Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast, where Dr. Steven 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:
Well, what if I told you that you can enjoy the holidays without the usual weight gain or health setbacks? Yes, you can savor those holiday feasts, think juicy turkey, irresistible sides, and maybe even a glass or two of your favorite wine without the guilt. In this episode, I’ll be sharing my top strategies for making the most of your holiday favorites, while keeping your waistline and gut health intact. We’ll dig into which classic dishes you can indulge in, which ones to avoid, and even reveal the surprising truth about holiday desserts. Plus, I’ll help you navigate wine and spirits so you can toast the season without a dreaded holiday hangover.
Turkey. Now, the ones to avoid at all costs are the ones that have been injected with water and/or oils, and quite frankly, that’s most of the turkeys that you’re going to pick up frozen at your grocery store for a really good price. The infamous Butterball is one such one. We have very good friend who’s a cardiologist who will only eat a Butterball turkey, and don’t do that, please. How do you find a safe turkey? Well, as you know, you are what you eat, but you are what the thing you’re eating ate. And the more you can look for a pasture-raised turkey that was fed the right things, the better off you’re going to be.
Eating turkey or a holiday meal should be a celebration for you and your family, and it should be a celebration for your body, so why not give your body the best that you can give it? As you know, I’m a big fan of Farmer Dan at lectinlightchicken.com. I have no commercial arrangement with him. I get my Thanksgiving turkey from Farmer Dan, and he raises them and they’re fantastic. They actually taste like a turkey. They are pasture-raised and they are fed lectin-free food.
If you can’t do that ’cause Farmer Dan doesn’t have a lot to go around, there are other great producers. Primal Pastures in Temecula, California near me. A bunch of great kids who do a really good job of doing very much the same thing, and I’m a huge fan of theirs as well. Not completely lectin-free, but they’re corn and soy-free, so look for Primal Pastures. They ship to a lot of places. Now, Farmer Dan ships all over the United States.
Look for heritage turkeys. Mary’s makes heritage or heirloom turkeys. While not perfect, they go a long way to meeting your needs. Diestel used to be a pretty good company. They got bought. You can do better. So if you want a commercially available one, look for the Mary’s heritage or heirloom turkey varieties. Now, if you want to learn how to cut and carve a turkey like a pro, check out my video demo on my YouTube channel. Now, take it from a heart surgeon, you can carve a turkey like a pro.
Mashed potatoes. Oh my gosh, what’s the holidays without mashed potatoes? Well, mashed potatoes have a lot of bad things going for them. First of all, potatoes are part of the nightshade family, and even if you peel them, they are loaded with lectins. Number two, sadly, as you learned in gut check, many of us react to a different lectin in potatoes that’s called an aquaporin. And aquaporins can’t be pressure cooked out. Aquaporins cause leaky gut, leaky brain, and if that sounds good for you, just keep eating your mashed potatoes. Plus, think about what you’re putting in the mashed potatoes. You are putting usually butter and milk or cream, and sadly, it’s from our cows that have A1 casein, which is lectin-like compound. So you’re basically eating a delicious lectin bomb.
On the other hand, it’s easy to make swaps. First of all, mashed sweet potatoes or yams. And fun trick, use olive oil instead of butter, but use A2 cream if you must. Roasted Parmesan mashed cauliflower dish, which I featured in my plant paradox book comes from the James Beard Award-winning chef, Jimmy Schmidt. It’s absolutely fabulous, and also look for it on my Instagram. You’re going to love this recipe. My family can’t go without it on the holidays.
Next up, green bean casserole. Oh my gosh, I had so many green bean casseroles growing up. If I ever see it again, I just can’t stand it. I know it’s a holiday tradition, but think about it, what’s in it? First of all, green beans are loaded with lectins. Sorry folks, they are. The fried onions in the package. They’re usually made with bad oils like palm oil, and spoiler alert, they’re coated with wheat, with flour.
