The Power of Food: How Our Diet Plays a Role in Maintaining Optimal Health – with Max Lugavere

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, we’re gonna just jump right into this. So let me just start off by thanking you for for coming to my podcast. I appreciate you having me on yours. Thank

Max Lugavere  

you so much for having me. It’s an honor. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

And you know, it’s really funny. Since I’ve been out in the world talking about fasting, whenever I talk about food, people like, Oh, you, you, you think of food. And in this highway, like you actually talk about food. And it’s like, I don’t think of them as polar opposites. I actually think of them as complements to each other. So when I dove into your research, which I’ve been following you for years, and your appreciation of food, and the way that you’ve used food is healing. I’m, that is such a beautiful marriage to what I’m trying to educate the world on fasting. So I want to start off with with like, how did you even get involved in the art of food and the healing power of food?

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, for me, I mean, my why it all comes back to my mom. And, you know, I didn’t go to medical school, I’m not a medical, I never misrepresent myself. I think that’s the most important thing here. It’s that I’m, I’ve always been incredibly transparent and honest. And I aspire to always be that way about my my intentions and how I landed here on your show, and it for me, it goes back to the fact that my mom at a young age was diagnosed with a rare form of dementia called Lewy body dementia. And I didn’t have dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, none of those terms in my lexicon. At that time, I had always been interested in fitness and nutrition and supplementation from more of a body composition standpoint. And I did start college on a pre med track, that’s just, you know, to indicate how, or to illustrate how passionate about those topics I was. But ultimately, I thought my you know, my, that ship had sailed for me, I ended up becoming a journalist and working in the United States on a TV network that was owned by Al Gore. For many years, I did that. And then in my personal life, in around the year 2011, my mom started to show the earliest symptoms of this of this niche form of dementia, and I was in between jobs at the moment. And so that gave me the ability to go with her to different doctor’s appointments. And I’m also the oldest child in the family. I’m the firstborn, I’ve always had an incredibly close with relationship with my mom. And so I started going with her to doctor’s visits. Because you know, and we talked about this, when you were on my show, when you are sick, you are thrust into a hyper vigilant fight or flight state. And for somebody who’s like, not really that well versed in health and kind of not, you know, not not native to the internet, like my mom was. It’s a very frustrating and alienated place to live. Yeah. And it becomes hard to advocate for yourself. And, and also people I think of, you know, I’m, I’m a millennial, I think, I think my generation in particular, feels very empowered to question authority and to, quote unquote, do one’s own research, but my mom’s generation, like the I don’t think that was the case for the average person. And so when you when a when a, you know, a woman of the baby boomer generation presents to a doctor and they get a diagnosis. That’s it. I mean, that’s like gospel, you know, the advice from the doctor is gospel, right, as long as they have those credentials after their after their name. And I’m not I’m not, you know, writing off doctors are the practice of medicine, nothing like that. But it was a very scary place for her to be. And so I started going with her as her wing person. And we were we went from doctor’s visit to doctor’s visit, really not getting any clear sense of a diagnosis. And we actually had to take a trip to the Cleveland Clinic. And that was where for the first time she was prescribed drugs for both Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Oh, wow. And that was a incredibly traumatic week. For me, it was the first time in my life I’d ever had a panic attack. And her health continued to decline over the years, and she passed away in 2018. Seeing that seeing how unwell she was, and really experiencing true sickness, I mean, to me, there’s, there’s no greater motivating force in the world, to try to understand everything you possibly can about the diet and lifestyle factors that might have predisposed her to that. So it was at once to understand to see if there’s anything from a therapeutic standpoint that could be done to help her but then also, I realized and this is, of course, not something that any doctor brought up. I thankfully had the the the foresight to recognize that I now for the first time had a risk factor myself and so it became about prevention. Like I could very easily develop what it wasn’t my mom developed and I didn’t want that to happen. So I just went down a research rabbit hole and I started reading anything that I could get my hands on research paper after research paper, I was like, you know, losing sleep every night, you know, all nighters diving into PubMed going down various rabbit holes, cross referencing, and I’m, you know, I didn’t take the academic route. So at first it was very difficult, but reading and reading and reading and reading and then ultimately having the ability because of my journalistic background. to reach out to scientists all around the world, I mean, it’s given me exposure to this field in a way that very few people have. And also the, the ability to see it from a 30,000 foot view. Because, you know, like medical doctors, they’re really these days, like, you know, a lot of their education goes into pharmacology, and PhDs, you know, they study on these really like, niche areas of of science, which, you know, we need both right, but for me, I was just coming at this like, Okay, well, what do I need to do? Like what like, what are the high level like, clinical pearls that I can integrate into my life that are going to help me, you know, batten down the hatches and improve my odds so as not to develop potentially not to develop what it is that you developed? And so that’s really what it becomes like, the focus can’t became for me. And then the more I would learn, the more I would feel compelled to share? Yeah. So that’s pretty much the journey.

Dr. Mindy  

It’s funny. You just gave me a new perspective, because we were talking on your podcast about, you know, how do you put a health puzzle together? What I just heard is that you approach it like a journalist. Yeah. Like, okay, and what how would a journalist approach a health plan is that they gotta gather all the facts before they can put a story together? 100%? Yeah, it’s a really smart way. Because what to your to your mom, you know, what you said about your mom, we we definitely have a culture where you go in, and then you just dump all your symptoms on your doctor. And the almighty doctor tells you that the issue Yeah, and what we need to change to as you solving your own health puzzle, but you just gave me some context of let’s do it from the journalistic lens.

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, 100%, especially for these kinds of chronic non communicable conditions. I was gonna say lifestyle mediated, you know, I think I think there is a large proportion of you no dementia, certainly just generalized cognitive decline, possibly Alzheimer’s disease, I’m not going to speak for these more rare forms of dementia, because we just have so little research and more research needs to be done. These kinds of conditions need to be approached from that standpoint. On the other hand, my father just had a total knee replacement on one knee, that’s the kind of condition where you go to a doctor, they do a, you know, they do an MRI, they do an x ray, they see what needs to happen. They go in, they perform that kind of miracle surgery, yes, for that patient, right. And then it’s like, it’s like, from one day to the next. Yep. You know, you have a new knee, you’re walking around. That’s not the case that and I’m so grateful for that, of course. But that’s not the case for these kinds of like conditions that take years, if not decades to form it, you know,

Dr. Mindy  

so what would you say in all your research is the root of dementia, would you discover?

