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Eating Like a Foodist

So for this segment I want to step back a little bit and feel give you an idea of what we actually do know because you know, I I spent a lot of time talking about how confusing it can be and how that can be distracting but there are actually a lot there is actually a lot we know and it's actually pretty simple so this is really going to be I hope very enlightening for you guys because it will give you a sense of all that crazy stuff that you could ignore and what you should actually spend your time and energy worrying about and this could be really really liberating because I don't know you know there's people who take one approach which is gosh it's so confusing that I'm gonna just like ignore it but then there's people who are so sincere about their health that they dig in and they're trying to constantly figure things out and step with the topics and like that can be really really stressful I used to be one of those people so what we're going to do in this segment hopefully is allev...

iate some of that pressure to feel like you need to know everything and just like know how to eat every day like when you wake up in the morning what do you eat when you go to a restaurant like what? What how to think about what is actually healthy and what is like too much, you know too much to actually spend your time on cool guys ready to get going, the lots and lots of geeky nutrition stuff, but I promised to make it not that painful and pretty simple, so let's, start with the things we know you know, we spent a lot of time in the last segment talking about why we don't know things, you know how the nutrition is very complicated, you know plants have different nutrient values and we're told animals can have different nutrient values doctors tell you one thing, the media tells you something else the government tells you something else, but there are a few things that virtually everyone agrees on amazing there's a way before I think but there are there are a few things, so these air thes they're going to be I mean, if you this slide they were about to go over is like really all you need to know about nutrition in terms of making good decisions. So here we go. Vegetables are good for you. Everybody agrees with this uh, whether you are in the super low fat camp or the super low carb camp, nobody says vegetables or bad vegetables or your unanimously good people who eat a lot of vegetables have fewer diseases, they live longer, they live better and it's really that simple everybody agree on this one I have a couple p I actually had one guy once on my block was arguing with me that that vegetables weren't good his argument was that some, uh in you it like eskimo? Uh, indian population didn't eat a lot of vegetables and they were just fine, but they actually did eat some and they definitely certainly aren't harmful, right? So we can be very, very clear that vegetables are good, so eat vegetables and I recommend this is for for me and what I would recommend people dio a lot of people's problems is they just don't need enough vegetables, and I know that sounds very unsexy, but we will address that later, so we're going to make those vegetables super sexy. But for now, just another gun for you. I'm interested here because I don't know this is true globally, but the british government have been pushing five a day for a long time now. Is that true in the u? S yeah, yeah, but now they've said actually, five isn't enough, they're actually saying now it really should be seven we are I mean, this is that that is actually a lot for people to actually deal with in their diet, it is so much more than people, actually and that's that that's a really great point it's like we think that sounds like a lot of food but the reality is that that is true it's what you should be eating your even people who care a lot about healthy nutrition probably don't need enough vegetables like when I was dieting I felt like I you know really paid a lot of attention and took care of the well but vegetables just were sort of off my radar like I need some like I need a salad if I had tio but you should really be eating a lot of vegetables at lunch and a lot of vegetables that dinner and that should be really what you focus on in terms of making good food choices and there's a lot of reasons for this obviously the vitamins the minerals thie antioxidants which are good in small doses but in addition I mean there is a lot of you know, vegetables are very low calorie food obviously and but they also provide a lot of book so and they're very very nutrient dense so this is a great way like you can't really eat enough vegetables like you can eat them and fill up and then use that is the basis of your meal and then supplement with other types of foods and if if that's the way you're approaching food you're going to win every time you know you're like eighty percent of the way there in terms of health if vegetables your primary focus um rule number two refined and processed foods are bad and I think this is finally gotten to be a little more mainstream which is cool like when I first started studying this stuff people like what is processed food but it's fine if it has like omega threes in it right then it's fine but you know it can get really confusing really quickly because of health claims that are on labels and things like this but one of the most important things to remember is that no matter what where it comes from or what label it has on it if it's refined if it's something that's been processed and what I mean by this is that it's gone through some sort of conversion from when it grew out of the earth toe like how it got to your plate so real food is what you want to focus on the opposite that so that's the words I use for foran prat is it nice to call him real foods and I don't like the word healthy we discussed that yesterday so I always want to focus on real foods and you can identify those by looking at them and see if