The TOP FOODS To Eat To Heal The Body & LIVE OVER 100+ Year Old | Dr. Mark Hyman

what should I eat and what should I avoid it doesn't have to be so controversial nutrition is a very controversial subject there's more opinions about it than pretty much anything else I think between religion politics and nutrition uh you've got the most controversial areas in life and the truth is we know a lot that it doesn't have to be so controversial and there may be disagreements about the around the edges of nutrition science but for the most part it's a pretty well established field where most people really agree and people bring up controversy in order to actually sell stuff but I think we need to understand that there are certain principles that are Universal and I found what those are particularly in my travels around the blue zones which are the areas in the world where people live the longest when I discovered about nutrition there was fascinating and also what I discovered about the science of how to eat of when to eat and what to eat in order to live a long healthy life so the question is what should I eat and what should I avoid uh I've I've written lots of books about this uh from food what tech should I eat to eat fat get thin to the blood sugar solution to the vegan diet to the ultra simple diet to the 1080 detox diet I mean probably sick of me by now but I think I've distilled all of it in this book Young Forever which is really important which is answering the question what should I eat for a longevity no I've been studying this for decades and I studied I saw actually I think I first came across the whole idea of nutrition and disease when I was in college I read a book called nutrition against disease over 40 years ago that's a long time ago and it highly influenced my thinking and I've been on this path ever since um and the the truth is that there are there are really important principles that we can agree on that are foundational um we need to kind of personalize nutrition it's not that one size fits everybody but there are a few Universal principles first is whatever you're eating focus on quality you know the highest quality food is going to create the highest quality input to your biology if you're running for example your car on dirty fuel it's not going to run well if you run on premium gas it's going to run better so what is a premium gas for our bodies it's high quality food which is to find my view as the nutrient density of the food so that's phytochemical richness the fiber the vitamins and minerals the quality of the fats the quality of the protein the quality of the carbohydrates the quality of all the things in our food really matter and and that's because food is information and it's literally sending instructions with every bite to regulate every function of your body including the biological process of Aging the second thing is when you eat think about your food as medicine not just calories think of it as actually medicine that's going to heal or harm you and it can be good medicine or bad medicine so make sure you're thinking about your food as medicine and we'll talk about what that means and also personalize your approach because we're all different we're all different genetically metabolically we're different in terms of our preferences our culture what we like what we don't like it's important to personalize your approach to diet there's no one size fits all so and also by the way uh your needs for in change over time these changes you age so it's important to make sure you focus on what works now I jokingly called my approach to eating the Pagan diet which was basically a joke because there were so many diet Wars and I was on a panel with a cardiologist who was a vegan another doctor was a Paleo doctor they were fighting I'm like wow if you're vegan and you're pale you must be P again everybody laughed thought it was a good joke but then I realized it has some staying power because they're really the same in terms of their principles except for where you get protein right equal quality lots of fruits and vegetables lots of nuts and seeds good quality fats no no processed food sugar and starch are not so great for you you know really simple principles that we can all agree on and and the whole idea is that it's inclusive flexible framework that's built on quality principles but based on your food is medicine and based on personalization and it's designed to be low glycemic low unstarch and sugar because those Drive aging as we talked about in the last podcast Don Young Forever it's rich in good fats which we need for our health it's anti-inflammatory it's detoxifying it balances your hormones it boosts your metabolic health and energy it heals your gut microbiome these are things we know how to do with food we can we know what foods are detoxifying which foods are anti-inflammatory which foods help your microbiome which foods balance your hormones it's not that hard we have the science of this so you want a nutrient-dense diet that's rich in a whole host of phytochemicals that we now know are critical and activating some of these longevity switches and Pathways in the body things like polyphenols and antioxidants and also need to help our micro a biome which is really important so we can eat foods that regenerate human health and also planetary Health which are really not separable I mean we really have to understand our bodies are part of the earth we are the earth the earth is us and if we're growing food this is showing the planet that food's also destroying us think of like all the corn fields and the processed soy and the and the you know immense amounts of of ultra processed food that comes from wheat corn and soy that are killing us but also harming the planet by our industrial agriculture so it's all all these are principles are are really important in terms of of what we should be eating so um let's talk about what we should eat from the Plant World well pretty much everything our most of our diet should be plants lots and lots of plant foods with lots of colors lots of variety and lots of diversity and even wild food so most of your plates should be veggies 70 80 percent and lots of colors right non-starchy veggies are the best but sometimes winter squash sweet potatoes are