A New View of Protein with Dr. David Katz | The Exam Room Podcast

[Music] coming up August 10th through 12th in Washington D.C is the International Conference on nutrition in medicine and leading things off that conference week is a panel talking about the new view of protein and so today we're going to get a preview of that discussion with one of the guests on that panel he is the founder and former director of Yale University's Yale Griffin prevention Research Center also the past president of the American College of Lifestyle medicine and currently this man is the founder and CEO of diet ID with that we welcome the one the only Doctor David Katz to the exam room thanks for being here Dr Katz great to be with you Chuck thank you the new view of protein how much has our view on protein shifted what's new here doc well I think a good place to start the conversation Chuck is is why we need a view of protein why we need a new view or any of you why there's cause for panel discussion about protein it's just a macronutrient there are three of them everything we eat is basically made up of carbohydrate fat protein why does this need to be a big deal so the historical context is really important here we vilify dietary fat this really was something of a distortion it issued from the work of ancel keys the seven country study but it there was a cultural overlay there because that early work going back by the way to the late 1940s in its in its early stage was really to determine whether coronary artery disease was an inevitable consequence of Aging or whether lifestyle factors influenced it then the conclusion was lifestyle factors died in particular did influence it we didn't all need to get coronary disease and and one of the important considerations was the dietary component of saturated fat and keys himself by the way who lived to 102 ate a relatively high fat Mediterranean diet but the advice to limit our intake of animal foods and thereby reduce our intake of saturated fat kind of got adulterated in pop culture into just cut all fat uh and we got things like snack World Cup so we cut fat and got fatter and sicker so everybody then concluded okay we picked the wrong macronutrient we should cut carbs instead um and so you know we had the era of Atkins and all of that and we cut carbs well there was only one macronutrient class left if we cut fat carbohydrate and protein we'd basically just need to clamp our lips together so we went the other way with protein and whereas we sort of vilified first fat and carbohydrate we exalted protein and the prevailing view in the United States now is that getting the highest quality protein you can is really important getting eating the foods that deliver the highest concentration of protein is really important that we have to worry about not getting enough protein that more is always better and all of that is wrong we do not benefit from eating more protein than we need and most Americans get more than they need we don't have to eat the foods that have the highest concentration of protein or a particular amino acid to get more than enough of that and there is a fundamental Distortion when we think about the quality of protein because historically the the work that generated the equations and we can dive into this chuck if you like but when we talked historically about the quality of protein it was in the context of making sure people didn't suffer nutrient deficiencies much of what populates the dris the Dietary Reference intakes and for those who don't know this is a work of the National Academy of Medicine formerly the iom and the rdas which we've all heard of are situated within the dris there's a whole alphabet soup there there's rdas there's the ARs there's a bunch of other things but basically Dietary Reference it takes how much of what does everybody need but how much of what does everybody need for what the goal was never to identify what produces Optimal Health outcomes for people who live to be 100 years old it was really all predicated on what we knew about nutrient requirements to avoid deficiency so when you think about that and you think about defining protein quality you would look at the distribution of essential amino acids you'd want to make sure everybody could get enough and the foods that deliver the highest concentration of all the essential amino acids would get the highest quality score but there's a fundamental problem with that and this is the new view of protein the problem is you can have high quality protein in a food that isn't offering you quality in any way you care about what what constitutes quality when you think about food well one thing might be the pleasure in eating it but I think when we we think about sustenance we want food to nourish us in a way that feeds our vitality and our prospects for longevity right so if food is adding Years to Life and or life to years okay that that sounds like quality to me and the other and this this really is the signature issue of our time is what does consumption of this food at scale due to the planet planetary health is the signature issue of our time we rise to the challenge of that or we all go down together but the definitions of protein quality that Prevail and that influence how everybody views protein are all about biochemistry they're not about personal health they're not about public health and they're sure not about planetary health so the view of protein that we're offering that's new says it's time to modernize how we even think about protein quality because there's a massive Distortion there there's a great quote by Gertrude Stein that's resonated through my whole career I heard it originally Chuck from my residency director at Yale when I was in my preventive Medicine Residency that was Jim Jekyll quote by Gertrude Stein is a difference to