The Healthiest Foods You Need in Your Diet – Dr. Berg's Expert Advice

let's talk about the seven healthiest foods you can eat now the question is what makes a food healthy but to figure that out we must also look at what foods make us sick and of all the things that can make us sick as you might know already insulin is at the top of the list so any foods that raise insulin because your blood sugars are now raised would not only inhibit your health but it's going to make you ill also foods that deplete you of nutrients will make you ill as well so we want nutrient dense foods we want foods that enhance nutrient absorption it means low carb as one of the factors now the two foods that don't trigger insulin don't create an insulin response would be fiber and fat okay and as far as protein goes the leaner the protein the higher the insulin response in other words on the insulin index whey protein and very low fat lean protein really creates an insulin spike compared to fattier protein so we really want a higher fat lower protein ratio in foods if possible and then nutrient dense not only do we want vitamins and minerals and trace minerals and essential fatty acids like omega-3 fatty acids but we also would like phytonutrients because the phytonutrients give us additional health benefits that go way beyond just the regular vitamins and minerals so the first food on our list is sauerkraut okay now what makes sauerkraut so down healthy well in one cup of sauerkraut you have only six grams of carbs with 4.1 grams of fiber giving you a net carb of 1.9 grams so it's just under 2 grams of carbs for an entire cup that's incredible so that definitely fits the definition of low carb high fiber and high nutrient because sauerkraut has the highest vitamin c of any food out there in fact in one cup of sauerkraut there's over 700 milligrams of vitamin c and the daily requirements that we need are only roughly around 75 milligrams and one cup of sauerkraut gives us milligrams so vitamin c is very very important in collagen in building bone and protecting the heart against free radical damage it's a very powerful antioxidant and without vitamin c you get tired like in scurvy your joints fall apart you can't build connective tissues and so your skin becomes more wrinkled and you look older and the thing about sauerkraut it's a really good pre and probiotic so it's great fiber to feed the microbes and it's fermented so it has a lot of friendly bacteria the type of bacteria that can actually enhance your own bacteria because if we compare that to yogurt which has probiotics those friendly bacteria and yogurt get destroyed at the stomach level whereas the probiotic and sauerkraut survives and it gets into the large intestine and the other cool thing about sauerkraut is the vegetable is cabbage and that's one of the cruciferous vegetables and cruciferous out of all the different vegetables have the highest most potent and powerful phytonutrients of all the vegetables that you can possibly eat the unique thing about sauerkraut and cabbage is that it's very easy to digest and if you have digestive problems cabbage is probably going to be the best vegetable to digest it does not produce a lot of gas like other vegetables like broccoli it will spike something called acetylcholine which will help you have regular bowel movements and increase digestive juices and support your brain and cognitive function sauerkraut is very high in lactic acid which is beneficial to your good bacteria and not very beneficial to the bad bacteria pathogens so pathogens cannot exist when there's too much lactic acid also sauerkraut is a really good source of vitamin k2 k2 is made by bacteria and vitamin k2 which is also in certain fats helps to keep the calcium out of the joint and out of the arteries and in the bone and lastly sauerkraut is very high in vitamin e now you're probably going like what is vitamin u i put a link down below for more information on vitamin u but it actually is a vitamin and it has some really cool effects on things like colitis inflammation of the colon great effects of ulcers it's really good on gastritis and acid reflux and dirt and even gut inflammation all right number two arugula now if you've been watching my videos i recommend a good amount of salad every single day and if you're going to eat salad might as well use a green or a base of salad that has higher amounts of nutrients and arugula fits that to a tea arugula is one of the cruciferous vegetables and so it has a lot of different phytonutrients it's really good for your liver because it's really good for liver function and if i have the option of getting arugula i will always have a salad with arugula way more than other types of salad especially spinach because spinach is high in oxalates which can lead to kidney stones but arugula is low in oxalates oxalates bind with calcium and can form kidney stones and arugula has a really great flavor it's