Speaker 1 (00:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Number one, ignoring the origin of the olive oil. Now, good olive oil comes from reputable regions with a tradition of quality. Look for bottles that specify a single source. Like Italy, like Greece, or Spain, or Morocco, or Tunisia. Instead of blended oils from multiple countries, single origin oils almost always have better traceability and superior quality. Believe it or not, olive oil is shipped in tankers like gasoline. And believe it or not, when you see multinational oils, or you see on the label, this olive oil packed in Italy. But these are where they came from, run the other way. Even if it just mentions two countries of origin, that’s one country too many. Now, before we get to number two, if you like what we’re doing here at the Dr. Gundry Podcast, please don’t forget to like and subscribe. And please share with your friends and loved ones.
(01:40):
All right, number two, buying light olive oil. Now don’t be fooled. There’s absolutely nothing light about it. The word light just refers to the flavor, not the calorie content. Light olive oil is usually heavily refined and lacks the beneficial properties of extra virgin olive oil, the polyphhenols. They also tend to be blended with other inferior oils to bulk them up and lessen that bitterness that you associate with high quality olive oil. You actually want the bitterness, and this is where the nutrients, the polyphenols, and the flavor are. So light has nothing to do with low calorie. If you see the word light, you know you’re not going to get any benefit from that olive oil. Number three, saving it for a special occasion. Now, unfortunately, olive oil does not age like fine wine or vinegar. Do not leave that fancy bottle sitting in the cupboard for years.
(02:53):
You’re wasting it. And please, when you see the fancy bottles at the grocery store or at the specialty store, and it talks about how marvelous it was in single origin and everything, please turn the bottle over and look at when the date it was bottled. Most olive oil is picked or smashed in the late fall, sometimes in early January. And it’s good, quite honestly, preferably for one year after its bottle. Two year maximum. The best occasion for good olive oil is every single possible day. It’s in front of you. I have not been to a restaurant in France, south of France or Italy where they do not put a bottle of olive oil on the table next to you because they assume that whatever they’re going to bring you, you’re going to pour the olive oil on. And I’m serious. The only purpose of food is to get olive oil in your mouth.
(04:02):
In fact, let me give you an amazing statistic. The per capita consumption of olive oil in grease, get ready, drum roll, is 26 liters per year. You heard that right. 26 liters per person per year. That’s a half a liter of olive oil per person. Now, that’s per person. A three-year-old kid isn’t e- having that, so that means most adults are having consuming about a liter of olive oil per week. Fun fact. Now, obviously, I’m not advocating that you waste oil, but please put it on the table and use it. Number four, plastic bottles. There is a very new popular olive oil that I’m seeing in high market grocery stores, and I’m shocked that it’s sold in a plastic bottle. Olive oil is sensitive to light and heat and plastic let’s in far more light. Always off for dark glass or metal containers to preserve the oil’s integrity.
(05:12):
If you see a high quality olive oil in a plastic bottle, I actually would be very concerned about its quality. Now, another thing about plastic for storing olive oil, olive oil contains acid. Believe it or not, extra virgin has nothing to do with how virgin the olive oil is, but it actually has to do with the acid content of the olive oil. Acid is notorious for leaching microplastics out of plastic. So the last thing you want is an olive oil in plastic. Do not be fooled. All right, number five. Not storing it correctly. Now, proper storage is the key. Please keep your olive oil in a cool, dark place away from direct light and heat. Now, this prevents the oxidation and helps maintain the oil’s flavor and health properties for longer. I can’t tell you the number of people I see storing their best olive oil right next to the stove or over the oven where they’re exposed to much higher temperatures than normal.
(06:27):
That’s the last place you wanna keep it. Just don’t do that. Okay. That was my top five olive oil mistakes, but there is one more mistake I see all the time. People generally don’t know how to use their olive oil properly, especially for cooking. My recommendation is to always try and have two olive oils at hand. For cooking a more readily available one that’s a bit cheaper, but still very good quality, but probably doesn’t have that distinct robust flavor that usually come from what you’re really looking for, like in a salad dressing or drizzling. These usually come in bigger bottles because you’re gonna use a lot more of it. And then have a nice high quality olive oil that usually comes in a smaller bottle that packs all that flavor and is full of polyphenols. Now, olive oil does have a much lower smoke point than many other cooking oils.
