Many say food can heal! Clean out your fridge and cabinets and only have food that will heal you in your home. Dr. Li studies this theory and offers real practical use.
This is an Episode you wont want to miss!
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Is peing my interest of course as always but you really are a Pioneer in this and I think everyone listening is really looking forward to what we can learn from you can you give us a little background on who you are what you’ve been doing to bring us up to the
Conversation yeah so I’m Dr William Lee I’m a physician I trained in Internal Medicine which means that I take care of all people uh men and women young and old healthy and sick and as a doctor my own personal goal has always been to try to keep people sitting on the pillar of
Their own health and this is a little bit different than how we’re trained as doctors which is to focus on disease and how to treat disease so my uh my roles of background I bring right into this as a physician I bring to the table I’m also a research scientist
Um I’ve spent the last 30 some years uh working in a field called vascular biology vascular just means blood vessels and the reason that I study a field called angio Genesis angio is blood blood vessels Genesis is how they grow the reason it’s important is because we all have 60,000 miles worth
Of blood vessels packed inside our adult bodies and these blood vessels are the highways and byways for the oxygen that we breathe um and also the nutrients that we eat they deliver the blood vessels deliver the things to every cell and every organ and as somebody who’s
Worked as an advocate to um use this science of the circulation to improve the modern medical treatment of diseases like cancer uh vision loss blindness uh diabetes and wounds that don’t heal this is a problem as people get older these are all diseases of Aging so to speak
They keep us from Aging in a healthy way um I’ve been involved uh with the successful development of 44 new FDA approved treatments for cancer vision loss and diabetes and it’s really that kind of street cred and that experience that I started to realize something
Which was that uh to uh treat disease is a little like too little too late and what we should really be able to do is intercept the horse before it gets out of the barn and that’s prevention and when you talk about prevention you really can’t shouldn’t talk about drugs
That are expensive not accessible to everyone who needs them and also have side effects and toxicities but you can actually talk about food and that’s something that is available everyone needs to eat it’s safe and it’s really Central Food is Central to who we are as
Humans as part of our Humanity and I’m a foodie I like to cook uh I’ve traveled all around the world I lived in Italy and in Greece before and so to me um uh and my background is Chinese and so I have this sort of mediteran sensibility
About food so what I did um about 15 years ago is began using the same systems that we develop uh drugs biotech drugs very fancy um sophisticated cancer treatments and um we began throwing Foods into the same system and it’s something that people hadn’t thought about doing before you know keep drugs
In their own Silo keep Foods in their own Silo and I cross that to start mixing and matching and I will tell you Norma that the big jaw-dropping surprise that I personally had that led me to where I am today is that 50% of the foods that we were studying in these
Drug development systems were as or more powerful than the drugs that we were studying so that’s food is medicine I I sometimes refer to myself jokingly as sort of one of the ogs in the food is medicine space but that gave me passion because while I’m still involved with
Developing serious uh biotech solutions for cancer um uh the reality is that something about food that we discover has a mediacy if I told you something about a fruit or vegetable today after your listeners hear this they could put it into action right away and so I wrote
Two uh New York Times bestselling books eat to beat disease and eat to beat your diet um both of these talk about Not Just Foods like eat this and eat that although that’s in there I have lots of more than a list of 300 foods that are
In there but what what I really wanted to be able to bring my audience the readership and people listening to this podcast is that modern science teaches us how our body responds to what we put inside it when we put something back inside it it’s going to respond in a
Negative way it’s going to lower our defenses lower our Shields against disease and when we make better choices to put things that are good for our body our body responds in by elevating our raising our Shields our health defenses are activated our metabolism is improved and the power to live better healthier
Lives across the entire lifespan is inside us we need to start with who we are yeah you know the interesting thing is um the reverse can happen as quickly if you have a lot of sugar or you drink uh I’m not an alcohol Pro alcohol person but if you drink enough alcohol
You will physically feel ill I mean it is you can you can tell the reverse very quickly one of the things um you know I’m totally in your Camp uh I’m 78 and I really believes in trying to take ownership as much as I can for my own
Destiny and food obviously is is a big part of that and one of the the things that I would love to hear is if I’ve done this with some friends where I’ve gone into their kitchens into the cabinets and it’s like you know they
Say I don’t know what to do I don’t feel good I want to lose weight and I was like trust me let me go in your cabinets and in your refrigerator and throw out what you should never have there ever again and then let’s go shopping for the
Staples you should always have and if you want to have ice cream one day or something like that never do it in your house because that that’s your sacred place never do do the bad things in your house so if you were to be with a friend
Who is just tearing it up with as much junk as you could possibly imagine and you’ve just cleaned out his or her cabinets and refrigerator what are 10 ingredients Foods whatever that you would say they should have as Staples in their home so at any time whenever they’re hungry nothing can go
Wrong they’re doing it they’ll be able to do it right what would they be start with the the you could do any order but I would love your 10 your 10 tips in best food to have in the house sure well look first of all I’m a
