Are You Eating Veggies Wrong? How Cooking Impacts Health & Longevity | Dr. Fuhrman Answers

What do you think about cooking food versus the raw food? Some people advocate a raw food, vegan or vegetarian diet, and I've heard you talk about how cooking changes things. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes. I mean, cooking, and as you know, I recommend a diet that includes a lot of raw food and also some cooked food as well, because most people are aware that it's unhealthy to eat beans not well-cooked. Beans need to be well-cooked, and even certain mushrooms have a mild... like the agaris family of mushrooms, which is the white button and the portobello and the cremini and the regular basic mushroom, the agaritine is high until you cook it. And so the agaritine is somewhat of a mild carcinogen. It's better to have a lower level of those. So some of these things are better off cooked than raw, particularly beans and mushrooms. And also, when we're cooking some green vegetables like broccoli, it increases usually the volume of greens people can eat and lowers the glycemic load of their diet, meaning that most people on raw food diets to get enough calories are eating excessive amounts of fruit, and the excessive amount of fruit makes their diet not as protein-rich as they age. So how do you eat calories in raw food? You eat some raw green vegetables, but your stomach maxes out because it takes up so much room, and then you feel somewhat need it for calories. So you've got to get some fruit in there or avocado or nuts to get enough calories, because you're not eating the beans and the squash. So the diet becomes a little bit more imbalanced. You get more nutritional variety, more green vegetable and bean consumption, and higher levels of protein per kilogram body mass when you include some cooked vegetables in your diet. And we know there's a dose-dependent relationship between green vegetable consumption and longevity. So we actually are able to comfortably enjoy eating more green vegetables. We cook some asparagus, cook some artichokes, cook some broccoli, and even edamame is cooked, and soybeans are cooked, which add good quality protein to the diet as well. What are your thoughts on people who might be intolerant to some foods, like there's a FODMAPS way of eating where certain cruciferous vegetables create digestive distress? It's rare that a person has to eliminate all the FODMAPS anyway, and it usually reflects some degree of other issues that are affecting their digestive negatively, like poor nutrition, overeating, not chewing well enough. The first thing we address when people have digestive impairment is eat less food and chew it much better, making sure that you are so mindful that every mouthful is completely liquefied and thoroughly mixed with saliva, so you feel like no particles are passing down your throat. It's only liquid passing down your throat. And you wouldn't believe how that takes care of, like, 90% of the problems right off the bat. They stop overeating, they start eating, chewing better, and half the problems are gone. And then, you know, people have allergies and food sensitivities, of course, but as they develop better and better health, those things usually improve. And we can do oral tolerance therapy over time. I usually wait a year or at least a year of getting them in better health first. And then once they're in better health and a better immune function, better nutrient density, then you can do oral tolerance therapy where you give them, like, a very teeny amount of their offending substance, you know, every day or three times a day. Might be, like, if they're allergic to sunflower seeds, it could be, you know, a half of one sunflower seed in a quart of water, and you're just taking a couple of drops of water from that quart. You're taking a homeopathic dose of that sunflower seed material, but you're gradually increasing it every day, you know what I mean? And we get them to—it's just like when people say they can't digest beans. Well, I tell them, why don't you have a teaspoon of beans at every meal, every single meal, not once a day, three times a day, a little bit of bean, and let's build you up to the level you can tolerate at each meal, like two teaspoons of beans, or even eventually in a month, a tablespoon of beans with each meal. And you'd be surprised. And in six months, they would be able to eat a half a cup of beans at one time with no problems because they learned how to handle, digest, and build up the bacteria to digest beans better and build up a better functioning body for better functioning digestion. So in most cases, we can fix the digestive impairments. Yeah, I think that's brilliant. I was once had it described to me as, if you imagine someone's taking down a building, they start with a wrecking ball, and they go in with the pneumatic drills, and then finally they might come in with a chisel and hammers. And that's like our digestive system, the teeth are like the wrecking ball. But if you get the construction crew to turn up to take down a skyscraper with chisels and hammers, they're not going to be able to do it. And that's like, when you don't chew your food, it goes straight into your digestive system, and it's overwhelming for it. Yeah, and nobody chews enough. You know, nobody chews really well. So it's so, because especially they're used to eating foods that don't require being chewed. They're eating like cottage cheese and eggs and things like that, where you can just sour cream and yogurts with sweeteners. It's food that you just suck down your throat, you know, without chewing practically. So they're not used to highly chewing things and really keeping in their mouth for a long time as it liquefies. So that retraining takes away half the digestive problems right off the bat.