10 Biblical Superfoods That Can Add Years to Your Life

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0:42From athletic to athletic-ish, Sierra's got it. Brussels clean up nicely at Sweetgreen. Maple glazed, roasted, and edges perfectly caramelized. Sweetgreen's fall harvest is back on the menu. And the season's most overlooked little green vegetable. is dressed to be devoured. You know what to do. Order on the Sweet Green app. Today, I'm going to walk you through the 10 biblical superfoods that will make you look and feel 20 years younger. Moses was 120 years old when he died, and the Bible makes a point of telling us his eyes were not weak and his strength had not left him. Caleb at 85 looked at Joshua and said, I am as strong today as the day Moses sent me out.

1:28Give me the mountain. So here's my question. What were these men eating? Solomon had his daily provisions to give him strength and wisdom. Queen Esther, it said that she was the most beautiful woman in the land. What did she eat? And let's also talk about what did Jesus eat on a daily basis? Today, I'm going to walk you through the top 10 superfoods that are talked about in the Bible that can extend your lifespan and improve your overall health. So now we know the answer. And modern research has finally caught up to it. The food scripture names over and over have been put through randomized clinical trials over the last 20 years.

2:05And one of them reduced wrinkles in 24 weeks significantly. One of them thinned artery walls in a single year reversing heart disease. and one is linked to nearly five extra years of life. And the people spending tens of thousands of dollars a year at longevity clinics, most of them aren't eating a single one of these and they can be the most important thing that you could eat ever for longevity. So in the next 30 minutes, I'm gonna give you all 10. The verses, the studies, and the exact amount for each one. No theories, just a grocery list. And make sure to stay to number eight because that's the wrinkle study.

2:45Number seven switches on your body's own Ozempic for free. And number one is what I'd start eating tomorrow morning. And as we go, count how many of the 10 you already eat every week. And let me know which of these you're eating in the comment section because I read them. You know, I can look in someone's grocery cart and tell you within a few years how fast their body is aging, not from their birthday, but from what's in their shopping cart. Seed oils, farm fish, grain-fed meats, sweetened yogurt, sugar and everything, that cart is aging you from the inside out, and it was sold to you as being healthy in a lot of cases.

3:24And real quick, before I dive into this list, if this show has ever helped you, hit the subscribe button right now. It takes one second, and it's the number one thing you can do that puts this message in front of more people, and I'd be extremely grateful for it. Then share this episode with one person who's trying to get healthy. You know who they are. Send it to them before you forget. So here's the list and the roadmap we're going to walk through. Wild caught fish, like Jesus ate. Pomegranates, extra virgin olive oil, figs, grass-fed red meat, raw honey, bitter herbs, walnuts and almonds, garlic and onions, and then cultured dairy from goat and sheep.

4:04and then I actually have two bonus foods that are incredibly important. I'll hit on the end as well. Welcome to the Dr. Axe Show.

4:24I have a very exciting announcement. We just found out that Heal Yourselves is officially a New York Times bestseller. And that's entirely because of you. I just want to say thank you for showing up. Thank you for sharing this work. And thank you for believing in the power of cellular health. If you haven't grabbed your copy yet, you can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite book retailer. Also, if you've already ordered but haven't claimed your bonuses yet, make sure to go to HealYourselves.com and enter your email and your order number and we'll send you hundreds of dollars in free content.

4:58Again, that's HealYourselves.com. By the way, that free content includes a peptide guide. natural healing recipes, a masterclass, and loads of other free content. I'm so excited for you to read this content. I hope it's going to change your life. So you have two ages, the one on your driver's license and the one inside your cells. And your cells keep their own clock, how long your telomeres are, how well your mitochondria make energy, and how much inflammation is smoldering in the background. And that inner age can run 10 years or more ahead of your birthday or 10 years behind. And the biggest lever you own is what's on your fork three times a day.

