The Top 4 Things That EVERY Diet Needs to Protect Your Gut Health & Boost Your Longevity - With Dr. Will Bulsiewicz

31:23There's so many wonderful benefits of cooking at home, but, And it's a big old but. Most people were unaware that when we were cooking at home, trying to provide our family with incredible nutrition and great health, we were actually being harmed. We were actually being poisoned because for years, so-called nonstick cookware, Teflon, the Teflon Dons, were creating cookware that has been harming human health. One of the most notorious compounds used to make Teflon cookware is a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, which has been found repeatedly in peer-reviewed studies to contribute to higher rates of infertility, liver disease, and a variety of cancers.

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34:04I'll let you in on a little secret. You've always got some great bonuses and sales and bundles, and that's how you could save even more on this amazing cookware. Again, go to fromourplace.com forward slash model. And now back to the show. One of the things that I really love about you is that we're not trying to get into a conspiracy. You know, some of these things have been brought into our culture with aspirational intentions right to feed americans to feed families and what happens is these things get exploited and also the science can be very short-sighted right oh it's we don't have this particular uh influence with human cells but we're not considering we're not just human cells far from it and so this is where your work is really focused is like our health truly is resulting from the inside out and taking care of this microbiome.

34:58And today in our environment, we are just exposed to so much more stuff we need to be aware of, but not in fear because a big part of your work and your book, of course, is like, add these things in, add these things in, which we're gonna get to. But I wanna ask you a little bit more about, because I wanna know your opinion on it with some of the things that we're facing in our environment today. So I wanna ask you, because you wrote a little bit about this and more people are becoming aware, I want to know from your experience as somebody who has studied the gut, who's helped so many people over the years, what about the association with microplastics and our health and in particular with our gut health?

35:37Is this affecting our bacteria? Okay. So that's an interesting question. As we move into talking about this, I just want to first start high level and say that I have been advocating for them to have stricter regulation of these food additives for a very long time. And I've been advocating for microbiome testing to be a required part of their process, because if your food or your additive is going to induce dysbiosis in me or my children, I want to at least know before I choose, right? Because that's going to affect our health. So with the microplastics, okay, so just to define some terms, the term microplastic refers to small pieces, small particles of plastic that are up to five millimeters in size.

36:35Now, five millimeters in size, you and I would be able to see that. Like we would be able to see that there's the sprinkle of stuff. But there are these other ones that are invisible to the naked eye called nanoplastics. And part of the problem is that plastic, when it is biodegradable, it's actually quite challenging to break it down. It takes a long time. But in many cases, it's not biodegradable at all. And so if you release that, something that's not biodegradable out into nature, then what will happen is that it just will be sort of shattered into smaller and smaller fragments, but it'll never disappear.

37:12It'll never actually go away. And so those small little fragments are again, that are invisible to the naked eye are called nanoplastics. The impact on the microbiome, I don't know, Sean. I haven't yet seen a study to say what is the impact on the microbiome, but the impact on human health, regardless of the microbiome is highly disturbing to me. And the reason why, first of all, it's sorry, but it's impossible to take these plastics, which of course could have other things could be affecting your hormone levels or other things like this. It's impossible to make an argument where microscopic particles of plastic getting embedded into your tissues would be good for you.

37:56Like it just doesn't exist. Right. So the simple question is like, how bad is it? And, um, there was a study done in the New England journal of medicine where they took a group of people that were undergoing a surgery on their neck, a blood vessel in their neck called carotid end arterectomy. All right. So we like abbreviated CEA carotid end arterectomy. So in essence, what's happening here, this is your, if you were to, for the listeners at home, or you can see me on YouTube, if you were to put your hand on your neck and feel the pulse, that's your carotid artery. You got two of those, one on each side.

38:33That's basically bringing oxygenated blood up to your brain. And we can develop plaques there just like we can around our heart, which could cause, like in our heart, causes a heart attack. But in this case, it would cause a stroke. So when there's a big enough burden, the surgeon will literally cut open the artery and peel out the junk off the surface. And so in this study, they took the plaque that was coating these arteries and they sent it to the laboratory to be examined under microscope. And they identified that certain people had a disproportionate concentration of these nanoplastics in the artery, like in this plaque.

