The TOP FOODS You Absolutely SHOULD NOT EAT! (Avoid These Foods) | Dr. William Li

1. 0:00 – 3:01

   How Added Sugar and Soda Undermine Your Health Defenses

   1. WLDr. William Li0:00

      There's a lot of foods that actually impair our health defenses, our circulation, our stem cells, our healthy gut microbiome, the ability for our DNA to protect our, our bodies from the environment, and also our immune system. Your body can't handle some of those foods that we have gotten used to eating. [upbeat music] I think one of the greatest things about food is that, and food and health, is that it actually puts the agency of choice into our own individual hands, and so we make our own choices. One of the interesting things that is very clear is our body's health defenses, the five of them we talked about last time, our circulation, our stem cells, our healthy gut microbiome, the ability for our DNA to protect ourselves, our, our bodies from the environment, and also our immune system. These systems, uh, for us to reach our health potential, we wanna make sure that they are not squashed in- inadvertently by foods that we have gotten used to eating. And so let's talk a little about some of those foods that actually impair our health defenses. That's probably the best way of, of thinking-

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:04

      Yeah

   3. WLDr. William Li1:04

      ... about what to avoid. Now, we know that added sugar is, uh, something that is very, that taxes the body's metabolism, right? So if you have a little bit of sugar in fruit, you know, from natural sugars, that's fine because you're getting a lot of other stuff in fruit as well that, in fact, helps your metabolism and helps your body's ability to be able to digest and metabolize, uh, fructose and glucose, and use that fuel into your body. But if you drink soda, you know, to have those 10 teaspoons of refined sugar that are dissolved invisibly in whatever colored fluid, um, we might be drinking, it tastes great, quenches your thirst. It kind of, our mental blueprint is that, you know, this is something you use to slake your thirst on a hot summer day. And I can tell you that the hyperglycemic state, your body can't handle 10 teaspoons of sugar at the same time. And think about, you know, the people that chug an entire can of soda.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:00

      Yeah.

   5. WLDr. William Li2:00

      Right? I mean, I've, I've done it myself. There's no way that's good for us. So that overwhelms a lot of our systems. It overwhelms our stem cells. Our stem cells cannot adequately function, properly function to help us regenerate when there's too much sugar around. You know, sugar is, is a concentrated material. It's a solute, meaning that it's dissolved in water. And when there's a lot of things, I mean, think about when you're in a swimming pool or you're in, you know, or, or if you're swimming in the ocean for a long period of time, what happens? The water gets pulled out of your skin, or even in a bathtub. Your, your skin gets wrinkly because you've sucked out all the, all the water, and that's basically what happens to these cells in a high-sugar environment in your blood. So I would say added sugar with sodas that are so popular, that is something that sits on your health defense systems. Too much sugar also literally damages the ecosystem of your gut microbiome, which is connected to your immunity. Um, unhappy gut, unhappy immunity. You know, we all want to actually be as strong immunologically as possible.

2. 3:01 – 4:37

   Diet Soda, Artificial Sweeteners and the Gut

   1. WLDr. William Li3:01

      And then, by the way, let's kind of, um, just take one step over to the kissing cousin of regular sh- soda, which is diet soda, right?

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:09

      Yeah.

   3. WLDr. William Li3:10

      So here, here's the thing. I, I just told you, you know, we might wanna cut down or cut out regular soda. So what do people say? They say, "Well, don't worry, Dr. Li. We just go over to the diet soda. No worries. I drink the diet version. It's much better for my metabolism." Well, science tells us it's not true, and the irony is that people who drink a lot of diet soda with the purpose of not getting a lot of carbs from refined sugar actually still gain weight. This is a kind of a paradox that now makes sense because scientists have figured out that many of the artificial sweeteners used in diet sodas actually harm our gut microbiome. And so when you're drinking that soda and that artificial sweetener that, you know, you, you get that sugar hit on your tongue to go to your brain, man, it's pretty sweet. But all those chemicals go down your gut, and they're feeding our gut bacteria, and the gut bacteria really don't like these synthetic, uh, compounds, these artificial sweeteners, and so they revolt. And as they're revolting, they're actually drown- literally drowning in these artificial sweeteners, and that is bad enough because our gut bacteria actually, you know, helps to lower inflammation. But our gut bacteria also controls metabolism-

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:19

      Yeah

   5. WLDr. William Li4:19

      ... our insulin sensitivity. So when that gets upset, guess what? Our actual blood sugars raise, and we actually have poorer metabolism of our energy, and we actually start to gain weight anyway. So that's, you know, kind of two, just two, just two examples, but there's a lot of other foods that we might wanna be careful about.

3. 4:37 – 7:37

   What Metabolism Really Means

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:37

      Can you just explain that term metabolism? Because it's something that I think the public hear a lot, but I think it's not always that well understood.

   2. WLDr. William Li4:47

      Glad you're asking that question. Here's what I will tell you, 'cause I'm actually working on a project now on metabolism.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:52

      Yeah.

   4. WLDr. William Li4:52

      Metabolism isn't that well understood by doctors either.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:55

      [laughs]

   6. WLDr. William Li4:55

      And it's actually not even that well understood by scientists, and that's part of the mystery of the human body, that gigantic question mark. What is our metabolism, right? So here we are thinking about metabolism, I think, classically as energy. You know, how do we... H- our metabolism is... These are some assumptions. Our metabolism is something we're born with. You know, I have a lot of body fat, so I got the unlucky straw in family genetics. Look at my sister. She's skinny as a stick. She's lucky. She inherited the thin gene for her metabolism, right? So that's one assumption that we make about metabolism, and that infers, and it's wrong, by the way, um, uh, but that infers that our body's metabolism is the machinery that's used to take energy that we put into our body, that's our food that we eat, how our body processes that energy in order to be able to load up on fuel- And then how our body takes that fuel in the fuel tank, like filling the-

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:54

      Yeah

   8. WLDr. William Li5:54

      ... gas tank with petrol, and then actually uses that fuel as we get on the highway and drive. That's not incorrect, okay? But what we're really beginning to realize is that metabolism's a lot more complicated than that, because it's connected to our immune system. It's connected to our inflammation. It's connected to our ability to actually maintain our health-

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:15

      Yeah

   10. WLDr. William Li6:15

       ... in the sense that body fat is not necessarily bad. It's actually really good. And so many of the assumptions of metabolism, energy, and all the negative aspects of it, you know, an athlete has got, is, you know, who's in his top shape, has got great metabolism, whereas somebody who actually is obese has terrible metabolism. Not, not as simple as we thought.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:36

       Yeah. Thank you for that. I think that's, that's really, really helpful. So in terms of categories and types of foods that we should think about limiting or avoiding, the first thing you went to was those drinks with added sugar, soft drinks, fizzy drinks, soda. How, you know, in whatever country you're in, however you like to refer to it, I hope it's generally well-known that actually those things are damaging for our health, our immune system, our teeth, and you beautifully explained why that is. Now, before we go to diet drinks, 'cause I'm really glad you brought that up, full sugar fizzy drinks. Is it just the sugar that's causing problems because it overwhelms our system and we can't process it? Or is it something else? Is it the sugar and the chemicals and the impact they have on other aspects of our body's health, and potentially those five defense systems that you've written beautifully about in your book? What's going on there? Is it just the sugar or is it something else?

4. 7:37 – 16:00

   Soda History, Ingredient Labels and Marketing

   1. WLDr. William Li7:37

      Yeah. The soft drinks, the sodas that we see so commonly around us, it's part of everyday modern life, you know, for the last 100 years or so. It's interesting, the, the history of soda is really fascinating. It dates back into Europe where, um, people were trying to find additional ways to be, uh, surprised and delighted by beverages, right?

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:57

      Yeah.

