Kind: captions
Language: en
hey it's dr william lee physician
scientist and author of the book eat to
beat disease
i am actually um doing a new series with
my friends and colleagues who are
like-minded
especially doctors um and we're going to
have a conversation about what we do
what we think and about the real life
real world experiences that we've had
you know it's quite different than being
on stage or
on a formal social media interview
and today i'm joined by my good friend
and colleague dr uma naidu who
um is a harvard professor
of psychiatry who um has really
a founder of nutritional psychiatry and
she's the author of a book that you can
see in the background there called this
is your brain on food
i'm very excited by it i highly
recommend uh the book but um
and what i want everyone to know is that
this is really kind of like
for people who are watching and
listening you get to be essentially a
fly on the wall listening to two friends
and colleagues who are doctors who care
about food and health just have a
conversation so welcome uh uma uh
how are you doing
thanks so much will i think this is such
a great idea always enjoy talking with
you and you know your quote is on the
top of my book it's right on the cover
so thank you for that too well listen i
i thought you know one thing that we
could talk about that was so
extraordinary
um
and i've done a lot of pretty cool
things in my life but
but a recent highlight was spending time
with you you and i found ourselves uh in
the same garden
of
all right wait for it
the
hrh has royal highness prince charles
his country home in west london uh and
we were there after you both you and i
spoke and gave keynotes at a integrative
medicine conference so tell me what uh
and by the way just like quickly so
obviously we were talking about um food
and health and mental health and
physical health um and we got invited uh
as special guests to to
meet with uh the prince but let's go
from there like what was your impression
what did you think from that experience
well
i was really excited to have friends
around me because it was certainly a
little bit nerve-wracking um i unlike
you have done fewer cool things in my
life and so this was a big one for me
and it was nice to be surrounded by
friendly faces yourself and the other
doctors whom i knew but it also was a
little bit um scary when i first heard
that we were going to do that i have to
share that because i kind of got anxious
i was like is this even real is this
happening
um
did you did you practice courtesy
i did i did because i had the practice i
had to practice my head bow because they
made it really clear like you can't bow
from the waist like a
samurai warrior you have to you have to
bow from the head
so you know the cutscene is not like the
belly because i've studied belly but
it's not like the traditional curtsy
it's a very small one or all of that so
we wanted to be really proper when we
were in england but it was such a such a
cool visit and you know what i took away
was there's so much heart that the
prince has in this movement the food is
medicine movement he came across as very
engaging and sincere and soft-spoken
as he does i'm sure on you know media
appearances but in conversation with him
i felt like he was listening
and hearing what we each had to say
so i thought it was a wonderful
conversation around you know his kind of
dining room table and observe tea and
coffee i just it sort of was super
elegant and so much fun you know what
was so cool so um just for everyone
listening so
we met in the morning uh
at his residence that we waited outdoors
in a
space uh that had gotten gardens around
it but those were like the mini gardens
the real guards we might not see after
the meeting
and um i don't think any of us knew what
to expect we were there with some other
you know um uh well-known friends and
colleagues like doing dean ornish and
and and others um
uh david
and tim spector and tim spector uh and
uh i think that what was really
interesting is when we got all shuttled
into
that home and i didn't know to call is
it europe is it a house is it a palace
you know correct
it wasn't exactly a little country home
it was it wasn't tiny but it was it was
huge um
you know we we went in almost through a
side door uh
and then quickly like went through where
looked like the people the butler would
go whatever and then we were boom in his
dining room in this huge dining room
yeah and
big wooden table
you know uh very elegantly done but not
not over the top it wasn't like a museum
it was
it was very homely because i noticed
like the beautiful bone china and
the way that it was laid out it was just
very elegant without being showy or over
the top
and set so nicely for us to have a cup
of tea or coffee
um except for the except for the except
for the formal
uh royal name plates in front of our
assigned seating so we knew we knew
where to sit
but the other thing i noticed is that um