5:42And there are foods in the Bible that can help reverse the clock. In fact, listen to how much food can impact your biological age. According to one study, if you're following a Mediterranean-like diet to support brain health, it can add 7.5 years to your life. Adding in just 10 grams of fiber a day can add over five years to your lifespan. Eating a diet that's higher in omega-3 fats, 4.7 years to your lifespan. So the reality is this, following a diet based on what people eat in the Mediterranean, which is probably the closest to a biblical diet today, or the Biblio diet can make a radical difference in your health and lifespan, whether it be reversing chronic illness or extending your lifespan.

6:24And here's the main thing to know, We age because the body slows its ability to repair. Something I call inflammation, this low-grade inflammation ages us. Oxidative stress, these free radicals, start to rust our cells in our body. Mitochondria dysfunction, your body not making enough cellular energy. Microbial dysbiosis, not having a healthy gut microbiome. Cellular senescence and imperative autophagy where your body cannot get rid of dead or dying cells. And stem cell exhaustion where your body can't regenerate. Now here's the good news. These hallmarks of aging, the things that actually cause us to age and build disease, all of them can be impacted by these foods.

7:01And near the end, I'm actually going to show you a chart or walk you through a chart that actually shows you which food affects which hallmarks of aging. And the last thing before I dive into the top 10 list, I built out for you a free seven day biblical health plan that goes through exactly what to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, has your shopping list, has everything you need on it. It's free. The link is in the show notes and the description. Grab it now so you don't have to take notes and then let's dive in. All right, the number one superfood of the Bible is wild caught fish. This is the food that Jesus ate after the resurrection.

7:39It says in the Bible in Luke 24, and they gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and he ate it. We know that fatty fish is rich in EPA, which reduces inflammation, DHA, which supports cellular health at your cell membrane. It supports brain and neurological health. It's critically important during pregnancy. So these omega-3 fatty acids reduce inflammation and support neurological health. In fact, in one study, if somebody was low in DHA, this fatty acid you find in wild-caught fish, it decreased brain age. People had smaller brains and it aged their brain by two years, according to the medical journal Neurology, and this study was published in 2012.

8:21Now, here's an important thing to note. The wild caught fish that Jesus ate in the Bible was not what some of us are eating today. Now, today we have a lot of farm raised fish, and on average, they have seven times the amount of toxins, something called PCBs, that age our liver and our cells. So when you're buying fish, you want to make sure it's wild caught, like sockeye salmon, king salmon, sardines, but wild caught fish only in terms of it being a biblical superfood. And listen to this study on fish. Researchers followed over 2 ,000 adults over 65 in the Framington Heart Study. They followed them for 11 years measuring their omega-3 levels in their red blood cells.

9:02The highest group lived roughly 4.7 years longer than the lowest and the omega-3 index predicted early death is accurately as smoking. In the earlier report, the top group had a 34 % lower risk of dying from all causes. And by the way, they're referencing a blood test there. And this is a blood test that I run in my local clinic and I run at the Health Institute because I think it is one of the most important blood markers you can ever run. In fact, for me, it is a top 10 blood marker, if not a top five blood marker I do with all my patients. And it's looking at how many omega-3s do you have in your cells and in your blood?

9:43And what's the ratio of omega-3s to omega-6s? And it's one of the greatest determining factors of inflammation, neurological health, heart health, and it also impacts hormonal health because, of course, fatty acids are very important for your body making hormones properly. By the way, when we look at groups of people that have the greatest health, the top 20 % of the healthiest people in the United States have the highest omega-3 levels. Now, here's something that might surprise you. Even our top 20 % in the United States fall below where the healthiest country in the world lives. And Japan typically always ranks in the top two.

10:25And Japan's omega-3 level is far higher than even the top 20 % in the United States. So if you wanna live a long, healthy life, reverse disease, there is such great value in knowing your omega-3 index. By the way, if you want to get that blood test done, you can go to cellrx.com and get that as part of your blood work panel. But overall, the greatest way to boost up your omega-3s is eat more wild caught fish like salmon, sardines, tuna, halibut. You want to get more omega-3s. And it's best to get it from fish. But if you can't get it from fish, then you want to get a high quality omega-3 supplement.

