Chapter Content
Okay, so, um, I wanted to chat a bit about, well, good energy eating. Yeah, good energy. It's kind of funny, I remember this one time, like, way back in my residency, I had this patient, super, super angry. He was basically yelling at me, demanding I refill his opioid prescription. And you know, he was really playing the, uh, patient satisfaction survey card, saying that, uh, those surveys affect how we're rated, even our pay, which is true! It's kind of crazy how much pressure there is to just give patients what they want, even if it's not actually good for them.
I mean, I used to judge people struggling with opioid addiction, thinking, "How could someone be so weak?" But, you know, then I learned more about how most addictions start with a legitimate prescription. And, yikes, a lot of overdose deaths happen when people are forced to buy, like, street drugs, you know, stuff that's laced with who-knows-what. The numbers are just staggering.
But here's the thing, there's another addiction crisis going on, a much bigger one, that nobody's really talking about. It's this constant push of, like, super addictive substances from the time we're born, and it's causing way over a million deaths every year. And I'm talking about, well, ultra-processed foods.
Seriously, the NIH defines addiction as a "chronic, relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use despite adverse consequences." And that's *exactly* what's happening with our relationship with, like, modern, industrial food. There's no other way to explain why people are going against their, you know, evolutionary instincts on such a huge scale. Think about it—a huge percentage of teenagers have prediabetes and, like, almost everyone's overweight or obese. It's a compulsive, collective food addiction. We're literally eating ourselves to death.
And the solution? It's so simple, really: Promote unprocessed whole foods and, you know, really discourage ultra-processed junk. But we're, like, totally lost in a sea of misinformation about what the right diet is. It's crazy.
Organic, plant-based, natural, non-GMO… the list goes on and on. We've got all these terms we have to wade through when we're trying to pick out what we eat.
We need to stop getting caught up in diet fads and start actually looking at food as individual components and figuring out if those components are good or bad for our cells. I mean, food is just a set of molecules. Whether those molecules meet our cells' needs is what really determines our health. When someone's addicted to something, like, you know, opioids or alcohol, we can see the problem, right? But with food, we have trouble analyzing individual components that are helping us or hurting us, because, well, we just don't think of food that way.
It's like… okay, imagine a glass of water. It's good for you, right? It hydrates you. Now, imagine that glass of water mixed with arsenic. Not good, right? It'll kill you. It's obvious in that case that there's a part that's helpful and a part that's harmful, but, like, we don't think about it that way when it comes to most of what we eat.
Take a burger, for example. It could be made with beef from a cow raised on, like, an industrial farm, just eating grain. Or, it could be from a cow raised outside, roaming in a pasture, eating grass. Or, you know, it could be a veggie burger. They all look the same, but the molecules are completely different.
Cows evolved eating grass. Grass-fed beef has more anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids. Grain-fed beef has way less of those, and a lot more inflammatory omega-6 fats. Plus, you know, grass-fed beef has more vitamins and stuff too.
And then there's, like, the fake meat burgers. They're usually made with, you know, pea protein and canola oil. Canola oil is high in omega-6 fats, making those burgers, well, actually more inflammatory than even grass-fed beef. And they have other ingredients, like natural flavors, which are a total misnomer, and, like, methylcellulose.
So, you see, these three burgers are sending completely different molecular messages to your cells.
Food empowerment is about seeing past the labels and understanding how the parts build, like, functional cellular health. Like, you could see broccoli as just a green veggie. Or, you could see it as an ecosystem of molecules that support good energy. The fiber feeds your gut bacteria, minimizing inflammation. The vitamin C protects your mitochondria. Vitamin K decreases mitochondrial dysfunction. And folate is a key factor in the proteins that make energy. It also contains antioxidants.
You don't need to know all the science, really. But you *do* need to start thinking of food as, like, molecular information that dictates our function.
And here's the good news: every day, we make tons of tiny decisions about food that can change our genetic and physiologic "fate."
You know, I used to give patients generic dietary advice, like, "eat more fruits and veggies," and then write them a prescription. But in med school, they basically tell you nutrition is a soft topic that's "not evidence based." You won't find specific nutrition advice in treatment guidelines for, like, anything. It’s interventions like prescribing a pill or performing surgery that are seen as "heroic," while nutritional interventions are seen as fuzzy and wimpy. But natural foods have thousands of known phytochemicals that impact health. That's the definition of medicine.
The molecules we put in our bodies daily impact our health. Every thought and feeling comes from food. You were 3D printed out of food, and every item you ingest continues to print the next version of yourself.
Doctors and patients are taught that genes are our destiny, but that's not true. Our genes don't determine most health outcomes. What we eat and how we live impact our gene expression and cellular biology. Food chemicals go into your body and act as signaling molecules.
