Speaker 1: What should all of us be eating to have super
Speaker 1: healthy brains? Because with healthier, happier brains, there's like less conflict,
Speaker 1: more love, there's better art, there's more laughter, all the
Speaker 1: stuff I like. Welcome to the one you feed throughout time.
Speaker 1: Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
Speaker 1: quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think, ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dr
Speaker 1: Drew Ramsey, a psychiatrist, author, speaker, farmer and more. He's
Speaker 1: a clear voice in the mental health conversation and one
Speaker 1: of psychiatry's leading proponents of using nutritional interventions. Drew as
Speaker 1: an assistant clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University College
Speaker 1: of Physicians and Surgeons. Today, Jenny and Eric and Drew
Speaker 1: discuss his book Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety Nourish
Speaker 1: Your Way to Better Mental Health in six weeks. Hello, Drew,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Hi there, Jenny and Eric, how
Speaker 1: are you both doing. It's great to be with you.
Speaker 1: It's great to be with you. We are really happy
Speaker 1: to have you on. We have both admired your work
Speaker 1: for a while and we're going to get into all
Speaker 1: of that in a moment. But we're gonna start like
Speaker 1: we always do with the pair of well and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let Jenny take the parable, all right, let me
Speaker 1: give it a go. So there was a grandparent talking
Speaker 1: with their grandchild and they said, in life, there are
Speaker 1: two wolves inside of us that are always a battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and one is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second
Speaker 1: and looks up at their grandparents and said, well, which
Speaker 1: one wins? And the grandparents said, the one you feed
Speaker 1: so I'd love to know what that parable means to
Speaker 1: you in your life and in the work that you do. Well.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that, Jenny. I think that parable in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways is at the root of my
Speaker 1: work and what I do, which is helping human beings
Speaker 1: ascend and transform from where they often meet me, which
Speaker 1: is often a statemental crisis for struggling, whether that's something
Speaker 1: psychiatric depression or anxiety, or something that looks psychiatric but
Speaker 1: is often bigger than that, a notion of not feeling
Speaker 1: in touch with the self, not feeling in touch with
Speaker 1: that kind of higher echelon of our human power to
Speaker 1: be creative, to be loving, to be kind. And all
Speaker 1: of us are battling with those two wolves, right, all
Speaker 1: of us feel how wonderful it is when people are
Speaker 1: kind to us, and we're kind and loving, and you know,
Speaker 1: and the good wolf, as they say in this parable,
Speaker 1: And then all of us also know the ferocious snarl
Speaker 1: of our aggression and our irritability and our fragility, and
Speaker 1: how defensive we can all become. So the which you
Speaker 1: feed really is around and some ways to be the
Speaker 1: basics of mental health work, which is thinking and being
Speaker 1: mindful about where we put our time, energy and emotions. Right,
Speaker 1: if we are consumed with jealous thoughts, not that we
Speaker 1: just want to throw them away or aggressive thoughts, that
Speaker 1: we honor them as having deep meaning, but that is
Speaker 1: not the end for us, right that we are going
Speaker 1: to continue to work that. Everybody listening right now, can
Speaker 1: you think about one that you have a lot of
Speaker 1: aggression towards whoever comes to your mind, right for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: he's dislike them, And how can you in any way
Speaker 1: imagine connecting with them around kindness. It's kind of hard sometimes.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's easy to have gratitude for
Speaker 1: all of our blessings, which we should take a daily
Speaker 1: accounting of that. You know, many of us have so
Speaker 1: many blessings that we don't sit with, you know, having
Speaker 1: gratitude for the hard stuff. It's much more challenging. So
Speaker 1: that's some of I guess what comes up for me
Speaker 1: in terms of this idea of what you feed, um,
Speaker 1: I think it also really applies to nutrition in a
Speaker 1: very concrete way. You make choices, and I think what
Speaker 1: the grandmother with the elder, what the ancient tradition tells us,
Speaker 1: is that if you are feeling powerless. You're probably right.
Speaker 1: You're acting and behaving and in a stance that is
Speaker 1: powerless because you are not choosing the beasts that you're
Speaker 1: going to feed. And it's a very hard thing for
Speaker 1: all of us, especially when we're feeling depressed or anxious
Speaker 1: or powerless, to really be very clear that actually there
Speaker 1: are choices in our lives, from our food, our partners,
Speaker 1: to our sleep to our bedtime actually make a big
Speaker 1: difference for us whether we can be kind or loving
Speaker 1: or not. Okay, So before diving into the heart of
Speaker 1: nutritional psychiatry and the epidemic we're in with mental health,
Speaker 1: I did just want to touch briefly on something you
Speaker 1: just said, and that that was having an element of
Speaker 1: mindfulness where our attention and our energy and our focus
Speaker 1: and our efforts and our choice where we are with that.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was looking at I think it was
Speaker 1: a recent blog post you did around seven factors that
Speaker 1: can really make a difference when it comes to mood
Speaker 1: and depression, and one of those you list is mindfulness.
Speaker 1: I'm a certified mindfulness teacher and that's the realm of
Speaker 1: life that has been meaningful to me in my own
Speaker 1: practice and also in the work that I put out
Speaker 1: in the world. I'd love if you just spend a
Speaker 1: minute maybe talking a bit about the role of mindfulness
Speaker 1: in that context. Well, thank you for that, Jenny, And hey,
Speaker 1: everybody who's listening, sorry for that super long first answer
Speaker 1: I gave. Mindfulness is a process that all of us
Speaker 1: can work on. It's like a muscle. It's an aspect
Speaker 1: of your brain. And like any of your mental health
Speaker 1: or cognitive functions, you know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: we always have to take a step back and realize
Speaker 1: remind ourselves of is our capacity to work that. You know,
Speaker 1: just like if everybody in this room right here, this
Speaker 1: zoom room right wanted to learn another language, next year,
Speaker 1: we all could actually be fluent. Jenny and Eric, they
Speaker 1: could start running their entire business in another language if
Speaker 1: they really needed to, because the power of their human brain.
Speaker 1: So mindfulness is us utilizing the power to harness and
Speaker 1: focus our mind and all of our attention onto singular things.
Speaker 1: We have to do that to get things done right.
Speaker 1: I can do a math equation and think about what
Speaker 1: I should get my kids for Christmas, and focus on
Speaker 1: my patient and the prescriptions, and do my list and
Speaker 1: females that right here to do one at a time,
Speaker 1: and so we think about exercises to help the mind focus.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes people talk about meditation, which about clearing the mind right.
Speaker 1: Wanted to like really know that the mind is in
Speaker 1: a continuous flow and to try and stop that kind
Speaker 1: of slow it down or comment, I like active meditations
Speaker 1: or mindfulness work where we're drawing our focus on something.
Speaker 1: It's where I think people are often drawn. For example,
Speaker 1: if you play musical instrument right where you get pulled
Speaker 1: in or in you're playing and you get that feeling
Speaker 1: right where you're you're you're somewhere at their your fingertips
Speaker 1: and we're on your vocal cords and out and say
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful spot, right, but you're very mindful. Or
Speaker 1: oftentimes when people exercise, or like when hunters go out
Speaker 1: and hunt right and you're sitting there in this really
Speaker 1: quiet zen spot right, there's a notion of mindfulness. Or
Speaker 1: I'm just looking over here at this cucumber. And one
Speaker 1: way to do mindfulness is like I could just eat
Speaker 1: this right now for lance, pop it in right, or
Speaker 1: I can really sit with it right, I can use
Speaker 1: all my senses, I can feel how cool it is.