Researcher so I happen to know uh I can come up with 10 things but I have importantly I happen to know what’s in each of those 10 things that science has discovered that helps our body respond by having better circulation better stem cells for regenerating from the inside
Out better gut health uh antioxidant power to protect our DNA lowering inflammation or raising our immunity to protect us from infection or even for cancer inside our body so why don’t we start at the top definitely so excited by the way I’ve stepped into this podcast having just got into my fridge
And my pantry to pull out something that I could whip together to have a little bit of a quick lunch U before we came on so I just went through this practice practice makes perfect so we want to know what that was okay well so let’s start with the things that I actually
Did okay I had in my fridge that came from my pantry uh some tubes of double concentrated tomato paste um this is a great way to to add Umami flavor while capturing the polyphenols and the carotenoids the lopine of tomatoes in Ultra concentrated form okay I buy the
Italian kind because they don’t add anything like sugar or anything it’s just pure concentrate right so basically look for tomato paste that doesn’t have sugar because a lot of those tomatoey things do add sugar so always look that’s a good tip always look at the uh ingredient list for any that I’m saying
Talking about because there’s all these hidden ingredients that you need to um if you can’t pronounce it you probably don’t want to put in your body right so um tupid tomato paste now I actually love um to use things that can pop up Umami flavor so um uh so a couple of
Things that are in my fridge that can help pop up that nice mouth watery feeling I have a little tube also of anchovy paste an chovies actually have our great source right it’s like the the gem of the Mediterranean the in the sauce so to speak and a little tube of this allows
You to squeeze a drop out or squeeze a little bit out and you can just stir it in a little bit of out of my pantry extra virgin olive oil of course now extra I sell olive oil so I love yeah I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna hit you up
And see I we can actually I can I can play with it because I like to cook extrovert olive oil is great because uh it contains polyphenols from the olives and one of the most powerful polyphenols is called hydroxy tyrol now don’t worry about the CH fancy chemical names just
Know that people like me have studied this it’s in the extra virgin olive oil because it comes from the little bits that are still in the extra virgin form hasn’t been filtered out and when we eat that it actually lowers inflammation it improves our circulation it even can cut
Off the blood supply and starve cancer and all you need it’s a healthy fat to cook with um so little olive oil a little I’m gonna I’m gonna add a little tip olive oil tip because that’s my my thing um so in November and December uh the new Harvest is happening
And we get our uh Shipman of olive oil in I have a an orchard that does a special blend for us and so what I recommend is typically there’s one Harvest and that gets sold for an entire year sometimes for two years which I absolutely you know don’t love I think
The the fresher the better the higher potency So when you buy olive oil in November or December from the new Harvest put extra get extra bottles if you like a certain brand get a few of them and put them in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use them because
It’s cold and dark and what does that do it keeps it fresh so when you’re ready to go to that next bottle if you use as much as I do you will have it as if it was just harvested it’ll keep it fresh keep the color keep the essence keep all
Of those beautiful wonderful things that are are good for us so that’s my little hack on olive oil what a what an amazing tip I you know uh we normally think about keeping in a cool dark place but the refrigerator is a perfect place to right
And and you can also put olive oil in a dish and keep it in the refrigerator and it’s sort of like butter you can spread it and you can use it that way as well all right it turn it kind of um turns into a semisolid yeah yeah yeah it’s
Great and and it’s more concentrated so you like tubes and everything for cooking you can do a tablespoon from that and have like enough fantastic tips I love that I’m I’m I’m learning something even as we get started so um so we talked about tomato paste uh anroy
Paste uh extra virgin olive oil um I uh always have um little chili pepper flakes uh and the reason is that chili pepper flakes contain capsacin this is the natural chemical in Peppers that um light up your tongue they give you the zing and it turns out more recent
Research shows that when you actually your tongue gets that Zing it it’s an activation it’s like a trigger that sends a message to your brain your tongue will text message your brain when you actually eat chili pepper flakes or any chili like sriracha sauce will do
The same thing and and a text messages your brain it helps your brain release a hormone no adrenaline and this nor adrenaline will go down the nerves from your brain down your the side of your neck you can feel it next time you eat chili you you’ll feel the tingle go down
And as a hormone is released and that uh that hormone will activate your body’s Brown fat now Brown fat is a very healthy form of body fat it’s not lumpy bumpy it’s not the muffin top it’s not your thighs not your butt it’s actually way thin and close to the Bone and what
Brown fat does when it’s turned on it acts like the burner on a gas range you know you go click click click whoosh and when it when you turn on your brown fat with chili peppers and other Foods as well including Tomatoes what it does is it burns down extra energy burns down
Extra calories extra fat in your body and it burns away harmful body fat so a little extra Zing helps you even if by the way even if you are a thin bodied person a lean person you can still have extra body fat in the tube of your body
Yeah that’s called skinny fat yeah and this is one of that’s a good one that’s that’s a tip right yeah so so that’s a good one um I keep Capers I keep dried beans I keep um I keep um I keep tins of of seafood uh different kinds of seafood like
Sardines I’m a big yeah and and by the way a lot of people this is me as well when I was a kid uh my mom would take me into the middle aisles of the grocery store and there be all this tuna fish and when we opened
