Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast, where Dr. Stephen Gundry shares his groundbreaking research from over 25 years of treating patients with diet and lifestyle changes alone. Dr. Gundry and other wellness experts offer inspiring stories, the latest scientific advancements, and practical tips to empower you to take control of your health and live a long, happy life.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
The holidays are here and it’s time to rethink gift-giving. Instead of the usual socks and candles. Why not opt for healthy holiday gifts? From hydroponic herb gardens to kitchen gadgets, I’ve got ideas that show you care about your loved one’s well-being. And for the foodies, let’s talk cheese. I’m sharing my favorite picks to promote health. Get ready to elevate your next cheese board. Lastly, dark chocolate. It’s indulgent, heart-healthy and mood boosting. What more could you want? I’ll share why it’s the ultimate guilt-free holiday treat. Let’s dive in.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and that means gift-giving, but instead of giving something they may not even wear or will end up shoved in the back of a closet, gift items that will help them eat healthier, which is the ultimate gift if you’re helping someone feed their gut buddies and live their best life, it’s what you should look for. So before I share my go-to holiday gift list for health enthusiasts or healthy foodies, please subscribe to this channel. All right, ready to put on your Santa hat? Here we go.
Number one, a hydroponic garden. Now you can have these polyphenol herbs year round with these compact indoor hydroponic gardens. My friend’s husband gave her a hydroponic garden and she raves about having fresh herbs, while saving money and trips to the store. Plus, it’s a really great project for the whole family, teaching them how to garden and raise their own food.
Number two, a spiralizer. It is great for making veggie-based noodles from sweet potatoes, yams, etc. You can also use it to make low-carb, high-fiber noodles from parsnips, turnips, rutabagas and other root veggies, or spiralize raw carrots or beets to make your salads look fancy. There are so many fun things to do with a spiralizer, and your kids will love playing with it.
Number three, a mandoline. When we were raw food-ists, my wife and I used a mandoline for everything, for making mushroom ravioli, for slicing baby artichokes and eating them raw. Using celeriac root, we would slice these guys, we would drench them in olive oil, put a little salt and pepper on it, and away we go. It is one of the best devices as long as you make sure you use the attachment that pokes into whatever vegetable you’re going to use, and not use your fingers, which you might find sliced with the mandoline.
Number four, this is a gift that keeps on giving, a pressure cooker If you’ve tuned in long enough, you know how much I encourage pressure cooking inflammatory foods like beans and certain grains to denature the lectins. Now just to note, here are the foods you can’t zap the lectins out of with a pressure cooker. You can’t get it out of wheat, you can’t get it out of rye, you can’t get it out of barley, and you can’t get them out of oats. Believe me, my patients have tried, my really mischievous patients that I call canaries have tried, and it just won’t work. But all the rest, like the more mischievous pseudo grains or grains like quinoa, you can put in a pressure cooker. All the beans and legumes you, can put in a pressure cooker. If you really want to have all of the tomato or all of the bell peppers, you can use a pressure cooker.
Now, I don’t have a particular brand I recommend, but I do insist if you gift a pressure cooker or buy one yourself to make sure the inner pot is made from stainless steel like Instant Pot’s, or non-toxic material like Our Place’s. Do not buy one with a pot lined with Teflon.
Number five, this is a fun one. Super long-aged balsamic vinegar. Each year the team at Gundry MD gives me a special birthday gift and about two years ago they found this very rare traditional balsamic of Modena, Italy, aged 25 years. I so loved receiving it because, well, let’s face it, I would never spend that much on a bottle of vinegar for myself. But those are the best gifts, things you’d never dream of spending the money for yourself. Or a vinegar subscription like the Lindera Farms one, and I have no affiliation with them. They didn’t send me money to tell you this. It just is a great gift that keeps on giving, with three different vinegars shipped throughout the year.
