Anita 0:00

This reminds me of Dr. Kim Williams, who is a cardiologist. he's the former president of the American College of Cardiology, and just before the American College of Cardiology's annual meeting in 2003, he was 49 years old, and he was eating what doctors usually tell their patients to eat to be healthy He stated he was eating no red meat, no fried foods, little dairy, but eating chicken breast and imagine being in your late 40s or 50s, and you built something in your life that matters, and you do not want to slow down. But in the last few years, your blood work has started moving. Your cholesterol came back higher than it's ever been, or your blood pressure, or some number that was fine at every physical for 20 years, and it's suddenly not okay. Nothing about how you eat has changed. If anything, you're more careful now with what you eat than you were at 35. Your doctor gave you a handout or a prescription, or they told you to watch it and come back in six months. But nobody told you what actually changed.

Jarrod 2:04

I can tell you what did not

Anita 2:05

What's

Jarrod 2:06

It was your discipline.

Anita 2:07

That's so true. We're disciplined. We value our health. We know that health matters, and we're trying to figure out what in the world to do, but there's so much conflicting information out there. So today, we're going to name five foods that are in your kitchen right now that you believe are good for you but every one of them is working against the inflammation you're trying to fix. I'm not talking about things that you would typically consider junk food because you've already cleaned all that mess out of your pantry. Not the things that you already got out of there that you know are sabotaging you. These are foods you bought on purpose intentionally because you thought they were healthy.

Jarrod 2:41

And before anyone feels like this is an accusation, I want to be clear that it is not, because every one of these foods got onto your plate because someone has recommended it, and often that person had credentials. So today, we're going to clear things up around these common foods that are known to drive inflammation and disease.

Anita 2:58

I want to jump right into it. And this first one would have shook me years ago. It's nitrate-free deli meats. Yes, even turkey or chicken breast.

Jarrod 3:08

All of them. And the reason why it shakes us is because we did that. We spent so much time in the supermarket looking at the different packaged meats, and we were trying to find the no nitrate, and I'm doing air quotes, no nitrate added

Anita 3:23

I literally remember you shopping with me and being left behind because I'd run ahead to the deli section because I wanted to be through there by the time you rounded the corner.

Jarrod 3:33

She wanted to have time to be able to scan all of them and read

Anita 3:36

be able to understand and read To read it. Yes, 100%, because I was trying to have a healthy family. No one ever told me that deli meat by nature, yes, even turkey, even chicken, is a group one carcinogen, and I was literally feeding that to myself and my children and my husband. I was picking it out intentionally thinking it was healthy

Jarrod 3:54

And don't be deceived by the whole no nitrate added nonsense, because what they'll do is they will extract things like from celery, and they'll put celery juice in it, which is a natural plant-based source of nitrates. But regretfully, despite the source, nitrates when you add it to meat has problems that are just not good.

Anita 4:15

you're adding it to a product to try to preserve it, but we know that is not a good combo with meat products when taken out of its original package. So now we have deli meat as a group one carcinogen. It is a known fact. What is a group one carcinogen? it's something that is known to cause cancer.

Jarrod 4:35

There's a direct association

Anita 4:37

Absolutely. So these are things like bacon, hot dogs, frankfurter, salami and pepperoni, sausage, corned beef, and beef jerky. But it's not just that. Again, it's also any type of deli meat, including chicken and turkey. And other group one carcinogens, just to compare, are tobacco, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, asbestos, polluted air, and secondhand tobacco smoke. these are all known group one carcinogens, meaning they're known to cause cancer.

Jarrod 5:05

Interesting, though, that there's no warning on the package with the lunch meats. We see it on tobacco, but we don't see it on the l- the lunch

Anita 5:13

Interesting how there's no warning. Isn't it, though? You see that? Wonder how they're keeping that off of there.

Jarrod 5:15

I don't know. I don't know.

Anita 5:17

This is something we wanna share with you because we wish we had known it years before we did. So if you're buying lunch meat now, just don't do it. It's something that is known to fuel disease, specifically cancer And the second food is air-fried meat. So this is more of a preparation process. This is dry cooking. Now, you might cook high and dry in your oven, it's gonna do the same thing. But a lot of people with air fryers crank the temp way up. So what we recommend is if you're using an air fryer, don't cook it at such a high temperature. Keep it as low as you can to get the result that you need.

Jarrod 5:51

I think some of the thought process is that if they cook it higher and shorter, then maybe there's less cooking time, but the heat does matter. And like you're saying, Anita, the preparation, that dry high heat especially when you're cooking animal-based foods, it drives up the different compounds that are formed that are known to cause inflammation and even cancer.