fine in moderation if you're not diabetic uh lots of colors green Blues purples yellows oranges all that stuff try organic when you can regenive when possible which is being more available eating wild Foods when you can which are way higher in phytochemicals use the dirty dozen and Clean 15 lists from the environmental working group ewg.org so you can learn which foods you can consume that aren't all contaminated with pesticides and some foods like bananas or avocados doesn't matter so much because you can peel them but things like strawberries are terrible if he that are not organic really important so we can we can really upgrade our diet by focusing on a nutrient dense colorful uh diet full of plants and I mean if you can grow your own grade if you go to farmer's market grade if you can get them from a community of course agriculture system that's great um but the closer they are to their original heirloom forms the closer they are to being grown in a way that is is actually regenerative and organic much much better for you uh what about fruit fruits great fruit isn't bad it's what you eat um that's that's got fructose in it that's not fruit like high fructose corn syrup that's bad so you know for some of us uh who are diabetic or very overweight you got to be careful more careful with things like uh for example bananas or pineapples or grapes which are Super sugary you stick with more berries and Kiwis and watermelon those tend to be be lower glycemic but make sure you if you're going to eat fruit you eat the whole food you don't eat obviously on an empty stomach or fruit juice which is terrible because that actually can absorb sugar more dry food not a good thing for most people it's like think of it as candy it's okay A little bit but not too much if you're not sure about how food's affecting you you can use a continuous glucose monitor and this they're going to become more and more available there's a company called levels that I'm an advisor for and basically where this patch on your arm and it can measure your blood sugar continuously and you'll be surprised oh God you know I don't know if I eat plums my blood sugar goes off the chart but if I eat a you know a strawberry I'm fine so I think we we can learn a lot about how our individual bodies respond to different things by by using these continuous glucose monitors next up is fat what should we eat in terms of fat well I've written a book about this heat packet then but basically you want fat from Whole Foods nuts seeds avocados pasta Rich eggs small fatty fish like sardines mackerel Herring anchovies um certain processed foods are fine the olive oil is a processed food extra virgin olive oil you know made in a special way that doesn't degrade the oil important make sure you don't leave it out in the light avocado oil can be used for higher heat cooking I mean I think coconut oil can be fine organic extraversion but for example I'm going to call lean mass hyper responder where they've got I'm very lean but my body doesn't like as much saturated fat so if I eat too much that's your fat I Spike my cholesterol and many people don't I've had people drop their cholesterol 100 points eating a diet of coconut oil and butter it really depends on your own biology so it's important to check that lots of nuts and seeds they're great for weight loss diabetes heart disease dementia they're full of minerals they've got protein they've got good fats lots of fiber what should you eat almonds walnuts pecans hazelnuts Macadamia pumpkin seeds Chia hemp sesame seeds all great include those in your diet everything I had a salad the other day I put avocados I put olive oil I put pumpkin seeds in it um what about meat uh well that's really controversial I could do literally a three-hour podcast just on me I'm not going to don't worry at least not right now uh but uh you know meat is not bad if you're eating industrial meat that's bad if you're eating factory farm meat that's bad if you're eating meat or dairy from animals that have been raised in ways that are destroying the environment and the climate that's bad but if you're eating meat that's regenerative or eating wild animals for example your hunter deer or elk um if you're eating animals that eat more of a natural diet of grass and a wide variety of plants they actually can be rich in phytochemicals they can be anti-inflammatory they can be very important and it's important to get quality protein as you age because you lose muscle so it's really critical that you don't have a deficit of protein as you get older because one of the keys to longevity is keeping muscle and the only way to build muscle is with other protein or other muscle muscle is the best way to gain muscle eating muscle which is essentially meat so I think it's important you can actually supplement with plant protein uh Plantronics can't work for example um I'm in Costa Rica now one of the blue zones and I couldn't find the goat whey protein alike but they had this plant protein but it was sort of jacked up it actually it was jacked up with extra amino acids and extra leucine so it had 30 grams of protein but it had two and a half grams of leucine which is important for building muscle so you can hack plant proteins but it's much harder to use those for for building building muscle if you're going to eat meat make sure it's regenerative grass-fed organic when possible uh better for you better for the planet more Humane and and you can get these now there's a lot of places force of nature or wild pastures North Star bison I mean you can get a lot of these incredible online services that will ship to you directly and aren't really that expensive so really important what about eggs eggs are okay don't be afraid of eggs even though they have cholesterol that's been debunked even the dietary guidelines have gotten rid of that recommendation their great source of protein vitamins B12 lots of choline which is great for your brain liver obviously by pasture-raised age when possible really important not pasteurized but pasture raised what about fish fish is great unfortunately polluted the oceans most fish is full of microplastics and and and and uh and Mercury there was a company that I recently found out about called ciptopia.fish City Fish when they've