April 4, 2024 • 34 mins
In this captivating episode, we have the privilege of embarking on an enlightening journey with James Polakof, Ph.D., and his esteemed guest, Dr. Neal Barnard. These culinary experts delve into some of the most intriguing questions surrounding veganism and nutrition.
One of the central topics they tackle is the common misconception that vegans struggle to obtain sufficient protein. Dr. Barnard refutes the misconception that plant-based proteins are incomplete. He emphasizes the significance of diversifying plant-based protein sources to achieve a well-balanced diet.
Another fascinating topic they explore is the psychological aspect of meat-eating and why some meat-eaters may feel intimidated by vegetarians. Dr. Barnard openly takes on this topic and emphasizes the importance of respecting individual food choices.
The discussion also delves into the topic of healthy weight loss. Dr. Jim and Dr. Barnard highlight the significance of adopting a nutrient-rich, plant-based diet as a sustainable and effective way to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Dr. Barnard explains how whole, unprocessed plant foods are naturally lower in calories and higher in fiber, leading to greater satiety and improved metabolic health.
Furthermore, Dr. Neal Barnard also shares insights from his groundbreaking book, "The Power Foods Diet." This comprehensive guide provides practical strategies for incorporating nutrient-dense superfoods into one's diet.
Throughout the episode, James Polakof and Dr. Neal Barnard engage in a thought-provoking conversation, offering valuable insights and dispelling common misconceptions about veganism and nutrition. Their expertise and passion for promoting a plant-based lifestyle shine through, making this episode an informative and inspiring listen for anyone interested in making healthier food choices.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Live Healthy Longer, the podcast
created especially for seniorsand designed to enhance the
quality of your life as you age.
Our host, Dr Jim Polakoff, is acertified nutritionist who
believes you are what you eatand that food is the best
medicine.
Now let's join Dr Jim.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yes, I'm Dr Jim Polakoff, and this episode will
take us a step closer indiscovering how we live healthy
longer.
I'll begin with a question whyare meat eaters so intimidated
by vegetarians?
Even though veganism has becomemore mainstream, omnivores
(00:53):
still advocate you need to eatmeat to be healthy and to have
vitality and energy.
After my interview with ourspecial guest, I'll get into
this controversy a bit more, butfirst we're going to be hearing
from Dr Neal Barnard.
Dr Barnard is president ofPhysicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine and he'sbeen the principal investigator
(01:16):
on several clinical trials whichfocus upon healthy weight loss.
He has been the host of threePBS television programs and
written 15 popular books.
His latest book is the PowerFoods Diet, so certainly he'll
be shedding light on losingweight the healthy way.
(01:36):
Welcome, dr Bernard.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Well, it's good to be with you today.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
You're a strong advocate of a plant food diet.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I'd like to begin by having you explain what exactly
is a plant-based diet.
A plant-based diet really meansyou're eating abundant
vegetables and fruits and wholegrains and beans and all the
wonderful things that they aremade into For example, a
beautiful plate of pasta toppednot with a greasy ground beef
sauce but with a spicyarrabbiata sauce or marinara
(02:13):
sauce, or a bean burrito, or achili made not with meat but
with chunky vegetables and beans.
And it means that you're noteating animal products at all.
Animal products havecholesterol and animal fat and
the occasional salmonella and Ecoli, and you're not eating any
of that.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So many are accustomed to eating meat on a
regular basis.
The first question might bewill I get enough protein on a
plant-based diet?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
More than enough protein.
Protein is something that youneed for structural repair and
other functions in the body, andproteins are all made up of
essential amino acids in thesame way as a necklace is made
of a chain of beads and all theessential amino acids are found
in all plants, and you'll getmore than enough of all the
(03:02):
essential amino acids and morethan enough total protein.
And to give you an example, theUS government says that an
average man needs about 56 gramsof protein per day, for a woman
about 46.
And it varies depending on youractivity level and how big you
are.
But let's say, could you getthat 46 grams or 56 grams from
(03:25):
plants?
If tomorrow you were to say well, I normally eat about 2000
calories a day, what if, as acrazy experiment, I decided I
was going to eat nothing butbroccoli all day?
2000 calories worth of nothingbut broccoli?
Would there be protein there?
(03:45):
And the answer is there wouldbe about 146 grams of pure
protein in it.
In other words, you get all youneed plus about 100 grams.
Broccoli has so much protein init.
And if you do the sameexperiment with lentils and if
you just ate nothing but lentilsfor a day, you'd get 157 grams
of protein.
(04:05):
So hopefully you're not goingto do either of those
experiments.
But you might have somebroccoli or other green
vegetables, you might have somelentils or other beans, you
might have fruit, you might havegrains.
The amount of protein that youwill get is more than sufficient
, and if anyone has anyremaining doubts about this
never-ending question aboutprotein, go look at an elephant
(04:29):
or a giraffe.
These are vegan animals andthey're getting all of the
protein they need from plantsources.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
That's exactly right.
I agree with you 100%.
I do have a question, thoughwhen we're talking about a
plant-based diet, what aboutfish such as salmon, with all
the omegas that really are quiteessential, in my opinion at
least, to a diet?
Do you exclude fish from yourparticular diet?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I think the role of fish in a diet is that it's
something that, if it'scarefully prepared, it provides
excellent nutrition for a cat orany other carnivorous animal.
I think they would do well withit.
Human beings are not carnivoresand we don't do very well with
salmon.
Where we really see peoplerunning into trouble with it is
anyone who desires to loseweight.
(05:17):
If they start bringing salmoninto their diet in a big way,
their weight loss grinds to ahalt and they are left
unsatisfied and they can'tfigure out why.
But if you look at thenutrition label, you see the
answer.
Atlantic salmon is 40% fat as apercentage of fat.
(05:37):
If it's Chinook salmon, it's50% or even more, and every fat
gram has nine calories.
In other words, it's just acalorie bomb.
So, yes, it has some omega-3,but it also has saturated fat
and a mixture of other fats, aswell as mercury and heavy metals
and pesticides and other thingsin the human sewer that we call
(06:00):
the ocean, and people areeating these things hoping that
it's going to be helpful forthem.
There are omega-3s in plantsources and they are more than
sufficient.
If a person desires to pump itup with supplements, there are
supplements of EPA or DHA thatyou don't need.
Some of them are fish-derived,but there is the exact same kind
(06:25):
of DHA and DPA that is vegan.
It's derived from algae.
Perfectly fine, if you wantthat.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
All right, I was going to ask you about
supplements because, on aplant-based diet, do you
recommend taking supplements and, if you do, which ones would
you focus upon?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yes, a person should take vitamin B12.
It's the only supplement youreally do have to take.
Vitamin B12 is essential forhealthy nerves and healthy blood
, and it's not made by animalsor by plants.
It's made by bacteria, and ameat eater is likely to get some
B12 because the bacteria in thecow's gut makes it, but the
(07:05):
absorption is sometimes limitedand the US government recommends
that everyone, regardless ofdiet, over the age of 50,
supplement with vitamin B12.