The mushroom soup. I’m going to read you the label from Campbell’s mushroom soup. You’re going to love this. Number one ingredient, water. Mushrooms, oh, good. Vegetable oil, corn and or soybean oil. Oops. These are toxic omega-6 fats and they’re loaded with lectins. Cream. Okay, but it’s the wrong cream. Modified cornstarch, that’s actually another name for sugar. Wheat flour, oops, you don’t want that. Salt. Modified milk ingredients. Now think about that for a minute. What the heck is a modified milk ingredient? That’s laboratory chemistry 101. If somebody’s modifying something, you don’t want it in your body. Soy protein, oops, monosodium glutamate. That’s MSG, a neurotoxin. Tomato paste, another lectin. Flavor and dehydrated garlic. Well, the last one is actually really good for you.
But my point is, this has nothing but mushrooms and dehydrated garlic, good for you, and everything else is a disaster. So why would you give that to your body for a holiday treat? How about some swaps? Well, it’s easy to make a roasted mushroom and asparagus dish. I’m a huge fan of roasted Brussels sprouts, and if you must have a casserole, swap out the beans for asparagus and use a healthy canned mushroom soup like Pacific Foods makes a good one, and use crushed plantain chips as a topping. You’ll get all the casseroley things that you want, but something that’ll be good for you rather than bad for you.
Plus, asparagus is loaded with one of my favorite prebiotic fiber, inulin. So you’ll actually have something that’s good for you rather than bad for you. I’ll link recipes in the YouTube description below and in the show notes on the blog, or check out my Thanksgiving salad recipe on the Gundry MD blog. It’s gorgeous and good for you. And if you’re sensitive to kale, swap it out for arugula. Now, before we continue, don’t forget to share and subscribe.
Next up, cranberry dressing. Kick the canned jellied cranberry to the curb. Why? Two words, corn syrup. Most brands use a lot of sugar to make this, and it’s usually one of the worst forms of sugar, corn syrup. Eat this instead. Make your own. It is not hard, and you can find frozen and cranberries and they’re readily available and cheap. And this time of year, fresh cranberries are available. Just check out Claudia’s sugar-free recipe in the notes.
Pumpkin pie, who doesn’t love pumpkin pie? I love it, but I don’t eat it. Why? First of all, pumpkin is part of the squash family, and I’m sad to say, pumpkin is loaded with lectins. Yes, you can cook it and diminish the amount of lectins, but let’s not forget that the pumpkin flesh is mainly sugar, and do you really want extra sugar in that holiday meal? Finally, it’s sitting on a crust usually made from wheat flour. Even worse, a lot of the times it’s whole wheat flour, which is a double whammy. So lose the pumpkin pie.
What can you use as a substitute? Well, sweet potato pie gives you really all the flavor you’re looking for in pumpkins without the lectins, and you can get a nut crust that will really make that sweet potato pie a huge benefit for you and your gut. If you have to, get a gluten-free crust, but please, watch the ingredient list. So many of these have corn or brown rice flour as their ingredients, and those are no-no’s in terms of your health. Now, you can pressure-cook the pumpkin to destroy the lectins, but just remember, it’s still mainly sugar. If you want, check out my recipe for sweet potato pie and lectin-free crust on the GundryMD.com blog. Just type in sweet potato pie and you’ll be ready for the holidays.
Happy holidays. Yes, the holiday season is upon us, and you deserve to enjoy it to your very best. But historically-speaking, as you know, the average American gains five pounds, yes, five pounds, between Thanksgiving and New Year’s every year. And you know that the holidays can wreak havoc on our health with the foods that we choose to eat. So, that’s why weight gain is so common for most of us at this time of the year, but you don’t have to fall into the winter weight gain trap. So in just a minute, I’m going to share my tips for enjoying the holiday season without sacrificing the lean, healthy body you want in the process.
So topic number one, what to do before the party. This may be my most important tip of this entire podcast. It’s preparing for the party that really is going to make all the difference. So, you don’t want to fast all day because you know you’re going to be gorging on foods that really you don’t have any other time of the year. What you really want to do is, number one, eat something healthy before you get to the party, before you walk out the door. Now, I’ve told you before, grab a handful of nuts whether they’re walnuts or macadamia nuts or pistachios, hazelnuts, your choice. And know the mixed cocktail mix with the peanuts and cashews do not count as a healthy choice.
