This week’s topic: How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard
I’m so excited to have the amazing Dr. Neal Bernard back who has a new book out called The Power Foods Diet, the breakthrough plan that traps, tames and burns calories for easy and permanent weight loss. He’s an amazing New York Times best selling author and the founder and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. He has also authored more than 100 scientific publications and 20 books for medical and lay readers. And he is the editor in chief of the Nutrition Guide for Clinicians. Needless to say, Dr. Bernard knows what he is talking about and I have loved all of his books, including this one because it is…..…..
Topics Covered
01:21 The Need for a New Approach to Weight Loss
04:23 Nutrient Absorption and Calorie Trapping
05:59 How Certain Foods Boost Calorie Burning
07:28 The Long-Term Effects of a Plant-Based Diet
08:50 Dispelling Diet Myths
10:15 The Risks of Low-Carb Diets
11:28 The Importance of Research in Nutrition
13:25 The Weight Loss Effects of Anthocyanins
15:49 The Deliciousness and Naturalness of Fruit
19:11 The Magic of Apples and Pears
21:10 Simplicity and Natural Balance in Nutrition
23:15 Transitioning to the Power Foods Diet
23:21 Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet
26:03 Transitioning to a Plant-Based Diet
27:20 Easy and Delicious Plant-Based Meals
30:08 The Role of Fat in a Healthy Diet
32:36 The Mediterranean Diet vs. Plant-Based Diet
34:21 The Drawbacks of Medications for Weight Loss
36:48 The Natural Alternative to Weight Loss Medications
37:46 The Importance of Natural Foods for Energy and Vitality
38:21 Ginger as a Weight Loss Food
40:19 Transitioning from Processed Foods to Power Foods
41:00 Sharing the Power Foods Diet with Others
43:05 Where to Get the Book and More Information
About Dr. Neil Barnard
President Neal Barnard, MD, FACC (pcrm.org), is an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, DC, and President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
Dr. Barnard has led numerous research studies investigating the effects of diet on diabetes, body weight, hormonal symptoms, and chronic pain, including a groundbreaking study of dietary interventions in type 2 diabetes, funded by the National Institutes of Health, that paved the way for viewing type 2 diabetes as a potentially reversible condition for many patients. Dr. Barnard has authored more than 100 scientific publications and 20 books for medical and lay readers, and is the editor in chief of the Nutrition Guide for Clinicians, a textbook made available to all U.S. medical students.
As president of the Physicians Committee, Dr. Barnard leads programs advocating for preventive medicine, good nutrition, and higher ethical standards in research. His research contributed to the acceptance of plant-based diets in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. In 2015, he was named a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology. In 2016, he founded the Barnard Medical Center in Washington, DC, as a model for making nutrition a routine part of all medical care.
Working with the Medical Society of the District of Columbia and the American Medical Association, Dr. Barnard has authored key resolutions, now part of AMA policy, calling for a new focus on prevention and nutrition in federal policies and in medical practice. In 2018, he received the Medical Society of the District of Columbia’s Distinguished Service Award. He has hosted four PBS television programs on nutrition and health.
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Transcript:
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
Kimberly Snyder (00:00.846)
Welcome back everyone to our Monday interview show where I’m so excited to have the amazing Dr. Neal Bernard back who has a new book out called The Power Foods Diet, the breakthrough plan that traps, tames and burns calories for easy and permanent weight loss. Dr. Bernard has been on here before. He’s an amazing New York Times bestseller. He is the founder and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. He has also authored more than 100scientific publications and 20 books for medical and lay readers. And he is the editor in chief of the Nutrition Guide for Clinicians. Needless to say, Dr. Bernard knows what he is talking about and I have loved all of his books, including this one. So Dr. Bernard, thank you so much for being back here with us today.
Neal Barnard (00:49.321)
Well, it’s great to be with you. Thank you so much.
Kimberly Snyder (00:52.11)
And it’s amazing how you’ve written so much, you’ve studied so much Dr. Bernard, and now you’re continuing to find these new interesting angles around nutrition, things that people really need. This book is different than your other books, I have to say. I mean, they’re all different, but this one goes in some really interesting directions, which we’ll talk about in just a moment. But it’s amazing to see this creativity constantly coming from your doctor in this medical realm, just these new perspectives of,
foods and nutrition. It’s amazing.
Neal Barnard (01:24.457)
Well, thank you for saying that. In this case, it’s arising out of need. There are so many people who really want to lose some weight. And sometimes it’s because of an important health issue, and they know they’re going to be healthier and feel better if they can. But up until recently, the whole idea was, well, I’ve just got to eat tiny portions, or I’ve got to avoid carbohydrates. And those things just don’t work very well over the long run, and people don’t feel good with them, and understandably so. And what we’ve discovered is something really cool, that certain foods help you.
Kimberly Snyder (01:30.538)
Yeah.
Neal Barnard (01:54.313)
that if you eat more of these foods, you’ll lose more weight. By that I mean they tame your appetite or they increase your ability to burn calories. So bring the foods in and man, it makes it so much easier.
Kimberly Snyder (02:05.07)
It’s so important because you’ve done so much research and you’ve conducted research, you’re studying research, there’s a lot that’s cited in your book because there’s a lot of people out there on social media and just in the ether putting out information that can not only be wrong, but it can actually be quite harmful. As you know, doctor, there’s a lot of diets out there saying, don’t eat carbs, eat only fat or the carnivore diet, don’t eat any vegetables at all. And so there’s a lot of confusion.
and a lot of it can be quite dangerous.