11:01And you also think about how fish is such a core part of the Bible. You know, it's the first food Jesus ate after the resurrection. We think about Peter and Andrew. What were they doing when they met Jesus? These guys were fishermen. They were bringing in a haul of fish or they didn't bring it until they met Jesus. And then they brought in a big catch. Jesus says to them, I will make you fishers of men. And of course, there's the miracles of the feeding of the 5 ,000 and feeding of the 4 ,000 with fish in loaves of bread. So wild caught fish is an amazing biblical superfood we should all try and get in our diet because of its high omega-3 content, its high protein content, and also antioxidants like astaxanthin found in things like wild salmon.

11:45The number two biblical superfood are pomegranates. This is a fruit that was actually carved into Solomon's temple. It represented abundance and longevity. Here's some interesting facts about pomegranate. It's one of the seven species talked about that we'll find in the promised land in Deuteronomy 8. There are 200 pomegranates carved onto each temple pillar in the temple of God in the Bible. And it's embroidered on the hem of the high priest's robe, according to Exodus 28. Now here's why pomegranates are so fantastic in healing is they're high in a compound called allagic acid or allagitanins, which your gut bacteria can turn into a longevity compound called urolithin A.

12:29This actually switches on mitochondria recycling and helps your body create more new mitochondria. Now, here's another fact. Only about 40 % of people can convert ellagic acid into urolithin A, which is what you need for longevity. However, studies have shown over time that if you continue to eat more and more pomegranates, your body gets better at converting it. And if you consume it while getting more probiotics, like taking a probiotic supplement or doing things like goat's milk yogurt or kefir or coconut kefir, over time, your body will get better at making your lethine A. So one of the best combos you could ever have is combining kefir or yogurt with pomegranates.

13:11And of course, the antioxidant power of pomegranates are mind-blowing. They have three times more antioxidants than red wine or green tea. And listen to this study. there's research that shows that drinking pomegranate juice will actually make your arteries younger. Patients with narrowed carotid arteries, of course, this is important for if your carotid artery narrows, it greatly increases your risk of things like a stroke, number one, also of a heart attack. So in this study, they looked at people who did drink pomegranate juice versus those who didn't. And in the group that didn't drink pomegranate juice, the artery wall thickened 9%.

13:50However, in the pomegranate group, it thinned by up to 30%. Think about that, a 30 % reduction in how clogged your carotid artery is. And the total antioxidant status of people who drank pomegranate juice rose by 130 % and systolic blood pressure fell by 12%. So eating actual pomegranates or having pomegranate juice around your workouts is tremendous for your overall health, especially for reversing the age of your heart and cardiovascular system. The number three biblical superfood to extend your life in reverse disease is extra virgin olive oil. In fact, the Bible says use olive oil to make your face shine.

14:36Psalms 104 says wine that gladdens the heart and oil to make his face shine. Psalms 52 says, and I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God. Olive oil was incredibly important in the Bible. It was used to anoint kings. It was used as part of the holy anointing oil. So when you read in the Bible and areas in James or even the Old Testament where it says, hey, go to the elders of the church, have them pray for you for healing, have them anoint your head with oil. That was likely a mixture of olive oil with essential oils that was actually used for healing purposes. And the reason why olive oil is so therapeutic is it has olacanthal, which works like ibuprofen.

15:19Doing it around three tablespoons daily, equated to about 10 % of an adult dose. In terms of the compounds that work in ibuprofen, of course, they're all natural and much better. Also, there's a compound in olive oil called hydroxytyrosol, also in addition to that vitamin E. And these guard your collagen in your body, keeps from collagen degradation. That's why it makes you look younger when you consume more olive oil. It's protecting your collagen. Also, it keeps LDL cholesterol from oxidizing, so it improves heart health. And according to a study, the people that consume the highest amount of olive oil had 31 % less severe skin photo aging.

16:01So people, let me interpret this for you. Those people, their skin aged and looked 31 % younger. Now, here's my prescription for you with olive oil. You want to do about two to four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil daily. When you buy it, you want it to have a harvest date. It should be in a dark bottle. It should taste herbaceous and peppery. Maybe tingle or burn the back of the throat a little bit and ideally be higher in polyphenols. Now, I do want to mention one more study before we jump into the next biblical superfood. There was a study called the Pre-Med Trial and it was a randomized trial on 7 ,447 adults who all had high heart risk.