(07:27):
That means that at certain temperatures, it will begin to smoke. Now, high temperatures have absolutely nothing to do with its benefits or its flavor. And in fact, olive oil is the least oxidizable oil there is. Far better than even avocado oil or coconut oil. The fact that it’s smoking has nothing, and I repeat nothing to do with whether it’s oxidizing or not. People have been cooking with olive oil for over 5,000 years. And if it was that dangerous, we should have figured it out by now. In fact, four out of the five blue zones cook their food in olive oil. That ought to tell us something. But if you really wanna spend a lot of money on high quality olive oil that has that big power of polyphenols, don’t waste it for sauteing. Save that for the end. Use a less expensive but high quality olive oil for your sizzling.
(08:42):
How many of you have heard that canola oil is bad for you? Including my own book, The Plant Paradox. Now I know what you may be saying. What the heck, Dr. G? Why did you change your mind about something you’ve been warning about for so long? But here’s why I recommended organic canola oil on a really good cry podcast recently. First of all, canola oil has gotten a bad rap over the years, mainly due to how it’s grown and processed, not because of the oil itself. Now, many people think that canola oil was genetically modified from rape seed. That’s not true. Rape seed is an incredibly popular oil in Europe. It’s used throughout Europe. It’s grown everywhere. And rape seed has a toxin that in the 1950s, because of adulteration with a batch of rape seed oil, several people, about 50, became violently ill. And it was chalked up to rape seed oil and this toxin.
(09:52):
In fact, it wasn’t anything of the sort, but it had an effect. So what happened through the years is Canada hybridized canola oil, rape seed oil, to eliminate that toxin. Most people think that it was genetically modified, but that’s not true. Now, the problem is that canola oil in Canada and the United States has been and is usually sprayed with glyphosate Roundup to make it easier to harvest, the same as our wheat, the same as our oats, same as our soybeans, same as our corn, even though they’re not genetically modified. And that’s why I originally asked people to avoid canola oil. So let’s separate though. Now that there is organic canola oil, why it’s worth you looking back into. So remember, it’s derived from rape seed that’s low in uricic acid, and it’s been hybrid ice out. Canola oil is naturally rich in mono unsaturated fats, the same fat that’s in olive oil and avocado oil.
(11:08):
It’s rich in plant steroids, but it’s got quite a bit of alpha linolenic acid, ALA, a short chain omega-3 fat. Now, that’s really important because one of the most important heart studies ever done in Europe was the Lion Heart Diet Trial. It’s actually the Leon Heart Diet trial, but nobody can pronounce Leon, and it was done in Leon France. Half the people were put on a Mediterranean diet, but they were made to use a margarine made out of rape seed oil. The other group followed the Low Fat American Heart Association diet. These were people who had a heart attack. They were followed for five years. The trial was stopped after three years because the group getting the rape-seed oil margarine had so few heart attacks compared to the American Heart Association that it was unethical to continue. Now, here’s the deal. When they broke down every part of the diet that people were doing, the only difference between the two groups was the amount of alpha linolenic acid in their blood, ALA.
(12:30):
So only the rape seed/canola oil group was getting it from their diet, and that was the only difference. Wasn’t different in cholesterol, wasn’t different. Anything else, just the amount of alpha-linolenic acid. So that makes a very, very strong point for canola oil as long as you don’t spray it with Roundup. I mean, it has a great neutral taste. It has very high smoke point. It makes it a very versatile cooking oil. So what are the health benefits of organic canola oil? Again, it’s one of the easiest ways to get alpha-linolinic acid into your diet on a routine basis. And if the Leon Heart diet study is any example, that’s a really good way to support your cardiovascular health. There are even more compounds that have even better amounts of alpha-linolinic acid. And you know in my books, I promote perilla oil is probably the best.