his seat so first i was wandering around
with with all of us we were kind of
trying to find our places and um there
was one seat which had a cushion right
and that was his
that was his seat it was it was sort of
interesting um and you know i i yeah it
was definitely a bucket list moment
and i think um i it was it was really a
great honor and i was so happy to share
it with you know good friends and
colleagues like yourself well you know
the the so the so the theme that we
talked about is
uh that he was interested in in hearing
our opinions about was how
can food make a nation healthier in the
future
so almost forget about the past how do
we move forward with things yeah and
what i loved about um the opportunity is
that each of us got a chance to
present our own point of view but then
we all jumped in and he jumped in
quickly and we really wound up having a
conversation
um there was a little bit about you know
there was a little industry bashing you
know like oh all the bad guys that are
out there but i think for the most part
what everybody focused on was you know
this very positive future we all
ate in ways that were more responsible
to our bodies and our community and our
planet
that is absolutely correct and i think
that there'll be potentially some good
work that will come out of um kind of
getting
really uh wonderful experts together who
can have that conversation so i'm i'm
looking forward to that as well so we
should we should just listen i just want
to like let's go talk about it so
briefly uh we all got in charge of doing
something we we all were appointed
to have
something there was a consensus
statement that i'm supposed to help put
out and i think you what are you
supposed to do
so we you know what we want to do is
produce
the prince
shared with us that he had created a
guide or he had worked with others to
create a guide for farmers but that it
was super helpful and you know
william at
the harvard school th school of health
public health they produced something
called the harvard healthy eating plate
that has also gotten dinged by the way
no
project or
you know that we produce is ever perfect
everyone has an opinion i respect that i
think nutrition is about conversation to
move and to move the food as medicine
movement forward but it sort of was an
idea of how do we either create a
graphic or a pamphlet as they called in
england for people to kind of look at
what healthy foods are because remember
you know you and i know 200 300
different foods and the causes and all
the bio uh mechanisms behind it but
often you know for the for the for the
average human being it's moving from a
processed
junk food fast food highly sugar diet
just to as a slightly better healthier
food
because we have to start somewhere and
not everyone also has access so it's a
it's a thoughtful project which we will
all work on together and hopefully it'll
be of help to people and i know that
you're you're you're on me to actually
submit my my ideas of healthy food so
okay that's cool well look uh let's
let's um
something i wanted to ask you um even
when we were traveling but let's i'm
gonna ask you now so look it was like
uh i've traveled so little in the last
two and a half years because of the
pandemic
and then all of a sudden here we were
you know in london together um and uh
so
what's one memorable thing that you ate
and i don't care if it's healthy or not
you can just talk and talk about it like
but what was something that you ate that
was memorable like i always think when i
travel when i come home i love to talk
about something amazing that i actually
had so what was some real life
experience that you had for food that
was that you can remember
so i have i have two i have quite
healthy and one unhealthy one so let me
start with the fun one which is the
unhealthy one you know william one of
the things i grew up as a child i was in
i grew up in south africa and one of the
things that that's different is donuts
are made differently compared to making
donuts there's a sort of a different
batter that you use and they are filled
with actual whipped fresh cream so dairy
cream
unlike say a cream donut that you have
in the united states
and someone in my family procured these
treats that eb used to have as kids
because they also made in the uk so that
was that was the unhealthy one because
of course the doughnut was deep fried of
course
how big is it how big is it it's
actually because it's the uk it was
probably a much smaller version and it's
almost like a um an oblong it's not the
round doughnut that's the other other
thing that's different the shape is
different and so that was super
delicious and really took me back to
positive memories of my childhood and
tasting that but also the difference and
that counts too right i mean basically
you know i i just having hearing you
talking about it makes me
um makes me happy because
obviously that