Max Lugavere  

Well, there are there are myriad risk factors. These are multifactorial conditions. And, you know, I think that from a from a dietary standpoint, I think the same it’s really not to overly simplified, but the same factors that are driving the epidemic of obesity, of type two diabetes, have metabolic dysfunction, maybe even have autoimmunity have allergies are contributing to, you know, to these conditions. I mean, we know that type two diabetes is a well recognized risk factor. If you have if you’re a type two diabetic, your risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease increases between two and fourfold. We know that obesity is a major problem, particularly visceral obesity. I mean, you came on my show, and you were talking so brilliantly about the role of cortisol, you know, in our health chronically elevated cortisol, and we know that, you know, the detrimental effect that cortisol can have, when chronically elevated on brain structures like the hippocampus. Yeah, hypertension, that’s another huge hypertension is massive. Yeah, one of the seminal studies we use in the field of dementia prevention is the sprint mind trial, which has shown that when people are and this is using a pharmacologic agent, when people are aggressively treated for their hypertension, they see a dramatic risk reduction for mild cognitive impairment. But we know that diet and lifestyle, particularly actually exercise can mediate blood pressure, we know that exercise is as effective as drugs with regard to reducing high blood pressure. Yeah. So yeah, also, I mean, these are all these are all modifiable risk factor. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

I just heard. Do you know Dr. Annette baz, she does, she has a big YouTube channel, and she’s an internist. She and I have done a lot of collaboration together on just trying to get metabolic health to the world. So I was talking to her yesterday, and she brought to my attention that they’re actually now showing that the hippocampus pie of our teenage generation is shrinking because of our dietary processed foods. Well, that it’s literally you can think about the brain as being soaked in sugar and soaked in and in that as the brain is developing. The hippocampus is not developing to the same size as you and I or as our parents because of the processed food world. The ramifications of that she went on to say that There were three major pieces to that, that when your hippocampus high or your hippocampus actually starts to shrink, your reaction to stress changes, so you become less resilient, resilient, you of course, your your memory as you experienced, you know, with your mom’s with dementia is going to be off and your moods are going to be off. So when we look at the, the the extent in which bad food has on our brain health, whether you’re 16, or you’re 65. To me, this is what has to end this has to stop, we have to change that. And so I’m curious in as you started to create a new food plan for your mom, what were some of the hallmarks? And then, you know, what did you see in her ability to communicate with you? Oh,

Max Lugavere  

yeah. So I mean, the first thing that I think is really important for people to understand is that dementia, and particularly Alzheimer’s disease, just because we have the most research there, these are conditions that don’t, that don’t begin overnight. These are these take decades to manifest. And so my expectation for changing my mom’s diet, and then seeing some kind of, like, dramatic improvement in her symptomology I had to, I had to curb my enthusiasm there. And, and, and also, you know, I don’t want to say that I know for sure that it was my mom’s diet, like, we, you could do everything right and still develop them. I don’t want to, like minimize the fact that these are very complicated conditions. And, you know, we don’t know everything and and I don’t want to, like victim blame or anything like that, you know, but I did try to you know, improve my mom’s diet in accordance with what I was learning at the time so I you know, I got rid of as best as I could the refined grain products and you know, I swapped you know, some of the more unhealthy oils for like healthy fats, which, you know, my mom loves to cook so having a good extra virgin olive oil. It’s like, that’s like an easy swap to make.

Dr. Mindy  

Yes, oils are actually I always say if you if I came into your house, and I swapped out all your oils, like you wouldn’t even know Yeah, you wouldn’t even know so easy.

Max Lugavere  

But I grew up you know, I grew up like during that era where fat was demonized, and certainly my mom was a product of that generation were in my fridge as a child, we had margarine, we had corn oil by the stove, we had all these fats that we don’t, I mean, without I don’t even have to make any kind of crazy claims, which I wouldn’t do anyway. But like, we don’t know, the long term effect is a mass public experiment like Israel didn’t exist in the in the human food supply prior to 100 years ago, right. So we don’t know the effect of a chronic lifetime exposure to these highly easily oxidizable oils that they have on the brain, we have like, we have a sense of what they do to on one axis have one biomarker, and that’s why they seem to get the green light from the medical establishment, right, like LDL, cholesterol, ALP, all that stuff. But the brain is made of fat. And so the kinds of fats we eat, I think are highly relevant to the brain. You don’t even have to be a neuroscientist to know that.

Dr. Mindy  

Right? Yet, the majority of the population doesn’t know what you just said. Right? But yeah, why? I mean, that’s where, you know, I find that we have to scream this from the rooftops because the doctors aren’t necessary. Some are, but the system is not necessarily supporting something like, why don’t you change your fats? You know, you’re not we’re not getting being told what to do. We’re being told what we have, but not how do we get out of it? Yeah. So I’m curious when you change, like processed foods, like the carbohydrate load? How did you deal with that? Because that’s a tricky one. When we look at getting away from the breads, and the pastas, and the cakes, and the cookies Was that was that a heart? Those are all

Max Lugavere  

the foods of my mom loved and, and you know, growing up, I love them too. But you have to you have to lead by example. And you a person lives the way that they want to live. And it became clear to me I became, at the very beginning, I will admit, I became a bit of a zealot in my house, and and try to like, get rid of all these foods. But I realized very early on, first of all, well, a few things. dietary change is hard. dietary change is hard, harder for somebody with dementia, dietary change for somebody with dementia, who is also developing, or at least, you know, is further developing a sweet tooth because that’s what they actually early on in the course of Alzheimer’s disease. You actually like you start to crave sweeter foods. And so that made it even even more difficult. Why do you think that is? Well, because one thing that accompanies Alzheimer’s disease is a feature in the brain called hypo metabolism, glucose hypometabolism. So the brain basically struggles to generate ATP from glucose. And so it’s thought we don’t know but it’s thought that this is sort of like the brains way of screaming out for sugar, right? It’s become like resistant its ability to generate ATP from from glucose has been preserved. herbed most people on the standard American diet are not allowing their bodies in any real capacity to enter ketosis ketones. I mean, the the most relevant aspect of the ketogenic diet is that ketones provide an alternate fuel to the brain that the brain will happily oxidize. That’s right when present, like in circulation up to 60% of the brain’s energy needs can be furnished by ketone bodies, right? But if you’re not in ketosis, and You Your brain is struggling with with Hypo metabolism, then it’s it’s like dying for fuel essentially, that’s that’s, that’s that’s the story.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, it’s you know, that’s the same thing with obesity. It’s so it’s insulin resistance in the brain or the body when we look at those two, two examples of of prevalence of conditions. Like somebody who’s obese and is insulin resistant, their cells are actually starving. Yeah, yeah, they’re eating all day long. Right. And so I’m thinking the same thing with Alzheimer’s and dementia, as you’ve got starving cells that are not even when you are eating those, that nourishment is not getting into the cell. So I look at the ketone as the detour is it kind of like a rat or a roundabout where we can get even though the the brain needs half of the fuel source to come from ketones as we’re trying to change the brain’s addiction to sugar and the situation where it’s insulin resistant? Can ketones become that go to source that gets the person starting to make better choices for themselves?

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, well, that’s the idea. That’s the idea. That’s the reason why there’s a medical food that’s been approved by the FDA called X Sona, which is essentially a ketone, an exogenous ketone supplement based on medium chain triglyceride fats. The work of Mary Newport is Mary Newports, a physician who anybody with Alzheimer’s in the family, and, you know, spends a lot of time on the internet probably has come across her work, she famously started giving her husband her late husband, Steve, medium chain triglycerides, and saw anecdotally a marked improvement in his cognition as he was descending down the Alzheimer’s path. And so yeah, that is the idea that ketones can sort of keep the lights on in the metabolically ailing brain, because the brain, the brain’s ability to use key ketone bodies is unperturbed, whereas its ability to use glucose is greatly diminished. And so if you’re not providing the brain ketones, and your brain is not able to generate the energy that it needs, but the issue is, well, first of all, all the clinical research on this has been short term. And, you know, we see there’s, there’s some glimmer of hope in the research, I will say that but, you know, once Alzheimer’s, particularly in the advanced stages has progressed, you’ve got this amyloid burden in the brain that’s contributing to the inflammation. There’s the you know, the the rampant oxidative stress, there are all these like factors that like layer one on top of another that just make it you know, it’s a really difficult, like, it’s not a cure, you know, but I think particularly early on in the course, there is a glimmer of hope that that ketones can, can help which then, you know, I mean, supports this, this the mechanism like the like the understanding of like where Alzheimer’s disease comes from. And so the latest sort of, or more more progressive thinking about it, outside of the, the predominant amyloid hypothesis that has guided pharmaceutical inquiry for the drug for the condition for the past couple of decades. It’s that it’s a it’s a condition that’s largely metabolic in origin, which I think checks out with so many aspects with so many other, you know, of the kinds of conditions that we see now burdening modern society.