One up I thought that looks like cat food smelled like cat food and so it really turned me off until I I actually lived in the Mediterranean for a while Italy Greece south of France um Portugal a long tradition of exquisitly cooked and Tin Fish packed in
Olive oil and all these other herbs and and things and they are beautiful to keep as really a whole meal you get have a lunch I I agree I uh you know as we all are trying to really get the the right amount of protein and it’s so much
More than what we think we need and uh one of my favorite things is to put tons and tons of fresh lemon on sardines big sardines um I like the ones that are in the jars put tons of lemon on it and it’s just so delicious and you could put
A little anchovie or Capers and things like that on it and one jar is like the most incredibly perfect amount of a meal it where you just get that power of some protein and it’s delicious it’s totally delicious AB absolutely sounds like you and I could could fix a quick lunch
Together and have this conversation and really have a lovely meal so you know a couple of other things that I like to have in my pantry excuse me me to know the dried beans oh yes so tell me a little bit about that because I’m I’m
Not a big bean person other than um chickpeas but what give us some ideas for beans so beans are um are one of the core staple foods that’s a common denominator in all of the planets blue zones these are the locations around the world that my friend Dan Butner first
Um kind of put out to the public as areas where people live long and live healthy as they age and you know people have been searching what’s the secret to it well they have Community well they actually have physical activity well they have lower stress and also they eat
Um great food in they eat together all right so all these things count there’s no one magic food Silver Bullet but beans is a common denominator now what’s in a bean okay um beans actually contain a huge amount of vitamins and minerals that our body needs but more importantly
It’s a good source of dietary fiber and an inexpensive source of protein um beans can be TR can travel long distances of their dried if you go back 2,000 years back to the Silk Road that connected China to the mid through the Middle East to the Mediterranean beans
Were one of the things that they could dry and put on camel back right so it’s a revered Thousand-Year old tradition okay so um uh dietary fiber in beans is very important for gut health it’s one of the easiest way to get gut health if
You get beans and you soak them for 24 hours before you cook them you’ll actually degrade some of the phytic acid which you know um people like to say they don’t have as much of this natural protective chemical that Beans use to protect themselves just get all that
Stuff away and then you wind up softening the bean it’s faster to cook um you can cook beans you can stew them uh in lots of different ways you can make soup out of them bottom line when you have good gut health you have whole body Health our our gut bacteria which
Is 39 trillion bacteria in our body by the way we’ve got about 40 trillion human cells and we’ve got 39 trillion bacteria wow wow that is that’s amaz that’s a good one and by the way you know so we you and I and everyone watching this we are not
Quite we are not only human we actually are partly bacteria as we walk around in our you know in our in our beautiful Garb and there’s a there’s a term for organisms that are part are made of two different things all right part human part bacteria and that term is a Holo
Bion h o l o b i o n t so although you can call as human we’re really holom because we walk around with about 50% of us being bacteria now our bacteria you look I went to medical school in Med when I went to medical school bacteria
Were the bane of our existence got to memorize them got to kill them with antibiotics now we realize that most of the bacteria that we encounter as humans across our lives most of them are good and most of them live inside us and when our bacter what do they our bacteria do
They actually lower inflammation in our body they boost our immune system and they text message our brain to release social hormones so there’s one bacteria and this is we’re just this is the beginning of a whole new era of research but there we’re beginning to discover certain bacteria so for example there’s
A bacteria called lactobacillus routy lactobacillus routy is actually a normal gut bacteria but it’s also used to make sourdough bread in fact the lactic acid from lactobacillus is what gives the Tang to the bread it’s also by the way used as the natural starter for parmesano regano cheese from Italy yeah
Right um it’s also found in some yogurts and guess what researchers have found and I’ve I did some of the research myself with a colleague at Massachusetts Institute of Technology that laab bacillus ruide not only improves your immune system but it text messes your brain and what it does is it helps your
Brain release social hormones like oxytocin now oxytocin is what is released from your brain when you go to the airport and you see a friend or relative you haven’t seen for a long time you run up them give them a big hug right yeah it’s the same hormone that
Your brain releases when you get a kiss not a Peck in the cheek but a French kiss a deep kiss that that feel-good hormone and it’s the same hormone social hormone that your brain floods for micros seconds when you have an orgasm so so what are the foods
Let’s well it’s the parmesan cheese pares cheese a sourdough bread also contains This Yogurt can contain this and you can also find dietary supplements I mean the the bottom line is that you you know everything in moderation yeah I don’t want people to rush out to eat lots of cheese that has
Salt and saturated a little bit you know we listen we were just talking about a jar of sardines and we were talking about you know some little bit of tomato paste everything in moderation yeah better for not only your soul but actually for your body as well that’s one example of a good
Bacteria but there’s many ones yeah that that’s a great one and um so what’s your favorite bean dish just to because I’m I that’s other than popcorn I uh and chickpeas what what’s your favorite bean dish um you know I I love so many different dishes but the one
That this conversation is bringing to mind instantly is there is a giant bean dish it’s the giant bean they call them gigantis uh in Greece and they it’s a it’s a very rustic peasant dish um they take big um Greek uh they’re like giant it’s not fava beans they’re they’re big