How about a great gift? Gundry MD, polyphenol-rich olive oil or olive oil pearls? Now, the oil is giving the gift of potent polyphenols. The pearls, the pearls have been called the caviar of olive oil. What we do is we actually take olives, olive oil, and we compress them into little bitty pieces of caviar. Now, there’s a lot of ways to use these pearls. You can spoon them into middle of a half an avocado, you can sprinkle them over eggs, you can garnish a salad with them, put them over pasta or sorghum grain dishes, really, anything. And here’s a holiday gift, if you use the code PODCAST20 at GundryMD.com, you’ll get 20% off these tasty gifts.
Now, do you have a fungi fan on your list? Make sure to get them this book, Entangled Life: How Fungi Made Our Worlds Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake. So, one of the things I love about this book and I talk even more in the upcoming book, The Gut-Brain Paradox, it’s amazing how advanced mushrooms and plants are, for that matter. It really confirms what I’ve always said about plants and other kingdoms like the fungi system. They’re incredibly smart and they have their own systems of defense and their own systems of communications, and I can’t wait for you to learn more from this book and my next book about this amazing system they have of telling us what they want us to do.
Speaking of books, do you have a loved one who’s trying to make sure their family eats healthy or perhaps new to the lectin-free lifestyle? Check out My Plant Paradox Family Cookbook. There’s great recipes that even little ones will love and their gut buddies will also enjoy. You can actually have a sturdy sandwich bread, a lectin-free pizza, and avocado ice cream. Or the original Plant Paradox Cookbook, it’s a classic that you’ll be using over and over. Just this week I had a fairly new patient bring in The Plant Paradox Cookbook for me to sign and I said, “Did you get this book recently?” They said, “Oh no, this is actually how I started with you because one of my relatives gave it to me and reading that totally changed my life. And I’m here because of that cookbook.” So, give the gift that keeps on giving. Both cookbooks like all my books are available at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Or wherever you buy your books, and please support your local bookseller.
Now, speaking of great cookbooks that promote the eat foods that you love, that love you back theme, is Claudia Curici’s two cookbooks. Living Well Without Lectins, and her second, Every Day Low-Lectin Cookbook. They have beautiful photos and the recipes are pretty straightforward and easy to do.
Finally, one of my good friends, chef Jimmy Schmidt, just came out with the world’s first Neu5Gc-free beef by a high-tech process of fermentation with healthy bacteria strains. I had him on the podcast to talk about this incredible breakthrough, so make sure to check it out. Anyhow, if you have a meat lover on your list, order up a box of these delicious and ingenious meats, including burgers, smoked hot dogs and brisket from JR Ranch Foods. That’s JRranchfoods.com. This meat is so good and more importantly won’t contribute to any inflammation, because it’s free from that nasty sugar molecule I talk about in Gut Check.
And how about you? What ideas do you have for healthy holiday gifts for the foodie on your list? Or, what was the best gift you’ve ever received that helped you eat healthier? Please send a comment below and I’ll look forward to reading it. I might get a great idea for a gift for a loved one, or me personally. Thanks a lot and have a great holidays.
I know that many of you may think that all cheeses are bad for you, well, not quite. It all comes down to the type of cow and how the cheese is made. In this episode, I’ll share my top six favorite cheeses that you can safely indulge in without compromising your health. So get ready to discover some tasty options that can actually fit into your healthy lifestyle. But before we get started, make sure to subscribe to this channel or like, so you get more of this coming your way.
First things first, in many countries, particularly in Europe, particularly in France, Italy, and Switzerland, cheeses are made from the milk of cows that produce a specific protein called A2 casein, which is far more compatible with human digestion. The milk from these A2 cows tends to be gentler on the gut than the milk from casein A1 cows, the common breed used here in the United States and also in Northern Europe, like Ireland and England. This is why I don’t recommend most cheeses here in America. Now, dairy farming uses the Holstein cows, which produce casein A1 because they’re hardier and they give more milk. But sadly, research suggests that A1 casein is more inflammatory, potentially leading to more digestive discomfort, bloating, and other adverse health reactions in sensitive individuals.