Speaker 1: Now I can see all the segmentations of the seeds.
Speaker 1: I can really be with this cucumber. You know. Actually
Speaker 1: we want to get on my reading glasses here because yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sort of incredible, right, everything that's right here, and
Speaker 1: and to spend really some moments about all the different
Speaker 1: textures here. So to do that kind of exercise, right
Speaker 1: is then to settle things down, especially if you get
Speaker 1: a lot going on, and to use an exercise like
Speaker 1: this cucumber is more than just some hydration and a
Speaker 1: little nutrition, but it's something that can draw and focus
Speaker 1: my attention. It's one of the reasons I love being
Speaker 1: a therapist these days, got so much going on, But
Speaker 1: actually it's one of the last places where like, no,
Speaker 1: nobody's going to check their phone. Everyone's messages are off,
Speaker 1: there's no interruption, there's nothing else, no emails. It's funny
Speaker 1: when you see at first you think, oh it's digital stuff. Great,
Speaker 1: like you see somebody and do a little note to
Speaker 1: write it. It's like, no, we all know the second.
Speaker 1: The second the full attention isn't on the person, right,
Speaker 1: And so it's wonderful in that way because it's kind
Speaker 1: of an act of mindfulness, of just constant attention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're so right. I mean, and I think that that
Speaker 1: ability to really pay close attention is the beginning of
Speaker 1: when we can really cultivate appreciation and intention for the
Speaker 1: choices we make and what's there. So back to the
Speaker 1: realm of nutritional psychiatry. You talk about us being in
Speaker 1: a mental health epidemic right, a mental health crisis and
Speaker 1: rates of anxiety and depression really being steeply on the rise.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is what is going on?
Speaker 1: Let's put us in this place. Well, one is that
Speaker 1: we're more aware about mental health. We're talking about it more.
Speaker 1: And a lot of this because of this new book
Speaker 1: Eat to Be, Depression and Anxiety, where I was able
Speaker 1: to really look at at some of the modern statistics
Speaker 1: of what's going on in the past ten or twenty years.
Speaker 1: Part of it is people are getting more help right now,
Speaker 1: twenty five percent of women in the last there's a
Speaker 1: survey from two thousand and two to I think two
Speaker 1: thousand and nineteen of what percentage of people were engaging
Speaker 1: in mental health care services, and it thinks about six
Speaker 1: of women now and eleven percent of men every year.
Speaker 1: So there's this big increase in interest in treatment, in
Speaker 1: people wanting to address mental health. The other things that
Speaker 1: are going on prior to the COVID epidemic being on
Speaker 1: the edge of some sort of calamity world War wise,
Speaker 1: lots of politic well discord, and lots and lots of
Speaker 1: hatred in all of our feeds and all of our
Speaker 1: news broadcast. Right before all of that, we had a
Speaker 1: mental health crisis. The way is that usually gets defined
Speaker 1: is we're losing let's say, between like fifty to seventy
Speaker 1: five thousand people to suicide a year. The statistic is is,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhere in the middle of that, But I
Speaker 1: just think a lot of people die by suicide that
Speaker 1: doesn't get reported that way. We lost over a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people to death by overdose right The majority of
Speaker 1: those are FENTANIL. So the idea that what used to
Speaker 1: be like going out having a little party, blowing a
Speaker 1: line right now is actually a group of you know,
Speaker 1: folks who aren't significant substance users but just to have
Speaker 1: a little party down there are all dead from FENTONIL
Speaker 1: to the point now, when I talk to people who
Speaker 1: have some substance use in their lives. You know, you've
Speaker 1: got to be really clear, like you've gotta have a
Speaker 1: Fentyl test kit that you cannot go out and think
Speaker 1: about any thing sause you will die. It's really scary.
Speaker 1: So that's driving the epidemic. You know, there has been
Speaker 1: a real ongoing crisis in our mental health care system,
Speaker 1: right Clinicians like me, we are getting worked hard and
Speaker 1: there aren't enough of us. And even if you've got
Speaker 1: it great, I have a wonderful private practice. I've got
Speaker 1: an amazing clinicians to work with who support me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm really blessed. It's still a really hard job. I'm
Speaker 1: sitting here with you all. I started my day at
Speaker 1: about four thirty am, so my first patients starting at
Speaker 1: five am, and I've been going since. And I love
Speaker 1: my work and i love seeing patients. But we're not
Speaker 1: talking about easy stuff, and so we have to increase capacity.
Speaker 1: We have to increase access, you know, some of us
Speaker 1: trying to do this. I have my E courses, you know,
Speaker 1: which is a way to try and access some of
Speaker 1: the knowledge we've gained about food and mental health. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of ways to get supported mental health. One
Speaker 1: of my patients and we're trying to figure out kind
Speaker 1: of diagnostic clarity and said, you know, it really helped
Speaker 1: me because then I would know what support community is
Speaker 1: going to be most helpful to me. But in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, the epidemic that you're talking about, part of
Speaker 1: it is as their physical health decline. Right as we
Speaker 1: struggle with diabetes, we struggle with obesity, and we struggle
Speaker 1: with a lack of emotional awareness and engagement. Right the
Speaker 1: structures that used to give that to us in a society,
Speaker 1: whether that was our schools or our churches or our elders,
Speaker 1: that is just rapidly shifted. So people don't, you know,
Speaker 1: really know where to get mental health. And one of
Speaker 1: the big concerns we've had and started the work we've
Speaker 1: done most recently, is how do we help you build
Speaker 1: mental health like not being this thing like I'm not
Speaker 1: stay here and wait, like maybe I'll get depressed in
Speaker 1: suicide on my fifties. That's what That's what happens to
Speaker 1: most doctors like me, to be honest, right, the number
Speaker 1: one profession at risk for suicide ors physicians, physicians and farmers.
Speaker 1: It's kind of goes back and forth. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: you don't want to sit around a waight for that, right,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting looking that Statistically, what what do I do
Speaker 1: in my forties? Right? How do I talk about that?
Speaker 1: How do you create a system where like, no, that
Speaker 1: that is not going to happen to me. And so
Speaker 1: that's around what we call mental fitness and this idea
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of things driving the mental
Speaker 1: health epidemic. If you're somebody who's gotta mental health problems
Speaker 1: in some ways, none of that matters because you got
Speaker 1: it right. It's about now getting better. And if you
Speaker 1: don't have significant mental health symptoms right now, I think
Speaker 1: it should be on your radar. Everybody's worried about, like
Speaker 1: heart disease and cancer. Like I don't mean to be
Speaker 1: like a jerk here, but like, okay, statistically everybody listening
Speaker 1: to this is going to die from vascular disease, heart disease,
Speaker 1: or cancer statistically or suicide. And so what mental health
Speaker 1: asks us to focus on is today. And that's where
Speaker 1: we're very different than other fields of medicine. You know,
Speaker 1: the idea that you're gonna die in seventy years, twenty years,
Speaker 1: thirty years, right, Like I want to talk about that,
Speaker 1: But I want to think about today. I want to
Speaker 1: think about the relationships and the choices you make today
Speaker 1: and how that then can better insulate you and fuel
Speaker 1: your mental health and give you the tools that you
Speaker 1: need to really have a life. You're feeling very wonderful about.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about how you were led
Speaker 1: into nutritional psychiatry, maybe what nutritional psychiatry is, and what
Speaker 1: led you to really focus so much of your life's
Speaker 1: work in that particular area. Yeah. Sure, So nutritional psychiatry
Speaker 1: is looking at mental health through the lens of food.
