Speaker 1 (00:00:00):
Welcome to The Dr. Gundry Podcast, the weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.
Dr. Gundry (00:00:13):
So, you don’t miss an episode, I wanted to let you know ahead of time that our new airdate of The Dr. Gundry Podcast is moving from Monday to Tuesday mornings. Let’s face it, Mondays are hectic for all of us. So, now, you have some time to settle into your week. And then, I’ll be there to keep you informed about the latest in health every Tuesday morning, same podcast with yours truly, just a different airdate. See you there.
Welcome to The Dr. Gundry Podcast. Well, more and more of us are cooking at home these days for pretty much obvious reasons. And that’s great news. Since home cooking is the best way to control the food you eat and manage your health. But how can you make your home cooked meals truly extraordinary? Well, to help me out. I’m joined today by my longtime friend and award-winning chef, Jimmy Schmidt.
Jimmy is a three-time James Beard award-winning chef. That’s actually remarkable in it of itself, who’s opened restaurants across the United States, written several books about cooking and his work with me since 2004, to develop special collaborative dinners, exploring taste and nutritional development. And he’s actually helped in manufacturing and designing some of the bars at Gundry MD.
So, we go way back, and I trust his judgment, and love his friendship. So, on today’s episode, Jimmy and I are going to talk about all the nuts and bolts of cooking, how to find the right ingredients, how to create awesome flavors, which is I got to tell you, Jimmy’s forte, and the common mistakes many home cooks make, and how to fix them.
Years ago, Jimmy and I said that we want you to eat food that you love, but food that loves you back. And I think that has really been a core philosophy for both of us. So, I’ve got a lot of important things to talk to you about today. So, stay tuned. I’ll be right back.
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Jimmy, it’s so great to have you on the podcast.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:04:40):
Good to see you, Dr. Gundry. It’s always great to be with you. Thank you so much.
Dr. Gundry (00:04:45):
All right. So, I want to tell everybody how we met. You and I have slightly different versions, but one of the fascinating things about Chef Jimmy is that he was one of the early superstars in chefdom back when chefs were first getting recognized as stars in their own right. And Jimmy was a young superstar chef in Detroit. And Donald Trump actually brought Jimmy to the desert Palm Springs a number of years ago to bring Jimmy’s culinary talents to the rattlesnake grill in Trump 29 Casino of all things.
And it was actually there that I met Jimmy. But before we get into that part, I want people to understand your background, and the story of how you got into cooking coming out of Wayne State as this physicist as a protein biochemist is just too good to miss. So, can you take us back memory lane, and take us to France, et cetera?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:06:07):
Sure, I’d love to. It actually started, I’m originally from Illinois, as you know, Champaign, Illinois, down the farmlands. My father had a farm, although worked for the University of Illinois. And I was determined to be an electrical engineer, and run around, and chase positively and negatively-charged things. And did those studies for a number of years.
And then, went to France to fulfill the language credits for my degree. And being a poor student, and I was pretty, down to pennies, took food and wine classes so that I could eat and drink every day while I was in France, which seemed to be a perfect match. And as I started to get into the whole culinary arts, and brands, and started drinking some wine, it all started to click.
So, I followed my chief instructor, Madeleine Kamman, after my studies in France back to Boston. And she had a restaurant called Chez La Mère Madeleine in Boston, which was one of the two top restaurants in the United States along with Alice Waters on the West Coast. And I quickly got behind the stoves there, and I really loved it, and just followed the course of action of learning more and more about food, that type of thing.
So, that’s how I got diverted off of my double E background. I had always intended to go on to the businesses, as you said, to study at Wayne State University, which is I moved from Boston to Detroit to pursue that, once again, working as a chef for the one in chophouse. And that was a great old bastion, like the 21 Club in New York of industry icons as auto industry.
Eating and drinking their way through business on a daily basis, I found a great platform to explore my culinary arts. And during that time is when I got recognized, so I thought, this could be a good thing. So, I got diverted into the food end of the world.
Dr. Gundry (00:08:22):
And then, Donald Trump called.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:08:23):
Yeah. Years later, yeah, Donald Trump, I actually got diverted from Detroit, and went out, and did the first rattlesnake in Denver, Colorado in the 80s. And then, came back, and opened up another version of the rattlesnake in Detroit. And the Trump group had offices as they were bidding on the casinos for Detroit above me, and ate in the restaurant every day.
And then, convinced me to head to the West Coast, where it was warmer, much better climate, to come out and have some fun. And that’s how I ended up meeting you, which was the most important thing that came out of ever that desert routine, and it’s nothing but fun. We had a lot of fun out there in the desert.