Dr. Mindy  

You think that’s accepted right now? That’s that’s the way doctors are presenting it to new dementia and Alzheimer’s as a metabolic. Yeah, as a metabolic.

Max Lugavere  

No, no, it’s not. I mean, I think it started as a as a sort of niche focus for clinicians. And I think it’s, that’s that’s growing, largely because the amyloid hypothesis has been such a failure. Right. And we see we’ve seen that a lot of the data, especially over the last 16 years that that hypothesis has been built on was I mean, fraudulent. I don’t know if you caught that. There was a an article, it was an expo a in Science Magazine, that one of the seminal papers published in Nature, that further cemented amyloid as like the cause of Alzheimer’s disease was built on fraud. It was like this fraudulent Wow. But yeah, the amyloid it’s like it’s a very druggable concept. It’s the same it’s for the brain. The analogy would be cholesterol that like cholesterol is is evil thing and we just have to like reduce the cholesterol drug, you know, to like take statins and whatever and, and that cholesterol is the cause of, of atherosclerosis sclerosis, right? Like, the the, it’s like a perfect analogy. This amyloid hypothesis, it’s a druggable it’s a boogeyman that we can target and say amyloid is the cause. And we can create a drug we can create like these monoclonal antibodies that can reduce amyloid but the problem is that What seems to be the case is that amyloid is there, it’s at the scene of the crime, we see these plaques in the brains of cadavers that have died from Alzheimer’s disease. But what’s the question that that has always needed to be asked? First, is what’s causing it to be there, right. And so maybe it’s the hypo metabolism, maybe it’s inflammation wrought by chronically high blood pressure, and like, you know, like little micro strokes that occur in the vasculature that supplies energy to the brain, there’s all these other you know, maybe it’s like viral, there’s work being done out of Rudy, tansy, his lab at Harvard that, you know, shows that at least in vitro, amyloid aggregates around the herpes virus when you expose the herpes virus to Yeah, to the brain’s immune cells, that they start to upregulate production of this, like amyloid precursor protein. So, yeah, there’s all these questions. But um, but I think because of the abject failure that has been this amyloid hypothesis, we’ve looked, researchers have rightfully looked to set to ask, like, I’ve asked, like, what’s causing amyloid? And so there’s metabolic theory, some of called a Type three diabetes? Yeah, yeah, that’s been sort of like the the new growing kind of like, cadre of scientists that are now like, looking at that, which I think is very hopeful.

Dr. Mindy  

And what also is surprising, well or not, is that it happens to women more than men. Yeah. Did you find anything along your path as to why that is? Well,

Max Lugavere  

as you know, I mean, estrogen is seems to be protective. And then in the post menopause setting, it’s like the rug gets pulled out from from, you know, beneath your feet, essentially. And so that change, like that change seems to be problematic from the standpoint of the brain.

Dr. Mindy  

Was your mom on HRT?

Max Lugavere  

She does not know she was actually always afraid of that. Yeah, we didn’t know much about it.

Dr. Mindy  

Well, that in this is like, hot topic, news that just came out in the last like week or two, the New York Times put out a huge article saying that menopausal women are really struggling mentally right now. And they believe a lot of it is because of the study that came out showing that HRT actually made you more prevalent for breast cancer and ovarian cancer. But now to your point on like how we’re revisiting Alzheimer’s and dementia, we’re unpacking that study, and we’re seeing, wait a second, that was oral, that was an oral take HRT. But if we put a patch on, now, we have a different response when we look at the patch, and then they’re also looking at the sample size and saying, Wait, we did this on women who are well into their menopausal years looking at this. But if we catch women, usually in that transitional year between where they go from no from having a period to no period, or we catch him recently into menopause, using HRT as a tool, the outcomes are much different. So I think what I’m learning from just chatting with you right now is like, we’re just revisiting all this stuff that we said we’re absolutes are going wait a second, we need more resources we have and mental health coming out of the pandemic has been such a focus all aspects of it. But now we’re zoning in on the menopausal woman and St. Gosh, she’s suffering the most what do we need to revisit?

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. And I don’t know if this connection has been made to dementia yet. But I was recently looking at obesity statistics. In this country, I think around the time when that when that physician made the claim that obesity was largely genetic, because, you know, our genes haven’t changed over the past 50 years, but obesity has nonetheless tripled. So that I mean, that argument that obesity is genetic to me just doesn’t hold any water. But what was interesting, and if I recall correctly, I believe this is the case that earlier on in life, men are at higher risk of obesity, but later later in life, you see a lot more obesity in women. And so I wonder if it’s because, you know, there, I think there is some evidence that, you know, women tend to eat or like men’s and women’s diets tend to be different. And women tend to eat a lot more like sugary foods and like green or refined grain products and things like that. Yeah. And so I don’t know that in the context of menopause when, you know, estrogen, you know, you’re you’re becoming more insulin, insulin resistant. Estrogen, what is normally protective, right? Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

protects, you have the most amount of estrogen in your prefrontal cortex receptor sites, and your hippocampus and amygdala. So when that’s gone, that’s what’s protecting those two parts of the brain when it’s gone. Yeah, you’re left with like, a wide open wound.

Max Lugavere  

Yeah. So I mean, I’m just I’m just speculating, but maybe it’s like that kind of dietary pattern that sort of, you know, high sugar dietary guide, and particularly in the context of the postmenopausal women, woman, you know, might I don’t know pull the trigger, so to say, Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

the other interesting part and I’m sure you’ve seen this in your research is what part the microbiome plays in in in regulating blood sugar.

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, I mean, everybody’s different. That’s the thing. There was that seminal study that came out a couple of years ago that sent shockwaves down through the metabolic health community because it seemed to be the case that, you know, like a glucose curve isn’t necessarily a glucose curve, like you could you know, somebody with a with a different microbial signature in their gut could eat the same. The same high sugar bolus, I forget whether it was like white bread, they always use the weirdest foods. Yeah, rice or like, you know, or like orange juice they

Unknown Speaker  

use like orange juice, yeah, like that. Something like

Max Lugavere  

that. But like, could elicit dramatically different blood sugar curves, you know, person to person, even in the context of metabolic health. And so yeah, it seems to be the case of the microbiome plays a large a large role there.

Dr. Mindy  

Do you believe in the glycemic index?