Sadly, American dairy cows are often raised with growth hormones and antibiotics, which can compromise milk quality and introduce unwanted residues into dairy products. In contrast, European regulations strictly limit or ban these practices, meaning their cheeses are often more natural and less processed. Additionally, many cheeses in both France and Italy are made from unpasteurized milk and it will say raw on the label. Now, there’s very interesting studies particularly out of Italy, showing that the pasteurization process unfortunately kills off a lot of really important bacteria that improve human health, whereas raw milks do contain those sorts of bacteria.
Okay, now I’m going to be holding up these packages and they’re wrapped in plastic, and if you’ve watched my other videos, you know plastic is a problem, but the reason I’m showing you this is because I want you to actually look for things on the cheese. So for instance, this one is Pecorino Romano, this is made from sheep’s milk, which always contains A2 milk. Now it’s almost always aged and there is no lactose in cheese. It is gone because the bacteria eat the lactose. Plus, there’s no Neu5Gc in aged cheeses because the bacteria have eaten the Neu5Gc. You should look for country of origin, oh my goodness, imported from Italy. You should also look for how long it’s aged. This one says naturally aged for nine months. Fun tip, the longer it’s aged, the better it is for you.
Now if they have a label on the back, one of the things you want to look for is cultures. Cultures is code word for bacteria. And so we know that bacteria were added to this to make the cheese and that’s actually what you want. Pecorino grated over vegetables or enjoyed as a small snack with Gundry approved nuts, it’s really tasty. Again, the older any of these cheeses are aged, the better they are for you. And if you’ve read some of my books, aged cheeses are loaded with polyamines like spermidine, which have been shown to increase your health span dramatically.
Next up, pretty easy to find is Manchego, is the sheep cheese of Spain. Now, most cheeses from Spain are made from A1 cows, sadly, but sheep cheese is always made with casein A2 because that’s what sheep milk is. So Manchego is perfectly fine. You also want to look how long it’s aged, and this one four months, that’s kind of the bare minimum for Manchego. Try to look for six, 12 months, there’s even two-year months. Sadly, for good reasons, the longer it’s aged, the more it costs. The other nice thing about cheeses is they have what are called milk fat globule membranes, which are really cool proteins that actually improve your health as well. Cheeses are loaded with magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus, and once again, look on the back and you’ll see cheese cultures. That’s a sign that this is a bacterial product. Manchego is easy to eat. You compare it with olives for a Mediterranean twist, or just eat it thinly sliced as a snack.
Next up, true Parmigiano Reggiano. So this is the true thing that’s made in Italy. Please do not be fooled by the name Parmesan cheese, it didn’t come from Italy. You’ve got to see Parmigiano Reggiano. Now, this one has aged for 24 months, that’s a fantastic thing. And one of the interesting things I learned is that true great Parmesan Reggiano used to be only allowed to be produced in the spring or the fall from cows that were eating growing grass. Now with the popularity of Parmesan cheese, they’re allowed to be fed all year round, but if you’re lucky enough to know a cheese monger, you can actually find Parmesan cheese that was made in the spring or fall.
These cows are A2 producers, it’s protein dense. Believe it or not, there’s actually 10 grams of high quality protein per ounce. They’ve got all nine essential amino acids, good for your muscles, and with about 30% of your daily calcium needs in just one ounce. This cheese is beneficial for maintaining strong bones and teeth. The phosphorus contains further aids and calcium absorption and is essential for cellular function. You know how to eat Parmesan cheese. You can grate it over vegetables, you can stir it into soups and sauces. And don’t waste the rind, put it in soups and it’ll give a real flavor boost.