I recommend that for everybody,at any age, regardless of diet,
but it's essential for a vegan.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Now I hasten to add… At what strength?
Probably would you recommendB12?
.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I'm sorry.
Can you repeat the question?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
At what strength would you recommend B12?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
US government's recommended dietary allowance is
2.4 micrograms per day.
All the supplements have morethan that, and so if you're
taking 200 micrograms per day orsomething like that, it's fine.
You'll see them in the store at500.
If it's much beyond that, Iwould take it perhaps every
other day.
I should say a quick word foranyone who imagines that a
(07:54):
plant-based diet is somehowdeficient in nutrition.
A meat-based diet is far worse,because meat has zero vitamin C
, zero complex carbohydrates,zero fiber, which is why meat
eaters tend to not do very well.
They have higher mortality andmore of other illnesses,
(08:15):
illnesses and so forth.
So a meat eater might have tosupplement with a fiber,
supplement with antioxidants andall kinds of things, and their
nutrition is still not as goodas that of a vegan.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I'd like to discuss the impact of plant-based foods
and what they have on majordiseases, and I think you've
spoken about this on someoccasions.
For example, we've yet to finda cure for most cancers.
How does diet, your diet andplant-based foods affect
prevention, and can it improvesurvival after you've had a
cancer diagnosis?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Well, what an important question.
When we look at something likebreast cancer, which is
extremely commonly diagnosed andsometimes fatal, we do see that
when women follow diets thatare predominantly plant-based,
the more you bring in vegetablesin particular, but probably
(09:12):
also fruits and other plants,the lower the likelihood of
developing this disease.
Diagnosis suggesting thatreducing fat, increasing
vegetables and fruits, as wellas other healthy things like
lacing up your sneakers andexercising, that these steps
could be very, very helpful withreducing recurrence and
(09:34):
mortality.
For men, prostate cancer mightbe the analogy here Extremely
common, sometimes fatal, and DrDean Ornish did an amazing study
more than a decade ago where heshowed that people after a
diagnosis of prostate cancer whoadopted a vegan diet when I say
vegan I mean people who eat noanimal products whatsoever that
(09:58):
it had a tremendous benefit withregard to disease-free survival
.
So we highly recommend aplant-based diet for both
prevention and for survival.
I would go further there is noone for whom a low-fat vegan
diet should not be recommended.
Let me repeat that in case it'snot clear.
Everybody does well on alow-fat vegan diet.
(10:22):
It's an optimal diet and thereis no reason, medically or
otherwise, to bring in meat ordairy products or eggs or other
junk food into the diet.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
That's interesting.
Now, what about heart disease?
I would assume that the sameapplies in terms of prevention,
but what about reversing heartdisease?
Can a plant diet actually bevaluable in reversal, dr
Kahneman?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yes, what a great point.
Back in 1990, dr Dean Ornish atthe University of California at
San Francisco did an amazingstudy where he wanted to go
further than the typicalapproach with heart disease.
He wanted to see if individualswith narrowed coronary arteries
could improve with diet andlifestyle changes.
(11:09):
He brought in individuals whohad existing heart disease and
he asked half of the group toavoid animal products, to
exercise, avoid tobacco and todeal with stress.
And what he showed is not onlydid these individuals lose a
huge amount of weight about 22pounds on average in the first
year and their LDL cholesterol,or bad cholesterol, dropped by
(11:33):
37%, which is phenomenal butbeyond that, everyone had an
angiogram at the beginning andend of the study and he was able
to demonstrate that thearteries reopen.
The narrowed arteries startopening up again, so much that a
measurable improvement wasvisible in 82% of the
(11:57):
participants in the first year.
This was achieved without drugs, without surgery, and with diet
and lifestyle changes alone.
So we now believe very stronglythat this is the diet of choice
, both for prevention ofcardiovascular disease but also
for its reversal.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Well, that's a very impressive information.
I'm certainly familiar with DrArnish, being originally a
Californian, and Dr Arnish, I'vemet him in Sausalito and I have
to say he's been in theforefront of this for many, many
years Now.
Let's turn to a question,because many members of our
audience are in the senior agegroup.
(12:37):
Alzheimer's is always a concern, and I believe that evidence
shows that eating the wrongfoods can actually cause
cognitive decline.
Am I correct?
And if so, what does aplant-based diet do in terms of
prevention or deceleration?
Speaker 3 (12:56):
What's good for the heart is also good for the brain
.
In 2003, the Chicago Health andAging Project published the
results of a long-standingsurvey of individuals in Chicago
.
Their dietary intake wastracked, as was their cognition,
and they found that thoseindividuals who avoided, for the
(13:17):
most part, who avoidedsaturated fat that's the fat
that's predominant in dairyproducts as well as in meat,
some in eggs those individualswho avoided saturated fat cut
(13:43):
their risk of Alzheimer's byhalf to two-thirds, which was
terrific.
Such as excess iron and excesscopper, and probably aluminum as
well, may be helpful, andexercise here can be helpful as
well.
So all of these things areimportant.
What we believe is that simplyavoiding the foods that raise
(14:04):
cholesterol, the animal products, which of course, contain
cholesterol and containsaturated fat, avoiding those is
again good for the heart andthat's also good for the brain.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Well, I think that's valuable information, thank you.
Well, let's get to the keyfeature element of the interview
here, the key concern aboutoverweight obesity.
It's so easy to gain pounds,but so difficult, as you know,
to take them off.
So are drugs like Ozempic asolution, or calorie restriction
that unfortunately leaves youhungry.
What's the healthy answer toweight loss?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
We've done quite a number of research studies on
this.
Back in 2005, we published theresults of a study in which we
brought in 64 women who had hadchronic weight problems for many
years and they had all triedAtkins and South Beach and Jenny
Craig and Nutrisystem, and youname it.
They tried it Cabbage soup, theusual things and what we asked
(15:02):
them to do instead was to avoidanimal products and keep oils to
a bare minimum.
Those were the only rules.
We asked them not to changetheir exercise or anything else,
just avoid animal products,keep oils really, really low.
And we had a comparison groupfollowing a more traditional
kind of weight loss diet andwhat we found was that the
(15:24):
people following the plant-baseddiet lost weight without any
attempt to restrict calories,without any attempt to avoid
carbohydrate eating until theywere quite full and satisfied.
They lost about a pound perweek, week after week.
After the study was finished,we followed them for two
additional years and found thatthey never regained the lost
(15:46):
weight.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So we now believe that's very interesting, because
that's the big problem on diets.
You know it comes back with avengeance once you've lost it,
so that's good advice.
So about a pound a week then.
Actually, if you just go to aplant based diet, you don't
restrict how much of it you eat.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
There's no reason to restrict, because restriction
means hunger.
Hunger means rebound, hungermeans long term failure.
Restriction means hunger.
Hunger means rebound, hungermeans long-term failure.
