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Food is Medicine or Poison
13 Plays1 day ago
Running into a lot of conflicting dietary advice? Eating--it seems like one of the simplest and most basic human activities. We've been doing it forever and today loading up your plate is easier than ever. But what should be on that plate seems to be a perpetual question. In this series of episodes we lay a foundation for our conversations around food based on an understanding that has been around for 4,000 years and is just as relevant today as it was centuries ago.
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Transcript
Introduction and Health Overview
00:00:10
Speaker
All right, we're back with Voices on the Mountain. It's been a little while since we sat down in our podcast booths and got to chatting about stuff. And your mountain's getting toastier.
00:00:21
Speaker
ah Yeah, are my mountain's very ah very active volcanically and this year. So if you haven't been out to the Big Island to witness the glory of Pele. The voices are booming.
00:00:32
Speaker
Yeah, now's a good year too. So today I wanted to ask you about dietary
Personalized Diet and Exercise
00:00:38
Speaker
stuff. You know, last year we did that are the herb program, which was fantastic. I learned so much.
00:00:43
Speaker
Very grateful for how much I learned last year. It's a whole nother level. So thank you for that. Heck yeah, man. You did great. And throughout that, ah we were kind of always kind of touching on dietary stuff or things that don't qua quite qualify as herbs or if they're just a food or a superfood.
00:01:01
Speaker
And I wanted to try to condense that down into what will probably be one very long episode.
00:01:10
Speaker
I love it. So to start off with, what do you find yourself repeating in the clinical setting telling people what they should or should not do dietary-wise? Yeah, that's and it's so key. So, you know, it varies based on um what we're dealing with, constitution stuff, what condition or disease we're working with.
00:01:30
Speaker
But I mean, if people really do ah basically get a good handle on their diet, their exercise, It sounds simple because, you know, from Western medicine, they're like, hey, my diet and exercise are great.
00:01:43
Speaker
Are they really? Because we don't think diet and exercise are the same for everybody, right? So like someone comes in with tight muscles and they have pain everywhere. And and then they're like, but I crushed the gym like six times a week doing weightlifting. and you're like, great. You are, you know, we totally applaud your effort, but that's not what ne works for you.
00:02:01
Speaker
Um, so anyway, when people say diet and exercise, it's not as simple in practice to just
Diet’s Role in Healing and Inflammation
00:02:06
Speaker
say that's perfect. But if people can find what works for their body and what works for their situation and condition, I mean, i always tell people we, right. If had everybody exercised properly and stretched and all that stuff, 20 patients, we'd see like 60% less.
00:02:20
Speaker
If everyone ate properly, organ dysfunction, we'd see like 50% less. So it's such a huge component, right? If there's even a phrase in Chinese, that's basically like, um,
00:02:31
Speaker
going butcher the, I'm paraphrasing it, but it's roughly like, you know, the doctor can treat 60%. No, I think he actually is 40% of the disease. The other 60% is how do you convalesce and at home? How do you support that? What are the daily things you're doing for and against that treatment?
00:02:46
Speaker
So it really, you know, let's just call it 50-50 since I can't remember the quote exactly, but it's just a big, big portion, right? So like, for instance, if you're trying to clear inflammation and they're eating a high inflammatory diet,
00:02:59
Speaker
you are just on an uphill battle. And it works. It can, ah assuming they're like really compliant, they stick with it, but it'll take two, three times longer than it should. Right. And maybe not so compliant if they're eating the high inflammation diet.
00:03:15
Speaker
Right. Well, sometimes they'll be like, I'll choke down any herbs you give me as long as I can have chocolate cake every night or something. Right. Or continue drinking or whatever else it is. Yeah. That's us. You're right. That is such a big one for some people.
00:03:27
Speaker
And I need to figure out how to, I you know try as as much as I can to be empathetic about it, but alcohol just doesn't matter to me. And I realized that's not true for everybody else. And so I'm like, okay, let's work with this. you know yeah Of all the things to give up, that just feels like an easy one for me.
00:03:44
Speaker
But of course, everyone's got their own thing. you know For sure. and I think When I run into it, I often see it as they, at some point in their life, they gave alcohol the work to do for them emotionally, processing or whatever.
00:04:01
Speaker
And they've been self-medicating since then. i think what I try to do is ah hopefully they feel empowered by but what the the tools that we build with them. And then it's not as hard to to stop drinking or you feel a little bit more ah capable.
Herbs and Alcohol's Impact on Health
00:04:18
Speaker
100% man, you're so right. And just like so many of the things we start leaning on as crutches once we get, you know, so used to them. There's also the difficulty of had like, it's not easy. It doesn't feel easy for sure to get off those things for first of all motivation stuff, but then there's like withdrawal stuff, you know?
00:04:34
Speaker
Everyone I know who drinks two to three drinks you know a day or night or whatever, when they're getting off of that, they're going to have problems everywhere, like difficulty sleeping and different sort of things. And then the that in and of itself, they're like, well, why am I stopping this thing that's supposedly bad for me if I don't feel good right now?
