Phytonutrients: the Key to Your Health, with Dr. Deanna Minich

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Five Journeys podcast Live like youe Matter. Dr. Deanna Minick is our guest today. I am so excited. I was literally fangirling when I saw you at the A4M conference last week. And she's an internationally recognized teacher, author, scientist, speaker and artist. She has more than 20 years of diverse well experience in the fields of nutrition and functional medicine, including clinical practice, research, product formulation, writing and education. As we say in Boston. She's wicked Smart. She's authored six books on health and wellness and over 40 scientific publications. Her passion is teaching a whole self approach to nourishment and bridging the gaps between science, spirituality and art and medicine. Welcome Deanna.

Wow, so great to be here with both of you.

Thank you.

I love having these conversations and yeah, we're just returning from a conference. You know, we're back into the groove of coming into a forum sharing ideas. So it's great to be here with you and talk about more ideas.

Ditto. How'd you do with food at the conference? I think let's just dive in.

Oh wow. You know, one of the first things I do when I go traveling because people are always asking me my hacks is I buffer in some additional time to actually go to the grocery store and get things lined up. So I do things very old school. I go to the grocery store, I make sure I have a refrigerator in my room and I just buy groceries for however long I'm going to be there. And oh, here's my water hack. You know, I always bring a glass bottle so it's somewhat small, like it's not unwieldy. But I bring my glass bottle and I always make sure I can find the fitness center which I'm going to anyway usually and I fill it up with purified water because water getting good, healthy water is a challenge on the road sometimes, especially after travel and making sure super dehydrating.

Yeah. Wendy and I went to got our car and then first trip was Whole Foods.

That's right.

Yeah. I think that's really important to talk about is I'm not sure people really understand that when they go to hotel rooms they can request a refrigerator in the room for health reasons. So it's often possible you can just say I really need a fridge. How do we get that? I have some food restrictions and I need to eat certain types of food and I need to store that food. People are usually really healthy.

You know what, Wendy? I actually did that once in a hotel where I didn't have that. And I said, I have special needs for certain things. They gave me this little itty bitty. Like a medication. Insulin Refrigerator.

Exactly.

I was like, oh, that backfired on me. But, yeah, we can always ask. And, you know, in this particular hotel, there was no coffee maker. And I wanted the coffee maker to have hot water for tea. So I was thinking, oh, my gosh, I can't even get. So anyway, we have to be fluid and flexible, and that ties into our conversation about successful aging. You know, what can we do to kind of roll with what life gives us?

So how'd you get into all this? Right? Like, who were you before you were this, pardon the expression, big shot? Like, who. Who were you? What?

I hope I'm not a big shot.

No, I don't mean big shot. I mean, in a good way. Like, you're like, a big deal. You're super productive. You make a huge contribution. This is all what you're about. Who were you before you developed?

Our audience. I mean, it is truly our privilege because we learn from you. You've been part of the ifm, and you've been part of conferences and teaching, and you're one of our teachers. So we're very privileged to have you on board.

Yeah. So I don't mean big shot as a bad way. I mean it, like, you're, like, a big deal to me. I'm totally fangirling. I'll have to rein it in.

You two are very kind. Very kind. But none of the credit goes to me. Actually, it really does go to my mother, my upbringing. And you know, what's kind of uncanny is that this Sunday, most people will be celebrating Mother's Day. And here we are talking about my mom. When I was growing up in the 1970s, my mom was definitely ahead of the curve. She was always a very. I don't know, she was kind of a rebel in some ways. And so growing up during the time of Adele Davis and Richard Simmons, I grew up in a very Catholic home. So a lot of religion, a lot of discipline, a lot of rigor. My dad was a police officer, so there was like, my way or the highway. We're all going to eat like this. And it was very traumatic for me, I must admit, because, you know, when you're growing up with a mom who's a health nut, because at that time, being healthy was not trendy. It was kind of an odd thing to be doing, you know, having brown bread instead of white bread, not eating sugar. But I must say, I'm so grateful to my mom, TV dinners. Well, and, you know, we didn't do TV dinners. My mom, even to this day, you know, she doesn't use a microwave. She barely uses her cell phone. She has very strict ideals. She's a little bit too idealistic, I think, in some ways. And what I've had to do through my journey, because what I have taken is what she has imparted and then basically personalized it to what was working for me. So bringing in more of the art, bringing in more of the practicality of what people can do. Because what we don't want to do is create stress about what we need to do to be healthy. And I think that there's so much stress, it's almost like if you're in the health field and you get sick, you're perceived as, oh, you did something wrong. And, you know, I just feel like we're coming at it from angles that really, I don't think are. Can be very healthy. But then we have a whole other area where people are learning. They're getting more educated on their bodies. You know, we spend our lifetimes in bodies that we seek to understand. We just kind of end up into this vehicle and it's like, we have to figure this out. Okay, so how do we work with our muscles and, you know, changing hormones and, you know, all of these things? You know, we're complex, but not everything has to be complicated. I think that's really the essence.

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that you teach, which I love, is the Rainbow Diet. I know we're going to talk about. I know that's your fundamental. You're probably tired of talking about, but at least as a background, the eating the rainbow is like, is your hallmark. And it's brilliant because all the phytonutrients, everything that you get from the rainbow is just everything that we need.