brought you back to your childhood and
it's something that gave you joy
it gave me great joy i enjoyed it we
each had one and remember the other
thing i'll just interject this is that
portion sizes are so different than the
uk william i'm sure you noticed that as
well but so the donut was much smaller
it was delicious um but then i
discovered my
sister arranged for us to have a lovely
lunch where she lives and um i
discovered this that there is actually a
type of broccoli called purple sprouting
broccoli what's it called i've purple
sprouting broccoli oh and it actually
was was actually developed by a farmer
in the uk
okay and i initially thought it was you
know how we you can get cauliflowers in
different colors okay yeah um
and you do actually get a purple
cauliflower it's not that even though
they stay the same family technically of
cruciferous vegetables
this is actually a beautiful um
it really is looks like a brick broccoli
stem
that's right it looks exactly like that
and so if you imagine those uh you know
pieces of broccoli in a delicious dish
they were so beautiful
how were they how were they cooked
so what they had done they actually had
a had steamed them first and then they
sauteed them and just some simple garlic
olive oil and light spices because it
was sort of a side dish but when i saw
this was like i this is i was i thought
they were they were bluffing i thought
for sure this is you know purple
cauliflower no no it's actually a real
thing so then i read all about it purple
broccoli so it's purple broccoli it's
actual purple broccoli and it
grows in the uk it was i think it was
found by or or maybe the seeds were
developed by farmer in the uk and you
can't get it many places of the world so
i'm trying to track down a place i
believe california may have some um i've
never tasted that in california do you
know if it i mean maybe you don't but
i'm looking at it now and i'm thinking
if it's purple it probably has um
anthocyanins i'm guessing that it has
anthocyanin so right now i'm trying to
find if there's a
any you know of course being being as
nervous as we are the rest of our rest
of our lives we i'm also trying to see
what scientific uh you know backing
there is just
what the and what studies it just
because it's it's been around but it it
doesn't certainly on the east coast of
the us it doesn't exist um
and i from looking i think it might be
available in california so if i find
find the sauce i'm going to get it you
got it you're going to let me know
definitely let me know um and you know
for everyone listening anthocyanins are
a bioactive um they're found in many
plants and vegetables they're in
blueberries they're in purple potatoes
um
and they activate a lot of our
bodies health defenses they're good for
their microbiome
they
affect cardiovascular systems so um you
know anytime you see something purple
which is a royal color by the way um
it actually means that there's something
distinctive uh about it well that's
great awesome i didn't really know about
purple uh broccoli but now i'm going to
look at it and do it as well and and i'm
going to try to find us a sauce volume
you know the other thing is that they're
rich in sulfuric veins right so those
are cauliflower broccoli brussels
sprouts these foods are rich in
sulfurophins which are excellent
antioxidants especially for gut
microbiome so it's lovely when food is
so beautiful delicious
as well as healthy so i i definitely
want to figure out how we can get some
so you had you had a donut that brought
you back to childhood and joy
you had um
purple sprouting broccoli which sounds
awesome now you've got my mind
coming along look thinking about it so
let me tell you what i did so um
i
i wasn't very adventurous when i was in
the uk although i did actually have
a lovely
baby beet salad
um
that was on a bed of yogurt that had
been scented with cumin oh and so it was
like
delicate
it was delicious and it was you know
like i i could have had that just as my
main dish was delicious
and and beets are super healthy because
they're rich in nitrates and they help
your cardiovascular health that's right
a lot of people don't know like actually
yeah
a lot of people don't know this but
basically when you chew beets
the nitrogen in the soil
interacts with the microbiome on our
tongue so our healthy tongue bacteria
nobody thinks about your tongue you know
you might brush your teeth um yeah
talks about the oral microbiome yeah so
like
yeah so the tongue if you if you take a
look at if you take a look at a big
magnified picture of the tongue right
like electron microscope it would look
like um
it would look like uh
crevices on mars there's all these like
canals going in there and there's
healthy bacteria that live in there
because it's part of our gut it's the
beginning of our gut and so when you
chew your beets the nitrogen interacts
with the bacteria it converts the
chemical into a form when you swallow it
