As you will soon discover, I believe that flavor equals nutrition; seeking out and enhancing flavor almost invariably leads to the enhancing of nutrient value. If you understand this concept, then it’s no great leap to suggest that chefs are the original nutritionists and that the approach of gifted chefs is the same approach we should take as nutritionists and consumers of nutritional information.

The first thing you will notice is more mental energy—usually within the first few days. As I tell my patients who elect to embark on this healing journey, the real you

toxic substances present in our food that are incompatible with normal genetic function: sugars and vegetable oils.

Epigenetic translates to “upon the gene.” Epigenetic researchers study how our own genes react to our behavior, and they’ve found that just about everything we eat, think, breathe, or do can, directly or indirectly, trickle down to touch the gene and affect its performance in some way.

epigenetic researchers working all over the world suggests that the majority of people’s medical problems do not come from inherited mutations, as previously thought, but rather from harmful environmental factors that force good genes to behave badly, by switching them on and off at the wrong time.

genes work fine until disturbed. External forces that disturb the normal ebb and flow of genetic function can be broken into two broad categories: toxins and nutrient imbalances.

most powerful class of gene-regulating factors: food.

Our genes make their day-to-day decisions based on chemical information they receive from the food we eat, information encoded in our food and carried from that food item’s original source, a microenvironment of land or sea.

We get sick because our genes didn’t get what they were expecting, one too many times.

Medical school doesn’t teach doctors to address the root of the problem. It teaches doctors to treat the problem. It’s a practical science with practical aims.

To pursue my dream of preventing harm, the best I could do was practice “preventive medicine,” and the best place to do this was within the specialty of primary care.

the healthiest family members are, in many cases, the oldest, raised on foods vastly different from those being fed to their great-grandchildren.

But because healthy genes, like healthy people, can perform well under difficult conditions for a finite amount of time, there is, in effect, a delay in the system.

This variability in our ancestors’ ability to safeguard their genetic wealth is the reason why today we have so many people wishing for better health, better looks, greater athleticism, and all the manifold benefits of healthy genes.

It is of interest that the diets of the primitive groups … have all provided a nutrition containing at least four times these minimum [mineral] requirements; whereas the displacing nutrition of commerce, consisting largely of white-flour products, sugar, polished rice, jams [nutritionally equivalent to fruit juice], canned goods, and vegetable fats, have invariably failed to provide even the minimum requirements.

Hang around backstage at any professional sporting event where trainers are trying to maintain an athlete’s ability to function and you hear words like symmetry, balance, and stability floated around as these professionals discuss how one small asymmetry in physiology or motion has the potential to work its way up the “kinetic chain” leading to secondary imbalances that can disable a player for weeks or months.

At the core of the mathematical principles of beauty lay a set of numbers named after the Italian who first discovered it in the eleventh century—the Fibonacci Sequence.

Take a walk through a garden, in the woods, or on a beach, and you’ll see all kinds of pretty things. If you look a bit closer, you’ll notice patterns—curves, whorls, spirals, even repeating numbers. What’s behind this? A new discipline, called biomathematics, is all about answering that question.

Cognition is what mathematicians would call an emergent property. Emergence refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.

Sugar and vegetable oils act like chemical static that blocks the signals our bodies need to run our metabolisms smoothly.

Height. Pour more milk.

Vision. Look for lots of variety.

It also suggests that the children with normal vision may have been more physically active.

Cognitive development. Skip starchy snacks.

the higher that child’s IQ later in childhood.184 Additionally, cognition has been shown to be impaired by a “snacky pattern” of eating high-carb foods “characterized by foods that require minimum preparation

Including fermented foods in a child’s diet and encouraging outdoor play would be my preferred methods of introducing immune-boosting probiotics.

Puberty. Avoid insulin resistance. Junk food consumption and being overweight are both associated with insulin resistance.

You can get off the sugar and vegetable oils that would block your child’s genetic potential. That means cutting out processed food, fast food, junk food, and soda.

To avoid getting lost in conflicting nutritional paradigms, think like a chef.

Access to nature is the real source of genetic wealth.

To us food is primarily a fuel, a source of energy, and sometimes a source of guilty pleasure. To people who remain connected to their culinary origins, food is so much more.

Good Fats These traditional fats can handle the heat involved in processing or cooking.   Olive oil Peanut oil Butter (Yes, butter!) Macadamia nut oil Coconut oil Animal fats (lard, tallow) Palm oil Any artisanally produced unrefined oil

Margarine

Nuts (Oily nuts only. Raw or dry roasted nuts are good for you, but read labels carefully.)

Crackers and chips

Soft breads, buns, and most store-bought muffins

For the purposes of cooking, we want to pick the kinds of fats that can take heat. On that count, saturated fats (present in butter, coconut oil, lard, and traditional fats) win hands down.

Olive oil, palm oil, and other oils that are good for us (see here) have mostly saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, which are not so fragile.

Traditional cooking methods often make nutrients more bioavailable and are, for that reason, anti-inflammatory.

Eliminating these oils will enable symptoms of all sorts of brain disorders to improve, from autism to Alzheimer’s.

There are five specific kinds of foods you should eat to optimize brain health.

My conclusion: get your omega-3 fix from real foods, like sushi, oysters, grass-fed butter, raw nuts (especially walnuts) and seeds, and lots of green leafy vegetables.