(13:33):
Also, ahi flour oil is another great one. Now, the omega-3 and omega-6 balance is important in oils. And organic canola oil provides a much more balanced ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 than all the other vegetable oils except for flax and peril oil. Now, you have to have both. Believe it or not, omega-6 fats are not evil. It’s an essential component of the mitochondrial membrane. The reason omega-6 fats are called essential is because they’re essential. We don’t make them. We have to acquire them, and they have to be used in our mitochondrial membrane. The problem is our American diet is overloaded with omega-6 and not enough omega-3. Canola oil has naturally occurring phytosteroids, which can help block cholesterol absorption. If you worry about cholesterol, that’s a good thing. It’s got a pretty nice vitamin E content, which supports skin health and immune function. Now again, why is non-organic canola a problem?
(14:43):
Sadly, it’s sprayed with heavy doses of glyphosate Roundup. The non-organic crops are treated with synthetic herbicides, which are known endocrine disruptors or potential carcinogens. Why do they do this? Well, it is much cheaper and much more efficient to spray these herbicides to kill the plant as a desiccant. Drying out the plant cuts down on harvest costs and when a plant can be harvested. And what does glyphosate do to the body? Well, as you know, Bayer now owns glyphosate Roundup. They bought Monsanto, and Bayer now is paying out, I think it’s up to $8 billion to victims of Roundup for cancer. That’s just the start of it. We also know Roundup glyphosate is a really good way of killing off your good gut bacteria. Now, how can we know that this organic canola oil isn’t contaminated by nearby fields using glyphosate? Well, we don’t. But organic canola oil is grown without these chemicals.
(15:59):
And remember, it’s not GMO, it was never GMO, and organic has grown without herbicides. Cold press, minimal processing, organic oils are usually cold press, meaning no high heat or harsh solvents were used, which preserves the integrity of the nutrients. Finally, there is an environmental and ethical impact. Organic farming supports soil health, biodiversity, and lower pollution levels. So organic canola oil, a seed oil, isn’t the enemy, the industrial version is. If you choose cold pressed organic canola oil, you get a great source of alpha-linolenic acid, a short chain omega-3. Alpha-linolinic acid blocks the absorption of LPSs, those little pieces of you know what. So what’s not to light? Now, just remember, it’s not just what we eat. It’s how the food that we eat is grown, sourced, and processed. So when you choose organic canola oil, you’re choosing not just for your health, but you’re choosing for the planet too.
(17:10):
Let’s talk about castor oil. First of all, there is absolutely nothing new about castor oil, despite what you may have seen with health influencers and TikTok videos. Castor oil has been around for centuries. Most people know about it from their grandmother or their great-grandmother who had a bottle in her medicine cabinet and used it as a laxative. And quite frankly, it works really good as a laxative. But now, TikTok and wellness blogs are pushing all new exciting uses. Putting castor oil in your belly button, for instance, to flatten your stomach, fix bloating, and even help with menstrual cramps. And let’s not forget the castor oil gallbladder cleanse. I’ll mention my patient about that in a minute. So is this science or is it just another social media gimmick? Let’s start with the belly button trend. Now, this practice is sometimes called the PATI method in Auryvedic circles.
(18:11):
Now, the claim says it helps digestion, menstrual cramps, inflammation, weight loss, even glowing skin. And it’s based on the claim that the naval, your belly button, is a central hub where supposedly 72,000 nerves all come together so that oil there can spread benefits throughout the body. Now, here’s the problem. This connection of 72,000 nerves has never been identified in modern anatomy. It is true that the umbilical cord enters your body and funnels blood through your liver and your circulation while you’re a fetus inside of mom, but that connection is severed, obviously, at birth, and if there were important connections there long since gone. Now, as a heart surgeon, I was a general surgeon before I could become a heart surgeon, and I can assure you I’ve operated on or near and through many belly buttons. And there is an old ligamentous connection between the belly button and the liver.
(19:29):
We can see it, we can cut through it, we can do anything we want to it, but there’s unfortunately nothing there but ligamental scar tissue, not 72,000 nerves. If there were, then when I sent a specimen of the umbilical connection, the pathologist would say, “Wow, there’s a lot of nerves in here.” Nope, there aren’t. So what do we know about castor oil? It was used as far back as ancient Egypt. It was used for skincare. It was used to treat wounds, and it was pro- uh, promoted for digestive health primarily to keep bowel movements normal. It is FDA approved today as an oral stimulant laxative, and as I mentioned before, it really works as a laxative. Now, what about putting it on the skin? Well, it does have antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties, and it can improve skin hydration, no doubt about it. Now, some people also use it as a pack for comfort or relaxation.