White beans giant white beans and they um they soak them they cook them slowly in olive oil onions a little bit of tomato sauce and some oregano and they just stew it down it’s a little side dish that if you have a nice uh side of freshly made sourdough
Bread um and your jar of sardines what an amazing yeah quick lunch you can have it that’s great you can always imagine yourself on vacation that is so that’s so great I I love that I like that suggestion um so what else is in that is in that
Pantry I these are so amazing by the way they’re not typical they’re very Innovative suggestions I know you’re saying to yourself I’m a I’m a doctor I’ve done all this research and she’s asking me about my friend but but this is so um practical and you know and and
It does empower us and the suggestions are very um Innovative I think compared to the typical salmon you know right whatever else I I always have a few jars or bags of Capers Capers are the little flower buds that come from Rocky Mediterranean uh uh Islands usually Sicily pent
Penta yeah yeah and and Santa Rini is another place off off of Greece they pick these things off of the Cliffs they pack them in sea salt um or they brine them with a little bit of vinegar um and they can keep for a long time in your
Pantry and you soak them up you want to wash off all the vinegar or all the salt um and you just chop them up and U and you can sprinkle them onto a fish dish a chicken dish a salad they really light up your taste buds and the reason that
They’re they light up your health as well is they have something called quatin natural chemical that’s super anti-inflammatory uh which is really the root cause inflammations root cause of so many diseases of aging and so you want to actually age well over time and eat well over time I recommend keeping a
Little jar of Capers and by the way so people might listen to say you know what I don’t even know what a caper is if I bought one I wouldn’t know what to do with it here’s what I say Norma in today’s world I really encourage exploration of foods that are good for
You that you might not know about no problem if you got a cell phone type in caper type in recipe hit search on Google and then hit video and somebody’s going to teach you passionately yeah what they do with those Capers and show you in their kitchen how to do it no
Excuse yeah and the and the point is the suggestions you’re making when people go shopping if they have a list of things that are all going to be good for them and they have them in the house and they come up with some recipes you can’t go wrong if you have
Junk in your house you’re going to you’re going to not feel good it’s and and you know I’m in the I’m in the Fashion Beauty World and I use my communication it’s like if you want to look pretty you gotta be healthy because if you’re not healthy you’re not you’re not
Going to look pretty you’re not going to feel good right 100% here’s a couple of other ones I keep some dark chocolate like 80% % caca or higher yeah because um although chocolate itself is a confection the cacao the more higher percent cacao you have that’s a
Plant-based uh food that comes from a tree it’s a actually um somebody a friend of mine shipped me some cacao pods from Miami wow I they’re heavy they’re like a football size you C open you can shake them you can hear the beans rattling inside it wow open and
They’re like leaes it’s it’s a nut with a white rim of Flesh around it and you can actually eat it like the cacao fruit is nicely kind of sweet sour um really quite interesting you want to peel that stuff off and then you just ferment it
And then you can roast it but don’t do the work yourself have just buy a can a tin or a little bag of dark chocolate powder or bits and it’s wonderful because the proanthocyanidin again about the chemical name but just know that we discovered this in dark chocolate when
We eat it that chemical causes our body to respond by releasing stem cells you can double the number of stem cells from your bone that regenerate your circulation regenerate your heart regenerate your brain I love that right good so so what do you eat the dark
Chocolate with right so and by the way one of the things you don’t want to be keeping in your pantry I know some a lot of people do this is is Halloween candy right so just get rid of that stuff and but the dark chocolate’s great what do I
Do I like to mix it added to another one of my pantry ingredients which is coffee beans wow coffee now let me tell you what I do with coffee and why it’s good for you coffee is one of the original beverages of the world that’s found across different cultures is very
Ancient and coffee has something called chlorogenic acid chlorogenic acid actually is good for your stem cells cuts off starves cancer by cutting off the blood supply slows the Aging of your cells you can actually gain years at the cellular level by drinking coffee regularly every day now I recommend not
Adding Dairy to it don’t add sugar to it forget about the you know the stuff you know when you in a driveby you get that pumpkin spice seasonal stuff look that’s all artificial flavorings that they squirt in there all right it’s awful yeah right so but the but the real deal
Has chlorogenic acid and it really slows your cellular aging like who wouldn’t want that yeah at any age you get more vibrancy right so one little tip I I I listen we’re you and I are like just pingpong yeah so here’s the thing um uh
You want to buy you wna if you can buy organic coffee you know why because the organic coffee not only doesn’t have the pesticides sprayed on it but research has discovered that organic coffee has more chlorogenic acid you get more of the good stuff not just less of the bad
Stuff but more of the good stuff now here here’s why and this is not well known by people but by researchers we know this now it turns out that um in Mother Nature obviously coffee plants in the wild will live with nature so there’s little little insects that
Nibble on the leaves and the stems the plant uh responds to that nibbling by the insects as wounding and as a wound healing response the plant makes more chlorogenic acid when you actually have natural uh uh residence around the plant nibbling at the leaves and St Coffee Bean will have more chlorogenic acid
Stronger Yeah when you spray it with pesticides guess what no injury no pests no nibbling less chlorogenic acid what the good stuff yeah you get organic yeah I I agree I was you know for many years I drink lots of green tea I love Japanese green tea and so I was staying
Away from coffee and uh and then I obviously read very much of what you were saying um and so I thought you know I I’m going to have coffee in the morning uh and start my day with the coffee and one of the things that I think is is a a