Dr. Gundry (00:09:07):
Yeah. So, you and I, I think first met, besides me eating at the rattlesnake grill, but the American Heart Association put on a luncheon for women back when the Go Red for Women campaign started a number of years ago now. And they asked you and me, and we hadn’t met each other, to put on a little demonstration, where I was going to talk about healthy eating, and you were going to cook healthy eating.
And I’m going, “Oh, yeah, right. I’m going to try to tell a chef how to cook this crazy way.” Well, it turns out that you and I had literally made a mind meld weld, and took off from there, and we’ve become good friends ever since then.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:10:02):
Absolutely.
Dr. Gundry (00:10:02):
We had some fun time.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:10:05):
We became very kindred soulmates per se. Because that was the direction my cooking had gone. I did a hard healthy cooking for all seasons with Alice Waters and Larry Forgione, as you know, that already started to explore cooking for big flavors, but also to deliver big nutrition. So, that when we got together on that stage, and that book was also picked up by the Heart Association, which was great for sales. But when we got together on stage, it was a natural fit. And since that day, I think we’ve had a lot of good food and a lot of good fun.
Dr. Gundry (00:10:43):
That’s true. You took over a very famous restaurant in the desert that’s now owned by the Waldorf Astoria collection, Hilton, Morgan’s in the Desert, and LA Quinta Resort, and were there for a number of years. And folks, Jimmy and I, he would put on these chef wine dinners. And one of our signatures of those dinners is I would come out with each course.
And Jimmy would tell why he did such and such a thing. And then, I’d tell why this great tasting food was actually good for you. And people were shocked, that decadent, flavorful, yummy food was actually good for their health. And in a way, we all want to assume that this decadent food is going to kill us, and we’re toying with disaster. But in fact, that’s not true.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:11:46):
No, it’s not true and that, yeah, those dinners were a lot of fun, because usually, a wine and food dinner, you’re just trying to get the wine to match the flavors and the food, which is the best of all marriages from a taste point of view. But if you back up in nutritional parts, as well as many of the nutritional activators, like turmeric, and ginger, and cardamon, and all of these wonderful spices that actually add depth to the meal, they also add depth of nutrition, as you taught me.
And we continued to explore matching these wonderful nutrients with the wine. So, the dinner almost became a marriage of the nutrients and the wine, which was I think we’re probably some of the first people that ever did that.
Dr. Gundry (00:12:39):
Yeah. And I think, you’re the one of the few shout outs to this day that I know, or have watched that if you’re going to do a wine dinner, number one, you demand that the wines from the winery be sent down to you long beforehand. And then, you actually work with each individual wine, and decide what spices, what dish is going to pair best with this particular wine. And that really impressed me, number one, but the idea that you would bring out flavors within a food to match a wine is pretty impressive.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:13:25):
Well, the concept is when you taste the wine, the wine will really tell you what goes with it. So, you have to listen to the wine, and see what’s going on within it because it’s a living, changing environment on its own. So, pairing up flavors that actually are complimentary, or in some cases aren’t so complimentary, but strip out the bad flavors in the wine.
So, my job is to match the flavors, but also, to clean up any of the extra things floating around in the wine while it’s developing. The tannins can be balanced with fats, and acids, and different herbaceous flavors. If you add herbs into a saucer, such your mind will think the flavors those herbaceous flavors from the wine will actually go into the food, which cleans up the wine in some cases.
So, it’s a lot of fun getting all those things to work. And then, likewise, those other nutritional spices and such only add to the depth and the nutrition. And I’ve learned so much from you in this parameter and direction of being a guide down this space path. I thank you so much for sharing with me your knowledge.
Dr. Gundry (00:14:42):
My pleasure. I think it’s been a mutual admiration society. Speaking of which, we were talking off camera. You and I paired up three weeks ago to go to a resort outside of Missoula, Montana called Paws Up. And we put on a wellness weekend there at Paws Up, and invited a couple of biodynamic winemakers to join us.
And we were joined by your good friend, and another phenomenal James Beard award-winning chef, Nancy Silverton. Many people may know her from Osteria Mozza from LA, and she’s now expanding worldwide. But let’s talk about that. Because that, I think this is really illustrative. You’ve been brainwashed enough by me through the years to do lectin-free cooking.
But we brought and invited maybe the antithesis of lectin-free cooking in Nancy Silverton, who was a great sport. And you invited her, you got her to come. So, just take our listeners, kind of okay, how do you take a lectin queen and say, guess what, this weekend, you’re going to cook as best we can lectin-free? So, how’d that go?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:16:17):
Well, first of all, Nancy Silverton is famous for all of her pastry work, and her restaurant work and such. But she was the founder of La Brea bakery. So, sitting on top the pinnacle of lectin success. So, she’s made millions out of selling lectins. And then, after the bread, comes the pastas. So, yes, it was a stretch of the imagination that Nancy would accept. But she’s such a wonderful sport.