If a person feels satisfiedwith what they're eating and
they like the taste and thequantity, then there's no reason
for the weight to come back.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Well, one of the I'm curious about this because you
had mentioned this, I think insomething that one of your
writings and that how does aplant-based diet actually trap
calories and then flush themaway?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
This was an amazing study done at Tufts University
back in 2017.
They brought in individuals andsome of them were asked to eat
white bread, white rice.
The other half of theparticipants ate whole grain
bread and whole grain rice,brown rice, and what they
(16:53):
discovered which was a bitsurprising was that fiber in
foods that's plant roughagebreaks apart and becomes sort of
like a million little spongesgoing down your digestive tract
and as they go down, they trapunabsorbed calories and carry
them out with the waste.
Now this is good foreliminating about 100 calories
every day rather than absorbingthem as fat.
(17:14):
So there's fiber in whole grainbreads and in brown rice, but
also in beans and vegetables andfruits and plenty of foods.
So meat eaters and people whoeat a lot of dairy miss that
fiber.
Those foods don't have anyfiber, so every last calorie in
those foods is one that's goingto be absorbed.
So this is one of the manyreasons why we recommend a
(17:36):
plant-based diet for weight loss.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
You mentioned bread because obviously in many diets
bread is excluded, but I believethat you're suggesting, as far
as plant-based foods, that breadcan be in.
That is something you can eatand still lose weight.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Sure, if you want to make a sandwich, there's nothing
like starting with bread, andthis self-punitive notion that
for the rest of your life youcan never have a piece of bread
comes from people who arefollowing bad advice.
Now, we recommend it being goodquality bread, whole grain
bread, and the most importantthing is, when you are making
your sandwich, don't top it withbutter cheese cold cuts,
(18:18):
because the bread is an innocentbystander.
It's not going to cause weightgain.
It's all the things that wewrap up in the bread that are
causing the problem.
What about a peanut butter?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
and jelly sandwich that are causing the problem.
What about a peanut butter?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
and jelly sandwich.
You're okay there.
Now, if a person is reallytrying to lose weight, they
would do better to minimize thepeanut butter.
But because it's rather fatty,but the quality of fat is
certainly better.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
That's interesting.
That's very interesting advice.
I think it's in your powerfoods to diet book.
You mentioned the body'sability to burn calories for
about three hours after a meal.
I'm curious how this works,because typically you're
sedentary after a meal andparticularly as you age, your
(19:04):
metabolism really isn't workingeffectively or as effectively as
you did in your youth.
So how does that actuallyhappen that you burn calories?
You continue to burn them threehours afterwards.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
If you were to eat a stick of butter as your meal not
that anyone would do this, butas an experiment your metabolism
doesn't change.
You absorb that stick of butterwithin the first 40 centimeters
of your intestinal tract andit's going to add to your hip
fat, thigh fat or belly fat.
If, on the other hand, you hada plant-based meal that has
fiber and healthy complexcarbohydrates in it and
(19:38):
plant-based protein and so forth, your metabolism rises quite
significantly after the meal.
This is called the thermiceffect of food and it has that
name because, as the nutrientsare absorbed, your body uses
those nutrients.
It's expending energy to storethem, to metabolize them, and it
(20:00):
also uses them to generate bodyheat.
And it's good for about 200calories per day.
And you can manipulate thisdepending on two things.
One is the type of meal thatyou eat.
If it's a meal that has healthycomplex carbohydrates in it,
you get a nice after meal burn.
But the other thing is that youcan manipulate this by
(20:22):
continuing with a low fat,completely vegan diet.
After 14 weeks on this diet,our research team found that
that after meal burn isincreased by an additional 15%
using the same test meal.
But your ability to burncalories improves when you've
(20:43):
been following a low-fat, vegandiet over a period of about
three months.
We believe that the reason forthat is that, because you're not
eating any animal fat andyou're not eating much of any
kind of fat, the fat content ofyour muscles starts to diminish,
and when that happens, yourmuscle cells are more insulin
(21:03):
sensitive and they burn caloriesmore readily.
So we repeated this study in Ibelieve it was 2020, and
published it in JAMA NetworkOpen, and we find that again
when people follow this sort ofdiet, that they get about a 15%
augmentation of their ability toburn calories, and so that's
(21:23):
part of the reason that peoplefollowing vegan diets are
slimmer than their meat-eatingfriends slimmer than their
meat-eating friends.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I think what you're saying also is that eating
animal foods actually slows downthe metabolism, whereas a
plant-based diet increases it.
Is that correct?
Yes, that's right Interesting.
I think what you're reallysaying is you can eat all that
you want without going hungry,as long as it's a plant-based
diet.
And, of course, I'm curiousabout I mean, you mentioned
(21:52):
bread, which is something that Ialways felt that when you're
overweight or you're trying tocut down on your calories, that
certainly bread is somethingthat you avoid, but I think
you've been very articulate inpointing out that's not the case
.
What about things like pasta?
I mean, people enjoy pasta.
That's at least gives you alittle, shall we say, a little
(22:16):
spice in your meal.
Would you suggest that thatwould be okay if it's whole
grain?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Let me give two numbers that really can serve as
a useful guide for people goingforward.
Those numbers are four and nine.
Nine is the number of caloriesin a gram of fat.
Any fat chicken fat, beef fat,pork fat, fat coming out of
Atlantic salmon that iswild-caught and sold at Whole
(22:46):
Foods there are nine calories inevery fat gram.
Carbohydrate has four caloriesin every gram.
That's true for carbohydratefrom bread, from rice, from
potatoes, from pasta, from beans, even from pure sugar.
The reason that I emphasize thisis many people have this
(23:08):
backwards.
They think, gee, I'm gainingweight, so I should stop eating
bread.
That's one of the lowestcalorie things that you're
eating, unless you're smearingit with butter and cheese.
So the fatty foods meat, animalproducts in general have animal
fat as well as oils, vegetableoils.
They have nine calories pergram as well.
(23:30):
Now, vegetable oils are abetter quality of fat.
They're lower in saturated fatfor the most part.
That's good, but they're justas fattening.
So if a person wishes to loseweight, bread can be okay, but
what I would do is avoid animalproducts, keep oils low and eat
as much as you want ofvegetables and fruits and whole
grains and beans, within reason,of course you don't want to
(23:50):
take and fruits and whole grainsand beans Within reason.
Of course you don't want totake a funnel and just jam food
in, but you should be able toenjoy meals and you will lose
weight naturally.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
That's some very healthy advice.
I'd like to turn to somethingthat I had mentioned during my
introduction of you, and that isthat you are the president, or
president, of PhysiciansCommittee for Responsible
Medicine.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about the organization?
I understand there's about17,000 physicians worldwide
involved.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yes, and hopefully more after this broadcast.
The Physicians Committee beganin 1985 as really a committee.