16:44And they followed a Mediterranean diet and used a liter, that's right, a liter of extra virgin olive oil a week. Over about five years, the olive oil group had roughly 30 % fewer heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular deaths. And the trial was stopped early because the benefit was so clear. And this was a study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. Here's what they found after 28 years of people doing just a half a tablespoon a day. 29 % less neurodegenerative diseases, 19 % less death, 19 % less heart disease, 18 % less respiratory disease, and 17 % less cancer when you did just a half a tablespoon of olive oil daily.

17:30The number four biblical superfood is actually one of my favorites. They're figs. In Isaiah 38, it talks about King Hezekiah. It said he was dying. And Isaiah prescribed him to make a poultice of figs and hold it on the area where he had the tumor that was killing him. And because of that, he lived an additional 15 years. Now, how is it possible that figs could actually kill a tumor? Well, there's a compound in figs called pfison, which actually breaks down protein, improves blood flow to an area. But overall, it acts as what we would call, it's a proteolytic enzyme. It breaks down cancer cells, improves oxygenation of the tissues, improves blood flow, but it has incredible healing properties.

18:17So again, it's the pfison and figs that have all of these healing and even anti-cancer benefits. Now, by the way, I do want to mention there are other foods that have similar compounds. Kiwis have actinidin, ginger has gingerols, and pineapple has bromelain. These are all proteolytic enzymes that actually help break down tumors. And in Chinese medicine, we would say it improves stagnation, bringing blood and oxygen to the area. And when you look at figs, they're also very fiber rich. In fact, you're getting about 10 grams of fiber per 100 grams of dried figs. That's more than prunes. Also, they contain fiber that feed good gut bacteria and reduce inflammation.

18:59They're also very high in calcium. They're extremely high in potassium and magnesium, and they're good for both your bones and your blood pressure. And of course, we know the famous story in the Bible where Jesus goes up to a fig tree and because it's not bearing fruit, he causes it to wither. The number five superfood of the Bible is grass-fed red meat, whether that be lamb or beef or even venison. In the Bible, Abraham ran to the herd and chose a tender calf for his three visitors. You know, this is the part in the Bible where, you know, Abraham and Sarah hear from the angel of the Lord. And he says, you're going to be able to give birth.

19:39And Sarah laughs saying, listen, I'm 90, you know, Abraham's, you know, 99 years old. How's this going to happen? We also see the reference to red meat in the story of the prodigal son when the father kills the fattened calf. We also see this in Exodus in the Gospels when it talks about the Passover lamb. So red meat done right when it's grass-fed, slaughtered biblically, is an incredible superfood. One reason why it's so beneficial is muscle is your body's longevity organ. And after 30, you lose 3 % to 8 % of it every decade. Red meat is high in carnosine, creatine, coenzyme Q10, B vitamins, including vitamin B12, zinc, and heme iron.

20:23And these are found in the highest amounts in red meat, and you can only get them in animal-based foods. It's also high in amino acids like taurine, which is critical for liver health and gallbladder health and for creating cellular energy. Now, I do wanna say this. I am a much bigger fan of consuming lean red meat than fatty for most people. I think you're better off getting more of your fat from things like extra virgin olive oil and walnuts and pumpkin seeds and avocados and other plants. And getting a little bit of red meat from fat definitely can be healthy. You just don't want to go overboard.

20:56So when you're buying grass-fed burgers, you're better off buying the 90-10 leaner burgers or 85-15, or if you're choosing between steak, the steak is typically better for the ribeye, unless you've got a serious health problem and then you need to be following a ketogenic diet, or if you've got a mold issue or histamine overactivation or a brain tumor. But for the most part, going leaner is a little bit better. Another important thing to note about red meat is that it's really nourishing for your blood. And if women are going through their menstrual cycle and losing blood, it's even more important that you're getting heme iron.