Anita 6:11

And what are some of those compounds?

Jarrod 6:13

Some of those compounds would be polyaromatic hydrocarbons, heterocyclic amines, advanced glycated end products. You have nitrosamines, which are formed from nitrates that are found in animal-based foods, but not plant-based foods, interestingly enough

Anita 6:28

And you were telling me a difference between the nitrates in the plant-based foods versus nitrates in animal products

Jarrod 6:35

Yes, we can take the same exact compound, and whether or not it's combined with animal-based foods or plant-based foods will determine whether it's harmful or beneficial. So nitrates that are found in plant-based foods, which would include celery, the very ones that are taken out and put into lunch meats, well, when you have those with plant-based foods, there are compounds, and you'll know these, vitamin C, vitamin E, polyphenols. This drives the chemical process of nitrates into nitric oxide, which has health benefits to your blood

Anita 7:12

and It opens them up.

Jarrod 7:13

it opens them up. It causes them to relax. It also encourages a healthy inner lining of your blood vessels, but that same compound, when it's in animal-based foods, high, high concentrations of protein, it will get converted into nitrosamines, which have carcinogenic properties to it. And part of that is because those meats are cooked at a high temperature. So a lot of the nitrosamines get formed even before you eat it. Now, some of it can form when it's in the acidic environment of your stomach, but the majority of it's formed in the cooking before you ever get it.

Anita 7:46

Yes. So using an air fryer can be healthier if you're not putting the oils on there, and you're cooking things still at not a super high temperature. So don't crank it up really high. just by it being in a smaller container, it should cook faster, not have to cook as long as in your oven, so it's not so much dry heat. The thought process there would be that what's on the inside would stay moist, and so you might not have as many of these things forming. But what we do know is when it is meat or animal-based products in the air fryer, you still get these dangerous compounds forming significantly higher rate than with the plant foods. And these are compounds that are known to cause inflammation and fuel disease. Food number three that you've been led to believe is a health food, skinless chicken breast. I cannot tell you how many times my mom ate skinless chicken breast thinking it was healthy. She didn't even like it. I mean, there's hardly, if you think about the flavor, there's just no flavor. So you might brush a little sauce on it, but it's very bland, and you're cooking it on a grill. That's why people freak out when they start eating our food. If you want to know what plant-based can really taste like, and you've never had a taste and see experience, you have to go right now to powerandplants.com/cookbook and just grab up either the original or Thrive. We also have a new one that's coming out before long, but I would say just get both now and get started.

Jarrod 9:06

Just- Yeah do yourself a favor. It's well over 100 recipes, the best recipes that we've ever eaten.

Anita 9:13

Do yourself a favor. It is well over 100 recipes, the best recipes yet. They're going to change your life, and it's not just the best as far as how they taste. I know that's what Jarrod's thinking about, but I'm a busy woman. I have a lot going on in my life. So I think about the time I have to spend in the kitchen. All these things that are going on in my life, I don't have time to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. I don't have time to figure out 20 ingredients and get them together in 20 different steps that could have been two steps if somebody would have just taken the time to figure that out for me, which is what I love doing for you. So these are the things that can change your life because you're going to learn how to get these foods that are the most nutrient-dense foods in the world onto your plate on a regular basis in the way that you love because they taste great, like Jarrod said, but they make you feel incredible. So now you're not stuck with just chicken breast as your health food or lunch meat or things like that that are actually not beneficial and are known to be harmful. So with the skinless chicken breast, we think, oh, we're doing better because we're getting the fat off of it, and so now it's low fat, and so it's healthy. But you're still getting everything that comes with eating chicken breast, one of those things being cholesterol. This reminds me of Dr. Kim Williams, who is a cardiologist. he's the former president of the American College of Cardiology, and just before the American College of Cardiology's annual meeting in 2003, he was 49 years old, and he was eating what doctors usually tell their patients to eat to be healthy He stated he was eating no red meat, no fried foods, little dairy, but eating chicken breast and fish. And it's so funny because a lot of times Jarrod will have patients tell him, "Well, I don't eat any meat. I don't eat any meat." And then he starts asking them what they do eat, and they're literally saying chicken or

Jarrod 10:52

I've learned to ask the-- probe a little deeper. Ask another question. "I don't eat meat." "Well, do you eat fish?" "I, I eat fish." "And what about chicken?" "Yeah, I eat chicken."

Anita 11:00

It's all animal flesh.

Jarrod 11:01

eating animal-based foods. You're eating animal protein.