be a difference must make a difference and I think there's a corollary to that quality is as quality does and we talk about the quality of protein if it's higher it ought to do something good for me If instead it's increasing my risk of chronic disease because I'm getting it from foods that are contributing to inflammation atherogenesis and a host of other ills that doesn't sound like higher quality that sounds like lower quality if my consumption of food is harming my fellow creatures that doesn't sound like higher quality that sounds lower and if it's doing damage to the planet the environment the climate that sounds like lower quality too so that's our new view it's time to modernize the very definition of protein quality yeah I'll tell you what you'll teed up this entire conversation perfectly with that um before we get into quality sources you know what are the ones that we should be looking for let me ask you this I feel like we are so protein obsessed by and large as a society that we don't take the time to look at you know are we really eating too much protein you already said that by and large the majority of us are so I'm just curious you know how prevalent is protein deficiency versus some other nutrient deficiencies that we may want to spend a little bit more time looking at compared to protein protein protein yeah absolutely so again first of all there are liabilities to over consuming protein one of the important things for people to know is that just because it's protein doesn't mean it stays protein the body is capable of remarkable Alchemy uh humans never figured out how to do alchemy but biology did I mean you think by I I have a horse and you know that magnificent creature turns oats and hay and grass into horse I mean that's that's Alcovy right there it's magic it's amazing we're capable of the same thing so when we need to store Surplus calories we can put a little bit of them into a carbohydrate storage that's called glycogen there's a glycogen storage Depot in our skeletal muscle small and then there's a glycogen storage Depot in our liver a little bigger but both are pretty small and when we fill that tank the only other place Surplus calories can go into storage is this fat and it doesn't matter how they come in they can come in as carbohydrate they get stored as fat they can come in as fat they get stored as fat and come in as protein they get stored as fat and I don't think people necessarily realize this that if you load up on protein and because of that protein loading you're getting more calories than you need those extra protein calories do not give you Popeye muscles they are converted by the body's Alchemy biochemistry into fat and put into storage the same as Surplus calories than any other source that is the common State here in the U.S people over consume calories over consume protein it contributes to obesity type 2 diabetes hypertension coronary disease all the rest there's also a pretty strong case that excess protein from animal sources in particular contributes to inflammation the risk of all major chronic diseases including cancer and of course famously this issue of animal protein was addressed by T Colin Campbell in The China Study but there are a lot of intervention trials and observational trials since corroborating that view that the specific kinds of amino acids highly concentrated in animal Foods when over consumed contribute to the risk of chronic disease so the the issues of excess are serious and prevalent but you asked about deficiency and and the simple answer is that in this part of the world Chuck it's all but unheard of I I suspect we've all seen pictures somewhere National Geographic uh a historical books of what famine looks like and there's a characteristic view of that especially in children where they have extremely thin Limbs and that's from muscle wasting or sarcopenia but protuberant bellies and that's ascites that's a collection of fluid in the belly because of a low protein content in the blood so that's protein deficiency and that's called kwashiorkor it's typically seen in young children in famine-prone parts of the world porn of Africa for example sometimes Bangladesh sadly there are places around the world prone to famine they are prone to protein deficiency it's a real issue there which is one of one of the the important lessons to note is that when we talk about dietary guidance nutrition standards what people ought to eat to add years to lives life to years it depends what they're eating now people who don't have enough more will help them people who mostly have too much less will help them so everything depends on context so there are places in the world where protein deficiency amino acid deficiency is a real issue this is not one of them the US isn't one of them Canada is not one of them North America is not the European Union for the most part it's not where we see protein deficiency is in severely ill and debilitated patients in the ICU or on Burn units people who suffered some sort of calamitous medical condition that leeches protein from the body severe burns over a large extent of the body surface area can be associated with protein deficiency so it is seen but not in the routine course of daily lives and Free Living people much more prone to protein deficiency now you mentioned Chuck that this is a panel uh I I was really honored that Neil Barnard asked me to help pull this together because I I'm in the company of giants uh uh Mian sang from Harvard Brenda Davis and Christopher Gardner uh we'll all be coming up to the podium to give talks about this new view of protein and collectively we hope will fully populate that view uh so among them uh Christopher Gardner at Stanford whose name is likely well known to this audience has done work to reveal that there's a there's a major fallacy