(20:33):
Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there’s really no hard clinical evidence that putting castor oil in your belly button has any systemic benefits. How about promoting a flat tummy and bloating? Sorry, there is absolutely no clinical evidence that belly button oiling reduces gas or drains lymph. What about menstrual cramps and endotoxemia? Well, there are anecdotes. There are anecdotes for everything. And just remember, the placebo effect is incredibly powerful. If you believe a treatment is going to work and is going to do what is claimed it’s going to do, a lot of times that will work. That’s called the placebo effect. And just because we have someone’s report about how their menstrual cramps went away by putting castor oil on their belly button, that didn’t mean that putting the castor oil in their belly button was the cause of the menstrual cramps being alleviated. Let’s keep that in mind with all of these modern remedies.
(21:43):
It’s not a magical pathway, and it can’t, and there’s nothing wrong with the placebo effect. We use the placebo effect all the time to good use. How about weight loss? Well, drinking castor oil will produce weight loss. You have about four to five pounds of stool in your body at any one time. So getting rid of that four to five pounds with an impressive laxative will impressively cause a four to five pound weight loss. Works every time, but that’s not real weight. That’s just flushing out all of your gut buddies, which doesn’t sound like a very good idea. So that’s not safe weight loss. You see so many of these weight loss teas using the exact same effect. They’ll use a diarrhea-producing agent like Senna or Senecat, which is in most of these miracle weight loss teas. And of course, you’re gonna lose weight when you use them because you got rid of that four to five pounds of gut buddies.
(22:50):
How about skin benefits? Well, there’s no harm of putting castor oil on your skin. It does moisturize. It can calm the irritation. That part at least makes sense. Now, let me tell you my favorite gallbladder cleanse story. Um, if you follow the internet, you know that putting a castor oil pack over the right side of your abdomen where your liver is, is said to make you pass gallstones. Fair enough. One of my patients did the castor oil gallbladder cleanse, and she swore she passed giant gallstones and actually brought in the photos of what she claimed were in her stool to prove that these were giant gallstones. Now, I mentioned that I was a general surgeon before I became a heart surgeon, and I’ve taken out many gallbladders. I’ve explored many common bile ducts, the tube bleeding from the gallbladder to the intestines. And the photos of the gallstones she showed me, they were about the size of a golf ball or a shooter marble.
(23:57):
And unfortunately, the gallbladder duct is only about the size of the tip of this pen. Yes, gallstones can get stuck in the gallbladder duct, and we have to operate on them because they can’t get through. So what she’s claiming that Castro oil did was taking this and expanding it to that so that that big gallstone could pass through that duct. And unfortunately, that can’t happen. So she was not passing gallstones from her gallbladder, and whatever she passed, it wasn’t gallstones. But the good news is, it didn’t harm her at all. So if you think that something is going to benefit you, go ahead. But you’re not gonna pass gallstones the size of a golf ball. Topical use. Whenever you’re using any new topical treatment, do what’s called a patch test. Put it on someplace that’s not too visible, particularly a sensitive area of skin, or sometimes on the backside of your arm or the inside of your leg, and do a small area first just to make sure you’re not going to get an irritation because you never know what’s going to irritate your particular skin.
(25:23):
Finally, an oral use. It is a laxative. So buyer beware. It can produce dangerous cramping. It can clean you out very effectively. And remember, it’s not a recommended treatment for contractions of pregnancy. We just don’t know the effect on a fetus. So that’s not something you wanna play around with. Okay. Casser oil, been around for a very long time. Putting it in your belly button isn’t gonna hurt you, but it’s probably not going to do any miraculous things besides a great placebo effect, and it’s not gonna move your gallstones out of your call platter. Sorry about that. If you wanna use castor oil, think about skin and comfort, but if you really need it, it’s great blasting powder for your intestines, but used with caution.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
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.