And she was very intrigued by this whole concept. So, I shared with her a slideshow that I did back for the Stanford BrainMind Summit that we both attended, and you had presented at. And said here’s what lectins are, here’s what phytates are, and how to maneuver around them. And in doing so, is really good for your microbiome, instead of fighting against it, and it’s a much better alignment.
And she took it well to heart, and has been thirsting for more and more information on it. So, many of her recipes adapt very well into this concept, by changing some of those more lectin-enhanced ingredients naturally. So, she was a great sport. Obviously, you tasted the food. We both enjoyed everything that she made. And her thorough flavors style of food that every single component adds flavor, yet add the nutrition onto it too. And now, I think she’s going to be a good challenger aligned food that’s better for you.
Dr. Gundry (00:18:09):
Yeah. My wife, Penny and I had the opportunity to go to one of her dinner solo performances at the Ojai Valley Inn last weekend. And it was interesting, I got to meet with her before the dinner, and go over what she was serving. And she said, “Now, look, you’re going to find that most of the stuff I’m serving tonight is really compatible. And thank you for that. But there’s a couple of things that I’m still going to try to kill you.”
She was a really good sport. But I think you’ve probably planted a nice seed in her that there are other ways to do this. Let me think about one of the things that I think you’ve done amazingly well is figure out how to hide, or imitate a great food, whether with a replacement. For instance, years ago, you used to make risotto not using rice. You want to tell us about that? How did you get that crazy idea?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:19:21):
Well, first of all, I think of flavors as colors. And I’m working on a book called The Color of Flavor. So, there’s a certain wavelength, and to light, and colors. And likewise, in food there is similar taste spectrums, per se. An old trick is ask a sommelier to describe a wine without using any food. Like cherry, it tastes like raspberries. It almost leaves them as leather and tobacco, so it doesn’t need a lot of room to work with. Maybe some terroir or some-
Dr. Gundry (00:20:02):
Dirt.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:20:03):
Yeah. So, food is very oriented by color. So, in looking at that spectrum, and trying to move rice out of the risotto, and rice is very white and flavor. So, if you want to have an asparagus risotto, you want more green flavors, rice is not going to do it. So, this brings you to another alternative. So, that’s a long intro. But what I did was I took celery root, and cut it to the size of a grain of rice.
And that would be replace the rice and the risotto. Now, for the creaminess and that type of aspect of it, the trimmings from not getting so great, I cooked those and turned it into a puree of the celery root to make the creamy part of the risotto. So, you really actually only cook the kernels or the grains of the celery root to mock the rice for two minutes, you add it into the puree.
And then, you have a lovely risotto that can pull you using celery root. Now, originally, it was designed to go with white truffles. Now, white truffles don’t, as you know, taste white. They taste this earthy, brownish tan type of color. And funny enough, we used to do the white truffle celebration every December.
And those white truffles on top of the celery root risotto was far superior to putting white truffles on top of white rice risotto. So, you got better new nutrients out of the celery root, a great flavor, and likewise, better nutrition. So, that’s the fun ways of bending these ingredients to fit in for better flavor and better nutrition.
Dr. Gundry (00:21:55):
Then, tell our listeners about how you fool somebody into thinking they’re eating fettuccine pasta, and it’s not fettuccine pasta.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:22:08):
Well, you can use a lot of different ingredients to achieve that, one of which is celery root, or butternut squash will work in that type of direction. You can even sheet out cauliflower in that type of direction. So, you’re basically taking vegetables for their structure, and their resilience, and cutting them into the shape of pasta.
You can use leeks, you can use celery root, you can use even fresh Belgian endive. When it’s just slightly heated, it still has that crisp resilience to it. And you combine those ingredients together, and it really comes off as a risotto because some of them are contributing a crispness, some of them are contributing a creaminess that pulls it all together.
Dr. Gundry (00:23:02):
I remember at one of your restaurants in the desert, the Classic Club, you used to fool people with this decadent fettuccine. And it was all made out of celery root that you had thinly peeled. And people would order it, and I think you called it fettuccine. And people say oh, “This is the best fettuccine I’ve ever had. And you go, “Ha, ha, ha.” I’m saving your life, and you’re thinking it’s the most decadent awful thing in the world.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:23:33):
Yeah. I actually got in a fight with a customer one night when I said, “Hey, by the way, it’s good for you.” And I got a big fight. It’s like, “Yeah, it’s great with flower.” It’s like, “No, it’s not.” It’s like, “Stop lying to me. It’s really good.”
Dr. Gundry (00:23:43):
That’s right, you can’t fool me.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:23:45):
It couldn’t be. Yeah, so it’s fun.