Speaker 1: There are not a lot of us on the clinical side.
Speaker 1: They're just a couple of us in the United States.
Speaker 1: I've been really lucky to be early in the movement.
Speaker 1: I have defined nutritional psychiatry is the use of food.
Speaker 1: I guess nutrition, but I really buy that. I mean food,
Speaker 1: Like what's at the end of your fork to optimize
Speaker 1: brain health? Right, what should all of us be eating
Speaker 1: to have super healthy brains? Because with healthier, happier brains,
Speaker 1: there's like less conflict, more love, there's better art, there's
Speaker 1: more laughter, all this stuff. I like like laughing, eating
Speaker 1: good stuff, hanging out, human smiling, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: good stuff when you feel it. Right. We all know
Speaker 1: that in the use of nutrition to prevent and treat
Speaker 1: mental health disorders, and that shouldn't be a controversial statement.
Speaker 1: In two, I think a lot of times my field
Speaker 1: has been in a defensive stance because no one gives
Speaker 1: us legitimacy. I if you don't have a medicine to
Speaker 1: fix it in modern America, you're not legit right as
Speaker 1: a doc, if I don't have my silver boat, like
Speaker 1: of course you have depression. Eric, come on over here,
Speaker 1: young man, let me give you a bam. Don't you
Speaker 1: feel amazing? Now? That's why ketamine has gotten so popular, right,
Speaker 1: it's the only thing, is the first thing ever where
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, I can make you feel better in
Speaker 1: an hour. Everything else in mental health is like I
Speaker 1: can make you feel better in like seven years, seven
Speaker 1: years a second there, probably like and probably that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound nearly is fun. So helping folks understand their choices
Speaker 1: that influence mental health risk. And then no matter where
Speaker 1: you are, what diagnosis you have, you have a brain,
Speaker 1: you have neurons. They need certain nutrients, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people aren't getting those nutrients. If you're eating lots
Speaker 1: of processed foods. If you, you know, have a non
Speaker 1: joyful relationship with food is not nourishing, it's not pleasure,
Speaker 1: it's at chore, it's calories. It sucks. Right, you have
Speaker 1: a huge opportunity, I would say, in terms of your
Speaker 1: mental health around nutritional psychiatry and how to think about
Speaker 1: like what that is and where's the kind loving, caring
Speaker 1: person towards the self and what's going on? Is it knowledge?
Speaker 1: Is it connection? Is it that you think brain food
Speaker 1: is gross? Eric's where it came from from me. I
Speaker 1: grew up on a farm and really rural Indiana. I
Speaker 1: have kind of hippie foodie parents in a way, so
Speaker 1: we were always eating like organic stuff and and growing
Speaker 1: our own food. Then when I was younger in college
Speaker 1: in medical school, I became a little fat vegetarian and
Speaker 1: it was really like wanting to eat to be a
Speaker 1: super healthy guy. I was a college athlete, but also
Speaker 1: you know, young, like excitable, pre med and wanting to
Speaker 1: really live by healthy values and a healthy lifestyle. So
Speaker 1: tried to dive for a while. I found a lot
Speaker 1: of fatigue and probably some depression on that that I
Speaker 1: personally experienced. Started adding in meat, and then seafood was
Speaker 1: a real challenge for me. But I started really challenging
Speaker 1: myself to eat seafood when I was a resident in
Speaker 1: New York and there you realized, like, you know, Manhattan's
Speaker 1: an island, there's a lot of great seafood there. And
Speaker 1: really had a lot of friends and chef friends kind
Speaker 1: of helped me like take little bites and and I
Speaker 1: really learned a lot of seafood. But you know, nutritional
Speaker 1: psychiatry I think has evolved rapidly over the past few
Speaker 1: years because of all the data. Right that my first book,
Speaker 1: The Happiness Diet, came out in twenty eleven, I think
Speaker 1: probably it's the first really clear this is a nutritional
Speaker 1: psychiatry book. Eat Complete uh well last year, which is
Speaker 1: my my third book, is a cookbook. Um as soon
Speaker 1: as it's the first nutritional psychiatry cookbook that really says, hey,
Speaker 1: this is for your brain. Health in the field then
Speaker 1: rapidly evolved. Right, twenty seventeen, the Smiles Trial comes out.
Speaker 1: Sixty seven people who have mental health disorders are treated,
Speaker 1: They're added on a Mediterranean diet. They get some counseling
Speaker 1: sessions about food, like what our health coach Emily Burner
Speaker 1: does in our clinic. It's like, hey, these are tips,
Speaker 1: these are ways and recipes and meal planes, whatever you
Speaker 1: need right to kind of get you on a more
Speaker 1: traditional diet. They found thirty two point three percent of
Speaker 1: patients went into full remission. Most recently, the amend trial
Speaker 1: is like young men in Australia's depression. There seventy two
Speaker 1: of them in that trial. They just give them to
Speaker 1: nutritional counseling sessions, lot of encouragement. These effective trials they
Speaker 1: give young folks like olive oil, like here's your jug
Speaker 1: of oil, Like go forth, young man, eat vegetables. And
Speaker 1: a hundred percent of these young men improved the Mediterranean
Speaker 1: dietary score the on average eight points at the fourteen
Speaker 1: point scale, so a big jump. But thirty six percent
Speaker 1: of that went to full remission of their depression. And
Speaker 1: I spoke with the researcher Jessica Bays. I've got a
Speaker 1: great interview up with her on our site. But it
Speaker 1: sort of say like, just like what did you do?
Speaker 1: Like every parent, every mom wants to know, Like we
Speaker 1: encouraged olive oil dipping, good bread and olive oil. We
Speaker 1: encourage eating plants you like what plants I have left
Speaker 1: sery five favorite plants, great, eat more of those. And
Speaker 1: then beans and legumes that just the young men hadn't
Speaker 1: really been talked to about beans and the games and
Speaker 1: the one that really resonated with me as a guy
Speaker 1: interested in maile mental health. She said, the young men
Speaker 1: felt seen. They said, nobody really seemed to care about
Speaker 1: their depression. Nobody really seemed to be checking in with them.
Speaker 1: And it really meant a lot that she was asking
Speaker 1: them and telling them about stuff they could do and
Speaker 1: identifying things and choices in their life where maybe contributing
Speaker 1: the oppression. So bo, that's a long answer, Eric about
Speaker 1: why nutritional psychiatry it was more fun and also tasty.
