Kind: captions
Language: en
There are foods that are very common
that we've all grown up eating that
aren't so good for us. And a great one
that I always pick up with is they found
microplastics in the blood vessels in
the clots. Wo. In the 1970s and ' 80s,
we started realizing that causes you to
gain weight. Non-caloric sweeteners. You
can eat them. They taste sweet, but they
don't actually add any calories. That
must be better, right? Well, we thought
so. Trying to raise the alarm wherever I
can. And I am taking as many actions as
I can in my own house is microplastics.
Microplastics really are like the new
smoking. Another thing that you want to
actually be really really mindful of are
processed.
That's disgusting. That's what's in the
That's what That's what you're getting
when you get That's right. No. Yeah.
Really? Yeah. those people who had
microplastics embedded in their clot at
a four-fold increase in the risk of
having a fatal heart attack or stroke.
One of the things besides processed
meats and you know nuclear foods and uh
you know and sodas I would say stay away
from
[Music]
[Applause]
But let's talk about the bad stuff.
Look, we all know that there are foods
that are very common that we've all
grown up eating that aren't so good for
us, right? And you know, one of the
things that I got to say upfront is I
don't do what a lot of social
influencers do. I don't food bash, brand
bash. Um I don't try to shame people for
what they eat. Listen, I I love some
snacks every now and then as as much as
the next person. And it's totally fine
because if you spend most of the time
activating your body's healthy systems,
the hard wiring, you can afford to take
a hit every now and then. It's like just
putting some of that crappy gas in your
tank every now and then. You're going to
bounce right back. We're very, very
resilient. That said, I do think it's
important for people to understand that,
you know, we're beginning to understand
why certain foods uh that are not so
good are really bad for you. Okay? And a
great one that I always pick up with is
soda. Okay? Uh whether you get the blue
can or the red can or whether you have
the regular soda or diet soda, any soda
is really not healthy for you in the
long run. Even the zeros and the diets
and especially those. What do you mean
especially those? Especially the diets.
The history of soda goes, I think, back
to France where they were serving fruit
juices and somebody came up with this
entrepreneurial idea. Let's bubble some
things into the fruit juice and see if
we can actually uh have a crowd-pleaser.
All right? And I think that was the
birth of soda. All right? That the soda
fountain, everything else, right? You
got to actually put the ju you got to
put the gas in there. Fast forward 20th
century, now you've actually got mass
production of these sodas. Turns out
that regular soda, regardless of what
what kind of what brand it is, actually
contains a can of regular soda, contains
7 to nine teaspoons of cane sugar. Wow.
You come to my house and I offer you a
glass and I put nine teaspoons of sugar
in it and say, "Here, have this, Mel."
You'd go, "That's disgusting. I'm not
going to do that. That's what's
happening when you're actually drinking
soda. Now, that amount of sugar
overload, carb overload, we talked about
carb overload earlier. All right. Now,
you're like really flushing out. You're
that tank's filling up real fast now and
spilling over. But on top of that,
you're overloading your metabolism
because remember those hormones that
have to collaborate to be able to really
bring in the blood sugar to make sure
you got enough energy. When you flood
that system, all right, uh your sister
your system doesn't go so well. It
doesn't function so well. It starts to
derail a little bit. Listen, a single
can, even two every now and then, you're
going to be just fine. All right? Your
system, your body's not going to love
you for it, but it'll get back to itself
pretty quickly. But, you know, when I
was in medical school, I remember
distinctly there was a classmate of
mine, so future doctor at the time, uh,
who was bragging that he would have two
six-packs of soda every single day to
get through the day. I mean, you know,
that's 12 cans of soda. Geez, think
about the amount of sugar that that
person was actually putting into his
system every day. It's like 108
teaspoons. Yeah. Right. I mean, just
think about think about the big pile.
Um, now I will tell you that the reason
that the zero version, the sugar-free
version was developed is because, well,
in the 1970s and ' 80s, we started
realizing that sugar causes you to gain
weight. So, let's come up with something
else. Well, classic to the um industrial
food uh uh mindset, let's go invent
something. Let's go invent artificial
sweeteners, right? Non-caloric
sweeteners. You can eat them. They taste
sweet, but they don't actually add any
calories. That must be better, right?