Tip is that I would say after 12 noon or 2 o’clock it may be the time to kind of Basta on the caffeine so you can get a good night’s sleep but I agree with you and I I also agree the chocolate I I get as much of you know the dark dark
Darkest I put it in my refrigerator and you know when you you you’re working and you’re mindless and you just have to get up kind of distract yourself and you go to the refrigerator so I’ll take a little square from the chocolate and it like does the trick and
I you know whatever my wandering to distract myself to get I’ll get something to eat it’s the perfect thing and it’s so powerful that you feel like done I’m I’m good you and that’s the key you don’t need very much to give yourself that hit of of Health power yeah that’s the
That’s the other thing that I think is really important to remember you don’t we never want to eat too much of anything even good things things you moderation is really the key to life you mentioned tea that’s also in my pantry yeah I love tea uh green tea is one of
My favorites um one of the things that was really interesting is that um we did a study assuming to look at the Cancer fighting Power of of of tea and we assumed that green tea would of course be better we also assumed that Japanese tea would be better than any other green
Tea it turned out we learned all kinds of surprises first of all surprise is that matcha which is a Japanese powdered tea it’s a whole Tea Leaf powdered that’s great is really powerful because you get the dietary fiber from the entire Leaf good for your gut health and
And by the way uh people in England have actually studied this turns out that matcha in the lab kills breast cancer stem cells these are the tiny stem cells that that can help the breast cancer come back we don’t have a medicine we don’t have a
Drug uh out there that can actually do that but Mother Nature um has it uh that we can actually in the form of matcha it’s really quite we looked at Japanese CA we looked at um Chinese Jasmine te both quite powerful yeah we found that when you when you blend those two tees
Together now culturally you would never find a Japanese team blender working withes but I’m just telling you we live you know we live in a new world of creativity right yeah we’re we’re Global Community you mix them together our research shows you get 1 plus one equals
Three you get synergism you get an even more powerful effect and then what we found that was really surprising because we had assumed that black teas would not be that good for you because they’re oxidized and oh all the stuff must be good stuff must be gone wrong
Pray you know which is a traditional English really really powerful for your circulation helps mobilize your stem cells for regeneration and then here’s like a jaw-dropper if you are a tea afficianado you may have heard of this te called poer P apostrophe e RH po it’s
Actually the name of a tiny village in in southwestern China um but this is a digestive tea it’s a smoky Ultra fermented tea and this this has been discovered to improve gut health by uh it’s a pro it’s a probiotic food because it actually contains its own healthy bacteria it’s called poyin so
It’s actually yeah I I I have heard of it the um you know the other good thing about matcha is especially the powdered and some of them come in little packets so it’s easy to use them is putting matcha in other things um really is a lot of fun too and
Um what do you put it in well you know what I I put it in I make a nut seed bread that’s not bread it’s just nuts and seeds and you know psyllium holding it all together and I I love bread but I’ve replaced my my you know hunger for bread with this
Bread it is so dense and Rich and filled with nutrition and when you toast it it’s beyond you can have it frozen in the freezer for a long time but I I I put it in I put matcha in there too and it gives it just a little with the nuts
And the seeds it just gives it this little Edge that’s really nice and um but I think creative people can take that powder and put it into smoothies and everything I mean it’s a given but I I I love the the fact that all teas really have this potent benefit uh it’s
Great that you expanded that that that idea of tea is it’s really wonderful I I have um a tea blend for sleep that um really works for some reason um it’s sort of a typical uh blend of the The Usual Suspects in tea and then I have just amped up the
Tea um that I’ve done for friends of mine a lot of these high powerered people that travel and are on planes all the time and they can’t sleep so I’ve been giving it to them and it’s working so I’ve I’ve just amped It Up by putting in these French lavender buds that
Are beautiful and the tea smells like you know the best Lavender in from France and you in 30 minutes you are out and you have this great night’s sleep and the scent just smelling it while you’re while you’re in that I need to go to sleep mode is really great teas are
Tees are really quite special I I I love I love that you Blended sort of this um the lavender there because lavender actually has been studied as well there’s a chemical in it called paralal it’s kind of a natural alcohol but it actually has been shown in the lab to
Actually cause relaxation it causes your cortisol levels to actually fall it causes your adrenaline levels to fall so it makes total sense and by the way I did some research this past summer I went to um salt which is a tiny little village in Peron and I was out in the
Lavender Fields you know the bees are buzzing around and and you’re in the middle of this thing and actually you’re relaxed just walking just being there just being there it relaxes you so again you know this is sort of this tyin from nature and laer by the way obviously
It’s you know Wonderful when it’s fresh but most people don’t spend time uh you know wandering around Lavender Fields uh but you can get a dry and that can be your pantry as well I think we probably hit 10 but uh we could we could probably
Keep on going no I but I you know what I I just really uh appreciate your take on it and the background about each and the the value of each um you know I would love to go back to the angio Genesis part of your introduction I I don’t
Think we know enough about that and you really are you know a lot about it so can you give us some um information about the what you know you’re looking at when when it comes to Health in that way and what we should know yeah well
