Nuts: How Much Should You Eat? What Type? | Dr. Neal Barnard Live Q&A

people go nuts over nuts they are so tasty they are so easy to overeat though which is a problem because they're also loaded in fat so what can we do to keep our nut Cravings under control that's what we're gonna find out today hi I am the weight loss Champion Chuck Carol welcome to the exam room live brought to you by the Physicians committee we appreciate you all joining us to help make the world a healthier place so nuts are indeed Nature's protein Powerhouse you got some essential nutrients in there you've got some minerals in there you got some vitamins in there the problem is as we said they are little fat bombs and man you know just handful after a handful it's so easy to keep eating these and don't get me started on Peanut Butter right how many of us spread on an ultra thick layer every single time we make toast or make a PB J I don't know it just seems half the jar scent uh tends to disappear so today we're gonna get our nuts under control really that's what we're gonna do and the man who's gonna help us do all of that is Dr Neil Barnard he is here to talk about how to not overdo it what the proper portion size looks like is there a healthiest nut which one should we be gravitating towards and is it possible to lose weight and still eat nuts at the same time we're going to find that out as well plus we're going to be opening up the doctor's mailbag so if there's something that you would like to ask Dr Barnard about nuts or really anything else related to your health go ahead post that in the comments or in the chat and we will get to as many questions as we possibly can here on the show today and with that we do welcome our good friend the author of your body imbalance Dr Neil Barnard back to the exam room live my friend good to see you good to see you all right you know nuts why are they so doggone addictive I mean I've struggled with this really my entire life and I don't keep peanuts in the house for this very reason it's just handful after handful after handful and before you know it that jar is gone You are not alone uh they have some characteristics that make them especially appealing one is that they're salty the other is that as you mentioned they're they're pretty high in fat and just about anything that's really salty and fatty is going to grab you think about potato chips think about French fries think about onion rings nuts are in that category the fatty salty stuff our brains are actually hardwired to seek these things and we do get hooked on and which means you're not physiologically addicted but you will crave them and you'll miss them when they're gone that said there are a lot worse things that you can get hooked on because nuts do have some benefits too outstanding um and we actually have a question from somebody talking about cheese and breaking cheese addiction we're going to get to that spoiler in just a little while um but let's talk about a proper serving size for nuts the last time you were on the show this came up kind of in passing and and the person was like you guys always talk about this and you just say well you know about a handful but what does an actual portion size of nuts look like what's just the right amount well I think it depends on who you are and what your goals are because if your goal is to lose weight your portion size is zero and the reason I say that is for for now while you're trying to trim down if you have nuts in your routine in any substantial amount it's like any other fatty food in your routine every fat gram has nine calories as everybody who watches the exam room knows every Fat Cam has nine calories in it that makes them the densest source of calories and that means it's harder and harder to lose weight in our research studies when people are doing a plant-based diet and they feel like they're keeping oils really low but somehow they're just not losing weight what we always do is we ask them to write down everything that they've eaten in the course of the day and we look through it to see what Contraband this might be in there and it's usually either a nuts or a nut butter or sometimes guacamole or something like that and people will say well that's good fat isn't it yeah but that good fat has those good calories in it just like um any kind of fat so if you are trying to lose weight or if frankly if you're trying to reverse diabetes if you're trying to tackle hot flashes I would suggest that now is the time to set the nuts aside don't happen um on the other hand let's say you're healthy thin you don't have health issues that you're trying to tackle for a person who's in that category I would say maybe an ounce a day would be a reasonable amount and the reason I say that's a reasonable amount is that it brings you the nutrition the nutrition that nuts provide especially vitamin E vitamin E is a fat soluble vitamin so it's in the foods that have that good fat in them and so that's a good thing an ounce is something that won't mean anything to you um typically so to make that concrete what you could do is put some nuts into the palm of your hand and if it has hit your fingers that's more than an ounce so the amount that fits comfortably right into the center of your palm that's it and and then the other thing Chuck let me just mention this really quickly um I think you you hit on it that once that hand goes to your mouth we fill our hand again and so