It was a small group of doctorswho lent their expertise and
our concerns were that inAmerican medicine we weren't
really doing much of anythingabout a heart attack until it
(24:43):
came into the emergency roomdoor about a heart attack until
it came into the emergency roomdoor.
We weren't doing anything aboutbreast cancer until it showed
up on a mammogram, and yet wehad knowledge of the antecedents
to these problems.
You can see that heart attackcoming based on risk factors
high blood pressure, overweight,diabetes, smoking and you can
intervene and prevent that heartattack from happening.
(25:05):
You can see breast cancercoming based not just on genetic
risks but on alcohol use, on apoor diet, on persistent
overweight, on the use ofhormone replacement therapy, and
you can guide patients to takesteps that will reduce their
risk.
These steps are imperfect.
Guide patients to take stepsthat will reduce their risk.
(25:27):
These steps are imperfect, butthey are nonetheless powerful.
So we felt it was importantthat we advocate in this area.
We also advocated for moreresearch, ethically done,
focusing on human beings, sothat we can do so, that we can
answer the questions thatpersist.
We've grown enormously overtime and the Physicians
Committee now does quite a lotof research and advocacy and
(25:49):
education to promote healthydiets.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Very interesting.
You're going through medicalschool and you learn, as a
doctor, very little aboutnutrition.
And yet, as an individual thatobviously comes down with
certain ills, you go to yourprimary care doctor.
They're not giving you goodadvice.
What do you suggest?
Just take the bull by the hornsand learn more yourself about
(26:14):
nutritional aspects, becausethat's a definite weakness in
our medical system.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Regrettably, the US medical system has a great
tolerance for incompetence incertain domains.
One of these is nutrition.
That's regrettable because thecause of overweight, which
affects what roughly half of theUS population, the cause of
heart disease, which is thefinal event for most people, the
(26:40):
cause of cancer, which affectsbetween one-third and one-half
of our population a primarycause of all of these things is
the food choices that we makeand for some reason, because
perhaps doctors are well, maybeI shouldn't speculate too much
about why this is, but it'sregrettably left out of medical
education to a very substantialdegree.
(27:02):
So if anyone like me or you orother people who have completed
medical education and they wantto make up for lost time, it
really is a good idea to becomeeducated about nutrition.
That's part of why I writebooks, that's why we have
continuing medical education,that's why we also have our
International Conference onNutrition in Medicine occurring
(27:24):
in Washington DC every August.
Doctors, I have to say, despitethe fact they have not been
trained in these things, areextremely eager to learn once
they discover the power that ithas when you see a patient whose
diabetes actually goes awaybecause of nutritional changes
they have made under yourguidance, because you see a
(27:47):
person who has been able toconquer their weight issues or
hypertension or a highcholesterol level or other
things, aided by dietary changes.
It has a profound impact on thepracticing physician to see
these things and they want to beable to use that power more and
more.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
It would seem that one of the things you can do is
to recommend to your primarycare doctor that they should
look into the PhysiciansCommittee for Responsible
Medicine, that there might besome enlightening information,
and that's certainly somethingthat you can do that will help
others, am I correct?
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Well, thank you for suggesting that, and I certainly
couldn't agree.
More help others, am I correct?
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Well, thank you for suggesting that, and I certainly
couldn't agree more.
As we conclude, I have one lastquestion.
I'm aware that you've written15 books and your latest is the
Power of Foods Diet.
Can you tell us a little bitabout this book and what
motivated you to write it?
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yes, the Power Foods Diet had an interesting genesis.
Back in 2015, harvardresearchers did an amazing study
Following more than 100,000research participants.
They discovered that thoseindividuals who increased their
intake of certain foods overtime, for whatever reason,
(29:04):
tended to lose weight.
In other words, specific foodswere associated with weight loss
, and the more you ate, the moreyou lost.
Now, at the top of the list ofthe foods that were somehow
associated with weight loss wasthe humble blueberry blueberries
, and also strawberries andraspberries.
People who increased theirconsumption of these foods lost
(29:25):
weight.
So researchers then and therewere many other foods like
cruciferous vegetables, beans,melons, cantaloupe and others
that were also associated withweight loss.
So researchers in the UnitedKingdom did a fascinating
follow-up.
They brought in more than 2,700identical twins, and everyone
had a DEXA scan that shows wherethe body fat is on your body
(29:50):
thigh fat, abdominal fat, forexample and what they found was
that the twin who ate moreanthocyanins that's, the pigment
in a blueberry or a pigment ina strawberry in a blueberry or a
pigment in a strawberry thetwin who ate more of these foods
had substantially less body fatand specifically less abdominal
(30:12):
fat, compared with hergenetically identical twin
sister.
So we have been studying theeffects of not so much calorie
restriction and that kind ofthing, but adding certain foods,
and we have found that not justblueberries, but certain spices
like cinnamon or ginger, oreven hot peppers that contain
(30:35):
capsaicinoids.
These foods tend to facilitateweight loss, either by taming
the appetite, by trappingcalories, as we talked about
earlier, or by boosting themetabolism, boosting the calorie
burning speed.
So we build them into Frenchtoast Cinnamon on your French
(30:57):
toast, and top it with ablueberry syrup.
It's suddenly a slimmingbreakfast.
Wild blueberry muffins, a lentilsoup, a mango dal, a pasta
arrabbiata, a chili made notwith meat and cheese, but made
with healthy, plant-basedingredients.
Even desserts like carrot cake,delicious things you'd want to
eat, consumed as much as withinreason you would like.
(31:22):
These are foods that facilitateweight loss.
People have loved this approach.
We've studied many, manyhundreds of people and found
that this is really by far theeasiest way and most enjoyable
way to lose weight.
So the Power Foods diet hasmore than 120 recipes, plus tips
for how to do this at arestaurant or a fast food, or
(31:43):
how children can eat these samefoods and have a healthy weight
for life.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Well, I think you've just mentioned the formula.
Go to your book Power of FoodsDiet.
They're going to find recipes.
You mentioned over 120 recipes.
That's going to take you a longway, particularly if you want
to lose weight.
That's going to take you a longway, particularly if you want
to lose weight.
But, most importantly, I wantto thank you, because some of
(32:09):
this information all of itactually has been extremely
enlightening.
It's.
You know, I've studied quite abit about nutrition, but it's
turned my head around a bit andI have to tell you how much I
really appreciate you being aguest on the program.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
It's been wonderful speaking with you today,
jamespolakoffcom.
Our website also has some greatblogs, which are all designed
to help you live healthy longer.
Go to jamespolakoffcom.
That's jamespolakoffcom.
Now back to Dr Jim.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
So thanks again to Dr Neil Bernard.
He's provided some great foodfor thought about healthy eating
.
I really do encourage mylisteners to discover more about
Dr Mardard and look into hispositions.
Committee.
All you need to do is go to ourwebsite, as mentioned,
jamespolikoffcom.
(33:18):
You'll recall, during myintroduction, I asked why meat
eaters are intimidated byvegetarians.
