How To Eat Like A Genius w/ Max Lugavere

WHAT YOU EAT AND HOW YOU EAT, MATTERS. The sad part is that there are too many people who pay little or no attention to their DIETS as part of a plan to LIVE HEALTHY. It’s an epidemic in America and unhealthy lifestyles kill millions of us each year. That’s why this week’s guest, MAX LUGAVERE, is back for another must-listen podcast. He is a health and science journalist, TV personality, and the author of the newly released GENIUS KITCHEN as well as the NEW YORK TIMES best-sellers THE GENIUS LIFE, and GENIUS FOODS which has been published in 8 languages around the globe. Max is also the host of the #1 iTunes health podcast THE GENIUS LIFE and appears regularly on the Dr. Oz Show, the Rachael Ray Show, and The Doctors as well as a contributor to Vice, Fast Company, CNN, and The Daily Beast, and many other media outlets. I hope you’re literally ready to MAX OUT in a fast-moving hour that covers A LOT OF IMPORTANT FOOD AND HEALTH TOPICS like:Our obsession with PROTEIN intakeIs there a downside to eating too many PLANTS? The importance of FISH in our dietUsing EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OILMisconceptions about SALT and SUGAR-SWEETENED DRINKSHEART and BRAIN foods to EAT AND AVOIDThe importance of eating SLOWPORTION control Why FUNGI is good for youMax and I also get into how to DINE OUT HEALTHY, which is a huge concern for all of us. Even more important, MAX downloads valuable information about consuming food that is exposed to environmental toxins and steps you can take to minimize any threats to your health. You can’t live your best life unless you are intentional about what you put into your body. Take time to study Max’s work, and the work of others, on this important topic. Think of it less like homework, and more as LIFEWORK. Because that’s exactly what eating the RIGHT THINGS in the RIGHT WAY is… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 0:45Ed Mylett?

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• 1:02Speaker 01

  For the barbecues,

• 1:05Speaker 01

  games with friends,

• 1:08Speaker 01

  and game day countdowns.

• 1:12Speaker 01

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• 1:36Speaker 02

  This is the Ed Mylett Show.

• 1:40Ed Mylett?

  All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. Well, today's gonna be special because I don't have a lot of people on twice. And Max Lugavere is gonna be here for the second time today. So you already know who my guest is. But the reason I wanted him to come back on is because I think the topic is so profound. We're gonna talk about eating today. I'm talking about nutrition, your body, cooking your food correctly. He's got a brand new book out now, coming out called Genius Kitchen, which is, I'd say it's like half cookbook, half nutritional guide. I think to call it a cookbook is not in the totality of really what the book represents. And it's incredible and he's one of a kind. He's just the best in the world at what he does. So, Max, welcome back, brother.

• 2:16Max Lugavere?

  Ed, so good to be here, my man.

• 2:19Ed Mylett?

  So good to have you, brother.

• 2:20Max Lugavere?

  I love everything about you. I love what you represent. You're just, yeah, so special, such a special human.

• 2:25Ed Mylett?

  Thank you, brother. The feelings are mutual, as you know, and I'd always do anything for you to help you. And why is because you help so many other people. So I want to start about the book, but just for the audience who might not have heard the first show, I just think people that are great at anything in life have a bigger reason to do it oftentimes. And your whole reason for being in this space in general about helping people with their wellness, this comes from your mom Kathy, right? So just update the audience if they don't know, or update the ones that do know and share with everybody that doesn't know where your passion comes from.

• 2:57Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, so I began my career as a journalist and I did that for six years, straight out of college. And my, the topics that I covered were across the board. There were, you know, I was a generalist. But as I approached my late twenties, in my personal life, my mother, who's the person who I've always been the closest to out of anybody in the world, started to show the earliest symptoms of what would ultimately be diagnosed as a rare form of dementia. She had a condition called Lewy body dementia, which to, for anybody who's not familiar with it, it feels like having Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease at the same time. It's a neurodegenerative condition that affects movement. It affects your cognition.

• 3:40Max Lugavere?

  And I had no prior family history of any, any kind of neurodegenerative dementia. And so what it did for me was it was a call to action to, I mean, A, be there for my mom and go with her to doctor's offices to try to come to some kind of understanding of what it was that she was suffering from. But also to try to figure out to the best of my ability, what could be done to help her? And in tandem with that, because I, I recognize that I had this newly discovered risk factor, right? A family history now for the first time. What could be done to prevent this from ever happening to me and others that I care about? So that journey began about 10 years ago. And it's going to continue until the day I die. I mean, my mother's life was incredibly tragic, but all the work that I'm sharing and putting out really is so that what she went through,

• 4:25Max Lugavere?

  what my family went through wasn't in vain.

• 4:27Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, and you're the best at it. And the thing is, is it, by the way, is to get an unbelievably successful podcast as well. I was thinking about you as driving out here this morning. This concept of genius that you're always talking about, now the new book Genius Kitchen. It's interesting, your even your mother's tragedy unlocked a genius in you that you never even knew you possessed. It's nothing you'd ever say, but it's become your real genius now is the space that you find yourself in. So I'm really excited to share all this stuff. There were really stupid thing to start out with. My stomach's growling. You're like, I'm going to tell you why your stomach's growling. There's a mechanism in there. So

• 5:00Max Lugavere?

  There is.

• 5:00Ed Mylett?

  So why is my stomach growling?

• 5:01Max Lugavere?

  There is. It's super interesting. You know, oftentimes when our stomach growls, we think it's because we're hungry, right? And in part, we, it's probably time for us to eat when our stomach gives us that that indication. But the reason why the stomach is growling, it's owed to a system in our GI tract called the migrating motor complex.

• 5:18Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 5:18Max Lugavere?

  And the migrating motor complex, it's like this completely underappreciated mechanism that gets going after about 90 minutes of not eating. So after about 90 minutes of not eating, we feel like we're giving our digestive system a rest. But actually, that's when this process kicks up. And what it does is it sweeps debris, dead bacteria, food particles that haven't been fully digested. It sloughs off dead epithelial cells from the stomach down all the way past the small intestine to the large intestine. So it's a, it's a, it's essentially called a housekeeping wave.

• 5:50Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 5:50Max Lugavere?

  It can help prevent SIBO, which is small intestinal, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which a lot of people suffer from. So people that have like GI issues when they eat, they, you know, they'll have like from, from otherwise benign foods, feelings like indigestion, gas, bloating, stuff like that.

• 6:04Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 6:05Max Lugavere?

  It's because we are constantly subverting this housekeeping wave, which is so essential to our digestive well-being by eating constantly throughout the day. So the fact that your stomach is growling means that your housekeeping wave is functioning, cleaning the small intestine, and, and keeping your digestive system healthy, essentially.

• 6:23Ed Mylett?

  Eating throughout the day. So before we get into the book, by the way, what's great about the book is that it's, it's not only the nutritional guide, but you also like rank things too on like, the terminology that you use is like, like. Like, okay, good, best, better, right?

• 6:37Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:38Ed Mylett?

  Right, like, and I like that as well, because it kind of gives a rank. I love to rank things. I always go with my friends like, one to 10, how much do you like this guy?

• 6:43Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 6:44Ed Mylett?

  One to 10, how good was that song? So you rank things in the book, but I want to ask you first, like, a really basic thing overall. If you walked into my kitchen or an average person's kitchen right now, before we get into detailed stuff, what would you tell them to throw? What would you probably go look for and throw out of their kitchen immediately? Is there something in there?

• 7:00Max Lugavere?

  Good, good question. Um, I, you know, what I find to be, I used to be a lot more dogmatic about, um, like macros and, and, you know, carbs, fats, and things like that. I think that my perspective, especially with Genius Kitchen, I'm, I, I really think that the major problem with the standard American diet and that the root cause of all of the modern ills that we're seeing burdening society from obesity, overweight, cardio, the increasing rates of cardiovascular disease, autoimmunity, really stem back to our overconsumption of ultra-processed foods.

• 7:28Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 7:28Max Lugavere?

  These are the foods that are packaged, they're shelf-stable, minimally satiating and highly calorie-dense. These are the foods that, that under, really underlie the obesity epidemic. Now, you can take the most obvious offenders, like sugar-sweetened beverages, which are purported to be the cause of about 200,000 deaths annually worldwide, just from sugar-sweetened beverages alone. That's how toxic they are. I mean, once, one or, you know, occasion, the occasional indulgence in your favorite sugar-sweetened soda, not the end of the world. But the problem with foods that contain added sugar, and sugar-sweetened beverages are really at the epicenter of this problem, because they're so easily consumed, is that we have no biological requirement for sugar, and it's not satiating at all, and provides no nutritional value.