Max Lugavere  

Um, no, I mean, I think like, you know, in the, in the context of like, a mixed meal, it has, you know, less relevance than when you’re eating a food in isolation, which is, which people don’t often do I think the more relevant marker to look at is like glycemic load, you know, just the sum total amount of like glucose yield that a food or meal will will give you but I yeah, I don’t know. I have I have like, you know, mixed feelings. I think, I think there definitely is value to minimizing glycemic variability just for if for no other reason, then it’s we see from the data that like your hunger is better like your your subjective feelings of like hunger is better when you’re when you minimize glycemic variability. We also see the very high sugar boluses have blood pressure implications, which we know is not good transient. Well, you know, they’ve, they’ve shown that actually a high sugar bolus can elevate systolic blood pressure for two hours and can reduce testosterone for two hours crazy, they use like these oral glucose tolerance tests, which are like you know, 75 gram glucose boluses, which is not you know, most people are not going around chugging like 75 grams of glucose in one sitting but we do tend to consume that amount of added sugar every day, your average adult. So you know, I do think like from the standpoint of like, I’m, I’m, I’m very interested in like fitness and weightlifting, and I think resist resistance training is super, super important. And I think that there is value like, I’m not anti glucose, I’m not anti carbs, I think there’s value to great to carbohydrates, great when it comes to like, exercise performance, you know, yeah, I actually, I mean, this is definitely a little off topic, but I, I recently have begun, I don’t like count calories or anything like that, but and I eat in accordance with like, the parameters of like, the foods that I know are most optimal for my for my brain and body, but I recently like, decided to, like, see what it would take to like, lose a little bit of like, body fat, just like cut, you know, six or seven pounds of like, pure fat, right? As like an interesting experiment. And one of the ways that I that I found was very effective for me to do it is and this is like controversial, because I feel like when most people hear me talking about this, they’re probably like, oh, did you like dramatically cut the carbs? Well, actually, I kept my carbs pretty static. And I cut a lot of the added oils and fats in my in my diet. I’m not it’s by no means like, did I adopt like a low fat diet, I’m still getting plenty of fat from like animal products and red meat that I think is like super, super nourishing and important. But the thing about fat that’s really interesting. For I’m speaking like temporarily for like, just like a brief little like in the in the bodybuilding fitness world. Like we call this a cut. So this is like not like, meant to necessarily be long term, but like fat is extremely added fat is extremely calorie dense, you know, you get the same amount of calories in a tablespoon of olive oil that you do in a whole apple and the apple is gonna be way more sushi. Yeah, for sure. You know, then like a tablespoon of oil. It’s also like from a satiety standpoint, protein and fiber, you know, if you keep your protein and fiber up fat doesn’t really you know, lend a ton of, of satiety benefit. And then also it’s like, it’s carbs, not fat that support your exercise performance, right, you know, from like the standpoint of the glycogen that you store. And so it was really interesting for me to just like titrate down a little bit the dietary fat that I was eating and I saw like actually a big like improvement in like my body composition.

Dr. Mindy  

Do you think we became fat, a little fat obsessed when we became keto obsessed? Like,

Max Lugavere  

I think you’re right.

Dr. Mindy  

I think we thought the door and the ketogenic energy system was fat.

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, I think you’re right. I think like, rightfully a lot of us were just like, really, P owed about the demonization of fat for so many years. And then so what you ended up seeing was like this like the pendulum swinging, swinging in the opposite direction where suddenly like everybody was like eating high fat fat bombs people were pouring oil on everything and butter on everything, which like, I’m very pro olive oil and I’m even pro butter I enjoy I really enjoy butter. But yeah, it’s just it. That doesn’t make a ton of sense either. And I think like what’s important about like, keto is that what determines whether or not you’re in ketosis is not necessarily how much fat you’re eating, like where insulin is, right? It’s like it’s the lack of exogenous glucose. That turns up ketone production in the body. It’s not that you’re eating so much fat, you know, like you, you go into ketosis when you’re fasted, right?

Dr. Mindy  

You’re not eating anything. Yeah,

Max Lugavere  

there you go. Yeah. So um, so yeah, it’s been really interesting to like, kind of even challenge my own biases in that regard, you know?

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, I think we’re fat became this hero is it stabilized blood sugar. So then we were able to move into this ketogenic energy system much easier. So even if we put fat like the Zone diet, you remember the Zone Diet? Yeah, it was like put fat with everything, and it stops the glucose spike. And what that allowed us to do, we didn’t realize is it also allowed us to switch in and out of these two entered metabolic energy systems that we have. So but then everybody was like, Oh, I just need fat all the time. I should just eat that. And then we ended up with a consequence of that to your point. Yeah. 100%. So yeah, one thing that’s really interesting about your story around your mom, is that you turned to food primarily to heal her. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. And then you in in the genius kitchen, which is a great cookbook, by the way, I really did enjoy the I love a cookbook that teaches me in the front end of it. And then it gives me all the recipes at the back end. So and when I read it, I actually was like, Oh, my gosh, I didn’t It’s this books need to get to everybody. Because you you lay out like, here’s what you need to know about dairy. Here’s what you need to know about the fats. Here’s what you need to know about spices and vinegar. It’s just so well said. But what you did that shifted my perspective is you had this idea that we are culinary, illiterate, we are food illiterate. So when you look at a conversation like we’re having right now, my brain goes to, well, how are we going to solve that problem? Because we can’t just stand up and go eat this not that we got to get you to understand food, we got to get you to understand the ingredients, and then we got to teach you how to frickin cook it. How are we going to solve that problem?

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, well, I mean, back when I started the journey with my mom, I was really frustrated by the lack of health literacy that that I had that she had. And over time, as my mom continued to decline, it became clear that one of our favorite pastimes together, one of our favorite ways to bond cooking together, became difficult to do. And so I had to take the that mantle in my house, I took the reigns for for being the sort of, you know, the head chef of my house, so to speak. And I realized at that point that that culinary literacy was something that I was lacking as well. And, you know, like, I think it’s important for people to realize that our hunter gatherer ancestors had to be self sufficient, at a certain point in our human true trajectory. We, this notion of specialization became the way that that, you know, society was built, right, we we became, we went from being like, you know, hunter gatherers, to being settlers and we domesticate started domesticating animals and crops at that point. But we’ve lost something in that process. Yeah. And so, you know, now we outsource, I mean, we outsource our financial literacy, right? Like, I mean, every time tax season comes around, I’m like, I don’t know what I’m doing, you know, I have to pay somebody to help me, like, get us a handle, you know, on this as a small business owner. And, and it’s just incredibly frustrating. And culinary literacy has, like, there’s so there’s so many aspects of like life that we just like, outsource, and we don’t think anything about it. But just knowing how to cook, like, even the most basic things, I mean, it’s so empowering. First of all, there’s something really ancient about knowing how to write, like, knowing how to cook like a steak, or a burger, or even a salad or, you know, like really basic things like met a good Mediterranean style cooking, which we know is associated with better, better health. I think it’s like, it doesn’t have to be difficult and yet, like, the dividends that it pays you to know how to just make simple things in the kitchen. So true. Like, it’s an expression of love, like, you know, when you were on my show you were talking about the value of like oxytocin right, and connections, like, there’s no better way than, like cooking for loved ones. Yeah, then you know, to boost oxytocin and it’s just like, to me like the the amount of value that I get from that. First of all, anything that you cook at home is going to be healthier than anything you get out at a restaurant even if it’s the exact same thing.