   3. WLDr. William Li7:57

      So the traditional drinks were always tea or coffee. Of course, the most popular beverage in the world was just drinking water, um, the most important one actually as well, uh, tea and coffee following close behind. And then there was, uh, wine, right? I mean, these were, for thousands of years, sort of the, the elixirs, so to speak, of our beverages, and carbonation was actually added to fruit juice. First it was a mistake, I think, that was made when they invented it. But then actually it became something to delight folks. You know, kind of like in a, you go to a carnival, you know, and, and you see some spectacle that actually is just something you walk by and you think, "Oh, my gosh, that's so unusual. That's delightful." That's how sodas were actually, um, uh, drank. And then once actually the, the big industries came in and turned it into a marketing buzz, it started to take on a life of its own, and here's where it morphed. Went from fruit juices that actually had some carbonation, which is just gas, you know, CO2, and that's okay. But what wound up happening is that they started to have less fruit, but they figured out how to put chemical flavorings that actually-

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:01

      Yeah

   5. WLDr. William Li9:01

      ... mimic the f- fruit flavoring. And then of course, nobody really wants to have just a plain, watery-looking carbonated drink, so then they started to add artificial coloring, and then they started to add preservatives. And this goes to the importance of reading a label. Whenever I actually pick up something to drink, you know, from a store, a grocery store, I, you know, uh, uh, I, I'm an explorer, so I love to actually try new things. If I saw a drink in a store that seemed appealing or attractive or intri- intriguing to me, I might pick it up. But the first thing I do is I take a look at the label. What is in there, right? So it should be mostly water, so I look for that. And then most, many people don't know this, but the order in which the ingredients appear on a label, at least in the United States, is, um, is synonymous with their c- relative concentration-

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:49

      Yeah

   7. WLDr. William Li9:49

      ... in the drink. And so what you wanna do is, it's usually water, and then it's sugar, all right? So we ta- just talked about that, or artificial sweetener. And then you start seeing the other things behind it, and I think most people will be astounded and, um, disappointed, rightfully so, that natural fruit juice is usually pretty low on a list of-

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee10:11

      Yeah

   9. WLDr. William Li10:11

      ... 10 or 20 ingredients. And so if you're creeped out by not being able to pronounce, understand, identify the ingredients on, on s- on a, on a beverage, you're, you should follow your instincts. That's probably not something you wanna put in your body, because your body's not hardwired to handle those chemicals.

   10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee10:31

       Yeah. I think that's great advice, something I use with my patients as well. People say there's always exceptions. Yeah, there are exceptions, but as a general principle when looking at ingredient labels, I, I completely echo that. If you don't recognize it, you know, maybe give it a miss and choose something else instead. You also mentioned marketing there when you were talking about fizzy drinks, and that really is something that we're fighting. You know, you are trying to promote all this incredible colorful food, but what we're fighting is this marketing machine and, and particularly around, I guess, soft drinks and fizzy drinks and sodas. It's, it's really tragic to see sports stars who are looked up to by children, you know, you certainly have seen this in the UK for many years. You see this in a big way in India, where, like, the big cricket stars are often sponsored and are seen drinking a can of soda. And actually, I think this is one of the big problems we're up against, because that just infuses into these young kids' mind that actually I wanna be like that person. Oh, they're drinking that drink? Oh, I wanna drink that and be like them. How much of a problem do you think marketing is? You know, sponsorship, product placements, commercial deals. Is that something we need to be fighting against?

   11. WLDr. William Li11:48

       I think that we all- Have the freedom, most of us, to make our own choices. And I try to think about any argument, um, such as the one we're discussing now, from both sides of the coin. If you run a company, and your, and y- and your company's making a product, your job is to market it, whether it's a soda or whether it's a tennis shoe or whether it's a wristwatch, right? On one hand, I, I don't blame companies for actually doing marketing, and the ones that actually do it really well, hey, you know what? That's, that's their job, okay? On the other hand, I think that the fight that we're actually having is not really against the company. The fight is really against the inertia that many of us have in the community to do our homework on, and to get back in touch with our body. Because I think that if we actually, you know, took a look in the mirror and started to, um, reacquaint ourselves with what our body is telling us... I mean, you know, look, here's how I think about it. In the mor- you get up in the morning, you take a shower, you step out of the shower, you look, you're gonna see the mirror. You look in that mirror, most people aren't that happy, most people are not that happy with what they see. They can always find something wrong with themselves, you know? And then, you know, and then you might step on a scale, and you might not like that number, okay? Um, and then you realize, uh, those are the few moments of clarity in a day where you might actually be thinking about yourself.

   12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:06

       Yeah.

   13. WLDr. William Li13:06

       And then we get dressed, and we go off, and we're just swept up with the rest of, um, our lives, whether it's our jobs, whether it's our families, whether it's other responsibilities, and we leave ourselves behind. Oftentimes we deprioritize what our body needs. And I think that one of the things, the inertia we're fighting against, is actually all those other distractions in our life. I o- I actually think that, you know, one of the things that we could do to teach children, and one of the things we could do to teach young parents, one of the things we could do to help teachers, whether it's grade school, high school, or college or beyond, is to really reemphasize the fact that we all need to be in touch with our bodies. We need to know ourselves first. Knowing yourself first allows you to then discern whether or not a message that you're seeing on television or being promoted by a sports star, or whether something that is being marketed to you in a grocery store is something that you wanna partake in, right? And so I think that, yes, we should, um, be vigilant, and we should enact policies that prevent predatory marketing practices to people that are uninformed and are, uh, highly vulnerable, like marketing to children, you know, with, uh, uh, certain ads like that. I think that's, that is something that works, and therefore it's something that really we need to, we do need to actually push back against. But on the other hand, you know, I think companies are just doing their job. I think that we have our own decision. We need to push back on the predatory practices, um, of companies that are preying on the vulnerable, and we also need to be able to lift up the consumer so that they are smarter, wiser, more in touch with themselves, and then they actually can discern-

   14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:48

       Yeah

   15. WLDr. William Li14:48

       ... what they should be ordering, uh, or buying, uh, that can actually help themselves.

   16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:53

       Yeah, I really appreciate that nuanced answer, looking at it from both sides. You mentioned sugar and these soda drinks, that we know, uh, it certainly, even small amounts [laughs] consumed regularly can be quite damaging for our health. And then you went to artificial sweeteners in these diet drinks. Now, I share the same perspective as you do on this, but it does appear to be a very divisive topic with the public, but even within science and within medicine. This whole topic of whether artificial sweeteners are good, bad, or neutral seems to get a lot of people's backs up. I know Professor Tim Spector, who has been on the show before, and he's pretty clear as well that we should be avoiding them. You seem to be pretty clear on that. I certainly take the precautionary principle with my patients to say, "Listen, I've seen enough data that suggests it's having a negative impact on the gut microbiome," so I would prefer to take that precautionary approach to say, "Let's try something else." What is your view on that, and why do you think it's such a divisive topic?

5. 16:00 – 20:41

   Not All Artificial Sweeteners Are the Same

   1. WLDr. William Li16:00

      Well, first of all, every kid loves candy, right?

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:04

      [laughs]

   3. WLDr. William Li16:05

      Me, me as well. I remember when I was a child, you know, uh, in the US, you know, we had Halloween, and who, who didn't look forward to collecting all the candy from the neighbors? And, and I think that, you know, sugars, the candies, the, they're delightful, and there's nothing wrong with being delighted, and I think we carry with us lots of pleasant, fun memories. I think brain's also hardwired to actually go after sweet things.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:29

      Yeah.

   5. WLDr. William Li16:29

      Right? I mean, it's part of our instinct as animals to, you know, to just like the, the, the lion on the savanna goes after the antelope, I think humans, you know, on the street [laughs] go after candy. It's one of those things that just we're, we're hardwired to go after sugar. I think there are industrial interests that actually, you know, pose, uh, counterarguments to the harm of sugars and artificial sweeteners. And by the way, I do wanna actually bring this up, 'cause I think it's, it's important. Let's not character assassinate categories. I think that's really important. So artificial sweeteners, let's be specific.

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:02

      Mm-hmm.

   7. WLDr. William Li17:02

      What I was referring to are things that are not refined sugars, the powdery white stuff that you would buy in a supermarket. The artificial sweeteners are the ones that are chemically synthesized, not natural, that actually have been designed to, um, activate the sugar receptors on your tongue and mimic sweetness.

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:21

      Right.

   9. WLDr. William Li17:22

      Okay? And there's many different kinds, and so I think that if anybody were to go to Google and look up categories of artificial sweeteners, you'll start seeing this is not one product. It's, uh, many different types. Some people could consider artificial sweetener stevia. Now, stevia's a natural sweetener-

   10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:37

       Yeah

   11. WLDr. William Li17:37

       ... but it's still artificial when you compare it to refined sugar. And so, and what about, m- you know, like some people use monk fruit, which is also a natural sweetener, which isn't the same thing as refined sugar. It also activates your sugar taste buds. It's more natural. And then what about aspartame and sucralose, and what about all those, um, other kind of chemical names that you can't pronounce? And so I think- A- as we're talking about this now, we need to say categorically, you know, I think, um, excess natural sugars in product form added to food, as the added sugars, um, tend to be unhealthy if you overconsume that. And soda is, is just one of many examples with lots of added sugar. Artificial sweeteners is not one category. It's a lot of different types of-

   12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:24

       Yeah

   13. WLDr. William Li18:24

       ... things that, that are used in place of refined sugar. And what I would say to be a savvy consumer, you know, um, just know that there are more natural versions of those. I think stevia is fine. However, there are stevia, um, that actually are not really all stevia. You pick up the package, you look at the ingredients, and you find even though it says stevia, you look in the ingredients and you actually see that there are other things that are added to it. We cannot forget when you buy ultra-processed food in a package, stuff has been added to it, almost certainly-

   14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:56

       Yeah

   15. WLDr. William Li18:56

       ... even to preserve it on the shelf, that may or may not be good for you. And one of the big advantages we have right now, every one of us carries around one of these, a mobile phone. Um, and so if you don't recognize something and you're curious, go ahead and type it in and search that chemical just to learn something about it. That could actually make the difference between whether you put it in your cart or not.