about how we Source essential amino acids and that that essential means we have to get these amino acids from food because we can't manufacture them that's that's the difference between essential and non-essential amino acids non-essential amino acids our bodies can make so give us enough protein of any sort we can make these particular amino acids the essential ones we can't make we have to Source them from food but the the historical misperception was that you needed to eat animal foods to get all of the essential amino acids and it's it's wrong and Christopher Professor Gardner will speak to this issue and share the research that specifically looks at the amino acid profile of a wide variety of foods plant and animal and all of the essential amino acids are present in all plant Foods so you know it's it's interesting eating animal Foods is basically like eating a bio concentrator uh you know if you thought of of animals and I don't I don't particularly like this but if you thought of them serving a function for us the idea of eating animals what what function do they surprises they're sourcing these amino acids from Plants concentrating them and then we Source them from the animals when we eat the animals if we were prone to protein deficiency there could be some advantage in that but because we're not because it's almost unheard of in the U.S population and and really much of the industrialized world we only derive disadvantage from sourcing bio concentrated amino acids as opposed to getting them where the animals get them and again I mentioned my horse Troubadour magnificent 1200 pounds of muscle sourcing all of the amino acids he needs to make that muscle from Plants exclusively from plants so you know we know it can be done and we have the metabolism to do that as well so that shift in perspective is also really important no you don't need to get high quality protein exclusively from animal Foods where do you think those animals got all the amino acids they needed they got them from Plants we could do the same all essential amino acids are present in all plants they do vary in their concentration but if you eat a variety of plants which you have to do to have a high quality diet overall you're getting all the amino acids you need work again by Professor Gardner and others has demonstrated that that even at fairly High activity levels and exclusively plant-based diet readily provides all the amino acids you need and I I was privileged shocked to have a small role in the documentary The Game Changers I suspect some in this audience may have seen that James Cameron and others produce this film Arnold Schwarzenegger was featured excuse me I think I just aspirated bug speaking of protein ingestion unintentional in this instance um you need a minute do you need to get a glass there it is I knew that was coming no problem yeah I'm good um so the game changers for those who didn't see it uh what they what the game that was being changed was the notion that you've got to eat animal food if you want to be big and strong you want you want to be a supreme athlete and the film really was quite stunning because it featured some of the world's most extraordinary athletes and not just in one particular domain but people with the world's greatest stamina people with the world's greatest strength some of the world's greatest bodybuilders and all running entirely on plant-based food plant exclusive diets a vivid illustration that you can you not only can get all the protein you need from Plants but you can get all the protein you need when you need a lot more protein than the average person because you're doing absolutely intense physical activity and cultivating Supreme athletic ability and I really do hope there's a a lingering effect of that documentary like all documentaries there's a bit of overreach I mean they sort of implied didn't quite say it that they implied if you want to be a supreme athlete you have to have a vegan diet and of course not all Supreme athletes have a vegan diet so that's that's the overreach but the important point and this is indelibly true is you can be a supreme athlete and you can be Supreme in terms of strength or speed or stamina or all of those and you can run on a plant exclusive diet and you will never run into protein deficiency as long as you have a sufficient variety of high quality Wholesome foods to access in the first place that's really the critical issue let's talk a little bit about those essential amino acids remind us how many there are nine nine essential amino acids and one of my favorite guests on the show it comes on every month is Dr will bolsowitz and his last conversation on the show he and I were talking about diet diversity and his goal with every person whom he works with is just to get them to eat 30 different varieties of plant Foods per week if a person is eating that all right more than two two dozen different types of plants do you think that that diversity is going to be enough to make sure that they are getting all of the uh essential amino acids that they need no uh but it could and and so it the best answer check is it depends so if that diversity is does not require a diversity of category so for example beans and lentils or plant foods and leafy greens are plant foods and tree fruits or plant Foods so you could eat 30 different leafy greens and your protein intake would still be pretty nominal because they're pretty dilute Source they have all the essential amino acids but the amount of leafy greens you would need to eat was probably a volume most people couldn't manage and of course the date to get all the protein in your car it's a dilute source of protein in contrast legumes are a concentrated source of protein many nuts and seeds are a concentrated source of protein and whole grains are a concentrated