you can figure out where it came from like on the planet like did it go out of the ground? Is it a plant or a vegetable? Did it come from an animal? Does it look like something that came from an animal you know, I think one of the places we get the most befuddled in healthy choices and when I think about the cereal aisle but you're looking like oh whole grains heart healthy this is amazing flakes don't grow out of the ground right? Those don't grow out of the ground shredded wheat biscuits don't grow out of the ground like that is processed food and whether you know all those health claims on there could be really confusing but those air still processes that's not to say you can never eat these things you know sometimes they're quite enjoyable I love results but generally speaking they're going to be sometimes food you know something that you want to make sure that it's a special occasion have a good reason for eating it and not have it be your default as what you're relying on day to day in your regular health style to keep you in good shape got it never got that okay really important those tio cannot give it up you know so that's a great example so what? Only one kind of looks like a note right when you think of what a grain looks like looks like oatmeal there rolled a little bit that's okay so that's my rule like yeah that's a fantastic example if it looks like a grain still I actually call those intact grains um as opposed to whole grains because whole grain is actually a term that it's it's defined by the fda and it means it doesn't mean what it sounds like it means what a whole grain technically defined with fda is defined as as like the parts of grain our old air and put together but you they could be completely obliterated and then they just add back the german ad back the brand and then it's a whole grain but an intact brain is something that actually looks like a grain and that's the real food that makes sense is a little confusing cool excellent so two rules we've already gotten like if you just follow these two rules like seriously like eighty to ninety percent of your health health concerns are taken care of here's another thing we know and this gets complicated that could it's easy to forget the context here but we do know without a doubt that the standard american diet I love it but it's called the sad diet basically the western diet kills people I mean it's really, really bad and you know, people like to point you know, we talked about nutrition ism earlier people like two point oh saturated fat processed grains sugar like to point to the different reasons, you know, maybe it's the lack of vegetables who knows like we don't actually have a very good sense of exactly what causes it to be so bad but we know it's bad we know it's bad and we know that people were much healthier before they started eating highly industrialized food and we know that when people move from countries where they're based on whole foods and they moved to a a western country where is based on processors they become sicker so it's not just genetics and we know that when people go away from this diet they get healthier so it's really sad because this is the option were given for the most part and if you want to get away from this very dangerous eating pattern it takes more work which is really unfortunate cause it kind of makes you feel like a crazy health person you know, like you don't want to be that crazy health person but unfortunately in this day and age like you have to put in a little more energy and attention if you want to eat well because they don't make it easy for us at all. So beware of the standard american diet and it's largely my guess is just the fact that it's industrial food you know, industrial vegetables, lots of processed grains, sugars, processed oils, things like that none of those things have ever been shown to be good for you and we don't have we don't have enough of the things that have been showing but good to you good for you like vegetables people are lead any and last as opposed teo, the standard american diet traditional diets tend to be much, much healthier people who eat their native foods on that haven't become so industrialized and before the industrialization of agriculture or not agriculture but of of our food in general, in the last fifty, sixty years people were healthier, we had less right like lower rates of heart disease, lower rates of stroke, lower rates of cancer and it's not just because people didn't live as long. I think that's a big misunderstanding like you don't get cancer because cancer is a disease of all age and these people were dying much younger, not necessarily true. In fact, I've seen lots and lots of evidence that people who ah live in more traditional cultures with even without a lot of the medical care we have actually are still much healthier people with without dentists and without toothpaste, there's teeth staying longer when they're not eating an industrial diet it's amazing so it's not just about age you're actually there's actually something about those diets that are healthier and keeps people in better shape. So that's it that's all we know and I think this was beautifully summarized by michael pollen in his book in defense of food and while he said he put this together so well ate food and that's what I mean but it's a real food so that he spends a whole chapter describing what he means by those two words but it's what I told you already about process food, so eat real food whole foods mostly plants again focus on the vegetables but notice this doesn't say all plans you know, I think people say plant based diet and they assume you mean vegetarian or vegan it's not necessarily what it means. It just means you get a lot of vegetal walls and most people don't and then don't eat too much also very, very good advice and you know, this comes from a body of research based on calorie restriction hey have you guys not sure if you guys have heard this, but there is a quite a bit of research that