we want it you know until the bag is empty or whatever so what I suggest you do is don't really use them as a snack food use them as a flavoring so crumble that handful up and put them on your salad or something like that so that you're using the nuts as a flavor not as a primary snack food because our little weak willpower is is uh not going to do it when it comes to nuts willpower is a joke when it comes to nuts and look we actually have a visual aid today so you mentioned an ounce of nuts this is uh sunflower seeds I got this right before we started taping today this is one ounce of sunflower seeds and as you say like fit it right into the palm of your hand that's about it this is like one handful and you can see that's about as far as it goes perfect for a salad topper but I mean imagine as you said you're eating this as a snack this is going to be gone in two bites and you're going to want to eat more and more and more that whole container right now that's sitting in the pantry not just this one ounce serving right here we have a question from Valerie and you know there are 18 million different varieties of nuts out there in your opinion is there one that is healthier than another or is that kind of well just go with the ones that you like from a fat content size they're all about the same if you look at even peanuts which are an honorary nut you know they're they're a legume they're in the in the bean family but their fat content makes them very much like almonds and cashews and others um there's one or really two exceptions chestnuts and water chestnuts yes if you roast them uh on your fire in the in the winter time those chestnuts do not really have very much fat at all so knock yourself out with them but for the others the fat content is about the same but the fat type is not exactly the same so here I'm going to say cashews are a little on the creamier side because they're saturated fat content is slightly higher than say almonds where almonds are fatty like other nuts but the oil in them is less saturated what does that mean that means a person who is trying to make say a vegan cheese is going to make it out of cashews because they're creamier a person who really just wants the healthy vitamin E is going to pick almonds okay uh here's an interesting thing you're talking about you know the oils and nuts and a lot of times in the roasting process oil is added and that may up the fat content so Blakely is wondering whether dry roasted is always the best option yeah it sure is and a dry roasted one doesn't have those calories added hey I'll do you one better have it in the shell um I'll do one better than that have it on the shell in the tree um that's that's what nature had in mind so you know we think well nuts they're natural but they're so fattening the reason is in nature they were in a shell it was hard to open them up they were seasonal so you didn't have them all around nobody pureed them and put them into a jar and they didn't cook them and salt them to make them absolutely irresistible so nuts were not a huge part of our diet or anybody's diet really um it's a seasonal kind of food that's kind of hard to access so it's technology that has made all those calories so available to us now you know right before the show I hopped on uh I I would say it's a famous peanut company and their mascot happens to be a peanut with the monocle and that's all I'm gonna say about that and I flipped it over I was like okay well Valerie or Blakely here has a really good question about adding oil and salt and what does that do to the nutrition content right so you you flip it over what I found particularly interesting here and this is just me being completely skeptical I want to take a closer look at these numbers to see if they're actually accurate the dry roasted unsalted peanuts here that one ounce serving you were talking about 14 grams of fat two grams of saturated fat but only five milligrams of sodium right so that's dry roasted unsalted but then when you get into what they call the classic or cocktail peanut they do add that oil they do add that salt but on the nutrition label it said that the fat content was still the same the only difference was that they added a hundred milligrams of sodium per serving so I'm curious it's like I just don't see any way in the world this is just skeptical Chuck talking for myself here I don't see any way in the world that if you add oil to a process that that fat content is not going to go up so what is the process for these nutrition labels that that just doesn't seem to equate to me yeah well I think you're right I mean if you're adding oil obviously the lipid content is is going to go up but on the other hand in their defense most of the fat the vast majority of the fat is in that nut whether it's dry roasted or roasted with oil so so it's the nut itself that has that oil in it again not an entirely bad thing it's a good source of vitamin E and so forth but it is loaded with calories and it's going to make any oil related issue that much worse um I mentioned menopause I mentioned people want to reverse diabetes or lose weight one other group I'd add to this is there has been some research lately on dysmenorrhea meaning Garden variety menstrual cramps and young women often feel dramatically better when they go to a plant-based diet if they also keep the oils really low if you're on a vegan diet but it's filled with oils then it's almost as bad