turns into nitric oxide which widens
your blood vessels lowers your blood
pressure and calls out stem cells good
for your heart and it really is just
great for um uh for me my taste buds it
was it was like cumin delicious oh cumin
is delicious really did it for me with
the beets then the other thing that i
had um again in sort of like the salad
vein um after um london
because i'm finishing my next book yeah
i flew over to the mediterranean because
i wanted to do i thought here i am this
far from my home let me go do something
yeah i literally flew into the
mediterranean i was in greece and i went
to a village um and um and i started to
eat
people what people were eating in a
village in order to be able to put food
literally uh
walk the walk so i wasn't just talking
about or writing about it and i'll show
you one of the first things i had that
was absolutely delicious i got a picture
of it right here
check it out this is beautiful it is a
real greek salad i want to tell you
what's that's the traditional that's a
traditional greek salad that's a real
good stuff so cucumbers uh these are
tomatoes from a volcano
so they're super concentrated and sweet
they have a ton of lycopene in them they
just explode with sweet flavor in your
in your mouth
red onions which are good for your
metabolism they can actually help you
lose weight um
sliced up uh there was some goat cheese
feta cheese made with goat's milk which
i enjoyed i didn't have too much of it
there's a little four little cubes here
um a ton of fresh mountain oregano oh
yeah
yeah you know
you know and you know like when you buy
spices in a grocery store
they've already lost a lot of their
fragrance because who knows how long
they've been picked these man you could
smell that yeah the oregano from like on
the other side of the room and then
something that you might not be able to
see very clearly here are capers
yes
delicious
so where i was in greece capers grow
wild
and although i didn't do it um the
locals just go around and go into these
little crevices and pluck out the capers
and pluck out the cape and they brine
them so basically you brine them in salt
uh um and uh
uh and and sometimes a little bit of
vinegar
and there you have it and awesome and
some extra virgin olive oil it was
totally awesome
that's such a delicious dish it's one of
my favorite salads and what i love about
it and i love that photograph is that
it's made totally differently in the
traditional sense
just like you know cuisine in a certain
country when it's eaten in that country
it's made differently to say the
americanized version of it right fault
to anyone it's an adaptation but here
the uh the greek sounds are very large
they have crumbled feta and small pieces
of say tomato and stuff and maybe some
black olives but the traditional one is
actually big chunks it's big chunks of
feta right big chunks of tomato big
chunks of cucumber of course that
delicious prebiotic rich you know um red
onion so
it's it's it's it's different and i find
it super delicious too of course it was
it was it was it was so tasty and since
you shared with me one thing that was
not so good uh healthy i'd say but
i'll share with you something that i
tried when i was uh in greece
these tomatoes from santorini which is
where it was are unique because of the
they grow in volcanic soil and they have
a local specialty there that are tomato
fritters they literally take these
volcanic tomatoes they crush them up
they put them with a little bit of
breading and then they deprive oh then
they make some mint fresh ground orange
delicious
and they have a little batter around
them and they deep fry them
you know kind of like must pop in your
mouth right now oh
you know what it just was it wasn't you
know it wasn't oily very oily it was
crunchy
but it was amazing and you know i i just
sampled one every time i go there i i
love to try something local and so yeah
that is delicious the person who runs a
restaurant basically said you have to
try this so
that was what i that's what i that's
what i actually had um okay cool so
let's wrap up by um
telling
uh tell me about one thing you love to
cook this is like my favorite thing
because
you're trained chef so i'm interested to
know like when you are at home what do
you cook tell me one thing that you cook
for yourself and how do you do it
so you know i um i was raised vegetarian
well so i tend to if i'm cooking for
myself i cook any food because the rest
of my family eats anything but for
myself i usually prepare something
that's plant-based and i love working
with the vegetables that are kind of
overlooked or thought of as sad and not
tasty and have to tell you you know
cauliflower although it's having its
time it's one of those that is kind of
thought of as just not tasty so i love
to do different things with it but i
what i'd like to do is take a recipe
that's delicious and make a healthier
version so that i can eat it more