Do you remember that ad? I can't remember what it was for when we were kids. You are what you eat from your head down to your feet. It was for some product. I can't remember the product, but it was this jingle on TV when I was a kid and I grew up in the 70s. And it's so. It's so resonate for me. And I say to people, you are what you eat from your head down to their feet. They're like, that's brilliant. I'm like, it's not mine. It was a marketing thing from the 70s. But it's really true.

That's clever. That is clever. Yeah. So many of those, those Jingles do ring true. Well, you know, I went with the rainbow because, as I mentioned, I really like to embrace science because that's my training. But then also art. And I was thinking, what is scientific but also very artful and sustainable and tracks to many different people throughout the lifespan. Like, I'm not just dedicating my message to a certain slice, but the whole gamut. Because I do think that the act of eating is something that unifies us as people. Everywhere on the planet, no matter. No matter where we travel, people are eating different kinds of foods, different degrees, different timing, different. You know, we all have different reasons, but how do we bring people together? And what I have seen throughout my nutrition training is that, you know, eating has been used to divide people. And, you know, it's like, well, I'm this, you're not this, and therefore we are separate and I have a better way of eating. So that was really what I was looking for, was what was tried and true, what was scientific and almost irrefutable, and what was also sustainable, artful, and spoke to the large majority of people in ways that would change their lives. And that's where I really settled in on, was the rainbow. Eating the rainbow. I know it sounds simple, but there's a lot underneath that. And we can unpack that if you'd like.

I think of you. There's certain meals we have that I think of you because it's all brown. And I'm like, oh, God, we need some color here. It's killing me how monochromatic the meal ended up as. And not because it's all curry. It's all just baked potatoes and something else baked and baked. Everything's baked and it's all brown. So I think of you often when those meals roll out. I'm like, we need to transform this.

Well, brown is part of the rainbow. I do include. So I have an Eat the Rainbow tracker. And what's interesting is I do have all of the many different bright, vivid colors like red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. I also include brown, especially when I'm talking about fiber and elimination and bran and really looking at plants in more of a. I would say a textured way. And even cocoa. A lot of the flavonoids. You know, coffee has merit as well for certain people. And then I even bring in white. Even though my mom would always say, the whiter the bread, the quicker you're dead. I do think I've had to reverse engineer that because it's always been ringing in cheeks. She will say, well, that's not my statement. You know, that's somebody else's. It's like Adele Davis or somebody. But, you know, she would say that to me when I was growing up because I. I wanted to eat that white bread. She's like, don't do it. Yeah. I mean, that's Girl Scouts. I remember going on Girl Scout retreats, you know, campfires. And I literally. You guys, I literally had to bring my own cooler, which had my own food. My mom did not want me drinking Kool Aid. Literally, Kool Aid was the thing to do in s'. Mores. You know, you think of. So it was like, you know, there comes a point of diminishing returns with that kind of way of living, though. You know, we start to isolate and segment and move ourselves away from the community aspects of eating. And I do think that often we can override. And perhaps you might disagree with me on this, but community is really essential. It's very powerful. Medicine. I would say food is medicine. Community is medicine. So if we don't feel part of the tribe, we start to feel separate, divided, and polarized. And, you know, there might be some emotional feeling about that. So, you know, as what I try to do now, except for when I can have the locus of control, going to a conference and going to the grocery store, is just do the best I can with what I have and don't have stress in that process. When in Rome, eat like the Romans. Right. When you. When I go traveling, you know, when I was in Iceland with my husband, it was like, okay, I just want to eat all these foods that I'm not accustomed to eating and partake.

Yeah, yeah.

Was there a point in your teenage years or your early 20s in which you rebelled against what you have been taught?

That was in utero. That was. I was rebelling. No, I actually carried. Carried in a lot of my mom's DNA in that way of gosh. As a teen, I got into all different eating disorders. Overeating, binging. You know, I had a newspaper route when I was 12, and I had a younger sister, and we would go on our newspaper route. She would help me, and we'd have the newspapers in a red wagon that we would pull. And I remember I grew up in Chicago, so really cold winters, and we would be delivering newspapers in the colds, and I would take that money, everything that I would earn, and then I would go. There was like a. We would call it a five and dime store, like a little. Like a store with all these candies, and. And I would just Buy up all of the candy. I would binge. And I remember this is really ridiculous, but, you know, a lot of the candy would stain my tongue. And my mom was such a detective. Like she was on us. Like she, she knew exactly what we were doing all the time. I knew my mom was so good at looking at what we were doing. So I would even take snow and make sure I could take off some of the dye on my tongue from the candy that I just binged on from that allowance from the newspaper route. So you could see where things get a little bit too stressed and you start eating in secret. So I do think that that whole process was necessary for me. I'm really glad. I talk with my mom almost every day. She's really, really healthy. I think she also has good genes, quite honestly. It's not just how she lives. It's. It's, you know, I look at her family and where. What she comes from genetically. So, you know, just recognizing the gene and environment interaction. So, yeah. So, you know, how did I make my way after that? You know, I was always very nerdy and into science and I was curious about my body and all of the things that were going wrong when I was a teenager.

And.

And if I could go back to my teen years, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have all the same concerns about my skin. I wouldn't have all the same concerns about getting my period or my gut. I mean, I was a wreck when I was a teenager and I didn't live a very vital life. And then I didn't have, because I was binging and always drawn to sugar and all the things I couldn't have eating, spending so much energy to get those things and becoming very unhealthy mentally and in my body in that process.

So what turned it around for you then?

That was my question, but you can ask that too.