Neal Barnard (02:37.961)
That’s true, but you know, it’s been pretty clear, oh, I’d say 10 or maybe 20 years, that the more the diet is derived from plant foods, the healthier people get. Their cholesterol levels come down, the risk of diabetes, risk of cancer comes down, but weight is lower too, in a healthier range, and we’ve known that for a long time. But what’s striking is that not all foods are created equal. So if a person is favoring plant foods, good, but there are certain foods that really stand out.
and I call them power foods. And they’re power foods because they actually do rev up your calorie burning speed so that you’re burning calories more like you did when you were 12 years old. Or they help control your appetite. So instead of overeating and never feeling like you’re quite satisfied, these foods will help just kind of turn that off. And there are some foods that will trap calories in your digestive tract and carry those calories out with the waste.
Kimberly Snyder (03:09.388)
Mm.
Neal Barnard (03:36.585)
So you never absorb those calories at all. Your average person has no idea of any of this. So I thought, let’s make the information available, but more importantly, let’s turn it into food. Let’s turn it into everything from appetizers to main dishes to sides and desserts and everything. And so that’s been really fun.
Kimberly Snyder (03:56.91)
The recipes in here are absolutely amazing and colorful and beautiful. And thank you for pointing that out because it’s not just, weight loss doesn’t have to be this onerous, you know, sort of struggle. It can actually be delicious and easy. So one of the things that stood out to me, you talk about this idea that certain foods escort out the calories or we’re not absorbing the calories as much, but how does that play in with…
nutrient absorption, doctor, if we’re not absorbing the calories as much, one might say, are we getting the same nutrient density from the foods then?
Neal Barnard (04:32.155)
Yeah, your nutrient density’s not a problem. But where this research came in, I think the best study on this was done in 2017 at Tufts University in Boston. It was really a terrific research center. And they brought in individuals, and half of them were asked to eat white bread, white, you know, where the fiber’s been all taken out, and white rice. And the other half had whole grain bread, brown rice, where the fiber is still intact. And for six weeks, they ate these foods. And what they discovered,
Kimberly Snyder (04:49.292)
Mm.
Neal Barnard (05:03.419)
actually this is something my research team is never going to do. They took stool samples from everybody and they found unabsorbed calories in their stool samples and it added up to the people on the high fiber diet were losing all told about a hundred calories a day in that way. So it’s a gentle way of just subtracting some of the calories out of the diet. And so we want to add up all three effects. The calorie trapping is one, but you also have the appetite taming effect where you just
Kimberly Snyder (05:29.102)
Okay.
Neal Barnard (05:33.449)
you’re satisfied with maybe two or three hundred calories less than you would have eaten before. So you’re just eating less. And the third thing is whatever calories you bring in, you’re going to be burning more off. It’s like your body’s like a fine tuned race car where you’re just burning calories more. And so that’s why people lose weight.
Kimberly Snyder (05:53.39)
Why is the body burning the calories more efficiently with these types of foods, doctor?
Neal Barnard (05:58.921)
Well, we measure this in research studies where if you were in our study, I’d bring you in and you’d sit in a chair and then we put on a mask that you’re going to feel like an astronaut. It’s a mask. It goes over your mouth and your nose. And what we’re doing is we’re measuring how much oxygen you’re taking in and how much carbon dioxide you’re putting out. And with some pretty simple arithmetic that shows how fast your body is burning up calories. And so you’re sitting there.
And then let’s say I give you a test meal and I can give you different test meals. I could give you a stick of butter. And what you discover is that that doesn’t affect your calorie burning at all. It doesn’t give you any boost. And I could give you three pats of butter or two sticks of butter. I could give you any quantity you wanted and nothing happens. But then I say, stop. Let’s give you something else. A meal that has some healthy plant -based.
complex carbohydrates and fiber in it, plant -based proteins. And what you discover is that right away after the meal, your metabolism starts to rise. What I mean is your body’s burning calories faster. And that’s because it’s taking in those nutrients. It’s starting to digest them. It’s starting to absorb them. It’s getting into the cells and it can be used as energy. And it goes right up and it stays higher for about three hours or maybe a little longer, sometimes as long as four or five hours. Now, that’s good.
You have probably burned a couple hundred calories that way. But if you stick with it, let’s say you’re going to do the same diet, plant -based diet, without a lot of grease in it, because we’re not adding a lot of oil and stuff to it. You do this every day. Come back three months later. Sit in the same chair, put on the same mask, and have the exact same test meal. And what we discover is your body is not the same. Your body is burning calories.
Kimberly Snyder (07:28.27)
Mmm.
Neal Barnard (07:55.025)
15 % higher now because you stuck with it. So the meals themselves are calorie burners. But when you keep doing it, it adjusts your body so that your muscles burn calories. Your muscles are your big calorie burners. And if you have a lot of glop in your diet, if you have a lot of oil, if you have animal products in your diet, the fat from these foods interferes with their ability to burn calories. When that’s gone, they gradually recover. And so we see that 15 % extra boost in your calorie burning speed. Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (08:23.31)
Wow, that’s incredible. So it’s almost like your body just becomes a more finely tuned machine over time. So it’s meal by meal. And then over the longterm, you just, I know in my own experience, when I became plant -based doctor and got rid of all the cheese and everything, just became easy, easy to, you know, feel fit and be the way that I wanted to be. And it wasn’t obsessive and numbers and all these little charts and everything. There was an easefulness in it.
Neal Barnard (08:50.025)
I’m so glad you said that. Because for many people, they have the experience where it’s getting harder and harder for them to find their way. A person might say, well, now that I’m 45 or I’m 50 or I went through menopause or whatever, there’s something going wrong in my body. And what’s really happening, actually, is that their cells are accumulating microscopic fat particles from the foods that they ate. And so their cells are slowing down. But I don’t care how old you are. I don’t care if you’re 40, 60, 80, or 100.