39:19Some people had less or, you know, I mean, I'll know about none, but some people had less. The ones who had more in the following years after the surgery were more likely to have a heart attack, more likely to have a stroke and more likely to die. So now these plastics are ubiquitous. Ubiquitous means they're everywhere, right? So, and it can sound very scary. Let me just share some of the practical approaches that I've implemented in my own life. Cause actually we don't need to like get totally overwhelmed by this. We just need some small strategies. So one of the things that I've done is I stopped spending money on soda and I started spending money on a nice reverse osmosis water filter.

40:05So the RO reverse osmosis water filter, which doesn't have to be super expensive, It will basically remove anything, including the nanoplastics, because even the smallest little things can't get through, right? Only the water passes through the filter. So even minerals are too big to get through. So that's one of the ways that we can clean our water supply. So when we're consuming water at home in our family, it's always through this reverse osmosis water filter. It's never from the top. And then the other thing I said, I replaced soda. That was actually a quite intentional comment because you go to a supermarket.

40:49Okay. Look like artificial sweeteners. Again, there's a debate on this topic. Some people have really big feelings about this topic. Fine. Like even if you think that there's no concern at all, which I don't agree, There's microbiome studies that are concerning, right? But even if you think that there's no concern with artificial sweeteners at all, you still have, let's just take like a Coke, for example, a Cola, a Cola, generic brand. You still have a carbonated beverage under pressure with citric acid. Check the ingredients, check the label. It's acidic. You can taste it. You can taste the acid, right?

41:34So it's pressurized, it's acidic, and it's in a plastic bottle. This is the perfect setup for nanoplastics to leach from the plastic bottle into the beverage. And you wouldn't even know. So even if you don't have concerns about artificial sweeteners, I really think you should have concerns about these other elements that go along. We should never be like saying diet Coke is off the hook and it's totally fine. So what have I done to replace that? So like our family, we have four kids, right? Groceries have gotten expensive. We shop at Costco and I'll get Perrier in the glass bottle. And the cool thing about that is like a big bottle of Perrier.

42:26It might last me two days, right? And that gives me the fizz that I really like, but really nothing else. and it's in a glass bottle. So there's no plastic. And what I'll do is I'll just pour that over ice. And then like, I might put a squeeze of citrus or I might put a splash of kombucha or a splash of juice over the top of it. You don't need much. You're just like literally adding just a little hint of flavor. And it's great. That kombucha hitter or some kefir, like that does a, that really spices it up when it comes to like a sparkling drink. That's a great tip. Yeah. And if you're buying kombuchas, the rule is the same too, by the way.

42:59So like when it comes to microplastics and nanoplastics, where I get worried is heat, heat. So like don't throw food in a plastic container into your microwave, right? Don't serve food in plastic if you can avoid it. If it's warm, I get worried about acid. So that's why the acid in the soda also acid in kombucha, also acid in tomato sauce. And I get worried about pressure. So So the carbonated drinks exert a pressure along the walls of the beverage. And that can also, so those three things, heat, acid, and pressure can basically lead to shedding of these nanoplastics. So I, every time I see something that's in that spectrum, I'm like, yo, give me the glass.

43:45I'll pay extra. I love it. You know, sodas are one of those things that have that complex that makes them so addictive. Yeah. You know, and not to mention the additives, the colorings. and we're just now again the data's coming out where it's becoming more uh socially aware but this this has been around for quite some time you know in regards to uh and again i'm so grateful that you mentioned that too with because it can be a stigma even the maha movement you know just like well damn whatever you know people are battling about that we should be coming together this should not be a political issue.

44:26100%. To make sure that our food supply is safe and healthy. 100%. And this is where I, at least for me, completely independent of my political views, right? I am cheering for their success. And yet simultaneously, I will hear, I will keep them honest and accountable, right? To my expectations. So, and I think that's where everyone should be. Yeah. And one of those critiques is, you know, we've got this over here, this carcinogen over here. why are you so worried about red food dye like that's such a big victory the red food dye was kind of a joke to me too by the way that was before maha that was that was actually in January it was in process yeah yeah it was but the it was a joke because you actually had a easy play for the food industry because you got rid of one version of red but there's other versions of red yeah so they just substitute so that was my big like aha moment for everybody is okay so red number three is banned.

45:20What happened to red one and two and seven and ten? And, you know, just specifically looking at the impact on the gut, because it's not just the red dye, but orange one, this was common, commonly used food dye. And this was back around, you know, the 1950s, but it was banned in 1956 after it was found to cause serious gastrointestinal issues in children. This story, this story is on the FDA's website, all right? And so did they clean house and just like, we're not gonna allow it? No, it's gross. Like we could just come up with these other food dyes, some, what we believe to be benign ingredients to make them.