source of protein So when you say you know 30 different varieties if we further stipulate that that that diversity in your diet has to span all the different categories of plant food so we're talking vegetables fruits whole grains beans lentils nuts and seeds and you have to Source from all of those then absolutely yes then you're getting complementary nutrients and by the way the benefit of that Variety in your diet extends well beyond protein and amino acids you're also getting a variety of antioxidants you're getting a wide variety of phytochemicals probably some of which we don't even have names for there are thousands of compounds in plants and many of them have important nutritional properties and many of those we've named and we've worked out the path but almost certainly there are many that don't even have names not all these chemical compounds have been studied the biological effects of them haven't all been studied we know eating the plants is good for us we know eating a variety of plants is good for us but they're probably ways in which they these These are good for us that haven't been worked out yet so the greater the variety the better the other thing I I like to think about Chuck when when we're populating gaps in science because obviously we don't have randomized controlled trials to identify the isolated effect of every one of thousands upon thousands of phytochemicals in food so you know what is the isolated advantage of eating this particular leafy green providing this particular nutrient we don't know but what we do know is that we're adapted to eat a wide variety of whole plant Foods it's it's very clear that's just that's part of our human Heritage always was and that probably means our metabolism accommodates that great variety of nutrients in particular ways again many many of those ways worked out some of them probably not so that would be the requirement I would simply add to the the advice that your other guest is providing I think it's good advice variety is a good thing but by the way variety of Wholesome foods direct from nature is a good thing variety of Highly processed foods not so much you know you could argue that that living in the modern world a we're all living in an all-you-can-eat buffet pretty much all the time and B the result is an awful lot of people around the seafood diet as you know seafood and I eat it um and you know there's just food so-called everywhere all the time um food's so called because really a lot of it is junk where food ought to be so there's a problem of constant variety because it stimulates the appetite Center it goes us into a reading and you could even make the case that that variety is engineered into individual Foods so there's not just variety among Foods there's Variety in food and one of the best examples of that would be to note that commercial breakfast cereals which are high in sugar content and everyone thinks of them as sweet are actually more concentrated in salt and sodium than just about anything in the salty snack aisle you don't really taste the salt partly because our pallets are so corrupted by a junk food diet but also partly because it's masked by the sugar and then the same is true in Converse where pasta sauce is salad dressings which we think of as Savory or salty often have a higher concentration of added sugar than many items in the dessert aisle why is that done why is that variety that that Clash of flavors engineered into individual Foods Ultra processed foods for the most part because they differentially stimulate the human appetite Center and the ventromedial hypothalamus so when you've got sugar and salt and savory and maybe you Mommy you're turning on multiple dials in the appetite Center and the bottom line is the more activity there the more you eat before you feel like stopping and the more you eat before you feel like stopping the quicker you finish whatever it is you bought and the sooner you buy the next one and you know that's not so good for you but it's certainly good for whoever's selling it um this story by the way is brilliantly and beautifully told by Michael Moss whose name many of you may know Pulitzer prize-winning investigative journalist author of salt sugar fat and hooked uh Michael wrote A New York Times magazine cover story some years back entitled The extraordinary science of addictive junk food so if you just Google Moss addictive you could pull up that piece in the New York Times but it tells the story that the manipulation of flavors and textures in processed foods on purpose to put the human appetite Center into overdrive to stimulate the effects of addiction uh and you know basically when the Lay's potato chip folks tell us fetchiketti just won it was a threat oh they I mean look I think back to my old days on my junk food diet I've told this story Ad nauseam here on the show being 420 pounds I could not go a single day without going to the Taco Bell drive-thru I don't know what those magicians did in that deep dark food laboratory where they think up all of these creations man but they were Evil Geniuses and just hearing those things just to get you hooked and man I'm telling you to that end and I promise you we'll Circle right back to protein but to that end man I mean it was literally it did not matter if I had just eaten dinner if I had still not yet gotten my Taco Bell fixed for the day I was gonna go to the drive-through because I was hooked man and I mean Big Time hooked well well first of all Chuck I didn't know that backstory so it's amazing congratulations it's incredible how you've turned your health around so I I'm okay I'm proud of you for doing that and I know that could not have been easy and and yes it's it's addictive it's on purpose it's the willful manipulation of the food supply but it is taking advantage of native