as the meat-based diet with regard to the the monthly symptoms Let's uh switch gears talk really quickly about some nut Butters uh I think that this probably the same principle applies uh what we were talking about the different varieties of nuts and their health benefits Millie is wondering what type of nut butter is the best to purchase read the label um if it's almond uh butter for example that's fine you really can't go wrong with it but what you will discover is sometimes that's not just what's in the jar to make it creamier they'll add palm oil which is very commonly added nowadays to almond butter peanut butter other types too sometimes they'll add hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils so your best choice is the one that is the nuts that's it yeah it's funny you know you flip over some of those jars of peanut butter too they've added things like you know sugar in addition to the oil or molasses I've seen in some varieties um it's it's not just that natural peanut butter there um we have an interesting question from Vanessa here a Vanessa Poindexter this one came in at 1207. uh we've talked recently about fat actually affecting blood sugar levels Vanessa is wondering specifically whether nuts can affect blood sugar levels yeah in theory there's no reason that they wouldn't now researchers have actually tested this and for those of you who have been following us for a while you know what I'm going to say if you're new to this this might be surprising when you eat fatty foods the fat particles get into your cells your muscle cells your liver cells and that makes your insulin have difficulty getting your sugar into that cell your insulin is like a key it comes from the pancreas attaches to the surface of your muscle cell or your liver cell and it happens to open it has to open that cell up to let the sugar come out of the get out of the blood into the cell if that cell is filled with fat from the foods you've eaten the insulin is not going to work while you're insulin resistant this happens very very rapidly now the good news is that with nuts it can still happen but it is somewhat less likely than if you were to have a food that's really high in saturated fat that can be dairy products that can be meat products or something like coconut or palm oil those oils will cause insulin resistance much more predictably than the more the healthier low saturated fat vegetable oils all right I think that Jessica here has a real real real fondness for nuts this is this is a hypothetical from Jessica I don't know if she's trying to game the system here Dr Barnard but this question definitely makes me laugh she says okay well in terms of of weight loss or maintaining weight what if you're tracking your calories you eat the appropriate amount of calories but half of them are coming from nuts will you in fact still lose weight that's funny the answer is yes you will still you will still lose weight a calorie is still a calorie and the and no matter what you eat you're not going to change the laws of thermodynamics so if that and I am not recommending this but if you decide it that you're going to eat no more than 1400 calories a day kind of no matter what they were from you would you would lose weight and the difference would be rather small if it was uh calories from One Source or another there are some differences but but not huge problem with nuts and researchers have done exactly this study they'll they'll bring in folks and they'll say okay let's see what happens to your weight now have some nuts every day just as part of what you eat and what you typically find is that when people do that without consciously compensating they gain weight if you take that very same person and you say have some nuts but I want you to take out the same number of calories that you're adding you don't gain any weight or if you take a person and you say eat nuts but drastically cut your calories you're going to lose weight but all of those are really artificial scenarios the typical scenario in real life is you decide should I have some nuts or should I have an apple that's my afternoon snack or a banana or something the fruit is really low on fat it's very low in calories it's got water it's got fiber it fills you up you lose weight the nuts unfortunately as delicious and many in many ways helpful as they are are they are a little calorie bomb and so they're going to tend to cause weight gain wouldn't somebody who's uh making up so much of their diet from one type of food wouldn't they also be running the risk of missing out on all of the other nutrients that they need because you don't have that that Variety in your diet so you're going to get all of those Essentials that you need yeah your point is is really a good one um because nuts are so fatty um you're you're first of all you're losing just a healthy complex carbohydrate that runs your body that's that's the fuel your body is really looking for um and you want to have plenty of room for the fruits and the vegetables and the vitamins that they're going to bring you I want to say hi to uh andreana who's watching us in Western Oklahoma joining us live for the very first time thank you so very much for being here I appreciate that um we have a couple of people right now wondering if there's a connection between uh eating nuts and lowering cholesterol have you seen any studies to that effect David Jenkins at the University of Toronto who