Look um you know angiogenesis is how our body grows blood vessels and our circulation I mentioned really are represent the highways and byways for health when our blood vessels are healthy we all the rest of our body can be healthy when our blood vessels are sick not a chance that we can actually
Have complete Health all right and so that’s how important our blood vessels are in fact the other reason they’re important is that they’re one it’s the first organ in our body our circulation to form so when your dad’s sperm met your mom’s egg and they got together and
Formed a little ball of cells and those cells started to become the future you the first organ that gets formed that you can recognize is your circulation that’s like Numero Uno thing that we formed at the very beginning of life so that tells you how important it this this particular set the function
Actually is of bringing blood flow um the uh circulation uh is also quite amazing you need to have there’s a lining of our blood vessels so if you think about like a um um a dress that you’re making you’re going to line it with something often right and so blood
Vessels are created the same way um there’s an outer casing and that’s what we would see if you saw a blood vessel but there’s an inner lining that is very very satiny smooth so smooth it’s like um like an ice skating rink after the Zamboni cleaned it up and so you can
Actually very smoothly that lining is really important because there’s blood cells that float through there and they need to be able to float good flow good blood flow is good health now when you actually have damage to that lining it’s like having a rip or tear in the lining
Of your of your of your outfit you know it can snag on something and the snag in your bloodstream that snags on are blood cells or platelets that can cause clotting and when your blood clots you can have a stroke you can have a pulmonar embolis you can have a heart
Attack it’s dangerous and in fact one the things we’re be beginning to discover now is that coid um you know with this crazy thing we just went through in some people can damage the lining of their blood vessels damages that slip which is why we start seeing higher rates of unexpected heart disease
And stroke heart attacks in some people fortunately not most people however this lining is incredibly important to preserve so what are the things that we can do to help preserve that lining well obviously um regular exercise is important um lowering stress puts less stress on that lining high stress you
Know when your blood is pumping hard because you’re worried anxious pissed off it causes sheer stress it’s like taking sandpaper over that slip lining it’s going to rough it up and that’s going to be trouble for you later on so that’s why chilling out finding ways to chill is actually really important sleep
Also critical because when we’re sleeping our stem cells help to rebuild damaged lining of the blood vessels as well so we want to get good quality state but food is really really important so there F certain uh foods that can help you rebuild the lining blueberries help us rebuild the lining
Of our blood vessels very important for um Health kiwis do that as well uh the uh stuff that’s in leafy greens um broccoli bok choy uh broccoli rub uh cabbage it all actually helps to Reign it chocolate the dark cacao the dark chocolate cacao helps us Reign our blood
Vessels tea also helps us reface you know like like these the substances in these foods are like that Zamboni that is on the ice skating for for those people listening who aren’t familiar with this if you ever got if You’ ever been ice skating in your life you know
That when at at the beginning of the session the ice is completely smooth and you can throw a sweater across the uh rink and it’ll go all the way across the other end but after you get 20 30 100 people skating on it for you know like
At in Rockefeller Center after like an hour of it what will happen is that the I is all roughed up now if you throw a sweater it just stays right there so what happens is you have a little truck called Zamboni that comes up it’s it’s
Heated and it melts the surface to keep it nice and smooth all over again and that’s what the foods that we can eat can do they can help our circulation get smooth once again now that’s just the lining of the blood vessels our body uses our blood vessels as a health
Defense system so not too many not too few blood vessels but just a r amount to feed all of our organs if you don’t have enough blood vessels enough blood flow your wounds won’t heal if you have surgery or cut it just won’t heal this is a problem people who get older with
Diabetes it’s also um an issue that can cause heart attack or stroke or organ damage now um so what do we want to do we want to eat foods that can help to nurture more blood vessels to help our body grow more where it needs to it’s
Kind of like putting grass seed onto a golf course or a country club in order to make that lawn look perfectly smooth our body can do that um and foods can actually make it grow even faster so what are some of those foods that can actually do it barley can actually help
Um apples an apple peel can actually if you eat fruit peel it can help our blood vessels grow where it needs to and because our body’s smart it will never allow more blood vessels to grow when you you use food than it needs it it
Just keeps it right where it is okay on the other hand there are certain diseases that are very very diabolical cancer being one of them and in with cancer uh look we form cancers in our body all the time and our immune system take wipes them out so we never it never
Never is a problem but occasionally a tiny little cancer cell will hijack our blood supply because without a blood supply it can’t grow it’s about it can only get to the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen without a blood supply once it hijacks blood vessels and I
Studied this in an angiogenesis lab the tumor can grow 16,000 times in just two weeks it is literally a trigger that explosive trigger for tumor growth so our body wants to naturally starve cancers by cutting off the blood supply foods can do it as well what are some of the foods
We talked about some of them already tomatoes green tea broccoli uh strawberries U blueberries can all dark chocolate can all help starve cancer by cutting off the blood supply what is that like well we talked about the country club you know youve got too many the grass is growing too high in some
Areas um it’s like too many blood vessels uh in the club they would just mow the lawn and keep get it right back to where it needs to our body will mow the lawn so there’s any extra blood vessels it will trim them down starve the cancer naturally however we can eat