46:02And we're just gonna keep doing more and more. And here's the thing, they're banned only after the fact. They don't have to prove that it's safe. We have to prove that it's harmful. Right. That's the problem. Well, and I mentioned in the book that since I believe it was like since 1982, there have been eight banned substances total. So like basically during my lifetime, you know, we have 10 ,000 things and eight of them have been removed from the food supply. It's crazy. so and you know with that like uh so to me safety like if we were serious if you actually were competent and serious about making sure that something was safe before you allowed it i'm not saying that you need a randomized controlled trial the way you do with a drug that's a totally different question but what i am saying is like shouldn't we at a minimum require feeding studies first in an animal and subsequently in humans to see what happens, shouldn't we require that they actually check the microbiome to see what the impact on the microbiome is?

47:07Because that's going to fall out of balance first before you suffer the bodily injury, right? So like, shouldn't we require those things? Shouldn't we require long-term monitoring beyond just, hey, it's in the food supply. Let us know. Let us know if you see anything, right? Like, shouldn't we require long-term monitoring? Shouldn't we be like bringing them back up? Like, yo, give us your safety data. We want to review that right now. None of these things exist, Sean. 80%, 80 % of the food additives in our supply have never had any feeding study, human or animal. So if you're not putting it into a mouth, how are you approving that?

47:48How do you know that's safe? That's crazy. before we get into some of the good stuff all right i want to take one more um turn into into dairy okay welcome to dairy yeah and i'm saying this specifically because you have a little bit of a subset in the book a little subsection where you talk about a horror worse than a stephen king novel yeah all right and you're addressing like this is as soon as we get here. As soon as we arrive here on planet earth and we're born, children are being exposed to some of this terrible nutrition with all of these different newly invented chemicals and additives.

48:31And you talk about that in that little subsection about infant formula. Yeah. Yeah. So basically if I could lay this out for the listeners at home, I have four kids. We've, we've, we've, um, spanned the full spectrum where we've had times where we're actually donating to a, um, a milk bank. And we've had times where we're actually requesting from a milk bank. But, um, to me with total clarity, breast milk is the perfect nutrition for a developing baby. And formula is us making an attempt to replace that. but like we haven't leveled up our formula other than like the only thing that i've seen them do is sprinkle in monofibers right so like the only thing i've seen them change is they've realized hey we should add fiber to that and that's about it and so and when you go and you review these ingredients i would encourage everyone like i have no problem with vitamins and minerals you need to have vitamins and minerals in there.

49:37But are we really offering our children the best start to life when like the first five ingredients are either various forms of oils, some of which you've never even heard of before, or there are protein extracts, which protein extracts is not protein in like a conventional native way. It is the extraction of protein where it's being artificially removed, right? Or it's these fiber extracts, which I actually don't believe in fiber extracts in terms of health, because you can totally overstuff the microbiome if you give too much of just one thing. So bottom line, from my perspective is we, we can, we should, we need to do better for our kids.

50:24So when we have my wife and I have bought formula, but we are not buying that formula but we have to unfortunately like import from overseas in order to get something that we feel is a higher quality yeah yeah thank you for sharing that that's the the biggest takeaway we can do better we can level up there are better alternatives today but the accessibility isn't that great and we have the ability to provide because you know breastfeeding isn't always possible right right and also that's part of the equation but also the education against breastfeeding that that took place for quite some time, the indoctrination that it wasn't good enough.

51:01And we're still coming out of that and normalizing it. And, you know, being aware that there's multiple aspects. And you said this earlier about, you know, not trying to glorify going to war, but there's been multiple fronts on which battles have been taking place when it comes to human nutrition. And so now that we are coming out of that and we have platforms like this and people who are like the top of the top in their field, like yourself, who is sharing this education. People, this is one of the most beautiful things about this is that people get to learn from you, right? 20, even 20 years ago, they didn't have access.

51:44Right. You know, like we had to go to some esteemed university and dig through the library or maybe get access to some esteemed professors. and it was reserved for the few. Now we can push play on our phone and get to learn from the best people in the world. It's so powerful. And with that being said, you're also here to deliver the good news and give us, point us in the direction of what are those things that the biggest body of data is showing that we can start to add these things in and see some remarkable results. So how do we get planned powered plus? What are some of the goodies that we need to be adding in?