00:04:55
Speaker
because So getting over that little withdrawal hump is a little bit tough. Totally. Man, herbs come in clutch. That's what I was going to say. That's where we kind come in with spades because that transition smooths out so much if the liver fires tamp down while they're...
00:05:12
Speaker
while they took out their liver mover. And if you can move their liver for them, then and they're gonna be less pissy at you. So true. Take away their bottle. So true. and as And sometimes even more than, cause you're absolutely right about moving, you gotta do that. and But like, it's an interesting one. Like how come when people are used to like two, maybe three drinks at night with, you know, and they sleep okay with that, how how is it that like when you take, they take that alcohol away that they actually have difficulty falling asleep now?
00:05:40
Speaker
It's kind of interesting because if you think about it from our perspective, alcohol is a mover, right? It's definitely heat. So all alcohol is hot. and So it tastes hot. It burns when going down if it's strong enough. So it's all hot and it's all damp because it's all liquid. So in this case, just we call it damp heat, right? or because it's sugar.
00:05:58
Speaker
That's very true too. And it comes from grains. That's a huge component. Yeah. So we got damp heat and then, you know, different kinds of alcohol are more or less on the damp, more or less on the heat side.
00:06:09
Speaker
But the trick is like one of my patients, I would treat him for prostate stuff and he gave him alcohol, which is totally great. Started exercising more. He's just like really on a good trajectory, but he was having difficulty sleeping when he came in that week. And we just, tweetaked I just tweaked his formula. I'd never given him
Dietary Changes and Long-Term Benefits
00:06:26
Speaker
much for, if anything, I've actually just descended his liver. So he has a little liver young rising anyway.
00:06:31
Speaker
um And so I just added in Swansha Rentong for the first time. And it was only like, it was something really small. it was like 15% of the formula. That was it. He slept great. And then I just, you know, left it at that for a week or two and then just phased it out and he was totally fine.
00:06:47
Speaker
But it was like, it was interesting. And I may have moved a little more with Xiangfu or something because want to move without elevating. So I don't, maybe I did. I i don't think I chai would have because again, that elevating component, but yeah.
00:06:58
Speaker
yeah So anyway, yeah, that transition part's really key. So ah yeah, what, The original question would be like, what do you find yourself repeating most often? What do wish everyone knew maybe before they even came in?
00:07:12
Speaker
yeah Go around with a big sign and wave it in people's face. What would it say? True. So anybody who's spent any time with me knows I'm kind of a big anti-inflammatory diet kind of guy.
00:07:24
Speaker
So I don't like saying keto because keto has a bazillion definitions now. but I am low carb. And I think the trick is low inflammation doesn't fix everything. It really doesn't.
00:07:36
Speaker
Weirdly, there's a very few small demographic. There's very few people that I would actually encourage to eat carbs, but they're very few and far between in modern society. And when we talk about carbs, of course, we're going to break down which carbs.
00:07:48
Speaker
Some carbs are always good for everybody. and Those would be kind of it kind of teaser there, but that's the fiber. And then there's differences between other things, between the starches and sugars and various issues of that.
00:08:00
Speaker
So we'll get to that later. But the key is most things benefit from less inflammation. So that's number one, I would say. And so a low inflammatory diet is going to help most things. It's not always the crux, but it's also great.
00:08:14
Speaker
Like maybe you're treating something that really isn't very connected to inflammation. You still don't want it there, you know? Right. So that's a biggie. Two is I do like it when people don't, I don't necessarily think everyone needs to intermittent fast, but I do think it's great when they give their um digestive tract a break.
00:08:31
Speaker
And so what I mean is they don't, they don't have to be fasting even 10 hours a day necessarily, but some people are, you know, they're not even fasting eight hours. They're taking like, they're having a snack, like literally minutes before they go to bed.
00:08:46
Speaker
And then they eat minutes after they wake up. Like they're maybe getting seven or eight hours of break in their digestive tract. And that's just not healthy for a digestion. It's really hard for a liver to do its job then. and it's really hard for a spleen to get a break.
00:09:01
Speaker
So I do think that everybody kind of needs at least, so I would say actually about at least of a 10 hour break, which is, I think really normal. And then i wouldn't even call it intermittent fasting. It's just sleeping without eating. Right.
00:09:13
Speaker
And then did maybe getting up to 12 if they feel comfortable to that, you know, flexible, but. It's just generally if people get in the habit of that, because I do think that there if most of society is going to suffer from too much or too little food, most of us are eating too much.
00:09:29
Speaker
Gotcha. And, you know, earlier you said kind of talked about this 50-50 with um kind of the work that you're doing in clinic and and what they're doing at home. If someone's not doing herbs with you, but they are going to take on your dietary recommendations and it is a ah condition that is is more focused around their diet.
00:09:50
Speaker
hmm. What kind of efficacy are you expecting and how long are you waiting for for them to see effects? That's a great one. I mean, if we want to get real specific, we'd probably go like category by category, case by case.