Dr. Mindy  

Explain that for a second because I think people don’t understand that because if even if I go to a high end, Michelin rated, you know, rated restaurant, I’m not guaranteed to get all clean ingredients. Yeah,

Max Lugavere  

well, this actually ties back into what I was talking about, about fat and like fat loss like it no matter like what restaurant you go to the vast jority of dishes that you get in a restaurant are going to be served with innumerable phantom useless calories because restaurants love to soak their food in oil and butter. Right. And the bad oils and the batter oils. Yeah, yeah, you’re probably not even getting butter, you’re probably getting like, you know, these unhealthy oils. Like I mean, fried foods are the obvious first worst offender. But like even roasted vegetables are usually covered in these unhealthy oils, right? So Tade, spinach, things like that, like, you’re in a restaurant, you’re just getting a ton of like, empty fat calories, essentially, you can make the same food at home. And you’re, you know, getting higher quality fats. Generally, like if you’re, you know, listening to your show or my podcasts or reading my books, like you know, to be using extra virgin olive oil which has a bounty of evidence on it on you know, speaking for its benefits, you’re gonna get you know, you have like greater control over the food quality like eating out in restaurants you know, it’s all going to be farmed salmon factory farmed meat for the most part, you know, you can you can have a little bit of control like and now it’s it’s easy and cheaper to or easier and cheaper to get high quality meat. You know, like I know even Walmart now has like grass fed right to get some berries. Yeah, it’s Yeah, I was at Target the other target. I was just gonna say you could find like lean, you know, grass fed grass finished ground beef organic to like, amazing.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. So but to the illiteracy part. And this is again, why I love the cookbook is that you break down well, what is grass fed? What is you know, like, we don’t have enough knowledge on that. So let’s use salmon as an example. Every time I go out to eat, I always ask is this wild or farm farm raised? Yeah. And most people aren’t doing that. They’re like, Oh, salmon, if they even got the connection, they’d be like omega threes. I need more omega threes. Let me eat salmon. But we aren’t asking about the quality of of that salmon, which makes going out even more dangerous? Because we don’t know. You have to dig deep to understand the quality of the ingredient you’re getting.

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, I mean, restaurants are known. The margins are paper thin at restaurants. So they cut corners, and they use you know, the quality is not amazing. But you know, I eat out. So I don’t I don’t want to it’s

Dr. Mindy  

full. Yeah, full transparency. Yeah, but I like my kitchen the

Max Lugavere  

best Yeah. 100%. So that’s kind of like a rule that I have for myself that maybe this is useful for your audience. Like, I take the to take the pressure off into not drive myself crazy and to enjoy the life, right? Like because that’s it has to be enjoyable. Like I don’t really, I don’t really, you know, I try to like go, you know, when I’m in restaurants, I’ll do the grilled meats and things like that. But when I’m the foods that I bring into my kitchen, like generally, I have like rules about that, like I want my beef to be grass fed grass finished, I want the salmon or whatever fish to be wild. You know, no grain and seed oils in my kitchen. Only extra virgin olive oil, butter, maybe some avocado oil, macadamia nut oil, these are all you know, very good options compared to, you know, the industrially refined refined oils. And I think that’s, that’s the way to do it to welcome high quality ingredients into your kitchen. Because when you have high quality ingredients, you see very clear very like you can easily see that it’s not about quantity. I think a lot of people especially novice chefs get like overwhelmed that like I’m gonna need all of these different like ingredients and it’s going to cost me an arm and a leg with a good high quality salt, pepper, garlic powder, extra virgin olive oil. I mean there’s so many things you could do right you know, like those are like literally the thing the staples that I use in my in my kitchen again and again and again and then it becomes like okay, is this gonna be am I going to cook beef tonight? Am I can be cooking chicken fish, you know, do I have like a bowl of greens to prepare? That’s it. And then you just use the same ingredients like you know, again and again. You don’t have to complicate things. I think that’s the problem is that many people like think that cooking has to be this complicated. Yes gastronomic experience. It doesn’t like Mediterranee. If you go to Mediterranean kitchens, the great Mediterranean kitchens of the world, they’re using, you know, a tiny quantity of ingredients. It’s just that the ingredients they’re using are very high quality,

Dr. Mindy  

oh my gosh, and and you don’t eat as much when they’re that high quality. It reminds me of my husband. I used to own a winery many years ago. And one of the things that we learned in the winemaking process is that really the art is picking the most amazing grape and not messing with it. Like trying to keep it in its full essence. Don’t put all the additives and all the things in there. Once you do that, you’ve changed this incredible thing that nature has provided you and you’ve you’ve manipulated it, which is going to change the taste, but it’s also going to change the way you feel when you’re drinking it or how you feel after it. And what I just heard in that is like let’s go back to just if you were setting up a kitchen today, let’s just get high quality ingredients in there that you’re going to use over and over again. You’re just not going to need a lot of them because they’re so high quality.

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, that’s it. I mean salt, some of the staples that I think are really important for any chef to have high quality salt And actually, I think it’s valuable to have there are three different kinds of salt that I think are very,

Unknown Speaker  

I was gonna say, who knows what high quality salt is? I can’t wait to hear what you’re gonna say. Yeah,

Max Lugavere  

I mean, I like sea salt. There’s a you know, some people will probably familiar with the studies that have shown that sea salts contain microplastics. You know, you can go for I like, I enjoy Real Salt, which is like from a company. I have no, no financial affiliation with them. But it’s like from a underground Utah, dehydrated Lake. But pink Himalayan pink salt, I think is a good option. But I use sea salt too. I think sea salt is, you know, still fine.

Dr. Mindy  

Why would you use iodized salt? Like, if I’m at like a restaurant, there’s a little salt shaker there. Yeah. Why would I not want to use that salt?

Max Lugavere  

Well, you know, I mean, the fact that it’s iodized, does provide a public health benefit. A lot of people don’t consume foods rich in iodine, we don’t eat much seaweed anymore. A lot of people are, you know, I mean, seafood can be cost prohibitive for many people. So iodine is really important. And we don’t want to, you know, we don’t want to foster iodine or encourage iodine deficiency. But iodized salt tends to have a bunch of like, anti caking agents in it dextrose things in it that generally like I don’t want to, you know, use in my house, you know, it’s like, that’s not, it’s not, it’s just too processed, right? I like would rather eat foods that are high in iodine then rely on like, you know, the, you know, some kind of like, industrially produced thing. But that’s not to say that like using a little bit here and there as bad or that like it hasn’t been a net positive for society, like it probably has been. But you know, I like in my house, I want to use like a higher quality salt and the salts that I really like to use, you’re not going to find them iodized, like, I love having a good flake salt on hand, like Mel Dawn, which is a brand you can find it anywhere. Zero financial affiliation, all the great. Like to me like you can’t have a steak without Mel Don salt. It’s like that crunchy finishing salt that you throw on. And that’s the whole point of it. It’s a finishing salt. You don’t use it to cook with. It’s hard to measure because the granules are so large and you know, and inconsistently shaped. That’s part of the appeal. Right? From a fishing standpoint. Yeah. Core salt and then find salt. Those are the two others.

Dr. Mindy  

So you, you you, I didn’t check your kitchen out when we came in. But I’m thinking you had a variety of salts. Yeah,

Max Lugavere  

got a variety of salt. Yeah, it’s generally a texture thing like fine salt is the easiest to measure. So you use that in recipes, right? Coarse salt salts, also known as kosher salt, is generally the best kind of salt to use to solve this to salt meat with to salt like a steak. It’s easy to basically create like an even distribution on the surface of meats with. And then flake salt is like you’re finishing salt. Yeah, ideally, you want to have all three in your kitchen. They’re not I mean, salt is not expensive.