sourced agriculture that's regenerative it's clean fish that's tested for every metal is super low so I think it's important there's also small fish you can eat like anchovies mackerel Herring um uh and and uh sardines which people don't like but I love them um what about what about grains and beans grains and beans are okay but it depends on your biology if you are a diabetic if you're massively overweight if you have trouble with belly fat you might want to go for a short time without them because they can actually trigger insulin Spike you have to be careful and you can wear a continuous glucose monitor see what happens oh I have a cup of rice what happens or I have you know pasta what happens you can see what happens as you eat these Foods instead of just guessing and and rather than uh you know be connected to some ideology look at your own biology and find out what's really going on inside of you so if you're going to eat grains eat whole grains not whole grain flowers like you know you can eat black rice quinoa TEF buckwheat Emily and Harvey buckwheat is amazing you can you can actually get these ancient forms of wheat like and corn wheat everweed if you're if you're not Gluten Sensitive so lots of these are fine be sure not to overdose on them because even you know a lot of grains can be trouble if unless you're just exercising like crazy then you can tolerate more carbohydrate same thing with beans you know beans are great uh make sure you cook them right you need to pressure cook them soak them you can cook them with kombu which is a seaweed that prevents some of the gassy stuff going on um they have lectins they have phytates which can be modified by how you cook them but but I think most time it's okay to eat being this part of your diet and a lot of longevity Blue Zone seeds a lot of beans and they're fine like minestrone soup which they eat in Sardinia what about sugar well sugar is pretty much the devil if you want to live a long time not to say do I never eat sugar no I eat sugar I promise you but I make sure I exercise plenty I eat it in a way that that minimizes any spike in blood sugar by eating it sort of it with food that's got fat and protein and fiber um but be careful um if you are in some resistant at all if your insulin level is over five and you can check that with your doctor you go to functionhealth.com it's a company I co-founded to look at lab testing you can actually measure your insulin level but it's over five I'd be very careful with eating too much um Sergeant sugar in your diet I mean below the neck your body can't tell the difference between a bowl of cereal of corn flakes and a you know bowl of sugar so think of think of um pretty much anything that turns the sugar in the same way uh be careful of liquid sugar calories they're everywhere whether sodas or caffeinated tea seeds that are sweet teas uh coffee would walk in the junk in it I mean it's everywhere fruit juice is terrible don't drink food what about oil as well I would encourage people to eliminate most processed oils uh I think there's some controversy about this but you know if you want to use a little sesame oil or Macadamia while oils are fine avocado oil is great for cooking but stay away from canola safflower sunflower grapeseed corn oil soybean oil we've not eaten these for most of our evolutionary history and we should be eating more of our traditional fats particularly Whole Food fats which we talked about what about Dairy well I would say most conventional air we should not be eating goat and cheaper tend to be better there's A2 casein which is a different form of casein in the in the sheep and goat that doesn't cause much inflammation or issues um so you want to you know if you're going to do that most people tolerate that better like goat yogurt sheep yogurt goat cheese sheep cheese if you want to eat dairy a lot of people don't do Bond Dairy I encourage you often to do elimination to see how they feel but it can cause congest congestion sinus issues asthma digestive issues acne I mean a lot of stuff so make sure you're aware of what you're doing and also all the nut milks and all that stuff be careful because those can have a lot of sugar in them so lastly let's talk about what we should not eat right we should eat stuff that's not food right packaged food processed food all these color size shapes of chemical excluded in chemically extruded colorful food-like substances just you know don't eat them whether it's Twizzlers or Oreo cookies they don't grow on trees basic rule is if God didn't make it don't eat it if man made it if God if God if man made it probably not a good idea to eat it right so I talked about this a lot but get away from foods with with pesticides herbicides antibiotics hormones processed ingredients chemicals added dyes artificial sweeteners they're just just not good for us and there's no reason to eat them and that's really the the basic foundational principles of nutrition I encourage you to read my book the peak and diet for more the Young Forever book is really where I go into how these things affect longevity particularly what phytochemicals and we talk about a lot of them like if I see in in strawberries or epic Galactic catechins and green tea or cumer and turmeric or urethane that comes from Pomegranate or or um or various things like ludiolin and Corson that come from Himalayan tarry buckwheat there's all sorts of science about how these phytochemicals interact with their longevity Pathways if you love that last video you're going to love the next one check it out here uh even the right kinds of fat signals actually help you lose weight in fact the uh there are 53 randomized controlled trials looking at high fat diets versus low-fat diets and every time the high fat diet speed out the low fat diets for weight loss

Channel: Mark Hyman, MD

Views: 63,001

Keywords: Mark Hyman, Mark Hyman interview, Mark Hyman live longer, Mark Hyman diet, how to live longer, how to age in reverse, nutrition tips, healthy foods, health tips, health theory, fasting tips, how to never get sick again, prevent disease, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, inspiration, motivation

Id: 2TnJKFEojQY

Length: 17min 15sec (1035 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 27 2023