Anita 11:04

Yeah, it's animal flesh. It's meat. So at that point, Kim Williams learned that his LDL cholesterol level was 170, and it was clear he needed to change something. So six weeks after going whole food plant-based, he had his LDL drawn again, and this time, in six weeks, it had gone from 170 to 90, And since that time, he says he has never knowingly eaten a milligram of cholesterol since, and cholesterol is only found In animal products. there's none in plants

Jarrod 11:33

That is a very profound drop from 170. And that's the LDL, and you want it to be below 100. So in six weeks, he went from 170 to 90.

Anita 11:41

What meds do you know that do that in six weeks?

Jarrod 11:43

Well, none that are good. I mean, you might be able to take a statin drug, and you might be able to get that level of

Anita 11:50

And you might also have joint problems and other

Jarrod 11:52

the risk of, yes, joint pain, muscle pain

Anita 11:56

And we don't want that for you. That's why we're sharing these things. So, so far we've covered The meats that we think are healthier meats, and then there's the air frying that we think is healthier just by nature. And then we're putting the animal products in there, which are not good. And then skinless chicken breast because we think it's healthier without the fat. But you still have everything that comes in a chicken breast, so you have the potential for parasites. You have the bacteria issues that are known to cause problems. I used to get a lot of urinary tract infections, when I was young. I used to also eat a lot of chicken when I was growing up, and now we know, guess what? You don't even have to eat it. You can touch the chicken or be preparing it for somebody else with your hands, and it can get into your system and cause urinary tract

Jarrod 12:39

And you're really gonna be more likely to get it from touching it because that's when the chicken is raw. That's when the bacteria are still alive. If you cook the chicken breast at a high enough temperature, it's going to kill the bacteria that are in the meat, but once you've touched it, you've exposed yourself to it. No amount of hand washing is going to completely remove all of them, and then if you're touching around your body, you're spreading, and that includes cleaning yourself after going to the bathroom. So it's not rocket science. It's not a huge mystery as to why these things happen. I mean, it's just, it's, now that you see, now that your eyes are open to it, it's pretty plain.

Anita 13:14

But that specific bacteria, there's something else about that specific bacteria that they've linked to chicken and UTIs that I want you to share.

Jarrod 13:21

Well, they've linked it to UTIs, but they've noticed that women got UTIs four times more than men. They also noticed there was another disease, an autoimmune disease, that happened four times more likely in women than men, and that's rheumatoid arthritis. What they found is that in the bacteria Proteus mirabilis, there's a protein that looks very similar to a protein that is in our cartilage. if our body happens to make an antibody against that specific protein in the Proteus mirabilis bacteria, it can cross-react to our cartilage and start to attack it. That is the autoimmune disease. Our body is attacking itself, and they call that molecular mimicry. They look close enough that those antibodies get confused, air quotes, get confused, and get that cross-reaction. Doesn't happen to everybody, but it does happen. We see the correlation there, and now we know why, because there's that molecular mimicry.

Anita 14:14

It's just good to know when you think you're eating something healthy, and you find out, hey, all this stuff's going on, and we're just scratching the surface

Jarrod 14:20

Could this be causing me to have an autoimmune disease? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

Anita 14:26

and we've had clients reverse multiple autoimmune diseases eating whole plant foods

Jarrod 14:31

Yes

Anita 14:32

and food four that we've been taught is healthy is Greek yogurt. So again, we're looking at an animal-based product. This time it is dairy. You Buy it for protein. You Buy it for probiotics. Of course, we need both of those things. But there's a lot more that comes with dairy than protein and probiotics, and guess what else has a lot of protein in it? Whole plant

Jarrod 14:52

Whole plant foods. Plant foods. I would ask, where did the cow that gave the milk that was used to make that Greek yogurt get its protein? Because they're not hunting down animals. That's true.

Anita 15:05

not eating Greek yogurt.

Jarrod 15:06

eating each other. Cows are not eating each other. They're

Anita 15:09

not eating

Jarrod 15:10

They're not chasing down chickens in the farmyard, eating them. I mean, that's quite the sight. I, I imagine Gary Larson from The Far Side could do a funny cartoon about that. But I think the big thing about Greek yogurt is the fact that it has a higher protein content, and that's what really drove its popularity. I don't know of any other reason other than that, unless maybe it's a little bit thicker, and if whatever you're making requires that, then maybe you use it. But every time I hear people talk about Greek yogurt, it's like, "Oh, yeah, it's got more protein than regular yogurt."