overeating in any capacity just generally shortens life it's true in small little roundworms called c elegans it's true and flies like little jigsaw fela flies it's true in mice and we're starting to see that it's true in primates as well obviously it's different difficult to do these experiments on humans, but some people are doing it on themselves. I guess we'll know a couple hundred years when they finally die or whatever, but generally overeating has been shown to be not that great for you, so aid food mostly plan it's not too much great advice easier said than done okay, so we talked briefly yesterday about how I really don't like moralizing food choices and we're going to talk about that more later I don't like to say things are bad or good or healthy or unhealthy, but I do also know that people like clarity on what they should focus on and what they should generally try toe keep to a minimum and so I am going to spend a little bit of time talking about the not so healthy foods and I just want to preface all this with the with the statement that I don't know I'm not trying to say you shouldn't eat these things I would never ever say that that's really, really important because that is dieting right? When you say these air forbidden, then you're back in that restriction mentality than your back using willpower because I can tell you right now these foods are delicious these things are going to be really, really good, but I just want you to be aware that these are not choices that you need to be these they shouldn't be your habits, they're fine for special occasions, they're fine for every once in a while, but they're not fine for every day, so let's talk about what those are a number one sugar sugar is you know, there are there are people that are very, very, very against sugar um I'm not quite to that level I'm not one of those people that thinks you should never eat sugar are things that sugar is like the root of all evil I don't think the government should stop allowing sugar like they stopped only allowing heroin which some people have suggested but there is no doubt that sugar is a huge cause of diabetes heart disease, cancer, hypertension a lot of the problems that we consider diseases of civilization the western diet sugar is a big big factor in that so again we're not demonizing it it's ok to have some sugar but keep in mind that if it's in every single thing you eat it's not a good idea yeah it was like molasses and maple syrup categorized in that so sugar is sugar to some extent I mean you're dealing with so sucrose which is table sugar is made up of one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fruit dose fructose is the glucose is not that sweet fructose is very sweet and it's also it's in fruit um and you know high fructose corn syrup is about it's very similar to sucralose is just slightly more fruit dustin glucose in that ratio so you know the sweetness that comes from something like honey or this comes from something like molasses is going to be basically those same molecules there's going to be so it's gonna be slightly more beneficial, because there's other things in there to buffer, you know, more nutrients, more other things, but if you're like pouring half a cup of honey into your oatmeal or into your juice or smoothie or something, I mean, especially if weight is a concern for anyone like that's not going to be the greatest way to health, I I prefer those, you know? So if I am going to sweeten my oatmeal in the morning or something else, I would definitely prefer a more lt's or it's just because I mean, honestly, for me, I like to support more natural sources, so it's almost like a political decision, but I like tio, I liked I I view all sugar and all streets as a treat, and so when I'm making a decision about what to eat, I decide what taste best. So, you know, I really enjoy honey on certain things and joy molasses on certain things, sometimes just plain old sugar is the best thing to do or brown sugar versus white sugar, and I, you know, I think when you base it on taste, then you're you're in the right place, they're in the right mindset because you're making a decision that's worth it? I really don't see the point in making desserts healthier. Like if you're having you shouldn't be eating dessert so often that making it slightly healthier is going to make a difference right? So if you're having a desert like enjoy it and make it the best darn desert you could possibly imagine, eat it mindfully favor every succulent bite and and don't feel guilty about it you know, just don't do it every single day flower so flower is also not the greatest choice for if optimizing your health is a goal, the issue with flour is that it's super super refined I mean it's this is like the definition of processed food and it's in all those things that are bad for you all those ah, you know, standard american diets because they're filled with sugar filled with process wheat and also processed corn um and usually processed soy to but but flower I think of asses a particular culprit and so while I'm not anti bread, I love bread just be aware that you know what you're doing when you're when you're eating something made flower it's sze you're taking a food and you're grinding it up right? You're taking wheat and you're grinding it up and then they process a lot of it out like that that damage is a lot of the new adrian's it's often bleach to get some some, you know, color out of there and then and the nutritional value you're basically just getting like pure glucose almost it's very it's just it's more like a a vehicle for delivering other foods and it's fairly tasteless on its own unless you're getting a really high quality flower on dh that's not going to be the industrial stuff but generally speaking you want to keep so also we're sorry when you when you do that you're concentrating it like have you ever taken? Have you ever made peanut butter from scratch? You know you start with like, you know, maybe two cups of peanuts