Dr. Mindy  

No. So it changes the whole tastes. So it’s dramatic. Yeah,

Max Lugavere  

that finishing salt is actually one of the least expensive ways to really up level your cooking. Because it just like makes anything that you use it on, whether it’s eggs, or steak or fish or even like salad, it just like up levels, like the quality like the, you know, the sensory perception to taste everything. And it’s relatively inexpensive,

Dr. Mindy  

that where does spices because you also have a whole section on spices in there. And when we look at the going back the microbiome conversation and just putting this in the context of helping metabolic health that contributes to all these diseases. Spices are a prebiotic.

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, they are, they’re potent. I mean, spices are, they’re some of the most concentrated source of poly phenol, right. You know, you find them like very concentrated in spices, poly phenols. And these so called plants defend defense compounds that actually to us provide a hormetic benefit. They tend to have strong flavors, they tend to be bitter. And they’re bitter because I mean, they’re meant to ward off critters, like smaller, you know, prey from gnawing at the leaves of these plants, you know, that generate these compounds. But from a culinary standpoint, we enjoy that right? It actually it adds these very unique flavors. And that’s why a little goes a long way with regard to spices. Yeah. And so whether it’s oregano, tumeric garlic, like they’re rich in bioactive compounds, and the vast majority of these compounds, in fact, haven’t even been studied. You know, we just we just know that they’re beneficial. Yes, yeah, we just we know that they’re beneficial. People that eat spicier foods tend to have reduced risk of early mortality. We just know that there’s all kinds of bioactive compounds. I mean, there’s a lot of research on tumeric and how beneficial that is partly because of the curcumin that it contains, which is anti inflammatory. We know ginger is beneficial. We know garlic has been but you know, it’s like some researcher or some group somewhere has been able to find the money to study these unique compounds. But that’s not to say that one is healthier than the other. It’s just that you know, that’s where the research goes. So in general, you know, variety is key like it’s you can do a lot with a small handful of spices, but generally like spices in general, are very good. beneficial, whether it’s like, you know, cinnamon or cardamom, I mean, they all they are all bioactive and all probably have benefit to some degree antioxidant. And otherwise. The other

Dr. Mindy  

interesting thing I thought is that you put in there about vinegar. And I was like, Oh, nobody talks about vinegar. Like, you know, there’s a whole world of vinegar to understand just like to understand oil. Where do you use? I mean, I only think of vinegar when I think of a salad dressing. Yeah, my own salad dressings. Yeah, no,

Max Lugavere  

vinegar is amazing. I love like, all kinds of it’s one of my favorite flavors, so I had to pay homage to it in the book. Yeah, balsamic vinegar is great. It’s, um, made from grapes. It’s, you know, it’s got a little more sugar in it, but I don’t I don’t mind. I think that there’s benefits to the polyphenols that you get in balsamic vinegar that you won’t find elsewhere. Apple cider vinegar is great. White vinegar is useful. Generally, yeah, I mean, you can use it in salad dressings. You can also use vinegar and extra virgin olive oil as a topping for steak. It’s the it’s like a Tuscany method of like eating steak, a little bit of balsamic vinegar, a little bit of olive oil goes great to top a ribeye with or even like a leaner, you know, actually, probably, you probably want to use that with like a leaner steak to you know, the olive oil adds like a really nice, like, anxious flavor that you can like reduce it and like sauteed mushrooms in. I love to like make portobello mushrooms with a little bit balsamic vinegar. Yeah, there’s a there’s a ton of uses.

Dr. Mindy  

So again, when I we look at all of these ingredients, there’s like the taste upside. And then there’s the health upside. Yeah, so when I look at like, you know, we talked about sodium on your on your podcast, and the need for adding in sodium, and what it can do just for overall health and muscles, specifically, when we look at the spice when we know we’ve got to feed these microbiome so how are we doing it like most of the world has this monoculture of microbes that are adversely affecting them then we come over and we look at vinegar even though everything you’re saying is like Oh, incredible taste and how great that’s going to be on top of a steak. But we know things like apple cider vinegar are great for regulating blood sugar. And then we come over to the mushroom discussion. So this is my newest fast fascination because it did you see fantastic fungi. Yeah, so good. It’s so good and the visuals are so good, but what I think of when I’m eating mushrooms is that especially if it’s a good high quality like a Lion’s Mane mushroom we cook a lot with that is that it’s actually going into the brain and creating neurogenesis. Yeah,

Max Lugavere  

there was a new study I think it might have been in mice but I saw it pop up recently that you know, just further supporting Lion’s Mane as a neuro protective compound able to boost like nerve growth factor and and things like that. I love Lion’s Mane it has the texture of people haven’t tried fresh line. I mean you can get it as a supplement. But if you haven’t tried it as a fresh food it’s so good. And a lot of farmers markets now you can find it and as the texture and tastes almost of crap.

Dr. Mindy  

It’s big. For starters, it looks like a brain Yeah, do you do you believe in that theory that if a food like broccoli looks like a brain a walnut looks like a brain? Lion’s Mane looks like a brain Yeah, it does it

Unknown Speaker  

for it should be good for our brain.

Max Lugavere  

There was a man the name of that theory I forgot it was super interesting but yeah, like that things that look like one another benefit one another. I don’t know if there’s any if there’s any like scientific merit to that but I you know if it if it makes you more inclined to reach for these kinds of foods then like I’m all about it now. Like whatever whatever is gonna like help cement those those healthy habits. And yeah, lion’s mane is like it’s super tasty. It’s easy to integrate. Like people have this like misconception that health food either is boring or is bad, sensual. And it’s like that’s neither that’s couldn’t be further from the truth. Yeah, you know, like, to me, health food is delicious. Because like there’s this innate intelligence in the body, that when you’re eating something that’s good for your body, and brain like your body. Thanks, you. Thanks you either with like, you know, dopamine, like reward chemicals in the brain. Makes you feel better. Yep. After eating, you know, after eating the food, it’s like to me it’s like yeah, it’s like that’s like some of the that’s like the best aspect of like being a health aware eater.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, I liked what you said that I never thought of that as health aware eater because as you and I’ve talked about today, we all like to pick sides. I’m a vegan I’m a carnivore, I’m this I’m that. What’s your stance on variety of foods? Like do you feel like there’s one food style that’s, that’s best for the brain? Or is there certain ingredients you want to make sure you do every day for the brain and certain ingredients you don’t and whatever style that fits into go for it.

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, I would say that. Um, I definitely I think that, um, never He is best for the brain. I think that integrating both plant and animal products is ideal from a from a cognitive and mental health standpoint. I mean, people have different preferences about what animal products for example, they like some people have ethical reasons to avoid certain animal products. But for me, I think it’s it’s optimal to include a range of animal products and, and plant products, people are going to have differing sensitivities, allergies, and things like that. And so this is not an a one size fits all recommendation. But just some foods that I think are really beneficial from the standpoint of the brain. I mean, fatty fish, you can’t get around that the fact that like salmon, wild salmon has, you know, an abundance of Omega three is probably the most concentrated source of Omega threes, you know, in the modern supermarket that your average person is gonna have access to, I mean, that is a non trivial, like data point. So salmon, a lot of research on that. Yeah, a lot of research on that. I think the research now on on the, the potential cognitive benefits of grass fed grass, finished beef, or just beef in general, are starting to come out. I mean, for many decades, we’ve been told that beef is just bad, you know, that’s associated with every negative health outcome. But newer research is challenging that dogma. I mean, there was the neutral Rex consortium came out a couple years ago, that, you know, these experts this, this international panel of experts found that there’s no solid evidence to say like, there’s no convincing evidence to say that we should be reducing our red meat consumption. It like it didn’t consider the environment, it didn’t consider all of these external variables. All it did was look at the data on red meat and health. And so from a health standpoint, there’s no convincing data to say that we need to reduce our red meat consumption. Right?