You are both so perceptive. I think my independence, I think going away to college, really having the autonomy, the independence to eat how I really wanted to eat. I began studying science. I was pre med at the time. I love school. I mean, I am just. And I think both of you like learning as well, because we see each other at conferences, right? So teachers like to learn. You know, we're the. We're the best students in some ways because it's like we just love to soak all of that in. So I was the consummate student and going away to school, I mean, essentially, I, you know, I went to school from the time I finished high school until I was 29, non stop, just going for my bachelor's, I studied biology. I was also a closet English literature minor. So I would be. All of my electives would be filled with an Emily Dickinson course or, you know, studying world religions, so bringing in a lot of philosophy, psychology to complement what I was learning in biology. And then I went on from there, did my master's for three years on human nutrition and metabolism and then I went on for my PhD for four years. So I finished when I was 29. So a lot of school and through that whole process of travel and learning, I think I just broke out of, you know, a lot of the patterns that I was raised with. And I was allowed to explore what worked for me. And that's where color came into the picture too, was throughout my 20s when I was in school, when I was having some dips in my, I would say just my, my mental emotional health because things got so intense with school. I was very immersive and I began painting, I began painting, I really began to tune into colors. And during my graduate degree, my first, my master's degree, I studied carotenoids. And carotenoids are plant based pigments. So we eat carotenoids every day. If you're having anything with plants, we're getting in these hundreds and hundreds of pretty red, orange, yellow, green compounds. And I studied those for three years. So I think I got turned down to color biologically and then also psychologically, especially when I was going through my 20s.

I mean, I have questions. You feel free to go.

I have questions, I guess first, I mean, just for people at home, more really. Can you talk a little bit about what are carotenoids? What are like phytonutrients? What do you get from the major color groups? Just so people get a sense of.

Why we care and what impact it has on aging. Really.

It's different between green and red and yellow. And why do we even bother? Because why don't we just eat all red and we'll be fine?

Yeah, that's a good question. So usually when people think of nutrition, they think of what I call the three musketeers, protein, carbohydrate and fat. And I think a lot of the energy in the nutrition field is spent on those three macronutrients. It's kind of like, do you eat high protein or low protein? What about fat? What about saturated fat? I mean, just think of how much time and energy is consumed by the act of what we consume in the way of those three things. And of course there's a lot of complexity to those, so I don't want to discount that. But it just. And because they contribute calories, those three nutrients, I think that's why there's been so much emphasis. Separate from that there are the micronutrients, which would be the vitamins and the minerals. And even within minerals you have macrominerals, microminerals, ultra trace. I mean, it's really beautiful. I studied a lot of these things in school. I mean there are textbooks written on these things. What we don't see a lot of in nutrition is the third category, which is phytonutrients, phytophyto, plant based nutrients. And these are defined as the non nutritive. It's interesting how they're classified as non nutritive, meaning that they don't give calories, but they are working in the body in a variety of different ways. So there are thousands, there are many more phytonutrients than there are vitamins and minerals. Many more phytonutrients than there are the protein, carbohydrate and fat variants. I mean we're talking like 10,000. And I bet we have even more that we haven't even discovered because we're just really at the tippy top of this. So when I went to school to study carotenoids, you know, there's a whole phytonutrient family tree and carotenoids are just one part of that family tree. You also have flavonoids, you have alkaloids, you have so many of these other classes of phytonutrients. So for a small sliver of my life, I had the opportunity to study one little piece of the phytonutrient family called the carotenoids. Now in the carotenoid family you have 700, at least 700 different compounds. I mean that's just huge. And most people, when they hear carotenoid, they think of is that carotene, is that carrots? And the answer is yes. Most people, when they think carotenoid, what will come to mind is beta carotene. And beta carotene gets the limelight because it is the pro vitamin A carotene. And for so many years, I think in nutrition, many people thought that those phytonutrients really the only purpose was to get vitamins or other more nutritive substances. So beta carotene got a lot of attention and not the 699 other carotenoids. That there are out there, whether it's lycopene or lutein or zeaxanthin. And gosh, there are so many beta cryptoxanthin. So, yes, carotenoids are vast, and we've just touched the surface of them.

So I have a lot of questions that sort of drill into both the aging and healthy aging and then the practicality of things. And just to acknowledge, Ed stepped out for a moment. He'll be back. If you're watching, he'll be back. Don't worry. We didn't lose him. And so my experience, I only treat women because I'm a gynecologist, and Ed sees everyone birthed to death as a family doc. And then we have a nutritionist, a registered dietitian, and we're expanding our team. And what we find. We live in Massachusetts and people are really busy. And so what I'm looking for is how do we make it meaningful, effective, and manageable, sustainable? So when you're talking about all of these things, one of the questions that popped into my mind is when you have phytonutrients in powder or pill form. And I know we've skipped an entire conversation, so I'm acknowledging. I'm like, way skipping ahead and we'll backtrack. Are those meaningful or are they useless? Where do they fall on the. When people are like, oh, I have my reds and my greens in a powder form, I throw it in my smoothie, they may not have time to do a blended shake. They are like, grab and go. Are those meaningful or not? Where do they land?