Anita 15:41

it's got more protein." But then we have to ask the question, why more? Why do we think we need more? Could it be a marketing ploy that has been pushed and pushed and pushed to sell products, and now we're ending up with kidney problems because our body's having to process the more and more and more protein that our bodies don't really require nor need?

Jarrod 16:02

And it's not just the animal-based protein that it's having to process. It's all the inflammatory things that come along with the animal-based protein that then cause problems with our vessels, and our kidneys are full of little, tiny, microscopic, capillaries, which is part of how it filters. You gotta have ton of those to filter out the urine from the blood. So those become susceptible to that inflammation and then having to process so much more extra protein. And they've done studies where they took people for a short time, gave them the same amount of protein, but in a plant-based version, and they found they did not have those same problems.

Anita 16:38

interesting? Our, a protein is not a protein is what you're saying.

Jarrod 16:41

Correct. It's what comes along with that protein. It makes a difference. It absolutely does.

Anita 16:49

And then we could talk about the amount of pus or white blood cells that are allowed in dairy. You need to look that up. It is a real thing. They're allowing a lot of it, And the likelihood of you getting it every time you're drinking milk or eating ice cream or having sour cream or Greek yogurt, which you think is healthy, is extremely high. Extremely high. So you need to look at that, because otherwise they wouldn't have set limits on it in our country. Food number five, sugar-free anything and sugar-free everything. We think just 'cause it's sugar-free, it's healthy, because sugar has been demonized.

Jarrod 17:23

Sugar is the devil.

Anita 17:24

It's the devil. But then, you know what's funny, though, is that we're not gonna sit here and tell you white sugar is good for you or brown sugar is good for you. or the extracted sugars, things that many people are eating on a regular basis, that is not healthy for you. We were not meant to eat sugars pulled out like that But the thing is, people equate sugars in that way with carbs, and there are very healthy carbs in whole plant foods.

Jarrod 17:49

And you can eat foods that have some sweetness, and it's not the same thing as eating white sugar.

Anita 17:55

or brown sugar, or powdered

Jarrod 17:57

but we've talked in the past about how you had a friend who didn't eat blueberries because he was afraid there were too many carbohydrates in them, when in actuality, even though they're sweet, they're not as high in sugar as one might think. But then you get all those phytonutrients that come along

Anita 18:13

Yes, and we're gonna talk about that next week, because it is mind-blowing, all the different phytonutrients, all the things that are in whole plant foods that get forgotten. Do you feel like sometimes we live in such a one-off society? Like, let's look at these labs, and let's just zero in on these few labs. Let's zero in on these few nutrients, and then let's pull them out and make a supplement for somebody to take, and we can make some money on it and maybe help people out. But what we're finding is the supplements can be more harmful than beneficial generally.

Jarrod 18:42

it and maybe help people out, but what we're finding is supplements can be more harmful than beneficial generally. It's interesting because I do feel like there's certain things in our lives that have become more complicated and some things where they try to make them more simplified. So we make the principles of health more complicated. There's no way you can understand it. But then we found that in foods there's a nutrient that is shown to be helpful, so we extract that, try to create a simplified solution of, oh, no, no, no, you just need 1,000 milligrams of this one, one-off nutrient in a supplement, and that's gonna take care of the problem. But what we see, and the answer can be simple. Whole plant foods, enjoy them, enjoy the flavor, enjoy the abundance. But when you have these nutrients that are in synergy, in symphony with the other factors, the other molecules that are in that food, they become far more impactful.

Anita 19:29

And they were created to work together. They were created to work together.

Jarrod 19:33

to be together they were created that way.

Anita 19:34

So it makes perfect sense that when we start pulling it out and messing with the way God made things, that we're gonna end up in trouble health-wise.

Jarrod 19:40

They just won't have the same effect.

Anita 19:42

Right. I'm pretty sure there wasn't deli meat in the garden. Just saying. Have you ever thought about that? Deli meat in the garden.

Jarrod 19:49

in the garden? No, I haven't.

Anita 19:52

Did Adam and Eve need to have their labs drawn?

Jarrod 19:55

Did get their labs drawn? No, 'cause they had, I believe, the most perfect food.

Anita 19:58

I believe the most perfect food Yeah. Before the, before the Fall, were they eating meat?

Jarrod 20:00

No. No, there's no record in scripture about any animals dying prior to the Fall. And

Anita 20:06

prior to the Fall. When did, when did death enter the world?