   16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:16

       Yeah, I love that. Very empowering way of looking at this, to put the information in the consumer's hands and say, "Right, you start as much as possible to make these better decisions because you know that this one's gonna lead to health. This one's probably gonna not promote my health over a period of time."

   17. WLDr. William Li19:33

       I, I mean, look at, look at what happens when we sit down at a restaurant, right? Um, you open a menu, and the waiter comes over and says, uh, "Do you have any questions?" And so, uh, all, all of us have done this. You pick one that kinda seems interesting to you, and, and you ask, what's that question we ask? You ask the waiter, "Hey, what's in this?" All right? "What's in this dish?" And they tell you, and on the basis of the information that you asked for as a consumer for, on, on food that you're about to purchase and eat, you might say, "Oh, well, that sounds pretty good. I'll have it." Or you might say, "Hmm, you know, that doesn't sound so great to me. I think I'll choose something else." And I think that, that the power, you know, the power is in the pocket of the consumer.

   18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:12

       Yeah.

   19. WLDr. William Li20:13

       And it's our money, our resources that we're spending. And, and by the way, I mean, you can see this now with, you know, global and the geopolitical events that are happening. If we choose not to support something, it can have a powerful impact, and that impact actually comes from our pocketbooks.

   20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:28

       Yeah. Apart from these drinks that we've covered so far, any other sorts of foods that we should generally try and avoid, let's say, when we're in the grocery store or the supermarkets? Anything we should think about?

6. 20:41 – 26:06

   Ultra-Processed Foods, Alcohol and Processed Meats

   1. WLDr. William Li20:41

      Yeah. Yeah, so I think, you know, largely for the same reasons of having chemicals being put in our body that we don't really want, ultra-processed foods, foods that come in a box, foods that got lots of ingredients and lots of preservative and chemicals inside them, things that, um, uh, that, uh, they say that your grandmother, if you showed her, might not recognize as food, or great-grandmother perhaps. Ultra-processed foods as a group tend to be associated when we look at populations with poorer, uh, health outcomes from diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and even cancer. And so, again, you know, I, even though I said we should be careful not to overgeneralize, it is true, things in a box, things in a can, things, you know, that are manufactured at scale and intended to sit on the shelf for months or maybe even years tend to draw the attention, my attention anyway, um, that it, it really is worth reading the label and knowing what it is you're putting in your body. So ultra-processed foods. I think, uh, uh, alcohol is another thing that is a, is popular. It's social. I mean, look, um, if you look at beer and wine, these go back millennia as part of human culture. People sat and, and distilled and fermented beer and wine for thousands of years, uh, you know, in the Colosseum in Rome. They're still doing excavations to figure out what the gladiators actually, uh, ate and drank, and they found, they find inside there, you know, wine casks and, and things like that. Like, it, it was a, it was a, it, it's a, it's a cherished tradition of, of humans. But what we do know is that it's easy to over, uh, consume, and we do know that there are, while there are healthful properties in the liquid of wine due to the fermentation, it pulls things out of the red grape skin, or pulls things out of the barley hops in the case of beer, like xanthohumol in beer or resveratrol in red wine. The fact of the matter is that none of the benefits that you get from any alcoholic beverages come from the ethanol, the alcohol itself. The thing you get the buzz from does nothing for your health, okay? Um, some of the other things that happen to be in the broth of the fermentation might be good for you. And so that's, uh, something that, you know, like, like, oh, well, they've found that, and I think recently there was research showing that, you know, even one glass of red wine, uh, could have an impact on brain health-

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:04

      Yeah

   3. WLDr. William Li23:05

      ... as well, and I think that, you know, we have to be... I, I'm really careful about not chucking a spear, you know, at every food that, you know, we wanna kind of, um, malign, uh, for a health reason. I think wine is a cherished tradition. Alcohol is a cherished tradition. But people should know that the benefits of it, and it's okay to have a glass or two every now and then, but I think that the, the people who really go after it hard, look, besides the obvious liver disease, and the problems of nutrition, and the brain health, I mean, alcohol's a toxin to your brain. Um, uh-

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:36

      Yeah

   5. WLDr. William Li23:36

      ... we do wanna actually be mindful about the amounts that are consumed. You know, processed meats are another food product that actually are classed as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization. Now, what kind of processed meats are we talking about? We're not talking about that. The air-cured salami from Sardinia, [laughs] you know, that, you know, that have been made in the same way for thousands of years, that people eat sparing amounts of, you know-

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:00

      Mm

   7. WLDr. William Li24:00

      ... as part of a more well-balanced Mediterranean traditional meal. I'm talking about the deli foods. You go in there and they're slicing stuff, you know, from a big lump that th- that looks nothing like the animal from which it came.

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:12

      Yeah.

   9. WLDr. William Li24:12

      And some of these cured sausages, if you visit a sausage factory... I had a, I had a patient once who actually worked as an inspector-

   10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:20

       Oh, wow

   11. WLDr. William Li24:20

       ... in a, a commercial sausage plant, and he told me that he has to, he used to have to change his boots every month, rubber boots, walking in there, because the, the stuff that's splashed out of the pool in which the sausages were essentially, um, uh, embalming in for preservatives and for flavorings would actually dissolve the sole of his rubber boots.

   12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:43

       Oh, man.

   13. WLDr. William Li24:44

       That made such an impression on me. I'm still talking about it 20 years later.

   14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:48

       Yeah. And we're sort of removed from that process, aren't we? We don't see that. We don't see that on videos. We just see the nice packaging and, uh, the clever marketing copy on there. And so I think that's really, really important. And I, I really like the way you made that distinction there. Also, you know, when talking about things like alcohol or anything, it depends not just on that one thing, it depends on everything else that's going on in your life as well. We like to take these things in isolation, good or bad. It's like, well, it kind of depends, doesn't it? In our first conversations together, which, if people haven't heard, I'd highly recommend they go back and listen to, one of the things I really liked about your approach was you said, "Well, let's put into our body foods that support these five defense systems, and if we can do that and support them, we raise the bar. We become more resilient, therefore we've got more headroom to actually deal with the insults that are going to come in in life," whether that's DNA insults from pollution, or whether it's the odd thing that we creep into our diet that we probably know isn't the best thing for us, but, you know, we just fancy it now and again. And I really like that approach. And, and I know we're starting off this conversation focusing on some of the things to avoid. We're very quickly gonna get onto the things that people can put in, but yeah, I really, really appreciate that.

7. 26:06 – 29:12

   Starting With Foods You Already Love

   1. WLDr. William Li26:06

      The most important thing that we as doctors can do is to listen to our patients and hear them out, and try to understand where they're coming from and what's important to them. I always ask my patients, um, you know, "What do you eat? What do you like to eat? What, what brings you joy when it comes to food?" Though the an- that question usually can elicit an answer, like, I never, I try to, I'm very careful not to ask that question judgmentally.

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee26:31

      Hmm.

   3. WLDr. William Li26:31

      What kind of negative foods do you... How much for steak do you eat? Like, I, I don't, I never ask that. I always sort of say, like, "Tell me about what do you enjoy eating? What brings you joy? What are some of the favorite things that you like to eat?" And you know, again, it's that conversation that invites someone to look deeply within them. I think that, um, you know, uh, I, I, when I was a kid, I studied martial arts and, uh, and, um, one of the greatest martial arts artists ever was Bruce Lee, who I actually read a lot of his writings. He wrote in a philosophical sort of way, and he wrote one of the most important things that if, to succeed in life, whether it's a martial, in martial arts or otherwise, is to know yourself, to truly know yourself. And I think that so often we get distracted. We don't have that opportunity to ask ourselves something simple like, so if we had a choice, what would we want to eat? What brings us joy? And my, my strong belief is if we want people to get on a better diet, to get them started and to keep them going on it, we want them to actually feel like it's not a heavy lift, it's something that's doable, and I think there's nothing easier than to say, "Hey, you know what? Something that you already brings you pleasure and joy, something that you enjoy to eat already is healthy. So let's start with those things," because you already know you love them. So, and so what I-

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:45

      Yeah

   5. WLDr. William Li27:45

      ... in my book, Eat to Beat Disease, I have lists of, like, 200-some foods. I always tell people, "You have my book, get a Sharpie." Okay? Uh, I, I say a Sharpie, like the marker, permanent marker-

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:55

      Yeah

   7. WLDr. William Li27:56

      ... because it's permanent. You have to make a commitment, all right? Take a Sharpie, a black Sharpie, and circle the foods that you enlist that you already like. No, actually, that you love. All right? And, and, and I, I don't care if it's just one or two. Almost everyone I've met has been able to circle, like, 10 of them, so I... or more. But if you find a food that you already love that's healthy and good for you, that activates your health defenses, you are already way ahead of the game.

