Brian Johnson breaks down what makes food "good" using four criteria: psychological effects like cravings, hormonal impacts on insulin and fat storage, gut health, and inflammation. Sugar, processed grains, dairy, and vegetable oils are the main culprits, though grains aren't necessary if you eat vegetables and fruit.
Foreign. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on good food. It's inspired by. It starts with food by Dallas Hartwig and Melissa Hartwig, creators of the Whole30 plan. Check it out. Awesome. Good food. Dallas and Melissa tell us the There are four tests that food must pass in order to be qualified as good food. The first is psychological. We will go through each of these in detail. The second is hormonal. The third is related to your gut and the fourth is related to inflammation. So 1, 2, 3, 4. Psychological. First test. Does it have a positive impact on your psychology? Because food can be sneaky under the surface. It can be creating cravings and addictive behavior that we're not even aware of. We talked about this with David Ludwig and his experiments where he put people into that FMRI machine. Right? That's obviously a person in an FMRI machine who, let's say just ate Fast acting carbs. Fast acting carbs. What happens? Well, a part of their brain in the reward center known as the nucleus accumbens lights up in the same way that an alcoholic's brain will light up or an individual addicted to cocaine's brain will light up. Nucleus accumbens lights up when we have fast acting carbs. That is not a positive psychological response, therefore it does not qualify as good food. Therefore it is eliminated in the whole 30 plant. Fast acting carbs are obvious. Ones include the sugars that we over consume in material in a liquid form. But it's also found in processed foods like pizza and breads and pastas. That stuff has a negative psychological impact and creates cravings. Therefore we don't want it in our bodies. Not good food. The second test is hormonal. As we've been talking about a lot different food pulls different metabolic switches. Some food creates fat storage in irregular blood sugar via the release of insulin, triggering the release of insulin and other food burns fat. We need to know how the food we're consuming affects our hormonal responses. The third is related to our gut. We talked about this a lot in clean gut. Alejandro Junger tells us it all starts in our gut. 70 to 80% of our immune system is in our gut. That's crazy. Is what we're eating affecting our gut positively or not? Third test and then the fourth is inflammation. Inflammation is at the root of all the different metabolic disorders and other diseases we don't want. The lifestyle issues are connected to inflammation. And the primary way we create inflammation in our bodies is via the food we put into our bodies. So those Are our four tests the primary things that don't pass the test? What would you guess them to be? Well, obviously they go into detail in the book and you can check out the website whole 30 for more detail. But the high level of things that we don't want are again, obviously sugar, but then perhaps not so obviously grains. Both the highly processed and the whole grains they're not fans of for a number of reasons. We'll talk about that more in a moment. Dairy is another trigger for a lot of people. Eliminate that whole other conversation there. Right, we'll leave it at that. And then veggie and seed oils is another thing that we want to eliminate. As I've said again and again and again, I'm deliberately repeating myself. Veggie and seed oils did not exist in our nutritional diet and landscape 100 plus years ago. Right now we eat 20% of our calories from soybean oil alone. That makes no sense. Creates a ton of inflammation imbalance between omega 3 and 6 dairy. Great thing to remove as you do your testing and seeing what works. And then grains. One of the great points they make in the book about grains is the fact that although the marketers of cereals and grains will tell you that you absolutely need to eat grains to get all the nutrients required to live healthfully, there is not one single positive nutrient in grains that you cannot find in veggies and fruits without all the possible anti nutrients that are found in grains. Therefore, grains are not a required part of a healthy diet. Period. And when you eat a lot of grains, you often push the veggies off of your plate. And remember the fact that the American Heart association has told us that tricks and co puffs and other silly cereal foods are heart healthy. That's absurd. Grains are not a required part of a healthy diet. And obviously we're already eliminating sugar. That's quick. Look at some considerations for what qualifies as good food. Again, check out Whole30 for more and think about what you can do to take the next baby step in optimizing your nutrition and life. Have another awesome day. See you. Isn't it a bit odd that we went from math to science to history, but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule. Of course, it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So Imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisk and underline and mark all up? Then imagine that guy me connecting those ideas to other great books in helping you apply them to your life today. Well that's what I do with something we call Philosopher's Notes where I break down each great book into a simple 6 page PDF, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in fun, inspiring, super practical optimal living 101 classes on stuff like purpose 101, confidence 101, business 101 meditation 101, that sort of thing. You've got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient wisdom plus Modern science plus Common sense plus Virtue plus Mastery plus Fun. That's what our optimized membership program is all about. We'd love to have you join us. Check us out at BrianJohnson. Me join.