Speaker 1: I found that, like, you know, there's a way that
Speaker 1: when I talked about food with patients, it was like,
Speaker 1: clear everybody likes food. Right, you talked to me about pesto,
Speaker 1: It's clear I like it. You know, you tell me
Speaker 1: a few of your favorite things. All a sudden, we're
Speaker 1: like having a little different vibe. And I think along
Speaker 1: with all that serious stuff that I always want to
Speaker 1: talk about with my patients and love talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: I also want it to be there's some moments that
Speaker 1: we both really enjoy, you know, where where we can
Speaker 1: both be humans who love some aspect of food or
Speaker 1: struggling with some active spect of food, or dammit, want
Speaker 1: another piece of cake, you know, and we can be
Speaker 1: talking about that and kind of working through that in
Speaker 1: some way. I could talk about olive oil all day long.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just have grown to love it and
Speaker 1: appreciate it and it's health benefits, but then also it
Speaker 1: makes things delicious. I think it's one of those foods
Speaker 1: that's so wonderful forest because of the accessibility and also
Speaker 1: the simplicity. If everybody listening, you open up your cabinet,
Speaker 1: if you see you know, canola oil and sunflour oil
Speaker 1: and corn oil and so you know, I'd say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, one easy nutritional psychiatry move is you should
Speaker 1: get rid of all of those and get yourself a
Speaker 1: nice fresh jug of olive oil, but I don't know,
Speaker 1: a quarter or so, and get rid of it in
Speaker 1: the next week, you know, by pouring it on vegetables,
Speaker 1: by sting you know, vegees in it, by oven roasting them,
Speaker 1: by cooking your eggs, and right that, just use olive
Speaker 1: oil as a primary fat. Focus on that and getting
Speaker 1: more seafood in your diet, you really in some ways
Speaker 1: have fixed the major cultural shifts that have changed how
Speaker 1: we eat in terms of fatty acid consumption. I've started
Speaker 1: sending a couple of text messages after each podcast listener
Speaker 1: with positive reminders about what's discussed and invitations to apply
Speaker 1: the wisdom to your life. It's free, and listeners have
Speaker 1: told me that these texts really helped to pull them
Speaker 1: out of autopilot and reconnect them with what's important. When
Speaker 1: you get a text for me during your day to
Speaker 1: day life, it's one more thing that helps you further
Speaker 1: bridge that gap between what you know and what you do.
Speaker 1: Positive messages when you need them for me to you.
Speaker 1: So if you'd like to hear from me a few
Speaker 1: times a week via text, go to one you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash text and sign up for free. One
Speaker 1: of the things you say, I love this line is
Speaker 1: that your brain health starts at the end of your fork,
Speaker 1: which is such a great short phrase that makes a
Speaker 1: really big point that that choice you know it is
Speaker 1: really the beginning of supporting your brain health. I wonder
Speaker 1: if in your field you run into very often whether
Speaker 1: it's from peers or you know, the public at large,
Speaker 1: but just the challenges around studying the health benefits of
Speaker 1: foods in a longitudinal, well controlled way. You know, you
Speaker 1: talk about nutritional psychiatry as an evidence based approach. I
Speaker 1: wonder though, with those challenges, I think of really making
Speaker 1: the trials well controlled enough based on all the many
Speaker 1: variables at play at people's lives and trying to isolate
Speaker 1: for specific food as having a role that has impact
Speaker 1: in reducing risk of disease, you know, etcetera. How do
Speaker 1: you attribute in the research, like how do you address
Speaker 1: that concern or how do you attribute the consumption or
Speaker 1: avoidance of specific foods too specific mental health outcomes? Do
Speaker 1: you see that as evidence that's pretty clear or evidence
Speaker 1: that could be stronger. I think evidence can always be
Speaker 1: stronger because it's science. So I think we should definitely
Speaker 1: go down the side of more science. Think anybody who's
Speaker 1: listening has lots of money, you should donate that to
Speaker 1: nutritional psychiatry research or mental health for third, right, because
Speaker 1: when I have evidence and I can look a patient
Speaker 1: the eye and say hey, X percentage of patients get better.
Speaker 1: Right on whether it's a medicine or psychotherapy, or I
Speaker 1: can say, hey, a hundred and fifty two people were
Speaker 1: in this trial with severe depression, and three months later,
Speaker 1: the majority of them were feeling much better when they
Speaker 1: adopted the Mediterranean style diet. Right, that's really helpful. You're
Speaker 1: alluding to the fact that research is hard to do
Speaker 1: in mental health. Right. We have formal rating scales, which
Speaker 1: if if you've ever filled one out, you know you're going,
Speaker 1: wow today, I'm feeling all right, Thank goodness for doing
Speaker 1: the rating scale if we did it yesterday. Food frequency
Speaker 1: questionnaires usually don't work. I can ask you, hey, what
Speaker 1: you eat last week, it's not super accurate. These studies
Speaker 1: tend to use widgets what they call them in Australia
Speaker 1: or apps, by which you're going to get a prompt
Speaker 1: and you're going to record a lot of what you eat,
Speaker 1: and you know, now we can do more of that
Speaker 1: or take pictures of what you're eating. You also can't
Speaker 1: double blind food. Right. If I'm gonna do an experiment
Speaker 1: with Eric and Jenny, I'm gonna give them the same bill,
Speaker 1: and one of them is getting some wild antidepressant that
Speaker 1: we're trialing, and the other one is getting a sugar
Speaker 1: pill if we give it to a hundred people who
Speaker 1: get a sense right of a randomized controlled trial. With food,
Speaker 1: you know that I'm feeding you salmon and Brussels sprouts,
Speaker 1: and also, as I often mentioned in my talks, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not just the nutrients in the brain foods. I
Speaker 1: really want you eating it in a joyful context. You know.
Speaker 1: I want you to look around the table, I want
Speaker 1: you to take a deep breath. I want you to
Speaker 1: chew your food. Ideally, I'd like you to think about
Speaker 1: a time regularly where you can cook for others. I
Speaker 1: think you should go to your farmer's marketing, And I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of ways you can kind of
Speaker 1: flex and build mental health using nutrition as a kind
Speaker 1: of vehicle for that. There are other patterns like keto.
Speaker 1: Is keto good for mental health? So you can like sure,
Speaker 1: there's like a yearlong trial of keto, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's definitely like doesn't matter to go gluten free. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you have gluten sensitivity, right, if you have irritable
Speaker 1: bowel syndrome and you simplify your diet, yeah, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be great for your mental health. Over there's huge reduction
Speaker 1: in an anxiety among patients with balle issues when they
Speaker 1: get that kind of sorted out with diet, goes from
Speaker 1: about seventy of the population back down to normal about
Speaker 1: like the population. So and then I would also say,
Speaker 1: you know, there's also this the farm boy in me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, folks, we do not need any more studies
Speaker 1: or science about how to treat depression. The first steps
Speaker 1: should be super obvious and clear to all of us.