Well, we thought so. Except that
research has shown that people who drink
a lot of diet soda, they actually gain
weight, too. Huh? They also gain weight.
All right. Even without sugar. But hold
on because I thought that we talked
earlier about the fact that calories are
fuel and there's less calories. Exactly.
You're right about that. However, we
also talked about the fact your gut
microbiome helps you have good
metabolism and burn fuel. And it turns
out, and Mel, this is pretty new, like
within just the last few years, the
discovery that our gut bacteria is very
sensitive to artificial sweeteners. And
so, artificial sweeteners actually kill
off some of the good, healthy gut
bacteria. So, something that's
well-intentioned, non-caloric sweetener,
goes right down. we don't absorb any of
it because it's not a calorie. Goes down
and feeds our gut microbiome, remember?
And so what happens is the gut bacteria
start to revolt. They don't do so well.
Some of the gut die off. And now guess
what? Your metabolism isn't functioning
normally. You're derailed from that hard
wiring and now you start to gain weight.
So food number one that I think that you
should stay away from are sodas. Regular
or diet. Um uh that's that that's just a
that's one of the ones that you want to
stay away from. All right. Second food
that I tell people to try to stay away
from are these um packaged health foods.
Now, you go to the airport and you go to
uh you know, you see the the bar and it
looks like it's got granola and all that
kind of stuff in it. It seems like it'd
be a healthy bar. Take a look at the
ingredient label, okay? And you will
find that there are all these
emulsifiers, the glue that holds the
things together, sometimes artificial
flavorings that are actually in there
because, you know, the healthy stuff
doesn't have enough sweet hit for you.
Um, uh, sometimes artificial coloring so
it doesn't look so looks a little bit
nicer. Or here's another one besides the
bar. Uh, you you know like tree nuts are
healthy, right? So you like uh almonds,
macadamia, pistachios, cashews, right?
You go to the airport, you go to the the
the the convenience store part. Oh, let
me go look for some in the health food
section. There's nuts in a bag. All
right. And they're barbecue flavored.
Well, there's no such thing is called
barbecued flavored. Take a look at the
ingredient label. Art. Those are red
food coloring, yellow food coloring.
They've got artificial seasonings. It's
not even real chili pepper. It's like
artificial stuff. It decided to light it
up. Anything that's manufactured like
that to be healthy, please read the
ingredient label. If it's if it seems
like it's Greek or Latin or you can't
pronounce it quickly, it's probably an
ultrarocessed ingredient that's going to
harm your health. It's going to increase
oxidative stress. It's going to stress
out your body. It's going to cause
inflammation, maybe damage your gut
microbiome. So again, you know, I think
stay away from that ultrarocessed stuff
that's got if it looks like it might be
nuclear colored. All right, that's
probably not good for you. Nuclear for
your gut. Nuclear for your gut. Don't
nuke your gut. Check this out. I've got
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video. Another thing that you want to
actually be really, really mindful of
are processed meats. Now, look, we all
grew up with processed meats. I can
remember, you know, one of my earliest
memories is like going to school with a
with a paper bag with a sandwich my mom
made with processed meats. You go to the
deli. Do you know what, by the way, do
you know what the why they call them a
delicatessan or a deli? No. It's short
for delicious. And it was actually
coming from the people that were trying
to figure out how to actually uh sell
leftover meat products in a way that
would be delicious. So a lot of these um
salamis, bologn, all the stuff that you
would actually see um in a deli are all
put together from little scraps of meat
that come as byproducts of the food
industry. First, I'm going to come back
to that, but first let's talk about why
it's not so good for you. That's
disgusting. That's what's in the That's
what That's what you're getting when you
get sliced meat. That's right. No. Yeah.
Really? Yeah. Do you think that a turkey
comes in a square? Well, it kind of
looks like a breast. I don't know. Like
I like I I And I see organic on the pass
package because as you're saying
processed meat, you're talking about
like sliced meats. Yeah. I'm talking
about the kind that you know like the at
the deli they move them back and forth.
They slice these things. Well, it turns
out that the World Health Organization
has identified that these processed
meats, all right, and we're not talking
about like freshly butchered, you know,
prepared at home or at a restaurant, but
these processed meats contain all kinds
of chemicals to be able to actually get
them to where they are. And they have
been classified as a class one
carcinogen by the World Health
Organization. All right, we're talking
about bologna, salami, pepperoni. And by
the way, uh I remember I had a patient
once who was a former USDA inspector,
okay? And he was retired by then. And I
would love to talk to my patients about
their jobs, like things that I didn't
know. Like the lobster guy would What
happens in a lobster boat? Well, this
guy, USDA inspector, I would say, um,
tell me, spare no details. Tell me
everything about the inspection, meat
inspection. He's like, "Well, you know,
let me just tell you, I had to change my
boots, my rubber boots, um, every four
months because the stuff on the floor,
the liquid from the of the places that
made processed meats would dissolve my
boots." Oh my. And and so that made me
that that that kind of queued me in that
there's probably stuff in the meats that
are not so good for you. And it's not
just the nitrates. I mean, it's like the
synthetic nitrates and that they put in
there, other preserves and coloring, but
class one carcinogen,
uh, abundant evidence that it likely to
increase the risk for cancer, especially
colon cancer, not surprisingly, right?
You're eating a lot of this stuff and it
goes down to your gut. But I learned
something recently that, you know, when
you go to the deli, uh, and let's say
you're ordering baloney or salami,
right? It's in a It's a It's a meat in a
cylinder. And animals don't come in
cylinders like that. But again, this is
the meat scraps. And I learned about
this, by the way, from a um podcast
called Science Versus. It's a really
good podcast. And uh what I found out
and I'm I'm learning about this is that
is originally the meat scraps are all
put together and then the US military
invented a meat glue that would take
scraps that you could pulverize and and
and stick in the you know like the
particle board that we actually have for
wood like you know you go to you go to
the big box stores these these deli
meats are basically um the particles are
meat particles that are glued together
and then molded into a cylinder. Well,
it's true. It does come in a tube
wrapped in plastic. I just assume that
was a part of an animal's body that's
been Wow. So, so if I buy though sliced
meats and it says organic
still, I I would just say, okay, look,
you're killing me. I'm Listen, I'm a I'm
by the way, I'm a reasonableist. So, if
you if you if your favorite thing is a
baloney sandwich, knock yourself out.
Enjoy it, but just take the time to
really savor it and don't do it very
often. All right. You know that it's not
good. Listen, we are, you know, not to
speed on the highway, but we all do it
every now and then, but it don't speed
all the time because that's what's going
to lead to the car crash. So, I'm not
endorsing people to go out to eat deli
meat. What I'm saying is that just like
the soda, just like, you know, the
nuclear snack foods, processed meat
ain't good for you. All right? Tastes It
tastes good. We grew up with it, but
it's not good for you. What else should
we avoid? All right, I'm going to tell
you something you're going to be
surprised by, and this is new research,
and that's bottled water.
Why do we avoid bottled water? The wa
the water isn't the problem. It's the
bottle. And we're beginning to realize
that these bottled waters, I mean, come
on. Like, I
I used to carry around bottled water all
the time with me. All right. You're
supposed to stay hydrated, right? Right.
Okay. any vacation you go to, you're
getting a bottle of water in your hotel
room. Turns out that now we realize that
the bottled water, the bottles of
plastic bottles are shedding
microlastics into the water. So, while
we don't taste it, we're actually
pouring plastic into our bodies. All
right? Little tiny particles, plastic
particles. And you know how much plastic
we are ingesting on average every week?
No. a credit card's worth of plastic
really every week we're ingesting it.
Now listen, we've known this for some
years, but and I used to be asked this
all the time, you know, what's the
consequence of the plastic? And I used
to I mean, just only a few years ago say
we don't really know. It seems like it's
probably okay. Our body must get rid of
it somehow. Now we know just in the last
24 months, so this is new. All right,
I'm telling you a bunch of new stuff. uh
that
microplastics are detectable in the
human body and they're associated with
badness. Let me tell you, there was a
study that came out of Italy uh with
neurologists and cardiologists uh uh
that looked at uh people with clogged
blood vessels, cardiovascular disease,
uh in the large vessels that feed their
brain and they were narrowed down. And
what they found is that when they took
out the the pla the clog, right? So it's
kind of like calling a plumber in to
clean the drain. When they clean the
drain and remove the plaque, the
clogging of the blood vessels, they
found that they could detect plastic
embedded in the narrowing of blood
vessels that would be feeding the brain.
More importantly, they found a
correlation. The people who had plastics
embedded in their blood vessels had a
four-fold increase, four times increase
in having a fatal heart attack or
stroke. Whoa. Okay, that's serious
stuff. Subsequently, we've actually
discovered you can actually find plastic
in the brain. In fact, you can take a
kitchen scale and measure two human
brains and you know which one's got more
plastic in. It's heavier. You can
measure it like, you know, like you're
measuring flour for making cookies or
whatever. You could actually measure the
amount of plastic in the human brain.
And we found plastic in the blood
circulation. We never looked at it
before, but in a blood, vile blood in a
doctor's office, if you look for it, you
can actually find plastic circulating in
it. And we've actually found uh plastic
in human testicles. We found it in human
semen. Don't ask me how it gets down
there. And it's also found by urologists
who are actually doing surgery. They've
actually found it in the flesh of the
penis embedded in there probably from
years and years and years of being
exposed to plastic. Now, is that may
like I I I don't mean to like it sounds
terrifying, but if you What should you
be drinking your water out of? Glass.
So, number one, this is let me let me
just give you some real practical stuff.
All right. Water. If if you want water,
drink put it in a glass container, okay?
not a plastic container. And for those
of you who are bringing your bottles to
the water bottles to the gym, get a
metal one or get one that's lined with
glass on the inside. Take the plastic
ones, toss them out immediately. And
when you go back to the kitchen, go root
around your drawers and your cabinets.
And anything that you might have once
used to store leftovers, the plastic
stuff, plastic containers with a plastic
top, out it goes. All right. Replace it
with ceramic or glass. Okay. Um, cups in
your cupboard. Uh, you've got, you know,
the ceramic mugs. You've got the glasses
for, you know, your guests. Uh, you
might some plastic ones that out there.
You know, you got it at a ball game or
whatever. Out. Throw it out. And now I
feel like an idiot because I've handed
you a silicone glass so it doesn't make
Don't drink out of it. Dr. Lee, don't
listen. I mean, I'm telling you, PL
microlastics are a big deal. Now, I'll
tell you, it's almost impossible to get
away from microplastics. They're
everywhere in the environment. You know,
they're they're in the they're in the
new carpets. They're in uh the the HVAC
systems of our house. And that's
different than actually ingesting it in
your food. We we breathe it in and it
gets into our body as well. But you're
right. What I'm trying to say is that
for foods that you want to avoid, okay,
you don't you want you want to stay away
from plastics whenever you can. That
means don't microwave something with a
plastic top or with a saran wrap on top.
That means don't buy food that's packed
preacked in plastic. You know those
kinds of quick eat meals that you could
actually have. All right, it's got a big
plastic thing that you nuke in the
microwave and you put a fork to let the
steam out. All that stuff is just
coating it with plastic and obviously
impacting our metabolism. And we believe
that those, you know, by the way,
there's people have been talking about
this for years, like maybe these
microplastics are endocrine disruptors
and that's why we're actually having
problems with our hormones. I don't
know. I haven't seen enough data on
that. I mean, listen, I'm a scientist.
So, here's the thing about scientists,
like a real scientist, and I know you've
talked to a bunch of them. Um, a real
scientist will tell you what they know,
but they'll also tell you when they
don't know something. And I don't know
enough information about hormone
disruptors and microplastics, but I do
know because I'm a vascular guy, I study
blood vessels, I do know that the little
particle bits that are stuck in your
blood vessels are linked to real serious
health outcomes and badness. And so for
me, one of the things besides processed
meats and you know nuclear foods and uh
you know and sodas, I would say stay
away from water in a bottle that's or
water in a in a container that's plastic
because you have a choice. You can get
one out of glass.
You have very strong opinions about uh
what we do on airplanes.
On an airplane? Yes. What not to drink
or Okay. Well, listen. I to do my
research and to work with my colleagues.
I do travel quite a bit. So, I know a
lot as I'm sure you do about sitting on
a plane. And one of the things about
planes that's that's kind of crazy is
that, you know, we're instinctively
served beverages and foods. And, you
know, if you're like me, I'm working on
my laptop and somebody comes by and
hands me something. My instinct is they
take it, right? I mean, and you know,
it's free. We kind of think, well, you
paid for it, but it it seems like it's
something that I should eat. Well,
there's a couple of things that I don't
do. I don't drink coffee or tea on an
airplane. And the reason I don't is
because a lot of people don't know this,
but the water from your coffee or tea
comes from a tank in the airplane,
right? And they they don't clean that
tank, but once or twice a year. Ew. And
so, you know what happens when you
actually have a container you don't
clean very often? It's pretty
disgusting. And I don't even want to go
into the uh the the the chassis of an
airplane to take a look at the rusty old
tank with all the crud that's in the
bottom that they are actually using and
pouring out. Listen, the the place where
the flight attendants are actually
making the coffee looks pretty clean.
You know, um the coffee looks okay. I
can't taste anything, but I, you know,
I'm somebody that I know enough that I
care about what I put into my body. And
I would rather get a glass container of
water or coffee or bring better yet,
bring your own thermos, metal thermos or
glass thermos. Fill up your own coffee.
All right? Obviously, after security and
bring it on and now you know that you
actually have something reliable that
doesn't have weird stuff in. I listen, a
rule of thumb for anybody listening to
this, keep weird stuff out of your body.
Any chemicals, anything you can't
pronounce, anything you have no idea why
it's there. Now that I told you about
meat glue, you know, like it's it's
stuff that you just kind of don't really
want, even if we grew up with it.
Listen, there's so many things that, you
know, we're getting smarter about things
that are good for us, but we're also
getting a little smarter about things
that are not good for us. Hey there,
it's Dr. Lee. I share a lot in my
YouTube videos, but sometimes we need a
deeper, more personal dive into how food
can be used as medicine. And that's why
I created my Eat to Beat Disease course.
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My course is packed with the latest
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course has got you covered. So if you're
ready to make a positive change, click
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the screen right now. I can't wait to
see how you're going to get started to
improve your health using food. Now back
to the video that I'm telling my
community I am trying to raise the alarm
wherever I can and I am making as many
action taking as many actions as I can
in my own house is microplastics.
Microplastics really are like the new
smoking. Okay. Um we know smoking is bad
for you. People denied it for a long
time. We've also known that
microplastics are everywhere. And I was
um honestly I was kind of blowing it off
myself for a number of years. People
would just say, "Well, what do you think
about this plastic cup you're drinking
from or the water bottle?" You know, I
mean, look, it wasn't so long ago where
if you went on vacation to a sunny
environment, you know, the the somebody
would get hand you a water uh bottled
water out of a plastic bottle and you
probably drink it like on a really hot
day and you want to stay hydrated,
right? Now, we know those plastic water
bottles are shedding microlastics.
There's a definition. It's less than 5
mm of a size of plastic. Um, you might
even be able to see them. They're like
the tiny little plastic particles that
get shed into anything that's plastic
that just breaks down. All right. And
then there's nano plastics which are
less than one micrometer. That's like a
10,000 times smaller. You can't see that
at all. Uh, and they're coating
everything. panty hose. You put on panty
hose, uh, not you, but if somebody puts
on panty hose, you're going to be
spraying some of that stuff just by
snapping the fiber into the air. Goes
right into your lungs, gets abs, it's so
small, gets absorbed into your
bloodstream. And we now know that you
can actually find microplastics in your
blood. We know that microplastics are in
our food. They're in our beverages.
anything plastic bottle. They're in
anything that you turn into a beverage
and uh or food that starts with plastic.
Something I was stunned by is that a tea
bag, a typical tea bag, and this was
done by a by a research study um uh made
out of paper, I thought, actually is
sprayed with a little bit of plastic on
the outside by the manufacturer so that
the paper doesn't rip and all the tea
leaves come out. M all right that make I
guess it makes sense from a
manufacturer's perspective but you dunk
that tea to steep the tea it sheds a
billion plastic particles into a mug of
tea 1 billion from one tea bag and
you're drinking it. So how do we how
does this like add up? Well the most
recent estimates is that many of us in
America are eating the equivalent of one
credit cards worth of plastic in our
body every
week. Okay. So until recently when
somebody said to Dr. Lee, you know,
like is that bad? I I said, you know, we
don't have any evidence of what if it's
bad or not. It's something I'd like to
avoid. Now we have the evidence. A study
that was done out of Italy about a year
and a half ago found in people who had
cardiovascular disease, so they had
damaged blood vessels, they had um uh
plaques, narrowing of their blood
vessels, specifically the blood vessels
feeding their brain. All right? Um, and
they found when they were doing the
procedure, the standard medical
procedure to take out the blockage, so
you can go in there and fish out the
plaque and open up the blood vessel,
they found
microplastics in the blood vessels in
the clots. Wow. Whoa. They're they're
studying embedded in the clots. And then
when they actually did the outcome
studies, they found those people who had
not everybody had plastics, but a lot of
people did. Those people who had plastic
microplastics embedded in their clot had
a
four-fold increase in the risk of having
a fatal heart attack or stroke. Crazy. I
think they were even some of the things
that came out of there. We talked about
the study with my cardiologist. The
people that had the highest exposure of
plaque, there was some higher amounts of
microplastics that were there along with
it. Right? And think about the things
that cause plaque, right? ultrarocessed
foods with unhealthy fats packaged in
plastic that you might microwave, you
know, and having all that stuff out
there. So, I mean, look, I guess what
I'm trying to tell you is that this is a
new concern. Few other maybe data points
that might be helpful for your listeners
to say before I I always try to take
people's anxiety down. We talk about
stuff like this, but I think there's
there's a few more points that are worth
floating out there because this is all
relatively new discoveries and research
about us. Like earlier we were talking
about the discoveries that are positive
like okay let's be fair there are some
things that we should be alert about and
microplastics is one of them. We're now
able to measure microplastics in your
bloodstream. We don't do it routinely
but you can measure it in the blood. You
can measure it in the plaques the
narrowing of your arteries. You and
they've also found microplastics in
human brain. So much microplastics, by
the way, that if you could take a
kitchen scale, you know, the kind you'd
measure out for weighing dough for for a
cake, all right? And you can measure the
the weight of the plastic in the brain
on a kitchen scale. All right? It's not
the old type of scale on a with a chain,
but a very sensitive scale. That's how
much plastic can accumulate your brain.
And that plastic has been shown to
stimulate inflammation, not
surprisingly. brain inflammation clearly
associated with cognitive defects um uh
brain fog all these other things you
don't want to have and we're wondering
or scratching our heads saying hey you
know why are we a society dealing with
so much dementia I don't know maybe the
microplastics are playing a role it's
not it's not the magic bullet answer but
wow this is another thing that we need
to be um aware of founded in um
testicles all right so if you're a guy
and you're like I'm like I don't I ain't
scared of no
microplastic. If I told you it's in your
balls, all right, you might think twice.
They find it in uh urologists who are
doing surgery on the human penis have
found microplastics studied in the
tissue in the muscle of the penis. How
did it get there? I don't know. But
obviously it somehow got there from the
bloodstream or some other way. Um you
can you can you can guess on that. But
the fact of the matter, they find it in
the penis. They found it in human semen.
Well, what I mean, one of the theories
is is that all this polyester clothing
that we're wearing has microplastics
inside of it. Oh, yeah. So, when you're
wearing polyester underwear, men or
women, and all this athleisure that is
so common, it's not like we're wearing
organic cotton all the time or wool or
cashmere or whatever. We're using all
these synthetic fibers. These synthetic
fibers, they shed. microplastics and
then we are also drinking tap water a
lot of us running through plastic pipes
it's running through plastic pipes but
also all this in America especially all
these clothes that we wash it's in the
wash cycle you take the microplastics go
through the water system and from my
understanding from EWG we don't have the
advanced filtration abilities even in
America here to get rid of things like
microplastics this is why I'm a huge fan
of just having a high quality filter at
home because you know thank goodness
that we have access to clean water in
the United States which means it doesn't
have bacteria we're not going to get
typhoid or other things like that which
is how a lot of people were dying from
poor sanitation previously in the world
but now we have this new problem like
you said it's the modern-day smoking
yeah that we're dealing with and it's
plastics and so I had heard somebody
it's actually a great quote I've shared
it before I headers heard a speaker a
long long time ago in the whole raw food
movement that I was once part of. They
used to say that either you get a filter
or your body becomes the filter. Ah,
that's a good one. Right. And there's a
lot of good options that are out there.
Don't get a Brida because that's mostly
focused on just removing chlorine for
taste, but get a good quality reverse
osmosis. What kind of filter do you
have? I have reverse osmosis. Okay. Now,
the criticism that people have is that,
oh, well, reverse osmosis takes out all
the good minerals that are inside. I
don't know about you, but I'm not
drinking tap water to get minerals,
right? You can add some trace minerals
back in a few times a week. You can add
some electrolytes. So, you can get most
of the minerals from the food that you
eat. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm not worried
about that aspect. And occasionally I'll
add in with my big, you know, 32 ounces
of water that I'll take to the gym in
the morning, I'll just put in a few
Trace Minerals. There's a brand I have
no affiliation. It's called Trace
Minerals. Great. That's out there.
There's plenty of other brands that are
there. So, I use reverse osmosis. I
don't want that exposure that's there.
And uh I think that's one of the easiest
things that people can do. Well, look, I
mean, this is a great conversation
that's really practical, right? So, we
all drink water. We all have water
running in our houses. I mean, hopefully
you do. Um and uh uh and here's a simple
way to address a concern, but it's still
surround sound with plastic, right? So,
what are the things that I tell people
are really common sense? First of all,
don't eat off of uh plastic plates or
use plastic silverware or use or drink
from a plastic cup. Think about the the
summer picnic, you know, or the big
house party that you actually have and
you know, like what do you go you go and
buy to go to the store and you buy the
party plates and the party silverware.
It's all plastic, right? Not only do you
throw it away like that evening or that
later the next day, but and for the
environment, but people are eating off
of those and no there's no doubt that
they're shedding microplastics as way.
So avoid plastic uh uh plates and
silverware and cups. From what I've also
understood, uh I don't know if you've
connected with her, but she's an
incredible uh researcher in this space
and now advocate. Her name is Dr. Yvon
Burkhart. She is a toxicologist by
training who got super sick by working
in the food and the fragrance industry
with all these different additives and
flavors and she developed a bunch of
different illnesses. Removed herself
from that exposure and started to clean
up her life and became now an advocate
for what she calls a lowtox lifestyle.
All very basic things of how we can
protect ourselves. She said, "One thing
that I want people to be aware of now
that they're talking about plastics is
that we have to also just be aware that
even a lot of paper cups, for example,
if we had this piece of paper right here
where I have my show notes that I did
for preparation of this podcast, if we
turned it into like a little cup and we
poured water, it would basically
disintegrate, especially hot water. It
would melt or it would at least start to
break down. It wouldn't stay firm." Now,
when we go to a coffee shop, and again,
this is about doing our best, right?
It's not about getting overly anxious or
worrying. When we get a paper cup, we
have to understand that these paper
cups, the reason that they don't
disintegrate is because they're coated.
Often that coating is plastic. Exactly.
So, just very simply, you can get a mug.
Yeah. Many coffee shops, even here in
LA, will give you a discount. Metal,
glass, those are the ways to actually
go. Have you started doing that even in
your own life? Is that something that
you try to do? 100%. Listen, I'm not
always perfect. There's sometimes you're
there in an airport and you're traveling
and you want a cup of coffee and you
don't have access and they don't have
takeaway cup. They don't have a, you
know, here cups, but I would say 99% of
the time I'm going to be having a cup
with me or going to ask for a cup. It's
an easy thing to do. Listen, if you are
athletic and you go to work out and you
bring your water bottle, swap it out
from the plastic one to one with made
made out of metal or glass. Yeah. Okay.
That's that's a really easy fix. I also
think that not buying food that's been
packaged in plastic is really important.
All right? I mean, and by the way, you
can go to the produce section and buy
lovely cherry tomatoes that are found in
a plastic box with a plastic top. All
right? And then you're going to wash it
with unfiltered water in your house. And
you're pretty much marinating this thing
with it's been marinated and you're
going to wash it more with plastic water
containing plastic. Right? So again, I I
sort of try to be more selective of
buying foods that are not prepackaged in
plastic. It's it's tough. It is very
tough cuz even like my wildcaugh salmon
or my grass-fed beef, even if you get it
at Whole Foods in like, you know, or
like an arrowan or whatever in the sort
of deli section where it doesn't look
like it's touching plastic, if you go
behind and you see when they're getting
it initially plastic, it's wrapped in
plastic. This is actually a modern
conversation, Drew, that I think needs
to be had and and hopefully there will
be people in government and people in
the private sector and companies,
they're going to want to come together
and have this intelligent conversation
to say, listen, this is a new discovery.