52:23Yeah, yeah. Healing is possible. It comes in many forms, right? It won't come just out of nowhere. If you're searching for health, something has to change. You have to be willing to change. But I can put on the table the evidence-based tools that are available to you. And one of the things that I wrote in the author's note, Sean, is that one of the things that I struggle with as an author and a doctor is that I know that that medicine is personalized. Right. You have to like develop a relationship with a person, understand them, and then you tailor specifically based upon what you've learned about them to what their needs are.

53:16I can only write one book. But what I wrote is that when you read this book, I really hope that you hear it in a way that's personalized to you. So there are these aha moments where the thing that you're missing, let me help you to find it, right? And let me put the tools on the table. They're all evidence-based. Every single thing I am sharing, all of the references to my book to make it as easy as possible. I did the work. All you got to do is click and read and you can get access to everything. Okay. So we've already talked about like this idea of forget labels, right? This is why I called it plant powered because to me, any diet where you basically address these four deficiencies, four things that we are not getting in America, fiber, polyphenols, healthy fats, and fermented food.

54:10If you address those four things, you number one, have an anti-inflammatory diet and you number two, you will feel the difference, right? If the thing that your body is starving for and has been missing is properly addressed, you will feel the difference. And if you don't feel the difference, then this was not the thing that you needed for healing. That's the truth. So, but there are other options and that's the plus, right? So the plus is that we can dig into the patterns of our day, right? And acknowledge that the way in which we live, what's culturally normal. And like, you know, let's keep it real.

54:53Like life is fast. Life is hard. Most of us, we go through our days, Monday to Friday, just trying to keep our head above the water, right? But if you could just build a little bit of time in the morning, just build a little bit of time in the evening you could do a lot with that to really get your body into an alignment where your body will be able to know hey this is what time of day it is this is what he or she is trying to do and the body and the microbes will be prepared to rise to the occasion to support you so sean what i'm talking about is the circadian rhythm and it turns out that roughly 50 % of our genetic code is flipping switches during the course of a 24-hour cycle at specific times.

55:42So about half of our genetic code. But our microbes, it's even more. More than 50 % of the microbes within our microbiome, they are rising and falling at specific time points to meet the moment to support you so that you can do what you need to do. So during the day, that means protein metabolism because we're physically active. We're moving around. We're doing stuff, right? So basically these microbes, they're down there like, okay, let's make sure that he's got what he needs, right? To do the right stuff today. But then the lights go out and you basically like slide into bed and the microbes, they flip.

56:25It's not protein metabolism anymore. Now their functional outfit, what they're doing for us is focusing on recovery, right? Healing. So, and it turns out that our immune system is nocturnal and I can prove it to you. Because all of us have had the experience where like, in the evening, your nose starts getting congested, right closes off, you can't breathe through your nose. Then you wake up in the morning, and it just kind of dissolves and disappears. That's inflammation. Or you've had the experience where you just smashed a big workout. You go to bed at night, you're feeling loose, but you're not sore.

57:12you wake up in the morning and you are sore. That's inflammation, but good inflammation. Basically, the immune system is processing your exercise and making you stronger while you sleep. So all of these are examples of like basically the body, the immune system doing specific things at specific times, and your gut microbes doing specific things at specific times. so time matters. And if time matters, then the body needs to know what time it is. And the main lever that we can pull to let the body know what time it is, is morning sunlight with total clarity. Because inside of us, we have two main hormones that basically keep the clock.

58:02Cortisol in the morning and melatonin at night. Melatonin is the sleep time hormone. Cortisol is your get up and go hormone. Now, by the way, cortisol, that's like our body's prednisone. So when I mentioned a moment ago that your nose was congested, but you wake up in the morning and now your cortisol surges and all of a sudden, you notice within the first hour, your nose clears up or that soreness that you had from working out loosens up, feel better. Cortisol defines our morning. It's time stamps the start of the 24 hour cycle. And if you step outside and you get morning sunlight, you will bump your cortisol by 50%.