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:22

      We'll be back to the conversation in just a moment. Now, many of us struggle to find time to eat all of these incredible whole foods. That's why I'm a big fan of good quality whole food supplements like this one that's been in my own life for over three years now. It contains over 75 whole food source ingredients, vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, and can help us support our energy, focus, digestion, and our immune system. ATHLETIC GREENS are giving my audience a fantastic offer: one year's free supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order. You can see all the details at athleticgreens.com/livemore, or simply click on the link below. Now, back to the conversation. Love that. Very empowering approach to people.

8. 29:12 – 39:12

   Cooking Oils and the Case for Extra Virgin Olive Oil

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee29:12

      Oils. Oils are something that can cause a lot of confusion. I know you're a big fan of olive oil. I wanna talk about olive oil and why it's so beneficial. But before we get to olive oil, in the spirit of the kind of foods that we should think about limiting when we are in our supermarket or our grocery store and we're looking around to purchase oils to cook food in, to sprinkle on food, to pour on our salads, what kind of oils should we try and avoid? And then what sort of oils should we try and buy instead?

   2. WLDr. William Li29:51

      You know, so this, uh, like the debate about artificial sweeteners, um, is a loaded topic. And so I, I wanna just start, you know, this component of our conversation by saying the jury is still very much deliberating what oils are harmful to you and, and are most harmful to you. Uh, but I think that it's less controversial what, uh, oils are better for you-

   3. SPSpeaker30:19

      Yeah

   4. WLDr. William Li30:19

      ... and good for you. I wanna, you know, for your listeners, I wanna kinda give people some real practical things-

   5. SPSpeaker30:25

      Yeah

   6. WLDr. William Li30:25

      ... and not just kinda dive into the science of petroleum products, which is what oil- oils are. Let's talk about this. Rule number one, regardless of what oil you actually have, what I would say is don't have too much of it because oils are fats, and fats can be healthier, but there really isn't such a thing as a healthy fat that you should, like, drink lots of it every single day. Okay? So the point is that there are healthier oils, but you should, we should all limit the amount of oil that we actually intake into our body. All right? Number one. Number two is that, and this is actually broadly speaking, is don't reuse your oil. Okay? Most oils that are reused, when we heat them to cook, whether we're actually, you know, uh... I mean, again, deep-frying is generally something that's not very healthy. The process of deep-frying actually changes the chemical, the natural chemicals that make up oil in the oil itself, and then paint it onto the food, stick it onto the food. So we're eating some of the changed chemicals when we actually eat deep-fried food. Now look, I mean, I, I've had, I've had some awesome fish and chips, um, uh, when I visited England before. Um, and, and, again, and again, as we talked about, you know, every now and then, if you're, you spend most of your time shoring up your health defenses, raising your own bar, you know, having a rare treat is totally fine. But when you fry things in hot oil, you're also changing the chemical structure of things. That entire browning, golden browning, crisping of food actually changes the chemical structure-

   7. SPSpeaker31:56

      Yeah

   8. WLDr. William Li31:56

      ... of the food itself in, in ways that are potentially carcinogenic, and so just need to be careful about that. The third, re- uh, so, so a thing, you know, like reusing oil, here's the thing that's kind of like a little risky. You go to a restaurant to eat. You have no idea if they're reusing their oil over and over and over again. You know? Um, I mean, think, think about in, uh, Asian restaurants. Whether it's an Indian restaurant or a Chinese restaurant, they've got these gigantic vats where they're frying tasty little bits up. Um, but they may be reusing that oil for days. So, um, uh, reused oil, not good for you, for sure. And, and the stuff that's fried in oil can also change in time. So let's start now talking about just, like, the o- the properties of oils themselves. This is where I think rather than kind of walk into the quicksand of trying to say, "Is palm oil better than corn oil? Is coconut oil dangerous for you?" You know, like, we can wade into that jungle with, you know, but I think you need a machete to cut your way out of it.

   9. SPSpeaker32:51

      [laughs]

   10. WLDr. William Li32:51

       And so the best way to think about it, to help to give clarity is, you know, are there any healthier oils to use, and how to use them? And this is where I think olive oil really stands out.

   11. SPSpeaker33:03

       Yeah.

   12. WLDr. William Li33:03

       Number one, it's part of a healthy pattern of eating that's been revered for thousands of years, and that's in the Mediterranean, traditional Mediterranean diet. And the olives are seasonal. They're pressed. The extra virgin olive oil contains not just fat, poly, uh, and mono unsaturated fatty acids, which are better for your body and less damaging for your cardiovascular health, but there's a lot of polyphenols that come from the olive itself. Now, a lot of people don't understand this, but when you look at olive oil, the reason we say extra virgin olive oil, EVOO, you know, that's what the, that's what supermarkets and what restaurants are proud to use now, is because it's not just fat. It contains the polyphenols from the oil. So if you were to actually... By the way, this is a good experiment to do for, for your lis- listeners. Buy a little container of olives from your grocery store. Uh, de-pit it. Make it easy for yourself. And literally, you know, take it home and, and take a, a heavy glass or take a, a board, like a, like a heavy cutting board, and press those olives yourself. And you'll actually see, if you press hard enough, you'll see some oil come out of it.

   13. SPSpeaker34:12

       Yeah.

   14. WLDr. William Li34:12

       Now, in a f- in an olive oil factory, I mean, that, that's, that's... So you can actually appreciate where your food comes from, where your olive oil comes from. Now, when you actually press it, you'll see that you've crushed the olives, and some of the bits from the olives are actually in the olive oil. The reason that olive oil tastes so good, it's got that, you know, kind of, um, peppery, vegetal kind of quality to it. Um, it's got a umami flavor. It's not because the fat is flavorful. It's because the bits of olives that were crushed in there-

   15. SPSpeaker34:42

       Hmm

   16. WLDr. William Li34:43

       ... are actually in there flavoring it. Now, those bits and the stuff that comes from the meat of the olives contain the polyphenols, one of which is hydroxytyrosol. Hydroxytyrosol sounds like a very ca- complicated chemical name. You don't, your listeners don't need to memorize it by any means. But you should know that that comes from the olive. Now, uh, olive oil will have some of it, only about 20% of the, of, of it. But if you actually press that olive, 80% goes into the olive water, and, and it's stuck in the pulp. And so one of the things that I always say is that, you know, if you really love olive oil and you wanna get the most out of it, um, just eat the whole olive, you know? And you can actually cut up an olive, and you'll get a little bit of fat. You'll get all that flavor, and you'll get a lot more of the polyphenol. Now, if you're gonna cook with ol- olive oil, I, I, I always say go for extra virgin because of that reason. I would say don't deep-fry. But, but you can sp- you can put, put some on, uh, to food. You can actually saute with it. Not too much. All the studies show that about three tablespoons of olive oil, uh, sort of like what you... Probably that's around the max of what you'd want a day. So nobody's drinking olive oil. And then the other thing that is, uh, if you wanna choose which olive oil, because I get overwhelmed when I walk into a store and I see all these, like, a whole wall full of olive oils, right? Everybody's marketing. Here's what I do, again. I pick up the olive, uh, an oil, and I look at the ingredients. What do I look for? I look for mono-varietal olive oil. Mono-varietal means it's made with just one kind of olive, and I look for the one kind of olive that, that it, that oil's made from from three different varieties of olive. In Spain, Spanish olive oil, I look for Picual, P-I-C-U-A-L. Picual olives, h- among the highest in, in polyphenols in the oil. So the olive oil will be loaded. Second, um, Greek olive oil. Um, the Koroneiki olive, which is from the Peloponnese s- it, both, both the Picual and Koroneiki are very common olives, so that's a good news. It's not very expensive. Highest amount of poly- one of the top three polyphenols. And the third, for Italian olive oil, I look for, um, a oil that's been pressed from a mono-varietal called Moraiolo, and that comes from Umbria. And there, that's less common, harder to find, a little pricier. But I just gave you three olives, uh, Picual, Koroneiki, Moraiolo, uh, that are not, most of them are not good eating olives, but they're great for olive oil. They're packed with polyphenols. If you get, uh, olive oil that is mono-varietal, pressed only from each of those, you can be guaranteed that you're getting sort of the top, the sort of the capo di capo of the polyphenols in the olive oil.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee37:28

       Yeah, I love that. I, I actually, in, in my kitchen as we speak now, is the Picual olive. It's, uh, well, I would have called it a single origin, but that's because I'm probably used to picking coffee. But as you were describing that, there was such a wonderful energy in your voice and your body language. It, it reminded me of like a wine connoisseur talking about the different varieties of wines or a, or a coffee connoisseur talking about that, you know, I get the single origin bean from this particular farm. But I guess it's not that different, is it? It's about going back to where does this come from, how was it processed, what is actually in my hand right now that I'm about to buy.