On a whole-foods diet rich in flavor-intense vegetables, herbs, and spices, you can be assured your body is flush with all manner of antioxidants—those we know and those we have yet to discover.

Switch out the canola oil dressing for an olive oil alternative.

If you want to make yourself a batch of home-fries, make sure it’s either peanut oil or (if you can afford it) duck fat, and that you change the oil after every couple uses.

The other takeaway from all this is that since flavor-intense vegetables tend to be great sources of antioxidants and cooking diminishes antioxidant content, just about everyone could benefit by having more fresh, raw veggies in their diet.

Does this make me want to grab energy drinks, energy bars, and fruit juices out of people’s hands?

Meat on the bone Fermented and sprouted foods Organs and other “nasty bits” Fresh, unadulterated plant and animal products To our palates,

Start with eating something fresh once every day. And work your way up to using foods from two or more categories daily.

it’s food that’s been awakened by the process of fermentation (a kind of controlled rotting), sprouting (germination of a seed), or both.

Vegetarians in particular will benefit from these two potent methodologies for enhancing nutrition because getting adequate protein is more challenging on a plant-based diet since even the most protein-rich plants also contain a good deal of blood-sugar–elevating carbohydrate,

When we eat yogurt, real pickles, real sauerkraut—or any food containing living cultures—our digestive juices attack and destroy many of the

bread made from sprouted wheat (or other grains) is your best bet.

You can sprout any kind of seed you want, from kidney beans to wheat berries and more. Simply put some into a jar, cover with water, then cover with a bug-proof cloth and, in anywhere from one to four days, the seeds will start to germinate. On day two, drain and rinse the seeds to be sure to wash any mold spores away.

You can tell once they’ve awakened because you’ll see a tiny white rootlet begin to take form. That’s the point at which it’s ready to be used as a vitamin-rich

If you can’t find sprouted grain breads, the next best thing is sourdough.

Omega-3 brain builder: 15

Sources: cream and butter (better if raw) from grass-fed

Plant sources include raw flax, chia seeds, and walnuts.

Omega-6 brain builder:

Sources: egg yolk (poached or sunny side up), cheese, butter (whether grass-fed or not), raw or sprouted sunflower seeds, walnuts, edamame.

Sources: colorful fresh vegetables eaten raw, fermented, or gently steamed, baby greens, celery, bell peppers, carrots, red and green

cabbage, onions, garlic, cilantro, parsley and other fresh herbs, vegetable condiments like kimchee, pickles, sauerkraut, and pickled vegetables.

Sources: raw or sprouted sunflower seeds, wheat germ, spinach, almonds, pistachios, avocado, soybeans, broccoli, shrimp, and herring.

Sources: beef, lamb, chicken, pork, clams, tuna, mussels, cheese, eggs, soybeans, kamut, split peas.

Vitamin C: to repair glutathione. Sources: bell peppers, guava, kale, kiwi, broccoli, oranges, strawberries, peas, papaya, tomatoes.

Turns out, weight gain and loss isn’t so much about energy as it is about information.

Paradoxically, not enough and too much fat can cause many of the same problems: “Fatless mice are prone to insulin insensitivity, glucose

To successfully avoid eating oxidized fats, you must avoid all foods containing vegetable oils.

Eating foods like butter, cream, and coconut oil can protect against some of the worst effects of oxidation and can actually help you lose weight.

To Avoid Inflammation, Keep Total Daily Sugar Intake Under 100 Grams

So if some fat cells were once cells in preferable kinds of tissues, how can we order them to go back? One of the most effective ways to send that kind of message is with exercise.

If you’re overweight, your body is almost certainly suffering under a constant state of low-level inflammation.

The reluctance of your body to permit fat cells to undergo apoptosis means that if you never exercise properly (see below), though you restrict your calories, your fat tissues never receive the chemical memo that more cells are needed in another department, and so the fat cells stay put.

The lesson here is that hunger is not the way to reshape your body. In Hawaii, the surfers have a saying: “Never fight the ocean.”

Day one: eat two eggs cooked in 2 tablespoons of butter for breakfast and see if you’re hungry by lunch.

And that’s the word I want you to keep in mind, retraining.

But in order for exercise to contribute as much as it can, you have to know how to get the most out of your workout.

But unless your workout makes your lungs work harder and makes you break a sweat, you aren’t doing aerobic exercise; you’re just breathing.

This level of workout demands your concentration. Yoga instructors call it mindfulness.

If you’re running, focus on really filling your lungs.

A good walk, as with any exercise, works out more than your legs, and you get a better workout if you are conscious of your body’s balanced involvement in contra-body action.

Paying attention to how your muscles react helps you to hone the technique of whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish. That’s thinking like an athlete, and it really does make any exercise more fun.

She avoids inflammation by staying away from artificial fats and sugar—giving into none of those buffet-table temptations and steering clear of vegetable oil dressings and the sugary juices that could damage her nerves—so she’s as sharp and feisty as ever.

The combination of cutting sweets while adding butter or cream (or some other natural fat) is extremely effective.

For those who don’t have a sweet tooth to conquer, it’s the reduction of fake, pro-inflammatory fats and excessive hormone-disrupting carbs that makes a big difference in their health.

Drink a minimum of 64 ounces of water daily.

Instead of soda, drink ice-cold sparkling water with a lemon wedge, herbal tea, or kombucha. For best results, do not snack.

Consider sleep and movement as priorities.