Dr. Mindy  

Well, and so what do you say about something like The China Study?

Max Lugavere  

Well, there was the book, The China Study, study that the China study was based on, but both Well, the book was written by a well known person with a bias towards veganism from the standpoint of activism. And then the study was observational in nature. And so I wouldn’t hang my hat. On that, first of all, a it’s it’s old, like study. I mean, the timeline, which studies performed, I think, still has, especially if it’s observational in nature, has some bearing on but

Dr. Mindy  

it’s the lowest I mean, if we say on studies, observational is of the lowest validity. Yeah,

Max Lugavere  

because it’s not it can’t it can’t determine cause and effect. Right, right. So there’s that. And we have lots of other I mean, if there’s anything that you that, that, like nutrition research has shown us is that like, there’s the controversy tends to stem from the fact that all of these studies are equivocal. You can find a study to validate any perspective that you want to have, you can find studies that link red meat to cancer and heart disease, you can find studies that studies have studies that show that there’s no consistent relationship that red meat has with heart disease or cancer, right? And so how do you make sense of that? Well, you defer to reason, you know, these are the kinds of foods that are, you know, they’re not the identical kinds of foods that our ancestors ate, but they’re, they’re as close as we can reasonably get in them in the context of the standard food environment to the kind of diet our ancestors likely consumed during the vast majority of our of our evolution prior to the appearance of, you know, all of the kinds of chronic non communicable conditions that people are now struggling from.

Dr. Mindy  

What do you say to the person who wants to be vegan or plant based for ethical reasons? Is there anything nutritionally they’re they’re missing out on? If they’re if they’re taking meat out of their diet?

Max Lugavere  

Well, yeah, I mean, vitamin B. 12, is certainly, you know, a concern and most vegans, vegetarians will end up supplementing with vitamin B 12. But, you know, this is a conversation that I think like, it illustrates this concept of Nutritionism, where it’s like, we try to break down as humans, I mean, we try to like break down everything into its constituent parts so that we can better understand right, and I think that’s like one of the most amazing things about about human ingenuity, but I think it does us a disservice, particularly in the field of nutrition, because food is so there are so many compounds in food that we’ve co evolved with. And so trying to break food down to its constituent parts and say, Okay, if I cut out this entire food group, what are the nutrients that I’m going to need to replicate? You know, like that food group, what you end up getting are products like Soylent, which is like I don’t know if you’ve seen that. But it’s like this, like protein shake where these tech Silicon Valley types decided to see if they could recreate the perfect human food with just a couple of vitamins and minerals and protein and like recreating this completely synthetic thing, that they purport that you know, have all of the but to me that’s like that you’re setting yourself up for failure, right? We’ve evolved with food and we don’t know We there’s no way to know, right? Like all of the many compounds in those foods, that we are handicapping our bodies by suddenly removing from our diet completely, you

Dr. Mindy  

know, so you’re not going to be 3d printing any food anytime. So

Max Lugavere  

no, I don’t think so. I mean, like from from an essential nutrient standpoint, it’s vitamin B 12. Right, but and probably omega threes, we know that preformed omega threes, which you find only in animal products are the most ideal, right? And so vegans and vegetarians are probably well suited to supplement without, you know, algae oil, which is preformed DHA fat primarily, but there are all kinds of nutrients and animal products that are conditionally essential that we don’t know, you know, like we don’t know maybe it’s maybe creatine which is found in red meat and fish is beneficial to an aging population, particularly from the standpoint of brain health.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so creatine is interesting because I feel like creatine is making a comeback. Yeah, like everybody’s talking about creatine lately, at least maybe on my my social feeds. But I’m like, why are they talking about this? And now you’ve got me thinking that is it because we’re we are in a bit of a protein deficit world I think proteins making a comeback too. Yeah. But what do we need to know about creatine and why is it Why is everybody highlighting especially for brain health?

Max Lugavere  

So creatine is a we, we synthesize creatine endogenously. We make creatine in our own bodies, like red meat is rich and creatine, we are red meat. So we’re,

Unknown Speaker  

our meat is rich, or we dark or we like we’re red? Or like,

Max Lugavere  

if you were to like, you know, open up the human body, like we look like I mean, mammalian meat, like it’s read, you know, yeah. And so our muscle tissue is rich and creatine, which helps to support energy synthesis, particularly during high intensity, bouts of exercise or activity. But creatine is also a really important nutrient in the brain where it supports brain energy metabolism. And we see that people who are on vegan and vegetarian diets from, you know, granted, there’s not a ton of research on this. And the research that’s that’s there is, you know, the studies are kind of small, but that when vegans and vegetarians who who, you know, don’t ingest a lot of exogenous creatine supplement with creatine, they see an improvement in their cognitive function. Oh, so yeah. So it seems to be the case that, that it’s an conditionally essential nutrient that we don’t, we’re not going to develop a deficiency disease by not eating it, but that, you know, there are some aspects of our biology that are optimized. Yeah, seems to be the case when we ingest creatine from our food. Yeah, know that there’s a we know that there’s a performance there that there’s like a, you know, an ergogenic effect, meaning like, creatine augments exercise performance that’s well established. We know that it’s good for both men and women, you know, provided you’re you’re healthy, you know, like, If you’re healthy and you ingest creatine, you can expect to see an improvement in gym performance, right, you know, various indices of gym performance. It will usually coincides with a little bit of weight gain, but it’s, it’s, it’s drawn into the muscle, it doesn’t make you look bad. It’s like literally stronger.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. Do you think that there’s a difference the way the human body takes in the actual food itself? And something like, like if you took in? Well, back the lion’s mane conversation, if you took in the Lion’s Mane mushroom by itself in comparison to a supplement, does the human maybe it’s a microbiome issue? Does it take that in differently even though the chemical components of those are technically the same? Yeah,

Max Lugavere  

I would, I would surmise that the answer is yes. I mean, we have some some some data on various, you know, food compounds, but the food matrix, the food matrix matters, it’s one of the problems with Ultra processed foods is that these, you know, food, you know, these, these components of food are extracted from the food matrix recombined. And we see that ultra processed foods are, you know, one of the foundational aspects of the standard American diet that promotes obesity and type two diabetes, metabolic dysfunction and the like. And so, you know, what is what is so damaging about these ultra processed foods? It’s that it’s that it’s like, you know, it takes our bodies zero effort to assimilate, you’ve got all these like different food compounds that are extracted from the original matrix. And you know, in that food matrix, you get good stuff, you get fiber, you get water, like hydration, you get you know, protein you get, there’s so many there’s so many aspects of it, I mean, just the fiber alone, like you can eat like the you can eat like a honey crisp apple, which has, I don’t know 20 To 30 grams of sugar in it, right? The fact that it comes with the fiber and the water, that just slows the absorption rate, the sugar that’s in the apple, if you extract Apple sugar, you know, for example, in the case of Apple, apple juice, you’ve extracted the apple sugar from the fruit Would matrix and you see, you’re gonna see a much more dramatic, you know, blood sugar spike, it’s fructose, that the rate at which it hits the liver is much more accelerated. So we can’t

Dr. Mindy  

we can’t isolate nutrients is what I’m thinking is what you know, we can’t the more man manipulates it. Yeah, the more we risk not having the upside of the benefit of that food.