I think they are meaningful. You know, it's better to have something rather than nothing. So if the best that people can do, again, rather than get into extremes of all or nothing and creating stress, I do think that they fall on the spectrum of the many things and the many ways that we can be getting in plant foods. So. And I'd like to talk, Wendy, about what plant foods mean exactly, because most people think, oh, it's just fruits and vegetables, maybe whole grains. Well, it's a lot more vast than that. There's a whole universe of different plants, and people may actually be getting some of these phytonutrients but not even realizing it. So we can unpack that a bit. But just to speak to your question, I do think that powders are valid. They're going to be more expensive for some people because they tend to be concentrated. I have concerns about them being organic or not. So if you're concentrating plant powders, whatever else is in that plant you're going to be concentrating. So if there are pesticides in there, you could be concentrating it if that was not measured ahead of time before it was through the manufacturing process. So I do think it's good. The only thing is that those powders are human made. Right. So there's a human behind the scenes. And I know because I've been in that spot of formulation where I'll sit with a piece of paper and try to figure out, okay, what needs to go in this formula. Let's have this plant, this active, this compound so many times. A lot of those powders don't have the complexity that nature provides in all of those ratios that nature thinks is best. So you get a human behind the scenes perhaps having high levels of maybe beta carotene or certain purple pigments, you know, so things may not be in all of the ratios that we normally would find those things in nature. So we have to acknowledge that. But I think there can be some of those very well formulated powders in the market. Yeah, you just have to know what you're buying and be smart about it.

Yeah, we were just talking about, I'd asked about powders useless, not useless. And it's along the spectrum that something's better than nothing but make sure the quality is good.

Yeah, for me, the biggest in terms of phytonutrients. I still remember my first time listening to Jeff Bland talk about that.

Did you slow the speed down? Did you listen on repeated quarter speed?

The thing that he always talks about is okay, difference between organic and non organic food. It's not so much the vitamins, minerals, nutrients. Yes, we depleted the soil, so of course that's part of it. But the real difference is do the plants have to fight or are they part of a. Are they chemically protected, chemically neutered? Yeah, the phytonutrients are protect the plant and if the plant is grown organically, there's a lot more phytonutrients available to people. The non organic stuff, besides having pesticide in doesn't have to fight. So for me that was big revelation when I heard that because vitamin, just plain big picture vitamin doesn't actually mix, doesn't. You don't see that much of a difference unless I'm wrong. But that's what I understand.

Yeah, there are some studies that show conflicting results on that. So in many cases vitamin C content can be different in organically grown versus conventionally grown produce. It really depends because those pesticides, insecticides and herbicides can displace some of the nutrient content. So in effect, just by way of matter and the physical matter of a vegetable or fruit, you can display some of those things. But Jeff is right. I mean, that's the whole concept of xenohormesis, that a stressed plant creates compounds that are actually helpful for our stress in our bodies at the cellular level. So yes, and that is actually David Sinclair's work. He had come out, I think, back in 2005 talking about this concept of xenohormesis. You know, he put a very sophisticated term on something that has been acknowledged in traditional growing and gardening and medicine for some time. And it makes a lot of sense that I really like how science is catching up with common sense. And because so many people need science in order to. And here I am a scientist speaking like this. But I do think that we need numbers, we need data, we need research oftentimes to quell our mind and our intellect into knowing that. That truly it will make more sense for me to spend more money on organically grown food because I'm getting this xenohormetic compound to help me with my aging process. You know, so there are so many different drivers of people's behavior and purchases. So it's good that science is catching up.

I'd love to bring aging in now because that's the perfect transition into aging. Because I mean, we talk all about our book with Dirty Girl and talking about toxins and ditching them because all of these degenerative diseases, you cannot draw a straight line, but you can draw a nice wavy line from your genetics to your epigenetics, the food you're intaking, your antibiotics and in the food that you're eating. If you're exposed to hormones and toxins and things, herbicides, pesticides, insecticides that are altering your microbiome and pro cancer agents, that that's impacting your risk of disease and minimizing healthy aging. I mean, it's not leading to healthy aging. It's actually chipping away at that.

So I think this is very well said, Wendy. Yeah. And this is a topic that you and I are both very passionate about. And I think you gave a talk on that just recently, right? So. Yes, well, one of the things that can help with environmental toxin load because, you know, we can't change the planet to a great degree, what's out there in food, air and water is going to infiltrate into our bodies, so is the planet, so becomes our bodies. But what we can do and what the science is showing us is that Having better nutrient reserves can offset the inflammatory cascade, the oxidative stress, the DNA damage that a lot of those toxins can impart. So we may not be able to control the outside, but we can control the inside. And there are many different aspects. You know, if we're just thinking about environmental toxicants, we're thinking about avoidance, doing the best we can to mitigate or at least reduce some level of exposure. Right. By choosing organically grown food, making sure that we have purified water, all of those things, and even sweating. You know, I was talking with my husband recently because we have a sauna. You know, we. We do have. We. We did make that investment because quite honestly, the literature on sweating and removing heavy metals and other types of environmental toxins, it's quite good, it's convincing. So I do think we have to be thinking about all portals of getting things out of the body. And what brings plants into this discussion is that plants provide us with so much in the way of buffering us from these toxins. So one of the first things that they can do is that they can bind. So if we think of chlorophyll, which is in. It's what makes plants green, that chlorophyll is so important for binding things that we might be taking in. So if we have a grilled hamburger, let's just say, you know, summer's approaching, we go to a barbecue, we can't avoid having some kind of grilled protein of some type, you know, insert whatever that is. Well, the grilling is not so good. You know, you get heterocyclic amines. You can get a lot of different types of carcinogens that form with that browning process. However, you can block the uptake or at least reduce the extent of the damage from those compounds by having something that is rich in chlorophyll or something plant based. And that's even Dr. David Heber's work at UCLA from many years ago, where it was a hamburger study. He actually did this very acute meal study. He fed people hamburgers. He tracked their postprandial or after the meal levels of different inflammatory compounds. And they went up. And then he did the same burger, but now with half of an avocado. And what he saw as a result of that is a flatline of those same inflammatory compounds that had appeared before. So we can buffer, we can eat smarter. I call that eating smarter. Because there are certain things that people will just continue to eat no matter what. So it's about how do we complement the things that we May want to have with other things that can negate the potential downside. So plants are really good for that reason. They can bind, they can sequester. And of course, we don't want to leave the gut microbiome out of this, because the gut microbiome, if we have a good, healthy gut microbiome, those bugs can also block the uptake of things like heavy metals. There's some good research for that. The gut microbiome together with plants is like a one plus one is three synergistic approach, because the gut microorganisms also like to chew up a lot of those phytonutrients to give even more potent metabolites that then signal the body's processes related to. I know we're going to get to aging, right? So I feel like there's a web going on in the body. And it starts with, you know, there's a planetary web, what we're taking in. But then there's also. So our inner universe that we have more control over to some extent. Right. We may not change the foods that we eat, but we can change how we cook them, when we eat them. The timing, the stress response, the thoughts that we have when we're taking in.