and you blend it down and you get the small little amount and it's sort of amazing same thing with juice, right? Like a normal glass of juice would take like six or seven oranges if you just wanted to make orange juice, but you have to keep in mind that what you're consuming is like way more than you would ever eat and that's the same sort of hat thing that happens when you really refine something like flour or sugar. The same thing like a sugar cane is nothing like uh a cup of sugar so you're you're really concentrating all those calories and all that lack of nutrition and not getting very much out of it, so I especially if weight is concerned flowers one of the things that should be a sometimes food yeah questions here because turkey is saying so are baked goods considered process absolutely earlier things in them and opinion be centers has mean you should cut down even bread made from whole week or is that a different thing on dh then she saying if she makes bread from home and knows all the ingredients is that better? I would say not if she stories in white flour, so I think if you make it yourself it's better so if you make it at home is better because you're not going to be overeating I mean I don't know how much bread you're making at home but it's really hard to overeat when you cook for yourself, right? So I am but I agree with was it a woman? I agree with her in the sense that that it's replacing white flour with whole grain flour is not necessarily that much better. You know, a very small amount of benefit you have to be eating really a lot of bread for that to make a difference in your health. You know we talked about things that barely move the needle versus huge changes like high impact habits and swapping out the kind of flower you may use it's really a personal preference if you from my it's my opinion but yes, all baked goods are processed food I recommend keeping them somewhat limited, but it also depends what your goals are so for instance, if you have no weight problem if you eat lots of vegetables if you really really love bread and you are not seeing any health problems from eating it twice a day, my guess is if that's true you're eating fairly reasonable portions and go ahead right that's fine it's not you know we're not the food police over here like this isn't like I'm not trying to tell you this is bad this is good we're not trying to moralize the food we're just trying to optimize your health so that said, if weight is a problem for you, cutting out flower is going to be one of the easiest ways to get your you know, metabolism under control get your blood sugar under control and you know, so you're gonna have to decide for yourself how much you can tolerate in in your normal health style and still feel good and still look good and still achieve your other goals. So it's really it really comes down to balance with these foods because again I would never say to cut these out, but it comes down to balance and what your personal goals are and a lot of people I mean, I've talked to so many people that well, first of all those people with colluding sensitivities, so that makes it really tough for a lot of people who can't touch flower but also you know it's it's difficult if analyst veteran thought it's kind of difficult if but what I was going to say something very intelligent yeah um, I have had issues with this whole broad thing I love bread and I love our whatever um, and it with the research that I found I've concluded that, um, sour dough is better and that's the better option if I'm gonna have read it all and what you have to say about that. So I'm assuming that the reason that you things that were does better is because it's fermented and because it has a lower glycemic index may be easier to assimilate as well and ok, easier on the gut. Yeah, in terms of the gluten reaction, I think you're getting your that's a slippery slope down nutrition is um um I mean, how often, like they've really comes on, how often you're eating bread, not the kind of bread reading, right, right? I mean, I would definitely so if you are going to have this is a good point, everybody in the chat room listen up. If you are going to be having bread, I definitely strongly recommend getting the minimally processed bread you can so there is bread bread is made from flour, water, yeast insult when you go to the grocery store and buy one of the plastic fluffy bread things look at the ingredient label it will blow your mind is like this long paragraphs like fifty ingredients and you can't pronounce half of them that is an entirely different level of processed foods like bread has been around since you know for like ten thousand years we've had bread is an option it's not poison aa lot of it is not the best choice, especially in our current food environment where you know there's a lot of accused over it there's a lot of extra flour there's a lot of extra sugar in foods but it's not innate lee bad for you but when you start on, you know, wondering well should I only greenbridge only rye bread? Certainly it's howard it was like evil you want you know you enjoy it comes down to frequency um and everything else that you're eating everything else that you're doing, you know somebody who works out a lot, you know obviously have like, a much higher tolerance for, you know, quickly digesting carbohydrates like that and you know, if you feel better when you like, if your stomach feels better or you feel happy you're for meeting soured oh, great, I love sour dough, but sometimes I just wanted a sweet back at you know, so it's just it's really up to you and what matters to you yeah so it's easy to get again like that's a great point like it's really easy to get hung up on this stuff it's really easy to get hung up on well what kind of bread is better? What kind of oil is better should cook with olive oil should I cook with coconut oil and like to stop all that like it's take a step back and say what what's the big picture what of those high impact habits and