Speaker 1: Everyone listening knows what they are. Everyone listening knows the
Speaker 1: things you're doing in your life. You're not taking care
Speaker 1: of your mental health. We all do it. Yes, there
Speaker 1: are lots of mysteries to the human brain. Yes we
Speaker 1: want better treatments. But it's not like when I meet patients,
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, what a mystery of how to help
Speaker 1: you get better? You know, sometime it takes a little while,
Speaker 1: probably takes as the therapist he sitting and listen to
Speaker 1: people who tell you all the ways that they know
Speaker 1: that and then they say, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's like with all my face and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: it just like we gotta hit rewind. You just tell
Speaker 1: me all the things you know. You know a lot
Speaker 1: like maybe you don't know exactly what to do with
Speaker 1: it next, but actually it does sound like you do,
Speaker 1: you know, And so I would just say that the
Speaker 1: point being, yes, mental health is complex, but when it
Speaker 1: comes to the research about mental health, right, what is
Speaker 1: the most powerful antidepressant out there that everybody can do?
Speaker 1: Movement and exercise right? Doesn't mean everyone's doing it, you know,
Speaker 1: like can a third of people with chronic depression probably
Speaker 1: improve with a more traditional style diet if you're eating
Speaker 1: lots of garbage? Probably right? But you know, what we
Speaker 1: really hoped in our clinic is to start providing people,
Speaker 1: you know, tools and encouragement and community around. Hey, a
Speaker 1: lot of silver bullet, but it's definitely going to help
Speaker 1: a lot of folks. Let's start getting food right, Let's
Speaker 1: start getting movement right, Let's start building mental fitness and
Speaker 1: talking about it in our everyday lives. So, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you just said something there that's important, which is
Speaker 1: the silver bullet aspect, right, Because a lot of times
Speaker 1: when nutrition and holistic therapies are served up, they're served
Speaker 1: up as just eat kale and all your problems will
Speaker 1: go away, right, And I love that your work is
Speaker 1: not oriented in that way, and and it says, look,
Speaker 1: nutrition is an important part of overall mental health, it's
Speaker 1: not the whole game. And I'm kind of curious, how
Speaker 1: do you think about when you're working with the patient,
Speaker 1: what levers to pull, you know, knowing that we have
Speaker 1: a variety of levers, right, we have talk, therapy, we
Speaker 1: have medication, we have nutrition, we have movement. I'm going
Speaker 1: to add a part B to that question, which is,
Speaker 1: with something like depression, one of the hardest things is
Speaker 1: that the very things that are best for depression often
Speaker 1: take a lot of energy, and energy is what we
Speaker 1: often don't have when we're depressed. So how do you
Speaker 1: also work through that conundrum with your patients? Start with
Speaker 1: me personally, you know. How to thing from me when
Speaker 1: I'm starting with depression is that the motivation to do
Speaker 1: things doesn't seem so clear because nothing really feels very good,
Speaker 1: you know, So I don't real think, you know. So
Speaker 1: it's like I don't want to go get a latte
Speaker 1: or go talk to a friends, like I'm not enjoying it.
Speaker 1: I'm not enjoying what I'm like. The future is not
Speaker 1: seeming like good and bright, and especially for folks in
Speaker 1: middle age. I think what least sucks about depression is
Speaker 1: you're looking and you're kind of feeling like, damn all
Speaker 1: this effort, And is that how I feel like it? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like I mean, especially parents in COVID, when you
Speaker 1: were doing the whole like managing above and managing below
Speaker 1: where you know you're additioning up dinners for kids for
Speaker 1: aging parents. I mean, it's a tough thing and it's
Speaker 1: hard to feel good often, and so I think you're
Speaker 1: really right. I would say that the ways Eric, that
Speaker 1: I've always worked for me personally and I find work
Speaker 1: for my patients is one when there's partnership with people.
Speaker 1: When you're alone struggling with any of this stuff, boy,
Speaker 1: it sucks worse when you're with somebody, a friend who
Speaker 1: isn't going to patronize, using gonna judge you, but it's
Speaker 1: gonna knock on the door and be like let's go.
Speaker 1: Let's go here, depressed, let's go, like come on, let's
Speaker 1: go for a walk, sunny outside, let's go. Maybe doesn't
Speaker 1: even talk, but something like that, or I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, when I'm not doing I'll talk to a
Speaker 1: few friends who also are colleagues, and you know there's
Speaker 1: good about those text and how's it going? You know, like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? You do you started that thing,
Speaker 1: yet you're still moaning like or whatever. Right, So you
Speaker 1: want to share things with people. You want to use
Speaker 1: groups to motivate you. Right, when you've got somebody who's
Speaker 1: depending on you're just that much more likely to go. Also,
Speaker 1: that's then somebody you can help. Maybe you go knock
Speaker 1: on their door tomorrow all of a sudden, you're giving.
Speaker 1: That always feels good. That's always good for depression because
Speaker 1: when you're going after yourself and being all nastiest people
Speaker 1: tend to do in depression, you can kind of fat
Speaker 1: back and be like, no, you went knocked on door,
Speaker 1: like you asked them a question, you did something. I
Speaker 1: think the other part, Eric is people make it too complicated.
Speaker 1: Like when I say brain food, people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: like nineteen superfood, soft dog, sauteid not steamed, right, don't
Speaker 1: steam it? You boil it only a D eighteen degree
Speaker 1: right with you got to put the black pepper on
Speaker 1: there to like get the list with that out of
Speaker 1: it and make sure right it's like ah right, And
Speaker 1: then all of the misinformation right, the misinformation about oxalates,
Speaker 1: it's getting spread out there. There's just disgusting, right, this
Speaker 1: idea that like eating kale is gonna cause all kinds
Speaker 1: of like pains and I it's just like kale is
Speaker 1: actually the definition of a low oxide like green, just
Speaker 1: to tell people have bad The misinformation is Lectin's total garbage,
Speaker 1: misinformation campaign, total bullshit, like literally horseshit. Sorry to be
Speaker 1: so blunt. And you see people like, oh wait, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe it's the lentils that's causing It's like, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's the processed food. It's the sugar, it's
Speaker 1: the lack of sleep, it's the not moving or loving
Speaker 1: enough that's the problem. It's not that you're eating freaking
Speaker 1: black beans occasionally. It's so I would say, you're gonna
Speaker 1: part of it's where people have you gotten pulled into,
Speaker 1: indoctrinated into this cult of misinformation about nutrition, wellness and
Speaker 1: food and they think it's a mysterious thing that someone
Speaker 1: else has figured out and it's not. Everything you need
Speaker 1: is writ in your local grocery store. Everything you need
Speaker 1: is at the end of your fork. In terms of food,
Speaker 1: you can be very very powerful eater going to Walmart,
Speaker 1: I I have. I grew up in really really rural Indiana.