Those foods and the people we eat them with. Yeah, the community.

And how much cilantro we add to our mess.

Oh, a great binding agent.

I know this is a moral dilemma, Deanna, because I have struggled with my metals. I am, like, loyal to my metals, But I despise cilantro unless it's hidden. I feel like it should be like garlic. It's not overwhelming the flavor. It's there, but not overwhelming. And he could just eat the straight cilantro. And sometimes I find cilantro growing in our garden.

Really? What a surprise.

Well, you don't have. The good thing about nature is that there's just not one plant for all things, you know, substitute another leafy green. And, you know, what helps with heavy metals is actually to have essential minerals. You know, back to those minerals like zinc and iron and calcium, magnesium, because they have a similar chemical structure, they actually compete with heavy metals for uptake, absorption, even metabolism and receptor activity.

So.

So I would say if you're concerned about heavy metals, yeah, sweat them out, try to avoid them, but most of all, buffer the body. Make sure that we have enough in the way of minerals to ward off a lot of those heavy metal effects, because they kind of look alike in the body.

Let me ask you this question. Uh, oh, no, it's not a hard One, we love falafel. We love kind of everything. And we discovered a recipe for falafel that's got double the parsley. So I was like, oh, it's good for us. It's good for us, and it tastes good. And then we put it with, you know, it's just a beautiful meal with the cabbage and the pickles and the cucumbers and tomatoes. Just beautiful. Maybe we're doing it this Sunday and posting it. But if you cook the falafel, does it negate the parsley, or is it, you know, because it does get warm inside, but it's not cooking inside. Can we talk about that at. That cooks the outside, not the inside matters.

Yeah. Well, there was a study. I just presented this, actually, at the. A forum conference that we were at. There was a study showing that incorporating spices into it was a cooked hamburger patty actually helped to reduce the amount of harmful components that. That were produced in that cooking process. So I think it's good. I think it's good to include spices and herbs pre cooking, so that that can also help to offset some of the damage. So I think it's good. I think it's good to have parsley. You know, parsley, I think, is the next kale. It's interesting that you mentioned parsley, because if you look at the levels of lutein and parsley, now, lutein is one of those carotenoids that we were referring to, and lutein. There was just a study that came out showing that lutein levels in the body correlate with cognition, brain health. So lutein is found in the back of the eye, in the macula. It's found in the skin. It's found throughout the body. But there is a. I would say it does concentrate in the brain. And lutein is found in green leafy vegetables. And parsley is pretty high up on that list, just like it would be for kale.

Yeah, I think parsley is definitely underrated.

I love parsley. Do you remember years ago, I went on a purslane hunt?

Yeah.

So I looked up, well, what's the highest level rating for a vegetable? And it wasn't kale. It was purslane. So I called.

Nobody knows about purslane.

I called Whole Foods. I said, do you guys have purslane? And they went, what? No, we don't even know what that is. And I'm like, oh, bummer. Then we go to the local farm, and we're roaming around, and Ed says about this weed. It's everywhere on the Local farms. Oh, there's purslane. I said, that's the highest nutrient vegetable ever. Can we have some? So he said to the farmer, can we pick that weed? And I mean, people must think we're crazy, right? We've got four kids in tow and we're picking the weeds at the farm. And he says, yeah, nobody ever asked that, but yeah, you can have it. So then we went home and seeded the farm. We weeded the farm and then took the weeds back to our garden. Garden, which is tiny and seeded. And because it's perennial, it keeps seeding itself. So now we pursue out the yard and the kids will just pick it.

Oh, you're so smart. Well, what a great idea.

But it was one of those like, hi yai, yai moments.

And what you.

Go ahead, go ahead.

Well, I was just going to say how many things we think of as weeds. Yeah, I mean, look at dandelion. Exactly. Nettles, you know, so many. I mean, what is really a weed? I mean, everything is functional in my mind. Everything has a purpose.

So, yeah, our favorite, my. I think our favorite time is when our kids make a sandwich outside.

Sandwich.

So they. Some lettuce.

Sorrel. Sorrel season.

Right now there's. We have spinach coming up already and chives up. Tie it up with chive and make an actual sandwich out of it.

Oh, how cute.