like how much does the kind of oil I use of the type of bread you they're going to make a difference down the road and especially for your happiness level right life should be awesome like how much time want to spend stressing out about the bread you eat it it's like you know we had sandwiches yesterday I sandwich here yesterday with all of you is delicious you know I don't freak out about stuff like that but but that said if it's something you do every single day or multiple times a day that's what you need to take a look and say how is this going to impact me? Because I eat so much of it write it so often makes sense great point thank you for bringing that up okay, what else is not so good processed meats um you know we'll talk more in a bit about red meats, saturated fat all that fun, fun, fun stuff that's what? I, uh we'll talk about that and that's more of a gray area, but absolutely without a doubt highly processed meats, we're talking spam, we're talking, you know, grocery store, hot dogs, grocery store, deli meats. You know, grocery store, bacon. These things have been shown to not be great for you. They they were not just playing me said, you guys, you guys have a good sense of what I'm talking about here like stuff that's been salted stuff that's been cured stuff that's been ground into oblivion with, like, fingernails and lips like, you know what I mean? That's sort of stuff that and I'm not sure why I to be quite honest, maybe it's the additives I haven't seen a good study convince many of the reason for why these things are associated with poor health, but we do know that they are so like, for instance, I've heard rumors I've heard hypothesis that nitrates nitrites are bad, but like one of the greatest sources of relieve its nitrites and here in in food is spinach. I don't think it's the nitrites, I really don't I think I maybe it's good, the combination of nitrites or something else, I think there's probably an issue of the quality of where those nitrites come from but all I know for sure is that the science doesn't really know yet all we know is that people who eat more processed meats are less healthy, less more heart disease, more colon cancer, more things like that so beware if you're going to be eating meat trying to get high quality on processed meat is close toe close to nature as you can and similarly processed oils. So I'm assuming everyone here has heard of trans fat by now, so that was like public enemy number one and health for a while it's still sort of is it's amazing? We went through this crazy low fat craze right through the eighties and nineties and fat was the worst thing you could eat and so we all ate like four hundred snackwell cookies and got really fat um it turns out you've probably heard the rumors that's true that fat actually isn't a problem that's fine it's actually essential you know your brain is mostly made of fat you need that however when you start refining oils stuff goes awry really quickly and that's what trans fat really is it's ah it's unnatural they're called ice summers it's a it's the same molecule but in a different shape like it's just twisted a little bit and when that happens your body really really doesn't like it it it's the worst thing for heart disease it both raises ldl bad cholesterol and lower hdl, which is the protective cholesterol, says the worst of all worlds, but there's a lot of refined oils, and it seems like none of them are probably that great. So I recommend sticking tio the most natural forms of oil you confined, so I love like cold pressed olive oil is fantastic and delicious, by the way, um, I I tend to ah, try to skip things like, you know, super process vegetable oils that you're going to get in the big jugs at the store, you know, you know, you know, they say you get what you pay for, that is definitely true with food, because the more the more difficult it is to make at a high quality, the more it's going to cost so that's, why those very, very nice oils and the nice that you get from, like italy or wherever they're going to cost a little more, but they really are worth it because it's it's not clear at all what the that the refined oil aren't necessarily doing something pretty bad. And this is something you're probably going to cooking with pretty regularly, right? It's, like one of those habits, are going to using regularly so I don't freak out about the different kinds of oils for instance like there but like there are good olive oils and warsaw olive oils like there are good better vegetable oils and not so good vegetable oils are you following me? Okay well so so generally speaking though you can you can tell I think when you go to the store uh the quality of the oil is you're getting and sure if you want to get like a grape seed oil for a higher to smoking point you want to cook something a little hotter that's great, I love peanut oil but I tend to stay away from things that are super refined because I mean the transfat is just one example and who knows going to come up but generally processed that's meets grains sugars bad bad news about it now derek is I don't have the news this morning was the p e n s journal has just completed a study where they're saying the what they call the mediterranean type the combination of leafy green vegetables and olive oil is wise that dot is so successful specifically very specifically now competent the only specific combination okay, I was just released this morning awesome thank you like this ok, so yes so the gist of what I've just explained is that the foods and packages foods that are mass produced with have lots of chemicals to preservatives and have many, many ingredients are those of the problem foods, you know and it's fairly easy to tell when you look at the label when you're in dangerous process through territory versus hell, healthy whole foods, territory. And typically, obviously, I'm real foods to not have as many labels, but that's, a great sign there on the right track. There is no labels, no health claims.