Dr. Gundry (00:23:49):
Yeah. And I think that’s the fun thing that’s actually driven me in all my books to learn from you on you can make food that you love, but it loves you back. Your brilliance and figuring out how to get the textures, and the flavors that we associate with these foods and yet, bring great new nutrition. It’s just kudos to you.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:24:21):
Well, thank you very much. You’re very kind. I’m glad you like-
Dr. Gundry (00:24:26):
All right. Yeah. I love it. I love it. It’s really guided so much of what we do. And my recipe developer, Kate, who’s sitting here listening to us, I think it’s guided her as well. All right, let’s talk about cooking. That’s why everybody tuned in. All right, what’s the hardest part of being a chef, of cooking?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:24:50):
Well, cooking is not hard. It’s the timing that’s hard. You have to be able to just, you put it on the fire, and then you just got to take it off at the right time. So, cooking isn’t as hard as you think. But it comes down to timing. Now, flavor is very crucial. The use of spices and seasoning to enhance it, especially when you want to make cleaner food.
And I think that where a turning point for me was that the color of flavor type thing. White sugar tastes white. White flour tastes white. Nobody runs into the pantry as a kid with a big spoon and takes a scoop of white flour. Maybe some sugar, but not flour.
Dr. Gundry (00:24:50):
Maybe sugar.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:25:38):
So, as you start to eliminate lots of the starches and carbohydrates out of your food, it actually cleans up the flavor profile. So, using ingredients, adding ingredient in that benefits taste, and benefits flavor, and benefits the nutrition, then you start to line up really much more interesting dishes.
Dr. Gundry (00:26:08):
What do most people not know about properly using ingredients and creating flavors? Where does everybody make a mistake?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:26:17):
Well, I think that in using fresh herbs and that type of direction, they make the biggest mistake of just adding them all in at the end. That’s not what any of the big classical cuisines have done over time. Whether it’s Chinese, or even some of the great Italians, and this type of thing, you start off with a little bit of great olive oil, or avocado oil to get it started.
If you had garlic or onion in at that point, the volatile oils that are the flavorings of the garlic, and the onions, and the spices are mixed in with the oil. So, oil base, not water base. So, you get all those flavors into the oil first. And then, when you cook in that median, and the oil really transfers the heat from the pan or the air to the food.
Because if you don’t have something to transfer the heat, all you’re doing is drawing it out in that type of method. So, if you had the flavor into the oil that you want to keep in the dish, and you get that to coat what you’re cooking, you’re about halfway home. The rest of it is timing, and a little bit of patience to not try to turn it up, and get it done in two seconds.
But the crucial part is you cook the little garlic inside, then you throw your red pepper flakes into it, then you throw your basil into it to make and marinara sauce or that type of direction. Or you throw your different herbs into it to make a stir fry with ginger, and garlic, and chilies, and cilantro, because those flavors go into the oil. And then, they stay in your dish.
A famous Italian chef once said if he walks into a kitchen and smells basil, he knows they don’t know how to cook, because the basil smell should be in the dish, not in the air.
Dr. Gundry (00:28:08):
Oh, interesting. Okay. I just finished up putting my next book to bed. And I’m a student of history. And I’ve always been fascinated by the spice trade of the Middle Ages. And actually, I have a whole chapter that inadvertently talks about the spice trade. And it’s interesting that people were willing to pay huge amount of money for what we consider culinary spices.
And you’ve named off a bunch of them just now. And people were willing to risk their lives going around the Cape of Good Hope to get to the Indies, and the Spice Islands, which now part of Indonesia. And one of the things that I was reading just blew my mind is that spice trade basically came to an end when sugar plantations were established in the West Indies.
And sugar rapidly became the drug of choice. Yeah. Using culinary spices just fell off a cliff, and people switched over to their new favorite drug, which was sugar. And I guess I had not realized the power that sugar had in stopping the spice trade as we know it.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:29:45):
Yeah. The sugar was a big change. And not just from a taste factor, like making food stays better, this type of thing. But it was a great caloric delivery such situation too. So, perhaps, and I’m only saying perhaps to another historian, that many of these spices, as you know, that they were black pepper, and ginger, and turmeric, and these types of things. They enhance nutrient uptake in the body or assimilated it.
And back at that time in Europe, they didn’t really have super nutrient base crops. Parsnips did not have a lot of calories. Celery root did not have a lot of calories. And it wasn’t until the potato being introduced into that society, that you could then grow enough calories per acre to feed a whole lot of people. Hence, the Irish potato famine, that’s why a couple million people, a million died and a million left, because there wasn’t enough calories. But sugar, man, that was main line calories, but not necessarily good ones as we know.
Dr. Gundry (00:31:02):
No, you’re right. And we forget that the new world was the source of the potato. And you’re right, so a lot of calorie dense foods. We can thank, unfortunately, the new world. Corn, for instance. Another wonderfully calorie dense food.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:31:02):
Absolutely.