Pathways in the nervous system that that makes sense and I I can give everybody an example of how vulnerable we are to this so you just mentioned you know even after dinner you'd still need your Taco Bell fixed even after a big dinner a big meal when everybody feels too full to each other I think think of a holiday you know Thanksgiving or something you're just stuff yourself and you know it's sort of Classics and somebody puts their hand on their size oh wow I'm so full I couldn't eat another bite and that's immediately followed by another line what's for dessert what the heck's going on there and you know we used to joke right there well there's there's a Hollow Leg just for dessert or an extra stomach set aside waiting just for dessert you know we do anatomy and medical so we haven't found those apocryphal organs the explanation is something that's been studied and written about extensively by Barbara rolls at that State among others called sensory specifics that's the fact that we fill up in a sensory specific manner so if you're eating salty savory you get full and you've had enough of that but if you switch over to sweet classically that's what dessert brings you that's that's a whole different appetite meter you start all over again and you've got room not in your leg and not in your stomach but in your appetite Center in in your brain you've got more room so when you manipulate foods to combine all those flavors and everything it's basically a constant state of overdrive for the appetite Center and addictive properties into the bargain and as Michael Moss writes about it's it's willful it's basically the manipulation of food to get people hooked as you were and as so many others are so that would be the precautionary tale about variety but what we were talking about before was a variety of Wholesome foods direct from nature they do not have this property uh you know people do not experience the addictive properties of broccoli or apples or bananas uh when your food comes direct from nature there's none of this manipulation and their variety absolutely is a good thing and so again I I would routinely translate Michael Collins 50 advice eat food not too much mostly plants into we're talking about not just a variety of plant foods but a variety of categories of plant Foods spanning vegetables fruits whole grains beans lentils nuts and seeds if you mostly eat across that expanse and a variety within each of those domains can't go too far wrong yeah so maybe some simple practical advice here right uh if you're going the real easy route and you just want to open up a can of beans maybe opt for the can that's got three different kinds of beans in it right so you're getting a wider variety of nutrients if you've got kale one day go for spinach the next go for a spring mix the day after that make sure that you get a few different kinds of fruit in there and as you said you know to that point that we were talking about well maybe 30 different types of plant foods every single week when you layer on as you said those different kinds of plant foods and you kind of group them out by category you should be in pretty good shape here right totally agree and I think we can layer on to that Chuck the idea of locally sourcing your food which has a number of advantages potentially environmental reducing the carbon emissions associated with Transportation also fresher maybe more delicious so depending on what part of the country you're in you may have access to locally sourced produce Europe but many of us don't but what that means is we have seasons there's the stuff that's produced locally in the spring the summer the fall and then by and large our growing season ends I'm in the Northeast and then we are getting our food from a Global Supply but that means shifting to the kinds of fruits and vegetables that grow locally and are readily available at farmers markets or in our own Gardens in the summer and that inevitably means a seasonal so you can do this on a daily basis you can have a weekly schedule but I think actually doing this where there's a certain seasonal rhythmicity to it is kind of nice and it it puts you closer to the Earth if you will um you know thinking more about where the food ultimately is coming from and you don't have to choose you can do all of these so that you can have sequences as you mentioned you know if you're you're getting your your produce at the supermarket everything's available all the time so yes that that's sort of a cycle of different leafy greens making your salad with with different ingredients that then I would overlay a seasonal variation there too and think about the advantages of local sourcing among them the fact that you're supporting the farmers who are growing produce nearest to you uh one other thing that I want to touch on with you before I'd let you go and and you get ready for the conference here is the environmental impact that comes with these alternative proteins now obviously there's a lot of upside to that and anybody who spend any time in a grocery store has seen over the last couple of years just this explosion in plant-based options I'm curious if you could tell us a little bit about the quality of protein that are in a lot of these Frozen pre-packaged plant-based meals whether it's the Beyond Burgers The Impossible Burgers the garden brand how does that compare to more naturally sourced protein hmm good question so I I'm I'm going to start with the punchline Chuck and this topic of plant-based meats or meat Alternatives and of course uh this whole domain is now expanding because we have cell culture producing the actual meat but without the animals and also we'll have to append a discussion of that but I've written about this many times uh Huffington Post and medium and Linkedin and so forth and I've sort of adopted the view that on the topic of plant-based Meats these various formulations the final word is courtesy ironically of a guy named meatloaf and that is two out of three bad so there are three considerations uh as we View Meat alternatives first is it directly better for human health we'd like to be able to answer that question second is it directly Kinder gentler better for our fellow creatures and third is it directly better for the overall Earth environment so less carbon emission less water utilization less land use less contribution to climate change so forth so on the first one it really depends on the specifics of the formulation and it depends what you are replacing you know so you you could argue for example that if you were eating I don't know venison or or bison or some sort of game the nutritional composition of which is really quite good and you were replacing that with a very processed meat substitute well it would be better for the deer and better for the Bison clearly but would it be better for your health better for your coronary artery it's better for your microbiome we don't have a definitive answer there it might in fact be a lateral move because you're trading off the disadvantages of eating meat with the disadvantages of all the processing and and things that go into creating a palatable um and and that varies by product um because there are various ways to to produce these meat alternatives on the issue of is it better for the deer and the Bison unequivocally yes so plant-based meats are better for the animals that are not being raised for Slaughter or or Hunted and then is it better for the planet unequivocally yes and there I I take my guidance from in particular guitar at Harvard one of the world's leading experts on the environmental Footprints of foods unquestionably in environmental advantage then depending on the formulation uh there may be direct human health advantages and also depending on what you're replacing most people would not be replacing venison or bison with plant-based needs they'd be replacing McDonald's hamburgers so now you have not only beef but you know relatively low quality beef and a highly processed delivery vehicle for that beef namely everything that comes along with the burger to make it a Big Mac well if you have highly processed plus beef versus relatively processed but without the beef then it's almost certainly as best we can tell better for human health and now we've got three out of three so now you're firing on all cylinders in terms of the protein composition specifically and is it high quality the answer is pretty much yes across the board uh it it's almost necessary to achieve the desired texture if it's going to mimic the properties the the mouth feel if you will of meat um a similar protein composition to me this these products there's one called corn and it's uh and it's much about fungi is a particular that fungi is a particular category and another and all of the essential amino acids and an excellent alternative to me and now we have the new entry which really is me it's just and it's going to be interesting to see you know how people's ethics and and dietary priorities especially in the vegan Community are going to react to this a big part of the motivation for being vegan for for many people is the ethical implications but what if those go away you know there's no animal involved um it it basically you know cell culture can produce chicken or or beef but there is no steer and there is no hen um I you know I don't know whether that will be something that that alters dietary behaviors among current vegans or not um I'm somebody who simply likes eating whole plants I really do uh I you know last thing I would want is for my vegan burger to bleed or to convince me that it's me because I prefer that it not be I like the taste I like the tech I really like eating plants so I have limited interest in all these products but I do see Great Value in them so so to be clear Chuck I I am a fan first of all two out of three ain't bad if they're just better for our fellow creatures and just better for the planet that's pretty damn good uh but the other thing is the role that they play most people do eat meat far too many people in the modern world eat far too much meat it it has calamitous effects on our fellow creatures biodiversity planet to climate and if they're not going to change because they're used to eating meat and they really like eating meat and we can't get them to swap out beans for beef maybe these Innovations can get them to change that that was the hope at the beginning of the plant-based meat era and obviously all those companies had high valuations because of that hope and then they've gone through a real rough patch as people have scrutinized the products and asked hard questions is this better for health and to some extent the blush came off the rose there but maybe it will be restored now that there are new entries in that space new ways of producing plant-based meat new use of Mycelia and and fungal material to produce not just the flavor of meat but even the texture of it and then finally the cell culture based methods and all of these have a role to play in offering the world's current carnivores or meat inclined omnivores a way to have their meat and not eat it too and a tremendous Advantage because you know if that is a catalyst in shifting people away from the high ethical costs and the high environmental costs of current levels of meat consumption that's all for the good so I I am a supporter of this whole category yeah you know um I I think it it would be I'm kind of like you I mean I really enjoy eating the the whole plant foods and I love the creativity that comes with it um and and the dishes that are made up I think it would be weird to eat anything that was lab grown but but is still technically meat I guess like I'm not sure that I would enjoy it I think that I've lost my taste for it and I think that there's also a part of me in all honesty that still would wrestle like with the ethics of it like you know it came from a cell of a living creature that's where the that's where it originated but at the same time it's not it's not it's not the same it's not harming it right and of course once you have the cell you simply replicate the cell in the lab so yeah I mean essentially you you can without injury and without harm harvest the original cells from an animal and then grow this meat in a lab forever from multiple generations of those cells and no animals are hard but but yeah I'm with you I you still it's still meat and if you're just used to the idea that I don't eat that you know maybe there's no reason to revisit it again I I like eating plants I I think about Burgers as I said um and and I you know I've got a gift for everybody my wife's a brilliant cook uh also happens to be a brilliant scientist PhD in Neuroscience from Princeton and we had five kids and and she turned her scientific Acumen to feeding us optimally among other things and she's a French food so everything had to be delicious doc no I hit the totally hit the jackpot yeah no I absolutely I mean when we talk about better half yeah I really uh I did very very well there um so Catherine uh eventually after developing all kinds of fantastic recipes over the years created a recipe website to make it all freely available to everybody it's called quiznicity so it's like Cuisine City but with an eye in the middle quiz in this city.com and if you go there and you just put in the uh the search box vegan burgers they're the best I've ever tasted uh and when you can have those I don't know why you need you know any sort of processed meat alternative uh you can taste these and if you like eating plants in general you'll love them I think if you like eating meat you'd love them uh but you know these are made from Beans and lentils and whole grains I mean they're they're really really great so quiznicity.com vegan Burgers she's she's come up with several different varieties um but there it is that's the website you see right with live cooking demonstrations and everything man your wife is a total rock star she's a rock star she just did one of those yesterday yeah she was showing people how they could take dishes that traditionally are made with chicken and convert them over to tofu and and she was slow coming she's she's French she grew up in southern France tofu you know it was was not a uh a prominent feature of her diet so she was a slow convert to tell me but she does amazing things with it anyway yeah everybody help yourselves to quiznesty.com that's Catherine's gift to the world cat's family Greatest Hits all all posted there and look at that man these are some like really good good recipes here right and it looks like she's walking people through the basics up to some more advanced stuff so what we're going to do here is drop a link to uh the website in the show description and in the episode notes for everybody to peruse and partake in those extraordinary recipes that is a good tip man we have definitely learned something here today outstanding offering outstanding well and practical right I mean I and actually Catherine and I have joked over there I mean she she says I'm nutritious she's delicious hard to argue with that but but I think the more informative description is that I'm Theory she's practiced right so you know along with my esteemed colleagues uh who will be at the conference in my esteemed colleagues at pcrm I'm a nutrition expert yeah but she does the cooking so you know really that's the that's the translation of all the things we talk about in theory into nourishing a whole family beautiful thing so so I'm Theory she's practice and so you know happy to share the Practical aspect of all this with recipes you can make at home and they are simple you know she was she was doing all this cooking over the years we had a bunch of kids in the house so constant distractions dogs running you know wasn't it as if this was a you know a professional kitchen where she had total control it was usually Madness and she was able to get it done anyway so they're generally very family friendly easy to make nutritious and delicious so hope you enjoy yeah man and I'll tell you that's the ultimate litmus test as well as whether or not the kids will eat it and if you're getting you know two thumbs up from the kiddos then I think you you are really on to something so um I'm definitely going to check that out and see what I can't whip up this weekend I think that that's going to be great and of course very much looking forward to Dr Katz catching up with you uh at the International Conference on nutrition and Medicine coming up August 10th through 12th in Washington D.C tickets still available at pcrm.org icnm and of course your panel the new view of protein kicking everything off bright and early on Thursday morning uh Dr Katz thank you so much for your time this has been an ABS loot treat pleasure for me Chuck thanks for having me pleasure for me Chuck thanks for having me and I'm really looking forward foreign if your health IQ was a couple of points higher than it was a few minutes ago go ahead and like this video or subscribe to the YouTube channel and to take it even higher head over to Apple podcast or wherever you get your favorite shows look for the exam room by The Physicians committee hit the Subscribe button there as well and help to make your world a healthier place

Channel: Physicians Committee

Views: 26,745

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Id: mNFTeYW6JHo

Length: 44min 5sec (2645 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 07 2023