   18. WLDr. William Li38:06

       Yeah, and, and you know, there is great pride that we as humans have always had, and it's still within us, to know something about the food that is around us. I mean, you know, uh, if you talk to a farmer, they are proud of what they have. If you talk to a villager, they're really proud of what their community, what grows around their community. And again, I think that, you know, something that maybe that we're fighting against, 'cause I, I wanna draw back the jargon that you raised at the beginning that I think is helpful to think about. What are we, what are we really fighting against, you know? I think we're, we're fighting against our distraction from ourselves, getting to know who we are, getting to know, slowing down so we can actually understand our own pace. We're getting distracted by the, uh, by the, by the pace of what we're expected to do, and so we've got no time for ourselves, right? I mean, every, every young working parent certainly feels that way.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee38:59

       Mm-hmm.

   20. WLDr. William Li39:00

       You know, like, man, I'm so busy I don't have time for myself. And yet when it comes to food and health, we all need to have that time for ourselves, and I think we should take great pride in saying what it is that we actually love.

9. 39:12 – 45:39

   Food Combinations: Tomatoes, Olive Oil, Turmeric and Pepper

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:12

      Yeah. A lot of people talk about the health properties of vegetables. Of course, you promote all kinds of vegetables which have different impacts on the body. But some of the time we're told to sprinkle or pour some olive oil onto the vegetables because it helps us absorb nutrients from them. What's your perspective on that in view of what you've just said about oil and, you know, perhaps not over-consuming it, even though it can be healthy?

   2. WLDr. William Li39:42

      Yeah. Well, there's two... Let's unpack that, because there's two things that you are describing. One is that in plants, let's take a tomato as a great example. Uh, there are natural substances, natural chemicals, uh, like lycopene. Lycopene is a carotenoid. It helps to make the tomato red. Um, it has lots and lots of healthful properties. It's a powerful antioxidant. I've studied lycopene in a laboratory, and it actually can help starve cancers by cutting off the blood supply. Um, it can slow the shortening of telomeres, um, to slow cellular aging, and it c- and it can protect our DNA from even sunlight and ultraviolet exposure. Lots of good things about it. Now, lycopene actually is a, uh, uh, naturally occurs in a tomato on a vine in a chemical form that our body doesn't absorb that well. So if you pick a tomato off the vine, and you cut it up, and you throw it into a salad, it might taste great. Just got some vitamin C in it. It's a great source of hydration and great flavors, okay? Especially if it's like a homegrown heirloom type of tomato. But you're not gonna get the lyc- You're not gonna get as much lycopene. You're probably only gonna get maybe 20% of the lycopene that's in there. But you wanna, like for me, I wanna get as much of the good stuff as I can. So here's what research has found. If you wanted to convert that chemical structure of lycopene into a form that you can absorb better, your body can avidly absorb, what you wanna do is you wanna heat the tomato, like in a pan, and, uh, with, the heat will change the chemical structure from a form your body doesn't absorb that well into a form that your body avidly absorbs. Loves to absorb it. Now you go from 20% absorption to 80% absorption. You flipped, uh, you flipped it around completely. Upended that equation completely. Now you're really absorbing it. Now, here's one additional thing, though. How would you heat a tomato in a pan? You put heat, heat it in water or n- nothing? No, not really. You put a little bit of olive oil in it. Now, why is that? Uh, and, a- and it's because lycopene is a substance that we call fat-soluble. It's a lipid. It loves to dissolve into fats. So a little bit of olive oil in tomatoes on a pan, sauteed so it's soft. Change the chemical structure. Flavors are really great now. And you have that. Now when you, uh, eat that tomato sauce sauteed in olive oil, the oil, the olive oil with the lycopene is carried into your body even more efficiently-

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee42:08

      Mm

   4. WLDr. William Li42:08

      ... than if it were cooked in water. And so again, that's an ex- that's just one example of thousands of how oils with fat-soluble foods. By the way, if you didn't wanna, uh, look at olive oil, here's another common snack in, in the United States anyways, kind of tearing a page book from Latin American cuisine. You have these tortilla chips, and then you wind up actually having a salsa and guacamole. The salsa, salsa is often sort of stewed down tomatoes, um, cooked down tomatoes, served at room temperature or chilled, and then the guacamole is just avocado that's been smashed up. Now, avocado has a lot of healthy fats in it. It's, it's, it's a fat-soluble veggie. It's actually quite, uh, nutritious. A- and remarkably, uh, people eating avocado actually shrink their waistline because actually, even though you're eating fat, it actually makes you... It burns down harmful fat. It's a whole other story that we had. But if you have guacamole, avocado, with tomatoes, you get more lycopene, and so that happens to be kind of a popular snack, uh, in the United States.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee43:11

      Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So the right combination of foods can actually help absorb the nutrients. I think black pepper also can do that, right? With certain nutrients.

   6. WLDr. William Li43:21

      Well, right. So black pepper is... So this is an interesting thing. We, most of us have heard that turmeric, which is a kind of a, a root, um, when you cut it open, it's this bright, beautiful, bright orange. A lovely color. And, and turmeric is also a dried spice used in Southeast Asian cuisine, uh, including Indian cuisine, is where I first became acquainted with it. It, um, uh, not only makes food beautiful, it actually makes food delicious. It's got a qu- quite a, a lovely taste to it. It's a, it's a spice. Inside the turmeric is curcumin. Curcumin is one of those natural chemicals, kind of like lycopene. It's one of those mother nature's treasure chest, mother nature's pharmacy with an F, not a PH. And the, the, the, the, the curcumin has a lot of properties, anti-inflammatory. It's antioxidant. It cuts off the blood supply feeding cancers. Um, it, uh, uh, actually is helpful for your stem cells as well. It's, it really activates almost all of your body's health defenses, and it's good for your gut microbiome. So why not just, you know, enjoy turmeric as a spice by itself? Because it's so potent that our body actually doesn't absorb everything that it could. In fact, our body kind of, uh, it kind of gets, a lot of it gets flushed out, you know, uh, at the tail end. And so what we wanna do to improve our body's extraction of the good, um, the good stuff, the, the turmeric, it turns out that if you have fresh cracked black pepper, all right? There's a substance in fresh cracked black pepper called piperine.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee44:58

      Yeah.

   8. WLDr. William Li44:58

      Piperine is one of mother nature's, um, uh, again, you know, these remarkable chemicals that actually, uh, in- influences the body, and piperine helps the body hang onto the curcumin. So if you have fresh cracked black pepper with your turmeric, uh, you a- you're actually creating a one-two punch that allows you to absorb more of the curcumin.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee45:21

      Yeah, I love that. So the right combinations can actually help us get more out of these incredible whole foods. Sorry to interrupt. If you are enjoying this content, there's loads more just like it on my channel, so please do take a moment to press Subscribe, hit the notification bell. And now back to the conversation.

10. 45:39 – 49:44

    Why Milk in Tea Reduces Polyphenol Absorption

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee45:39

       But I think the wrong combinations potentially can also make certain foods less beneficial. One example I've heard you talk about before is what happens when you put milk into tea. I know you're a big fan of tea. On the last conversation, you spoke about a lot of the benefits of tea. But I think I've heard you say that if you add milk to your tea, that actually you reduce some of the beneficial effects. Is that right?