Max Lugavere  

Yeah. So you might potentially get a consequence. And then you might potentially miss out on the benefit, right? And the benefit sometimes is referred to as like the entourage effect, the entourage effect of these other aspects of food, right of the food matrix, right, that like there’s some benefit of consuming, like all of these different, you know, compounds alongside the compound in question that have like a synergistic effect. It’s not necessarily one plus one equals two anymore. It’s just one equals three. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

And so when we look at putting together the optimal brain health diet, we’ve got, we’ve talked about the oils, we’ve talked about the protein, what if I’m, what if I am a vegan? What if I am not having this protein? You know, what do I need to know outside of some of the things we’ve talked about, that I can lean into? Let me give an example. I interviewed a guy, Doug Evans, do you know Doug Evans?

Max Lugavere  

I do? Yes. He’s actually friend of mine. Yeah. Okay. So

Dr. Mindy  

you talked about the protein component of a sprout? We have,

Max Lugavere  

we definitely have divergent. Nutrition. Yeah, but I love Doug. No shades, Doug. He’s a he’s a, he’s a great man, great person. And I’m a huge fan of sprouts. But I do wonder where he’s getting all of his protein from I

Dr. Mindy  

actually, I actually tasked because I just brought him on the podcast. And I said, I can go for everything that you’re saying right now. But I want you to show me how you can build muscle with this. Yeah. And he goes, Oh, just watch me. This is my year. This is my year. I’ve heard him build muscle. And I’m like, okay, Doug, I’ll come back to you. And like six months, you do your sprouts, you try to build muscle? Because that’s one of the things when we start to look at the differences in diet is that we start to see the breakdown of muscle when you’re not having that animal protein. Yeah,

Max Lugavere  

no, I mean, I’m trying to get the data says that if you’re on a weight training regimen, well, it says that regardless, the RDA for protein is insufficient for good health that you should be aiming for at least 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight. If you’re just like, just just to like, optimize your your body if you’re sedentary, but if you’re weight training, which everybody should be resistance training, it should be more like 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight, which is double the RDA, which is

Dr. Mindy  

really hard to get

Max Lugavere 

Yeah, it’s not easy. It’s not easy. But you know, we’re talking about like optimizing the effect the, you know, the effort that you’re putting into your workouts, right. And so, you know, you have to be like, you have to increase your protein. If you look at anybody like online with any kind of physique of note, like they’re, you know, vegan or not, right, or omnivore. They’re slamming protein shakes, and things like that. You don’t necessarily need protein shakes. But high protein food protein tends to be the most valuable of the macronutrients, and it’s especially valuable today. Yeah, ultra processed foods are, are highly protein depleted. It’s one of the reasons why their margins are so high, because protein is expensive. It’s valuable for that reason, you know, but it’s the best way to maintain mass as we get older, especially in the context of, of anabolic resistance. As people get older, it becomes harder to maintain muscle. Yes. So, you know, women men, past, you know, midlife, you definitely want to optimize for protein. And I think protein shakes can be incredibly valuable. And I just don’t think that your average person, I mean, to me, basing your protein on sprouts is like a recipe for sarcopenia you know, especially when you’re in like, you know, when you’re when you’re in midlife or beyond, you know, but but let’s

Unknown Speaker  

see, let’s see what he does this year. That’s like, great, Doug,

Max Lugavere  

let’s go. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt you know, and I love him as a as a person and he’s very smart. Yeah, and I love sprouts and you know, I had him on the on the podcast, my podcast recently. Yeah, so yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

so if somebody you know, we talked about a lot so if somebody wants to like dive into really understanding food and how it relates to brain health, you got a lot of resources you got a lot of books you’ve got a lot of social media channels. Where’d it where’s the door in in understanding what you’re teaching the world?

Max Lugavere  

Great question I think a great door and would be would be my cookbook, genius kitchen, which is both a cookbook and a resource for people to understand the sort of top level clinical pearls as far as like my recommendations go. And then for anybody wanting to do a really deep dive, but still in an easy to assimilate, easy to digest, no pun intended way. My first book genius foods is a New York Times bestseller and it’s a it’s a nutritional care manual for the brain. I wrote it with a medical doctor who specializes in obesity medicine, so you get like the metabolic health aspect of things, but it’s a really thorough Odyssey into the role that nutrition can have in, in, in brain health. And also we go into therapeutics and like if you’re, you know, you if you are struggling from, you know, whether it’s issues related to mental health or cognitive decline, it presents like the latest lay of the land in terms of what the evidence says about, like, how to tweak your diet for better for better cognitive health.

Dr. Mindy  

Awesome. Okay, I’m gonna finish up on art my question that we ask every guest, every year I theme my podcast. So this is actually our fourth season. And what I really wanted to emphasize this year was this idea of self love. And us all really accentuating our strengths. So my question to you is to twofold. Do you have a self love practice? If so, what does that look like? And what is like your superpower that you bring to this world?

Max Lugavere  

Oh, man, my self love practice, I would say I love going to the gym, not everybody loves going to the gym, I love going to the gym. And you know, even if it’s a 20 minute workout, I know it’s better than no workout and, and I just love to have that, like me time. I’ve been there for me, since I’m 16 years old, I just love you know, going and zoning out headphones or no headphones and just, you know, celebrating what my body can do. I’m not an athlete, I don’t have any kind of crazy genetics or anything like that. I’m not even, you know, I’ve never even been like all that strong, but I just love going to the gym and like, practicing exercise. You know, it’s like, people talk about yoga as a practice. I think like weight training is just as much a practice, you know, you get better you dial in your form over time. And I just, I love it. So that, that that’s it for me for sure. And then my superpower, I’m passionately curious, and I love to learn and I love to share. And so, you know, as as I learned, I’ve been lucky to, to be able to, you know, know how to present information. And you know, that’s that’s a skill that I’ve honed over time, but but I feel grateful to anybody that listens and pays attention to my work and. And yeah, so that that’s

Dr. Mindy  

passionately curious. That’s I’m going to start using that. I think that’s a great way to look at. Yeah, because I always have an obsessive brain, but I’m now gonna refresh passionately.

Max Lugavere  

I don’t I gotta be honest, I don’t think that I’m the first person to say it. I think there was like a there was like an Einstein quote or something. I think Einstein once said that about himself. I have no I think I’m paraphrasing it probably. But it’s like, I have no special talents. I’m just passionately curious. I think that’s, that’s what Einstein said about himself. You know,

Dr. Mindy  

amazing. Well, I can’t I can’t wait to see where your passionate curiosity takes your information. And we all get to benefit from it. So this is awesome. Thank you for having me on your podcast. Thank you for this time. And where do people find you best? We’ve talked about your books, but where’s your go to spot?

Max Lugavere  

Yeah, so I’m on pretty active on Instagram at max Lucca Vir and I host my own podcast called The genius life which which you are on so I’m super, super excited to premiere that. But yeah, the genius life podcast and then on Instagram.

Dr. Mindy  

Beautiful. Thank you, Max. Likewise,