Speaker 1: Walmart is the closest grocery store to me or the
Speaker 1: I g A. There's not a big organic food section,
Speaker 1: but there's everything you need. There's wild salmon, there's anchovies,
Speaker 1: there's yeah, I'm getting hung it's snoki. There's broccoli, there's
Speaker 1: all the good So there's kale. So yeah, I recently
Speaker 1: learned to love can sardines. Oh how did you do that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I know, I haven't been to Portugal yet, so I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to that. Share with everybody how you like
Speaker 1: starting this because this is a great example. Also, Eric
Speaker 1: your notice like it's complicated, costs us like no not,
Speaker 1: it's about like everybody listening, just like, let's be straight
Speaker 1: up honest. Do you have a good sardine game? Do
Speaker 1: you have a good tinned fish game? Startine game? My
Speaker 1: sardine game is strong. Let's hear it. Let's hear it, Jenny,
Speaker 1: help us for sardine deficient people. Yes, well, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what and you can probably fill in some of
Speaker 1: the blanks here. But I just over and over kept
Speaker 1: reading about how good they are for your brain, Like
Speaker 1: there are these tiny little fish that packed this huge
Speaker 1: beneficial punch. There are a great source of protein and
Speaker 1: you know O mega threes. And so I finally was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I was going to a retreat where
Speaker 1: I knew they were going to serve just plant based meals,
Speaker 1: and I thought, um, this is like a plant based
Speaker 1: retreat hack, right, Like bring like the tin fish with you, yes,
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm gonna bring some protein. So
Speaker 1: I brought the sardines, and I mean I was like,
Speaker 1: I opened them, like I'm gonna hate this. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: hate these. You know, these are tiny, little fishy and
Speaker 1: they're gonna be fishy anyway. So I tasted one and
Speaker 1: to me, I was like, you know what, this taste
Speaker 1: a lot like cantuna. Like that if you like cantuna,
Speaker 1: Sardines are not an offensively fishy food. Even get them
Speaker 1: like filet and with no skin on them. So then
Speaker 1: it's just the easiest thing to eat and could not
Speaker 1: be better for you. Yeah. The reason that topping are
Speaker 1: you're getting your complete protein. They are the original best
Speaker 1: source of wanting to make it three fats, I mean,
Speaker 1: they eat this algae and bio concentrated forest. But the smaller,
Speaker 1: tinier fish, I'm not gonna have to worry about mercury
Speaker 1: and and as much kind of of the stuff that
Speaker 1: tends to concern people. A fish right polluting some mercury.
Speaker 1: Small fish don't worry about that. Lots and lots of them.
Speaker 1: Maga three fats be twelve. Actually, those small fish, especially
Speaker 1: for women who are listening, are amazing because they're one
Speaker 1: of the top calcium foods. Because you eat these little
Speaker 1: small bones and they're inexpensive, you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about them spoiling. Jenny's maybe got a little better palette
Speaker 1: than I. Don't eat a ton of tuner or a
Speaker 1: ton of sardines out again, I gotta cook them up
Speaker 1: a little bit. And with sardines, I make this nioki
Speaker 1: Ella Glenda, which I named after the Aspen Brain Institute
Speaker 1: founder Glenda Greenwald. I was about to make her anchovies,
Speaker 1: and she's like, I don't like anchovies. I was like, like,
Speaker 1: I like sardines. I was like, quick, run to the pantry.
Speaker 1: It's that guy was the middle of the pandemic. I
Speaker 1: was like stocked up. I was like, I have no
Speaker 1: idea what I'm gonna do with all this stuff. But
Speaker 1: I eventually figured out. But if you just like you know,
Speaker 1: garlic olive oil, like some a reagano fresh regana ideally
Speaker 1: legal tomato paste, some pine nuts, and just put in
Speaker 1: some sardine, kind of mash them in there to low
Speaker 1: heat a little tomato paste, drop it over some yoki ears.
Speaker 1: It's really really o mommy, not fishy at all. Be
Speaker 1: a good sardine game and just tin fish game. I
Speaker 1: think it's just one of those ways again people look
Speaker 1: to fish oils, they look at that silver bullet, right,
Speaker 1: And that's not what this is about. It's about eating
Speaker 1: a dietary pattern and living a lifestyle that supports your
Speaker 1: mental health. It means refusing to live under the tyranny
Speaker 1: of too busy. It means refusing to live under the
Speaker 1: tyranny that food is going to be super efficient, super
Speaker 1: cheap and last forever. Those are false ideals that are
Speaker 1: going to destroy your mental health. And you know that's
Speaker 1: about the mental health epidemic. I think in part it's
Speaker 1: just that we right now do not have a culture
Speaker 1: that values mental health. Right. We're starting to get concerned
Speaker 1: about it, but it's it's not like we engage with
Speaker 1: one another as like, you know, the most powerful thing
Speaker 1: we can do as a country is support one another's
Speaker 1: mental health. The most powerful thing I can do after
Speaker 1: voting right is to go and be kind to the
Speaker 1: person who left of me into the right of me
Speaker 1: in most situations, and to support them along with awareness
Speaker 1: and the need for more treatment. I just think there's
Speaker 1: also that part that we all have to do that, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: do we have a mentally healthy society right now? Well,
Speaker 1: how are we all contributing to that? It's all of
Speaker 1: our faults. I would be remiss if I did not
Speaker 1: bring up our editor Chris's shardine game does sardine game too?
Speaker 1: He does. He cracks them right open in the can,
Speaker 1: dumps some mustard in, and just eats him out with
Speaker 1: a fork. So Chris is an a player when it
Speaker 1: comes to sardines. So I think Drew your croach sounds
Speaker 1: much better to me. Yeah, I got gold. I hope
Speaker 1: somebody will be one of those guys like when I'm
Speaker 1: old and you find me on the mountaintop out here
Speaker 1: in Jackson and be like, oh I see Duc Ramsey
Speaker 1: over there, and be like hello. Everyone's like but I'm
Speaker 1: not there yet. I need like to cook them. I'm
Speaker 1: on the mountaintop. I just can't eat sardines yet. The
Speaker 1: one I've been eating the Patagonia, and I don't want
Speaker 1: any affiliation other I'm a big fan. And Yvonne lives
Speaker 1: in Jackson, and it's a generous is his family and
Speaker 1: he have been I think to shout out. But the
Speaker 1: Patagonia Provisions has some amazing, amazing preserved fish and tins
Speaker 1: of fish. My wife, like the Grand Titan, climbed it
Speaker 1: with some friends with the X some guides and they
Speaker 1: brought along this. You know, it's amazing wild salmon up there.
Speaker 1: And so one of the things that's wonderful for eaters today,
Speaker 1: and I hope everybody feels a little encouraged, is the
Speaker 1: access that you have. I mean, and I say this
Speaker 1: as someone who grew up in a food desert, right
Speaker 1: I'm not from a place where there's fancy grocery stores.
Speaker 1: There is so much choice and even now, I mean,
Speaker 1: food is so expensive right now, the inflation is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: But even within the food inflation, there's still so many
Speaker 1: great deals and great choices that everyone has available to them.
Speaker 1: And if you're struggling with that everything that's total, you know,
Speaker 1: bologna of the statement, we've got a resource brain food
Speaker 1: on a budget at least to help support that idea
Speaker 1: and kind of give folks at least some ideas around
Speaker 1: how a reasonable budget can really put together a great
Speaker 1: brain food. Chen, you used a phrase just a minute
Speaker 1: ago I thought we could go into, and it was
Speaker 1: nutritional patterns. Can you talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: a nutritional pattern is and how that can make this
Speaker 1: type of eating easier for us? Yeah, a nutritional pattern.