    2. WLDr. William Li46:03

       You know those scientists that do television shows to actually, uh, make science accessible to people? This is kind of where we need to go with this, this topic. So look, tea, green tea, uh, especially, has a natural polyphenol that's called catechins, EGCG, uh, uh, epigallocatechin gallate, uh, EGCG. And the catechin, and the catechin is actually just part of the natural substance in the tea leaf. So whether you're, um, brewing tea with a bag or whether it's loose leaf tea or whether it's matcha, which is just powdered tea leaves, um, the fact of the matter is that into the brew, into the liquid, the h- hot liquid, uh, comes all these phytochemicals, including these catechins. So when you sip straight tea, the catechins go right in. They're easily absorbed, uh, by your body. And so, you know, your, our blood levels of catechins go way up. So many things that catechins can do. One of the things that's important is actually, it's, it's a relaxant. It actually helps, uh, lower your stress. It lowers the catecholamines. And so, uh, other things, it helps your lipids. It actually also helps fight cancer. It's anti-inflammatory. Kind of like curcumin, it's, it's a substance that has so many beneficial things that at least when I drink tea, I want, I wanna get as much as I can out of my food. All right. Now, I res- I deeply respect traditions of, uh, of eating and drinking, and one of the things that, um, you know, I know is a tradition in England is, you know, you put, or in Ireland, you actually put some milk or cream into your tea. It actually, um, changes the flavor profile. Uh, and, and, and it's lovely. I, I, you know, I've, I've had plenty of teas in England before, and, and I, I, I find it to be just such an, a incredibly, um, uh, uh, nice, I feel great, you know, sort of like having, uh, an English, uh, tea. Put dairy in it, here's what you need to know. Dairy, and I'm talking about cow dairy, right? So not, not nut milk. This is applies to cow dairy. We'll come back to the nut milk in a second. Cow dairy, okay, actually is fat. Milk has got fat in it, like butter, which is made out of milk. And, um, and the fat, when you put it into your tea, does change its flavor, but that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the fact that when milk or cream is put into tea, the fat molecules in the cow dairy form little soap bubbles. These are microscopic soap bubbles. They're called micelles. Fat likes to stick with fat, and so, um, tea is mostly water. And so when you pour milk into tea, the, the bubbles, the, the dairy fat sticks together in a little, makes a little tiny soap bubble, and what does it do? Those soap bubbles trap the polyphenols from tea. It traps the catechin. So you've got some good stuff wrapped in a soap bubble of, of dairy, and now when you drink the tea, the catechin is trapped in the soap bubble. It doesn't get absorbed as easily in your stomach.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:59

       Wow.

    4. WLDr. William Li48:59

       And it just rolls down your gut, and a lot of it comes out the other end, okay? And so you're missing out on a lot of the good stuff. You get a great f- you know, you get a nice flavor. And so I have, uh, you know, what I'm telling you is that if you're drinking, uh, uh, milk, uh, or, or cow milk, dairy, put it in your tea, you're, you're getting the f- you're getting good flavor, if you, if that's what you like, but you're missing out on all, as, as most of the, uh, polyphenols. So just be aware that that's what you're actually doing. Now, if you wanna actually still cut the tea with something that is, uh, milk-like, nut milks are fine, because they don't actually f- have the same fatty reaction that the-

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:36

       Wow

    6. WLDr. William Li49:36

       ... dairy, cow dairy has. So almond milk, uh, cashew milk, um, uh, those, those soy milks, they're all fine.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:44

       I mean,

11. 49:44 – 59:26

    Supplements: Topping Off, Not Scams

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:44

       that's really interesting, and I like the way you frame it with this deep respect for cultures and traditions. Because I hear that, and I think for someone who might be listening or watching this, and they think, "Yeah, but you know what? It's just a part, part of what I do. Like I, I love putting milk in my black tea," or I know some people even put it in their green tea, which I certainly haven't tried before. They might hear that, and they may not want to change what they do, but is this where potentially supplements could come in? Let's say someone, they like the taste of milky tea, but they hear that and think, "Well, I want all those benefits of those polyphenols and the catechins that Dr. Li was talking about. Maybe I can boost that another way by taking a supplement." Is there any merit to that way of thinking? And I guess you could expand that broadly into what is your view of, you know, supplements as a whole huge category, but there are some really good quality supplements out there. Perhaps you could speak to those issues a little bit, please.

    2. WLDr. William Li50:43

       Yeah. Well let's, let's pick up the thread on tea for a second, because I, I had this discovery that might be, uh, useful for your listeners who are in exactly that situation where they like the taste of milk in their tea. I discovered there is something called milk tea, and it's actually from Taiwan.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee51:01

       [laughs]

    4. WLDr. William Li51:02

       It's grown in the mountain, and it actually, it's, it's just pure tea leaves that when you brew it, it tastes like it's got dairy in it.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee51:10

       Oh, wow.

    6. WLDr. William Li51:10

       It's quite, it's quite amazing. I mean, i- if, if I made a cup of that for you and then made a cup of, of, of English tea with milk in it, you would have a hard time telling the difference. It's quite remarkable. Milk tea. It's a kind of, I think it's an oolong style tea.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee51:26

       Yeah.

    8. WLDr. William Li51:26

       So it's, uh, mildly fermented and still got green properties. It's got polyphenols in it. But it r- literally, it has to do with the way, the climate, the, the way that it's naturally grown and the type of tea it is. So all right, so let's move that aside for a second. [laughs] Um, uh, um, all right. Well, so what about supplements? You know, I, I think that we should look to the word itself. A dietary supplement means something to top off. So I always tell people, you know, if you have a choice of getting it from the whole food, the whole food will tend to have a lot of other stuff that's good for you. If you eat whole plant-based foods, for example, you get the fiber, you get the polyphenols, you get a lot of other chemical substances. You get the natural peptides, uh, that are found in foods. But if you got a pure supplement, you might get the one molecule or two molecules that it's been created for, like a vitamin C supplement.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee52:19

       Mm.

    10. WLDr. William Li52:19

        Um, if you wanna top off your vitamin C, it's pure vitamin C. You're gonna get a lot of it if you, if you take your, take a mul- a, a vitamin. But you know, if you had citrus, you're gonna get all of that flav- you're gonna get the f- a different kind of flavor. You're gonna, y- you get some, uh, uh, you do get sugar. You get fiber. You get the limonene and the, and all these other, uh, hesperidin, all these other bioactives that you can't get from-

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee52:43

        Yeah

    12. WLDr. William Li52:44

        ... a regular supplement alone. That said, you are absolutely right. Supplements can be really important, particularly, uh, for people who have difficulty getting a lot of, of, of, uh, of some nutrients or their food. So for example, um, I think Omega-3 fatty acids are a great supplement if you get a high quality Omega-3. Not everybody eats oily fish, you know, day in, you know, two to three times a week, you know? You only need to eat, um, um, the amount in each serving with the size of a deck of playing card, so you don't need to eat very much. But you know, that's not something people o- most people do. People who live on the, on the coastline, they might be doing it, but many people don't. Um, so Omega-3s are so important to our health. I mean, this has been shown time and time and again. That's a supplement that's, that's definitely worth taking and, and, and it's a lot easier to swallow, um, Omega-3s than it is to actually to go to your fishmonger and then to look at what the catch of the day is. That's an example. Another example of a supplement I think is really worth, worth taking, um, is probably vitamin D3.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee53:48

        Yeah.

    14. WLDr. William Li53:48

        Okay? Vitamin D, uh, you know, for, for those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere, where we don't have as much sun, uh, all the time, all year round, and where it's cold so we're indoors a lot and not always outdoors under the sunshine. So I'm not talking Costa del Sol. I'm not talking about South Africa, you know, or Australia. I'm talking about, you know, England, Northern Europe, uh, North America, you know, and sort of the northeastern side. Okay. We don't get as much sunlight. And even if we do go outside, because it's cold, we wear a lot of clothes, and so our skin tends to be covered up. And so vitamin D is made by our skin when sunlight actually hits it. And so we don't, we tend to be vitamin D deficient. So here's an example of where you can eat foods like mushrooms that can have vitamin D, for example. Uh, by the way, I don't know if this is a little, little tip, a tidbit for you. I just told you that human skin with ultraviolet radiation from the sun will make more vitamin D. But did you know that if you took just a plain old lowly white button mushroom that contains some vitamin D, if you were to, um, before you eat it, when you buy it, if you slice it, like slice it pretty thinly, and you lay the s- the slices out and you put it in your windowsill so your sun, the sun shines on the slice, it will make more vitamin D.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee55:07

        Wow.