• 8:13Max Lugavere?

  So you could basically eat all of the calories that you require in a day, get all of the nutritional,

• 8:19Max Lugavere?

  you know, all of the nutrients that you need, and then throw 200 calories of high-fructose corn syrup soft drink on top of that. And that really is what people are doing, and that's why we're seeing, you know, this, this, just... Crazy rates of ever of our expanding waistlines and the like.

• 8:34Ed Mylett?

  Well, the thing about not being full, you and I talked about last time a lot, that's my layman's version of it, right, is something I had not really thought about before, that when I'm eating these processed foods, that although I intake the same amount of calories, say, as a handful of nuts or something like that, I'm not satiated, I'm still hungry when I'm done, right? So, when you say, just curious, when you say sugar sweetened drinks like that, are you talking about all of them, even the artificially flavored ones, anything at all that's, any kind of basic carbonated drink that we're finding at any grocery store?

• 9:01Max Lugavere?

  Well, you don't want to, you definitely don't want to drink your calories, but the sugar sweetened beverages, I think, are the worst, and that's because there's zero, there's, it has zero capacity to satiate your hunger. So, you could drink, I mean, look at the size of soda, of like beverages at fast food joints these days.

• 9:19Ed Mylett?

  Massive.

• 9:20Max Lugavere?

  They're getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and that's because we just don't tire of drinking these, drinking these products.

• 9:23Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 9:24Max Lugavere?

  I'm not that worried about artificial sweeteners, although my personal preference is to go for more natural sweeteners, you know, erythritol, stevia, monk fruit, and things like that.

• 9:34Ed Mylett?

  You do like stevia?

• 9:35Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, stevia, I'm okay with, I mean, it has an aftertaste, which isn't ideal. But you mentioned satiety, which is really important, I think, to unpack for people. The three characteristics of a food that make a food satiating, that make it fill you up, so that you get that gratifying feeling of fullness after eating it, is water, protein, and fiber. So those are the three things that you want to look out for in any food, if you want to avoid over-consuming that food. Water makes a food satiating, because if you think about it, for hunter gatherer, one of our hunter gatherer ancestors, when water ceased to be available, where were the next best place that a hunter gatherer would look for, for hydration?

• 10:11Ed Mylett?

  Food.

• 10:12Max Lugavere?

  Food is full of water, right? Fresh produce, even meat is a good source of water. So, if you're dehydrated, you're likely going to eat more. So that's why water should be one of the first places that you look to. The second thing is fiber. Fiber, we have no biological necessity for it. It does make life better, fiber consumption is associated with longevity.

• 10:31Ed Mylett?

  Task one thing on that?

• 10:32Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 10:33Ed Mylett?

  Don't you talk about in the book, though, that it actually has some LDL particle removal capacity?

• 10:36Max Lugavere?

  It does, yeah, especially viscous gel-forming fibers, in particular, psyllium husk. So a lot of people take psyllium husk. For regularity, but there's like this amazing side benefit of psyllium husk and that is that it traps LDL particles in the form of bile acids in the gut.

• 10:51Ed Mylett?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:52Max Lugavere?

  And it's one of these like really easy interventions that can have a small but significant effect on your lipid, on your lipid profile.

• 11:00Ed Mylett?

  Very good.

• 11:00Max Lugavere?

  It can also trap excess levels of hormones like estrogen, which is one of the reasons why fiber consumption seems to be associated with reduced risk of breast cancer, which is one of these hormone sensitive cancers. So fiber is really incredible. It seems to do all these amazing things. We don't, it's not an essential nutrient, you know, you see a lot of these like people on the carnivore diet thriving with seemingly zero fiber intake.

• 11:22Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 11:23Max Lugavere?

  And fiber, of course, it's also a surrogate, you know, dietary fiber intake is probably also like a surrogate marker for just an overall healthy dietary pattern.

• 11:33Ed Mylett?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:34Max Lugavere?

  Now, if you're eating a lot of fiber, you're not the typical person consuming the standard American diet, right?

• 11:38Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 11:38Max Lugavere?

  You're eating probably more salads, more veggies and things like that. But fiber is satiating because it mechanically absorbs water and stretches out the stomach, turning off the hunger hormone ghrelin.

• 11:50Ed Mylett?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:50Max Lugavere?

  So that's the second, that's the second aspect of food that you want to make sure that you're seeking out in order to be satiated.

• 11:55Ed Mylett?

  That's big.

• 11:56Max Lugavere?

  And then the third thing I would say is protein. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient, more so than carbs, more so than fat. And if you look at ultra-processed foods, they tend to be deficient in all three of those things.

• 12:07Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 12:08Max Lugavere?

  Right? Ultra-processed foods tend to be some combination of carbs and fat or both. Usually sodium, wheat flour, stuff like that. Tend to be very protein deficient. Also, protein is the most expensive macronutrient. So it's another reason why these high margin junk foods, right? They all tend to be.

• 12:26Ed Mylett?

  They lack it because it's too much to put in there.

• 12:28Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, it's too, it's inexpensive.

• 12:29Ed Mylett?

  Are we too, so protein, stay on that topic for a minute. You're going right down all my questions I wanted to ask you. By the way, here's, it's one of those interviews, everybody, where you get to listen in on stuff I want to know and it's to your benefit too, right? So, because you don't get a lot of guys like Max in front of you very often. So protein is like, obviously, you know, you know that I have lifted weights all my life and everyone knows.

• 12:49Ed Mylett?

  Protein, protein, protein. Are we overly obsessed? So are we overly obsessed with protein intake? In other words, have we gone so far like I try to eat my body weight in protein every single day? So I weigh a couple hundred pounds. I'm trying to get about 200. For me, though, I do supplement different things to get to that 200. So what? You said protein is so critical.

• 13:09Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 13:09Ed Mylett?

  But is it, is there, is there a tendency to be overly obsessed with getting so much protein? Or you can't get enough of it?

• 13:16Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that you can get enough of it, but that, that is, it's actually self-regulated. So you really don't have to think about getting too much of it because it's so satiating. I mean, nobody has ever gorged on lean chicken breast, which is one of the most protein-dense foods there is.

• 13:31Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 13:31Max Lugavere?

  Because it's so satiating. We have these innate hunger mechanisms in our mouths, in our, on our tongues, in our digestive tracts that know once we've had enough protein. But we do know that the RDA for protein is insufficient for good health, especially for people like you and like me, who, who are active and who exercise regularly. In fact, the research suggests that we need to consume about double what the RDA is. So the RDA is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight every day of protein. We don't use kilograms here in the US.

• 14:03Ed Mylett?

  But everywhere else does though.

• 14:04Max Lugavere?

  But everywhere else, yeah. So I mean, I'll break it down in terms of pounds, but essentially, we need double that. So the research suggests that if we want to optimize our time spent in the gym, which we all should, right? We work hard for the gains, right? You should be striving for 1.6 grams per kilogram of lean mass or goal weight. And so that's an important distinction. And that breaks down to, in terms of pounds, about 0.7 grams per pound of lean mass or goal weight.

• 14:33Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 14:33Max Lugavere?

  And the idea there is you're lean. So for you, 0.7 to a whole gram per pound of your body weight, that's sufficient. You're like, you're definitely doing the right thing there. But if you had, say, you know, if you had 50 pounds of fat mass on you that you wanted to lose, then I would do 0.7 to 1 times what your weight would be minus 50.

• 14:56Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 15:00Ed Mylett?

  Do you consider protein supplements as processed foods? Are those all processed?

• 15:05Max Lugavere?

  That's a really good question. I actually don't. I think protein, protein supplements are great. I personally take them.

• 15:10Ed Mylett?

  Good.

• 15:11Max Lugavere?

  I think it's, yeah, it's, it's easy to meet your protein goals with protein shakes. And also whey protein in particular has been shown to support immune function.

• 15:19Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 15:20Max Lugavere?

  Which I think is like this nice, happy added side benefit.

• 15:22Ed Mylett?

  It's interesting because when you read Max's book, you would think, because we're talking a lot about plants here in a minute, but there's a lot of meat in there too. And, and the way to prepare it. And by the way, he actually has a void all the way up to best in, in terms of foods or ways to prepare them as well in the book. The rankings are, there's some avoid in there. So I'm learning about sulforaphane. Did I say that correctly?

• 15:41Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, sulforaphane.