is a great genius and he's been a real friend to the work we're doing that we're doing in 1981 he invented the glycemic index very helpful um and and it's widely used to rate healthier carbohydrates for example but then after that he did another study that was um really influential he said what if I bring in people they got high cholesterol they want to lower it and what if we do a plant-based diet but wait a minute a plant-based diet with certain foods emphasized and he called it a portfolio diet because he was throwing into this diet a portfolio of special Foods soy products or other products that are high in soluble fiber like oats and one of the things he tested was almonds and what he found is that you do get a little extra added benefit so he was able to bring cholesterol levels down really fast within a month's time you saw this dramatic reduction in cholesterol the kind of thing that you might take a Statin for he could do it easily with just the portfolio diet so you don't need a lot of nuts to do with the amount that we've been talking about will work and the ones that he would have relied on probably would be almonds people have done the same kind of thing with with walnuts and some others as well it's not an enormous cholesterol lowering but it's it's there and you'll see it you know so many people right now are talking about uh being a peanut butter chunky I'm just going back and I'm reading these comments and and that seems to be like the number one thing that people struggle with um I I guess like because you're you're putting so many peanuts and you're just kind of squishing them down uh and you can really overdo it I think that the typical serving size for a nut butter is two tablespoons but again right like who takes the time Dr Barnard to measure out two tablespoons every time that they're spreading it on a piece of bread uh is Nut Butter something that you would recommend somebody be especially cautious with in terms of portion size it can certainly be part of a healthy diet but what you'll discover for a lot of people when they reflect they when they were little and their mom made him a sandwich or their dad made him a sandwich it was a little smear peanut butter and some jelly or some sliced banana and that was it and then when you were able to take the the table life into your own hands because you're now a college sophomore or something like that you'd unscrew the jar and between that and your table knife that's lunch you know you do you dig in and you've got a huge amount so so yes what you're saying that that is the problem and people people will feel it you'll see the results on the scale no doubt about it all right uh keep those nut questions coming but let's go ahead and and broaden things up let's broaden up the discussion take some other questions right now that are sitting in the mailbag so we talked about uh the addiction to nuts the struggle there let's talk about another very very very common food addiction and that one of course is cheese and Huck is struggling right now Dr Barnard uh Huck is looking for your advice on what he might want to try to overcome this cheese addiction oh You Are Not Alone um and first let me make sure that everybody knows why this happens because there's some um comfort in knowing that it's not a bad childhood or or weak willpower that led you to get kind of hooked on cheese what it is is partly what we've been talking about cheese happens to be fatty and very salty there there is more salt in an ounce of cheese than there is in an ounce of potato chips so it's very salty very fatty that makes it addicting but the secret ingredient in all cheese product is what are called casomorphins the casein protein that's the main protein in Dairy it's broken down in your digestive tract and as it breaks down it releases chemicals that the cow made called casomorphins they're morphine like compounds they go to the MU receptors on your brain just like heroin would and they attached there and they have about one tenth the brain binding power compared to Pure Pharmacy grade morphine and they have a narcotic effect so it's not dramatic you're not going to get arrested for this but on the other hand it is strong enough to get you hooked so there are traces of it in milk there are traces of it in ice cream but when people make cheese that concentrates the casomorphins and it causes people then to like everything about cheese even though it smells like old socks they they are they're hooked on this stuff so they interpret all those things rather generously after that point problem very high in salt very high in cholesterol very high in exactly the worst fat for your brain saturated fat and the beauty of this is that once you really look at what's in cheese what it took to get it on your plate the environmental impacts what happens to animals all of those considerations cheese ends up being kind of on everybody's bad list and and when it is and when you set it aside people discover that weight loss and reaching their health goals is so much easier how long does it take for somebody when they they take that out of their diet how long does it usually take for them to kind of get over that Cravings hurdle you know everybody's a little bit different with meat we have found that people forget about meat very quickly surprisingly quickly when you bring in people and you're you're putting them on a plant-based diet as a research study within a week