Hey everybody, Dr Gundry here with the three healthiest vegetables you should eat. You know, vegetables are by far some of the most important foods for health and longevity. But by now you know all vegetables are not created equal.
So today I'm going to share three of my favorites with you and I encourage you to eat them as often as you like. Number one, the humble mushroom. First of all, mushrooms are increasingly easy to find.
Different mushrooms are appearing in our grocery stores. Why? Because mushrooms have incredible properties that you should know about to improve your health, your brain health, and your longevity.
First of all, mushrooms contain many polysaccharides, that means multiple sugars. Now, the word sugar shouldn't throw you off. Polysaccharides are sugar molecules that are bonded together with tight chemical bonds that our digestive system does not have good digestive enzymes to break apart to absorb the sugar.
But good news is our gut buddies, the gut microbiome have the enzymes to break these sugar molecules apart and they eat them. So these are actually prebiotic fibers in mushrooms that the gut bacteria eat and they in turn make postbiotics and you've heard me talk about postbiotics before. Postbiotics are actually what helps your gut wall, helps your immune system, helps your blood vessels, and helps your brain all by giving prebiotics like are contained in mushrooms, to your good gut bacteria.
As you learned about in my new book Unlocking The Keto Code, mushrooms are rich in melatonin. Now melatonin is not the sleep hormone, melatonin is actually only one of two antioxidants in your mitochondria. And as you know, the mitochondria are the key to your short and long term health and energy.
So give them some mushrooms to work with. Get the melatonin from the mushrooms. And no, eating mushrooms are not going to put you to sleep.
Sorry about that. Try some of the newer ones for maximum impact. Shiitake mushrooms, easy to find now in most grocery stores.
They're packed with a polysaccharide called Beta Glucan which is number one great for gut health, but number two has been associated with reducing cholesterol levels in people who take Beta Glucan. How about Lion's Mane? It's known as the brain supporting mushroom.
Lion's Mane used to be incredibly rare, but now we're beginning to see Lion's Mane in many supermarkets. Why do you want Lion's Mane? Because people who eat Lion's Mane make a compound called BDNF, Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor.
What that means is that BDNF actually makes neurons grow and divide. So can you imagine that you could actually improve your brain by eating a Lion's Mane mushroom? It's true, you can.
Reishi, Reishi Mushrooms are known as the mushroom of longevity. They actually taste kind of like dark chocolate in my opinion. They're a huge immune booster and a longevity booster as well.
Get the simple crimini mushrooms, they're right next to the white button mushrooms. It turns out that the white button mushroom, most people do well with white mushrooms. But as you know, I see a huge number of leaky gut in autoimmune patients.
And when we do food sensitivity testing on these people, a number of them test positive for reacting to white mushrooms. But they don't react to the other forms of mushrooms. So if you're at all concerned or if you have issues with IBS or leaky gut, go for the mushrooms I've just mentioned.
Get the brown mushrooms that are in every grocery store and leave the white button mushrooms alone. Finally, I've written and had YouTube videos about portabella mushrooms. They are like a steak in their texture.
They make a great pizza crust using them alone. And in my first book, there's a delicious portabella mushroom pizza that you'll absolutely love and my wife and I enjoy it many times. Get mushrooms into your life.
Number two, now here's one that everybody wrinkles up their noses about, but until you've had oven roasted okra, just stay with me. Okra and other prebiotic rich plant foods are phenomenal for you. Okra is loaded with soluble fiber.
And soluble fiber is what your gut bugs like. And believe it or not, fun fact, okra absorbs lectins. It blocks lectins from getting into you.
So the more okra that I can get into you, the better. Now why do you want these prebiotic fibers? It turns out that prebiotics are what gut buddies want to eat.
And as I wrote about in the Energy Paradox and in Unlocking The Keto Code, there's a gut centric theory of hunger. And what that means is, our hunger actually is controlled by our gut bacteria. And if we give the gut buddies what they want to eat, which is prebiotic fiber, they literally send text messages to the brain.
And this has been confirmed in human studies, that tell the brain, “Hey, our needs are met down here. You don't have to be hungry. You don't have to go look for other food because we've gotten everything we need.
” So get yourself some okra, it's now available frozen in almost all stores. Thaw it out, cut it in half, put it on a baking sheet, pour some olive oil and salt and pepper on it. Put it in the oven at 400 degrees.
Take it out after about 10 minutes, flip it, put it back in for another 10 minutes. And I can tell you in our household, these fried baked okra never make it to the dinner table because the family consumes them off the baking sheet. They are so tasty.
And if you think you don't like the sliminess of okra, and that’s been a turn off, these are not slimy. They're crispy, and they taste better than any potato chip you'll ever have in your life. And your gut buddies are gonna love it and you'll block whatever lectins you're eating.
Finally, number three, dark bitter greens like arugula, swiss chard, bok choy, and radicchio, what some people call the Italian red lettuce. These are almost every grocery store now. And as you know, they're among the healthiest foods on the planet.
Many of you know one of my favorite sayings is, "More bitter, more better”. Studies of long lived people show that they have a love for bitter foods, bitter greens. And the reason is that these dark green bitterness are the polyphenols in these foods.
Polyphenols not only feed good gut bacteria, but as you've learned in Unlocking The Keto Code, polyphenols are the key to actually improving your mitochondrial health by uncoupling. It gives you long lasting energy, improves your digestion and metabolism, and it keeps you healthy as you age. Even better, all of these dark greens are floated with fiber to fill you up fast and keep your gut buddies happy.
Again, one of my other favorite sayings is, “If you eat dark green, you will become lean”. And of course, these dark green, dark red vegetables are full of high amounts of Vitamin A, C, Vitamin K and K2, B and E, all of which are really missing in most of our diets and these are going to promote full health. Make sure to check out the next one here.
One of the things, right away, if you see some jar that says "Plant Collagen", you can actually put it back, because it does not contain collagen.