00:10:02
Speaker
But like, let's just take the generic again, low inflammatory diet. So I kind of gave this a nickname because I was trying to set, like set myself, like set aside my recommendations from a standard or whatever. I don't even think there is a standard keto thing.
00:10:18
Speaker
Um, because if you look up keto online, some people like, just eat cheese day in and day out, just eat lots of cheese. And I don't have anything
Critique of Fad Diets
00:10:26
Speaker
against dairy and cheese if you process it. All right.
00:10:29
Speaker
Um, But sure don't think people should eat exclusively cheese. yeah so that's really like I've literally there was there was this one couple who's kind of famous in the keto world, I think.
00:10:40
Speaker
I think they kind of got a YouTube channel early on or something. I just remember one of them being like, i just don't eat vegetables. I was like, that is dumb. That's the immediate bad diet. Whatever diet that says they don't eat vegetables is just bad.
00:10:54
Speaker
like I'm happy. you know you People can throw rocks or stones or whatever. that That is a universal thing. If you do not eat vegetables, you you will die sooner.
00:11:05
Speaker
Dude, I've had someone just two weeks ago came in and they were like, oh, I'm starting like an all carnivore diet. And I was like, whoa, I don't know, man. ah was like, you know, here's what to pay attention to. But, you know, I'm not going to tell them not to do it. I just tell them when it stops working, it's because of the diet and start eating something else. Yeah. And I believe when you mean stop working, you're talking about their kidneys, right? Because like...
00:11:30
Speaker
People think like, oh I'm just going to like invest a little more in my my food, just only buy meat. And you're like, it's not a monetary thing, man. It's literally an organ function thing. Like you will kill your organs faster.
00:11:44
Speaker
Well, I figured they're also missing like minerals and like all that. So many. Yeah. Okay. So many. And like the food stagnation that comes from that and literally the putrefaction of that. And then they're absorbing all, it's just like, there's, and not to mention the negatives against the world, right? Like the environmental impacts of that and the ecological ones.
00:12:04
Speaker
It's just a disaster on so many levels. But Pure, yeah if you're not even caring about the environment at all, which is, you know, some people do, some people don't, I guess. But it's just from a physiological point of view. it's It's absolutely disaster.
00:12:19
Speaker
And like, look it up, right? Like, look at all these like really famous diets, like the Atkins diet and all this stuff. Atkins was not a healthy dude. No. So if the people who invented these diets didn't find health with them, I think people
Chinese Medicine and Dietary Experiments
00:12:32
Speaker
should check in more with them. So yeah, always high vegetables, whatever that is.
00:12:37
Speaker
And oh let me give you one, you know just to be kind of my own devil's advocate, I guess here is. There is one time I would recommend, i could see myself recommending a carnivore diet. One time, and it's for a very limited amount of time.
00:12:51
Speaker
I would never do it for more than, say, six to eight weeks. And this is, again, almost never. i don't even know if I've ever have said this, but it makes sense if people have SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, to maybe go full carnivore for like six or eight weeks.
00:13:08
Speaker
But the reason is, and this is such an important reason that they need to have in their mind, is they are starving out their own microbiome. That's the point is to destroy your own microbiome by starving it of anything that they would eat.
00:13:22
Speaker
So when people think about going on this long term, I'm like, this is called the tummy death diet, right? You are literally killing your own microbiome with it. Wow. But it's because bacterial overgrowth is too much bacteria. So if maybe it is good to kind of mow it down a little bit.
00:13:37
Speaker
Sure. Or just give them some baiju. Exactly. So way better methods. than And their kidneys are going to be so much happier. That's my big thing with the big high-protein diets.
00:13:48
Speaker
You see people a lot of times. I mean, hey you i recommend nobody, like unless they're like The Rock, like unless they're like 6'5 and a bazillion and 20 pounds,
00:13:59
Speaker
Nobody needs more than 75 grams of protein a day. I just don't think your kidneys want to process that. oh yeah Maybe if they're really heavy lifting, they could push it a little higher. But I see a lot of like retired people. Like I have one retired lady. She's under 100 pounds.
00:14:15
Speaker
And she was recommended by her doctor to eat over 100 grams of protein a day. because Because he saw her and wanted her to put on muscle mass. yes Right.
00:14:26
Speaker
Exactly. but But the body has to process it first to put on the muscle mass. Totally. And what's what's happening? like The amount of nitrogenous waste coming out of that diet is just going to wreck a kidney so fast.
00:14:41
Speaker
You know, it's just wearing it down because the more nitrogen you produce, which is all protein, this is going to produce some nitrogenous waste. The more you produce, the more your kidneys have to filter. And you're just asking them to do double time.
00:14:53
Speaker
Nobody wants to wear down their kidney function, you know. Yeah. I mean, this kind of also dovetails nicely with another thought that I have often, which is um ah diets are very fatty. Fatty with a D. Got it.
00:15:09
Speaker
They come and go, and there's been a lot. And we've 180 on cholesterol, and we've yeah maybe 180 back again. Or, you know, there's kind of the Western science behind diet is really all over the place. Yes.