58:44And that is a good thing. And what I'm saying is that for the listeners of your show, if you haven't been doing this, so like if you work from home, you might not go outside at all, right? Or if you're busy, you might go outside, just walk to the car, get in the car, drive to work. That's it. What I'm saying is if you can get something in the range of 15 to 30 minutes outside, you will feel the difference on literally day one. More energy, more focus, more cognitive endurance. You'll be able to take on more tasks during the course of the day. and then whatever time you stepped outside let's imagine it's seven in the morning whatever time you stepped outside add 14 hours to that around nine o 'clock that night you're going to start to feel tired because the body knew when you woke up so now the body knows when you want to go to bed too the body is basically prepping for a 14 day day of activity and then like eventually you're going to go to bed and get your like nine you know eight or nine hours or whatever it might be.

59:54One of the fastest ways to impact your gut health is through the things that you drink. That liquid medium is a fast delivery system to improve your energy, boost your metabolic health, or to straight up mess you up. When it comes to gut health, one of the most powerful things seen in clinical data to instantly up-level the health of our gut are polyphenols. And these are incredible compounds that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that are out of this world. And this is just one of the reasons why in that liquid delivery form, teas like green tea and black tea are noted in thousands, literally thousands of peer-reviewed studies to have a variety of health benefits.

1:00:41Now, my favorite tea is absolutely abundant in polyphenols, and it's been found to have remarkable impacts on our gut health. A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications uncovered that a unique compound called theobrownin found in the traditional fermented tea called Pu-erh has remarkable effects on our microbiome. The researchers found that theobrownin positively alters our gut microbiota that directly reduces liver cholesterol and reduces lipogenesis, the creation of fat. Another study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that Puerh may be able to reverse gut dysbiosis by dramatically reducing ratios of potentially harmful bacteria and increasing ratios of beneficial bacteria.

1:01:33So much of these benefits seen in these peer review studies are due to the incredible concentrations of polyphenols that are found in Pu-erh. And the only Pu-erh that I drink is triple toxin screened for purity. It uses a patented cold extraction technology and it's wild harvested, making it even more abundant in polyphenols. The Pu-erh that I'm talking about, and again, it's the only Pu-erh tea that I drink is from the incredible folks at Peak Life. Go to peaklife.com forward slash model and you're going to get up to 20 % off. Plus they're going to hook you up with a free starter kit that includes an electric frother with some of my favorite bundles and my favorite teas over at Peak Life.

1:02:19Again, go to peaklife.com forward slash model. That's P-I-Q-U-E-L-I-F-E.com forward slash model to take advantage. This Pu-erh tea is in a league of its own. It's absolutely incredible. You can enjoy it either hot or cold. And there are multiple studies affirming its benefit on our overall metabolic health and supporting fat loss as well. It's truly special. Again, head over there, check them out, peaklife.com forward slash model. Now back to the show. So we know that light is a primary controller of these circadian rhythms. What about when we're eating? Is there anything you can share there? You know, again, this is plant powered plus.

1:02:59Yes. So is there anything that we should know with circadian rhythms regarding our diet? So first of all, you can eat literally the exact same food at two different times of day and get at least slightly, if not more than slightly different results in terms of the way that your body responds to the food. So insulin sensitivity is actually peak in the morning and it gets worse and worse as the day goes on. So what that means is that basically like your blood sugar spike from the exact same food will be worse later in the day than it would be early in the day. That's actually a quite important thing because blood sugar spike, one of the things that I discuss is how that actually disrupts the gut barrier.

1:03:42So we don't really want like an excessive blood sugar spike. So, and this is the argument in favor of like trying to shift meal times to earlier in the day. So like, I don't know about you. I'm actually not a breakfast guy. And like, this is me just being honest that like, I advise that breakfast is good, but in my own life, I typically don't eat it because most days I'm like going. But when I do eat breakfast those days, actually I'm less hungry. And I think over the course of the whole day, I actually am consuming less food because it's almost like my body got what it needed early in the day and it's totally at ease and comfortable.

1:04:26And so I'm not like searching out for food. So I have noticed the difference when I shift things earlier. My biggest thing is to avoid late night meals. So like when it gets dark, we need to be dialing back on the food and the alcohol because these things ultimately are going to affect us and they're going to affect us well like we should be in recovery mode and our body's still digesting and dealing with the food so so bottom line like meal timings they do matter got it got it this has been awesome so far can you give us some good food sources so you mentioned the importance of these polyphenols yeah so can you just drop us a quick nugget on what polyphenols are and also what are some of your favorite sources for us to get like some heaping amounts of these polyphenols okay so like um cursetin resveratrol curcumin cursetin you find in garlic and onions resveratrol you find in red wine uh curcumin you find in turmeric you've you've heard of these i mean i know you have i'm talking to your listeners right now so you've heard of these things those are polyphenols and it turns out that those things are basically meaningless until they come into contact with your microbiome.