Dr. Gundry (00:31:22):
Oh, well, I don’t know. All right.
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Everybody’s out, it’s summer, the farmer markets are open. How do people find the right ingredients? Do you have to go to the farmer’s market? Can you go to the store? Can you use dried ingredients? Help us out.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:36:36):
Well, I think farmer’s markets are great because you’re getting closer to the source and it’s fresher. Nature has been pretty good to us. If it looks really attractive, and it smells good, and it tastes good, it’s much higher in nutrients than one that doesn’t. Proven by the eternal hothouse McDonald’s tomato. That tomato has about 40% less caloric value, and nutrients than a fine ripened tomato.
So, if we follow our nose, and our taste buds, we’re going to find more nutrition. Yes, you can buy it from grocery stores, because they’re bringing it in, and trying to compete with the farmer’s markets, which is great. And dried items are great. I think that you would agree that if they’re peeled and seated, we’re probably better off for it to get to minimalize the lectin intake.
Especially, on the tomatoes, and the peppers, and the nightshades that people flock to during the summer months. Get close to this source. Think before you eat. Get rid of the seeds, and get rid of the skins, season them well. Lots of fresh fruit is done in salads and such, which is good for the green lettuces, and [inaudible 00:38:04], all those kinds of things. A little less good with the red guys of the tomatoes and the peppers. But that gives you a lot of fun flavors to play with.
Dr. Gundry (00:38:17):
All right. Are there any tools in the home kitchen that you think everybody ought to have, or what can you not live without?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:38:30):
That’s a good question. I think one thing that’s great in the home kitchen is a mandolin because you can slice things and julienne them very easily to adapt them for textures and flavors in that type of direction.
Dr. Gundry (00:38:47):
A mandolin isn’t an instrument we play, right?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:38:50):
No, not the instrument you play. It’s a long slicer thing that will take your fingertips off if you’re not careful. But they’re wonderfully fun. It does allow you, with those little wonderful baby potatoes that you undoubtably run across during the summer months. You can slay some really thin, and you can rinse them, and such, and you can get rid of a lot of this starches that way.
They cook more thoroughly. That probably will reduce some of the other phytates and stuff running around in them during that process, which is fun. So, I think a mandolin is probably my number one go-to item to play with.
Dr. Gundry (00:39:33):
You use food processors a lot, yes, no?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:39:40):
No.
Dr. Gundry (00:39:42):
Do you not whip up a celeriac root, mashed potatoes that you got me out to do it?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:39:49):
Yeah, I do. I use it for making those purees. That’s probably my number one thing I use. Probably, the best appliance is a Vitamix. I love a Vitamix. Now, a Vitamix is very empowering, because the emulsion I use for the scallop up at Paws Up Resort. That was all vegetable base. That’s roasted fennel, and the roasted leeks, and you throw all those ingredients in there, and the ginger, and Meyer lemons.
And you put that in it, and that will really put together a great emulsification. Emulsifications are ingredients that usually don’t stay together. They combine into a sauce or an emulsion. So, you can add wonderful plant-based nutrient ingredients, and to accentuate the sauces and the flavors very easily. And then, you can put in just a little bit of oil, so you’re not running up the fat.
And that can completely replace all your vinaigrettes and all your heavier caloric foods in that direction. Especially, if you’re having a salad, or a piece of fish, or something like that. It’s a lot of fun.
Dr. Gundry (00:41:04):
All right, let’s talk about restaurant dining. Because I get questions about that all the time. And now, we’ve got the world expert on it. All right, what’s the one secret? Is there one secret you can tell people about dining in restaurants that they should know? Just a dirty little secret, perhaps?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:41:22):
Well, I think that the number one thing to avoid is fried foods, and not so much because that, like the crispy chicken with a butter on the outside for obvious reason. But the fryers do not usually have the best oil. And they usually have a lot of oils that are soybean based and such that have lectins in them. So, that’s probably having a clean oil fryer is wonderful.
If you fry in something like the guaranteed oil, which is the red palm fruit oil, the fried goods actually pick up that orange flavor, pick up those carotenes. That’s a wonderful example of it, but not very many restaurants have that. And then, on the other side of the equation, grilling is probably your cleanest method of getting something grilled rather than breaded, or broiled, or blackened, or that kind of thing.
Dr. Gundry (00:42:23):
So, any tips for people who are following the plant paradox diet or limited lectin diet when they’re dining out? A good friend of mine, [Tom Guy 00:42:38], always used to say the menu just tells you what the chef has got in the back. Is that true, or do you hate to get orders that aren’t what you want to do?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:42:51):
Well, it could go either way. If somebody says, “Hey, I want this, that, or the other,” I’m happy to oblige them. They’re our guests. That’s very easy to do. Back in the old Morgan’s day, people would come in all the time and say I don’t eat gluten. I don’t do this. I don’t do that. And so, what can I have on the menu?