21:31So you want to make sure you're getting plenty of blood building nutrients in those cases. By the way, one of the most important things to note here when I'm talking about red meat is there is a vast difference between 100 % grass fed and grain fed. Same animal, completely different fat ratios. If you're eating grass-fed meat, you're getting two to five times more omega-3 fatty acids. You're getting double the amount of CLA, which helps you burn fat and fight cancer. You're getting triple the amount of vitamin E, and you're getting up to 10 times more beta carotene. So a lot of times I see these studies that show, oh, the red meat eaters tend to be less healthy.

22:15that's because the majority of red meat people are eating today is grain-fed, and so it's lower in nutrients, it's higher in fats that you don't want, and it's going to cause inflammation. And also, a lot of this meat today has excess hormones, genetically modified residue in the tissue. There's all kinds of issues there, but if you're doing organic, 100 % grass-fed, it can be incredibly healthy, and it is a biblical superfood. If you've been told your blood work is normal, but you feel anything but normal, you're not imagining it. A standard blood work panel was never built to show you what's actually going on in your cells.

22:52And your standard primary care doctor will likely never connect the dots between all of your symptoms and what's starting in your cells. And the cellular blood work analysis that I created was built just for this. It's an at-home kit that also comes with a full hour review with a senior health advisor who will show you what is going on deep in your cells and if one of our healing protocols might be right for you. We've got hundreds of five-star reviews on Trustpilot and most of them started right where you are. If you're ready to finally be heard, then go to mybloodwork.com to book your cellular blood work analysis today.

23:32All right, so let's five down. We have five to go. And the five coming are the ones people email me about all the time. And if you're getting something out of this, Do me a favor, hit the subscribe button so you don't miss next week and drop a comment. Which of these first five you're already eating? I'm keeping score right now. Number six, biblical superfood, raw honey. In Proverbs 24, it says, eat honey, my son, for it is good. In Exodus 3, 8, when God is promising the Israelites the promised land, he said, it is a land flowing with milk and honey. And we see John the Baptist eating locusts and honey in Matthew 3.

24:11The key thing with honey is this, is you want to eat it, but not too much. Now, here's why honey is so beneficial. It has 180 plus compounds, enzymes, propolis, pollen, polyphenols, sometimes royal jelly. One of the compounds in it, glucose oxidase, actually makes a unique type of hydrogen peroxide, which is why honey never spoils and it actually helps heal your wounds. It also feeds good bacteria. It's lower on the glycemic index than table sugar. It's fantastic. And here's the crazy part. There was a study that showed that the sugar actually lowered blood sugar, that honey actually lowered blood sugar.

24:50The University of Toronto researchers pooled 18 controlled trials on over 1 ,000 people where the median dose was about two tablespoons of honey a day for eight weeks. Honey lowered fasting blood sugar, total and LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and markers of fatty liver disease, and raised HDL cholesterol. The benefits came from raw and single flower honeys. Processed honey did not deliver the same results. You might know this. There was a study done at Texas A &M University, and they found that 76 % of honey that people are buying today is not real honey. It's been heated and stripped of all of its nutrients.

25:29So when you buy honey, it's so important that you're buying raw honey, local honey, or high-quality manuka honey. Because if it's not those things, you're not getting the benefits. And I would use honey to replace any sweetener you have. In fact, in the Axe household, when we're making any dish or any dessert in our house, we just use honey. I mean, I don't think we use, I don't even think we have cane sugar or coconut sugar. It doesn't even exist in our house. Even though those are more natural sugars, we really use honey for everything. or if we're doing something like pancakes, we do have high quality maple syrup, but that's what we use as our sweetener for everything.

26:05When I do my matcha green tea in the morning, I'm using honey. The number seven group of superfoods of the Bible are vegetables and bitter herbs. When we look at the foods, especially referenced around Passover, we see things like lettuce, endive, chicory, horseradish, dandelion, arugula, watercress. These are wild greens and bitter greens, which we know are the most nutrient dense of all of the vegetables and all of the herbs. One of the reasons why, whether it be kale or spinach or arugula or watercress or dandelion greens, one of the reasons they're so beneficial is because they're bitter. And when you, you actually have 25 bitter receptors on your tongue and lining your gut.