Kimberly Snyder (08:56.106)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (09:02.4)
Yeah.
Neal Barnard (09:19.465)
If you change your diet, it will change what’s happening in your cells. And when that happens, you can metabolize more like you did when you were a younger person. It has nothing to do with the calendar, it has nothing to do with the age, and it is not a moral issue or anything like that. It’s just about getting out of your cells’ way.
Kimberly Snyder (09:37.454)
Wow. So before we go into your power foods, and there were some really interesting ones in here, doctor, can we just dispel a couple of quick myths? Because you said it gets harder for people. There are people that say to me all the time, and you probably hear this as well, I’m doing this keto, I’m not eating carbs or whatever, high fat, I’m eating all this animal protein and I am losing weight. And then I say, well, how long have you been doing this? And you’re like, oh, a few weeks, right? So there’s certain diets which may help short term, but then long term,
Um, you know, it’s hard for the body to sustain that and to actually grow healthier.
Neal Barnard (10:14.729)
And you wouldn’t want to sustain that. If a person is on a low carbohydrate diet, if what is taking the place of carbohydrates is meat or gravy and things like that, you wouldn’t want to sustain that because over a long run, that’s risky from a cardiovascular standpoint and probably risky for the brain as well.
Kimberly Snyder (10:31.822)
Some people argue nowadays, oh, high cholesterol isn’t a bad thing. Some of these basic tenets of nutrition have been challenged.
Neal Barnard (10:39.113)
You have to wheel this flat, isn’t it?
Kimberly Snyder (10:40.654)
What?
All right. Thank you, doctor. It’s true. I know we’re speaking the same language here and I see you’re a colleague of Dr. Michael Greger. We had him on here a couple of weeks ago too and he was… Yeah, we were laughing about some of the things that get circulated, but unfortunately this is so important to have these conversations because a lot of misinformation can be taken as truth and it can be very damaging to people’s lives, their health, their energy, their families. So…
Neal Barnard (10:53.161)
Okay, Dr. Graven, a wonderful person.
Kimberly Snyder (11:11.022)
Back to the research and I mean, you’ve done so much research here, doctor. Do you enjoy doing all these studies? I mean, you’ve authored again, more than a hundred scientific publications. Do you like the process of going through and the writing and conducting the studies?
Neal Barnard (11:27.177)
Well, I guess I would say it’s important. And also, the credit where credit is due department, we do a lot of studies here now. We’re involved in several very big studies. But there are other research teams doing really important work. And Harvard University has been doing lots and lots. And let me give them some credit. Because it was 2015 where the Harvard researchers found that certain foods, when you ate more of certain foods, people would lose weight. The blueberries, strawberries.
Kimberly Snyder (11:53.462)
Yeah.
Neal Barnard (11:55.707)
Blackberries, raspberries came in tops, followed by cruciferous vegetables, green leafy vegetables, melons, like watermelon and cantaloupe. All of these foods, it wasn’t a question of, well, those are healthy food. If you ate more of them, you would lose more weight. And the reason I mention this is that the researchers at Harvard found the berries at the top. And you think, berry, what’s in a berry? Well, the first thing you notice about a berry is its color.
The color is not just there to look cute. That deep blue color is what we call anthocyanins. Anthocyanins is a whole painting box that ranges from blue to purple to reddish. Some of the reddish ones are in strawberries. The purple ones are in blueberries. Researchers in the UK said, okay, if anthocyanins and these foods are associated with losing weight, as they were in the Harvard studies, what if we actually put this to the test?
And here’s what they did. They brought in 2 ,734 identical twins. Don’t try this at home. Yes, they did. How do you find that many? This is in the UK twin study. Everybody got a DEXA scan. A DEXA scan, you lie on a table and it’s a scanner that shows you where your body fat is. Is it on your thighs? Is it on your abdomen? And how much do you have? And what they found is that within each twin pair, the twin who ate the most anthocyanins,
Kimberly Snyder (13:08.718)
Oh my –
Neal Barnard (13:24.233)
had substantially less total body fat and specifically less abdominal fat compared to her genetically identical twin sister. In other words, genetically they’re the same, but their diets differ a little bit and you could see this dramatic reduction in body fat and especially abdominal fat with the anthocyanins. But two things I would say. The first is we believe that the reason why is a slight metabolism boosting effect of the anthocyanins.
Kimberly Snyder (13:27.66)
Wow.
Neal Barnard (13:52.169)
They do other things too, but we think that’s probably it. But the other piece of it is it wasn’t just blueberries. There are anthocyanins all over the place. If you go to the produce department, pick up a pear. Pear is yellow, but it’s got a little red blush on it. That’s anthocyanins. And it’s in a lot of foods. So when we bring those in, you get this weight loss effect. So I work with Dustin Harder, who is a brilliant recipe developer, and Lindsay S. Nixon, who is another brilliant recipe developer.
Kimberly Snyder (14:21.102)
Yes.
Neal Barnard (14:21.993)
And we found that not only are blueberries good, cinnamon is also good. Cinnamon is a metabolism booster. And so Lindsay made French toast with a little cinnamon in it. Dustin made a syrup with blueberries in it. And we put it all together and it’s delicious. I mean, you don’t put like a big glob of butter on the top. You keep it healthy. But it’s a weight loss breakfast with the power foods built in. And they went crazy. They came up with hundreds of these.