And it was pretty much everything, except for maybe the one pasta dish that was wheat-based that we had on the menu. So, chefs are pretty adaptive. Consumers have trained them from the gluten era, and from the allergen area, which has become more and more predominant. The shellfish allergens, and fish allergens, and my son has a sesame allergen. People have become aware of these things.
And although the United States only requires eight allergens be listed, you know that there’s 16 in the world that’ll kill you pretty quick, that should be listed. So, that’s the big thing is be very specific about your allergens. And be honest, don’t come in and say I am gluten free, but I’d like double order of bread. That doesn’t sustain some of the fact that you’re being sincere with what we need to do for you.
Dr. Gundry (00:44:14):
Can you trust a waiter who says I can guarantee you that everything you’re going to get is gluten free, or is that more just talk? It depends.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:44:30):
I would say it’s more talk. Because I think that most people think gluten is just with wheat. And then, obviously, gluten is a lectin so many things that could trigger a reaction are laying out there in the food landscape, as you know, only too well. That would also fall into those criteria. Obviously, other grains do carry those proteins.
Dr. Gundry (00:44:57):
Yeah, yeah. In our patient population, about 70% of people who are sensitive to gluten, and other proteins, and wheat are sensitive to the proteins in corn. And they literally cross react. I have so many patients, and I’ve written about this, that are eating gluten free, and because they have celiac disease, or other gluten intolerance.
And yet, they’re eating corn, and corn chips, and corn bread, and corn tortillas. And they still have all these gut issues. And when we test them, and corn is, oh my gosh, that’s what I live on. Well, you’re not living very well, obviously. And when we take the corn away from them, they start to get better.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:45:52):
Yeah. The corn has its own challenges, as you said, with the proteins. And then, also, the phytates too. The fresh corn with its phytates is an antinutrient. And it actually goes in and grabs them out of your body. And hence, there’s papers out there relative to the Aztecs walking off the plantation, because of the craziness that comes from eating too much corn, or not corn that was not the phytate-
Dr. Gundry (00:46:21):
Treated properly, correct?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:46:22):
Yeah, they were not neutralized by the limestone grinding mills that they put it through. And the side effects is dementia, and dermatitis, or hands would swell up, and dysentery. The famous three Ds of life, what everybody lives for. So, I was down in Mexico giving a speech, and the guy said that was research of him said that they thought that that may have been the reason why they walked off the plantation and left, disappeared.
Dr. Gundry (00:46:52):
Yeah. The other thing that’s interesting as a student of the history of food is that so many times, we would take a native product that the natives knew how to detoxify, like corn, like using lye, or grinding it in limestone, to neutralize those factors in corn. And we wouldn’t recognize that they were doing that for a purpose. And we just take corn back and say, what the heck? This isn’t what we thought we were getting.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:47:30):
Right. Yeah. The advancement of food cooking techniques, and such like that sometimes skips a step. And we try to not soak beans for three days, or such beforehand, like our grandmother did. And heck, if you can go get them fresh out of the field, they’ve got to be good for you, right? Fresh more-
Dr. Gundry (00:47:53):
Must be.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:47:53):
Yeah, short of the first time that you try that, and you’re sick for a while, at best effect. Yeah. That culinary expertise, that usually has been transferred down in the family, from the matrons and such has been getting lost as of the last 100 years as we weren’t in the kitchens as much with our grandmothers and mothers.
Dr. Gundry (00:48:21):
No, that’s very true. And I tell the story, when my grandmother on my mother’s side of the family was French, and she had taught my mother to always peel and deseed tomatoes before she used them. And we even had sliced tomatoes that were peeled and deseeded. And I remember going away to Yale, and I had a sliced tomato for the first time that had peels, and sees, and I thought why would anybody eat it this way?
Number one, it actually didn’t taste as good. And so, that was passed down. And it’s fascinating to look at these oral traditions. And you mentioned soaking beans. In Tuscany, these guys will soak beans, like you say, 48, 72 hours, and they’ll change the water. And they actually allow the beans to ferment. You get this foam on the top of the water. And they’re fermenting, and any traditional culture would know, one of the best ways to get rid of lectins is fermentation.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:49:25):
Right, and also, phytates too.
Dr. Gundry (00:49:25):
Yeah, and phytates, correct.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:49:30):
Once it starts to ferment, and starts to quasi-sprout, then the phytates had done their job. They’re there to grab the nutrients to get the thing to start to do with steel. Yeah. So, it’s a combination of both benefits by doing that technique.