Eat it before you get there. Don’t say, “Well, I know they’re going to have handfuls of nuts and I’ll just grab them when I get there.” Because chances are, it’s going to be that classic cocktail mix, which is quite deadly, not only because of the peanuts and cashews, but also because of all the really bad vegetable oils they’ve been cooked in. Have yourself a half an avocado. It’s actually a great way to get full before you head to the party. I personally like a bunch of jicama sticks dipped in guacamole. It’s going to give you the crunch that you’re going to crave when you go to the holiday party so you won’t be tempted by that giant bowl of corn chips or potato chips. You’ll already have the crunch out of the way.
The other thing to arrive with before you get there is a stomach that’s full, quite frankly, of my favorite sparkling water, Sanpellegrino, or sparkling water of your choice. And my you know my trick, put a little bit of balsamic vinegar in it. It’s going to taste like a coke, but you’re going to have all that nice bubbly fullness in your stomach before you get there, and that’s going to really, really take the edge off of things before you get to the party. And it’s a trick that I use whenever I’m heading out for anybody’s house or any holiday party, and we certainly do get invited to our fair share of them.
So, topic number two, what do you eat once you get to party? Well, one of the first things you do, and I always look like somebody who’s almost cutting into line. As you know, a lot of these parties are buffets, a lot of them are bring your own. If it’s a bring your own dish, Penny and I always make something unique that nobody else is going to try, and it usually ends up being kind of a big winner.
For instance, you’d be surprised how many times we’ll take a raw coleslaw as a dish, and it’s not something that everybody brings and we make it quick. You can even buy coleslaw mix, the cabbage and a few raw carrots, make your own dressing. We actually make it out of avocados and guacamole. It’s really delicious and people are struck with how good it is. You don’t have that much time, actually take guacamole and mix it with coleslaw mix, and you’ll be shocked with how good it is, and it’s going to give people the crunch they’re looking for.
But getting back to scanning the buffet table, what I’ll do is I’ll actually look, walk down from one end to the other and see what my obstacles are, and see how I can actually fill up my plate with stuff that is going to look like I’m stuffing myself. And it’s going to look like I’m really enjoying whatever our host and hostess has put out, but I’ve filled my plate up with a lot of the vegetables. And believe me, as you fill up with vegetables, you’re going to find that you really don’t have any room for all the wonderful awful stuff.
Are there any foods you should never eat at a holiday party? Well, it’s actually most of them. But first of all, eggnog, one of my favorite holiday drinks is eggnog. Interestingly enough, I always blame getting sick at holiday parties on eggnog, and as it turns out, I was right because most eggnog’s, number one, they’re buying at a store. Number two, there’s so much sugar content in eggnog, it’s unbelievable.
Even if it was made with half-and-half, it’s most likely casein A1 milk. So maybe there’s a really healthy egg in it, but that’s about it. If you want the eggnog, believe it or not, eat a hard-boiled egg with a little of eggnog spices, nutmeg sprinkled on it, and you’ll actually be shocked with how good it tastes, and you’ll say, “Oh yeah, that’s a pretty good replacement for eggnog.”
So, those are some of the tricks, which brings me to one of the tricks I talked about years ago with my wife, Penny. She loves bread. I think if she could have any food in the world, it would be bread. And she knew from experience that bread didn’t love her. As you know, we try to teach you how to eat foods you love, but love you back. So, we decided to use a mantra for Penny, that bread was something she couldn’t have, but she was a person who doesn’t eat bread. And she defined herself in this way, so no longer was, “Oh, I can’t have the thing I love. I’m a person who doesn’t eat bread.”
And to this day, it’s fascinating. Whenever a waiter comes over to a table, particularly at a restaurant we don’t know or has a great reputation for baked goods, she goes, “No, I’m sorry. We don’t eat bread.” And that’s it, and it’s work for her. So go to the party with that intention in mind, “I’m a person who doesn’t eat five pieces of cheesecake.” It’s easy to say, “I’m a person who doesn’t eat fruitcake,” and that’s a story in itself. But just start with that mantra, “I’m a person who doesn’t eat this.” I’m a person who used to eat a pound of M&Ms. When I go to a party now and that pound is sitting there, I am a person who doesn’t eat peanut M&Ms anymore, and it’s a whole lot easier rather than depriving myself.