And it is so fun to see what you can do. So instead of dieting being miserable, I want the process of getting healthy to be empowering and exciting and something you can share. You could share, I mean, you’re not going to share medicine with other people. You’re not going to share a calorie limit with other people. You know, you’re not going to share deprivation with other people, but what you can share is my brownies. You know, you can share my carrot cake.
and you can turn out with them.
Kimberly Snyder (15:21.838)
There was a part of the book where someone said, oh, don’t tell Dr. Bernard about these treats or this dessert. And they said, this recipe comes from Dr. Bernard because it’s incorporating these principles. And this sweetness, this fruit, this feels very natural, right? We’ve kind of moved away. Parts of culture have said, oh no, no fruit, no sugar. But as humans, it’s always felt, my kids love fruit. You know, just keep it. It just feels so natural as humans to eat the fruit and to get that sweet taste.
Ayurveda talks about Madura, sweet, one of the key tastes. And so when we’re trying to make these diets, they seem really rigid and unnatural. They don’t, it doesn’t feel easy. It’s so challenging and it’s arduous. So what I love about this is that it’s colorful, it’s easy. These foods that you’re talking about are accessible. I want to go into a few more here, but they’re also delicious. Delicious.
Neal Barnard (16:14.217)
Yeah, they really are. And somehow I think people have come up with sort of a kind of a punitive history. Maybe we got it because we went to the wrong school or whatever was that happened where we felt to make progress, we have to suffer. So you have to count calories and everything else. So you’ve got to go to the gym and sweat for an hour. Now, going to the gym is great. I mean, exercise is wonderful. I’m all for it. But if you feel like you have to hurt in order to lose weight, that’s wrong.
Your body will do it for you. Here’s what I mean. Your brain has an appetite control center that if you give it what it needs, it will say, okay, I’ve eaten enough, I can stop. If you don’t give it what it needs, it’s not gonna work. Well, what it needs are actually delicious foods and I can show you what they are. You can trap calories as we were talking about. You can boost your metabolism, but in every single case, the foods that do this are tasty foods.
Punishment is not part of this. It’s supposed to be fun because if it’s fun, if it’s tasty, then it’s rewarding. You’re going to stick with it. You’re not only going to lose weight you didn’t want to have, but your cholesterol comes down. Your energy comes up. Your athletic performance gets better. So let’s have fun with it.
Kimberly Snyder (17:30.99)
Dr. I’m drinking my glowing green smoothie here. You could say that on YouTube. This recipe is one that I’ve been making for 12 years or more. And the core fruit in this is apples, pears, and lemons. So when I came across the section in your book where you were talking about the power of apples and pears,
Neal Barnard (17:33.641)
Hahaha!
Kimberly Snyder (17:50.126)
I didn’t even know this back then, but kind of intuitively I put it in there. There’s some, you know, sweet and delicious, but not overly sweet. So every day I drink this mix with tons of green vegetables, lemons, apple, pear. So tell us about, because so many people in our community are going green smoothie drinkers, tell us more about the magic of apples and pears. Every day fruit, we get them at the market. They’re not super expensive.
Neal Barnard (18:13.225)
We all grew up with the idea of an apple, the day keeps the doctor away. Apples are healthy. But then along came the low carbers who said, what? You’re going to eat an apple and apple has sugar in it. And you might say, well, wait a minute. Those are natural sugars that are actually good for your body. But anyway, the low carb movement kind of said that all fruit is a terrible thing. So researchers put this to the test. Do apples cause you to gain weight or not? And how much could you gain if you ate a lot of apples?
So they brought in a group of people and they asked them, I’m not making this up, they asked them to eat three apples today and again tomorrow and again the next day, day after day. I mean, I don’t know how many people are gonna eat three apples on any given day, but the research participants had to do it every day, day after day after day after day. And then they put everybody on the scale. They ate all these extra apples. How much weight do you think they gained? They didn’t gain any weight at all. They lose weight. And the reason you lose weight.
Kimberly Snyder (19:04.366)
How much?
Neal Barnard (19:10.153)
is because an apple is nourishing and filling, it has fiber, it’s got a lot of water in it, and you feel good with it. Now, you might, not you, but a person might binge on cookies. You could get a bag of some fudge cookies, or some Oreos or whatever, and you know, people might say, oh, if I had them, I’d eat 15 of them, I couldn’t control myself. But did you ever eat 15 apples? No, you eat an apple, or maybe two.
because it naturally says, we’re done. It’s a natural appetite control.
Kimberly Snyder (19:46.978)
You know, I watched my seven -year -old who loves apples and we get some of the smaller ones and sometimes he will have three in a row, but I never worry. He has his own natural sense of it and he eats, he feels great. You know, children, if you watch their natural eating habits, when you put really healthy food around, they will want to eat more of those, a little snosh on carrots, celery, and he’s not thinking about it.
Neal Barnard (20:10.097)
Perfectly fine. You know, we’re not cats and dogs. We’re not natural carnivores. Our cousins are all the great apes, whether we would like to remember this or not. Our closest biological relatives are chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, orangutans. And if you look at chimpanzees, they will find a tree filled with fruit. And they love it. They’re happy with it. They eat lots of fruit. And they are never eating ice cream. They are never eating cheese. They’re never eating meat. And they are not counting calories.
Kimberly Snyder (20:21.902)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (20:31.278)
Yeah.
Neal Barnard (20:40.041)
and they’re in sync with their environment.
Kimberly Snyder (20:43.342)
Do you think sometimes doctor people are over complicating some of the again back to basics and the research shows. So for instance a lot of people are wearing those expensive blood glucose monitors and you know those patches and say well an apple may be good for me or you but it’s not that you know certain timings and things do you think we need to be pay attention to those things are aware because it starts to get really confusing when you listen to what’s out there and everything so.
personalized and different for each person. What do you think about that?