I just think about what the nutritional. How dense that nutrient dense it is because it's all organic. It's freshly there. They don't actually wash anything. So the microbiome is really happy. So it's.

Yeah, well, it's good that you mentioned the microbiome too, because one of the things we get from plants and what your kids are getting from that sandwich, so to speak, would also be the microorganisms of the plants. And there was a study some time ago where they looked at an organically grown apple versus a conventionally grown. And there was something on the order of like 100 million microorganisms on that apple, you know, and most were concentrated at the stem and the calyx. So what had been with that plant the longest? So I think that that's one of the undiscovered, unacknowledged pieces of plants, is that it's not just the fiber, the minerals, the vitamins, the phytonutrients, but what about the microorganism and all of the population that it brings along for the ride? And especially if your kids are just getting that right out of the soil, just kind of Picking it. How amazing is that? Because so much of what we're eating has been sterilized.

Well, that's. I mean, in our mother's generation, they want all the plants to be washed, even if it's from the garden. You have to be watching. My God, what can be on it? And we're like, no, no, no, no, no.

There's nothing on it.

Eat, like, eat your green beans, eat your sorrel. Eat your. Whatever it is. Just eat from the garden. You don't need to sterilize it. It's a little dirt's gonna be good for you. So it's a very different shift in mentality, which is.

So I. I have to tell you guys something. My husband just bought this. So we live on five acres. So I live. We live in the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, it's. It's amazing here. You know, I grew up in Chicago, and ever since I was growing up in a city, I thought, you know, when I'm older, I'm going to move to the country. I'm going to move to a rural place because I love trees and I love mountains. That's. That's really my jam. Not so much the ocean. Like, when we were in Florida, it's like, I can only take so much of the ocean, but I love the trees. I love the smell. And we live in a cedar forest. So anyway, we. We compost as part of the process of living more outdoorsy. It's just that it takes forever to compost. Like, it takes forever for that food. Those food scraps to break down. So my husband, who likes technical things, he's an acupuncturist, but he does like the tech world. And he found this in home composter, which at first I was very much like, what are we doing that for? Like, we have a backyard, and. But I saw how this thing works. So you. It's this unit that, you know, we still have our pail on our. And our kitchen counter where I collect all of the scraps. All of the eggshells, coffee grounds, potato pieces, and, you know, just everything. Fruit, veggie just all goes in there. So then when you've got these moist scraps, you put this into this unit and you plug it in so it is electric, and it uses mechanical motion and heat. And over the course of 11 hours in the morning, like when you set it at night and then you wake up, you see that all of those scraps have now come down to, like, dirt, like, creating soil. And then I'm thinking, this is so Cool. Because all of that is very nutritive. And that's gonna go right into my potted plants and the herbs that I'm growing that are right around the house. So it's like, oh, I love this full cycle regenerative feeling of, you know, and we're not gonna run that composter all the time, but it can really help to facil and give back soil rather than going to like a hardware store and getting like organic compost and organic soil. It's like, oh, my gosh, I can make this from what I was actually eating.

That's great.

We have chickens and their compost needs to sit for a while. So this. I want one. What's it called?

There are all kinds of these things cropping up these days. Definitely check them out.

Yeah, you can't neglect the chickens, though. They need their own.

No, no, no. We give.

No, no. We take their compost, you know, their poop and make it into. No, we give the chickens all the leftovers, but then they poop and it has to sit for what? I don't really deal with it. I can just kind of parrot it.

Like a year, 1/8 of an acre. And we have neighbors that don't like if the compost is a little bit off. It's obviously gives off a little bit and they don't like that. So if we can.

Yeah, yeah. What's it called? I wish it. What is it just called?

A compost? No, it's called lomi L o m I and I think it's because it's like lomi soil. Like when you get it, when it's down, done, it's dry, like, it's powdery. It's like. And it has no smell. Like, it doesn't smell like any fruit and vegetable remains. So it's, it's clean. It goes right into. And I put tea bags in there. I mean, and it just goes right into the plants that I'm going to be eating anyway, the herbs, the rosemary and basil and everything else. It's so cool.

We totally have to get one of these so we can take this, the chicken compost. So it doesn't smell. So how does this all relate back to aging and healthy aging? Because that's really where it's at, right? What difference does it make?