Okay, it’s holiday season and it’s time to drink, and that’s when things really start to get out of hand. Yes, alcohol is a great way to reduce inhibitions and it makes people social, and people say the most fascinating things at holiday parties that the next day they wish they hadn’t said. But the important thing is, you’ve got to be realizing that even though alcohol does decrease your social inhibitions and makes you a much more friendly person, it also decreases your inhibitions on going for the foods that you’ve already decided you’re not going to do.
So, are there safe ones to drink? Are there not safe ones to drink? First of all, interestingly enough, there are some studies that suggest that red wine and also champagne, particularly what’s called non-dosage champagne, where there’s no sugar added, and straight alcohol, now, be it gin, bourbon, whiskey, scotch, please no vodka, or tequila that’s colored, may not break ketosis.
And there’s actually some exciting work done by some of the founders of Dry Farm Wines, that they’ve drunk their red wine and it did not break their ketosis. I’ve experimented with that myself, and I can drink red wine, particularly from Italy and France, and I don’t break a ketosis fast, which is fun fact. Now, that’s not a license to say, “Dr. Gundry says that I will stay in ketosis if I drink red wine.” Believe me, if you drink a bottle of red wine, the odds are you will break your ketosis. So that’s not a license to drink.
Number two, take a tip from my father. My father rose to executive vice president of Mutual of Omaha insurance company in Omaha, and he was constantly, constantly at cocktail parties, and he had to have his wits about him. So, he would meet the bartender at whatever function he was, he would order himself a gin and tonic. And he would take that gin and tonic back to the bartender, and the rest of the night, he would be having a gin and tonic that had no gin in it. And it looked exactly like what he did the rest of the night. And he appeared to be the jovial fine person he was, but he never got inebriated like most of the people he was with.
I learned this trick from him as an undergraduate at Yale. Fun fact, I had a bet with my father that I would not drink, smoke or toke for four years at Yale. And if I accomplished that, which I did, I would get a car, which I did. And how did I do it? Well, quite frankly, when you go to all these mixers, I would get a ginger ale in a glass without ice. And ginger ale and a glass without ice looks like a beer. Now, warning, do not do this at home. Chugging a ginger ale is one of the worst experiences I have ever had in my life. Go ahead, try it. So, I learned from my father that you can appear to be drinking alcohol and not drink alcohol, and I think that’s the point to take away.
The other point to take away is, as silly as it seems, dilute your alcohol with ice cubes or with sparkling water. Make a spritzer, and make a point of it, saying, “It’s the holidays. I want a holiday spritzer. Can I have some sparkling water in my wine?” There’s always ways around this. And if you do drink, please don’t drive. There’s plenty of Ubers and Lyfts out there now, and don’t get on the road, please.
Okay, what are you going to do before you go to bed? First of all, please, please, please, please try to stay up rather than crashing into bed. So many studies show that if you go to bed on a full stomach, you’re going to have really impaired sleep, you’re probably going to get some heartburn that you wish you hadn’t done, and you’re going to regret it in the morning.
Now, when I stay up, what you do is get yourself a pair of blue blocking glasses. They are ubiquitous now. You can get them on Amazon or wherever you want to go for about $10. Block blue light. That way, you can watch your favorite TV show or you can read a book, you can be on your Kindle, and it won’t impact you going to sleep. There’s more and more and more really important research coming out that even brief exposures to blue light before you go to bed is going to impact your sleep pattern. But stay up and don’t just crash into bed.
The next thing, if you screwed up and before you go to bed, say, “Okay, I screwed up and I’m not going to do this again.” Because usually, you notice you’re going to feel bad before you go to bed, and almost certainly, you’re going to feel bad when you wake up. And make the intention, “Okay, that’s it. I did it. It’s out of my system. That doesn’t mean that the rest of this holiday season, because I screwed up once or maybe twice, I’m just going to blow the whole thing.” Once you fall off the horse, as I tell all my patients, just get right back on. It doesn’t mean that you’re a failure and this whole holiday season is down the drain. Just get back on the horse. One day is not going to make that big a difference. Okay, so that’s it for holidays.