    16. WLDr. William Li55:08

        You actually, you actually convert more vitamin D into the, into the mushroom. So if you're gonna prepare something with mushrooms, slice them ahead of time, stick them in front of a sunny window, no matter what time of the year it is, you know, um, maybe a couple hours before you, um, cook with it, and the mushrooms will actually give you more vitamin D. But it's, it's not, it's a lot easier to get your regular dose of daily vitamin D, um, by actually just having D3 supplements. And so that's an example.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee55:34

        Yeah, no, I love that. And, and certainly what I've found with my patients, like I, I always adopt a food first approach, definitely. But many people these days have of course, as, as you've already touched on, super busy, stressed out lifestyles. And they're rushing around, and they either don't have time to cook a fresh whole meal. They're often buying things on the go that probably aren't the best thing for them. They've probably got high levels of stress, so actually they're probably not even absorbing as many nutrients as they could because their digestive system isn't in the right place to absorb those nutrients. And I've found sometimes, you know, a good quality supplement, like let's say a whole food, sometimes a green supplement, which has lots and lots of different phytochemicals, prebiotics, polyphenols in, it could be helpful. And sometimes it could be helpful in the short term to help them have more energy and feel better so that they can then make those lifestyle choices. So I know a lot of doctors take quite a hard line on supplements, but you've demonstrated some really important ones that I think have been shown in scientific studies have real benefits, like vitamin D for sure. So yeah, I, I really, really appreciate you-

    18. WLDr. William Li56:46

        And you know, I wanted to support and underscore what you just said. You know, the, I, I, you know, there's, there's always something valuable to look at the history of things. Supplementation, um, didn't, wasn't developed to be an online internet scam [laughs] okay? Supplementation was a really serious effort to improve global nutrition.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee57:08

        Yeah.

    20. WLDr. William Li57:08

        Because, you know, back in even the early 20th century, most of the world was undernourished. They, that's different than malnutrition. I mean, maybe there was some malnutrition too, but undernutrition, un- undernourished means that, you know, we were eating food, but we weren't eating enough of the right things at the right time. And so one of the things that supplements were developed for to do is to really fortify, supplement, top off, you know, you know, um, uh, everyone so that everyone could have an e- more equal chance of being, uh, of filling up, becoming replete with the key micronutrients that we, our body needs to actually survive. And so I think it's a mistake to disparage supplements as a category. I mean, this is the theme of what we're talking about today.

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee57:51

        Yeah.

    22. WLDr. William Li57:51

        Let's not, you know, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let's not character assassinate entire categories of things. Let's be, I mean, let's, let's be discerning and try to know exactly what we're talking about. There are some dietary supplements that are absolutely valuable, some that, uh, uh, uh, that's research has actually shown, proven to be helpful, and some that are, can be lifesaving, uh, as well. Pregnant moms really need to be taking folate. You know, if you don't have those-

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:19

        Mm

    24. WLDr. William Li58:19

        ... um, you'll have neural tube defects in your babies. The, the, the risks go much higher. So you really wanna be able to actually take-

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:25

        Yeah

    26. WLDr. William Li58:25

        ... the evidence. And so this is the other thing I think maybe a useful, um, coat hook or hat hook to hang for your listeners is that supplements are the real deal because they were once designed, originally designed to help the body top off with, with what it actually needs. But if the marketing, and we're back to marketing now, sounds too good to be true, if the claims sound like they're just magical claims, that's when your, um, that's when your spidey sense, your radar needs to go on that, you know, maybe, maybe there's something not quite, uh, fully honest about what is being told about this, and it's being misrepresented. And so I think that every consumer needs to be able to, I mean, again, this is where I come back to we all have mobile devices. We can easily search something. When in doubt, look it up.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:18

        Yeah.

    28. WLDr. William Li59:18

        Check it out, and then make your own decision if that, if that fits your, if it fits your comfort zone.

12. 59:26 – 1:08:54

    Organic Produce, Peels and Washing

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:26

       Organic or non-organic is another topic that people find confusing. If people are able to access organic and they are able to afford it, in your view, are there any benefits to choosing that?

    2. WLDr. William Li59:44

       Right. Well, I wanna just tell everyone that, first of all, I was a skeptic for many years about organic food. I thought it was marketing. I thought the food looked beautiful, was very expensive, and I thought it was mostly marketing. And the marketing message that I received as a consumer was, "Here's this beautiful food that's more expensive, and by the way, we don't grow it with pesticides, and so you've got less harmful chemicals on it." And I, you know, I- It didn't feel right to me, and I had all these questions in my head about, like, whether or not that's really true, and what do I just wash my food a little bit more? I mean, I, I, I, I wasn't really sure what was real or not. Well, I changed my mind a few years ago. And I'll tell you, I was at the Royal Society in London, actually, at a really incredible meeting with, um, horticulturalists, with, uh, uh, astrophysicists. Uh, just a bunch of incredible scientists. And I had the privilege of sitting next to a horticulturalist, and I was, I, I was talking with her about a, a new paper, research paper that had come from out of the journal Nature, which is a British publication, one of the premier, um, uh, scientific, uh, journals. And I said, "You know, I just read this paper that was really astounded me." They looked at strawberries, and they were looking for the natural substance ellagic acid, which is what makes strawberries tart. And ellagic acid is anti-inflammatory, it helps your immune system, it starves cancer. I've done research on ellagic acid myself. Um, and so I know how pow- powerful it is. And they were looking at strawberries, comparing organic versus, um, conventionally grown strawberries. Another way to say that is strawberries may, grown with pesticides or not with pe- or no pesticides. And they were looking at ellagic acid in the strawberries. And when they measured the conventionally grown strawberries, they all had some ellagic acid. That was fine. Okay. Um, I, I expected that. But then when they measured the organic strawberries, every single organic strawberry they measured had two times or more-

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:01:44

       Mm-hmm

    4. WLDr. William Li1:01:44

       ... of the ellagic acid. And I thought that was absolutely astounding that an organically grown fruit would actually have more of that beneficial substance, that Mother Nature's kind of, um, uh, uh, bioactive. And so I talked to the horticulturalist and I said, "Okay, so help me understand why." Right? So look, uh, you know, you know when you're talking to a real scientist when, when scientists admit that they don't know something.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:02:07

       Yeah.

    6. WLDr. William Li1:02:07

       Right? So, and, and that's how, uh, anybody who says they know everything, probably not a scientist. I mean, I, so, so I, I literally, uh, admitted my, my ignorance about this, and I asked the horticulturalist, "Can you help me understand why that might be?" And she gave me this answer that I've subsequently dove deeply, more deeply, and, and it's absolutely true. It's true with coffee as well. Mother Nature, um, uh, in part made these bioactives like ellagic acid in strawberries or in coffee chlorogenic acid is another one of these. And w- the way that, um, plants respond to bugs nibbling on the stems and leaves, biting at them, okay? That's the pest. Okay? Might make the plant l- not look so nice. All right? Might even, like, might, might even mar the fruit a little bit so it's not quite as beautiful. But the plant re- reacts to those little nibbles as an injury, as a wound. And in response, in a wound healing response, it produces more ellagic acid.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:03:05

       Yeah.

    8. WLDr. William Li1:03:06

       Or in the case of coffee, it makes more chlorogenic acid. So the little nibbling is part of kind of the way that evolution actually developed, um, how plants respond to create more of these bioactives. So what happens, so why is there this difference? Well, if you actually grow a strawberry with pesticides, there's fewer bugs. The plant looks nicer. Its fruit looks nicer. No bugs, no injury, less ellagic acid being made. And so all of a sudden, like I, this light bulb went off in my head, and I've-- This was a few years ago that I, I, I, I, I realized this and I had this conversation. Everywhere I've looked, uh, any research that's been done, it is true that the bioactives are higher in the organically grown plants. And I, and that started to change my mind about organics because the argument now is not that organics have less bad stuff, the argument is the organics have more good stuff. Now all of a sudden, I have a different view of the, the nature of how this fruit is grown and what the benefits of growing without pesticides are.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:04:09

       Yeah. Super clear explanation. Thank you for that. And then taking that one step further, which goes, I guess, beyond organic into non-organic as well, but let's take something like an apple or a carrot. Let's say a carrot, for example. There's all kinds of phytonutrients and beneficial compounds within that carrot. So what happens when we start to peel off the skin off that carrot? Because my view would be, well, a lot of the beneficial properties are in that skin, right? That's what's had to protect itself from the environment, from bugs, as you've just mentioned. So when we are peeling off that skin, yes, people may wanna do it for a taste profile, I understand, but aren't we reducing how beneficial that food could be by taking off the outside?