Foods that can boost that big time and this is what I was talking about looking at that combination of green tea Japanese and and Jasmine tea uh the black teas all of them can actually help your body achieve this effect and so coffee in the morning is good for a
Wakeup slow down cellular aging good for anti-inflammation good for your metabolism flip over to tea it’s a little Kinder gentler sort of on the brain and on the nerves and now you’re actually doing cancer starving uh and also um relining the circulation and this is what the field of androgenesis
Is all about how do we keep that Natural Balance of blood flow so that we can actually be healthy our whole lives yeah that’s a that’s that’s a really um helpful visual um I I have a a quick question on um so in my office uh in the past two weeks
We have had a good amount of coid and today uh one department just called inpc and so you know I’ve heard um different things about uh people who were taking vitamin D3 in good quantities might have had a little Edge and certain things but what from a a food perspective I mean other
Than the basic immune boosting is there anything that I mean maybe it’s nothing but is there any any insight EMP power ourselves uh with yeah well look anything that boosts our immune system helps us resist any type of infection Invaders from the outside so yeah being one of them but we’re also in
Flu season in the fall we’re also you know there’s colds in the winter and so let’s just kind of be General about this to say first how do we actually raise the shields overall blueberries by the way is an excellent way of raising our immunity while lowering inflammation
Because infections that we get from viruses will cause um not only the the the the organism to get into our body but it causes inflammation so blueberries Just A Fistful of blueberries a day in the morning however you have it is a great way to actually get stronger in fact it’s been shown
Even in athletes it improves their immune system here I I have a hack blue yeah yeah yeah so I have blueberries every day I’m I love them I uh but I highly recommend looking for organic frozen blueberries and if you have Frozen in the refrigerator you can use them in smoothies everything and
Even sometimes I just put them a frozen ones in a little cup and suck on the frozen berries yummy with a little bit of the chocolate by the way is like a great dessert treat that is perfect but frozen blueberries organic in the freezer all the time you’re good what a
Great suggestion Nora and by the way here’s the other thing that people should know about Frozen uh Foods when it comes to the polyphenols that are really good that activate your health body’s Health defenses improve your metabolism most of the frozen foods that you would actually get um really have their nutrients
Preserved and the reason is they they’re picked and Flash Frozen and actually they’re they’re they’re locked in you know you talked about the fridge they’re they’re locked in um in a away even fres transort transported them and put them in a plane and they they’re dying they’re they’re dying so by the
Time they get to whatever your favorite stores and they’re dying on these on these tables it’s like it’s like the they’re just dying every day and just getting them flash frozen like you said it’s if if you have a if you have a farmers market you’ll find blueberries
Come out in the summer and then they’re they’re not they’re picked fresh and they’re they don’t travel very far yeah but the but the blueberry the frozen blueberry hack the organic one is phenomenal tip organic more the good stuff because you know it’s more grown
In nature um uh it it’s flash frozen so the nutrients are locked in and they’re also less expensive so you can actually you know have them more affordable for a lot yeah I use them for everything they’re really great yeah so um what can you so uh on
The coid thing then um basically do the tees and all of the things you talked about because that’s what now is in everybody’s pantry and they they’re going to just be fortified by what they have in the house and stay away from should like maybe stay away from
Sugars that are obviously not healthy and some sugars in um dried fruits are a little intense and maybe not so great yeah now listen we started this podcast talking about you know we wanted to talk about good things but um you know you had said what about the things that get
Removed uh to leave the good things well look let’s talk about that while we were talking about in you know protecting yourself from infection yeah it turns out that many of the harmful things the things that are not so good the things that you don’t really want in your house
If you snack on them outside once in a while you know go for it but spend most of your time um building up your defenses you you you can take a hit every now and then it’s not a big deal yeah but here’s the thing added sugar artificial preservatives artificial coloring artificial flavoring
These Ultra processed products that you find in so many foods that you just have all you have to do is look at the ingredient label on the side of the box or the bag and it you it will reveal itself to you you don’t want to have those because they’ve been shown to
Lower your defenses lower your immunity and the way that it does this is by uh picking off your gut microbiome these substances including artificial sweeners not just added sugar but even a spart tame saccharin all those things they kill our healthy gut bacteria and by the way remember we talked about the gut
Bacteria makes your brain release all these social hormones is it any wonder why if you eat a lot of sugar you’re just in a bad mood crappy mood you’re not feeling good your brain’s changed yeah and and and the question is you know you talk about Halloween candy and Halloween’s
Coming up and we’re poisoning all of these kids that are coming around like it’s terrible that that parents aren’t just protesting un you know you know what would be great and maybe you and I will hatch this as an idea you know how they did the Ice Bucket Challenge uh for
ALS yeah we should actually do a Halloween Challenge and and and and find Health you know challenge people to put to give away healthy foods uh for Halloween for the neighborhood because you know we’re all sending a message that um there are better choices to be made by the grown-ups that actually