1:05:53So we have much like fiber, the polyphenols require the gut microbes to activate them. But once they do, once the gut microbes basically flip the switch and turn them on, two things happen. Number one, you get access to those bioactive polyphenols, which are the things that we celebrate, you know, again, curcumin, resveratrol, quercetin, right? These are really healthy. You get access to those. They enter into your body. They have beneficial effects. But the other thing that happens is your microbiome changes. So your microbiome will actually shift and it'll move in a direction where it's actually more capable of producing short chain fatty acids than it was before.

1:06:35So a quick example of this, Sean, um, with 38 Terra, which is my supplement company, we wanted to prove like we're very confident in our product, but we also felt like we want to prove what happens when people use this product. So we commissioned a study with basically the world leading laboratory that does microbiome simulation. It's a real human microbiome, but it's done with a simulation. So they're recreating digestive enzymes and all these different things, right? It's quite sophisticated. the reason i brought this up is that one of the coolest findings from this study is that the basically the feeding because there was a feeding the feeding that was occurring on a daily basis was the exact same amount of the product the product never changed but the amount of short chain fatty acids kept going up so basically what that tells you is that the microbiome is what was changing because the microbiome was getting better at producing more short chain fatty acids from the exact same, you know, fiber and resistant starch.

1:07:47So that's what we get from polyphenols. Polyphenols do that for us. It's really beautiful. What are the foods? Well, I already mentioned like, you know, garlic, onions, and turmeric, but to me, it's the color foods. It's color foods. So anything that's colorful whatever color that is there's something there and all plant-based foods are going to have these polyphenols berries are like a really nice concentrated source so i don't know you tell me what's your do you have a favorite berry depends on the time of year uh seasonal yeah definitely right now right now i'm really vibing with i'm really vibing with blackberries right now cool yeah um yeah so i i'm just like naturally a raspberry guy like if you told me you could get organic raspberries for the rest of your life that would be like winning the lottery for me raspberry beret oh gosh raspberry anything you can't go wrong right raspberry dark chocolate always a win that was a prince song by the way what's that raspberry beret oh really yeah oh I'm sorry.

1:08:52Shout out to Prince. Yeah. That guy was great. Um, so yeah, so like the, you can find a high concentration in those types of things. Right. So, so if you look at the colors of your food, we are naturally attracted to these colors. This is, this is deeply entrained in who we are as humans. And when you like see, hear this concept, eat the rainbow, you're basically eating for more polyphenols. Love it. I love it. What about the healthy fats? All right. Healthy fats. So like, I think that like the idea of vilifying macronutrients, I push back against that. So we have made it sound like carbs are bad.

1:09:29Okay, hold on. I get it when we're talking about sugar and flour, right? Those are refined carbs, but fiber is a carb. Not all carbs are bad. Same is true of fat. There's good fats and there's bad fats. We all agree that trans fats are bad. All right. My position, and let me just sort of unpack this. I hope you don't mind. On saturated fat, isn't that you're supposed to be on zero saturated fat. That's not my argument. My argument is that saturated fat needs to be in balance. That's my argument. And when we have a lot of saturated fat and no fiber, that's a setup for problems. So that's my concern with that.

1:10:10Okay. But there are these other fats, like there's the monounsaturated fats that you would find in an avocado or extra virgin olive oil, right? Or there's the omega-3 fats, which you can find in chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds, but you can also find in fish, shellfish. These are anti-inflammatory fats. They're so good for you. And there's some studies looking at like, what's the impact of these things on your microbiome? And it starts to give the appearance that they're prebiotic, which means, which I didn't, I didn't see that one coming, right? There was one study where they had people consuming extra virgin olive oil every single day.

1:10:50And eight weeks later, their gut microbiome was healthier with more diversity. That's the only thing they were doing. It's incredible. Or omega-3s. Omega-3s are essential fats and they're anti-inflammatory. We need them and we need to focus on them. Most of us don't get enough of them. So to me, the fats is like, what I'm calling out here is like, you don't need to get rid of fat. You just need to heat and you just need to choose good fat, high quality fat, focus on these. Like I don't, the seed oil debate, you can debate, we can debate this topic. I don't know. I honestly don't even know how you feel about it.