• 15:42Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so talk to us about like having these defense mechanisms in our bodies that we need as well. So go plants and sulforaphane a little bit. Tell us a little bit about that.

• 15:51Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, absolutely. So plants, like animals, they don't, they don't appreciate necessarily being eaten, right? Plants have a, have an innate drive to survive as well, but plants can't fight off predators. So what they do is they become chemists and they create compounds.

• 16:07Ed Mylett?

  This is fascinating right here.

• 16:08Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, they create antifedant compounds, basically, that would make smaller animals, mice, insects, even fungus, that, that service toxins to those smaller organisms.

• 16:21Ed Mylett?

  This is fascinating.

• 16:22Max Lugavere?

  Yeah. And, and we can see this actually by, sulforaphane is a perfect illustration of this because sulforaphane, even though it's one of the most powerful putative cancer fighters, neuroprotectant, cardioprotective compounds in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, sulforaphane isn't actually in those plants until the cells of the plants get crushed and chewed up.

• 16:47Ed Mylett?

  You're kidding me.

• 16:48Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 16:49Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 16:49Max Lugavere?

  You won't find, if you take a raw piece of broccoli, there's no sulforaphane in it. There are two compounds.

• 16:53Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 16:54Max Lugavere?

  One is called glucoraphanin and the other is called myrosinase. You don't have to remember this, but they're basically, they're, these are two compounds held in completely different cellular compartments. And when they unite, which only happens when you chew on the plant.

• 17:06Ed Mylett?

  That's incredible.

• 17:07Max Lugavere?

  When a critter chews on the plant, you create this sulforaphane compound, which is essentially a pesticide.

• 17:13Ed Mylett?

  It's a toxin.

• 17:14Max Lugavere?

  It's a toxin. It's a toxic pesticide that the plant creates itself.

• 17:17Ed Mylett?

  Gosh, that's amazing.

• 17:19Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, to protect itself from predation. But the, the reason why these compounds are beneficial in us, we're obviously, we're much more robust than a mouse or an insect, right? And for many toxins, it's like the dose makes the poison. For an insect, the dose of sulforaphane that they may be getting is gonna be a much higher and more toxic dose relative to its body size. In us, eating sulforaphane, especially at the dose contained when we, at the dose ingested when we chew first of first vegetables, is so small, but it still has a protective effect. And this protective effect is owed to a mechanism called hormesis. And hormesis is basically the term given to when small doses of a certain stressor,

• 18:02Max Lugavere?

  even a certain toxin, actually helps to facilitate robustness in the organism. And it's the mechanism by which exercise works.

• 18:08Ed Mylett?

  Humans in general.

• 18:10Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, humans in general, the way we develop grit. Like, I mean, you talk about this on your podcast all the time. And so, we essentially get this form of, we ingest, and we derive this form of chemical stress from compounds like sulforaphane, polyphenols. The plant kingdom is just like loaded with these compounds.

• 18:26Ed Mylett?

  Bro, that blows my way. So you've all know, you should eat more plants, right? Or veggies, rather, but in this case. Are you hearing this? How much nature has constructed this to our benefit? That's mind blowing that it only materializes when chewed, when they, or they're combined. And then they have this benefit. By the way, hormesis, I had David Sinclair on the show, who's like, I think you know Dr. Sinclair from Harvard, but he's like, the number one longevity dude in the world. And the whole philosophy of his work is based on the concept of hormesis. When you do cold plunges, or exercise, or things like that in the body, you're saying there's a mechanism that strives inside our own bodies when these toxins kick in.

• 19:01Max Lugavere?

  Absolutely.

• 19:02Ed Mylett?

  That's mind blowing.

• 19:03Max Lugavere?

  It beautifully illustrates, I think, the symbiosis of all living things, in the sense that you take a plant that's been stressed.

• 19:10Ed Mylett?

  Unreal.

• 19:10Max Lugavere?

  Right? And it imparts, it develops a vigor, right? Like a stressed plant, a wild plant. It's gotta be scrappy, right? Like out there in the world. And when you eat it, it imparts that vigor unto you. It's like this beautiful circle of life.

• 19:24Ed Mylett?

  That's bananas to me, no pun intended. You said fungus earlier, there's this big thing in the book on fungi, right? Like, so I don't like the taste of like mushrooms and stuff like that.

• 19:35Max Lugavere?

  That's okay.

• 19:35Ed Mylett?

  So, talk to us a little bit about fungi and. Wyatt's good stuff.

• 19:40Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, well, there first of all, there have you, I mean, there are lots of different mushrooms and they all have different flavors.

• 19:45Ed Mylett?

  I probably haven't sampled.

• 19:47Max Lugavere?

  There is, um, have you tried lion's mane? Have you ever had fresh lion's mane?

• 19:51Ed Mylett?

  No.

• 19:51Max Lugavere?

  So a lot of people are talking about lion's mane these days because you can find it in various supplements, but now you're starting to see fresh lion's mane pop up at different supermarkets.

• 19:59Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 20:00Max Lugavere?

  And it has the taste and texture of fresh crap. I'm not even kidding. It's like, it's really delicious.

• 20:05Ed Mylett?

  Okay, I will try that then.

• 20:06Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, you saute it in a little olive oil, maybe some grass fed butter, salt, pepper. It is so damn good. And the beautiful thing about mushrooms is that very nutrient dense and low calorie. So you're not getting a lot of calories from mushrooms, but you're getting a lot of really interesting compounds like beta glucans, which can support immune function. Certain mushrooms have different, uh, you know, different micronutrient profiles. Some have vitamin D, depending on where they grow. Some mushrooms actually create really powerful detoxifying compounds like glutathione. Glutathione is considered the mother of all antioxidants and certain mushrooms like the porcini mushroom in particular, very concentrated in glutathione, which is great.

• 20:48Max Lugavere?

  And one tip, so as you've mentioned, the genius kitchen, which is one of the reasons why I'm so proud of it. It's not just a cookbook. It's for people to learn actually how to cook.

• 20:56Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 20:57Max Lugavere?

  Which I thought was so important. And one of the, I think, biggest mistakes that people make. If they, if they're listening to this and they say, well, I don't like mushrooms. I've never had mushrooms that I've liked. One of the biggest, most common mistakes that people make when cooking mushrooms is they rinse them. You never want to add water to mushrooms because mushrooms are already packed with water. All you want to do when you buy mushrooms is brush off any visible dirt that you see. But you never want to rinse them, unlike other produce. You just want to throw them in a hot pan with some like cooking oil, some great oil, like extra virgin olive oil butter.

• 21:25Ed Mylett?

  Is it because once you're cooking them, whatever the gnarly stuff that could be potentially on there by washing is gone by cooking it or there's nothing on there?

• 21:32Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, I mean, you, you neutralize, you know, any, any potential harm that would come from eating something raw. But it's also that mushrooms are like sponges for water and what you're, what you're, the aim when you cook a mushroom is to get the water out of it. So that the mushroom's natural flavor comes through.

• 21:47Ed Mylett?

  Do you, do you look at food like it's actually medicine?

• 21:51Max Lugavere?

  I do, you know, I think that I like to say there's a lot of, there are a lot of people in the functional medicine community that like to say that food is medicine. I like to refine that a little bit and add a little bit of nuance. I think that food is definitely a form of medicine. I think it's certainly a form of preventative medicine. It can be used to help prevent conditions like obesity, overweight, type 2 diabetes. That's uncontrovert, uncontrovertible fact at this point. Do I think that it can treat every disease? Not necessarily. I'm not, I'm not anti-medicine or anything like that. I think that actual medicine has a place, but I think that food also has a place. And I think that we need to not be so dichotomous in our thinking, you know? I think that there's a place for both. So I think that food is medicine. I think exercise is medicine. I think sleep is medicine. I think hydration is medicine.

• 22:36Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I don't understand why more people aren't conscious of this topic. So there's all this stuff now on supplementation. Everyone's on different supplements, right? And this is why I'm so excited about your book and you. Working out, everyone kind of knows you're supposed to do it now. Everyone's heard a podcast on meditation. I think most people know they should drink more water. But for some reason, food itself is really still an under-discussed topic, like in, in general. And for me, one of the things from your work, like I already ate a lot of meat, like I've added so much more, so many more vegetables, green vegetables to my diet than I had before, after you and I talked for the first time. And one of the things that's really improved for me is my digestion. What

• 23:18Ed Mylett?

  don't most people know or understand about digestion that they should in their lives?

• 23:23Max Lugavere?