regularly okay so restaurants have you
know cauliflower bites and all these
things i like to take my indian spices
so that you mentioned cumin it's one one
of the traditional spices in cuisine
coriander and i make you know we were in
london and by the way one of the
national i think the national dish in
london or the uk used to be chicken
chicken masala so i actually take those
spices and i make my blend at home as i
use my different spices make the blend
use some really good quality
grass-fed yogurt to make a marinade oh
and then just like someone just like you
might eat if you consume chicken if you
might eat chicken tikka masala i make
that version but with cauliflower
in the oven
masala
masala tikka masala either cauliflower
steak or are you flores so tell me what
does
tikka
masala mean i've always wondered what
those two words so so the word masala
refers to a spice blend so you know i
have a traditional family homemade
masala which is my mom and my aunts and
grandmother's recipe
tikka just means sort of hot or spicy so
you know it's of course it's gotten a
lot of fame through the dish but it has
basic basically those indian spices in
them and different quantities and you
can make it very spicy if you want or
milder has the good spices which you and
i talk about all the time like chill
make with a pinch of black pepper all of
that involved and what i do is i make it
a little bit spicier for myself okay um
but i'd love to
i find i've found that cauliflower takes
it up most deliciously and you actually
get you can make it in the oven you can
do it as a cauliflower steak how long do
you have to how long about marinade so
you take the you you take the masala you
mix it in the yogurt and it's a little
bit of yogurt and then and then how long
you marinate it and so you can because
it's a vegetable it's a little it's a
shorter man marination time so if i'm
just finished work tonight and i eat
gold marinated for a half hour
you still you still get some good flavor
and then it goes right into the oven
and it goes into the oven i use a little
bit of avocado oil um you know to to
kind of give it a little bit of fat
um and i can oven bake it on a tray
um you can actually do it on a pan you
know uh one of those what temperature
and alcohol
right so in the oven about 400 degrees
for about 10 to 15 minutes okay and just
watch you know oven temperatures vary so
just watch to see that it's kind of
cooking and it's cooked through corn
flour as a steak doesn't take that long
to cook but it's it's a great way to
just kind of reinvent vegetables for
ourselves or
you know make more wholesome plant-based
dishes by adding in those spices
if you consume dairy it's a good way to
get in some
some some good dairy products into your
life and then also the fiber and
everything from the vegetables but most
most importantly for me you know i want
it to be delicious and i think you feel
the same way so i'll pair that with you
know another veggie or that nice green
salad or something like that to uh oh
with something like chickpeas so what
does tikka stand for what does teacup oh
tikka means usually means spicy like
spicy like hot uh okay so you know how
you have levels of heat with the
spiciness on the restaurant menu tikka
is hot
right right
cool well look i'll tell you i'll riff
off what you just said and tell you one
thing i made i also love cauliflower i
will dust it with kind of a homemade
curry
uh powder
and put a little olive oil mix it into a
stainless steel bowl and then i put it
right onto a cookie sheet
heat up the oven and and just and just
bake to cook it and it caramelizes a
little bit
and then it's it's so good it like it's
it's like a snack i could eat that as a
snack
it is a snack and
it could it's a snack and if you have
make a bigger portion or you have a few
portions
you know it's almost it makes a meal
with the salad or something like that
yeah listen this is
i i love i'm gonna i'm gonna
uh
later you can tell me what the recipe is
i'm gonna actually try it but look uh
this has been great um uh can you tell
everyone uh where they can find more out
about you and your work your website
thank you so much william i would love
for people to subscribe to my weekly
newsletter where i give people food tips
so i choose one ingredient one nutrient
and talk about it and you can find me at
uma naidu md.com and on social media at
d-r-u-m-a-n-a-i-d-o-o
you'll find links to my book on my
website on amazon check it out it's
called this is your brain on food
i really want to encourage people to
sign up for dr uma's um
newsletter uh you know our mental health
and mental wellness let's not talk about
the
uh it's not just about the ailments
mental ailments but it's really about
mental wellness wellness which is what
we want to be um
and you know similarly for you want to
learn more about food as medicine i've
got
some re free resources on my website at
www.drdrwilliamli.com