What we put into our bodies is the most critical decision for our health and happiness. And to understand *why* food is our most powerful tool against chronic disease, well, I had to learn the principles myself long after becoming a doctor.
So, first, food determines the structure and function of our cells and microbiome.
Our bodies are built entirely of food. We're basically transforming the external world into our own form. Every day, food breaks down into bricks in our gut, which are then absorbed into our bloodstream to rebuild our bodies. Give the body the right bricks, and you build the right structures, and you get health.
Think about cell membranes. They're the structural layer around cells, made of a fatty layer with cholesterol and proteins. Our diets have changed the structure of our cell membranes, which are important functional units. They're the gatekeepers for everything that goes into the cell. We need omega-3 and omega-6 fats, but they need to be balanced. Omega-3s are anti-inflammatory, omega-6s promote inflammation. With processed foods, we're getting way too many omega-6 fats, which is changing our cell membrane structure. Adjusting your diet can change the membrane ratio pretty quickly, as cell membranes turn over rapidly.
Food also acts as a functional message to the external world that can directly activate and inhibit genetic pathways. It's a signaling molecule that directs functions in cells and the body. It can act like a hormone and can create or alleviate oxidative stress. It can change the function of protein enzymes.
Eating things like turmeric or cruciferous vegetables are ways that food can signal for good energy.
Like, isothiocyanates in cruciferous vegetables help combat oxidative stress. When there's too much oxidative stress, cells increase gene expression of antioxidant molecules. Isothiocyanates activate key genes involved in good energy.
And curcumin, in turmeric, blocks pro-inflammatory genes. It deactivates inflammatory activity in the cell, supporting good energy.
Our microbiome is also important. It's the trillions of bacteria cells living inside our body. It determines our metabolic health, mood, and longevity. It converts the food we eat into chemicals that control our thoughts and bodies. If you mistreat it, you’ll suffer.
Fiber, probiotic-rich foods, and polyphenol-rich plant foods support microbiome health. It’s a magical transformer of food to medicine.
When certain gut bacteria encounter compounds in things like pomegranates, berries, and nuts, they convert it into things called urolithins, which improve good energy by acting as antioxidants and stimulating mitophagy, a mitochondrial quality-control mechanism.
So, foods need to be chosen wisely to yield health and good energy. That brings us to the second principle: eating is the process of matching cellular needs with oral inputs.
Any diet that generates optimal cellular function, eliminates chronic symptoms, and leads to optimal biomarkers is the right diet for you.
Think about what food is from your cells' perspective: they're just waiting for the signals and information on what to do.
If what floats by is the needed structural and functional information, your cells will be healthy. If the right information isn't floating by, they'll get confused. Everything you eat determines what your cells will interact with.
Eating is a matching problem. Matching the food inputs with the cells’ needs produces health. If we don’t properly match inputs with needs or if we put in damaging substances that the body shouldn’t be exposed to, we get symptoms and disease.
We eat tons of food in our lives. It rebuilds our rapidly dying and regenerating bodies. Everything is rebuilt from food. Unfortunately, a lot of that food is either useless or harmful.
Industrial agriculture practices lead to vastly fewer nutrients in our food. A fruit or vegetable you eat today has up to 40 percent fewer minerals, vitamins, and less protein than the same food would have had in the past.
Our food is transported over large distances, causing degradation and damage to nutrients. Some fruits and vegetables can lose a lot of their vitamin C content. Eating local is actually a critical step to ensure you are getting maximal helpful molecular information in the bites you take to build and instruct your body.
A lot of our calorie consumption is ultra-processed foods, stripped of their nutrition. That's not going to meet the cells' functional needs.
We are insatiable as a culture because we're not getting what we need from the nutrient-depleted material we eat, so our bodies push us to consume more.
Eating most of your food from high-quality, unprocessed sources is crucial. You want to give your cells the good stuff. Hunger will effortlessly subside because your cells’ needs are met.
The matching problem of eating for the cells’ needs is dynamic and can change day to day. During different phases of life. Like, during the second half of the menstrual cycle, women tend to be more insulin resistant, so they should ramp up antioxidant food support. And, several micronutrients can become depleted during times of psychological stress. Supporting the body with additional micronutrients during periods of increased psychological stress could minimize dysfunction.
Bites are opportunities, and you want to match every bite with our cells.
Food is how you communicate with your cells.
Think of your consciousness and free will as a military general. Your cells are the troops defending your life. Foods are the messages the general sends to motivate the troops. We must speak clearly and correctly if we want to survive.
In an optimal state, food sends our cells clear messages about what our body needs to do to thrive. Specific food choices and food behaviors can tell your body different things.