  Such a good question. Well, I think people don't realize, most people don't realize that digestion begins before you take your first bite. It begins, actually, there's called the cephalic phase of digestion. So digestion begins when you're observing the food that you're about to eat and smelling the food. One of the reasons why I think it's so important for people to be seated and to relax and to take a deep breath and to just calm their nervous systems before they begin their meal, because our stomachs begin to pop out, pump out hydrochloric acid, protein digesting enzymes, enzymes like Pepsin, all before we even take that, that first bite. By biting and chewing slowly, chewing slowly is crucially important.

• 24:08Max Lugavere?

  So we already talked about sulforaphane. If you're rapidly chewing your cruciferous vegetables, you need time for those enzymatic reactions to occur. So the creation of that of that compound sulforaphane, which activates detox pathways in the body. It's a cardioprotective, neuroprotective compound. But it needs time to be created. The same thing with aliments like garlic and onions. There's a compound created when we crush garlic, fresh garlic in particular, called allicin. It's an antimicrobial compound, anti-inflammatory. We need to chew slowly because that's where that's where the digestion and the synthesis of many of the most valuable compounds in our food Wow. begin to be created in our mouths.

• 24:53Max Lugavere?

  Also, this is one of the things that I talk a lot about in Genius Kitchen as well. Some of our most beneficial produce like beets and arugula are very high in compounds called nitrates. Nitrates are really good for our cardiovascular health because the end product, nitric oxide in our in our cardiovascular system, basically brings down blood pressure. It supports blood flow. It's a vasodilator vasodilating gas that we all create in our in our blood vessels, also really important for sexual function. I was gonna say, guys. Yeah, guys, yeah. Nitric oxide is super, super important. And the nitrates that are found in foods like beets, a lot of people will take like beetroot supplement, right? To boost blood flow. But we, humans, don't actually have the enzyme

• 25:36Max Lugavere?

  to convert nitrates in food to nitrite, which then gets funneled into that nitric oxide pathway. It's the oral bacteria in our mouths Crazy. that reduce nitrate to nitrite, which then can boost nitric oxide in our blood vessels. So for your oral bacteria to have the time to be able to do that. Yeah. You need to chew your food slowly. So if you're wolfing down a salad that has arugula in it, that has beets. And you're not taking the time to chew what it is that you're eating more slowly.

• 26:06Ed Mylett?

  Shoot.

• 26:07Max Lugavere?

  You're undermining the capacity of your food to be cardio protective. And in tandem with that, it's another, it's another reason. And I don't know why I felt the need to mention this in the book, but, um, but I felt it was like really apropos. It's one of the reasons why people should definitely not use antiseptic mouthwash every day. Because what you're doing with antiseptic mouthwash is you're nuking the bacteria in your mouth that, that basically reduce nitrate to nitrite, which then can actually, they've, even in a, an acute swishing of antiseptic mouthwash, antiseptic being the key here, can increase your blood pressure because it, it basically messes up that nitric oxide pathway. They've also shown that

• 26:48Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 26:49Max Lugavere?

  rinsing with mouthwash after exercise can reduce the blood pressure lowering effects of exercise. And people who regularly use mouthwash two times or more per day, and this is about 40% of the population, have 50% increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes because nitric oxide is also involved in insulin signaling. And they have double the risk of developing hypertension.

• 27:13Ed Mylett?

  Okay, brother. Okay, I gotta start chewing my food slower.

• 27:15Max Lugavere?

  Chew your food.

• 27:16Ed Mylett?

  And I do you antiseptic mouthwash. So is there any, um, I have so many things I'm gonna ask you. By the way, I told you guys, you never heard a show like this before. So you're gonna write down stuff down and learn stuff. Is there any downside? Cause we're gonna talk about some other stuff here in a minute. And then some of the stuff in the book on preparation is just awesome. However, is there any downside to eating a plant based or too many plants or anything like that that we? Can you overdo that or is there no downside?

• 27:41Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, I love this question. Um, I think there is. I don't, I don't prescribe a one size fits all diet.

• 27:45Ed Mylett?

  That's right.

• 27:45Max Lugavere?

  People, people have different tolerances for fiber quantity, for various compounds in food. You know, I have a friend who, if he goes within six feet of an allium, which is like garlic, onions leaks, he gets the worst digestive discomfort ever. So everybody's different. And I also think that there's this push, especially from the vegan community, to just eat as much fiber as possible.

• 28:10Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 28:10Max Lugavere?

  We know that fiber is beneficial, but if you, from one day to the next, start eating, if you go from what is typical, which is 15 grams of fiber per day, which is pretty low, I'll admit, to the goal that some people espouse of being 150 grams a day of dietary fiber, you're just setting yourself up for constipation, for all kinds of digestive

• 28:30Ed Mylett?

  I was gonna ask you, do you need to drink more water if you're gonna take in that kind of fiber?

• 28:33Max Lugavere?

  You just need to, you need to go slowly, and you need, because essentially what it is, is you need to cultivate the, the microbiome, essentially, the gut microbiome, the gut flora, to be able to assimilate all of that fiber.

• 28:44Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 28:44Max Lugavere?

  Because fiber, I mean, the thing about fiber, we don't absorb it. Fiber is fiber because it passes through the small intestine undigested, and it becomes a fermentable substrate for the 30 trillion bacteria that live in the colon, in the large intestine. But you need to cultivate that bacterial community first. The bacteria of the person listening to this compared to somebody in, you know, in the Hazda tribe, for example, or in Inuit, we all have these different, you know, microbial constitutions, and, um...

• 29:11Ed Mylett?

  Some of that's like cultural, and, and, but it's, over time, it's materialized. It's, this may seem basic, but this is true, correct? That's why some guy from America goes to Mexico on vacation for a long time, the, the foods or the waters there affect their digestion differently than somebody who grew up there, correctly?

• 29:27Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, yeah, right, because you don't have the same immune system, you don't have the same antibodies, you don't have the same gut flora.

• 29:32Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 29:32Max Lugavere?

  I mean, the gut is where the majority of our immune system is, is stationed, so, I mean, the gut plays a huge role in, in immune function.

• 29:39Ed Mylett?

  What about fish? So you say in the book, know your fish.

• 29:41Max Lugavere?

  Know your fish.

• 29:42Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, what's the deal with that? Why?

• 29:44Max Lugavere?

  Well, fish is, is really important, especially from the standpoint of brain health, which is, you know, my, my...

• 29:49Ed Mylett?

  It's your go zone.

• 29:50Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, my number one passion. Fish is medicine when it comes to the brain. We have the most robust, robust body of evidence that the compounds in fish, whether it's the omega-3 fatty acids, preformed, plug and play, ready to go for your brain, or protective antioxidants like astaxanthin, all really, really beneficial from a brain health standpoint. There have been studies that have shown us that one to two servings of fish per week can help prevent dementia in people genetically at risk for developing Alzheimer's disease.

• 30:20Ed Mylett?

  Prevent dementia one to two times a week. Is there a particular type of fish that you would recommend over another one?

• 30:26Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, I would definitely recommend the wild fatty fish, so salmon is a, is a great option, sardines also a good option. I mean... Whenever they look at, this is how epidemiology works. They look at the population level and they say, who's eating fish? Who isn't? And the people who eat fish, regardless of what kind of fish it is, tend to do better.

• 30:44Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 30:44Max Lugavere?

  You know, so we can't be snobs about this, right? That's why, in my book, actually, that's why I have good, better, best. Because to me, like, if all you're able to access is canned tuna, right? If like, that's, if you live in a food desert and that's the only kind of fish that you have access to, that's still better than not eating fish.

• 30:58Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 30:59Max Lugavere?

  Ideally, you want, you know, to, to opt more frequently for a fatty fish like salmon, because it's going to be higher in those omega-3 fatty acids. And wild is preferred over farmed, but any, any kind of fish is, is beneficial from the standpoint of the brain. Fish is also great in minerals like selenium, like vitamin D.

• 31:16Ed Mylett?

  See, guys, I gotta tell you, like, I did not eat almost any. And then, and actually, when you and I talked the first time, but then reading the book, I'm like, I gotta, I gotta eat more salmon. I just don't make these choices. The other thing about the book, I think it separates it from anything else, too, is actually the preparation parts of it.

• 31:33Max Lugavere?

  Hmm.

• 31:34Ed Mylett?

  So, you talk in the book, I want to go through some things about just stuff that's got flavor that you recommend, and I don't want to give the whole book away, because I want everybody to go get the book, which you need to go get the book. Here's why you should go get the book. There's not another one in its category like it. In other words, if you want to go get a book on intermittent fasting, there are multiple books on that topic you could go get, all of which are probably pretty good, right? But this topic of the preparation of the food and the way that he talks about eating like a genius, I just don't think there's another one like it. So, that's my endorsement, number one.