00:15:25
Speaker
to have Chinese medicine still relevant 2000 years later, making the same recommendations that it would for specific people, uh, is nice because it it's worked and there's no, don't know. It's like a, the fads are all like real time science experiments with a voluntary mess of people who are following it and all over the spectrum of, of, you know, is that diet actually right for them? So,
00:15:53
Speaker
I love that point. I love that point. And I think it's fine. You know, it's fun to experiment on yourself as long as you know what you're doing. Like meaning you have to acknowledge that. Yeah. Okay. I'll try this fatty diet again, double D not double T that I'm, I'm okay if it doesn't go right because I'm part of the experiment.
00:16:12
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So when someone does take on an experiment, ah how long should they give that experiment? A month, two months?
Natural Healing and Aging
00:16:21
Speaker
When are they like looking to see a beneficial change or a non-beneficial change?
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah. would I think would depend a little bit on like what we're looking for. like are we looking for changes in their energy? Are we looking for changes in energy? dampness in the lower burner or like ah accumulation.
00:16:37
Speaker
We are going muggles on this one. So I'm going to clarify that for everybody who doesn't know what those things are. So like maybe they're starting to have more built up of fluids um in their lower abdomen and kind of lower part of their body.
00:16:52
Speaker
And you might see that by urination not working quite as well or um basically Yeah. The subtleties of it we'll save for later, but urination not working as well. um If it's damp heat, they might find that they're like sweating a little more in those regions.
00:17:06
Speaker
Swamp ass. Swamp ass. That's right. um So different things are like that. But ah if you're going for like, I would say like, let's say the average of most diet effects, we should start seeing some effect within a week.
00:17:21
Speaker
Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. because But, and you know, again... What effect does vary pretty notably. Here's and here's a fun one. Like um for all of those people who are prone to wind heat, which means if you're getting colds, flus, anything external, if you tend to get a sore throat as one of your primary symptoms, basically all the time.
00:17:43
Speaker
Some people never get sore throats. They just never are prone to that. Those people are probably not prone to wind heat. But if they're like, whatever happens, COVID, otherwise, I know it's coming in with a sore throat because that's what every single thing happens that way.
00:17:57
Speaker
you are prone to the wind heat, which means your constitution is probably tends warmer. um Oftentimes damp heat, potentially dry heat. I'd say damp more because of the stagnation. when we're talking about sore throat, we're really talking about what's called stagnated or toxic heat.
00:18:11
Speaker
Anyway, the point here is if you're prone to that and you start eating a low inflammatory diet, This is an effect that you probably feel two or three months in the future, which is you basically, mean, you cut down on getting sick like 300% or some huge number.
00:18:30
Speaker
And it's to the point where you're like, oh yeah, like I kind of remember I would used to get a tickle in the throat from eating those things. But instead of a tickle, it used to be a raging sore throat. And now you're like, oh, well then I'll just...
00:18:42
Speaker
yeah even less inflammatory for a day and it's gone. So it's so helpful for not getting those bouts of inflammation. always kind of tell people too, like what's a long-term goal of eating well?
00:18:54
Speaker
And let's go ahead and put exercising well in this too, is your body heals like you think it should.
Vegetable Importance and Carbohydrate Management
00:19:00
Speaker
I'm sure you feel this all the time, right? You get patients in like, how come I'm not healing like I used to? And I'm not like yeah moving like I think I should be able to.
00:19:10
Speaker
Well, because you're damaging yourself all the time and just shifting those two things of diet and exercise, doing them better according to what you as an individual need, which we can help people kind of figure out what their types are and stuff too, their constitutions, everything else.
00:19:26
Speaker
But doing those two better really makes that so much more effective. You're like, oh, my body does function how I kind of expected it to. And there's an aging process, of course, but some people age so damn gracefully, you know, and it's that I think it's because they're doing those things right.
00:19:41
Speaker
Yeah, it kind of feels like a multiplier in ways where if you get their body their their day-to-day stuff, the the diet, lifestyle, exercise, working in the right direction on top of treatments. It's like, well, now everything's kind of pushing you in the right direction.
00:19:58
Speaker
That's right. um And another pitch that will always give them is like, this is the stuff that will keep you from coming back to me or even sitting at Western Doc. And you want to, you're a frugal, which a lot of times ah is a thing out here, I'm like,
00:20:12
Speaker
you do this stuff every day, you know, for the next couple of months, do it for the next couple of years and you're going to be in a different space. I love it. You know, I, you brought up a really good point, which is, I think Chinese medicine is frugal by nature.
00:20:26
Speaker
Oh, it's so cheap. Yeah. would do So cheap. It's so true though. But I mean, have you heard that? Who's that comedian? He's the Canadian born Indian guy.
00:20:39
Speaker
He's got ah just so good of accents. and forget Anyway, listen to him talk about like the toughest situation is ah Indian person buying something from a Chinese vendor. Because the Indian person will never buy it if it's not on sale. The Chinese person will never sell it to you if it is on sale.