Neal Barnard (21:15.401)
I think a glucose monitor is a good thing for a person who has diabetes and is having to regulate their medication use. Period.
Kimberly Snyder (21:21.902)
Okay, that’s it, got it. Because I don’t, because it’s like, I don’t know, for me, I used to feel really complex when I was counting calories and I had these little charts and then it just became really simple. And my recipes became really simple and it was more about colors and fresh and everything just worked out. I know our mutual friend T. Colin Campbell says something like when you’re eating natural foods, your body does the math for you.
Neal Barnard (21:51.177)
Your body has homeostatic processes. That means balance processes. And so for example, your body knows when to breathe. You’re asleep. You’re not concentrating at all. You’re not writing anything down. You don’t have a CGM monitor for oxygenation, but your brain knows to inhale. It takes you in oxygen. And you’re not measuring how much is that? What is the ratio of nitrogen to oxygen in the air that you’re breathing? What’s my blood CO2 level?
Kimberly Snyder (22:10.414)
Yes.
Neal Barnard (22:17.779)
Your brain takes care of that automatically whether you’re conscious or unconscious. Same with hydration. Your body knows about, it monitors your hydration status and if you are low in hydration, your body will make you thirsty and you’re gonna drink something. So in a normal world, all these things happen naturally and that’s also true for monitoring your blood sugar and your nutrient intake. So homeostasis would take care of that. And so people unfortunately have gotten a little crazy with that.
Kimberly Snyder (22:46.414)
I agree. And so when you’re talking about, again, there’s so much information here about how it really works. If someone’s transitioning from a different diet, let’s say a heavier diet with a lot of eggs and a lot of dairy and they’re used to feeling full, and then they switch to the power foods diet, will some people experience a little transition and getting feeling full from fiber and these different mechanisms because they’re coming back towards homeostasis? Or have you seen in your experience, doctor, it’s almost, it’s a more…
I would say a quick switch, but the transition is more seamless.
Neal Barnard (23:20.649)
People do really well with it, but it’s important for a person to understand why I want to do it and what are the benefits that I’m looking for. A person would want to do it because you’re giving the body what it needs in order to regulate the body weight automatically without you thinking about it, without your counting and weighing and worrying about portion sizes. So that’s a gift. And another reason you’re doing it is because you don’t want to be slimmer alone. You want to be healthier too. So if you want to have better athletic endeavor or you want to…
reduce the likelihood of cognitive problems later in life. Or you want to get your cholesterol and blood pressure down. Or if your digestive tract is kind of got a mind of its own and you want to get that fixed up, those are all things that come along with being on the foods that love you back. And secondly, apart from the benefits, it’s important to visualize what you’re going to be eating. So let’s say for breakfast, you might decide you want to have my overnight oats. Or you might want to have French toast. Yes, you can have French toast.
And people think, oh, I can’t because it’s got carbs. Just try it. Yes, you can have those again. And I’ve got pancakes and a lot of other foods that you might have thought you could never have again. Or for lunch, you’ll have chili. Now, it’s not going to be a meaty, greasy chili. It’ll be my Southwest chili. It’s delicious. Oh, it is. And for all the people who said, oh, I can’t have pasta anymore. I went to Italy, and I felt guilty about even looking at pasta. Good grief. You can have pasta.
Kimberly Snyder (24:34.06)
Mmm.
Neal Barnard (24:43.785)
again, and it’s got to be covered with the right kinds of sauce and when it comes to dessert have my carrot cake have my They’re called black and blue brownies because they have a look Yes, they have a little bit of black bean in there and a little bit of blueberries and in the cooking process It just becomes this chewy tasty thing. I’ve got a triple berry sorbet Which is three berries is blueberries and raspberries and strawberries?
And you make it with a little bit of banana and a little bit of cherry or cranberry juice. And you put it in the freezer and it comes out this purple, just insanely delicious sorbet. Or if you’ve got kids coming over, make them blueberry pops. You take blueberries and a little banana and a pear and a little bit of almond milk or lemon juice. And you mush it up in a food processor.
And you can either put it in ice cube trays or you can put it in forms like popsicle type forms with a little stick in there and freeze them. And when all the 12 year olds come by, they are going to be screaming about the purple pops that you just made. And you’re feeling good because everything in them is healthy. It’s not junk. There’s no added sugar, no nothing. So anyway, so if a person is transitioning to this, I want them to understand that for once in their life.
Nobody is going to be wagging their finger and telling them, don’t eat it. I’m going to say, do eat these things and enjoy them. And then I break it into two steps. It will take a week to just try the food, see which ones you like. And you will know that you’ll have a huge list. Then take three weeks and actually do it. Eat all power foods all the time for three weeks and you will be sold because it will readjust your body metabolism. It will readjust your taste buds and you are on a new path. So don’t take a long time with it.
Kimberly Snyder (26:06.934)
Mmm.
Neal Barnard (26:32.147)
Don’t fool around. Don’t say, oh, just going to make little changes. Jump in the deep end and see what swimming is like. And your body will thank you.
Kimberly Snyder (26:40.43)
Wow, that is so inspiring. It sounds so delicious. And the recipes, I’m holding the book in my hand. There’s amazing color photos and the recipes in the back. Oh, you can see that, those of you watching here on video. So I want you to speak to the busy mom like me, doctor, right? I’m looking for energy. I’m going from the morning up, I’m doing the school runs, I’m working all day, I’m doing after school, bed time, working more.
I want easy foods for the family of my kids that are delicious and my picky kid, my children will eat these foods. How does this fit in? Energy, easy, delicious.
