Cardiologist's BEST Foods for Heart Health!

Welcome to Plant-Based News. I've got a great guest with me today, Dr. Columbus Batiste, and we're going to do 25 quick questions. How are you doing? I'm great. I'm great. Let's go. Let's go. Okay. If you had to recommend one plant-based food to improve heart health, what would it be? Green leafy vegetables. What's your go-to snack when you want to eat healthy and quick? Roasted chickpeas. I like that. What's your favorite way to de-stress after a day at work? Exercise. What is your favorite recommendation for vegan kids? Smoothies, soups, and salads. What is the healthiest canned food you think you can buy in those places where there's limited availability of fresh foods? Salt-free beans. If you could only eat one fruit for the rest of your life, what would you choose? Blueberries. If you could make one health food completely free for all the communities that you like to support, what would it be? Oh, wow. That's a good one. One health food completely free. I'm going to say smoothie packets is what I would make. Smoothie packets free. I can see your point, because I think you're thinking about what you're very person-centered, what they're going to enjoy. Exactly. Unlimited smoothies on every corner in every shop. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. I'm going to that place. I'm going to run it. I'm good. I'll put the smoothies. I'm a smoothie professional. That's good. Stress management, yoga or walking? I'm going to say outdoor walking. What goes in your heart-strong smoothie? Oh, that's great. It's going to be almond milk. It's unsweetened. It's kale. Frozen kale. It's berry mixture. Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries are the key things there. I just blend it up. Post-workout, I'll add in some soft silken tofu. Here's the key. Here's the key. Because it's frozen and no added ice, it makes it creamy and thick like ice cream, because remember, I'm a sugarholic. Now I can eat it in a smoothie bowl like it's in that way. What is the most common misconception you come across around plant-based diets? No protein. Which vegetable do you think everyone should eat more of to improve their heart health? I always say green leafy vegetables, and so I mean that from kale, bok choy, mustards, collards, because of dietary nitrates. Why dietary nitrates? Dietary nitrates. You actually can help dilate the vessels and help your endothelium. Then when you get that walk outside, the sunlight, just the amount of sunlight, can release it to the stores underneath your skin, which can help lower the blood pressure even more so. That's amazing. Isn't this nutrition body thing fascinating? I love it. I love it. I love it. You eat the greens, you store these dietary nitrates, which then release when you walk in the sun to dilate your vessels. Yes. Okay. That sounds like a good thing to happen. All-in or gradual transition from standard American to plant-based diet? For me, all-in. For patients, depends on your personality. What is one blood marker that people should monitor who are trying to improve heart health and they've gone from standard American to plant-based diet? Is there something they should be watching? So I'm going to go C-reactive protein, the marker of inflammation and predictive of adverse cardiac events. I'm going to say A-protein B, which is a marker of your bad cholesterol, the cholesterol that's most atherogenic. And the third one is not one that's as easily modifiable, but it's LP, lipoprotein A, are all markers that everyone should know. Okay. I will do my homework after this call. One book besides your own that you think everyone should read about health, stress, and plant-based diet? So my favorite one for stress is, I will say, The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. I love that book. I think it's incredible. Gosh, you're going to get me either in trouble with people if I talk about another plant-based book because colleagues and friends out there who have a book, you're trying to get me in trouble by that. So I'll say to mix everything together, I'll say any one of Dean Ornish's books will combine from a historical perspective, the impact of stress, the impact of nutrition, the impact of exercise in terms of health promotion. I'll say that as an over-sweeping marker that's there. Okay. And everyone is going to be happy. What's a surprising food that's great for heart health? I'm going to take a stab and say this. It may or may not be as surprising. I'm going to say tofu, that people may or may not realize that tofu is great for the heart. I think I'm surprised. I more think of it just like getting protein. I only recently fell in love with tofu because I hadn't made a whole video about this. But even as a vegan, I got brainwashed that tofu is unhealthy. And it was when I made a video about it, I realized, oh, wow, it's actually a really healthy food. And you're now adding in, it's also good for the heart. Yeah. Go tofu. That's right. So I'm going to say a little truth moment too, as well. I despised tofu until probably about five years ago. Not from a health perspective, from a taste perspective, until I was able to really refine the process. And now I'm sold. I think we're all soy boys here. If you could spend one day with a historical figure in health, who would it be? Oh, that's deep. I love this. Look at you. Look at you. Oh, my goodness. Oh, let's see here. I'm going to give you two names. I want to say Dick Gregory because of the comedic aspect of it and his social activism and being a vegan too, as well. But I'm actually going to go back a little bit further from a pure transformative standpoint in Nathan Pritikin. The convergence of his awareness of heart disease at the same time that President Dwight Eisenhower developed heart disease in 1955 and the trajectories were so different in terms of what he was able to develop and advance and the research he did without any training, without being a medical physician, was just so inspiring. And we all think of just our current luminaries and we forget about Nathan Pritikin and the impact he had in changing the whole direction in terms of nutritional research. So I would love to engage in his mind and seeing during that process and that journey. That's a great answer. What's one heart health myth that you wish people would stop believing? Oh, okay. That soy and tofu is bad for you. I think that's an easy one. That's a low-hanging fruit right there. What is your favorite activity when you want to be really selfish, after obviously the selfish in your book? I think probably my most selfish activity is going away to my happy vacation spot where the internet reception is really bad and I can just sit all day and do nothing, get on the boat, do nothing at all and not feel guilty for doing nothing. Great. What's your favorite plant-based meal you've had abroad? I'm probably going to say the one that stands out from a flavor standpoint is going to be in Jamaica. I had some jerk vegan foods and plantains and rice and peas and it was just, I had not really had that before and it was amazing. It was amazing. It sounds it. It sounds it. Okay, last one. What's your number one tip for living a long, healthy life? Besides get selfish? Get selfish. I think that's your answer. You wrote it down in the book. I actually did, yes. All right, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much. This has been really fun. I really appreciate it. Thank you. This is great.