or two they'll say I just I don't have any craving for chicken wings or steak for some reason they thought they would they don't uh and with regard to other Dairy like ice cream they let that go pretty well too but cheese does linger on for people and the way to make it Linger on and torture you the longest is to jump in and have little bits of it here and there the reason I say that is there are some people who say all things in moderation you know don't be so strict when people do that they're rekindling their desire it's like a person trying to to give up smoking who lights up every three or four days it's just this constant struggle you can never get it out of your head and when people get away from these things they do really well I got to tell you Chuck um in many of our studies we talk about um so well we do something that we don't do in our other studies um where we're always Health oriented when people find out what the animals go through to make milk and to make cheese for some people that is what grosses them out so much that they don't want to have it anymore and the reason I'm mentioning that to you now is just for people who are thinking I need a little extra boost to help me to break up with cheese um once people look under the hood at what the dairy had to do to get this to you it's um really disquieting for many people and for a lot of folks that's that's it for them so so people may want to look into that and we can talk about that as we have in the past I mean yeah there are so many reasons to get the dairy out of your diet there's no question about it and there have been real advancements um and and the plant-based cheeses right the ones that are completely dairy free you talk about lingering there a moment ago I was around some vegan feta this past week and man that smells just like the original and it cleared the room you you always use the analogy it smells like socks it's incredible what they're able to do um yeah so if you have somebody in your house who is not really on the dairy-free train but you might want to sneak that in there at least let them try it out I'll know they're not going to be able to taste the difference and certainly they're not going to be able to smell the difference whatsoever uh absolutely incredible oh you are so right you know we've seen this with you know a generation ago the G substitutes they kind of tasted like a an eraser or something like that if they were not so hot but they have gotten better and better and better and I will never forget this check um the tree line Cheese Company um they debuted their products actually at a pcrm event and Alec Baldwin was there and other celebrities were there and this was on Long Island and uh the the tree line cheeses were all there different flavors and so forth and I didn't have any time to taste them so the person who the the person the inventor of it Michael Schwartz was there and he gave me some just to to put in my pocket and take later so at the end of the evening I left and I drove back to my hotel and along the way I found this tree-lined cheese that he had given me and I took a little bite of it and I thought good Heavens these um the the non-dairy cheeses have just Advanced so far that people pick them because they're healthier and they taste great and people just don't look for the dairy ones anymore now people might make them because they want to be compassionate or they want to be healthy or whatever but they have really won this taste this taste battle finally the non-dairy cheese is a terrific and it's amazing the variety The Selection that's out there I mean just thinking back you know six years before I went plant-based to just a few that were out then versus you go now and like you can literally find like half of the cheese aisle is taken up now with non-dairy options it's of every variety like you can think of feta cheddar colby jack like whatever it is that's your pleasure I mean that's available to you in a non-dairy option as you said advancements I mean it's it's just I don't know how they do it but I will I will definitely tip my hat to them now do read the label though oh yeah oh yes let's say to make them from pureed cashews fine healthy in some cases they add coconut oil to them take those ones and throw them away the coconut oil is going to raise your cholesterol and it's unhealthy but you'll find many many vegan brands that don't use the coconut or palm oils at all and they're they're a much better thing and when your guests come over and you're trying to seduce their taste buds with this wonderful vegan foods you'll you'll find lots of options for that and that sounds like that's a good rule of thumb no matter what the food is is always just flip it over and look at the nutrition label right exactly um and we've talked a lot about what should be on that label but if it's plant-based foods and you're way ahead of the game but the coconut oil and the palm oil have been snaking in and we're trying to push them out because they're just very very high in saturated fat unlike unlike the other plant oils that are much healthier as long as we're talking about oil let's take a question from chitra who was wondering whether olive oil is a healthier option than avocado oil ah great question you know in recent years you didn't or not not that long ago you didn't see much avocado oil it's coming into the market a lot more now and nutritionally they are almost identical