Now, before we move on, I want to go next door to France. Again, I’m holding this up because look, there’s a French flag. This one is made from cow’s milk, which are A2 in France, and again, you want to look at cultures and there it is. So this is triple cream brie. If you’re on a ketogenic diet where you want a high fat diet, believe it or not, do not be afraid of triple cream brie. Literally, 70% of it is cream. What you’re really looking for is it came from France, not from America. If it came from America, put it back. It doesn’t contain casein A2, it contains casein A1. If it came from America, it likely was not made with active cultures.
Now, these cheeses are better the longer they sit around. Most of the stores sell this very hard. You’re really not going to like it very much. Take it out of this wrapper, wrap it in cheese paper or wax paper or parchment paper, put it in the refrigerator and wait till the middle gets really squishy. It’ll start to be kind of a stinky cheese, and that stinkiness is actually the sign that the fermentation process is going full bore and you get all these amazing polyamines and spermidines that you’re looking for.
Okay, let’s go over to Holland. The famous cheeses in Holland like Gouda are unfortunately made with casein A1 cows. However, we’re rapidly finding goat Gouda and even goat cheddar, which is A2 milk. Now the nice thing about these guys, both sheep and goats, their fats contain a lot of medium chain triglycerides, MCTs. In fact, about 30% of the fat and goat and sheep milk are MCTs. Now, studies suggest that medium-chain fatty acids and goat cheese can actually help manage cholesterol levels by reducing the bad LDL and increasing the good HDL cholesterol, and this can actually lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Once again, it’s easier to digest than cow’s milk and goat cheese may have anti-inflammatory effects that can be beneficial for conditions like arthritis and other inflammatory disorders. Also, look for how long it’s aged. This one is eight months. Again, the longer it’s aging, the more the benefit. It just means more pricey.
Finally, head over to Switzerland. Now, most of the cows in Switzerland are A2. The two most common that you’re going to find in most stores is Gruyére and Comté. Now, these are fermented cheeses, and in most cases it will show it right on the package. In fact, there it is, cheese culture. And you will see that surprise, surprise, it’s from Switzerland. Once again, the longer they’re aged, the better they are for you, but these are fermented foods. So, fermented dairy products like cheese contain probiotics, but that’s not the important thing. They contain postbiotics, which are the products of the bacteria eating the sugars in cheese. So these are the active things that you’re actually looking for for heart health. The probiotics are not the important thing, it’s the postbiotics and cheese that’s the real benefit. These guys are easy to find, and like I say, they’re in most stores. Try them, I think you’ll like them. They both have really a nutty flavor that is really good.
Finally, one thing that’s interesting about cheeses that was discovered by Weston Price back in the 1930s and ’40s, he discovered a compound that he called factor X or vitamin X, that he found only in cheeses that he described as essential for bone density and heart health. And it wasn’t until very recently that factor X was actually vitamin K2. And so one of the great benefits of cheeses is that they are a great source of vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 I prescribe as a supplement to all my patients, and I even have it as a product at Gundry MD because it helps vitamin D take calcium and put it in your bones where it belongs, rather than in your blood vessels. So, cheese can have a lot of benefits even though you think it’s bad for you. Some of the longest living people in the world live on these cheese products and live well.
So, I often get questions from patients or online, how much cheese can I have? I have seen people and I used to do a diagram in my office where I showed them a one by one inch piece of cheese, which has anywhere from 120 to 150 calories in that one inch piece of cheese. I then bring out a five bags of romaine lettuce from Trader Joe’s, which just so happened to have 150 calories. And I say, “How many bags of romaine lettuce do you think you can possibly eat before you get too full to eat another bite?” I’d done this myself. I got through two and a half bags of lettuce before I had to quit because I was too full. Now, in the interest of science, I was able to eat ten one inch pieces of cheese without feeling full. And when I have patients who tell me they don’t eat very much, oftentimes when I actually make them break down, cheese sadly is one of their guilty pleasures. A little cheese goes a long way.