Now, people are always asking me about what kind of supplements to take, particularly around the holiday season. The holiday season, you’re going to be exposed to a lot of different individuals in close personal contact. And the best thing I can tell you to do is make sure you’re taking vitamin D3, be conscientious about taking vitamin D3. If Penny, and I know we’re going on an airplane, we double, triple, quadruple the vitamin D that we normally take. And I can tell you, it makes a huge difference in preventing flu, viruses, colds, ’cause you’re going to be in close personal contact.
If you want to add some vitamin C to your regimen, just remember that vitamin C is water-soluble and it only lasts for about two or three hours in your system. So, easy fun thing to do is buy some chewable vitamin C tablets, please get the sugar-free kind that don’t have sucralose, and chew about four during the day, every four to six hours. And it’s another great trick for the holidays, and it really works. So those are my supplement tips for the holidays.
Okay, we’ve got an audience question, one of my favorite parts of the show. Audience question comes from Heaven Sent Travel on Instagram asks, “What brand of cereal do you recommend?” Well, first of all, stay out of the cereal aisle. Almost all cereals, if you’ve noticed, even some of the organic ones are filled with glyphosate, better known as Roundup, and they have no business going in you or your children. Most cereals are very heavy sugar-laden products. Be careful about the grain-free cereals in general, because most of them have sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, lots of sugar from honey, so try to stay away from those.
There are alternatives. If you love oatmeal, you can’t resist oatmeal, you can make millet oatmeal or sorghum oatmeal that will give you absolutely the texture and the flavor you’re looking for, but won’t contain those harmful grains. So millet and sorghum is always an option. Also, there are some coconut flake-based cereals out there, Thrive Market, for instance, carries one, that are really pretty safe. They still have a little more sugar content than I like, but they’re loaded with healthy fiber from coconut. And as you know, I’m a huge fan of coconut. So there are alternatives. But the takeaway is, breakfast is really one of the least important meals for you to think about. Your ancestors never ate breakfast ’cause there wasn’t any breakfast. So those are my tips. So thanks, that’s a great question.
The holidays are always associated with drinking, and here’s my first word of advice. If you don’t drink, don’t start. The holidays are not time to tempt fate, but if you do drink, there’s some very interesting things that you should know. First of all, drink champagne. The grapes that go into champagne have some important polyphenols that have actually been shown to potentially improve memory in champagne drinkers.
Number two, if you’re going to drink wine, choose red wine over white wine. White wine has far more sugar. Red wine has two important compounds, resveratrol and quercetin that actually improve brain health and are very potent antioxidants. Number three, if you’re going to drink spirits, use aged spirits. That is the darker spirits that have been in wood. It turns out there are polyphenols in wood that are extracted by the alcohol, and the alcohol is actually a vehicle to get polyphenols into you. Unaged clear spirits like vodka or gin, try to stay away from.
Now, it’s time for the question of the week. The question of the week comes from @ronniestennis8311 on my holiday video. He says, “Hi, I am living in Norway. Here, 60% of the cows produce casein A2, but all the milk is mixed. We can’t buy A2 milk. How bad is the mix? Is there less damage if you eat skim milk, sour milk, or cream/sour cream?”
Well, that’s a great question. Believe it or not, in the United States, we have a breed called the Jersey cow, which makes half casein A2 and half casein A1, and it’s certainly a whole lot better than the Holstein, which is pure casein A1. So if you’ve got 60%, you’re better off. On the other hand, the great news is that if you ferment milk, as in yogurts or cheeses, the casein is broken down into safer particles. Finally, cream or sour cream has very little casein at all. So of your choices, you’re best off with cream or sour cream or fermented milk products. Great question.
Now it’s time for the review of the week. The review of the week comes from @davidsolis6691 on my YouTube video on ovarian cancer. They said, “Thanks Dr. Gundry for helping us to care for all the ladies in our lives. God bless you and your work.” Well, thanks David Solis. I’m trying to let everyone know, on a weekly basis, if not more, how to take care of both themselves and their loved ones. So, thanks for looking out for your family as I’m 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.
