+1: #450 Food Poisons Part 2

You're listening to the Optymyze with Brian Johnson podcast. Unlock the full Optymyze experience and join over 10,000 premium members at Optimize Me.

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. In our last plus one we talked about rule number one of nutrition. You remember what it was? Basic idea. It's not what you start eating that has the most positive impact, it's what you stop eating. There aren't any fountains of youth in nature, but there are poisons and you can't eat enough broccoli to make up for all that pizza. So what did you eliminate now?

Although I did share his high level.

Perspective, I didn't share John Durant's perspective or on what he thinks we should remove as I wanted to make his general advice apply. Whether you're paleo or vegan or pegan or whatever. Today we're going to look at his top rex at what qualifies as poison and should therefore be removed. Note I share this with a respectful tip of the hat to the grain lovers out there, John tells us, and of course many others who share his perspective. As echo this, he says that on the top of this list of poisons are industrial foods, sugar and vegetable oils, as well as the seed based crops they're made out of. Cereal grains, Legumes. He says think of these as slow acting poisons when consumed in large quantities. Now very few people are going to argue that sugar is good for us and certainly not in the quantities in which we consume it today. 150 plus pounds per person per year. The fact that we can consume more sugar in one meal than our ancestors would consume in an entire year equals not good. Then we have veggie oils. We've talked about it before, but they're not good for inflammation. Parenthetical aside, although when I was in the hospital waiting room while my brother had his surgery, for some odd reason Dr. Oz dedicated his show to trying to convince us that corn oil is awesome. We'll save that for another chat. Then we have grains and legumes. If you fall into the paleo esque camp, you won't have a tough time agreeing with the statement that we can think of these as slow acting poisons when consumed in large quantities. If you enjoy grains and legumes and your digestion and health are perfect then, then congratulations. If you enjoy those foods and your health and digestion can use some optimizing, you might want to experiment with a little elimination. As per the Hartwigs in it starts with food. Their Whole30 program was super helpful years ago after my decade long low fat vegan stint. They say the marketing from big cereal companies would have you think that cereal grains are highly nutritious and that if you don't eat them you'll miss out on all sorts of vitamins, minerals and fiber that you can only get from grains. They say that's simply not true. Grains are not, we repeat, not nutrient dense when compared with vegetables and fruit. Plus, they say another way that a diet high in grains look leads to suboptimal nutrition is in terms of opportunity cost. If there are more whole grains on your plate, then there's probably less of some other food like vegetables on your plate and that lowers the overall micronutrient density in your diet too. In summary, they say there is not a single health promoting substance present in grains that you can't also get from vegetables and fruit. Now I laughed as I typed that given the near religious fervor with which people approach their nutrition, again, you're the boss. So given your nutritional philosophy, I ask, are there any foods that you might think of eliminating? Have fun. That is all.

Hey, this is Brian with a quick question for you. Do you know what the word optimize literally means? It's from the Latin optimus which means the best. In our case, we're talking about helping you create the best version of you. So another quick question. What's the best version of you look like? How does that version of you show up in the world? Helping you be that version of yourself all day, every day is what our Optimized membership program is all about. Now we obviously give away a ton of content for free and we give our 10,000 premium members a ton More members get hundreds of Philosopher's notes, which are 20 minute book summaries that help you apply the best big ideas from the best optimal living books to your life today. Plus members get dozens of hour long optimal living 101 masterclasses, more wisdom in less time for your busy life on everything from the science of setting and achieving goals, how to optimize your energy via the fundamentals of nutrition, movement, sleep and meditation, and how to be super productive day in and day out. While of course enjoying the whole process, every facet of your life optimized equals you at your absolute best.