoods and the benefits they have? Should we be eating these foods every day? What do you like to do? Well, the idea of food as medicine is one of the most powerful ideas and tools that you have available for to create optimal health. And using food as medicine is the first step that I take to treat my patients. And it's one of my favorite topics. I have a whole list of superfoods, but today I want to discuss five that I enjoy almost daily. Now, the first category of superfoods I want to discuss are seeds. Not just any seeds, but three seeds. The ones I like are chia, hemp, and flax. Now, chia seeds are a great source of omega 3 fats. They have more calcium than milk, and they're a great source of anti inflammatory compounds. And they're great for glowing skin and mental health and clarity and much, much more. Chia seeds have 10 grams of fiber in one ounce. The fiber in chia seeds is insoluble fiber. It's the kind of fiber that feeds friendly gut bacteria and that promotes gut health. And it gets fermented into short chain fatty acids, which are super important for your gut Feeding friendly intestinal bacteria is super important to keep your gut bacteria well fed for good health. Chia seeds are a great protein source too, and they're higher in protein content than most plants. I also love hemp seeds, which are another great source of fat. And they also pack a good amount of protein, B vitamins, as well as magnesium, zinc and iron. And flax seeds are another great source of omega 3 fats and dietary fiber, as well as essential vitamins and minerals. And they have powerful, powerful anti cancer hormone balancing compounds called lignans. When someone tells me they're having trouble with constipation, I usually recommend adding ground flaxseeds to their smoothies to encourage healthy bowel movements. So all three of these seeds can be added to your smoothies or you can make puddings. Chia seed puddings. Awesome. Or add them as toppings on berries or coconut. Yogurt options are endless. Okay, my next superfood is MCT oil. That stands for medium chain triglycerides. Now, these are a type of fatty acid that's derived from coconut oil. See, MCT oil is a super fuel for your cells because it boosts fat burning and it increases mental clarity. MCT oil can also help you lose weight because it gets quickly burned and metabolized and speeds up your metabolism. It also gets absorbed directly from the gut into the liver and doesn't get stored as fat, but rather burn quickly and turn into energy. You can add it to your smoothies, your coffee, you can pour, put it up to dress on your veggies. You can put in salad dressings, whatever you like. The next superfood, or shall I say super fiber that I use almost daily is called glucomannan. You need to get fiber in your diet to keep healthy from top to bottom, as well as provide food for the healthy bacteria that are inside of you to promote health. See, most of us have about 8 grams of fiber. We used to have about 100 grams or 150 grams of fiber as hunter gatherers. And our bodies really need that. I mean, the African average hunter gatherer poop is about 2 pounds, whereas the average Westerner is about 4 ounces. Not very good. Fiber can actually prevent obesity and all chronic diseases of aging. Now, this is because fiber slows the rate at which food enters your bloodstream and increases the speed at which the food exits your body through the digestive tract. Fiber keeps your blood sugar and your cholesterol in ideal balance and also quickly eliminates toxins from your gut because it kind of think of it like a scrubber brush. It cleans out all the toxins and reduces your appetite. So it's like a win win in. Glucomannan is soluble, it's fermentable, and it's a highly viscous fiber. It's like sort of soaks up 50 times its weight in water. And it comes from the root of elephant yam, also known as cognac. No, it's not the kind you drink. Okay. The cognac tuber has been used for centuries as an herbal remedy. And it makes traditional foods like cognac jelly, tofu, and noodles. I like the shirataki noodles because there's almost no calories and they're all fiber and they taste like noodles. And there's a great way to take glucomannan. It's the form of a supplement known as PGX. And this is a lot of research on $20 million of research looking at diabetes and weight loss and, and cholesterol. And you basically stir it into your water every day as an easy and effective source of fiber. Next, I want to talk about mushrooms. It's a whole class of foods, actually, not just one mushroom. When I went to China, I realized that the Average Chinese person knows more about medicinal properties of food than I do. After years of research, medicinal foods are part of their everyday diet. And one of the staples in Chinese medicine are mushrooms. Reishi, shiitake, maitake, cordyceps. They all have powerful healing properties that boost your immunity and support your hormones. And they're antiviral, they're anti inflammatory, they're anti cancer. They can even help you heal your liver. They can lower cholesterol. The list goes on and on and on. And so if you have an experiment with mushrooms, I highly recommend it. I love to make reishi tea or cook with shiitake mushrooms or even maitake. You can put them in soups. They're awesome. Awesome. Finally, let's talk about the superfood that you might be having today, and you don't even know it. And that is plant foods. Yes, that's right. The vast array of colors in veggies represents about 25,000 chemicals that are super beneficial. These are called phytochemicals. Now, there's evidence that the interaction between the colors provides additional benefits. So that's why you want to eat the rainbow. It's important to have a whole diverse diet full of lots of different colorful fruits and vegetables. Now, fruits and veggies are. Are historically and biologically super important. Our ancestors, the hunter gatherers, ate over 800 varieties of plant foods. Today, we don't even consume anywhere near that amount. So we need to make extra effort to include more of a variety in our diets. I always say eat the rainbow. And no, I don't mean skittles. Okay? Each color of fruits and veggies represents a whole different family of healing compounds. For example, red foods, like tomatoes, they contain the carotenoid lycopene, which helps get rid of free radicals that damage our genes and prevent cancer, like prostate cancer. Green foods contain the chemicals sulforaphane and isocyanates. These are all so powerful, they also contain indoles, all of which help ward off cancer by inhibiting carcinogens and getting rid of them in your body. So I want you to try them all. Purple, yellow, orange, red, white, blue, green, whatever. They all have amazing benefits. I encourage you to eat your medicine every single day. Remember, the power of what you put at the end of your fork is far more powerful than what you'll ever find in a prescription bottle. Now, I want to hear from you. What are your favorite superfoods? Comment below or on my Facebook page, and if you like this post, share it with your friends and family on Facebook and Twitter and be sure to submit your questions to drhyman.com and maybe next week I'll make a house call to you.