Dr. Gundry (00:49:46):
Yeah. And I tell people, that’s how traditional cultures have learned, and have figured out the ways to make these things safe. And as long as we play by the rules, I have nothing against these things.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:50:05):
Well, I think a lot of our ancestors didn’t play by the rules, and they were the guinea pigs to figure out, “Hey, we better soak these if we don’t want to end up…”
Dr. Gundry (00:50:15):
That’s right. Yeah. We’re not doing very well.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:50:23):
[crosstalk 00:50:23].
Dr. Gundry (00:50:22):
All right, enough of memory lane. Tell me, I know you are fascinated with salts, and salts as a way of delivering flavor. Everybody says, “Oh, my gosh, everyone knows how bad salt is for you.” Give us the argument that salt isn’t the evil empire that everybody thinks it is.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:50:48):
Well, salt is a necessary nutrient in our diet. Number one, we can’t live very well without salt. Maybe we can live at all, I don’t know, for sure. That would fall into your spectrum. But many of the sea salts of the world, all the sea salts of the world have certain micronutrients in it that we are able to absorb. And they also change the flavor. And they also change the nutrient delivery.
Years ago, on the Atlantic coast of France down where they’ve got salt marshes and such like that going on, I visited this one salt farm. And what they did was they would bring in ocean water into ponds. And let it condense and have the salinity raise in it. And in that pond had certain aquatic life that would live at that salinity.
And then, as it got down to its maximum salinity they wanted, they would drain it off into another pond. And that next pond, we’d go even higher in salinity, with a completely different subculture of plants that would exist. So, finally, they wouldn’t be drained down into bed, flat or bed for final evaporation. And there were these little, bright red, almost sea beans growing in the bottom of this thing.
And then, all of those aquatic life, added flavor and nutrients to the salt. So, I’m not a big fan of using lots of salt. But if you use the salt at the right time, it’s good for you. It enhances the flavor and it has the possibility of delivering other micronutrients as well, which I think are a lot of fun when I was bored a while back pre-COVID.
But I categorized 140 sea salts from around the world by their spectrum analysis and their color. And they actually line up pretty good, white salt goes a white flake salt, like a cypress goes with certain dishes, like eggs and such like that. And then, you can get into very green salts that are very high in aquatic life type things that go great with scotch and grilled repine.
So, you can start to get these flavor spectrums to match up with the foods that you like to. That’s what really interest me of the salt combinations. So, it’s not just a salt, but it’s a number of salts put together to make this richer, fuller flavor.
Dr. Gundry (00:53:36):
So, should everybody have a library of sea salts at their disposal?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:53:42):
Absolutely. I totally agree that that’s the best way to go. I do. And they don’t go bad, unlike other and such like that that over a course of a year, they pretty well lose their effectiveness and flavor. Salt seems to be, they’ve been lying around for centuries.
Dr. Gundry (00:54:02):
All right. I think that’s a good place to end it, unless you have any last culinary advice for the home cook that you’re holding out because you want people to come to your restaurants?
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:54:17):
I don’t have any last holdout. I don’t.
Dr. Gundry (00:54:21):
All right. Well, you’ve been very generous with your knowledge and your time.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:54:26):
My pleasure.
Dr. Gundry (00:54:28):
And you and I are even as we speak, cooking up our next wellness weekend with Nancy Silverton. And we’ve confirmed that the Ojai Valley Inn in Ojai, California near Santa Barbara and LA, sometime in 2020, we don’t have the date yet. We’re going to have wellness weekend.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:54:56):
Yeah. That’d be awesome. That’d be fun.
Dr. Gundry (00:54:58):
Yeah.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:55:00):
And I’ve talked to Scott who you met from Paws Up. And they’re really excited to do some more things with us. So, that’ll be fun.
Dr. Gundry (00:55:09):
Perfect.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:55:10):
Yeah. So, we just got to get it to where you don’t freeze it up while you’re fishing. It’ll be all good.
Dr. Gundry (00:55:17):
Jimmy is referring to the fact that my wife, Penny, caught a very large, beautiful brown trout.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:55:23):
Giant, giant.
Dr. Gundry (00:55:24):
Giant. It was huge. And she landed it, and it was a barbless, and catch and release. But I caught nothing, nothing, and just froze to death in the snow. But it was worth it for that big fish. All right. That’s enough for the fish stories today. And Jimmy, thanks a lot.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:55:24):
My pleasure.
Dr. Gundry (00:55:41):
Where can people find you? One thing people should know, Chef Schmidt is actually the creator and still makes the world-famous Atkins bar, and was responsible for a great number of the Atkins food products through the years. Fun fact.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:56:04):
Yeah. Well, I’ve been doing that for the last 20 years. So, a lot of the food research that I’ve done is to try to get proteins to work together, proteins are positively charged. So, they tend to repel. Being an electrical engineer, I never practice it, but it paid off in foods because I was able to figure out how to balance out this isoelectrical charge, so they bind together.
