Dr. Mark Hyman Discusses The Pegan (Paleo-Vegan) Diet

Today we're gonna do paleo mashed up with vegan. And to introduce us to that thought process is Doctor Mark Hyman. Please welcome him back to our show. (audience applauding) He's answering the question of what to eat and how to eat, with a book that I think is so cleverly titled. Food: What the Heck Should I Cook? That's his latest book, it's so cute. What a great, great title. And what a great concept. So it's basically focusing on eating real whole foods. Gotcha. Plant rich. Great. And using good quality because food is not just calories, Rachael. It's information. It's medicine, it literally speaks to every cell in your body and tells you to be healthy, be sick, be thin, or be overweight. And it's so powerful when you understand how to use that. So we're gonna talk about how to do this using the Pegan Food Pyramid. So that's what we're That's what we're looking at. looking at here, right? And here's the deal we're going to go shopping at the farmacy. That's farmacy with a F, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y because-- Farm, get it, farm. Farmacy, right. This is where you should get your drugs, okay. Right. And the first thing we're gonna do is, at the bottom of the pyramid is lots of starch, non-starchy veggies. Lots of color, because where the color is, is where the medicine is. And you can get unlimited refills, you can eat as much as you want. And if you eat a rainbow, you don't need to take a ton of pills, right? No you don't need all the colored pills, just eat the colored food. You need the colored foods. So we start with eggplant, all the purples and dark colors are so good for you because they have anthocyanins. Which are antioxidants, that help prevent aging. Cabbage is also great, it's also full of antioxidants. It's one of the best categories of foods, lots of anthocyanins. Lots of red cabbage, any color of cabbage, right? Cruciferous vegetables in general? Cruciferous vegetables are great, and the broccoli, artichokes are amazing. Artichokes actually have powerful detoxifying compounds, and they have prebiotics that help fertilize all the good bugs in your gut. We know how important gut bacteria are to your health. Well why aren't you putting them in the basket there, Doc? All right, a little broccoli. The next category of the pyramid, which is, good quality fat because people are afraid of fat. We've got avocados, and you can mash those up and make-- Avocados are so trendy now you can make chocolate pudding out of them, right? We gotta get Rachael's olive oil. Thank you. Olive oil is a staple fat. So healthy fats. Other good fats: nuts and seeds are great fats, and also omega-3 fats, which we'll talk about with the protein in a minute. Okay, so now we're gonna go back to get some protein. So come over here to my little-- Protein-o-rama. Protein-o-rama. So, the thing about protein is you want quality, right? So there's a lot of different kinds of protein out there but, we wanna stay away from the factory farmed animals as much as possible. It's not good for you, it's not good-- Even if you eat a animal diet, you really need to know where your food comes from. Yeah, I mean, it's bad for you, it's bad for them, it's bad for the planet. It's one of the biggest causes of climate change and environmental destruction. So you wanna have grass fed meat, and you can get it cheap. There's resources in the book where you can actually-- They sell sustainable seafood, and grass fed meats literally at Walmart and Target. Yeah, exactly, you can get it at Costco. There is no excuse to not, exactly. And then, and wild fish. Now, fish is really good because in protein, you can get nutrients you can't get, for example, in vegetables. Like B12, there's a lot of extra antioxidants. It's high quality dense protein, that'd be three cups of quinoa to get, you know, four ounces of steak, right? Of lean steak, right. And then fish is great too. So you want small fish, they're called the smash fish: sardines, mackerel, anchovies. So salmon's also, the wild salmon, make sure you get sustainable raised. If it's farmed you won't have all those antibodies. Of course, absolutely. And pasture raised chicken is also good. So pasture raised pork, chicken, eggs, also great. So these are all great sources of protein. It's not a high protein diet, it's like, mostly plant rich. It's mostly plant based. Now we want starchy veggies and fruit. So you want lots of berries, berries are good. Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, pomegranates are great. These are low starchy veggies and they're really full of antioxidants. Oops, now they're all over the floor. So the blueberries are great, all the berries are great. Low fruit-- And starchy veg that you like. And I like winter squash, I like the sweet potatoes, honeynut squash is great. It's full of-- Sweet potatoes are extremely nutrient dense. Yeah, they have carotenoids and antioxidants. So all this is medicine. Everything you're eating here is medicine. It helps prevent disease, prevents Alzheimer's, cancer, and so forth. We've got the quinoa and the wild rice for grains. For grains. You can have grains, right? And you're getting grains, and it's good grains that are low starch and low glycemic. And they don't, not a lot of gluten 'cause gluten can be irritating for people. And then the last thing is treats. You get treats. I call these recreational treats. Everybody loves sugar.