which means unlike say corn oil which is very heavy in the the polyunsaturates which are fine um olive oil has a lot of monounsaturated it's good it's not going to raise your cholesterol and avocado oil is almost identical to it it's very high in monounsaturates it's going to be easy on your cholesterol level I want to say hi to uh prester I want to say hi to John to Shelley and Charles Charles uh just dropped a nice comment in there for us Dr Bronner says uh great show been watching now for years been plant-based uh for a year and a half I live in Crystal Lake California get this 62 years young just biked up Crystal Lake says thank you thank you thank you 62. probably never thought in a million years they'd be able to go out and do like some serious biking after 60 but here's Charles pedlin right away that's some great news huh absolutely I mean age 62 is just on the tail end of adolescence so you you've got you've got a whole lot left I left uh ahead of you I love it if 62 was on the tail end of adolescence like when does one graduate just beyond that to adulthood Chuck I'll let you know oh man that's a good one uh all right uh we have a lot of people now talking in the chat room today also about uh anemia and getting enough iron eating a plant based diet Richard at 12 24 all caps so you know he's serious iron deficiency suggestions please and thank you says that he loves us with a bunch of emojis thank you so much Richard uh what advice can you give here Dr Barnard okay first of all work with your doctor make sure this is what you have um for some people they say I must be deficient in Iron because I'm tired or I look a little anemic or I'm stressed just there's a whole lot of reasons to be tired that have nothing to do with what's in your blood so do see your doctor it is a very easy thing for the doctor to diagnose iron deficiency let the doctor go through that if you are anemic if your blood uh count is low there are reasons other than iron deficiency why that might occur um so before you're thinking well gee I need to have a some calves liver to get my iron up your doctor is going to be thinking something completely different here's what goes to your doctor's mind your doctor does the tests and says gee you really are low in iron you're actually anemic the doctor says I want to first know if you are bleeding somewhere and the doctor says I want you to have a colonoscopy and you're thinking gee I'm not really worried about that your doctor is because if you have a cold blood loss and you're losing blood for that reason you can be taking iron pills all day long you're not going to solve the biggest worry which is that you got something harmful that needs to get addressed right away so do all of that if then at the end of the day you're not bleeding you're otherwise healthy but for some reason you're low in iron at that point your doctor and your dietitian or whoever you're talking to is going to think how the heck did you get low in iron because there is so much iron in green vegetables and beans you can almost have to be working at it to get low in iron now I don't want to be too good about it you should intentionally have green leafy vegetables as part of your diet some people will say add a vitamin C rich food like Peppers or other fruits because they enhance the iron absorption that's all good um if you still are consuming Dairy throw that away a glass of milk at meal time will cut your iron absorption by 50 don't do that and from then on iron deficiency and anemia should be it is not and should not be any more common in a person on a plant-based diet than a person who's eating meat so there you go yeah matter of fact we have a comment from Elizabeth who said uh look I had chronic anemia since I was a teenager and the doctors kept telling me to eat steak but the anemia actually didn't go away until she became uh 100 plant-based at the age of 55 still in adolescence apparently well exactly you know people think of have dairy for this and doctors are pushing dairy products or at least they used to big mistake because in addition to all the other issues that Dairy will raise one is that it is a really bad inhibitor of iron so the the kid following the school room advice has meat for protein and iron and then the glass of milk for calcium the glass of milk stops the absorption of the iron in the meat so um no the glass of milk is you know is going to be a big problem when people go vegan if you've got plenty of green leafy vegetables and beans in your routine you've got good good iron sources there all right let's uh let's talk about that tail end of adolescent here a little bit Roxanne is excited still there at the tail end just turned 60 but she's worried about her skin becoming a little bit thinner a little bit more I don't know frail for lack of a better word wants to know what can you do to keep your skin healthy after the age of 60. okay well the first thing that I'm going to mention is something you already know and your friends have probably been telling you about this do be careful about the Sun um and this is really a lifelong thing sunlight has ultraviolet B which hits the skin and does a good thing it makes vitamin D in your in your skin that's the way the system is set up but that very same ultraviolet B can damage your skin cells it can turn them into cancer cells it can also just accelerate the wrinkling which is why if you hang out at a golf course and look at the