1:11:21But my whole thing is like this whole debate feels really silly because isn't it obvious that extra virgin olive oil is better? Why don't you just make that choice? If we're just looking from the lens of ultra process versus minimally processed, just from that argument alone, it's pretty clear, extra virgin olive oil. So what about the ferments? Because growing up, I knew of two, yogurt and then the sauerkraut that my mom ate that I wanted no parts of. What else do we have in the context of fermented foods? You're raising a good point though, because basically we have abandoned fermented foods because we've developed other ways to preserve our food, right?

1:12:06So canning, refrigeration, but also preservatives. I mean, how can we call it normal that a food could sit on your shelf at your supermarket for who even knows how long and be just as crisp, just as fresh as the day it was made, right? Why? Why? Because it's actually the microbes, Sean, that change, transform our food and prepare it to turn it back into soil. They degrade it, right? It's the microbes. So if you want to keep the microbes out of the equation, you got to kill them. That's what's happening. So, but fermented foods are a different take on that because we're preserving by building a healthy ecosystem.

1:12:59So people hear ferments and they hear the word probiotic. And I see something a little bit different. I see this entire ecosystem of microbes living in balance that they're healthy. And that's how you created those foods. And when we consume them, there are now multiple studies to suggest that you consume that healthy ecosystem and you have inside of you, your own ecosystem and they can integrate themselves. and become a part of what you got. And this can be the way that you add diversity to your gut microbiome. Stanford study, right? So the Sonnenbergs and Christopher Gardner, have you had him on your show, Christopher Gardner?

1:13:41Oh, we got to get him in here. So at Stanford, they did this research study where they basically had people increase their fermented food for eight weeks. And at the end of those eight weeks, they had increased gut diversity. They had lower measures of inflammation by about 25%. Okay. So, I mean, in some ways that is like just another example, validating my thesis that the gut and the immune system, they're together, healthier gut, healthier immune system. Boom. Right there. You asked me, what are the foods? So yeah, yogurt and kefir. And, um, you got lots of choices though, because you could do the sauerkraut, you could do the kimchi, but you could also do pickles, like real pickles, right?

1:14:25The ones from the refrigerated section, but even better, make them yourself. Or like we make dilly beans. So those are green beans that are fermented with dill, garlic, black peppercorns. That's what I make. Yeah, they're good. Miso, wonderfully fermented food. Tempeh, okay. Raw, probably a little bit too weird for a lot of people who are listening right now, but actually you cut the tempeh and apply whatever marinade you like and you cook it and it's actually quite delicious. So, and it's really high in protein, high in fiber, and it's fermented. What else? Obviously kombucha, water kefir, which is quite similar to kombucha, right?

1:15:12So these are, these are options. There's a lot of foods that are fermented that we don't even realize or like may not realize chocolate is fermented coffee is fermented um apple cider vinegar is fermented some teas there's a puer tea so puer tea puer puer tea is fermented tea and that's the highest polyphenol tea yeah so um so yeah so so all of these are out there and then there's one last thing that i have to throw in there so you are not as a listener you are not required to consume bread but let's be honest, bread, it tastes good. So there's sourdough. All right. Sourdough is fermented bread.

1:15:51And that fermentation process actually completely transforms the nutritional qualities of the bread. So through fermentation, the glycemic index is lowered. So in other words, it's not going to spike your blood sugar like it would have done if it was just the same flour. It also has less gluten. It also has less pesticides. You are like basically dissolving the glyphosate if it is there. Right. I can't say it goes to zero, but you're helping to break it down. And there are these yeasts and bacteria that allow us to do this. And then like, it's, you know, may sound a little sad, like you throw it in the oven and get roasted.

1:16:30All right. But there's new research, Sean, that in the last, like since the last time I was on the show in the last three years, that is indicating to us that if you take live microbes and you heat kill them, they still can provide benefits. We call those postbiotics, but my favorite, there's some other names that they've come up with, ghost probiotics, or my favorite, zombie probiotics. So the point is the bread has been transformed, but it also has these zombie probiotics and they may be providing benefit even though you baked the bread amazing ghost protocol this is amazing and speaking of which you know there are many iterations of mission impossible and many iterations of our conversations together it's been years and this is you know you're one of my favorite people man you know that and you know you continue to up level things and to up level your communication and it's so special.