00:20:56
Speaker
So it's just fighting over 10 cents. But the point here is it's like part of the reason Chinese medicine has been so useful and and sustainable for literally at least 4,000 years, at least.
00:21:08
Speaker
you know A lot of our books are 2000 years old, but you look at those books and those had to have been formulated at least 1000. Xiao Chai Utang did not. and It was not Shang Han Lun when that was invented.
00:21:20
Speaker
It was already perfect by the time they recorded it. um So how long does it take to perfect that? Anyway, um so you know if you think about it, like I mean, shoot, even within like my teachers,
00:21:33
Speaker
They were like, ah but so what is that, 30 years now? I guess that's more closer to 40 years ago. Their herbs would cost like a dollar a bag in China. wow Not even actually, because a dollar our dollar was seven of their yuan.
00:21:46
Speaker
And it would be, so it'd be like 50 cents for a bag. Oh my God. Yeah. And of course now it's, um it's impossible. Now it's like 40 bucks, 50 bucks for a set of bags, you know, a couple of bags of herbs or something there.
00:21:56
Speaker
But um it used, and this is within one generation. It used to be like pennies for, you know, a bag of herbs to the point where sometimes the more wealthy patients would like scoff at my teachers or my teacher's teacher's herbs.
00:22:11
Speaker
They'd be like, you realize that, but do you remember that one? Yeah, what was it? though It's one of the only times they used grain. Was it just just like barley? What was it? Oh, for, I think that one was jirza chertang.
00:22:25
Speaker
um But yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was the beans. I think you were talking about Yeah. the The fermented soybeans. Exactly. Because that formula only has two herbs. It's jirza, which is like gardenia bulb, and dandochir, which is this like fermented,
00:22:41
Speaker
black soybean. But so like they came in with that presentation. Shang Han Lun would say, treat him with that formula. So the doctor, this is my teacher's teacher, the Shang Han Lun teacher's teacher.
00:22:52
Speaker
And so he wrote the prescription and gave it to this kind of rich guy. And the guy scoffed it. It was like, you, I've been to like every expert in, in Beijing and you think like beans are going to fix my problem.
00:23:04
Speaker
So first of all, who scoffs at the Xiangling scholar's face and still filled the formula because he needed help. We came back next week and felt better. And you're like, like, why would you not like that?
00:23:16
Speaker
We're giving you the answer cheaper. Yeah. yeah we We're like, no, but it must be hard and expensive because I am hard and expensive. Yeah. That's a really good point. Yeah, they want to be special. and Exactly, right.
00:23:29
Speaker
And then like so many things about, you know, Chinese medicine is about like, well, just do this qigong. That doesn't cost anything. You wake up and do your qigong every day and you have less problems and you feel less pain and things are better.
00:23:42
Speaker
The whole medicine-less hospital thing. Yeah. Which, don't know, is there better, at least in English, there's not great um records of that kind of stuff that I've been able to find. Because i know there was, there was like two, maybe one in the 70s and one in the 80s or something that were treating all sorts of...
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah, they're treating all sorts of diseases um just with Qigong. And they're I don't know what they were defining their treatment rate as. Like what what was their qualifications, just getting better or like total remission of whatever disease they were in.
00:24:16
Speaker
But they're treating all sorts of stuff and everyone was getting better. So it's kind of like, and then they shut it down. but that in the States? No, it was in China. That's what I asking. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:24:27
Speaker
um There are, and there, i don't know about the, that's an interesting one, a me medicine-less one. Then there are just pure Chinese medicine hospitals, but they're pretty few and far between now. Clinics everywhere, but that whole hospital would be tougher.
00:24:41
Speaker
Right. um I think ever since the integration, right, it was, you're reliable more if you're using funky herbs instead of a pill. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And the integration has some pros and cons, but yeah.
00:24:54
Speaker
We could talk about that someday too. I was just going to say, this conversation reminds me how backwards it is that for for most people, we are their last ah resort yeah when really the cheap, affordable, non-invasive, no side effect medicine should should be the first thing that you try.
00:25:12
Speaker
true. And it's we're just, I don't know what to tell people, but and I guess if you're listening this, you probably already know, but but most other people need to know that where we're really good first option instead of the last option.
00:25:25
Speaker
That is so 100. And in China, they would even rank within Chinese medicine, Chinese medicine still being the first for Western, is see if Tuina can fix it. If Tuina can't fix it, see if acupuncture can fix it. If acu can't fix it, see if herbs can fix it.
00:25:40
Speaker
yeah It's generally considered in that. And I think that's a generic thought process because I think the better practitioner method would be which met with which modality fits it better. sure I'm not expecting the general public to know like, oh, well,
00:25:58
Speaker
is there a difference between cervical spondylosis and ankylosing spondylosis and which one, you know, is that better? Accu or is that better herbs? Like nobody's going to know that unless they've treated those before. Right. Yeah, totally. That's one of the reasons I don't do the, some people do the a la carte.
00:26:12
Speaker
They'll split up their kind of modalities and price points for everything. And I'm just like, you, you pay me and I'll treat you for an hour and whatever you need, you get that point. Minus, minus the herbs, the herbs got to pay over.
