The Nutrition Doctor: “THESE Foods Can HEAL - REVERSE DISEASE & AGING!” (It’s SO SIMPLE!) | Dr. Michael Greger EP 551

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11So what are the top five foods that you eat every day to age longer? In terms of anti-aging foods, this global burden of disease study, which I mentioned before, again, the largest systemic analysis funded by the Bill and Lundegades Foundation, found that the food associated with the largest expected life expectancy gains are legumes. Really? Really? Yeah, beans, split peas, chickpeas, lentils. In fact, one thing we can do is boost the intake of beans or lentil soup or hummus. And we think it's because they're the most concentrated sources of prebiotics, the resistant starch and dietary fiber that feeds the good bacteria in our gut.

0:53A lot of people are thinking probiotics. They're thinking the actual bacteria themselves, the acidophilus, the bifidobacteria. Those are the good gut bugs. The reason you don't have those good gut bugs in the first place is because you're not feeding them very well. So you can try to populate your gut with as many good bugs as you want. They're going to die off if you continue to starve them, continue to starve your microbial self. Whereas if you just ate the right foods, the good gut bugs are fiber feeders. If you eat the right foods, then your good bugs will be fruitful and multiply all on their own.

1:28so dramatically decreased inflammation, you can prevent asthma attacks just by feeding people some beans. I mean, it's absolutely remarkable. Now, legumes rule the roost on a per serving basis, but actually on an ounce per ounce basis, nuts are associated with the longest lifespan compared to any other type of food out there. What are the three best nuts? There's really only one. There's really only one that pulls ahead, and that's walnuts. Now, see, normally when I say like, you know, eat, you know, cruciferous vegetables or something, they're like, which one's best? I'm like, whichever one you'll eat.

2:05You like broccoli, eat broccoli. You like bok choy, eat broccoli. Like, you know, look, whatever one you'll get into your face, that's it. But with nuts, bottle nuts really do pull ahead. And that's because they have more omega-3s than other nuts. They have more antioxidants than other nuts. And they're the only nuts shown to acutely improve artery function within a matter of hours. Palm full a day is my recommendation. Palm full. So one ounce. What if you want to have more? Oh, look, you can have more. They're calorie dense too. But the longevity benefits plateau out at one. So you don't get more additional benefit.

2:38And they're kind of pricey. And they're calorie dense. Right, they're calorie dense. So if you're really active, it's not going to matter. So 10 to 15 a day. So it's 10 halves. 10 halves. 10 halves comes out to be 30 grams or one ounce. And so then it's eating more whole grains. So you're having oatmeal for breakfast, right? instead of bacon and eggs. What about the whole, you know, grain-brain theory and then like how grains are bad for the brain? Right, right, right. What type of grains affect the brain in a healthy way versus a bad way? Yeah, the kernel of truth, who's got a little of a pun for old grains, is refined grains.

3:17Refined grains are terrible for us. So when you take something like whole wheat and you strip away all the fiber, and you're left with, you know, with white flour, or you do the same with brown rice to white rice, or you kind of strip out the nutrition, and you're left with basically kind of sheer carbohydrates. Or you can take something like a sugar beet, where most sugar comes from these days, actually not from cane, and you basically take all the nutrition away, you're left with table sugar, right? And most grain consumption in the country is sadly these refined grains. So going after grains makes total sense, because that's what people are eating.

3:49But of course the whole grains got caught in the kind of friendly fire. Right, right. Right? So what are the grains we should be eating? So, yeah, whole grains, ideally whole intact grains. So like oak groats or steel cut oats, the more closely to how they kind of grew out of the ground, the better. We want whole as the first word in any kind of grain product. Steel cut oats or whole oats. Steel cut oats, fantastic. Or even oak groats, which are what steel cut oats are. Yeah, oak groats is, before you cut it, an oak groat cut two or three times turns into steel cut oats. But that's the original.

4:21And if you haven't tried it, they are delicious. super chewy. They're so much more healthy. I can't go back to mushy oats. I'm sorry. They take a long time to cook unless you have a pressure cooker. So if you have one of these electric pressure cookers out of the market now, then it's super quick. 20 minutes, you press a button, they're done. The reason that's so much better for you is because these bits don't get absorbed in our small intestine, end up in our large intestine and act as this prebiotic bounty for our good gut bugs. But the more you refine it, the more you process it, the more that gets absorbed high up in the small intestine, you're basically leaving your colon bugs to starve down there.

4:59And that's why the more whole, the better. That's where the dietary fiber is. That's where the resistant starch is. That's where we can feed our good gut bugs. And they feed us right back. Okay, the fifth thing are foods they want people to reduce. They want people to reduce meat and soda as the two most important things to cut down in one's diet. But interestingly, the top four were actually things people aren't getting enough of, right? You add those things. Right. And so it's possible that really the benefits of a plant-based diet is less about what you're cutting out and more about just including the healthiest of healthy foods out there, right?

5:35Yeah. I like that philosophy for people because if you can include these things in your system, and your daily routine, you're going to be less hungry for the other sugary processed things. There you go. So maybe you have a little bit of it every now and then, but it's not 80, 90 % of your diet. Exactly. It's about you are kind of naturally crowding out these less healthy options. And it turns out over 50 % of calories in the United States come from ultra-processed junk. Most of the food we eat is just junk. It doesn't matter what we eat on our holidays, birthdays, special occasions, but on a day-to-day basis.

6:12We really should try to eat healthy. And that is centering our diets around these natural foods from fields, not factories.

6:23Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:13Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.