kind of like a peppery sweet spicy hot flavor and it doesn't need much to season it so sometimes i'll just add the extra virgin olive oil and maybe a little sea salt and that's it arugula is really good for inflammation it has very high anti-inflammatory properties arugula is also high in nitric oxide which is good for libido and erectile dysfunction and for cardiovascular health because it supports the endothelial walls that's the inner part of the arteries and you can develop clots in plaquing arugula is also high in calcium potassium folate magnesium vitamin c and k1 and lastly arugula has some pretty potent anti-cancer effects all right the next food on the list is salmon now of course i would always recommend getting the wild caught salmon and the type of salmon that is the fattiest type of salmon i also like to keep the skin on it because there's some serious extra fat right beneath the skin now if you're concerned about the mercury levels the mercury levels in salmon are substantially less than other types of fish and they're way below the danger threshold and the other thing you need to know about salmon is it's high in selenium selenium counters mercury if there's selenium present you're not going to be able to absorb mercury so if you're going to eat salmon you don't have to worry about mercury now out of all the fish salmon is extremely high in omega-3 fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acids are really good for the brain the heart your joints omega-3 has anti-cancer properties most people are consuming way too many omega-6 fats as in soy oil corn oil canola oil cotton seed oil and they're very very low in omega-3 fatty acids so they have this imbalance that generates a lot of inflammation in their bodies so if you want to systemically keep inflammation very low you want to consume food high in omega-3 fatty acids and this is why i recommend salmon at least a few times a week now as far as the fat to protein ratio it'd be like a one to two ideally you want more fat to protein but because salmon has these other health benefits i included salmon on the list it's easy to get it also tastes good so people will consume it on a regular basis and you can always add some additional fats to salmon to spike it even more you know if we look at omega-3 fatty acids and compare salmon to something like cod fish if we look at just three ounces salmon has over thousand milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids and cod has only 171 milligrams let's see 2000 to 171 milligrams i think i'll go with the salmon and salmon is high in potassium zinc and calcium all right the next one on the list is cod liver now before you turn your nose up to cod liver just hear me out you know organ meats in general are super super nutrient dense the problem is the majority of the population do not like to consume them because they don't taste very good and sometimes it's hard to find high quality organ meats because of all the toxicity in the environment you would never want to have conventional like beef liver or organ meats you want them organic but wild caught cod liver is not only easy to get it's very very delicious it doesn't taste bad at all it's not even fishy as long as you eat it within one to two days don't make the mistake of eating half of it and then putting in the refrigerator and then forgetting about it and then coming back a week later it'll be a little bit fishy but if you eat it within one or two days it tastes actually amazing it's actually delicious the texture is like pudding and it doesn't even to me taste fishy at all now you might consume it and you might not even like the flavor but i think you should at least try it once personally i think consuming organ meats even beef liver is a very good thing to do i just cannot seem to consume beef liver i just don't like the taste but i will consume cut liver all day long now the unique thing about cod liver compared to beef liver is that cod liver is much much higher in omega-3 fatty acids in fact we have some caliber right here if you can see this right here icelandic cod liver oil i think it's a little blurry but this is wild caught okay and it comes within its own oil so the oil that they put in this is cod liver oil and it's quite delicious now i do not recommend consuming the whole thing in one sitting it's a lot of fat and you might not be able to digest it but one half of these would be great so maybe once a week i'll do half of this um my first meal and then half in the second meal now if you're on omad just do half of this and one meal and the other half the next day you can just keep it in the fridge but like i said before if you leave it in the fridge for too many days it might taste a little fishy now the unique thing about cod liver oil compared to fish oil in general is that cob liver and cow oil has omega-3 fatty acids they have epa and dha okay but fish oil does not have the vitamin a and