Ask Dr. Cheryl

‍Topics discussed in this episode:

• Combining foods to maximize their effects (0:37)
• The perfect combo (3:43)

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Transcript:

Welcome to the wellness table. I'm Dr. Cheryl Bothwell and on this show we are going to talk about nutrition, longevity and lots of other fun things. But today on the show, we're going to talk about food combinations and how important it is what we put on each plate. So hopefully, you've taken the score that's on our website, Drcherylwellness.com. And that's where you can see how many of the 10 healthy foods that you're eating every day and the 10 health habits that you're practicing to be as healthy as you can be today. But we also have another tool that's so important and that's looking at now I have these foods and I want to eat them every day. But how do I combine them at my meal time to get the most powerful effect of the very same foods? So I often talk about the score is one of the most important tools that says what's the medicine and what's the dose? So I know blueberries, one cup a day, I get this powerful effect. But I also could look at eating all of these foods at one time and in different orders and have a different effect from the very same foods. So that's where we talk about our food combination, because taste is super important, we want to love what we eat, but we also hate to be hungry. So if we want to crush hunger, it's important to how we combine meals and I like to have people stay for for four hours after a meal. So having that four hour stay power where I'm not even thinking about food, I'm not craving to snack. I always go back to once I'm hungry or I have an energy slump, maybe two hours into after a meal. Let's go back to the meal before and look at what was that food combination? So you might have eaten everything that was on the score, all the healthy foods. Let's say we had whole oats. And we had a plant protein milk on those oats and we added a cup of blueberries. And we might find that we're hungry in two hours. And that's where we start to say well I go I'm really hungry when I start eating healthy. And so the goal is what's that combination or what's missing on that plate so that we can feel full for four hours. So a meal combination is super important to think about how we combine them so that we crush hunger, balance blood sugar, and have energy, consistent energy without slumps or surges of blood sugar after each meal. So when we talk about the plate is that food combination to crush hunger. That's how we've combined the foods so that will last four hours and not feel hungry, not feel like we need to keep snacking or grazing all day. And it gives our body time to really feel the optimal energy our cells are fueled for. It's the best combination. But we also want to be sure that we're eating all of the foods that fight disease and boost immune system and that's including all the foods on the score. So those 10 foods on the score and getting a score close to 20 of the foods we eat and the lifestyle habits. That's the disease healing part. And it helps us fight, prevent, treat, and even reverse many of our chronic diseases. And these risk factors that we've talked about, like lowering blood pressure, and balancing blood sugar. So combining the score with these are the foods we need to eat and bringing that into food combinations on your plate that block the hunger, crush the hunger, take away the cravings, and balance our blood sugar. That's the winning combination to be as healthy as you can be today and also feel good within an hour of eating your meal.

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So what's the perfect food combo? It's the plate. And the plate in summary is made up of this is my whole plate you picture that plate. Many times I have people take a paper plate and just draw a line right down the center of it. And half of that plate is filled with fruits and vegetables in their whole natural form packaged with the sugars, the soluble fibers all packaged to slow and delay that post meal blood sugar. But with that, we take the other half of the plate, split that in half and 25% of the plate made up of whole grains. We don't eat enough of whole grains. So we hear a lot of people on the gluten free diet, but just know there's a lot of whole grains even if you're gluten free that you can eat quinoa and wild rice and popcorn. These are all whole grains. So corn on the cob, you'd be getting a whole grain so that's 25% of your plate and the other 25% of your plate is made up of plant protein and healthy plant fats. And we want to always include our essential fats and then we top off our plate with your favorite food because we never want to give that up in order that you don't have to give it up to meet your goals. But that combination so when I'm eating my fruits and vegetables and combining it with a plant protein, I'm combining it with a healthy plant fat and that combination will keep you full four hours. And we talk a lot more about that in detail in our membership, where we can go into the plate, you'll see the plate and there's a podcast all about the plate in our masterclass.