Well, and you know, it's interesting because I just spoke of like closing the loop, creating that cycle. And what is the cycle of life? Right. So being born. And then normally we think of life as like a straight line, but I really do Think it's very circular. You know, as we move into the later decades, we may find ourselves really reflecting on some of our earlier days, like kind of looking at our ancestry, our genetics and what formed us. Right. So what is aging anyway? You know, I'm glad that we enter into this discussion coming off the heels of the American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine conference, because, you know, I have somewhat of a polarized feeling to this word aging. I almost feel like, is it aging that we need to look at or is it longevity and vitality? Is it resilience? I do think that so much of our semantics within medicine and healing, even if we think of healthcare, is it really healthcare or is it disease care? What about the word stress? Stress can be healthy, just like we were talking about with plants. So is it stress in a negative way or is it resilience and leveraging the stress for our benefit, becoming more alive in that process? So when I think of aging, you know, we're aging when we come out of the womb, right? I mean, like from the moment of conception, we are aging. You know, what is aging really? I think what we're really talking about is optimal wellness, a healthy body, a healthy mind, a healthy spirit. And what I, you know, I tend to look back to the work of Dan Buettner, right. Which I know that both of you are familiar with the blue zones. Looking at the people that live the longest tend to have certain characteristics and they're not all food oriented. You know, in fact, I just happened to see some type of circulation about the oldest person on the planet right now is 118 years old, and she's a nun living in France. Now, this woman, you know, being a nun, no children, living a life of service. And one of the things that Dan Buettner had identified, I think there were nine characteristics of healthy longevity, and one of them was a sense of purpose and meaning. And I almost feel like if we had a dietary supplement for purpose and meaning, that would be all we would need. Because purpose and meaning drive so much, they drive our behavior, how we get out of bed in the morning. I mean, really, the joie de vie, you know, this sense of, like, why am I here? The age old question of a very philosophical question, like the meaning of life, you know, the existential debate of our existence, right? So I do think that purpose and meaning are huge. And oftentimes what happens in the aging world is that we're looking for like the next new hack, stem cells, Botox. We're looking at trying to fill the gap of Something physical or, you know, seeing it in that way. But I do think that we can approach vitality from a mental, emotional mindset. You know, people who smile look younger to me. They look more vibrant. Doesn't matter how many wrinkles they have on their face. You know, to me, it's about their vital force. It's about their chi, their prana, how they are exuding themselves into the world, right? How they radiate. And I feel like that's oftentimes overlooked. And then people are just looking for again, like that quick fix of like, okay, but it's all temporary. Those things are elusive. They're shiny objects. They're mirages, in my opinion. I mean, that's just. That's how I feel about the world of age. It is a cycle.

I mean, I know that when somebody tells me they can't wait to retire, my antenna goes up. So what are you going to do after you retire? How are you going to contribute, what it's going to be, what's going to be in the next phase? Because without that purpose, why should you wake up? Why should you exercise? Why should you eat? Well, there's nothing there. Just to live life, just to be alive, just to get through it, right? Like, that's not very interesting. No, it's. How do you go through the world?

It's not interesting and it's not fulfilling, you know, and my dad, so I've talked about my mom, but, you know, my dad's an interesting guy. He's the opposite of my mom. He's the life of the party. He's the junk food guy. You know, he just lives by the. You know, he has something in that sense of purpose and meaning that I really identify with. Like, he has been a way shower for me. And so, you know, he never wanted to retire. You know, we had. We had kind of a mock retirement party, but he. There was no way that this man would retire. And I would never want him to retire because I think he would just go down, you know, not having that sense of purpose. And I can remember having a conversation, even with Jeff Bland, where he said, what is retirement? It's retiring, putting a new tire on. Like, what is that new phase of one's life? And I do think that every decade has a certain energy, has a certain feeling. So if we think of the 60s as part of that classic retirement decade. But what happens in our 60s, you know, what is our legacy? How do we transition? And I was reading a study. I don't know if it was New England Journal of medicine or what it was, but basically showing how people in their 60s can be some of the most productive people in society because neuronally, they're vast. Their experiences and what they've been through and their neuronal connections are incredible. Now, if they can keep their bodies on par with their mind is they.

Beat up their body this whole time and they don't feel like they have a lot of. A lot of people don't have a lot of time because. Feel like they don't have a lot of time because they've been working 80 hours a week eating junk food, this, that, the other thing. But yes, I think the people that we see and that actually take care of themselves. 60s, a vital, vital time, crime of life.

60S are the new 40s or maybe even the new 30s, if we really go into that decade with, with that mindset.

Yeah, no, the thing also, as you talk about decades, I always talk to patients about at 20, you can eat, sleep, drink, stay up all night. Most of the time, your body will be fine. With every decade, you have to work harder on your health or you get old. So people that at 40 are working out, eating well, moving their spine, are going to live very well to their 60s, 70, 80s, 90, 100, and be vital. But if you are like this, crunching all the time and sagging your head and being. Typing on the computer like we all do, and don't reverse that, don't take time to reverse that, then age sets in. So it's really about, like you said, vitality. It's about the prana. It's about really getting out there.

Yes. And, you know, I just, I. So I'm 51. I just entered into my, my 50s, and I feel like this is a really amazing decade. My 40s had a lot of change. You know, I don't wear reading glasses yet, but, you know, I noticed my eyes were changing a little bit. But, you know, there's something about the 50s that I feel is very liberating. You know, I'm not menopausal. I'm. My hormones are still good. But there's a shift in my thinking. And what I'm focusing on for this decade is exactly what you just mentioned, which is the skeletal system, the muscles, you know, the power of muscle, into our 50s, our 60s, our 70s. And, you know, I did a lot of yoga throughout my life. Like, I was always drawn to yoga. I was doing yoga since I was 19. Well, then my body started changing like last year, and I started having more muscular pain. I'm like, how could this be? Well, as it turns out, yoga made me incredibly flexible, but not very strong. And so what I needed to do was shift. And I will be shifting into this decade of really focusing on muscle. And as I start, you know, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So now that I look through the eyes of muscle, it's like, oh my gosh, like cognitive health, like muscle insulin sensitivity. Muscle is a depot for mitochondria, which controls energy. It gives me a different appreciation of part of the body that I would say I've somewhat neglected and not had that same perspective into. So I love the decades because they always, it seems like you're always learning something. There's a theme to them. And I think for women going through their fourth, you know, their 40s, 50s, 60s, these are really pivotal. And like you said, so much of how we live in the 50s as an example, will determine how our 60s will be. And how we live in our 60s will determine our 70s to some extent. So really trying to look throughout to see what have we been neglecting.