Well, to begin with, mostomnivores believe you need to
eat meat to get enough protein.
Now, certainly, dr Bernardenlightened us.
We know we can get protein fromvarious sources, such as beans,
(33:38):
fruits like blackberries,nectarines and bananas,
vegetables, including spinach,asparagus, sweet potatoes and
even Brussels sprouts, and thenthere are nuts, tofu, which I
enjoy, and edamame.
These are just a few of thefoods that give you sufficient
protein that you need to carryon each day.
(34:01):
This is Dr Jim Polikoff.
Thanks for joining me onceagain, and every week there's
another episode of Live HealthyLonger.
Please visit our website formore information about our
guests and I think you're goingto enjoy some of the really
healthy blogs that have beenwritten.
So that's jamespolakoffcom, andremember food is the best
(34:25):
medicine.
Welcome to Live Healthy Longer, the podcast
created especially for seniorsand designed to enhance the
quality of your life as you age.
Our host, Dr Jim Polakoff, is acertified nutritionist who
believes you are what you eatand that food is the best
medicine.
Now let's join Dr Jim.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yes, I'm Dr Jim Polakoff, and this episode will
take us a step closer indiscovering how we live healthy
longer.
I'll begin with a question whyare meat eaters so intimidated
by vegetarians?
Even though veganism has becomemore mainstream, omnivores
(00:53):
still advocate you need to eatmeat to be healthy and to have
vitality and energy.
After my interview with ourspecial guest, I'll get into
this controversy a bit more, butfirst we're going to be hearing
from Dr Neal Barnard.
Dr Barnard is president ofPhysicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine and he'sbeen the principal investigator
(01:16):
on several clinical trials whichfocus upon healthy weight loss.
He has been the host of threePBS television programs and
written 15 popular books.
His latest book is the PowerFoods Diet, so certainly he'll
be shedding light on losingweight the healthy way.
(01:36):
Welcome, dr Bernard.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Well, it's good to be with you today.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
You're a strong advocate of a plant food diet.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I'd like to begin by having you explain what exactly
is a plant-based diet.
A plant-based diet really meansyou're eating abundant
vegetables and fruits and wholegrains and beans and all the
wonderful things that they aremade into For example, a
beautiful plate of pasta toppednot with a greasy ground beef
sauce but with a spicyarrabbiata sauce or marinara
(02:13):
sauce, or a bean burrito, or achili made not with meat but
with chunky vegetables and beans.
And it means that you're noteating animal products at all.
Animal products havecholesterol and animal fat and
the occasional salmonella and Ecoli, and you're not eating any
of that.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So many are accustomed to eating meat on a
regular basis.
The first question might bewill I get enough protein on a
plant-based diet?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
More than enough protein.
Protein is something that youneed for structural repair and
other functions in the body, andproteins are all made up of
essential amino acids in thesame way as a necklace is made
of a chain of beads and all theessential amino acids are found
in all plants, and you'll getmore than enough of all the
(03:02):
essential amino acids and morethan enough total protein.
And to give you an example, theUS government says that an
average man needs about 56 gramsof protein per day, for a woman
about 46.
And it varies depending on youractivity level and how big you
are.
But let's say, could you getthat 46 grams or 56 grams from
(03:25):
plants?
If tomorrow you were to say well, I normally eat about 2000
calories a day, what if, as acrazy experiment, I decided I
was going to eat nothing butbroccoli all day?
2000 calories worth of nothingbut broccoli?
Would there be protein there?
(03:45):
And the answer is there wouldbe about 146 grams of pure
protein in it.
In other words, you get all youneed plus about 100 grams.
Broccoli has so much protein init.
And if you do the sameexperiment with lentils and if
you just ate nothing but lentilsfor a day, you'd get 157 grams
of protein.
(04:05):
So hopefully you're not goingto do either of those
experiments.
But you might have somebroccoli or other green
vegetables, you might have somelentils or other beans, you
might have fruit, you might havegrains.
The amount of protein that youwill get is more than sufficient
, and if anyone has anyremaining doubts about this
never-ending question aboutprotein, go look at an elephant
(04:29):
or a giraffe.
These are vegan animals andthey're getting all of the
protein they need from plantsources.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
That's exactly right.
I agree with you 100%.
I do have a question, thoughwhen we're talking about a
plant-based diet, what aboutfish such as salmon, with all
the omegas that really are quiteessential, in my opinion at
least, to a diet?
Do you exclude fish from yourparticular diet?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I think the role of fish in a diet is that it's
something that, if it'scarefully prepared, it provides
excellent nutrition for a cat orany other carnivorous animal.
I think they would do well withit.
Human beings are not carnivoresand we don't do very well with
salmon.
Where we really see peoplerunning into trouble with it is
anyone who desires to loseweight.
(05:17):
If they start bringing salmoninto their diet in a big way,
their weight loss grinds to ahalt and they are left
unsatisfied and they can'tfigure out why.
But if you look at thenutrition label, you see the
answer.
Atlantic salmon is 40% fat as apercentage of fat.
(05:37):
If it's Chinook salmon, it's50% or even more, and every fat
gram has nine calories.
In other words, it's just acalorie bomb.
So, yes, it has some omega-3,but it also has saturated fat
and a mixture of other fats, aswell as mercury and heavy metals
and pesticides and other thingsin the human sewer that we call
(06:00):
the ocean, and people areeating these things hoping that
it's going to be helpful forthem.
There are omega-3s in plantsources and they are more than
sufficient.
If a person desires to pump itup with supplements, there are
supplements of EPA or DHA thatyou don't need.
Some of them are fish-derived,but there is the exact same kind
(06:25):
of DHA and DPA that is vegan.
It's derived from algae.
Perfectly fine, if you wantthat.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
All right, I was going to ask you about
supplements because, on aplant-based diet, do you
recommend taking supplements and, if you do, which ones would
you focus upon?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yes, a person should take vitamin B12.
It's the only supplement youreally do have to take.
Vitamin B12 is essential forhealthy nerves and healthy blood
, and it's not made by animalsor by plants.
It's made by bacteria, and ameat eater is likely to get some
B12 because the bacteria in thecow's gut makes it, but the
(07:05):
absorption is sometimes limitedand the US government recommends
that everyone, regardless ofdiet, over the age of 50,
supplement with vitamin B12.
I recommend that for everybody,at any age, regardless of diet,
but it's essential for a vegan.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Now I hasten to add… At what strength?
Probably would you recommendB12?
.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I'm sorry.
Can you repeat the question?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
At what strength would you recommend B12?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
US government's recommended dietary allowance is
2.4 micrograms per day.
All the supplements have morethan that, and so if you're
taking 200 micrograms per day orsomething like that, it's fine.
You'll see them in the store at500.
If it's much beyond that, Iwould take it perhaps every
other day.
I should say a quick word foranyone who imagines that a
(07:54):
plant-based diet is somehowdeficient in nutrition.