Neal Barnard (27:19.337)
First of all, I think you should win the lottery, then somebody else can do all this for you. Bye.
Kimberly Snyder (27:24.366)
I just need to be on point every day.
Neal Barnard (27:27.497)
Okay, barring that. Let me say a couple things. The recipes in the book are all rated. They’re in three categories. We do have ones that are, most of them are called easy, meaning they’re recipes, but relatively few ingredients and pretty quick to make. So you don’t have to become a junior gourmet chef. Then we have some called convenient. And you might say to me, okay, split pea soup, fine, but I just want, just show me which can to open. Fine, that’s okay.
If your idea of breakfast is cereal with some milk, you know, but then I’m gonna say well have soy milk instead of cow’s milk when we’ll talk about what the best choices are So if you want to be really bang bang bang quick, you can be if fast food is your thing. You can do it I’m gonna show you what to order if you go to Wendy’s or Taco Bell or Subway or whatever if that’s your thing, then that’s your thing But the other thing I would say is you not only need to to have have oh I forgot to mention the third thing. Some of the things are easy. Some are convenient and
but some are a little bit elegant. And this is where I make the French toast, but I put a little mint leaf on top and three berry dishes, you know, and a little bit of confectioners sugar down the side. We’ve got all that because you want to impress your friends when they come over for brunch. So we have all three of those. But the other thing you need is you need energy. And so a lot of people run into trouble because they’re not following your healthy example. Where we see this really graphically is,
Kimberly Snyder (28:33.9)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (28:45.87)
Yes.
Neal Barnard (28:55.209)
Thanksgiving time. It’s two o ‘clock in the afternoon, everybody finished the big dinner, and they’re now dozing off to sleep in front of the TV. And it’s not the tryptophan in the turkey that did that. That’s not it. It’s the gravy and the butter in the dessert and all that. The fat in the foods that they’ve eaten, the fat causes their blood to be viscous, thick, more like oil, less like water. So their blood is not circulating normally. And when the blood is not circulating normally, your brain doesn’t oxygenate.
And the way you know this is you is, wait a minute, I had lunch and about 60 to 90 minutes I’m feeling.
I’m just going down. My energy is no good. And that’s usually a sign that my oxygenation is not good and that’s because of too much blood viscosity that came from fat. So this is important both for keeping awake and feeling energetic, but it’s also good for athletic endeavor. If you’re gonna play tennis and you can’t make it through 20 minutes of a game, or if you’re a runner or something like that, you need to oxygenate not just your brain, but your muscles. And to oxygenate them, you need good blood flow. Good blood flow means,
good, low viscosity blood, blood that is like water, not like Crisco.
Kimberly Snyder (30:08.782)
So, doctor, in your power foods, there’s lots of fruit, berries, and the beans, which I feel like is a miracle for many of us because they’re inexpensive, they’re easy. But there isn’t, and you talk about reducing oil, but where does fat play in the healthy diet at all? Let’s say avocados, seeds, nuts, because we do need some fat, but as you point out, we don’t want to overdo the fat. So how do we keep that balance of some fat, but not too much?
Neal Barnard (30:34.761)
Okay, well there’s natural fat in foods that you’re going to eat anyway. Let’s say you take a sprig of broccoli. No fat in it, right? Wait a minute, send it to a laboratory and they’ll say, actually that broccoli is about 7 % fat as a percentage of its calories. Bean’s about 4 % fat, so you’re not going to be fat deficient. Fat is in all these things. And if you are a slim, healthy person who doesn’t have diabetes and you have no hormonal issues, like you don’t have bad
Kimberly Snyder (30:50.7)
Okay.
Neal Barnard (31:03.271)
menstrual cramps or menopausal symptoms that cancer is not on your radar right now. You might be able to get away with more oily foods than somebody else. But if you’re trying to lose weight, if you’re trying to get your cholesterol down, if you’re trying to be healthy, if you’re trying to tackle hormonal issues like I mentioned, this is a time to keep not only added oils out, but even the things like the nuts and seeds, you really want to keep those to a bare minimum. And this is not the time for a guacamole fest, I’m sorry to say.
So I know I’m selling like a real killjoy with that, but that’s just the way it is. When we’re looking at people who are trying to lose weight and if they get stuck, we always track what they’re eating and you will find nuts, nut butters, avocados or added oils. Those are usually the reasons.
Kimberly Snyder (31:48.622)
Ah, okay, so we want to reduce those, even like chia seeds and things.
Neal Barnard (31:54.249)
Oh, I mean, sure, chia seeds are, something like that is okay because the amounts are trivial. You know, I wouldn’t worry about that. Where people really run into trouble is they just got this bottle of extra virgin olive oil directly from Tuscany. They take that thing and they go glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, and they take a big glob of bread and they use it like a sponge and in it goes. And they’re just, you know, absorbing a couple hundred calories, you know, within a couple of minutes. So you got to be careful with those things.
Kimberly Snyder (31:58.848)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (32:08.288)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (32:22.35)
Well, again, it goes back to misunderstanding. A lot of people doing that, doctors say, oh, the Mediterranean diet, oh, well, that’s why it’s so healthy, instead of seeing the bigger picture about the vegetables and the fiber.