00:26:25
Speaker
first Yeah. Of course. Yeah. And it's true. it It ties our hands back a lot less um because people don't need people are coming to us because we're the expert.
00:26:35
Speaker
So they don't really know what they need from us. They just need to feel better. Right. Right. And they might know that they like cupping, but, and I love cupping people, but sometimes people will ask for it and I'm like, God, it's not quite appropriate right now.
00:26:49
Speaker
Back to the, to the dietary stuff, which don't know if we've talked about it all so far. um So let's do, all right. So everyone should be eating veggies. So what are veggies doing for, for your body?
00:27:04
Speaker
And then for our, from our perspective in Chinese medicine, Totally. So um as we go through these groups, um I'm going to try and give people like a ah mental picture, a mental pie chart.
00:27:17
Speaker
Oh, by the way, don't eat pie. But a mental pie chart. No, you can eat Just sweeten it with something else. And make the c crust out of something different. Okay, don't eat pie.
00:27:29
Speaker
Just don't eat a lot of pie, maybe. Yeah, and I'll tell you how to – I'd recommend making that pie if you want. Okay. um Because funny enough, I eat chocolate cake a lot.
00:27:41
Speaker
It's pretty easy to make in a really convenient way. And really healthy way, obviously, because that's the whole point of this, right? So ah let's start with veggies because sometimes I think it's easier to aim for what you should do instead of what you shouldn't.
00:27:55
Speaker
It's good to know both. sure yeah And so like, that's another huge thing about what I would call instead of keto, i was making a, was trying to make a different name that was fun and acronym. So I went Lindo or Linda, but because I think it's also cute because doesn't that mean pretty in Spanish, but it also means like,
00:28:13
Speaker
think Linda is pretty in Spanish. Anyway, so I was going the low inflammation, nutrient dense option or alternative, depending on how you want to end that.
00:28:23
Speaker
but You pick the end of your your your pronouns, I guess. So the key here is let's go for the nutrient dense component. We'll talk about low inflammation when we talk about some of these other groups. The nutrient dense component is so, so dependent on vegetables.
00:28:38
Speaker
um That's how we're getting a lot of our therapeutic effect, and that's how we're going to get a ton of our vitamins and minerals. And i don't I don't really know anyone in their right mind in any country that has information like and Flow that wouldn't agree that vitamins and minerals are not essential for health.
00:28:57
Speaker
I don't take any
Balancing Diet to Reduce Inflammation
00:28:59
Speaker
synthetic ones. I just try and get literally all of them from food or occasionally... ah like a super food, if you want to call that, right?
00:29:08
Speaker
Sure. So, which I guess you could kind of say is a food-based supplement or something like that. So anyway, ah when it comes to veggies, what are so key is number one is they're full fiber.
00:29:18
Speaker
And so you can, you know, there's a bunch of books out there. There's like fiber fueled, I believe is one of them. And The benefits of fiber are like literally endless. And people think it's just for pooping.
00:29:29
Speaker
It is not. It's nice to poop, but it's not just for pooping. um Actually, increasing fiber is one of the two best ways to counteract inflammation. So some people are like, okay, well, what if I'm at my cousin's house and they make a cake and maybe they make it like for me or something like that.
00:29:47
Speaker
You can't be like that health nut kind of pain in the ass. I'm not going to eat the cake you just made for me. And it's true. I ate a piece of cake um two years ago. Well, a year and a half ago at Christmas.
00:29:58
Speaker
Because someone made it for you? Well, it was like, yes he but wasn't it wasn't like low inflammatory stuff. I was kind of my head was literally buzzing for over eight hours. But that's what happens when you don't eat sugar for like eight years, you know? Wow.
00:30:13
Speaker
Yeah, gets sensitive. It gets real sensitive. And it was and it was like some improved sugar a little bit. But again, we'll talk about how much of a difference that really makes. ah But the point here is, okay, so let's say you can't decrease the inflammation right now.
00:30:28
Speaker
for some host of reasons. How do you counteract the inflammation? And there's two key options, fiber and fat, both of these buffer inflammation.
00:30:40
Speaker
And I think that's really important for people to remember because everybody knows fiber is useful, even though a lot of people don't eat enough of it. And fat has a mixed reputation, but both of them will literally decrease how how much inflammation is being built by the other part of your diet.
00:30:55
Speaker
Now, ideally let's make that low inflammatory and you've got a perfect diet, right? But here it's like, okay, so fiber is not just good for the poop and it's great for lower inflammation. And then if we go beyond the fiber component, well, actually let's do a third one fuels the microbiome.
00:31:09
Speaker
So I can't tell you how many people are buying these prebiotics, just eat vegetables. You don't need them. Um, And I'm going to go ahead and put beans in this category too, because people have now started buying these supplements for oligosaccharides.
00:31:23
Speaker
And so oligosaccharides are this interesting intermediate branch of the sugars that we'll talk in about in a little bit. Maybe we'll save that for the carbs component.