golf pros who haven't been wearing their sunscreen and they've got really leathery very very seriously damaged skin so whatever damage has been done is not going to be reversed but you got a lot of years left and now is the time when your Skin's delicate so protected against the Sun that means when you go out do wear a sunscreen and that also means you are now blocking the UVB that your body was going to use to make vitamin D so you can get your vitamin D orally in in a supplement which is usually a pretty good compromise or have a little bit of sunlight but then put on that that sunscreen so you're not really damaging yourself okay beyond that um you do want to of course think about antioxidants that should be part of your your routine and it will protect you anyway I don't mean antioxidant pills from the supplement aisle at the store I mean the ones in your Foods so the famous ones are beta-carotene that's what makes carrots orange lycopene that's what makes tomatoes red it's also in watermelon pink grapefruit the anthocyanins this will not be on the test but anthocyanins are what make blueberries and grapes that deep kind of purplish color if these are part of your routine those antioxidants that were designed to protect the carrot and protect the tomato and protect the grape they will also hopefully protect you and then let's go back to where we started we were talking about nuts at the beginning and nuts do have this one real benefit of providing vitamin E and if you have just that one ounce of nuts or seeds you'll get oh I don't know five milligrams or so of vitamin E which goes a long way toward meeting your daily requirement and some of that vitamin E is going to get in the skin and of course you can also apply topicals which are more than happy to provide all kinds of of things externally to your skin you put those together and you've probably got the best regimen you could get all right let's grab a few more here before we wrap things up for the day uh let's start with a question from Sharon uh Sharon is 77 does not like beans though wants to know is there any alternatives that she may want to give a try to or should somebody really make sure that they get those beans in their diet some way somehow beans are optional but if they haven't agreed with you let's first think about why um if it's that you just don't like the taste you might think of different varieties the Bean Group has its cousins the the honorary other beings in the legume group lentils so a big bowl of lentil soup we've got all the same benefits that beans would have uh peas are also in that group so beans peas lentils all very similar uh nutritionally high in protein high in soluble fiber that's great so if the taste was an issue you might try them made different ways and try different varieties if the issue is that you just never had them prepared in a way that was either flavorful or digestible rule of thumb is there should be no Al Dente beans yeah Al Dente is fine for pasta but if your beans are not thoroughly cooked until they are soft they're going to be indigestible and they're going to cause gassiness and make you never want to have them again um so uh make sure that your beans are cooked if you're buying canned beans for convenience you'll discover that different brands have a different cooking duration some of them you open the chickpeas or the black beans and they're hard as rocks don't buy those again get the ones that are softer or just make them from scratch um put them in a you can either just cook them in a pot or you can cook them in your instant pot or other pressure cooker and cook them up until they're really really nice and soft separate them into batches have them with some salsa and you're going to come tomorrow that sounds darn tasty my friend and it's a it's lunch hour too keep on talking keep on talking well I got to tell you a Chuck I was really allergic to cooking beans from scratch because it's you know you look at the direction it says soak them overnight and then cook them for an hour hour and a half and I thought who's got time but I made a discovery Chuck I discovered they soak themselves you don't have to actually watch them do it so yeah before you go to sleep put them in the pot with some water and just let them do their thing you don't have to be involved at all and then the next morning when you change the water and put them in the pot and cook them for an hour hour and a half or whatever they cook themselves too you don't have to be involved and then once they're done you can either separate them into batches or what I do is I have one of these um immersion blenders you know these little things that kind of thing um I'll blend my black beans and then I'll put them into little um tubs and freeze them and into portions and so you can bring them to work you stick it in the microwave and um you'll have your black beans with some bread or some fat free chips or something like that and some salsa and it's it's uh like a trip to Cancun well played my friend and that is very good to keep in mind as the winter months approach uh all right penultimate question Marie uh great timing on this because I believe there was a study that was just released talking all about it uh she's wondering how does eating meat increase the risk of developing diabetes first of all it does um this is really important because people think they got diabetes from sugar not true um that's a myth uh sugar