A meat-based diet is far worse,because meat has zero vitamin C
, zero complex carbohydrates,zero fiber, which is why meat
eaters tend to not do very well.
They have higher mortality andmore of other illnesses,
(08:15):
illnesses and so forth.
So a meat eater might have tosupplement with a fiber,
supplement with antioxidants andall kinds of things, and their
nutrition is still not as goodas that of a vegan.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I'd like to discuss the impact of plant-based foods
and what they have on majordiseases, and I think you've
spoken about this on someoccasions.
For example, we've yet to finda cure for most cancers.
How does diet, your diet andplant-based foods affect
prevention, and can it improvesurvival after you've had a
cancer diagnosis?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Well, what an important question.
When we look at something likebreast cancer, which is
extremely commonly diagnosed andsometimes fatal, we do see that
when women follow diets thatare predominantly plant-based,
the more you bring in vegetablesin particular, but probably
(09:12):
also fruits and other plants,the lower the likelihood of
developing this disease.
Diagnosis suggesting thatreducing fat, increasing
vegetables and fruits, as wellas other healthy things like
lacing up your sneakers andexercising, that these steps
could be very, very helpful withreducing recurrence and
(09:34):
mortality.
For men, prostate cancer mightbe the analogy here Extremely
common, sometimes fatal, and DrDean Ornish did an amazing study
more than a decade ago where heshowed that people after a
diagnosis of prostate cancer whoadopted a vegan diet when I say
vegan I mean people who eat noanimal products whatsoever that
(09:58):
it had a tremendous benefit withregard to disease-free survival
.
So we highly recommend aplant-based diet for both
prevention and for survival.
I would go further there is noone for whom a low-fat vegan
diet should not be recommended.
Let me repeat that in case it'snot clear.
Everybody does well on alow-fat vegan diet.
(10:22):
It's an optimal diet and thereis no reason, medically or
otherwise, to bring in meat ordairy products or eggs or other
junk food into the diet.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
That's interesting.
Now, what about heart disease?
I would assume that the sameapplies in terms of prevention,
but what about reversing heartdisease?
Can a plant diet actually bevaluable in reversal, dr
Kahneman?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yes, what a great point.
Back in 1990, dr Dean Ornish atthe University of California at
San Francisco did an amazingstudy where he wanted to go
further than the typicalapproach with heart disease.
He wanted to see if individualswith narrowed coronary arteries
could improve with diet andlifestyle changes.
(11:09):
He brought in individuals whohad existing heart disease and
he asked half of the group toavoid animal products, to
exercise, avoid tobacco and todeal with stress.
And what he showed is not onlydid these individuals lose a
huge amount of weight about 22pounds on average in the first
year and their LDL cholesterol,or bad cholesterol, dropped by
(11:33):
37%, which is phenomenal butbeyond that, everyone had an
angiogram at the beginning andend of the study and he was able
to demonstrate that thearteries reopen.
The narrowed arteries startopening up again, so much that a
measurable improvement wasvisible in 82% of the
(11:57):
participants in the first year.
This was achieved without drugs, without surgery, and with diet
and lifestyle changes alone.
So we now believe very stronglythat this is the diet of choice
, both for prevention ofcardiovascular disease but also
for its reversal.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Well, that's a very impressive information.
I'm certainly familiar with DrArnish, being originally a
Californian, and Dr Arnish, I'vemet him in Sausalito and I have
to say he's been in theforefront of this for many, many
years Now.
Let's turn to a question,because many members of our
audience are in the senior agegroup.
(12:37):
Alzheimer's is always a concern, and I believe that evidence
shows that eating the wrongfoods can actually cause
cognitive decline.
Am I correct?
And if so, what does aplant-based diet do in terms of
prevention or deceleration?
Speaker 3 (12:56):
What's good for the heart is also good for the brain
.
In 2003, the Chicago Health andAging Project published the
results of a long-standingsurvey of individuals in Chicago
.
Their dietary intake wastracked, as was their cognition,
and they found that thoseindividuals who avoided, for the
(13:17):
most part, who avoidedsaturated fat that's the fat
that's predominant in dairyproducts as well as in meat,
some in eggs those individualswho avoided saturated fat cut
(13:43):
their risk of Alzheimer's byhalf to two-thirds, which was
terrific.
Such as excess iron and excesscopper, and probably aluminum as
well, may be helpful, andexercise here can be helpful as
well.
So all of these things areimportant.
What we believe is that simplyavoiding the foods that raise
(14:04):
cholesterol, the animal products, which of course, contain
cholesterol and containsaturated fat, avoiding those is
again good for the heart andthat's also good for the brain.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Well, I think that's valuable information, thank you.
Well, let's get to the keyfeature element of the interview
here, the key concern aboutoverweight obesity.
It's so easy to gain pounds,but so difficult, as you know,
to take them off.
So are drugs like Ozempic asolution, or calorie restriction
that unfortunately leaves youhungry.
What's the healthy answer toweight loss?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
We've done quite a number of research studies on
this.
Back in 2005, we published theresults of a study in which we
brought in 64 women who had hadchronic weight problems for many
years and they had all triedAtkins and South Beach and Jenny
Craig and Nutrisystem, and youname it.
They tried it Cabbage soup, theusual things and what we asked
(15:02):
them to do instead was to avoidanimal products and keep oils to
a bare minimum.
Those were the only rules.
We asked them not to changetheir exercise or anything else,
just avoid animal products,keep oils really, really low.
And we had a comparison groupfollowing a more traditional
kind of weight loss diet andwhat we found was that the
(15:24):
people following the plant-baseddiet lost weight without any
attempt to restrict calories,without any attempt to avoid
carbohydrate eating until theywere quite full and satisfied.
They lost about a pound perweek, week after week.
After the study was finished,we followed them for two
additional years and found thatthey never regained the lost
(15:46):
weight.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So we now believe that's very interesting, because
that's the big problem on diets.
You know it comes back with avengeance once you've lost it,
so that's good advice.
So about a pound a week then.
Actually, if you just go to aplant based diet, you don't
restrict how much of it you eat.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
There's no reason to restrict, because restriction
means hunger.
Hunger means rebound, hungermeans long term failure.
Restriction means hunger.
Hunger means rebound, hungermeans long-term failure.
If a person feels satisfiedwith what they're eating and
they like the taste and thequantity, then there's no reason
for the weight to come back.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Well, one of the I'm curious about this because you
had mentioned this, I think insomething that one of your
writings and that how does aplant-based diet actually trap
calories and then flush themaway?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
This was an amazing study done at Tufts University
back in 2017.
They brought in individuals andsome of them were asked to eat
white bread, white rice.
The other half of theparticipants ate whole grain
bread and whole grain rice,brown rice, and what they
(16:53):
discovered which was a bitsurprising was that fiber in
foods that's plant roughagebreaks apart and becomes sort of
like a million little spongesgoing down your digestive tract
and as they go down, they trapunabsorbed calories and carry
them out with the waste.