vitamin d that cod liver and conditioner oil has so cob liver and caliber oil have this additional extra benefit and vitamin a and i'm talking about the active form of vitamin a retinol is essential for your eye it's essential for the immune system it's essential for the inner lining of your skin i'm talking about the sinuses the esophagus the trachea your lungs and it's really good for your kidneys well and of course vitamin d as most people know is awesome for blood pressure pain depression your immune system and there's not many foods that are high in vitamin d now cod liver also has vitamin k2 it has iodine and it's loaded with b vitamins and the cool thing about cotton liver is it's fat to protein ratio it's a five to one ratio so it has five times as much fat to protein so on the insulin index it's extremely low it will not trigger insulin but the more fat to protein as far as a ratio the more ketosis you're going to be in and if you don't actually like the cod liver at least do the cod liver oil cod liver oil is one of the best things that children should consume as well as pregnant females because of the huge benefits on the nutrients as well as the essential fatty acids omega-3 and one last thing where are you going to find this you're probably not going to find it in the grocery stores just do a search online go to amazon do a search and you'll find a lot of different companies all right the next one and some people will disagree on this hamburger okay hamburger just hear me out i'm not talking about a hamburger with a bun i'm not talking about conventional beef i'm talking about grass-fed organic hamburger okay not lean hamburger with like 90 that's too lean i don't recommend that but why would hamburger be on the list as a healthy food i'm also looking at the practical aspects of food too it's easy to get it's easy to digest you can put in a lot of different foods and it has some pretty good health benefits now some people are going to say well red meat is unhealthy and blah blah blah well that is completely false i put a link down below if you haven't seen my video on red meat because if you're eating high quality red meat it doesn't cause cancer it's not going to cause a heart problem grass-fed organic red meat is not like the processed meat or like you would eat a hamburger at some fast food restaurant it's completely different and some people have a problem digesting red meat but they usually don't have a problem digesting hamburger and that is usually because if you compare most steak with hamburger hamburger has more fat in fact hamburger compared to steak is a two to one ratio it's twice as fatty as its protein and that helps keep the protein in your small intestine so the digestive juices and bile can act on it and you'll get better digestion if you're consuming leaner protein it goes through the body faster and you don't have as much time to fully break it down not to mention as we age we lose our stomach acids and so the older you are the less stomach acid you have to digest red meat so a simple solution is just to start taking betaine hydrochloride for your stomach so you can increase the acid and digest red meat because a lot of elderly people are low in iron they're anemic and that's also because they don't have enough acid in the stomach you need an acidic stomach to absorb minerals especially iron and calcium and break down protein and kill pathogens so typically hamburger is easy to digest i consume a lot of hamburger on a regular basis on the ketogenic plan hamburger is a really good source of amino acids it's a really good source of available iron compared to like the iron and spinach the type of iron you would get in red meat as well as hamburger is so much higher also hamburger is rich in b12 phosphorus zinc it's an excellent source of selenium b6 b2 b3 and b5 it's also high in something called carnosine in fact beef is one of the highest sources of carnosine and carnosine reduces something called glycation glycation occurs naturally on our bodies and promotes aging glycation is when you have a sugar that attaches to a protein or sugar that attaches to a fat and it binds it up and it makes it unavailable so it kind of clogs up the body and if you're consuming carbs with sugar or carbs with fat you're going to have a lot of glycation so carnosine inhibits glycation decreases inflammation and carnosine also helps your immune system now hamburger also has a lot of creatine and creatine improves exercise performance exercise endurance and can promote muscle growth and muscle mass now there are other meats that are higher in fat like duck and lamb but even pork but i picked hamburger as something on the list that's very practical easy to get tastes good and has a lot of health benefits all right the next one on the list is pecans now i wanted to pick foods in different categories since a lot of people consume nuts i wanted to talk about the healthiest nut of all