1:17:34And so right now, as of this recording, Plant Powered Plus is about to hit the store shelves. But for everybody listening right now, you can get access to some pre-order bonuses for just a couple of days, depending on when you're listening to this. And so can you tell people where they can pick up a copy and pre-order the book, get the bonuses? Yeah, you can get a copy anywhere the books are sold. that being said i like really believe in trying to go to your local bookshop because i'm all for like the convenience of the click and you know prime um i'm not upset if you do that but the point though from my perspective is like that local mom and pop shop those those are your neighbors and five years from now ten years from now i really hope they're still open because I like popping into those kinds of places.

1:18:27And that only can happen if we buy from them. So, but grab your book wherever you feel most comfortable, honestly, and then come to my website, the gut health MD.com where number one, regardless of when you listen to this episode, I got resources for you. I got supportive materials. I got the references. I got a lot of things that I want to share because from my perspective, the book was the beginning of a bigger conversation that I want to keep having. But there's also the pre-order incentives that are available, at least for the time being, where you can get access to a five-day anti-inflammatory reset course that I created myself and made it just for you, completely free.

1:19:06Otherwise, you're going to have to pay for it, right? So there's a five-day anti-inflammatory reset course, and also you can get access to some of the materials from the book to get you started immediately. Amazing. Thank you so much, man. I appreciate you. Is there anything else that you want to share about the book before I let you go? Yeah, definitely. So the one thing that we didn't get a chance to talk about, but it means a lot to me. And I know this is something that resonates with a guy like you. Chapter eight of this book, from my perspective, is with total clarity, the best writing that I've ever done, like by far.

1:19:48And it, um, I think it catches people off guard because they show up for nutrition and science and they end up drifting into a different place. The chapter is about the ways in which our mind and our body are interacting with one another and how that impacts our health. And there's a conversation about trauma. there's a conversation about our innate need for human connection and how important that is and there's a conversation about our spiritual purpose and how we were beautifully and wonderfully made and designed for that higher calling and desperately starving for it and i know these things what i want to just mention before we run we're not going to dig into the full details that It would have to be another show, but maybe we'll do that sometime.

1:20:45But what I just want to say before we run is that when I wrote my first book, Fiber Fueled, which came out in 2020, I was very comfortable. It was very easy for me to come forward and say to you, I lost 50 pounds and I improved my health by changing my diet. But that wasn't actually the whole story. I had demons that I was dealing with. and I had things that I was ashamed of from my past. And I had a relationship that was in repair that I was still dealing with. And that was the relationship with my dad, which was complex. And so different aspects of our health or different aspects of our, actually our, our, maturity, they come along at different times, right?

1:21:36So I got nutrition came real fast for me, 2012 to 2015, boom, I was flying. But the ability to develop these, these personal relationships, the, and also my desire to open up myself to a relationship with a higher power. it took me a while to get there there's stuff that we could discuss but again the reason that i wrote about this and i had to say it and i don't care if it's a risk the reason i wrote about this is because this was the healing that i needed

1:22:19so healing comes in this is my closing message to your listeners healing comes in many forms. For some of you, it's the nutrients that's missing that you add in. For some of you, it's the daily rhythms that are out of rhythm that we could restore. But for many of us, it's also these things that we're not talking about enough. have, the traumas, the relationships, the spiritual purpose. And so I wanted to open up a conversation about that in the book. And I believe that that for many people will be the most important form of healing that they will receive. And if you do love the book, I would encourage you, number one, share it with a friend.

1:23:16number two take it to heart and if you if you really feel inclined consider the audiobook that um when I read that chapter it was hard for me to get through and we did it in one take so and I think it was a special moment amazing amazing it's all connected we're all connected everybody listening thank you so much for sharing your time with us today thank you for sharing your genius with all of us today. And again, pick up a copy of Plant Powered Plus right now, depending on when you're listening to this, you can grab those pre-order bonuses either way, hop over to the website, which is again, theguthalthmd.com.

1:23:57That's my home base. Sign up for the email newsletter. It's completely free resource, like a sub stack. You might as well jump in there and then check out my other stuff. Let's keep the conversation going. Absolutely. Absolutely. I appreciate you so much. The one and only Dr. B, Dr. Will Bolshevich. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. If you did, you already know what to do. Sharing is caring. Share it with somebody that you care about. You can send this via text message directly from the podcast app that you're listening on. Of course, you can leave a comment if you are watching or listening on Spotify.

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1:25:22So make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon.