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Language: en
can you help us understand what are
these grand slammer foods and why are
they so powerful for our health and
maybe tease out a few of them and how
they're so impactful yeah absolutely so
in my book you to be disease I have a
whole section called exceptional foods
and of course you know uh there's lots
of things that about individual foods
that are amazing but one of the most
amazing properties is that there's
certain foods that can really light up
our body's Health defenses we got five
health fenes androgenesis our
circulation U our stem cells that help
us regenerate from the inside out our
gut microbiome healthy gut healthy brain
healthy metabolism um our DNA which
protects us against the environment and
of course our immune system so those
five you know we can actually match one
food with one system but there are some
foods that hit all five and that's
really where the term grand slammer come
from so you don't even have to be a
baseball fan to know that if you have
one swing of the bat and you can knock
it out of the park and drive every body
home that's actually what I'm talking
about so one of the things that I I said
on my Instagram is that like I want
people to be able to just benefit from
getting like I've already done all the
heavy lifting and all the homework to
what are all the grand slammer foods and
I basically told people go to link in
the bottom of my Instagram and you can
download this list so it it basically
boils down into about a dozen and a half
of foods that fit into fruit vegetables
beverages uh sweets oils Seafood that
actually hit the grand slammer uh
category so let's start with some of
them that you know I think are um uh
common right so apricots and blueberries
they actually amazingly hit all five of
your health defense system good for your
circulation good for your immunity and
and good for your gut health at the same
time so if you wanted to kind of find
the shortest distance between two lines
uh the line being you at the supermarket
and picking one of the you know the
whole selection of things and you just
wanted to be able to activate your
health as much as possible if you picked
up a a box of blueberries uh that would
actually do it so you know like in the
fruits and vegetables it's apricot
blueberries cherries kiwi is one of my
favorite um and the reason I love kiwi
is because I mean it's a sort of
innocuous looking fruit you know it sits
on like your fruit balll in your house
until it kind of shrivels sometimes if
you don't eat it regularly but if you
cut it open it's just Gorge gorgeous
emerald green inside with this kind of
Starburst in the middle of it and what I
love about it it's not very sweet it's
sweet but not cloyingly sweet it's not
like a one of my favorite things like a
juicy Peach it's not that sweet and you
get vitamin C and you get fiber um and
you know and that actually is also a
grand slammer which I think is a real
Delight but let's look at some of the
less um well-known grand slammer Foods
you know if you cuz I I always also like
to go for some esoteric things that most
people might not think about and one of
them is uh bamboo choots you ever go to
a Chinese restaurant and you order the
Buddha's Delight right so it's all
veggie stuff all plant-based you're
going to get your mushrooms straw
mushrooms and you're going to get your
peppers and onions but you'll actually
see there's these little rectangles that
are um that taste great um uh they've
got a little bit of texture to them and
they look like when you pick them up
with the chopstick they look like
they've got fiber in it and those are
bamboo shoots these are bamb baby bamboo
they're cut they're cut from the root
and so people in China will go into the
jungle dig them out it's not the giant
bamboo plant that you would actually get
at Home Depot you know the to to to put
against the wall for your trellis it's a
tiny little it looks like um kind of a
carved uh coconut almost and you dig it
out and it's all fiber pulpy stuff this
is what this is what um pandas eat they
love to eat bamboo shoots now here's a
little bit of esoterica for people that
that they won't know you don't want to
be going into the jungle yourself in
Southeast Asia to dig up bamboo shoots
because the raw bamboo shoots are
actually toxic so you have to actually
par boil them which is how they do it in
for before you eat it at any restaurant
or in a can or in an Asian restaurant
and then that removes the toxins and now
you can stir fry it so that's a grand
slamming food that most people might not
think about and I want to point out one
other grand slammer that most people
won't know about which is squid
ink if you ever go to an Italian store
or go to an Italian restaurant and
they've got black Pasta squiding Pasta
um it is jet black and sometimes they in
the Spanish restaurant they'll actually
make paa or black rice out of it um it
comes right from the ink sack of um of
squid um same kind of Ina octopus have
but with with um cuddle it's not squid
it's cuddlefish they call it squiding
but it's comes from a relative of the
squid the ink sack has this incredibly
um
Umami uh flavorful tastes like the sea
kind of um rich flavor that's just an
amazing thing if you have ever had black
pasta I highly recommend it um also
Squid Ink um it can come already made in
pasta could come in a little jar and you
just take a little Spoonful and you
stick it into your pasta uh after it's
cooked and stir it around and you you'll
turn everything jet black and you'll get
that great Briny Seafood flavor and it
lights up your health defense systems as
well as your taste buds I love that you
know this all stems again as you
mentioned Grand Slam on those major
areas that you've outlined inside of
your book and I want to jump into one of
them a little bit more to get your
thoughts you know there's a lot of books
that are being written on the topic of
longevity and that's a very hot subject
these days it seems that everybody's
writing a book on longevity and inside
your book uh one of the areas that we
talk about being key for our overall
health is DNA protection what do you
think is important to think about
especially under the context of
longevity which everybody's talking
about right now and your take on DNA
protection and food and lifestyle yeah
well so look I I have you know my
background is that I'm an internal
medicine doctor and I'm also a re
research scientist and my background for
many years was in primarily in
biotechnology where you know we were
developing really fancy very
sophisticated treatments for cancer and
diabetes and vision loss and and I'm
still involved with that very much
involved with it but one of the areas
that I was I thought was super cool that
I was involved with was gene therapy so
this is where you take a piece of DNA
and you can actually Stitch it to a cold
virus and you inject it um into a heart
or you can inject it into a leg with the
goal of that piece of DNA telling the
body to uh grow more blood vessels to
grow better circulation so you know it's
a piece of the genetic code and I have
you know literally like well over a
decade of experience of doing gene
therapy not ready for prime time yet
okay um there is one gene therapy that's
actually um uh FDA approved but it's and
it's for a rare congenital form of
blindness but all the other stuff is
still very much in the workshop kind of
being figured out so we and and of
course then you have your you know the
23s of Mees and ancestry.com where you
actually can you know swab yourself and
send it and see how much how much of you
is Crow magnon or you know where your
ancestors actually came from right and
the answers are always really surprising
when you take a look at the code what
parts of you belong to which um came
from what parts of the world that's how
most people think about DNA right our
genetic code or maybe Jurassic Park you
know you think about t-rex or the
Velociraptor but let me tell you
um you know so DNA every one of our
human cells we've got 40 trillion cells
in our human body they're really small
you can't see them with a naked eye you
need to see them under the microscope
what most people don't realize is that
DNA is if you were to if you were to
have a really really fine needle and go
under the microscope and open up a cell
human cell and pull out all the DNA
there'd be a 6 foot strand of DNA that
you could pull out all right that's two
yards worth of DNA okay like how on
Earth could that fit into the cell and
it's it's all made of DNA which is our
genetic code but do you know that only
3% of that six foot in length is
actually used for making proteins which
is what our genetic code normally does
so most of the other part of our DNA is
air traffic control and protection so
DNA is hardwired to protect us from the
environment and I think this is what's
really and this is how it relates to to
aging all right so when we're born
when we're forming in our mom's womb
everything you know we hope is Picture
Perfect when we come out immediately we
start aging so people say well you know
like I'm 60 or I'm 70 and I'm aging hey
man you're aging like when you're one
minute old the clock is ticking the
moment you like take your fir when you
get spanked you know uh you're you're
starting to age you take your first
breath all right so what happens is that
our cells all are in this program um and
that program actually um think about the
mission impossible fuse light the fuse
it burns down okay when you burn that
fuse all the way down to the bottom like
pretty much you've expended the life of
the cell and the cell needs to actually
replace itself and over our time 60 70
80 90 years okay um we pretty much run
out of of our materials to actually keep
renewing ourselves and we and as our
cells age net net we also age as well
that's why you know a kid looks at
themselves in a mirror and basically
just sees the same image same youthful
chubby image you know like you know with
the cheeks and everything else when
you're when you're like in your teenage
and your adolescence and you know in
your 20s you're cut and buff you want to
look as well as you can as good as you
can as you get older you start noticing
those lines and wrinkles and the gray
hairs and the things that are like wait
a minute that that's not me well
actually what what you're seeing in the
mirror is the reflection of your cells
wearing down now there's a lot of work
about longevity of like how do we slow
down the aging process some people want
to reverse the aging process what I
would tell you is that one of the trick
triggers is our DNA um needs to be able
to protect itself better against the
environment because our environment ages
us so what am I talking about we all
know somebody who spent you know their
uh their uh adolescence and young adult
life lying out uh on the beach and then
when they're in their 40s man they are
they're they're like leather right and
they they look like their Skin's pretty
rough that's age skin Sun aging of skin
okay now that's what we see in the
extreme but I can tell you the same
thing is happening when you're stuck in
traffic in Los Angeles on the I 10 and
on a sunny day and the sun is coming in
on the windshield or your or your arms
out the window you're still getting that
damage so how come we don't turn into
leather every single time we get stuck
in traffic or walk or go out for a run
it's because our DNA knows how to fix
itself and reverse that damage that's
occurring we got our DNA actually um uh
experiences a problem about 10,000 times
a day and if we didn't fix ourselves
we'd be aging a lot faster uh than than
we already do and so one of the tricks
to slowing down aging is to help our
support our DNA's ability to fix itself
from the environment and so this is the
ability for DNA to to block the incoming
missiles from the environment uh
ultraviolet radiation from the sky radon
from the ground off gasing from your
carpet from your you know that new car
smell all fumes coming in smelling that
gasoline at the pump which is now rising
in cost right because everything that's
going on in the world all that stuff
actually damages our DNA thank goodness
our health defenses our DNA is one of
our health defenses can fix itself to
prevent that problem now uh if there's
if there's damage in the DNA a pothole
so one is prevent the potholes if
there's a damage if there's a pothole
the DNA can actually fill it as quickly
as the damage occurred and that's where
foods can also be coming in helpful to
help our um DNA fix itself uh there was
a study that actually looked at kiwi the
fruit we just talked about and they
wanted to know like if you had just one
kiwi a day would it help how much would
it help protect your DNA against
incoming and they actually found that
one kiwi a day say give somebody kiwi to
eat a day take their blood out expose it
to environmental damage like ultraviolet
radiation or other kind of toxic noxious
exposure and one kiwi a day will protect
your cells with but the DNA by 60% so
it's like putting up a 60% Shield one
kiwi all right um vitamin C other
bioactives in the Kiwi all help our DNA
to do that now if you ate three kiwis
though now not only you are you
shielding yourself against that damage
now the DNA know is is is uh inspired
geared triggered to fix itself you can
fix holes 60% faster so one you can
actually raise a shield the second you
can actually put the construction crew
to start to pave the road repave those
Pooles as well and there's a third thing
that's really important for um aging to
prevent cellular aging right so you want
to prevent the damage you want to fix
the damage and now you want to slow that
fuse down so that mission impossible
fuse when the mission is over man that
cell's done it's old and it needs to be
replaced so to you can actually slow
down the burning of that fuse which is
really amazing so that's slowing
cellular aging and if you multiply that
by 40 trillion now you're slowing your
entire body's aging and foods can
actually do that too one of my favorites
is actually what I got right here coffee
will actually help you do that it'll
slow down the burn rate of your DNA well
on that note of coffee by the way this
fantastic information um do you have uh
any rules in your life to get the
maximum benefits from coffee but then
also to mitigate any kind of downside
that could be associated with having
maybe either too much or having coffee
at let's say not the right hour of the
day just curious for yourself personally
again there's so many benefits coffee I
drink coffee as well anything that you
do yourself to to make sure you're in
that goldilock zone of getting the
maximum benefits from coffee great
question and again obviously I'm not
giving medical advice here but you when
you ask me what does Dr Lee do I mean
I'm happy to tell you number one I I
would I I really only learned to I mean
I drank coffee when I was in college
probably not very good coffee but then
when I um lived in Italy for a short
time on a gap year after college I
really learned what coffee uh was all
about and good coffee and how the
different ways of Brewing it uh and and
how to how to drink it and when to drink
it and I also learned um uh something
about um uh the role that coffee can
play in enhancing your life so most of
of course when I was in medical school I
drank a ton of coffee but so most of us
think of coffee as sort of a morning
Brew right uh either you make it
yourself uh in a pot or you go by the
drive-thru to pick up something and you
get a little hit of caffeine it wakes
you up all true okay um and for me uh I
appreciate that but I I learned to
appreciate the taste of coffee which is
actually quite
sophisticated and as I sort of was
learning more and more about my research
through my research
on what's in coffee that's good for you
you know the caffeine that's that that
can give you a little hit a little a
little surge um and that would be the
reason why I wouldn't drink coffee late
at night because that could disturb my
ability to get good quality REM sleep
when you disturb your sleep your immune
system suffers you know your even your
gut microbiome actually suffers if you
don't get good sleep your body during
good quality sleep your body renews
itself regenerates itself and so if you
drink a ton of coffee late night you
know and you don't have to pull all
nighter pretty much you're disrupting
your sleep and therefore disrupting the
re the Rejuvenation the renewal the
rebooting of your body's Health defenses
so I I don't drink coffee really really
late now um but but actually caffeine is
only part of the story it turns out that
there's other amazing bioactive natural
chemicals found in coffee one of them is
called
chlorogenic acid chlorogenic acid
actually is made by the coffee plant
okay um
so Coffee Bean is comes is a plant-based
food um grows on a tree Coffee Tree and
Mother Nature Made chlorogenic acid as
part of the coffee PL trees coffee
plants self-defense system so when um uh
bugs and pests nibble on the coffee
leaves and stems the the plant views
that as an assault as an attack and the
little nibbles actually are wounds so
the coffee tree is getting wounded and
it makes more chlorogenic acid to drive
away the pest it's kind of a natural
pesticide and it's a wound healing
response all right so um uh that
chlorogenic acid is therefore more
present in organically grown coffee okay
now that what does chlorogenic acid do
in your body well chlorogenic acid
activates your health defenses lights up
your immune system lowers inflammation
cuts off the blood supply to cancer
helps to um pull out and protect stem
cells and is also good for your gut
health so all of a sudden you got
another grand slammer right coffee but
now we know that when you compare
organically grown coffee with
conventionally grown coffee with
pesticides the organic has like three
times more chlorogenic acid for that
pest nibbling property that I talked
about if you use pesticides hey it
doesn't need to make as much because you
know some Factory chemical that you did
the job for it and so here's an example
now where I'm where I learned that if
I'm actually able to drink coffee that I
grind myself from the bean and I and I
choose an organic coffee which I I
happen to do more and more now because
of this new research I know I'm going to
get more chlorogenic acid uh which is
actually better for my health and you're
going to avoid the pesticides some of
which we know a lot of information on
some of which we don't know as much of
information on but they are possible
things that contribute to those potholes
that would damage our DNA that we're
trying to avoid which then could
contribute to cancer and you know so you
know like again one of these things that
we really want to do is just I think
make mindful decisions when we are
putting things into our body you know
like when you got a baby you know like
you're teaching the kid what not to put
in their mouth you know food spoonful of
food absolutely put in your mouth you
know Lego block don't put that in your
mouth you know electrical plug don't put
it in your mouth and I think that you
know as we get older we we sort of one
of the big problems is like when we just
are are distracted and start shoveling
food in our bodies and and I think
that's where the new research is
starting to help to bring us back to our
past where people just became much more
mindful of what they're putting into
their body and and giving some thought
to is this something that could be
helpful or something that could be
harmful