Teach kids what’s good for you so let’s let’s make let’s get some suggestions so if some kids are coming to your house what would you have ready for them you know um I think uh tree nuts little Tre little bags of tree nuts like or or trail mix got to check it
Carefully it doesn’t actually have lots of additives and stuff in there sugar um I think if we could find small giveaway packs of uh like the kind of stuff they give you on an airplane yeah um that’s actually a good way to put something in
That they can snack on and it’s tasty um same thing little bags of dried fruit that aren’t sweeten raisins and yeah raisins cranberries they even have little things of blueberries now little packets those that’s a way of conveying that sweetness you know that little sweet hit that people want um but also
Having something that is giving more good stuff to their body you know we probably uh uh don’t send that message strongly enough which is you know uh uh dried fruits when they’re properly done and not eating too much of it it’s wonderful way to actually build gut
Health as well yeah and and figs and dates are you know they’re really they have nutritional value again dried the whole yeah dried figs amazing cutting them up and putting them into salads are really great but I think kids really um I I I make um um sweet potato
Ice cream and without without cream and um and blueberry ice cream and I do it with almond milk and you know just whip it up and create this thing you put it in the freezer and put stuff on it and kids when they don’t know if you say
It’s ice cream and it tastes really good and you have nuts and goodies on top even little crumple pieces of chocolate it’s it’s just changing sort of the type of the amount of sugar they’re experiencing the type of sugar right yeah yeah so what what is a a a longevity hack you
Feel is probably the most important uh um that you can think of right now I can think of a couple of them uh I will start with one fundamental one and I’ll go to a food one I think staying Physically Active is very very important take the stairs and instead of the
Elevator depending on how tall how far up you live um go for a walk after dinner every day you don’t need to work out have a trainer go to the gym you if you just took 30 minutes after dinner and walked around the block or even around your house that over the decades
Actually pays itself off because use it or lose it we need our muscles to be strong as we get older that’s one of the things that happens in as people age as they their muscles start to get thinner and weaker keep them up and you need
Protein along with that as well um the other thing I would say is uh really kind of a uh uh talked about coffee slowing down cellular aging anything you can do to kind of slow down that natural process is good you know it’s kind of adds adds seconds seconds minutes hours
And and months to your life look that’s every every little bit counts and then I’ll tell you a little hack that I actually use myself skip a skip a couple a few meals every week skip a breakfast a couple of times a week skip a lunch a couple of
Times a week you know if you have enough you can even skip a dinner and the reason is caloric restriction and I’m not really hardcore biohacking about per but you know what honestly if you don’t feel like you need to eat breakfast skip it why is that good for aging well un
Decreasing the amount of calories allows your metabolism to reset and the program for aging to reset itself every little bit where you give just unpack unload that engine allows you to reserve a little bit more energy and spring back to be a little bit more youthful so not
A big deal listen um when I was training in medical school Nora I can’t tell you the number of breakfasts I’d skip because I was just too much in a hurry yeah right or you I’m sure listen in your world you’ve been so busy I’m sure
Yeah right yeah and I actually um if if anybody listening uh wants the recipe to nut seed bread that’s one of my uh hacks because what I’ll do is I don’t I’m so busy during the day and um I’ll have maybe a smoothie in the morning or uh or
A coffee or tea but then I’ll have two slices of the nut seed bread and it’s so filling that that’s all I’ll have until maybe I have sardines the you know that bit of sardines and I I feel completely full I don’t feel hungry and
Uh I think nut seed bread is a great way to eat a little bit and get enough sort of satisfaction and not stress out your digestion by having a meal for lunch and breakfast and it’s like too much but a little bit and there’s pelium Husk in
There so it’s great to keep you regular and sort of another thing that’s really helpful I agree with you on not being strict about it but using your judgment on so how often do you think you you kind of skip meals in a week I skip uh
Probably I would say two or three times I’m not I’m not uh I’m not an enforcer about it it’s kind of natural to me depends on my schedule uh I often you know when the meal I skip is breakfast a lot of times it gives my body a little
Extra time overnight to reset my metabolism get my gut my immune system in shape um and uh and I I don’t notice it the key if you’re actually skipping a meal is not to overeat afterwards right but I but I do I think what happens is doing it a few times
Becomes uh comfortable and then you’re you already know what that experience is like and that it’s not not so difficult to do um so any I’m I’m so thrilled this was great and so informative and if you want to give us some final statement about what you’re doing or something
That is really out of the box that you’re you’ve been exploring we would love to hear it and and and again this has been so much fun thank you yeah no it’s been a real pleasure Norma it’s an honor to be on your podcast and people who are interested in learning more
About the work I do in food as medicine please come to my we website Dr Dr William le.com that’s my handle as well Dr William Lee I offer free master classes uh I do all kinds of social postings of when I’m traveling when I’m doing research you know practical stuff that
Um I want people to see you know how I do it and if I can share a little bit of my practices that you know you might resonate with uh that that makes that’s part of my mission and then for people that are really ready to kind of make a
Commitment I teach um an online course it’s called e to be disease course it’s a deep dive for a month you can find it on my website or my social um but listen my my whole thing is to be able to convince people that science is teaching
Us you can love your food to love your health at the same time yeah awesome thank you so much Dr Lee this has been