• 32:02Max Lugavere?

  Thank you.

• 32:02Ed Mylett?

  But, the idea of like, so, extra, extra virgin olive oil is in the book.

• 32:07Max Lugavere?

  Yes.

• 32:07Ed Mylett?

  Okay. Talk about it, like, one, it's, tastes good, but number one, why is that something that we should be considering using? And you give recipes and stuff in there, in preparation of our food.

• 32:18Max Lugavere?

  Oh, I even have an extra virgin olive oil cake, a grain-free, gluten-free, extra virgin olive oil cake in the book, with no sugar added, by the way. I love extra virgin olive oil. It's, uh, it's one of these foods that just for years I've been obsessed with, and humans have been pressing olives to make extra virgin olive oil for thousands of years at this point. It's, it's, it almost is a perfect food. And especially when you compare it to these, these grain and seed cooking oils that are so heavily marketed, dirt-cheap to produce, high-profit margins, toxic to the bodies in the, in the, to our bodies and the quantity that we're consuming them today. Extra virgin olive oil has super heart healthy monounsaturated fat, which is the best fat to consume liberally. It's actually a kind of fat called oleic acid, which is the most abundant fat found in nature.

• 33:03Max Lugavere?

  Breast milk is rich in oleic acid. Beef has very high in oleic acid. So is wild salmon. But oleic acid, olea is actually, it means olive. So we discovered this fat in olive oil.

• 33:14Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 33:16Max Lugavere?

  Centuries ago.

• 33:17Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 33:18Max Lugavere?

  And, and now we know how beneficial it is. It actually, it helps prevent inflammation. It helps make our LDL lipoprotein particles more resistant to oxidation and more resistant to adhesion to macrophages, which is where this sort of like atherosclerotic process begins. So it's a really healthy fat from the cardiovascular standpoint and brain health relies on cardiovascular health. So it's the primary oil that I use in my cooking and that I recommend using as a sauce. And you can cook with it. A lot of people don't, don't realize that. There's a lot of misconceptions about that. But the other thing about extra virgin olive oil is aside from the fact that it's a very healthy fat, it's got a superpower that no other fat has. And it's that it contains a compound called oleocanthal,

• 34:03Max Lugavere?

  which is essentially an anti-inflammatory compound that is as anti-inflammatory as low dose ibuprofen.

• 34:10Ed Mylett?

  Whoa.

• 34:10Max Lugavere?

  Yeah. So over the counter, pain relieving medications that are anti-inflammatory, they have side effects. Actually, chronic use of ibuprofen is associated with cardiovascular events. But extra virgin olive oil, you're getting all of the, all of the benefit, all of the, the anti-inflammatory effect essentially of a, of a low dose of that, but without any of the negative side effects.

• 34:31Ed Mylett?

  You're kidding me. And by the way, none of the taxing on your kidneys or liver.

• 34:34Max Lugavere?

  There you go.

• 34:34Ed Mylett?

  Either, right?

• 34:35Max Lugavere?

  Exactly.

• 34:36Ed Mylett?

  So there's all these little things in the book. Like I'll mispronounce stuff, but it doesn't matter because you know, I understand the concepts of things. So you're talking about cooking with butter.

• 34:43Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 34:44Ed Mylett?

  And then there's like, you're like ghee. Like there's this thing ghee that you talk about in the book, right? So and everyone else is listening to probably going, you don't know what ghee is? No, I didn't know what ghee was. So.

• 34:51Max Lugavere?

  Oh, wow.

• 34:51Ed Mylett?

  What, what is ghee and why are you so high on it?

• 34:54Max Lugavere?

  So ghee is a great fat. So is butter. And we can talk about the differences in the two. They're, they're similar. Ghee is derived from butter. It's clarified butter essentially. So you take butter, you boil it gently, and then you skim off the milk solids. And what you're left with is this pure fat that's very well tolerated for people that are even the most dairy sensitive because it's free of lactose and it's free of casein.

• 35:14Ed Mylett?

  That's big for a lot of people.

• 35:15Max Lugavere?

  Yeah. It's great for high heat cooking. It's a staple in Indian cuisine. That's probably the type of cuisine most known for utilizing ghee. But actually, butter and ghee, while I use it and I love it and I, you know, it's definitely a part of my diet. I talk in the book about how for certain people, butter actually can raise levels of LDL, which is the lipoprotein associated with cardiovascular disease, right? And this is actually kind of interesting and it's distinct from cream. Now, this is kind of mind blowing. A lot of people don't realize this, but butter is made from cream. And you take cream, you churn it, you get butter.

• 35:58Max Lugavere?

  That churning process disrupts a compound in the cream called milk fat globule membrane, and it makes the butter more prone to driving up levels of LDL. Whereas no other dairy product has that problem. So you can consume all the dairy fat you want from cream, from hard cheeses and things like that. The consumption of full-fat dairy is actually associated with better cardiovascular health, with the exception of butter, because it lacks this milk fat globule membrane. So for people that are worried about, you know, have risk of cardiovascular disease, butter is one of those foods that I'm like, yeah, enjoy it sometimes, you know, like it tastes great, it's fairly nutrient-dense for a fat, but it's not one of these fats that I, that I'll go overboard with.

• 36:42Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 36:43Max Lugavere?

  Unlike extra virgin olive.

• 36:44Ed Mylett?

  What about salt? What's our, what's our, do we have misconceptions about salt in general? I know the answer because I'm a reader of stuff, but I want to talk about that. So what, let's talk about salt.

• 36:53Max Lugavere?

  I love talking about salt. Salt is one of the easiest ways to elevate your cooking. I mean, salt, salt is the one ingredient that takes a single ingredient food, right? Like a piece of meat and turns it into a steak.

• 37:04Ed Mylett?

  Sure does.

• 37:05Max Lugavere?

  Right? You need salt. It's all you need. So I'm a huge fan of salt and I think that we're-

• 37:09Ed Mylett?

  That blows my mind, hearing you say that. Okay.

• 37:11Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 37:12Ed Mylett?

  Well, not anymore, but without reading, it would have blown my mind.

• 37:15Max Lugavere?

  It's, I mean- A piece of meat by itself is a missed opportunity, right? You gotta add salt. And, um, yeah, I, I think that we've been misguided when it comes to salt. A lot of, you know, the nutrition orthodoxy will say, you gotta limit your salt, cut out salt, stop adding salt to your food. But actually, only 11% of the salt that Americans ingest every day comes from home cooking and the salt that they add with their salt shakers. The vast majority of sodium that your average American ingests every single day comes from fast food, restaurant food, and ultra-processed foods, canned, canned foods and things like that.

• 37:47Ed Mylett?

  So it's not the salt doing the damage? It's the fact that it's associated with those foods? Or is it a different type of salt?

• 37:52Max Lugavere?

  No, it's the, it's the, it's the foods that, that-

• 37:55Ed Mylett?

  It's the associated food, attached to salt.

• 37:57Max Lugavere?

  Associated foods, yeah. About 25% of the population are sensitive to sodium. So they're what is, they're what are called, um, salt-sensitive hypertensives. And so that's still a minority, right? But about 25% of the population, if they eat a lot of salt, they'll see their, uh, blood pressure go up by 5% or more. And that, um, that statistic or that proportion is higher among people who have hypertension already. But for the vast majority of people, they can eat all the salt that they want and not see that their, and not see their blood pressure go up. If sodium is an issue, though, uh, and you are a salt-sensitive, if you, if you do find yourself sensitive to salt, I still wouldn't say, "Don't salt your food."

• 38:40Max Lugavere?

  I would say, "Cut out the packaged processed foods, the fast food." And you can continue, of course, to add salt to your food to make it palatable, because even the healthiest foods in the supermarket aren't gonna be tasty unless you add salt to them. So by us telling people to stop adding salt to their foods, and by the way, the number one source of salt in the American diet, the number one, isn't canned food. It isn't processed meats. It's bread and rolls. That's the number one source of sodium in the American diet. Breads, commercial breads, yeah.

• 39:09Ed Mylett?

  Do you eat bread?

• 39:11Max Lugavere?

  You know, I really don't.

• 39:12Ed Mylett?

  Your face just said you didn't.

• 39:13Max Lugavere?