Jarrod 20:08

death entered the world whenever sin entered the world, and even then, the first animal that died, what the records show, what scripture shows, is that the skin was used to clothe Adam and Eve. It doesn't say anything about them eating it

Anita 20:20

eating. Not at that point. So when we start looking at what's the original plan, you can see some of these foods that we've been taught are healthy for us, or some of these methods and ways of doing things, we need to think through. Just very simply, just a great place to start. Is deli meat healthy for us? No. It's not natural. It's not healthy. It's actually a Group 1 carcinogen. Is air frying our food at the highest temp we can possibly crank our air fryer to healthy? No. Should we bake and cook all our food? No, you should absolutely eat more and more raw food every single day. You should be getting some raw fruit and some raw veggies every single day. And what we find is the more that you eat, the better you are going to feel. Does this mean you can't eat cooked food? Absolutely not. That is not what I'm

Jarrod 21:13

I wouldn't suggest eating raw beans, raw, dry, uncooked beans. I think it would upset your tummy at the very least.

Anita 21:20

And your teeth.

Jarrod 21:21

Well,

Anita 21:22

then the skinless chicken breast. Just 'cause you pulled the skin off doesn't mean you're still not left with a plate full of animal protein. No fiber, high cholesterol. Remember Kim Williams' story about his cholesterol levels And then we talked about the parasites, the bacteria, all the different things that come with the chicken breast. Yes, we used to go to the farm and get it. Yes, we used to get the cow that was butchered straight from the farm. Buy the sides of beef, buy this chicken that's organic, free range, all the things. We're gonna talk more about this next week But these are some simple places to start right now. Things that you were taught were healthy that you can get out of your life and start feeling better High temp air fried animal products, skinless chicken breast, Greek yogurt, and sugar-free anything. This is the last one. Anything that says sugar-free, we're taught, oh, if it's sugar-free, it's healthy. And so he started talking about how a carb isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Jarrod 22:21

No. Our body is made to run on carbohydrates, but the form in which that carbohydrate comes is very important. So when they're complex carbohydrates, they break down slowly. They're from natural whole food sources. Your body uses them very differently than a highly processed carb like white sugar or white flour, So then when we become afraid of sugar, we then go to, "Well then sugar-free must be better than..." No, not necessarily because if you're getting the natural form, you're far better off because again, your body does require the carbohydrates to run. You need it for fuel. But what is the sugar-free item that's taking its place? If you were to take tea and drink it without sugar, that's not the same thing as having tea with a fake sugar in it.

Anita 23:08

sugar additive, a sugar substitute.

Jarrod 23:10

So some of the ones that are popular, Splenda. Well, it can kill the beneficial gut bacteria in your gut. Looking at NutraSweet, it breaks down into amino acids quickly and can create a very high level of those amino acids in your bloodstream, and some of them are known to be what are called excitotoxins. So those amino acids act as neurotransmitters in the brain, and they have found that you can have levels as high as 13 times the normal amount. And a common condition with this is migraine headaches. I mean, I remember in PA school, people were drinking like six and seven Diet Cokes a day, and they noticed that it was causing problems with thinking and causing severe headaches. That's just one of the things it can cause. And then another one, and I think we may have touched on this a while back, uh, erythritol. This is one that it is a natural sugar found in the body, but at much lower quantities than what gets put in the food. Now, the problem with erythritol is that when we consume it, we absorb 90% of it. It gets eliminated from the body mostly unchanged, but when it exists at high levels in the bloodstream, it can make your platelets more sticky. So it can increase the risk of clot formation, which could be a heart attack, could be a stroke, or wherever the blood is interrupted, it causes that problem. So it's not without potential risk. You know, yes, it doesn't get turned into energy. It's not really metabolized. You absorb it and then you excrete it unchanged. But while it's in your bloodstream, it's making your blood potentially more thick, where you could form clots

Anita 24:45

Not something you want. Not something anybody wants.

Jarrod 24:49

Especially if you're, if you have a compromised condition where maybe you have high cholesterol, maybe you haven't made some of these changes to a whole food plant-based diet yet, and then we're doing something, again, we think it's healthy, we think it's harmless, or at the very least harmless, and then we're consuming this thinking we're doing something better than, but

Anita 25:09

with the best of intentions

Jarrod 25:11

Yes, and it's actually increasing potential risk there.

Anita 25:14

So now you know, there are five things that you can get out of your cart and off of your shelf and out of your refrigerator that will help you to start feeling better soon. Next week, you'll wanna tune in because we're gonna continue this discussion, but instead of talking about things to remove, we're going to be discussing what you can add that's going to make all the difference, so you can feel your best Living a full life filled with years, but also filled with life in those years We've loved spending time with you today. Know that you are loved and you're prayed for, and we look forward to seeing you soon