Like, omega-3 fatty acids tell immune cells that things are safe. Cruciferous vegetables tell the DNA that it's time to produce more defenses. Leucine tells the muscles that it's time to build. Magnesium tells neurons to relax. Fiber tells the microbiome that you love it. Intermittent fasting signals that it's time to clean things up.
For example, the green discs in plants can block the activity of the hormone lipase, which is released from the pancreas to digest fat, suppressing hunger by stimulating hormones that promote satiety. They're found in high levels in raw spinach, kale, parsley, arugula, broccoli, and spirulina.
When I make a smoothie in the morning, I’m thinking through exactly what conversation I want to have with my body that day: safety, strength, satiety, and resilience.
Communicating poorly can lead to confusion and problems.
Extreme food cravings are feedback from your cells that you're giving mixed messages.
Cravings are a sign that you have confused your cells through your diet.
If your body is pushing you to acquire specific foods, that is a signal that your human cells’ or your microbiome cells’ biological needs are not being met, and they are employing their tools—like hunger hormone secretion—to get you to aggressively seek food. You can think of yourself and your behavior as a robot acting at the will of your cells and microbiome.
We are eating ourselves into a state of bad energy because the food we eat is tapping into addictive pathways rather than meeting our needs or checking our bodies’ boxes. When you eat real, unprocessed food, you tap into the body’s regulatory mechanisms, which will stop you from eating more than you need.
When I think about the worst examples of food that confuse our cells, I think about fructose. It depletes ATP levels in the cell, generating uric acid as a by-product in its metabolism, which causes mitochondrial oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction, and signals starvation, preparing you for winter.
Food companies have also mastered the science of glucose spikes to make food more addictive. After a blood sugar spike, a crash often follows, leading to intense cravings.
Researchers have proven that ultra-processed foods make you hungrier, make you eat more, and make you gain weight.
Variable reward drives us to keep seeking by triggering our key motivation pathway: dopamine. Ultra-processed foods confuse our body’s ability to accurately predict nutritional inputs and therefore drive us to keep seeking.
The food industry uses the science of cravings to make food more addictive, rigorously studying how specific combinations of ultra-processed foods get consumers to their “bliss point” of pleasure, driving them to want more.
The beauty of eating unprocessed, whole foods is that you have the best chance of getting a diverse array of nutrients that check the human cells’ and microbiome cells’ boxes and therefore diminish cravings.
The best advice I can give anyone in transforming their health is to stick with totally unprocessed food for just a month or two. Your preferences and cravings will have changed.
Ignore diet philosophies and focus on unprocessed food.
Diet controversy is a charade. All these diets can "work" because all emphasize primarily unprocessed, whole foods to give the cells what they need to function and cue satiety mechanisms so that we don’t overeat.
We need to get over dietary labels and just start thinking of food as molecular information. The key is understanding what molecular information is in the food, how much is getting absorbed, and whether the cells are “happy” as a result.
It’s important to realize that the body is remarkably capable of getting to similar outcomes with different inputs.
You could be eating a sustainably sourced, unprocessed plant-based diet or an animal-based diet and still get the same molecular information for your cell.
Focus on cell biology over diet dogma. Put all your energy into finding and eating unprocessed foods grown in healthy soil. Your health will vastly improve.
Mindful eating and finding awe in food is the last point.
It takes conscious daily work to make consistently healthy food decisions. I tap into a sense of awe and wonder about food that lets me appreciate its impact on my life and inspires me to make the healthiest choices possible. I tap into my appreciation for the miraculous interaction between food and my body.
I reflect that all the energy stored in the cellular bonds of the plants I’m eating was originally a packet of photon energy that started in the sun. When I die and go back to the earth, my body’s material building blocks will help grow new plants that will convert more of the sun’s energy into glucose in an infinite loop of mystical transformation.
I reflect that the mitochondria that process energy from food to animate our tissues are inherited entirely from our mothers. I visualize that unbroken lineage over millions of years and of my mother’s cellular engines living through me in this spectacular way.
I reflect on the fact that a teaspoon of healthy soil has more living organisms in it than there are people on the planet. I think about how we have murdered our soil’s life force with pesticides and industrial agriculture, but how there is an incredible, hopeful movement of regenerative farming advocates fighting to bring this life back.
I reflect on the nature of the gut. Healthy emotional boundaries make relationships functional. Your gut lining is a boundary between you and everything else in the universe that is poised to inundate and overwhelm your biology. Healing and strengthening your gut lining with food allows you to be selective about what you want to take in from the universe on a material level.
I reflect on the fact that many of the problems in society start in humans, and humans are made by cells that become dysfunctional largely because of oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and chronic inflammation. How miraculous that food can directly combat those things.
Pausing before eating to think about these concepts, expressing gratitude for my food before I start, and eating slowly are ways I reinforce these concepts. From a place of awe and appreciation for the magic of food, I find it vastly easier to make healthier choices.