Speaker 1: We call it a dietary pattern. So when people say
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean diet, you know, if you were on from
Speaker 1: rural America, Midwest, that means like Italian food, that means
Speaker 1: pizza hut, right, pizza and pasta. And then you know
Speaker 1: Greek food that means like a hero. So Mediterranean diet
Speaker 1: is a dietary pattern. It's dietary pattern that have processed grains,
Speaker 1: they have whole grains, right, They have more seafood and
Speaker 1: fermented foods. They have more plants, they have more small fish.
Speaker 1: So if you think about the month your dietary pattern,
Speaker 1: I usually do it in weak chunks and in each
Speaker 1: beat depression and anxiety. There's a six week plan in
Speaker 1: the back that each week we go through a food
Speaker 1: category to really increase what's called the nutrient density of
Speaker 1: your dietary pattern. Means, when you're eating according to brain
Speaker 1: food rules or dr drew rams these ideas about food,
Speaker 1: you're seeking out foods that has more nutrients per calorie.
Speaker 1: So it's where when you're drinking a soda, you're getting
Speaker 1: a hundred and forty calories and you're not really getting
Speaker 1: any nutrients. Are getting a little phosphorus when you're eating
Speaker 1: a small kale salad or you know, believing the misinformation
Speaker 1: about kale, So you're on whatever your box choil or
Speaker 1: rugle of salad. Right about thirty calories per cup. Let's
Speaker 1: give you three cups and a little olive oil like
Speaker 1: drizzle it over there, some lemon juice and little salts.
Speaker 1: About a hundred and forty calories right there. Just think
Speaker 1: about all the nutrition I just gave you. Right, you're
Speaker 1: getting like more than a thousand percent of your daily
Speaker 1: need of vitamin K, a fast soluble nutrient that probably
Speaker 1: takes care of the brain and ways. We're just starting
Speaker 1: to understand, you're getting like eight of your daily vitamin A.
Speaker 1: You're getting probably two or three daily need of vitamin C.
Speaker 1: You're getting fiber, you're getting fully, you're getting vetter nutrients,
Speaker 1: you're getting magnesium. You're getting all this stuff for the
Speaker 1: same amount of calories as the cokered. So that's nutrient density.
Speaker 1: So we're looking for a dietary pattern and we construct
Speaker 1: that out of these very nutrient dense food categories, leafy greens,
Speaker 1: rainbow vegetables, the small fish. We were just talking about nuts,
Speaker 1: beans and seeds, right, like almonds incredible snack. While nuts,
Speaker 1: we look at things like fermented foods right where it's
Speaker 1: not gonna be nutrient dense, it's going to be dense
Speaker 1: with live bacteria. And so we're going to overtime foster
Speaker 1: a vary what's called diverse microbiome. Right, all these organisms
Speaker 1: that live on our gup, but we're gonna have like
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different species. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: correlations betwe ween our microbiome diversity and health and the
Speaker 1: risk of depression, for example. So that's I hope explains
Speaker 1: like a dietary pattern. We haven't mentioned eggs, meat, dairy,
Speaker 1: These all can be part of your dietary pattern. I
Speaker 1: think some people argued should be part of your dietary pattern. Um.
Speaker 1: A lot of times those foods get vilified. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you're struggling, Let's say you're looking for to feed
Speaker 1: a family of four and you have five bucks for
Speaker 1: your protein, you know, a pound of ground beef is
Speaker 1: pretty incredible because kids love it. You can do a
Speaker 1: million different things with it, and it costs a few dollars.
Speaker 1: You know, I appreciate all the concerns about conventional meat.
Speaker 1: I also really think there's a food justice argument that
Speaker 1: we you know, oftentimes we're talking to folks who and
Speaker 1: engaging with people who are struggling with their food security.
Speaker 1: I have works at the food bank here, and you know,
Speaker 1: one of the major populations that head to food banks
Speaker 1: are our teachers because we don't pay them enough, you know.
Speaker 1: So I just think we want to consider how to
Speaker 1: improve dietary pattern and how to improve nutrient density. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, one one aspect of that is, you know,
Speaker 1: as it's kind of keeping it simple and focusing on
Speaker 1: the food that really make a big impact. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not really sure why this particular thing kind of made
Speaker 1: it click for me in my brain in terms of
Speaker 1: the actual importance of it. But I can remember hearing
Speaker 1: that are learning that selenium, I'm going to twit your
Speaker 1: antidepressant food scale, right, So, so selennium being a I'm
Speaker 1: not sure precursor is the right word, but like at
Speaker 1: least building block for serotonin in our bodies and brains
Speaker 1: and so our diets maybe not naturally rich in selennium,
Speaker 1: I mean at least especially if it's a processed food diet.
Speaker 1: But you can have what to brazil nuts and get
Speaker 1: all the selenium you need for the day. So I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, like, well, how am I expecting my
Speaker 1: body to make enough serotonin for me if I'm not
Speaker 1: giving it the materials it needs in order to make
Speaker 1: that serotonin. So like, of course I need to be
Speaker 1: supporting my brain health with what's at the end of
Speaker 1: my fork. You know, it's impossible to ask your body
Speaker 1: to do something it doesn't have the material to do,
Speaker 1: you know, So if you could talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that that antidepressant food scale, is selenium is on
Speaker 1: that list you know of of things that we need
Speaker 1: to think about for patients specifically even with depression. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some people are struging with depressure and just their mental
Speaker 1: health in general, you know. And we got into this
Speaker 1: space early, let's say, like two thousand and eight, and
Speaker 1: began thinking, okay, everyone just says blueberry, right, they're like
Speaker 1: wild salmon. Like what our brain foods? And why? We
Speaker 1: all know omega threees are important for mental health and
Speaker 1: so its B twelve, but like, what are the foods
Speaker 1: that our actual brain foods and why? And so we
Speaker 1: asked the scientific literature and we was myself and Dr
Speaker 1: Laura le Chants and then uh Samantha al Creef also
Speaker 1: helped out in our office and the Brain Food Clinic,
Speaker 1: And this is an open source paper called Antidepressant Foods,
Speaker 1: but the Antidepressent food Scale was the sort of centerpiece
Speaker 1: of the paper, and we just said, hey, what nutrients
Speaker 1: have evidence that they can prevent and treat clinical depression.
Speaker 1: So magnesium, for example, if you look at a population
Speaker 1: that doesn't have match magnesium intake, or you look at
Speaker 1: people are magnesium deficient, they get depressed more. And when
Speaker 1: you look at people who take magnesium they have an antidepressant,
Speaker 1: more people get better from depression. So magnesiums on the list.
Speaker 1: So there are twelve nutrients, things like selenium when maga
Speaker 1: three fats be twelve, iron, zinc, and vitamin A. And
Speaker 1: we just ask, you know, what foods have the most
Speaker 1: of these pre calorie and we listed both plants and animals.
Speaker 1: It was a way of creating a sense of what
Speaker 1: are the food categories we should focus on, and you
Speaker 1: realize that's really, you know what oftentimes people are missing.