Now this is good foreliminating about 100 calories
every day rather than absorbingthem as fat.
(17:14):
So there's fiber in whole grainbreads and in brown rice, but
also in beans and vegetables andfruits and plenty of foods.
So meat eaters and people whoeat a lot of dairy miss that
fiber.
Those foods don't have anyfiber, so every last calorie in
those foods is one that's goingto be absorbed.
So this is one of the manyreasons why we recommend a
(17:36):
plant-based diet for weight loss.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
You mentioned bread because obviously in many diets
bread is excluded, but I believethat you're suggesting, as far
as plant-based foods, that breadcan be in.
That is something you can eatand still lose weight.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Sure, if you want to make a sandwich, there's nothing
like starting with bread, andthis self-punitive notion that
for the rest of your life youcan never have a piece of bread
comes from people who arefollowing bad advice.
Now, we recommend it being goodquality bread, whole grain
bread, and the most importantthing is, when you are making
your sandwich, don't top it withbutter cheese cold cuts,
(18:18):
because the bread is an innocentbystander.
It's not going to cause weightgain.
It's all the things that wewrap up in the bread that are
causing the problem.
What about a peanut butter?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
and jelly sandwich that are causing the problem.
What about a peanut butter?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
and jelly sandwich.
You're okay there.
Now, if a person is reallytrying to lose weight, they
would do better to minimize thepeanut butter.
But because it's rather fatty,but the quality of fat is
certainly better.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
That's interesting.
That's very interesting advice.
I think it's in your powerfoods to diet book.
You mentioned the body'sability to burn calories for
about three hours after a meal.
I'm curious how this works,because typically you're
sedentary after a meal andparticularly as you age, your
(19:04):
metabolism really isn't workingeffectively or as effectively as
you did in your youth.
So how does that actuallyhappen that you burn calories?
You continue to burn them threehours afterwards.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
If you were to eat a stick of butter as your meal not
that anyone would do this, butas an experiment your metabolism
doesn't change.
You absorb that stick of butterwithin the first 40 centimeters
of your intestinal tract andit's going to add to your hip
fat, thigh fat or belly fat.
If, on the other hand, you hada plant-based meal that has
fiber and healthy complexcarbohydrates in it and
(19:38):
plant-based protein and so forth, your metabolism rises quite
significantly after the meal.
This is called the thermiceffect of food and it has that
name because, as the nutrientsare absorbed, your body uses
those nutrients.
It's expending energy to storethem, to metabolize them, and it
(20:00):
also uses them to generate bodyheat.
And it's good for about 200calories per day.
And you can manipulate thisdepending on two things.
One is the type of meal thatyou eat.
If it's a meal that has healthycomplex carbohydrates in it,
you get a nice after meal burn.
But the other thing is that youcan manipulate this by
(20:22):
continuing with a low fat,completely vegan diet.
After 14 weeks on this diet,our research team found that
that after meal burn isincreased by an additional 15%
using the same test meal.
But your ability to burncalories improves when you've
(20:43):
been following a low-fat, vegandiet over a period of about
three months.
We believe that the reason forthat is that, because you're not
eating any animal fat andyou're not eating much of any
kind of fat, the fat content ofyour muscles starts to diminish,
and when that happens, yourmuscle cells are more insulin
(21:03):
sensitive and they burn caloriesmore readily.
So we repeated this study in Ibelieve it was 2020, and
published it in JAMA NetworkOpen, and we find that again
when people follow this sort ofdiet, that they get about a 15%
augmentation of their ability toburn calories, and so that's
(21:23):
part of the reason that peoplefollowing vegan diets are
slimmer than their meat-eatingfriends slimmer than their
meat-eating friends.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I think what you're saying also is that eating
animal foods actually slows downthe metabolism, whereas a
plant-based diet increases it.
Is that correct?
Yes, that's right Interesting.
I think what you're reallysaying is you can eat all that
you want without going hungry,as long as it's a plant-based
diet.
And, of course, I'm curiousabout I mean, you mentioned
(21:52):
bread, which is something that Ialways felt that when you're
overweight or you're trying tocut down on your calories, that
certainly bread is somethingthat you avoid, but I think
you've been very articulate inpointing out that's not the case
.
What about things like pasta?
I mean, people enjoy pasta.
That's at least gives you alittle, shall we say, a little
(22:16):
spice in your meal.
Would you suggest that thatwould be okay if it's whole
grain?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Let me give two numbers that really can serve as
a useful guide for people goingforward.
Those numbers are four and nine.
Nine is the number of caloriesin a gram of fat.
Any fat chicken fat, beef fat,pork fat, fat coming out of
Atlantic salmon that iswild-caught and sold at Whole
(22:46):
Foods there are nine calories inevery fat gram.
Carbohydrate has four caloriesin every gram.
That's true for carbohydratefrom bread, from rice, from
potatoes, from pasta, from beans, even from pure sugar.
The reason that I emphasize thisis many people have this
(23:08):
backwards.
They think, gee, I'm gainingweight, so I should stop eating
bread.
That's one of the lowestcalorie things that you're
eating, unless you're smearingit with butter and cheese.
So the fatty foods meat, animalproducts in general have animal
fat as well as oils, vegetableoils.
They have nine calories pergram as well.
(23:30):
Now, vegetable oils are abetter quality of fat.
They're lower in saturated fatfor the most part.
That's good, but they're justas fattening.
So if a person wishes to loseweight, bread can be okay, but
what I would do is avoid animalproducts, keep oils low and eat
as much as you want ofvegetables and fruits and whole
grains and beans, within reason,of course you don't want to
(23:50):
take and fruits and whole grainsand beans Within reason.
Of course you don't want totake a funnel and just jam food
in, but you should be able toenjoy meals and you will lose
weight naturally.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
That's some very healthy advice.
I'd like to turn to somethingthat I had mentioned during my
introduction of you, and that isthat you are the president, or
president, of PhysiciansCommittee for Responsible
Medicine.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about the organization?
I understand there's about17,000 physicians worldwide
involved.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yes, and hopefully more after this broadcast.
The Physicians Committee beganin 1985 as really a committee.
It was a small group of doctorswho lent their expertise and
our concerns were that inAmerican medicine we weren't
really doing much of anythingabout a heart attack until it
(24:43):
came into the emergency roomdoor about a heart attack until
it came into the emergency roomdoor.
We weren't doing anything aboutbreast cancer until it showed
up on a mammogram, and yet wehad knowledge of the antecedents
to these problems.
You can see that heart attackcoming based on risk factors
high blood pressure, overweight,diabetes, smoking and you can
intervene and prevent that heartattack from happening.
(25:05):
You can see breast cancercoming based not just on genetic
risks but on alcohol use, on apoor diet, on persistent
overweight, on the use ofhormone replacement therapy, and
you can guide patients to takesteps that will reduce their
risk.
These steps are imperfect.
Guide patients to take stepsthat will reduce their risk.
(25:27):
These steps are imperfect, butthey are nonetheless powerful.