And then, you can make some really fun, like we say, foods that you love that love you back, like dough-based products, and bonds, and such like that, that you give up none of the flavor and texture, but you gain all of the nutrient value. So, a lot of fun things coming.
Dr. Gundry (00:56:52):
All right. Keep up the good work. And hopefully, everybody will be hosting you. We had another wellness weekend. And so, keep your eyes peeled for that. We’ll let you know as soon as the dates happen.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:57:05):
Great.
Dr. Gundry (00:57:06):
All right. Take care. Say hello to the family.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:57:08):
Always my pleasure. Give my regards to Penny. She’s the best.
Dr. Gundry (00:57:08):
All right.
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:57:08):
See you.
Dr. Gundry (00:57:17):
Say hello to [Joe Murray 00:57:17].
Chef Jimmy Schmidt (00:57:17):
Bye.
Dr. Gundry (00:57:17):
Bye. So, hopefully, we’re going to have another wellness weekend at Ojai Valley Inn during 2022. We have the date pending. Now, it’s time for our audience question. This week’s question comes from Debbie Weiss on iTunes who asks, “I’ve had a vertebral artery dissection and an aortic aneurysm. And I’m wondering if there is a nutritional way to decrease the likelihood of any more events like these from occurring in the future?” Well, I don’t know your story, Debbie, but there certainly is a genetic condition that is sometimes known as cystic medial necrosis that we are born with that makes it very susceptible to tearing literally, the three layers that line our arteries.
And that’s a very common cause of aortic aneurysms and vertebral artery dissection. One thing that has become increasingly apparent is that there is a class of antibiotics, many of you may have heard of them. Many of you have taken them. Ciprofloxacin is one of them that unfortunately, has been associated with an increased risk of developing, particularly abdominal aortic aneurysms.
So, do be a wary consumer when you may need an antibiotic, but just be careful, do your research. There are a lot of antibiotics out there, and just be careful about the ones that can cause mischief. On the other hand, one of the things just from a food standpoint, the more that you eat foods and supplements that produce more collagen bonds, the better.
And interestingly enough, one of the things that’s missing in most people’s diet is Vitamin C. And Vitamin C is actually essential for knitting collagen together. Collagen is literally the rebar that holds our blood vessels together. And you can swallow all the collagen you want, but if you don’t have Vitamin C, you’re not going to knit that collagen into a tight mesh.
So, like I’ve written in my books, like I’ve told you before, buy yourself some time to release Vitamin C, take about 1,000 milligrams twice a day, or buy yourself the chewable Vitamin C tablets, and just chew one about four times a day. Vitamin C unfortunately is a water-soluble vitamin. It leaves our system really after a couple hours. So, you really want a continuous supply of Vitamin C. Good question. Review of the week. Now, it’s time for the review of the week. This week’s review comes from [Vol Peck 01:00:35].
Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
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Kimberly Snyder (01:01:06):
Welcome to the Feel Good Podcast with Kimberly Snyder. My goal is to help you develop a holistic lifestyle based on our Four Cornerstone philosophy. Food, body, emotional wellbeing, and spiritual growth. This holistic approach will help you feel good, which I define as being connected to your most authentic highest self.
And this is the place from which your energy, confidence, creativity, true power, and true beauty will start to explode. Every week, we provide you with interviews from top experts in their field, or a solo cast from yours truly, to support you in living your most beautiful, healthy, and joyful life. I’m your host, Kimberly Snyder, founder of Solluna, New York Times bestselling author, and holistic wellness, nutrition, and meditation teacher. Let’s get started.
Dr. Gundry (01:01:58):
… on iTunes, who left a five-star review and wrote, “Hello, Dr. Gundry. Love all your podcasts. So good, so informative. I just finished The Energy Paradox, another great informative book. I love how the approaches shift using different focuses with each new book. Well, thanks for that very kind review, Vol Peck.
That’s what usually, I try to do. Each book builds on the next one. And in writing The Energy Paradox, I realized that there was a road that I had not driven down, traveled down that I needed to go down. And so, I’m really excited about this next book. So, thanks for noticing. I don’t just repeat myself. I like to bring you a new way of thinking about something.
And for all of you out there listening. If you have any questions you’d like to hear me answer, leave me a review in iTunes, along with your question, and I’ll be sure to answer as soon as I can. Because I’m Dr. Gundry. And I’m always looking out for you. We’ll see you next week. On The Dr. Gundry Podcast, we provide a venue for discussion, and the views expressed by my guests do not necessarily reflect my own.
Thanks for joining me on this episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to watch each episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast, you could always find me on YouTube at youtube.com/drgundry because I’m Dr. Gundry, and I’m always looking out for you.