We didn't realize this was happening.
What do we do collectively to make
better decisions so that the public is
actually going to be less exposed to
these toxins even if it's impossible?
like, you know, whenever I if I ever
have hesitation about the plastic thing,
I just in my mind I'm picturing a credit
card. Do I want to be eating that this
week? No. So, I'm I'm just, you know,
I'm going to try to make another uh
decision. But, you know, plastic food
containers, you know, you got leftovers.
What do we used to do? You go to the,
you know, Tupperware. I don't think that
company's around anymore, but not good.
Don't put your food in a plastic
container. All right. And then you put
it in the fridge. um where you you may
have had foods that you cooked in glass
or metal or you know cast iron or
whatever and now you have just put it
into a plastic container overnight to
marinate with the plastic and then
you're going to heat it up the next day
in the microwave and now you're going to
actually put more or cook it or heat it
up, you know, in the plastic. No, don't
do it. So, I always say toss out your
plastic storage containers. I know
they're cheap. I know they're contain
they're convenient. I know they're
light. I know there are things that you
can easily take to work for the next day
if you're trying to heat it up some
lunch, but please just get glass
containers. It's okay if the top is
plastic. Honestly, it's not going to
touch the food for the most part, but
because it's really hard to find a glass
top, you know, nobody's going to be
carrying around a glass box everywhere
they're going. All right, but minimize
amount of plastic. Those are avoidable
uh things. And the other thing that I
heard Sanjay Gupta from CNN uh who who
uh who I know say about microplastics he
said change out your
toothbrush. I didn't think about this
but yeah you keep using the same
toothbrush the whole time breaks down
and now you are deliberately putting
microplastics that are going to break
down into your mouth and rinsing them
around and you're going to be swallowing
some. And so just make sure you change
out your toothbrush, you know, and don't
change them out before they wear down.
That's great. I have another lowhanging
fruit. Yeah. That's based on some
research that we wrote about in my
newsletter, okay? Which is that if you
have teflon pans that have scratches on
them, inside of those teflon pans is
basically a coating of plastic in the
layers that are there. That's part of
it. These PFAs, these microplastics that
are there. And they found that just a
single scratch on a average size skillet
for a teflon pan because these pans
develop scratches over a period of time
can leech up to a,000 to 10,000
microplastics and nanoplastics every
time you cook. So an easy solution
that's also actually a cheap solution is
that all the researchers that I've
talked to say stainless steel is great.
It's cheap. Now, there can be fancier
solutions that are out there that are
companies that sell ceramic and that
sell this and that, but just stainless
steel and it's going to last forever and
you're not going to have that same
exposure. So, take a look at your pans,
especially the ones that are teflon or
even if they're the ceramic coating that
has scratches on it. That can be
detrimental to your long-term health.
So, just go for a cheap solution.
Stainless steel is the cheapest and
easiest. And I will tell you again, back
to simplicity, if you want a pan that's
going to last a long time, that is kind
of a workhorse in the kitchen, just look
at what chefs use. All right? I mean, I
I'm fortunate to have a lot of friends
who actually are either um cooks or
chefs. They all use stainless steel
pans. That's the workhorse in our
restaurant um and at home. Like I have
stainless steel pans or cast iron, which
is heavier. It's a And you get a little
bit of iron actually from cast iron. If
you're iron deficient, you know, like
when you cook in a cast iron pan, you
get a little bit the iron. Um, and you
can season and condition them. If you
have a stainless steel walk, okay, if
you condition it the right way and take
care of your your uh pots and pans and
uh and walks the right way, they
actually make a non-stick surface. All
right? So you don't need to have that
NASA developed space age, you know,
1960s innovation in order to be able to
have a real workhorse. And I think
that's what people need to have. You
know, I, you know, I teach a an online
course called E2 to be disease course.
And one of my favorite um modules in my
course is about rethinking your kitchen.
And I tell people like what are the
things you should toss out that are not
good for your child and swap in and
keeping simple
cookware stainless steel pan cast iron
skillet and a walk that can and you know
and and pots made of same material
that's show how you that gets you the
whole way in terms of like almost every
situation for cooking. Hey, if you like
that video then you're going to love
this one. Check it out.