Number two, the important thing about these cultures in cheese, the bacteria will eat that very inflammatory sugar molecule that’s in all milk products, called Neu5Gc. And the cool thing is the bacteria will rid the cheese of Neu5Gc, and this has been shown in studies looking at Neu5Gc content. Finally, Parmesan cheese, there is an interesting study in Italy that men who eat Parmesan cheese have much better vascular health than men who don’t eat Parmesan cheese.
Finally, there are some people who absolutely raise their LDL and total cholesterol eating cheese, but I hope by now, most people realize that the cholesterol theory of heart disease is slowly dying a painful death. Inflammation is the cause of heart disease. Cheeses reduce inflammation and reduce oxidative stress. So I tell my patients in my practice, “I don’t really care about your cholesterol. I want to know whether you’re oxidizing your cholesterol and I want to know if there’s inflammation on your blood vessels,” and surprisingly, my cheese eaters don’t have oxidized LDL and they don’t have inflammation on their blood vessels. And that explains why some of the healthiest people in the world are cheese and yogurt eaters.
Just to be clear, a cheese food product is not a cheese, and most of what we’re peddled in the United States is a cheese food product. What I’m talking about is the cheeses that were made in a traditional way with active cultures, and most of them will show you on the back the word cheese, cultures, or cultures. That’s what you’re looking for.
Chocolate, everybody loves it, and if you’ve been following my channel or have read any of my books you know it’s not off-limits. There are actually some great benefits to eating dark chocolate, and it’s mostly all thanks to their polyphenol content. In fact, one study showed that chocolate contains more polyphenols than these potent super fruits, even blueberries and acai berries. But you can’t just eat any old candy bar. Always remember, more bitter, more better. That’s because polyphenols are bitter. So look for chocolates that are at least 72% cacao and no milk additives.
It turns out that years ago, the Dutch figured out how to treat chocolate with alkali to bind the polyphenols, which eliminated the bitterness, and that’s where Dutch-ing of chocolate comes from. And a lot of times you’ll still see cocoa powders, which sound great, but if you read the label carefully, it’ll say Dutch processed or treated with alkali. Stay away from that, the polyphenols have been completely inactivated. Same way with milk chocolate. Milk will bind the polyphenols and will not make them available to you.
Okay, with that in mind, let’s talk about some of the benefits of dark chocolate. First of all, dark chocolate can help your body produce nitric oxide, which plays an important role in protecting heart and vein flexibility and health. And if you’ve read any of my books, getting more nitric oxide in you is really beneficial to the flexibility of your blood vessels. In fact, there’s a saying in longevity that you are only as young as your blood vessels are flexible. And I measure blood vessel flexibility in my patients and have even documented that the addition of polyphenols dramatically improves flexibility in blood vessels because of this process. Now, dark chocolate also contains another class of polyphenols called flavonoids. These are really powerful polyphenols that can help reduce inflammation and also improve the health of your blood vessels.
Now, here’s a surprise. Cacao, dark chocolate, comes from cocoa beans that have been fermented. And if you’ve read my last couple of books, including Gut Check, you know that fermentation is the way of producing polyphenols that are much more activated and absorbable. So the fermentation of cocoa beans to produce cocoa is potentiating the absorption of these polyphenols, and it also has postbiotics from the fermentation process. So it’s a win-win. The more of these fermented foods that you eat, including chocolate, the better you’re going to be.
Now, what’s really exciting is some of the new evidence about how chocolate improves brain health. Now, ever notice that when you’re feeling sad or stressed, you usually reach for chocolate? You know why? It turns out that particularly dark chocolate contains various compounds, including phenylethylamine, which is abbreviated P-PEA, it has nothing to do with pea protein, folks, and serotonin precursors, which affect the level of neurotransmitters in the brain. These substances actually promote feelings of pleasure and happiness and potentially improving your mood and reducing symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression. It’s true, that’s why you reach for chocolate in times of stress. But remember, it’s one thing to reach for chocolate when you’re stressed, and it’s quite another to reach for chocolate for the sugar content, because you may get a lift from the sugar but then you’ll crash and feel even worse. And that’s why it’s so important to remember, more bitter, more better, even when it comes to chocolate.