  No, yeah, I don't eat bread. I eat bread. I'll eat bread, um, like, you know, like a, like an almond flour based bread because for me, you know, nut consumption is associated with good health. Nuts are very, very nutrient dense. Um, so if I can find like a good like quote unquote paleo bread.

• 39:28Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Max Lugavere?

  You know, I'll go to town on that.

• 39:30Ed Mylett?

  You will.

• 39:30Max Lugavere?

  And look, if I'm traveling and there's a really good like sourdough put in front of me, like I'll, I'll try that occasionally. But bread is not a, a staple in my diet.

• 39:39Ed Mylett?

  That was my next question. So obviously I want people to get the book because they, and by the way, you should be cooking more. You should be home cooking more and, but let's say you're not tonight. So to your point, I was going to ask you that. So I'm going out to order. I'm in a restaurant. There's a lot of people eat out or going to eat out inevitably. What's just a good guide when eating out to eat for our brains, to eat for our heart, to eat for our longevity, but yet still enjoy the meal. Is there, do you have a guide you kind of give yourself when you do that?

• 40:06Max Lugavere?

  Yeah. I mean, and I want people to eat out, like eating out is one of the great aspects of modern life. Eating out with friends. I love, I love to eat out. Now you can't control every single variable when you're eating out and you shouldn't try to, right? You don't know what kinds of oils they're going to use in the restaurant. Um, and so I think you need to give yourself a break and you need to, um, not try to control every variable. Control the controllables. And I think when going out to a restaurant, the things that I look for, I base my meal around a protein. So whether that's a piece of steak, now I try to eat when I'm home, 100% grass fed, grass finished beef. When I'm out at a restaurant, yeah, I'll, I, I really appreciate if, if a restaurant offers that, but most restaurants don't. And so I don't drive myself crazy. I know that even a piece of grain fed

• 40:51Max Lugavere?

  uh, or grain finished uh, beef, which is the most commonly available kind of beef, like in a restaurant, is going to be a pristine source of protein. And if you order something like a filet mignon, right? It's going to be pricey, but a filet mignon is actually a lean piece of meat anyway. And so lean meat, lean beef, it doesn't really matter what the cow's fed, to be honest, from a nutrition standpoint, because it's lean. What the cow eats dictates the, the nutritional quality of its fat. So if you're eating a lean piece of meat like a filet, it actually doesn't matter what the cow's eating. From a nutritional standpoint, so I'll try to get a piece of beef. If, you know, if not that, I'll reach for some grilled salmon, which I know is probably going to be farmed, but it's all good. It's still a great source of omega threes, still a pristine source of protein. Chicken, chicken is great. White meat, dark meat, I mean, it doesn't really matter.

• 41:36Max Lugavere?

  White meat is going to be just leaner and so it's going to contain less calories, more protein. And then I try to get vegetables. So sauteed vegetables, usually I steer away from because the veggies in restaurants, when they're sauteed, they tend to be sauteed in cheap oils. Restaurant oil, you know, like the vegetable oil or the canola oil or soybean or worse, or corn oil. So I'll try to get grilled veggies or steamed veggies, if that's an option in the restaurant. And, um, and then you could always like sprinkle some salt or some lemon, uh, extra, you can ask for extra virgin olive oil. I love going to restaurants and asking if they can bring out flake salt, which is way better than the table shaker salt.

• 42:17Ed Mylett?

  Yes. I've done that too.

• 42:19Max Lugavere?

  Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's really easy to like, to manipulate those variables in the restaurant. Focus on protein, order a piece of, of meat or fish or chicken or what have you. And then veggies, a side of veggies, a salad. That's, I mean, those are the meals that I get generally and I find it pretty easy to do so, like no matter where I am.

• 42:38Ed Mylett?

  So I'm eating, I'm going to ask you a heart and brain. I'm eating from my brain. Give me, uh, one or two foods, eat for your brain. Do this, people. And then here's one or two foods to avoid for your brain.

• 42:47Max Lugavere?

  All right. Love this. So I would say avocados are an amazing brain food. They have the highest concentration of fat protecting antioxidants of any fruit or vegetable. And this is of particular relevance to the brain because the brain is made of fat and not just any kind of fat, but like a really delicate, damage prone category of fats called polyunsaturated fats. The brain is constructed of these fats. And so fat soluble antioxidants are crucial to, uh, aging well, cognitively speaking. Avocado is a great source of potassium, which we know helps balance out the effect of sodium on our blood pressure. It, they're a rich source of carotenoids, which can boost, um, visual processing speed, even in people who are young and healthy. Uh, great source of fiber, very satiating. So avocados are an amazing brain food.

• 43:31Max Lugavere?

  I would say the second food, um, we've already talked about, about beef a little bit. Um, we haven't yet really talked about eggs. I'm a huge fan of eggs.

• 43:38Ed Mylett?

  Good. I eat a lot of eggs.

• 43:40Max Lugavere?

  Yeah. Eggs are great. Eggs, you know, when you consider the fact that an egg yolk. Is packaged with everything that nature has deemed important to grow a brain. It literally is the ultimate cognitive multivitamin, an egg yolk.

• 43:51Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 43:51Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, so I love egg yolks and also there was a study in older people. That found that choline consumption was associated with slashed risk of developing dementia by thirty percent. Which is, you know, there's no drug on the market that we could say, here, take this.

• 44:08Ed Mylett?

  Thirty percent, yeah.

• 44:09Max Lugavere?

  Risk of dementia by thirty percent, but choline is a really important molecule. It serves as the backbone to acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter. It's important for learning and memory. Eggs are the number one source of dietary choline. You get, I think, like one hundred and fifty milligrams in just one single egg yolk, which is amazing.

• 44:28Ed Mylett?

  Okay, avoid food for the brain. Processed food, anything beyond that?

• 44:32Max Lugavere?

  I would say definitely the grain and seed oils, canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil. We know that these fats integrate themselves into our, into our adipose tissue. We've actually seen an increase by about one hundred and thirty six percent of the appearance of these fats, linoleic acid in particular, in adipose tissue over the past hundred years. Which is just, which is owed to the fact that we're just, we're chronically consuming these cheap oils. Something like soybean oil by itself is, our consumption of it has gone up two thousand percent.

• 45:04Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 45:05Max Lugavere?

  Just in the past hundred years alone.

• 45:07Ed Mylett?

  That's a big part of the book, by the way, is the preparation part and I want them to get the preparation part, but that's a big deal is if it's got corn oil preparation, that's just a big no-no, huh?

• 45:15Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, you want to get rid of that stuff. I mean, a little bit here and there certainly won't kill you, but the production of these oils creates trans fats. There's no safe level of trans fat consumption, we know, at this point. They're also full, especially when we cook with them under real world conditions. The appearance of oxidative byproducts, certain aldehydes and things like that, which we know are damaging to our mitochondria, which is, you know, the organelles in our cells that create energy. And these oxidative products are found. Under, and they're found in oils that are available commercially and created under just everyday use, so.

• 45:51Ed Mylett?

  And what about heart? Anything, you say this, heart, eat this for your heart?

• 45:55Max Lugavere?

  From a cardiovascular standpoint?

• 45:56Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 45:56Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, I mean, extra virgin olive oil, I think, really important. Fish, wild fatty fish is great from a cardiovascular standpoint. Exercise is important, it's not a food, but, you know, it's.

• 46:06Ed Mylett?

  And I think the fiber part is heart related, too.

• 46:09Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 46:09Ed Mylett?

  If you are really, truly, you know, if it does have some LDL reduction capacity in any way.

• 46:14Max Lugavere?

  It does.

• 46:15Ed Mylett?

  Any of the particles, then fiber's a big deal.

• 46:16Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, it does. I mean, basically what happens is you, you release bile acids to help break down fats in the gut. And bile acids, we, we use LDL particles.

• 46:26Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:26Max Lugavere?

  To make bile acids. And those part, that LDL is basically taken back up in the ileum, which is the latter end of the digestive tract. But when you consume fiber with your food, and especially this, this gel-forming viscous fiber, psyllium husk, and other, and other fibers naturally found in foods, it traps the LDL particles that, and so they're not able to be taken back up in the ileum in time. So you basically pass them.

• 46:52Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 46:53Max Lugavere?

  That's why fiber, I think, is, is so great from a.

• 46:55Ed Mylett?

  It yanks it, you pass it.

• 46:57Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 47:01Ed Mylett?

  You're brilliant, by the way.

• 47:02Max Lugavere?

  Dude, thank you. I feel the same way about you.

• 47:04Ed Mylett?

  Thank you. I told you this like five times last time that we talked.