00:31:34
Speaker
Anyway, so eat your beans. They're super healthy and we'll we'll talk about that too. So beans have tons of fiber as well. And these oligosaccharides that we'll get to in the sugar component of this discussion today. And then we go to all the other things you're getting, which is a booty load of minerals and vitamins.
00:31:51
Speaker
And so, so many people will ask me like, okay, well, so I get your diet, you know, as I'm explaining it to them. um But what about fruit? Can I eat fruit? And I tell them, you know, there's some variability, but they're like, but fruits full of vitamins.
00:32:06
Speaker
And I'm like less than vegetables and there's no sugar in the vegetable. So the vegetables give you just as much or more minerals and vitamins. but less sugar. So that's way preferable.
00:32:18
Speaker
um And when it comes to all the vegetables, we like all of them. um I've heard this is kind of a, this is a nice generic way is anything that's growing above the ground, you're good to go. So that's includes the squashes that includes celery, right? And grows up above the ground. Sure. Leafy greens. Exactly. The broccolis, the cauliflower, all those things, the beans, the peas,
00:32:42
Speaker
And then once it goes below ground, you have to do a little bit more investigation or know a little bit more. So when it comes to like underneath the ground, it's let's say as tap roots. So the big ones would be like carrots and... Daikon.
00:32:56
Speaker
Daikon, exactly. ah What's that white one that's like a white carrot, but it's different? Like horseradish? There's that one too. Parsnips.
00:33:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. So when it comes to the tap roots in general, ah you can have some and some of them you can just have as much as you want. So all the radishes, daikon or red, great, eat them up. And we'll talk about why they're actually one of the top five superfoods that people can really be eating.
00:33:26
Speaker
Cause I think it's easy to you know, it depends on what you need for them, but it's definitely one of the top five superfoods. I think everybody should be eating it. So the radishes. Drink green tea and eat Dicone radish.
00:33:37
Speaker
Ooh. Make your doctor angry. That's what we learned in school. it was a Chinese saying. i don't know how to say it in Chinese though. That's funny. I don't know that. It's like their version of an apple a day keeps the doctor away. it was like It's so much better because apple a day gives you diabetes.
00:33:53
Speaker
hey Yeah. Well, also making your doctor angry, like the understanding culturally that a doctor is just like a money grubbing. Totally. Yeah. That's funny. I've never heard that phrase, but it could be a very... There is a Chinese phrase that says they say, donngq shilo but sha tijuang um which is in the winter, eat radish, which when they say radish, they mean daikon.
00:34:18
Speaker
And then in the summer, eat ginger. Eat ginger. Yeah. And that's because it's so good at dispersing up blockages, specifically of fats and qi blockages and stuff that we can get to in a little bit.
00:34:29
Speaker
So that's super duper useful. And you go to like the carrots, great. Carrots are one of the best spleen-tonifying foods out there. No way. As long as you eat and a regular portion of them.
00:34:41
Speaker
So like one to two carrots a day, phenomenal. if you eat If you drink a cup of carrot juice, you now you've spiked your sugar. and Yeah, well because you took out the fiber too, right? That's what they do with the juicers.
00:34:51
Speaker
That's exactly right. So some people will juice it and then i guess cook with juice and then then use the fiber in a recipe. I don't really do that because again, the fiber is there to buffer.
00:35:03
Speaker
Well, and don't know if it's for, it's not like it's designed for us, whatever. it But the point is, is when they're together, the fiber buffers the sugar. So you're all good, but that's eating carrots, right? So that's like one to two carrots per day per person. That's totally fine.
00:35:19
Speaker
But again, going beyond that, you're now you're amping the sugar so much. But in a smaller amount, carrots actually are really quite good for the spleen. But then you get to the tubers. And the tubers, for those of you guys who are not farmers or like um ah foodies, it's the thing that dangles off the side of the roots, not the root itself.
00:35:36
Speaker
And so the little, they're like little storage cells underneath the ground. Big ones are potatoes and sweet potatoes. ah Most tubers are not our friends when we come to the veggies because they're just too, they're too rich in carbohydrates. So when I say that one, I'm mean literally talking about the starches, not the fibers.
00:35:56
Speaker
So it's not, not terrible. And, you know, as far as cheating on a carb, potatoes and sweet potatoes are probably the best quote unquote cheat, but squashes aren't don't even count as a carb. So just eat those if you can, right? So pumpkins and squashes and stuff.
00:36:09
Speaker
Remember the above ground guys, they're all totally great to go. Right. was just thinking about, because taro is a big thing out here, and we actually have red fruit or ulu, which grows off of a tree, which would, you know, in your mind, make it a fruit, but it's really just a big starchy potato. Because, you know, before we bred apples to give you diabetes, they were starchy.
00:36:33
Speaker
Totally. man And not as tasty. So that was like most foods, I think, in our evolutionary prehistory was was more difficult to process, less sweet. um And so the starch is bad in high quality high quantities. If you just have like a little bit, are we okay Because you're spiking, but it's it's not outside of a, it's not extra inflammatory range or something like that.