Neal Barnard (32:35.145)
Oh well, we’ve put this to the test. The Mediterranean diet is better than what a lot of people are eating naturally. I mean it says less meat, less dairy, less egg. But it’s permissive. It says have them. It says instead of butter, have olive oil. Okay, that’s better. But it’s not as good as totally plant foods. And the reason I can tell you that is we brought in 62 people. They all wanted to lose weight. And we asked all of them to do either Mediterranean or vegan for 16 weeks and then switch.
to do the other diet. So everybody did both diet. And what we found on the Mediterranean diet, they do not lose weight. On the vegan diet, they lose weight like crazy. And the worst of it was when people went vegan first and they really got into it. It was a low fat vegan diet. They were losing weight really, really, really well. And at 16 weeks, we said, for science, you’re going to now do the Mediterranean. We said, OK, I’ll give it a try. But they noticed they had to bring chicken into their diet, some fish, some oil.
Kimberly Snyder (33:11.766)
Wow.
Neal Barnard (33:33.737)
and they started regaining the weight they had lost. And they became furious because they didn’t want the Mediterranean diet because the Mediterranean diet just does not support weight loss. So the reason, now, don’t get me wrong, you can live in a Mediterranean country and eat their cuisine in the best possible way. Chickpeas and vegetables and fruits and healthy breads, where they run into trouble is by adding the animal products and having oil all over it. If you leave those parts out,
Kimberly Snyder (33:56.298)
Yes.
Neal Barnard (34:02.889)
The Mediterranean cuisine is great.
Kimberly Snyder (34:04.782)
got it. Now, what would you say, doctor, this craze sweeping the country? I’ve had many people ask me about ozempic, right? And someone’s saying, well, this sounds great, you know, what Dr. Bernard’s talking about, but I could just take this, you know, this medication and lose the weight.
Neal Barnard (34:20.201)
You can take the medication and you will lose some weight, but a typical scenario is the following. First of all, the doctors start the medication way prematurely. They’ll say, we’ll start it for you if you have a BMI over 30 or over 27 with a cardiovascular risk factor. That’s what they’ll always say. Provided you tried a diet and you couldn’t do it. Well, every diet people tried, they couldn’t do because it’s a rotten diet, you know? So they shouldn’t do that. They should say, wait.
Kimberly Snyder (34:41.804)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (34:46.848)
Yeah.
Neal Barnard (34:49.651)
Let’s first do a low -fat vegan diet and give you some support. And you’re not going to want the Ozempic or Wigobi. But let’s say a person starts. They start it. And at first, a lot of people have pretty bad side effects, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. For some, that goes away. And for some, those symptoms continue. Let’s say you can tolerate it. Your weight comes down. And it’s impressive. Not in every case, but most cases, it’s a noticeable weight loss. Then you hit your plateau.
And you go back to the doctor and you say, I’m much slimmer than I was before, but I’m not quite where I wanna be. Can we increase the dose? And the doctor will say, you’re already on the maximum dose. Well, what do I do? Well, the doctor says, why don’t you just start exercising more, cut calories or something like that. You say, wait a minute, I have to add all this to this medication? Why don’t I just stop the medication? The doctor says, don’t stop the medication.
You say, well, doctor, it’s costing me $15 ,600 a year. That’s the retail price. $15 ,600 a year. And you’re telling me I have to take it for how long? Well, for the rest of your life, because if you stop, you get all that weight back. You think, what kind of medication is this? It’s like paying protection money, because when you stop, it’s not helping you anymore. But when you stop taking it, all that weight comes back. Stop this. Stop this. Let’s instead do what I’m going to call natural wagovi.
Kimberly Snyder (36:09.836)
Ugh.
Neal Barnard (36:17.385)
My research colleague here, Dr. Hanna Kaliova, is an endocrinologist who brought in individuals and gave them different meals. The reason she did that is your digestive tract produces GLP -1, which is what Wigovia is trying to simulate. Your digestive tract makes it. It goes to your brain and turns down your appetite. She found that a meat -based meal does not cause much GLP -1 release. It just doesn’t trigger it. A plant -based meal, high in fiber and complex carbohydrates, causes this nice release.
Kimberly Snyder (36:33.708)
Mm -hmm.
Kimberly Snyder (36:42.348)
Right.
Neal Barnard (36:47.209)
So instead of buying an injection, inject into your menu the plant -based foods that are high in fiber and complex carbohydrates, and that gives you GLP -1 in the way Mother Nature thought you were doing.
Kimberly Snyder (37:01.23)
and natural energy and antioxidants and it’s great for your skin and your hair. And we always talk about, you know, embodying, walking the walk doctor. And those of you that are listening to this or watching this, I’m looking at Dr. Bernard right now and his skin is amazing. I have to say, doctor, you look healthy, right? You look nourished, but you also, you know, you’re this embodiment of it versus some people can be quite skinny or they’re taking these medications, but they don’t necessarily.
Neal Barnard (37:18.023)
Thank you.
Kimberly Snyder (37:29.006)
have the energy or the vitality and it’s like, what are we doing here? Are we just chasing this number on the scale or do we want to really be healthy? Do we want to have the energy to play with our kids and our work and create our dreams and everything that we want in life? It’s here to support us.
Neal Barnard (37:45.897)
That’s one of the concerns I have, is that when people take these medications, they’re never really learning about how to use foods in a healthful way. It just puts a lid on your appetite. So a person might say, well, I get full so easy and I want to make sure I get enough protein, so I’ll emphasize, I’ll have my meat portion, but I’ll skip everything else. And it can really be doing more harm than good over the long run. Now don’t get me wrong, losing weight is a good thing. And for some people you’ll say, okay, because the drug caused them to lose weight, maybe their risk of a heart attack is going down.
Kimberly Snyder (37:53.194)
Yeah.
Neal Barnard (38:15.369)
What I would prefer to do is to achieve the weight loss in a way that’s really health -supporting.