the nuts and the reason why now out of all the nuts pecans have the lowest net carbs and as you can see from the pecans right here and i love to just take like a handful of pecans right after a meal and it gives me a good amount of fat and it's very satisfying after a meal now the carbs in pecans per cup is 14 grams and it has a good amount of fiber like 10 grams so that gives us a net carb of only 4 grams for an entire cup now remember you're allowed up to 50 grams of carbs if you're on keto so four grams are insignificant and the fat content is pretty high it's like 71 grams now there are other nuts that have higher amounts of fat like macadamia nuts and pistachios the pecans have the lowest net carbs and pecans have a very good ratio of fat to protein it's like seven fat to one protein so that's going to be very low on the insulin index pecans are very rich in zinc and copper zinc and copper always balance each other out so anytime you have a food that has both zinc and copper that's a good thing but pecans are also loaded in vitamin b1 so if you have stress you want to definitely have pecans as part of your diet now pecans out of all the nuts are very low in oxalates again oxalates can bind with calcium to form kidney stones and pecans are really good for the heart they're good for your blood sugars and out of all the nuts pecans have the highest amounts of antioxidants which can decrease the complications from chronic disease like diabetes heart disease and inflammatory conditions and consuming pecans are very easy to digest they're easier to digest than walnuts peanuts brazil nuts and even macadamia nuts and i like pecans because of the taste as well because you can add them in different recipes for keto desserts and i put some down below if you want to check them out all right the last one on the list is extra virgin olive oil you want to make sure you have the real stuff as you can see i use the real stuff right through here there's a lot of different types that you can use i don't you can read that but you can see i use this olive oil i use a lot of it on a regular basis olive oil is interesting because if you buy the cheap stuff at different grocery stores you'll be lucky if you get the real stuff because there's so many types of fake olive oil out there that they blend other oils and it's just not the same the real stuff has a little bite to it it has a great aroma like fresh cut grass it's peppery and it gives you a little tiny irritation in the back part of your throat that's one indication to know that it's the real stuff but i put it on my salad on a daily basis so what's so healthy about this extra virgin olive oil well it does have vitamins it has vitamin e it has vitamin a it has minerals like magnesium and potassium now it is a fat so it's going to have zero effect on your insulin which is really good but it has significant phytonutrients it has phytonutrients that can extend your aging you can live longer it supports things like telomeres which if you have shorter telomeres you're not going to live as long it supports and repairs mitochondria and if you don't already know this cancer is a disease of the mitochondria and anything you can do to protect support and repair mitochondria will give you anti-cancer benefits now olive oil as far as an anti-inflammatory and something to help relieve pain is equivalent if not comparable to the effects of ibuprofen i'll put a study down below so you can check that out and compounds in extra virgin olive oil can reduce beta amyloids that's that stuff that develops as plaquing in your brain when you have alzheimer's so it's really good for the brain and good for memory and focus and concentration it also has some really cool effects as an anti-clotting antimicrobial and retinol protective so in other words it supports the retina of the eye especially if someone has diabetes or high sugars or high insulin there are certain phytonutrients in extra virgin olive oil that are 20 times more powerful than green tea so don't use it sparingly dump it on your salad and the fat in the olive oil will help you extract a lot of the phytonutrients in the salad all right there you have it the seven healthiest foods now that you know what to eat let's talk about what to avoid with this video right here check it out

Channel: Dr. Eric Berg DC

Views: 8,305,601

Keywords: top 7 healthiest foods you should eat, top healthiest foods, top foods, healthy diet, nutrition, healthy foods, healthy foods to eat, healthiest foods, top 7, top 7 healthiest foods, top 7 healthy foods you must eat, superfoods, health foods, vegetables, keto, keto diet, diet tips, diet, sauerkraut, arugula, salmon, cod liver, cod liver oil, hamburger, pecans, extra virgin olive oil, nutrition facts, healthy lifestyle, what to eat, dr berg, eric berg, dr. eric berg, berg, dr. berg

Id: BGwb8_hbzUM

Length: 22min 10sec (1330 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 08 2021