• 47:06Max Lugavere?

  It's mutual.

• 47:06Ed Mylett?

  But I just, when I'm talking with you, and thank you, I appreciate that. Fruit. So here we go.

• 47:11Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 47:11Ed Mylett?

  So, you know, I get my info from different people. And so I'm curious, because I have some friends of mine that say, listen, fruit's like ingesting sugar in the body. The body doesn't know the difference. I'm gonna ask you whether this is true or not. Body doesn't know the difference, so you're gonna get some sort of insulin reaction to it, then you're gonna get more inflammation. And so fruit equals yeast and equals inflammation. I have other friends who say, nope, fruit's got all this nutritional benefit to it. It's also got some water benefit to it, in many cases, and so I eat a ton of fruit. So where do you stand on those two ends of the spectrum?

• 47:44Max Lugavere?

  I think fruit is great, especially whole fruit. But I do think it's important to make, to bring nuance to the table, and to acknowledge that there are different kinds of fruits. You know, we have low-sugar fruits, like avocados, berries.

• 47:57Max Lugavere?

  All berries are great, cucumbers, citrus, things like that. And then we have high sugar tropical fruits like, you know, bananas, for example, or pineapple, mangoes. If you are, if you have problems with your glucose tolerance and you're sedentary all day, do I think gorging on grapes and bananas, for example, is a very, is a very smart idea? No, I mean, it's, it's probably, it's, it's better than gorging on, on junk food, but I think we could do even better than that. Okay. I think we can, you know, look to foods that have less, to have a lower glycemic load. Okay. But at the end of the day, fruit is beneficial. And so I don't wanna, I don't wanna scare anybody away from, from eating more whole fruit. I personally, you know, my fruit, my daily fruit consumption ranges from zero to two

• 48:42Max Lugavere?

  servings a day. Okay. And again, all fruits are different. So berries, you know, there's a lot of evidence now showing how berries, how supportive berries are to brain health. Right. You know, bananas are a great source of potassium, which can boost cardiovascular health, but are bananas the only source of potassium? No, actually, an avocado has twice the potassium of a banana. Okay. With, with all those other benefits, you know, to it that I, that I mentioned. And as you mentioned, fruit, it's self-limiting. So again, this is why I don't really, you know, place a limit on, on fruit consumption. It is self-limiting because of the fiber, because of the water. And the fact that fruit comes with that, the fiber and the water, that is important from the standpoint of how the sugar in the fruit affects us physiologically.

• 49:27Max Lugavere?

  Hmm. So there was actually a really interesting study where, um, this wasn't a fruit per se, but they compared the same amount of carbohydrates from wheat. So they, they took 50 grams, we'll just say 50 grams of wheat, um, and they turned it into a porridge. And one porridge, the wheat, in one part, one version of the porridge, the wheat was coarsely ground. And in the other, it was much more finely ground. And the finely ground porridge, again, carbohydrate, carbohydrates were controlled for, so the calories were controlled for, right? So same amount of carbohydrates in each bolus, the finely ground wheat porridge and the coarsely ground wheat porridge. And what they found in the finely ground wheat porridge was that it sent blood sugar,

• 50:09Max Lugavere?

  the, the amount, the, the glycemic impact was way higher, which led to a way higher release of insulin. Hmm. And afterwards, so it sent the blood, it sent the blood sugar way higher in the subjects, but then what was really interesting was that it dropped it below baseline. Afterwards, whereas, yeah, so it led to a, it led to a blood sugar crash. That, blood sugar crash that we all try to avoid, right? Because that can create feelings of anxiety and people prone to anxiety. It can create fatigue, hunger, irritability, right? But the coarsely ground porridge is harder for our bodies to digest, right? And, and it digests more slowly.

• 50:47Max Lugavere?

  Return blood sugar right back to baseline, right? So going back to the fruit conversation, this is why I think fruit is so great and not something that we ultimately need to worry about, right? Because, because our, because it's not like we're just juicing the fruit and consuming that sugar. It has this whole food matrix of fiber and water. And it really, and it leads to a very slow infusion of sugar. Whereas, you know, you can take the same amount of sugar found in an apple and drink it, and you're not going to have the same effect. You're probably going to see a, a blood sugar crash.

• 51:16Ed Mylett?

  That's one of my favorite things we've talked about so far, right there. Because that's a definitive example of the difference of that and just ingesting typical sugar on its own.

• 51:24Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 51:24Ed Mylett?

  Which is sort of one of the arguments against fruit. I'm not advocating fruit anymore or less than you are. I wouldn't advocate anything because it's not my background, but what about just eating less? So I'm talking, I want you to address a couple of different things. By the way, I really appreciate you going so deep because, you know, this is really valuable to me. I care about the, these folks that are my family, listening to this and watching this and their wellbeing. I want them to live happier, stronger, more energized lives. And you really help people do that, bro. So what about less? And when I say less, as I mean, less often, meaning, how do you feel about, you know, feeding windows? My, my cardiologist doesn't like to call it intermittent fasting. She likes to call them feeding windows. Actually, David Sinclair did as well. And then just portion size in general.

• 52:08Ed Mylett?

  Is that something you're cognizant of, like how much food you're putting in your body, actually? Not just calories, but just amount of food and portion size? And how often you do or don't eat? Are those things that you think about or focus on?

• 52:21Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, I mean, I try not to eat for two to three hours before I go to sleep every night.

• 52:25Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 52:26Max Lugavere?

  That's my primary, um, primary concern is not eating too close to bedtime. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I like to eat, you know, an hour after I wake up. Sometimes I'm not hungry at all and I can go two, three hours after waking up before taking my first bite. But this all comes back to circadian biology and, you know, we're seeing now that. Especially with research on time restricted eating. A lot of this research is being done by down over at the Salk Institute with Sachin Panda. He's done a lot of, published a lot of really interesting papers on time restricted eating. But that when we simply honor our bodies' natural inclination to eat during the day and not eat too much late at night, we see cardiometabolic benefits to our blood pressure,

• 53:10Max Lugavere?

  to our blood glucose control, and this is independent of weight. So some will argue that time restricted eating merely just a way of controlling calories. And it is that. It can be, it can be a very effective way of controlling calories. It's not, you know, time restricted eating doesn't give you a free ride to eat whatever it is that you want. You can still gain weight while time restricted eating. You know, I think a lot of, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that time restricted eating or intermittent fasting is this hall pass to, you know, to eat whatever it is that you want and that somehow calories don't matter if you're time restricted eating. That's false, right? But independent of calories, it does seem to be the case that there is a cardiometabolic benefit to not eating too late at night.

• 53:51Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 53:52Max Lugavere?

  And so that's what I try to do. You know, we see that people who eat late at night, their hunger patterns are, you know, miswired the next day. And I've seen, I've anecdotally experienced this myself. When I eat really late at night, my digestion isn't, isn't great the next day and I tend to feel more hungry when I wake up the following day.

• 54:09Ed Mylett?

  Well, for me, I sleep a lot better.

• 54:11Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 54:12Ed Mylett?

  Because digest, my body's working to digest food that I ate later at night. And so when I'm not necessarily in full digestion mode, so to speak, I just sleep deeper. But the reason I asked you about portion size, I want to talk about this, maybe one of the last two things here, is that, as you talked earlier about how big these sodas are now, so are portions. Like you go to, when you do eat out, the portions seem to be getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You go to an average restaurant now, you're like, my gosh, the amount of food in some places.

• 54:38Ed Mylett?

  That they're bringing me and there's been this thing like I grew up with this like clean your plate.

• 54:42Max Lugavere?

  Yeah.

• 54:42Ed Mylett?

  It was a big thing. I I I'm here. I'm 50 years old, but I would sit at a a lot of us grew up like this. I wasn't even allowed to leave the table if I didn't eat all the food. Mom, I know you're listening to this. I love you, but like, but like there is a portion issue in our culture. And I do think people think, well, I haven't eaten in eight hours, so I'm gonna eat three sizes fistfuls of steak because I haven't eaten any in 10 hours. So what about portion size? Do you focus on that?

• 55:08Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, I mean, I see I I personally am a volume eater. I like to eat a lot.

• 55:13Ed Mylett?

  You told me that last time.

• 55:14Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, I like I like to eat a lot. And and I think that the way that that has become something sustainable for me, and, you know, and I'm able to do that without having to think about calories and to and to portion control all that much is to focus really on the foods that I know are going to be satiating so that I can feel full, but still not have overconsumed my my uh daily calorie needs. And the way to do that is to focus really on on whole minimally processed food. So you can eat a lot. You need a huge volume of food and and not consume at the end of the day all that many calories in doing so. I mean, that's the problem with ultra-processed foods is that by the time you've eaten those kinds of foods to satiety, you've already overconsumed them.