Speaker 1: Most Americans are struggling. Ninety percent of Americans don't eat
Speaker 1: enough plants every days, vegetables. Right, the average intake of
Speaker 1: seafood in America is like less than twelve pounds a
Speaker 1: year compared to like a hundred and twenty thirty pounds
Speaker 1: of sugar per year. So there's a lot of room
Speaker 1: for everybody to really, you know, do a little bit
Speaker 1: to get more of these foods, more of these nutrients.
Speaker 1: So the big food categories that was on the ntidrepresent
Speaker 1: food scale where leafy greens, herbs, more fresh herbs, more
Speaker 1: leafy greens, more rainbow vegetables, more cruciferous vegetables. And on
Speaker 1: the animal side of things, where bivalves, muscles, slams, and oysters.
Speaker 1: If you muscles, like the last time you made them
Speaker 1: at home. I never had super romantic and easy and delicious,
Speaker 1: so romantic, babe. Let me tell you. I maybe this
Speaker 1: is admitting my ignorance, but I have not heard the
Speaker 1: word bi valve until you, and so I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Thank you for that, because now I
Speaker 1: have been intentional about including bi valves your intentional bible
Speaker 1: of either. I love that too. There's so but it's
Speaker 1: so interesting, Like to me, one of the fun things
Speaker 1: about seafood is all the exploration of all of the foods,
Speaker 1: all of the different cultures and how they engage with seafood.
Speaker 1: I also think, you know, there's a lot of concern
Speaker 1: about our seas and about the overfishing, and I find
Speaker 1: being a seafood eater now I like that I'm involved
Speaker 1: in that, not just in the consumption, but in putting
Speaker 1: my food dollars towards maybe some systems that are trying
Speaker 1: to do it better and preserve it. And so it's
Speaker 1: where you know, mostly buying wild seafood, if I'm going
Speaker 1: to buy a pharmacy food, really focusing on being really specific.
Speaker 1: There are only a few kind of situations where that
Speaker 1: makes sense, like muscles, for example, makes a lot of
Speaker 1: sense because they're almost all farmed. But you know, there's
Speaker 1: ropes that they drop into these bays, so that's kind of,
Speaker 1: I don't know, pretty minimal as opposed to you know,
Speaker 1: a fish that instead of letting eat seaweed, you're feeding
Speaker 1: corn to, which is I don't know, kind of the
Speaker 1: root of the problem anyway. Yeah, Now I love muscles
Speaker 1: and clams, and because of you, I also ventured out
Speaker 1: while in Portugal on this trip to try oysters. I
Speaker 1: thought it was going to be unpleasant. They were delicious.
Speaker 1: They were delicious, and then especially the smaller they are
Speaker 1: for me anyway, even they just tasted like the ocean
Speaker 1: in your mouth. I'm the same way, and the small
Speaker 1: ones is a secret for me sometimes Indiana, like when
Speaker 1: I went and became a New Yorker and then came
Speaker 1: back to Indiana, ordered oysters and they came out with
Speaker 1: like those Midwest like it was, you know, it was
Speaker 1: like a like a ham. I was like jeesus, you know.
Speaker 1: And some people like them big like that no offense
Speaker 1: if you do right, But I like those little smalls
Speaker 1: where you just can slam them back and they do
Speaker 1: taste like the sea and you know. Also, lots of
Speaker 1: people tell me I'm not quite there yet, but all
Speaker 1: kinds of like canned and tinned oysters right where you
Speaker 1: can cook them up, put them on tacos, and me
Speaker 1: it's all kinds of interesting ways traditional American food too.
Speaker 1: If you look back at traditional American cookbooks, are these
Speaker 1: recipes for like hundred oyster stews. And it's really, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons our country was famous initially. It
Speaker 1: was just the plethora of seafood and bi valves that
Speaker 1: were on our shores and something for us to aspire
Speaker 1: to return to. My bivalve game is weak, No, well
Speaker 1: it we should say it's non existent, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: work on it. I would say it's evolving. I think
Speaker 1: we should say your bivalve games about you've got I mean,
Speaker 1: you're married to uh, you know, it looks like a
Speaker 1: beautiful bivalve enthusiast. It's really the first thing most men
Speaker 1: need to improve their bivalve game. I would say, so,
Speaker 1: I have hopes for you, sir, the I think this treatment,
Speaker 1: I have high hopes for this treatment. I just want
Speaker 1: to say, I think so, yeah, let's just have a
Speaker 1: growth mindset around that. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, postive on goalie.
Speaker 1: That's all. I'm in a lot of garlic, a lot
Speaker 1: of person and fish taco. That's not a bi valve,
Speaker 1: but I just think that it helps with more seafood
Speaker 1: palatability and kind of combo of the salsa and the
Speaker 1: cabbage and the fish just kind of helps me with
Speaker 1: my bi valve game somehow. Good luck, I can talk
Speaker 1: to you about this all day. This is the most fun,
Speaker 1: but we realized that, uh, you know, we don't have
Speaker 1: all day. So before we wrap up, I know you've
Speaker 1: got a new online of course about depending on when
Speaker 1: this podcast here is about to come out or just
Speaker 1: come out, called Healing the Modern Brain just come out.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Jenny. I really appreciate that. Everybody,
Speaker 1: if you want to check it out. Starts. It's a
Speaker 1: freemaster class actually called mental Health Breakthroughs. I just found
Speaker 1: in our clinic. We keep kind of meeting people who
Speaker 1: don't have some of these new evidence based concepts about
Speaker 1: mental health, like inflammation and the microbiome kind of at
Speaker 1: their fingertips in terms of how they're thinking about their
Speaker 1: mental health. And then also these nine breakthroughs that have
Speaker 1: come out recently, so you can check that Out's all
Speaker 1: on my site Drew Ramsey MD dot com. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a new course Healing the Modern Brain that you'll
Speaker 1: see through there, which sort of our biggest effort to
Speaker 1: date in terms of trying to really help people feel
Speaker 1: a lot of encouragement and a lot of resources are
Speaker 1: on improving their mental fitness. And then, um, you know,
Speaker 1: if everybody want to please check out Eat to Be
Speaker 1: Depression and Anxiety. It's filled with all these wonderful illustrations
Speaker 1: by German graduate student who we met on Instagram and
Speaker 1: I loved Quasians. So it's actually out in Spanish now
Speaker 1: as well, So please check out the books if if
Speaker 1: you're interested. But mostly I just thank you for this conversation.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Crawford County where we were the
Speaker 1: wolf pack, and so on our wall it says the
Speaker 1: strength of the wolf is the pack, and the strength
Speaker 1: of the pack of the wolf is wolf. So I
Speaker 1: appreciate your parable to start us out, and I hope
Speaker 1: everybody feels some encouragement and hopefulness around how to feed
Speaker 1: your mental health that is not making every bite perfect,
Speaker 1: but that you really can make better choices they can
Speaker 1: fit in anybody's budget. There's a lot of resources and
Speaker 1: there's a great I think community around eating for mental
Speaker 1: health and feeding your mental health. So thank you Eric
Speaker 1: and Journey for this great conversation and uh I look
Speaker 1: forward to seeing you all down the road. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, and we'll links in the show notes to
Speaker 1: all the things you just mentioned. And again, thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. If what you just heard was helpful
Speaker 1: to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support
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