00:36:55
Speaker
Of which ones? The apples or the... For the starches. Yeah. So when it comes to starches, that's one of the two biggest inflammatory things. So, and you're, I mean, you're so right about like like the apples, like a honey crisp apple. I forget what the number is, but it's like seven times sweeter than traditional apple, like original apples.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah. Original apples sucked. You wouldn't eat them. You you just made cider out of them. Totally. Totally. Totally. Exactly. And then people are like, well, why can't i eat this thing that feels natural? It feels natural to you now, but it's not what it was supposed to be.
Holistic Health Approach Conclusion
00:37:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So when it comes to starches, that's a great point. So if you break down, we can jump right into sugars and starches then, I guess, which is um when it comes to starches, ah this is what a lot of people are calling carbs.
00:37:42
Speaker
And you got like the small... There's just one or two sugars connected, and those are called ah mono or disaccharides. And then when you string a bunch of them together, it's called polysaccharides. Then there is that middle category that people often overlook, which is like 16 to 20-ish, and that's the oligosaccharides in the middle.
00:37:59
Speaker
And that's beans. Back to beans, yeah, yeah. Back to beans, yeah. So basically, we can think of kind of the way chemistry defines it would be sugars on one side, so we'll just call that white sugar and fruit, and then beans in the middle, oligosaccharides, and then we've got the...
00:38:13
Speaker
We got the long ones on the end and the easiest way to think about that's the noodles, the grains and all that stuff. And those are super duper inflammatory. So i I like to give people kind of like a spectrum of what is the like most inflammatory carbs that they should cut out first.
00:38:29
Speaker
And then what can they tend towards when they're making their way towards the things that we just mentioned, which is the squashes and the veggies, which are just eat as much as you want. It's just the healthiest things in the world. So the worst carbs are going to be everything that's ground down into flour.
00:38:42
Speaker
and then made into stuff. So that's breads and all your baked goods. yeah other response It's sad and true. Grain-based. All the things that brought you happiness and your childhood memories on the weekends, those are not great for you.
00:38:59
Speaker
It's so true, but there's really easy ways to work around it. You know, the little harder, I guess, if you have nut allergies and stuff, but we can still work around those too. For sure. Yeah. Um, but so cut those out first, the pastas and the breads, and then go to, and the noodles and rice, uh, noodles still count. They're super carby. Right.
00:39:17
Speaker
And then you go to the whole grains and that's like 10% better. This is the thing that confuses me is people are like, oh, well, i only eat whole grain stuff like rice and stuff. I'm like, well, great.
00:39:27
Speaker
Now you only have 90% of the inflammation of what everyone else has, which is, you know, if they're eating pizza all day, then they have hundred percent. So it's really not that different. um It a, you know, it's got less surface area, but that's about it.
00:39:40
Speaker
Part of the reason is actually not that surface area doesn't matter. It's that our digestive system is too efficient. We're going to break that down so fast anyway, that it's still going to skyrocket our blood sugar. so And so for people who can look this up on their own, you're basically, we're walking through glycemic index. Correct. Is that Okay. That's correct. How do we keep our blood sugar from spiking too fast and then having a giant spike of insulin to counteract that?
00:40:04
Speaker
And those two things are extremely inflammatory. If you want like just kind of a metaphor of why is it so inflammatory? Someone asked me the other day, it was so interesting because I feel like these words are just so out in the ethos now.
00:40:16
Speaker
They're like, well, why is sugar inflammatory? And I was like, I haven't heard that question in years. Like, I just kind of, most people are just like, oh yeah, I know that now. Like, I don't know, Instagram or something tells us, all of us, but it's the one of the easiest ways to remember why sugar is so inflammatory and blood sugar, what we're talking about here is look how diabetics who have way too much sugar in their blood get infections everywhere.
00:40:42
Speaker
So much so that they, their, their feet fall off because they have to start um amputating them from the foot up Right. So that's the idea of what we're trying to avoid and of course, diabetics, but also everyone else, which is how do we keep that inflammation at a base rate, lower rate in our blood?
00:41:02
Speaker
that's That doesn't mean we won't have blood sugar. um Your body will make that out of other things, including fat. You just won't have the spike. And so you never have the inflammation. Right. Or the dip, right? That happens after the spike because of the insulin.
00:41:14
Speaker
I want to borrow your example of the the diabetic because I usually tell people it's like burning jet fuel in an engine. Yeah. That wasn't made for jet fuel. You have a lot of excess heat and that's the inflammation.
00:41:26
Speaker
That's exactly right. And that fits with the way we think so well. No wonder you're a Chinese doctor. Yeah. I really like that with my profession. Yeah. all my metaphors funnily fit.
00:41:37
Speaker
yeah totally. I was walking around as a Taoist, i don't know, goofball for for decades. And then I finally found a place that it all made sense. That's so right, right? Like I tell people, like, I would most definitely be doing this even if I didn't get paid. And i'm like, oh, I can do this as a job? Yeah, exactly.
00:41:57
Speaker
it's a goodbye