So we felt it was importantthat we advocate in this area.
We also advocated for moreresearch, ethically done,
focusing on human beings, sothat we can do so, that we can
answer the questions thatpersist.
We've grown enormously overtime and the Physicians
Committee now does quite a lotof research and advocacy and
(25:49):
education to promote healthydiets.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Very interesting.
You're going through medicalschool and you learn, as a
doctor, very little aboutnutrition.
And yet, as an individual thatobviously comes down with
certain ills, you go to yourprimary care doctor.
They're not giving you goodadvice.
What do you suggest?
Just take the bull by the hornsand learn more yourself about
(26:14):
nutritional aspects, becausethat's a definite weakness in
our medical system.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Regrettably, the US medical system has a great
tolerance for incompetence incertain domains.
One of these is nutrition.
That's regrettable because thecause of overweight, which
affects what roughly half of theUS population, the cause of
heart disease, which is thefinal event for most people, the
(26:40):
cause of cancer, which affectsbetween one-third and one-half
of our population a primarycause of all of these things is
the food choices that we makeand for some reason, because
perhaps doctors are well, maybeI shouldn't speculate too much
about why this is, but it'sregrettably left out of medical
education to a very substantialdegree.
(27:02):
So if anyone like me or you orother people who have completed
medical education and they wantto make up for lost time, it
really is a good idea to becomeeducated about nutrition.
That's part of why I writebooks, that's why we have
continuing medical education,that's why we also have our
International Conference onNutrition in Medicine occurring
(27:24):
in Washington DC every August.
Doctors, I have to say, despitethe fact they have not been
trained in these things, areextremely eager to learn once
they discover the power that ithas when you see a patient whose
diabetes actually goes awaybecause of nutritional changes
they have made under yourguidance, because you see a
(27:47):
person who has been able toconquer their weight issues or
hypertension or a highcholesterol level or other
things, aided by dietary changes.
It has a profound impact on thepracticing physician to see
these things and they want to beable to use that power more and
more.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
It would seem that one of the things you can do is
to recommend to your primarycare doctor that they should
look into the PhysiciansCommittee for Responsible
Medicine, that there might besome enlightening information,
and that's certainly somethingthat you can do that will help
others, am I correct?
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Well, thank you for suggesting that, and I certainly
couldn't agree.
More help others, am I correct?
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Well, thank you for suggesting that, and I certainly
couldn't agree more.
As we conclude, I have one lastquestion.
I'm aware that you've written15 books and your latest is the
Power of Foods Diet.
Can you tell us a little bitabout this book and what
motivated you to write it?
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yes, the Power Foods Diet had an interesting genesis.
Back in 2015, harvardresearchers did an amazing study
Following more than 100,000research participants.
They discovered that thoseindividuals who increased their
intake of certain foods overtime, for whatever reason,
(29:04):
tended to lose weight.
In other words, specific foodswere associated with weight loss
, and the more you ate, the moreyou lost.
Now, at the top of the list ofthe foods that were somehow
associated with weight loss wasthe humble blueberry blueberries
, and also strawberries andraspberries.
People who increased theirconsumption of these foods lost
(29:25):
weight.
So researchers then and therewere many other foods like
cruciferous vegetables, beans,melons, cantaloupe and others
that were also associated withweight loss.
So researchers in the UnitedKingdom did a fascinating
follow-up.
They brought in more than 2,700identical twins, and everyone
had a DEXA scan that shows wherethe body fat is on your body
(29:50):
thigh fat, abdominal fat, forexample and what they found was
that the twin who ate moreanthocyanins that's, the pigment
in a blueberry or a pigment ina strawberry in a blueberry or a
pigment in a strawberry thetwin who ate more of these foods
had substantially less body fatand specifically less abdominal
(30:12):
fat, compared with hergenetically identical twin
sister.
So we have been studying theeffects of not so much calorie
restriction and that kind ofthing, but adding certain foods,
and we have found that not justblueberries, but certain spices
like cinnamon or ginger, oreven hot peppers that contain
(30:35):
capsaicinoids.
These foods tend to facilitateweight loss, either by taming
the appetite, by trappingcalories, as we talked about
earlier, or by boosting themetabolism, boosting the calorie
burning speed.
So we build them into Frenchtoast Cinnamon on your French
(30:57):
toast, and top it with ablueberry syrup.
It's suddenly a slimmingbreakfast.
Wild blueberry muffins, a lentilsoup, a mango dal, a pasta
arrabbiata, a chili made notwith meat and cheese, but made
with healthy, plant-basedingredients.
Even desserts like carrot cake,delicious things you'd want to
eat, consumed as much as withinreason you would like.
(31:22):
These are foods that facilitateweight loss.
People have loved this approach.
We've studied many, manyhundreds of people and found
that this is really by far theeasiest way and most enjoyable
way to lose weight.
So the Power Foods diet hasmore than 120 recipes, plus tips
for how to do this at arestaurant or a fast food, or
(31:43):
how children can eat these samefoods and have a healthy weight
for life.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Well, I think you've just mentioned the formula.
Go to your book Power of FoodsDiet.
They're going to find recipes.
You mentioned over 120 recipes.
That's going to take you a longway, particularly if you want
to lose weight.
That's going to take you a longway, particularly if you want
to lose weight.
But, most importantly, I wantto thank you, because some of
(32:09):
this information all of itactually has been extremely
enlightening.
It's.
You know, I've studied quite abit about nutrition, but it's
turned my head around a bit andI have to tell you how much I
really appreciate you being aguest on the program.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
It's been wonderful speaking with you today,
jamespolakoffcom.
Our website also has some greatblogs, which are all designed
to help you live healthy longer.
Go to jamespolakoffcom.
That's jamespolakoffcom.
Now back to Dr Jim.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
So thanks again to Dr Neil Bernard.
He's provided some great foodfor thought about healthy eating
.
I really do encourage mylisteners to discover more about
Dr Mardard and look into hispositions.
Committee.
All you need to do is go to ourwebsite, as mentioned,
jamespolikoffcom.
(33:18):
You'll recall, during myintroduction, I asked why meat
eaters are intimidated byvegetarians.
Well, to begin with, mostomnivores believe you need to
eat meat to get enough protein.
Now, certainly, dr Bernardenlightened us.
We know we can get protein fromvarious sources, such as beans,
(33:38):
fruits like blackberries,nectarines and bananas,
vegetables, including spinach,asparagus, sweet potatoes and
even Brussels sprouts, and thenthere are nuts, tofu, which I
enjoy, and edamame.
These are just a few of thefoods that give you sufficient
protein that you need to carryon each day.
(34:01):
This is Dr Jim Polikoff.
Thanks for joining me onceagain, and every week there's
another episode of Live HealthyLonger.
Please visit our website formore information about our
guests and I think you're goingto enjoy some of the really
healthy blogs that have beenwritten.
So that's jamespolakoffcom, andremember food is the best
(34:25):
medicine.
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