I think it's really important to put a plug in here, especially for women. I don't see men, so you'll have to jump in about whether this is something men experience. But there are two really critical things that occur for women, typically between 45 and 60, and one is we transition from our reproductive years to our post reproductive years. And acknowledgement of that transition, it's critical because it's a huge change. And I say to women, just as there are developmental stages, when you are five, you're in the developmental stage where you're transitioning from being a woman who reproduces to being a woman who does something else, does not reproduce. And then what does that open up? And in that time, I find just women will come to me and say, like, I'm in the wrong job or I'm in the wrong marriage, or I'm not happy. And I'm like, you're perfect because you're in the developmental stage of transition. And where you question, what's my legacy? Who am I going to be in the world? Am I in the right job, marriage, career, relationship, whatever that is, you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing from a developmental standpoint and who are you going to be? Is the question you need to answer. And that may or may not include the job or relationship or whatever that is. It might shift because you're now looking at it with eyes that are less dependent on what it means to, oh, I Need to have a job that gets me X, Y and Z? Well, no, you need a job that fulfills you and a relationship that fulfills you. Who are you going to be for the next 20 years? What's next?

Wendy? I love that. I love that. And one of the things that I feel for women going through that time frame is how do they bring in creativity? You know, we've lost a sense of creativity as part of the healing arts. It's become private practice. Right. Rather than the healing arts. How artful we can be. And creativity is one of those overlooked aspects of healthy vitality. You know, it's the juice within us. It's the flow. It's how we move. And so for women who have created babies and children and nourished them throughout their years, now it's like, okay, how else can we be creative? Maybe that comes through an art form, a dance form, a movement, a community, an endeavor, a cause, something along those lines. And I don't know if you two know, being conscious of time, but I don't know how much of you know about my personal story of being a woman and wrestling with my own body, especially my reproductive health, but I chose not to have children. I knew that I was going to have this life of being out, and it would just be hard for me. I thought, constitutionally, to make choices about being professional or having a family. So I chose to go the professional route and just to really put all of my energy into that. I found that I needed to create because I wasn't physically creating. I was having this withdrawal of, like, okay, but what am I doing? So I really tapped into color. I started painting. Painting. I began making these images, and my husband was the one that was very astutely observant and said, deanna, I think that you're painting your ovaries and your uterus and putting them all over our house. And so I came out in a different way of like, okay, I'm painting my creative expression. I'm painting my organs rather than using them in a physical way. So. But I would encourage all women and all men, too. You know, I think we all have the spirit of creativity within us. And many people will say, well, I'm not an artist. You know, I'm not creative. That negation of being creative really defies healthy aging, because what aging is, is a constant creation of who you are. Every cell in our body right now is growing, changing, dying, renewing. We are creative in body. And how do. How can we be creative in mind? How can we bring in that sense of meaning and purpose. Right. So anyway, I really do feel like creativity is one of the missing elements as it relates to a life well lived.

Yeah, I would put a plug in for that. And it's funny, Deanna, as you say, that I don't enjoy painting. However, I have so loved creating our eighth of an acre to be entirely edible and gorgeous. Show stopping. One day I was hiding behind some trees. I was just sitting, reading, and some people walked by and they said, this is the yard, that yard I was telling you about. I'm so glad we walked down the street. You have to see that. And then they saw me sitting there and they went, we love your yard. I said, that was the nicest compliment anyone ever paid me. So really, it's whatever that avenue is that brings you joy because that's been so rewarding that, you know, we have 50 fruit trees and bushes and a garden and an herb garden and everything's edible. It's like, that's just such an amazing expression for us. So, yeah, I think it's. What's your. What's your thing?

What's your thing? Yeah, and it can change and it can be diverse. You know, some people like quilting or jewelry making or just being in the mountains, hiking, you know, whatever your thing is. Just tapping into that.

Yep, you said it best.

Yeah, I wish we. I think we have to wrap up, unfortunately.

I know. I was thinking maybe we'll do two parts, but I think we have to. We probably have to move. So I want to make sure people can find you and that you tell everyone all the things, the sort of deets about the rainbow toolkit and the book. You have a bunch of books and the rainbow diet recipes. Can you just tell people a little about how to find it and where.

To go, I think, right, too.

Yeah. Yeah.

I don't have an app, but everything I have is on my website, which is my name, Deanna Minick. D E A N N A M I N I C H dot com. So I have a bunch of information there. So I have a blog, which is more sciencey, and then I have a tab that says resources. And if you go to the resources tab, there are a bunch of free downloads, which would be the Eat the Rainbow Toolkit. There would be a food and mood tracker. There are all kinds of shopping lists and things that people can download and use as they would like. And then I also have a bunch of events. You know, one of the things that I love about this time is that things are moving into more expansive I would say connecting time to some extent. We're back and I'm doing a. I would say I'm. Well, I'm doing a retreat. I'm doing a five day retreat at the Omega Institute this September. So I'm super jazzed about that and just doing lots of the more health professional type lectures, but then also for everybody. Again, I like to bring in all different kinds of people. So yeah, feel free to go into the website, Deannamenick.com, download whatever you'd like. You can join my social media group which is much more interactive and conversational. It's nourish your whole self community. It's on Facebook. So I've been fostering that group over some years now since I did the Detox Summit. So we do programs on there and sometimes I, I just do free programs to bring people's awareness into certain areas.

It's amazing.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

It's been great.

Thanks. Deanna, thanks for joining us for another episode of the Five Journeys podcast live like youe Matter. Great to have you on.

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Sam.