Kimberly Snyder (38:21.326)
Well, I love when science and sex with nature in this powerful way and everything that you’re talking about is natural, eating these natural foods. I could pick your brain all day doctor, but a couple, before we sign off here, I wanna say I love that you talked about ginger, really inexpensive, really easy for a lot of people as a wonderful weight loss food. We can add it to different dishes. We can make ginger tea. Can you touch on ginger for just a moment?
Neal Barnard (38:45.577)
Yeah, you know, scientists are not very creative people. And so when they discover compounds, ginger has a compound in it that does seem to be a metabolism booster. And they didn’t know what to call it, so they named it gingerol. Isn’t that sad? In cinnamon, there’s an aldehyde chemical, which they called cinnamaldehyde. So, yeah, they did. Researchers wear bow ties, what can you say? They don’t really think very creatively. So anyway, but the thing about ginger, it’s also…
Kimberly Snyder (39:03.566)
of my goodness.
Neal Barnard (39:13.513)
kind of a distant cousin of the capsaicin group, which is in a hot pepper. And if you ever were at the Mexican restaurant and they put just a few too many jalapenos in your burrito, and you find something, oh my God, you’re kind of sweating a little bit, the capsaicins actually trigger a little bit of what we call thermogenesis, meaning your body’s just burning up calories. And ginger is a cousin of that. You know, if you ever had a little bit of ginger, it tastes nice.
If you do it too much, it’s almost like sharp. And it’s a medicine, basically, that nature put in this amazing, goofy -looking root.
Kimberly Snyder (39:51.342)
Amazing. So one more quick thing, doctor, for the plant -based eaters in our community that are interested in plant -based eating for different reasons, but let’s say they are eating a lot of the impossible burgers or some of the more processed foods, using your diet, they can transition over and again, go to the easy recipes and still eat some of those foods, those comfort foods, and then just start making more of a percentage of these power foods, perhaps.
Neal Barnard (40:18.473)
Well, if you’re going to have a burger, keep in mind the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Burger were not designed for vegans. They were designed to seduce meat eaters. And they were. They were to show you that if you’re a meat eater and you think you can’t have the taste of meat without meat in it, here’s a burger that will make you love it. And so they pack them full of coconut oil, and that’s not the best choice. If you want to have a veggie burger, go to the store and look at the different brands and pick the ones that are really low in fat.
Kimberly Snyder (40:24.812)
Hmm.
Neal Barnard (40:48.617)
So impossible and beyond were designed for somebody else.
Kimberly Snyder (40:48.684)
Got it.
Kimberly Snyder (40:52.174)
Yes. Well, anything else that you want to share with us about your amazing new book, doctor, before we sign off here?
Neal Barnard (40:59.369)
Well, the PowerFoods diet was designed really for two things. One is for all those people who have been struggling to lose weight. I’m hoping that you’ll find this to be a really fun way to do it in a way that’s more effective than others, but fun. But the most important thing of all is that when people have tried this, I hope that they will share what they have learned with others. Because we all know people who are struggling. And you know, the next generation of kids who are growing up, kids are going to sometimes gain too much weight before they get their high school diploma.
Kimberly Snyder (41:19.532)
Hmm.
Neal Barnard (41:28.755)
Some of them are at risk for diabetes and high blood pressure. And the risks that kids run nowadays with fast foods and convenience foods and so forth are huge. But we’ve got the answer in our hands. And it’s with a little bit of love and a little bit of healthy foods. So make my brownies, make extra, share them around with everybody, make a little bit extra chili, give some containers to the other people at work. And you never know, somebody’s gonna ask you for the recipe, loan them a book and you might change their life.
Kimberly Snyder (41:59.586)
You know what, Dr. Bernard, you mentioned your chili twice. I will make it tonight for dinner and I will post about it and I will share it and I am so excited. So once again, everyone, please get Dr. Bernard’s new book. It will blow your mind. It’s amazing. There’s new brand new research in here that I had never heard of, the Power Foods Diet. And I read a lot of nutrition books. Dr. Bernard is the real deal. He’s doing the research. He knows his stuff. He’s written so many books already, but this one is, I had to say one of my favorites, doctor, all the colors and the beautiful recipes.
Neal Barnard (42:03.721)
Okay.
Kimberly Snyder (42:28.75)
I mean, come on, who doesn’t want to make these pancakes in the fri –
Neal Barnard (42:31.537)
Yeah, well, hats off to Dustin Harder and Lindsay Nixon, who I work with. They do the recipes. My job is to be the science guy, to show how it works, and to show which foods are which. But they are really responsible for all those beautiful tastes that you see in the picture.
Kimberly Snyder (42:49.006)
And this is how we put into practice. We eat every day, we make these choices and we eat the power foods. So thank you once again so much, Dr. Bernard. Tell us where we can get the book and also where we can get more information about your work and the amazing Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
Neal Barnard (43:04.201)
Oh, well, thank you. The Power Foods Diet is now on Amazon and everywhere else that books are sold online. Or if there is a surviving bookstore that’s still opening its door near you, please share your business with them. And for more about us at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, you’ll see us at pcrm .org. And we also have a clinic, which we see people by telehealth and in person. It’s barnardmedical .org.
Kimberly Snyder (43:30.318)
Hmm.
I’m so glad you’re doing the telehealth. Thank you so much, doctor, for your incredible wisdom, your incredible work in the world, and congratulations on an amazing book.
Neal Barnard (43:44.201)
Well, thank you.
Kimberly Snyder (43:45.998)
And beauties, thank you so much for tuning in here. Remember to check out the show notes at mysaloon .com. We will link directly to Dr. Barnard’s book and his sites. We’ll be back here Thursday as always for our next Q &A show. Till then, take great care and lots of love.
Kimberly Snyder (44:02.582)
Hehehehe
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