• 55:58Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 55:58Max Lugavere?

  These are the foods like pastas and rolls and breads and cakes and fried foods and chicken dishes like, you know, lasagnas and things like that. But it's the it's the minimally processed foods that allow you to feel like you're eating a lot, when in reality, you're actually not eating that much because they're just they're just that satiating.

• 56:16Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 56:17Max Lugavere?

  And so, yeah, I mean, I I've done on my Instagram too, like side by side depictions where, you know, if you look at the calorie density of your average fast food meal.

• 56:26Ed Mylett?

  This is really good right here, you guys. I've seen you do this. Go ahead.

• 56:29Max Lugavere?

  Yeah, like the the the french fries and the soda and the Big Mac. It fits within like, I mean, you can, you could basically in two handfuls, hold all of that food in, in two hands. And that's for the most part, it's like 1,500 calories worth of food right there. And just you're holding it in two hands, right? But if you look at foods like, you know, wild salmon, fresh vegetables, dark leafy greens, whole fruits, eggs and stuff like that, the calorie density is way lower for those. Calorie density, there you go. Yeah, calorie density is lower, but the, the volume is way higher. Okay. And so volume is one of those things that like, you know, it's really hard from the

• 57:11Max Lugavere?

  standpoint, like, look at, look at like any animal, like when left to their own devices, when allowed to eat ad libitum, which, which is a scientific way of saying to, to allow an animal to eat all the, you know, everything that they want. They don't stop, they don't pump the brakes, they have no self, they have no reason to self-regulate the way that we do, right? But when an animal is eating its biologically appropriate diet, it knows when to stop, naturally, right? An animal's, an animal's MO isn't to eat itself to a state of, of type two diabetes and obesity, right? Very true. So I think that the reason why so many of us struggle with overeating is because of the, it's the food environment. It's not that there's anything wrong with us. I think a lot of people feel like there's like a moral failure, right? When they can't regulate

• 57:55Max Lugavere?

  their appetites, when they just find themselves eating too much chronically. But it's the foods, it's the ultra-processed junk foods. And it's not even junk foods, it's the, it's food, it's fast food, it's sugar sweetened beverages. And it's not even just food, to be honest, it's, it's our lifestyles, you know, when you are underslept, the next day you're inclined to eat 400 more calories than if you were well-slept. So it's, it's all these factors. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah. All these factors come into play. And, um, and so, yeah, I think that like moderating and trying to like shrink your portion size is one of the reasons why diets fail again and again, because you can't just shrink your portion size and expect that to be a sustainable thing for you. People want to be able to eat and feel full.

• 58:33Ed Mylett?

  By the way, that what you just said, but for those of you that have some guilt about not eating healthy, ask yourself about your satiation level when you're eating, right? You're, I'm just going through things you've said today. The amount of fiber intakes that you're feeling more full also, your water intake so that you're feeling more full. And just give yourself some, a break about that. Maybe it's not the amount of food you're eating, but the types of foods you're eating so that you feel fuller sooner. The other little thing I thought about, I'd eat fast. Hmm. I eat too fast. You said this earlier, it's, it's one of my takeaways for our conversation today. So one, I'm losing the benefit of some of that combination of circumstances that causes these healthy toxins in my body when I'm eating, but also the fact that it's not even giving myself time to signal the fact that I'm full. Yeah. Oftentimes, I'm just, I'm, I do everything fast. I talk fast, I drive fast, I walk fast.

• 59:17Ed Mylett?

  And I think sometimes our personality dictates even the way we eat. And I think it's smart to step back and go, let me enjoy the flavor of the food. Let me enjoy the meal to some extent, let me enjoy the conversation. It's not a, I think sometimes I'm always in the contest to be first. Hmm. I don't know if anybody can relate to that. I gotta be the first one finished, first one to order, first one finished for, which is not, just insanely stupid thing, but yet I do it when I eat. And I think when I overeat, or when I have digestion issues or fatigue after a meal, oftentimes it's not the food I ate. Sometimes for me, it's just how fast I ate it. Yeah. In some cases. And so I really appreciate you saying, okay, last question. Oh, man. Well, there's so many more. I've got 3,000 more questions I wanted to get to, but you know, the depth of your answers are so awesome, bro. I love talking to you.

• 1:00:02Ed Mylett?

  I love talking to you and I want to keep doing it. By the way, guys, I just say this about Max, there's not someone else like him. So follow his stuff, check out his YouTube, listen to his podcast, get Genius Food, get the book, you know, get it. So just an in general question, we've covered a whole bunch of stuff today. I just want to, we missed something, we missed a lot of things. But if someone's listening, they go, you know what, man? I'm gonna start to pay more attention to how I'm eating, what I'm eating, how I'm eating. Other than what we've covered here today, what would be one more layered thing you'd say? And by the way, don't forget this, either in preparation or the type of food or anything like that, that you would throw in that I didn't ask you that they should just know before I let you go?

• 1:00:41Max Lugavere?

  Oh, man. Well, I, a topic that I'm really passionate about is our, our almost constant exposure to environmental toxins. So industrially created compounds that have saturated the food supply that we are unwittingly ingesting on a day-to-day basis that are compromising our health. So compounds like bisphenol A or BPA, endocrine disruptors, like phthalates in our food supply or PFAS chemicals. I would say that, you know, getting your food right is super important and probably going to be the lowest hanging fruit for most people, but I also think that people should start to at least gain a sense of awareness about where their food is coming from and to reduce their reliance on foods that come in plastic packages.

• 1:01:24Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:25Max Lugavere?

  And to minimize their storing of food in plastic packages and certainly the reheating of food in plastic packages. So this is a big problem, like the microwaving of food in plastics, purchasing of sandwiches and other food products in oil-proof paper, wrapped in oil-proof paper.

• 1:01:40Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:40Max Lugavere?

  All of these situations increase our exposure to compounds that mess with our hormones, the system of chemicals in our body that guide everything from neurodevelopment to sexual function to, you know, where we store our body fat. So being, becoming aware of where your food is coming from. I mean, there's a study that came out just, I think it was late 2021, that found that fast food was just rife with phthalates. Phthalates are known endocrine disruptors. And so if you're eating a food product that, just try to visualize where, you know, how it arrived in your hands. If it had to flow through a Byzantine network of plastic tubing, right, to make it into

• 1:02:25Max Lugavere?

  your food supply, to make it into, onto your plate, then it's probably something that you should minimize your consumption of. If it's a piece of, you know, and just compare it to a sliced piece of fresh meat or a whole chicken that you roast yourself, for example, it's a lot different. Or, you know, produce that you grab from the supermarket and put in a bag yourself. I mean, that's, that's completely different. But, you know, so many of us today, we're consuming foods in packaging and we think that the packaging is inert, but it's actually not. Under certain circumstances.

• 1:02:56Max Lugavere?

  The chemical constituents of the packaging are able to leach into the food that we're eating. And it screws with us. It affects everything from insulin sensitivity to our predilection for weight gain. So I think, yeah, and I, and I offer some tips in Genius Kitchen to help minimize one's exposure to these kinds of toxic chemicals, which I think is, is a really important layer that we need to be talking about more.

• 1:03:19Ed Mylett?

  Okay. So I'm really glad I asked you that last. And by the way, it's Genius Kitchen. I keep calling it Genius Food a couple of times. Beginning, I called it Genius Kitchen. There's Genius Foods in the book Genius Kitchen. And Max is one of a kind, you guys. I'm grateful for today.

• 1:03:35Max Lugavere?

  Likewise.

• 1:03:35Ed Mylett?

  Really grateful for today. I was so looking forward to this.

• 1:03:38Max Lugavere?

  Same.

• 1:03:38Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I really was, brother. And you knocked it out of the park once again. So guys, go get Genius Kitchen, follow Max everywhere. We'll put some links up here so that you can get it. If you're on the YouTube, you'll see them here on the audio. You guys already know about Max Lugavere. Go follow all of his stuff. And in our, the show, case of our show, I gotta tell you guys, we've doubled in the last 90 days, already a huge behemoth of a show. And that's because you guys are all sharing it. It's because every week I bring you somebody who is the best in the world at what they do. And this week's show was no exception. And so please share this with people that you care about, that you love, and help the message of the show continue to grow. I love all of you. God bless you all and max out your life.