Now, flavonoids in dark chocolate have been associated with improved blood flow to the brain, even the promotion of new neuron growth and neuron connection, and they also protect brain cells from damage caused by inflammation and oxidative stress. In fact, believe it or not, some of the best studies on the effects of flavonoids and polyphenols in chocolate were conducted by the Mars Corporation. Yes, the candy bar company. And they’ve found that these polyphenols in chocolate dramatically improve brain function. In fact, they and others make cocoa-based supplements that have been shown in human clinical trials to improve memory. So the next time you really want to study up for a test, think about having some dark chocolate to go with whatever else you’re eating.
The other thing that I like to do to kind of potentiate the benefit of dark chocolate is to make yourself kind of a Hershey’s Crunch Bar or a Nestle’s Crunch Bar or a Hershey’s Crackle bar. Take a piece of extra dark chocolate, I prefer 85% or a above. Get yourself some cocoa nibs, now, these are the whole bits of cocoa beans that have been fermented. Put them on your one ounce piece of chocolate and then eat them together, so you’ll get a crunch that you’re looking for, but you’ll also get a direct hit from these cocoa nibs. It’s a great trick. Please buy the organic cocoa nibs, they’re readily available.
Finally, skin health. I remember as a teenager when I had acne, the first thing my dermatologist told me was, “No more chocolate. Chocolate causes pimples.” Well, believe it or not, we were wrong. Now, they were sort of right, it was the sugar in chocolate that was the problem, but in fact, cocoa and cocoa actually benefit the skin. Compounds in chocolate have been found to help your skin protect itself from UV rays. And many of you heard, one of my favorite sayings is, “I don’t use sunscreen. I eat my sunscreen.” And one of the compounds I use as my sunscreen is eating polyphenols. There’s even evidence that chocolate polyphenols improve skin texture, increase skin density, and plump up your skin.
But of course, moderation is the key. You can’t sit and have a giant bar of chocolate every day. Get yourself a one ounce piece of extra dark chocolate, do my trick of putting the cocoa nibs on top of it, and kind of work your way up. Start with 72% or better and get used to that bitterness, and you’ll find it’s easy then to go to 80, 85, 90. In fact, there’s even some 100% cacao bars out there that taste pretty good once you get used to the bitterness. We’ll leave you with that. Chocolate is your friend in moderation. It helps your brain, it helps your mood.
Now it’s time for the audience question from my recent episode, episode 329. Check it out if you haven’t heard it with chef Jimmy Schmidt, who invented a method to zap the nasty molecule in meat. At Health Master Jedi asked, I must ask, if Neu5Gc is so mischievous then in people eating a carnivore diet, we should see a rise in some kind of inflammation marker, wouldn’t you think? So I must ask, what would this be? As people on the carnivore diet usually seem to reduce inflammatory markers, not the other way around, laugh out loud.
Well, that’s a great question, Health Master Jedi. But not so fast, if you’ve read my last two books, you may have noticed that I wrote in both of the books that all of my patients who have tried a carnivore diet report feeling better, yet their inflammatory markers have all, and I repeat, all elevated. And when I removed them from that carnivore diet and put them on my chicken and the sea diet that I talk about in the upcoming book, Gut-Brain Paradox, those inflammatory markers resolve. So, just because people are reporting feeling better, that’s because they’ve been eliminating the troublesome lectins, but not so fast, Neu5Gc is still lurking, and that’s why I am so excited about what Jimmy Schmidt has been able to accomplish. And I write a lot about the other ways to eliminate Neu5Gc in your diet, even if you want to eat beef, lamb, pork, and milk products. Great question. And that’s all for the day because I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you.
Speaker 1:
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone’s life when you take the time to share it with them. There’s also the Dr. Gundry Podcast YouTube channel, where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let’s do this together.