is not necessarily health food but it is not the driver of diabetes what happens is that any fatty food but meat is a very fatty food the fat from meat gets into your muscle cells and into your liver cells as we were describing earlier and the more it builds up the more the cell becomes insulin resistant and that just means that the insulin molecule comes from the pancreas parks on the surface of the cell and it's trying to open that cell membrane to let glucose inside but the cell is filled with fat particles and the cell will not open up the sugar can't get inside and so the meat because it's a staple for a lot of people's diets is one of the biggest contributors to type 2 diabetes over time what this means is that kids who are 15 16 17 years of age can already have the beginnings of insulin resistance unless their well-meaning parents said kids we're going vegan as of today at that point the risk of uh diabetes goes way way down the risk of insulin resistance goes down and that's a really protective step to take all right and the final question today comes in uh from info at 12 22. now let me preface by saying let's just go ahead and slash this to a 2 000 calorie a day diet I don't know uh What inhos uh workout routine is but they're eating 3 000 calories a day but nonetheless I think that the principles here will apply for all so the question is this Dr Barnard uh inhoe writes I'm a big fan I've been dividing my Daily 3 000 calories equally into the four food groups fruits vegetables whole grains and legumes but have been eating the same rice burrito every single day is this a good idea so let's emphasize eating the same thing every day it's fine absolutely I mean what you're eating is terrific 3 000 calories is a lot if you're a very large person or a very active person um fair enough but for your average person they would have to run 10 miles a day to knock off to knock off um that extra thousand calories that that you got there um but yeah if you're eating fruits and vegetables and and uh grains and beans you can eat the same thing every day now there is something to be said for variety and the reason is um the small reason is that keeps the diet interesting but the big reason is there are some nutrients that are just marginally more in one food marginally less um in another food and so variety uh is helpful don't forget your vitamin B12 you need it for healthy nerves and healthy blood yeah man it's it's so funny like the average person I think that unless you're really ingrained in nutrition you still have this idea that it's really easy to run off that combo meal that you have for lunch but if you ever Google how long does it take to run off a Big Mac like you will scare yourself you're like there's no way I can run all that because it's like they're telling me I gotta run for 45 minutes just to do this and that doesn't even take into account the fries that I ate with it and if you have the milkshake on top of that man you're going to be running until Christmas I'm telling you it's a it's a whole thing um but that is all the time that we have for the doctor's mail back today let's go ahead and close that up if we did not get to your question have no fear we will save it and do our best to get you an answer on an upcoming episode um Dr Barnard today's episode of the exam room live has been brought to us as always by our good friends at the Gregory J Ryder memorial fund which supports organizations just like the Physicians committee that are carrying on the love that Greg had for animals and one of the ways that we're doing a number of ways that we're are doing it is by promoting plant-based health and working to end animal abuse well also emphasizing programs that promote systemic change and also benefit people and you can learn more right now about the Gregory J Ryder memorial fund you see their logo right there on the screen learn more hop on their website gregoryriderfund.org that's gregoryrider spelled r-e-i-t-e-r-fund.org fantastic people Allison and the Gang there are just absolutely phenomenal and they've been such big supporters of the Physicians committee and the exam room for so long and we absolutely could not do these shows without their support I know you feel the same way Dr Barnard I sure do Greg has such a wonderful heart Allison has carried that forward in such a beautiful way and here at the exam room we're educating people and inspiring them and their coronary arteries are better off in the process but the animals are benefiting too so thank you no question about it no question about it for today my friends that is all the time that we have I want to say thank you again to you Dr Barnard for being here helping us raise our health IQs and going nuts over nuts today man this was a really good show thank you Chuck all right and to the crew behind the scenes that makes the magic happen thank you so much for a Flawless episode and to you exam roomies thank you all for your kind words your comments all of the great great questions keep them coming let's get some answers and keep raising those Health IQs and for everyone here at the Physicians committee I am the weight loss Champion Chuck Carroll we'll talk to you again soon but until then keep it plant-based

Channel: Physicians Committee

Views: 122,592

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Id: BbsvJsngLII

Length: 42min 40sec (2560 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 12 2022