    10. WLDr. William Li1:05:09

        Yeah, I'm glad you described the fact that we might wanna remove and the peel for aesthetic purposes, uh, maybe for taste purposes or texture purposes. But the fact of the matter is we know for a fact that skin does actually have good stuff. I'll give you a great example. Like in an apple or a pear or a peach, okay? Um, those are all fruits that, you know, if you took the time to peel it, um, you'll, you'll have a more homogeneous, you know, kind of, uh, looking piece of fruit. But most mothers will tell their kids, "If you eat, if you eat it with the skin, you'll get more stuff." And it's absolutely true. There's not only more fiber oftentimes in the outer layers, 'cause you're talking about outer, outer layers.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:05:49

        Yeah. Yeah.

    12. WLDr. William Li1:05:49

        Um, but there's also more, uh, phytonutrients and these bioactives. In apples and pears and in peaches, there is actually a substance called ursolic acid that's much more concentrated in the outer layer. And ursolic acid is one of these bioactives that stimulates blood vessel growth. It helps us heal. It stimulates angiogenesis so that if we have an injury, um, our bodies will more, will, will speed its healing up. That's could be really important for our cardiovascular system, for example. It helps to promote the growth of blood vessels in beneficial, uh, sort of ways. Now, that's actually on a peel. So, okay, so how can you eat fruit peel? Well, uh, look, uh- If you had to eat six apricots or six pears, uh, or six peaches, you know, that might take a little work. Or eat six apples. That, that's, that's a pretty commit- that's a good commitment to eat six apples, [laughs] um, uh, even in a day. But on the other hand, if you actually get dried fruit, the dried fruit will take a big fruit and shrink it really small. So take a look at an apricot. I could... I might not be able to... I might not feel like eating six apricots, whole apricots from the tree, but I could easily eat six dried apricots, you know, uh, sort of in a, in a, in a, in a dried fruit mix. And so again, if you want the skin, it's not just, you know, eating the li- the fresh fruit, which you can do, um, but you can also get it in a dried form. Now, back to the fresh for a second. This, this, this would be a good reason to buy organic as well. Because, you know, when you spray with pesticides, for fruits and foods with very thin skins-

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:07:22

        Mm

    14. WLDr. William Li1:07:22

        ... um, I mean, for carrots you're really, there's not a skin, it's really just an outer kind of layer of the carrot. The, the fact of the matter is, is that, that, um, if there's pesticides in that area, it's very hard to scrub them, uh, off. I learned, by the way, from a food safety expert at the U- U S Department of Agriculture who teaches food safety, even for a regular piece of produce, to wash all the potential pathogens, bacteria, listeria, all these other things that could happen, it's recommended that you actually rinse, whether it's organic or not, you rinse it under cold running water for 60 seconds. I did not realize that.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:07:59

        Wow.

    16. WLDr. William Li1:08:00

        That, that's been shown. And by the way, another thing I didn't realize is that even, like, an onion you're supposed to rinse off before you actually cut it. Now, I, I, I had previously never really washed my onions. I just figured if I peel off the skin, what's underneath there is pretty clean. But it, and I was told, "No, no, you, you should see the research. You really wanna be able to wash that onion. 60 seconds in cold running water-"

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:21

        Wow

    18. WLDr. William Li1:08:21

        ... is what you wanna do. So again, back to the fruit skin, um, a great reason to buy. Good to have, good to eat, nutritious, more phytonutrients, phytochemicals. Um, a good reason to get organic is because it's harder to wash the pesticides off of it, and, and dried f- dried versions of fruits are also ways of actually getting the skin as well. And that's the other reason, again, if you get dried fruit, get dried organic fruit.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:46

        Yeah. Super interesting. I'm conscious of time. There's so much I wanna talk to you about. Um, yeah, let's go here.

13. 1:08:54 – 1:15:29

    Food and Autoimmune Disease

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:54

       Autoimmune disease is on the rise massively, across the world frankly, and I'd love to hear a little bit from you about the relationship between foods and the development of autoimmune disease. And I wanna just add there, before you respond, that, you know, I've been practicing now as a medical doctor for almost 21 years. And, you know, maybe 10 years ago, as I started to really get tuned into how you might start to use food as a therapeutic tool with your patients, I've noticed that when certain patients with certain autoimmune diseases, like I can remember one clearly, this lady with hypothyroidism. She was on levothyroxine, but she still didn't feel very good at all. When I changed her diet, I helped her change to a completely whole food diet from, like, a standard Western diet that she was at that time consuming, her symptoms went right down. We could halve the dose of levothyroxine I think within a few months. It was really incredible. So maybe, you know, speak to that, if you can, a little bit about the relationship a- and potentially why that could have worked with that patient.

    2. WLDr. William Li1:10:05

       Yeah. I mean, I, you know, so I've noticed this as well, you know, over the, uh, decades of my clinical practice, that autoimmune diseases, which by the way, uh, let's just make sure our audience, uh, uh, the listeners actually, uh, appreciate this, it's not one disease. It is dozens, scores of actually different types of diseases that all share kind of a common denominator, that in auto- the autoimmune part of it is that somehow, for some reason, the immune system is triggered in ways that actually the immune response causes, um, harm to your body itself. It's sort of the body attacking the body or the body re- responding, the immune system responding in ways that causes incredible distress at the organ level, right? And so, um, it could be lupus, it could be rheumatoid arthritis, it could be psoriasis, it could be Hashimoto's, it could be celiac. Those are some of the more common ones that people actually talk about. But in fact, there's probably a lot of autoimmune diseases that we don't even recognize yet. And a new one, by the way, which is coming down the pipe, which we believe Long COVID, which many, many people, uh, do have already, and pro- w- I think we're gonna see a whole other-

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:11:13

       Mm

    4. WLDr. William Li1:11:13

       ... emergence of, of Long COVID as a significant medical problem, uh, in the coming decade. Uh, that also seems to be autoimmune as well, where the body's immune system has overreacted or is overreacting to attack ourselves, our healthy selves. Okay, so if, if we're talking about a panoply of different diseases that share this common denominator, um, w- what's the r- what's the role of food? Well, one thing that actually we do know, as celiac's a great example of this, gluten s- gluten, um, enteropathy, is that some foods, in, in the case of celiac it's gluten, which is in wheat, uh, and whole grains, um, uh, for reasons that we don't fully understand, the body sees that and just has a bad reaction. It's kinda like that, you know, the, the, the family member that, you know, the, the black sheep in a family that comes over for your family holiday gathering and, like, you just don't have a good reaction to them. Every- We all have r- We all have one or two of those people in our families.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:12

       [laughs]

    6. WLDr. William Li1:12:12

       Um, and that's how your immune system kind of reacts to something in food that it just doesn't like. And it gets pissed off, and when it gets angry, it actually starts to have this reaction that makes the entire body unpleasant, just like that visitor to your home that you just- ... that don't, don't react well to. Like, you wanna stay in a different room. Well, that reaction is what autoimmune diseases are, and that's why when you talk about, um, you know, the levothyroxine, just to, so your listeners know, like, that's actually trying to replace something that is damaged because of this reaction. You wanna actually see if we can, um, undo the damage a bit, right? And autoimmune disease is often treated with steroids. What do steroids do? They shut down, they turn down the volume of the immune system. Hey, this rock music is too loud. Let's turn it. The house music's too loud. Let's turn it down a little bit. Okay, so that's what steroids do. It turns out that if you go back, back, back, back to look at what might be some of the root causes, increasingly we're wondering if some of these chemical additives in ultra-processed foods are actually triggering, um, uh, immune responses that are unintended. These are unintended consequences. And so there's a, um, theory that in people who say that they're, they've got gluten, uh, or celiac disease, um, they're actually don't... They don't actually have full-blown celiac disease, but they're a l- they're res- reactive, allergic. They're im-immuno, uh, respon- reactive to something that's in packaged food that also has gluten in it. And so, uh, so you're, you're, you're sort of, um, there are things that in these chemical-laced foods that we may not fully appreciate yet. Now it goes back to what your observation with your patient is. So what happens when we take people, and there's many people who spend most of their lives eating things out of a box, right?

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:14:01

       Yeah.

    8. WLDr. William Li1:14:01

       Out of convenience. Uh, it comes from a factory. Sits on a shelf for months or years. And you change it to a whole plant-based diet, mostly plant-based, or a whole foods diet. Okay, now you're talking about not shopping in the middle aisle of the store. And I have nothing against the middle aisle. There's good treasures in there. But you're spending time in the produce or, you know, if you live in a village, you're going to the village market and-

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:14:21

       Yeah

    10. WLDr. William Li1:14:21

        ... going first to the fruit and vegetable and herb stand. And you're buying all the stuff, and now you're getting fresh foods that have all these phytonutrients. Um, you're having to take the time to prepare them in tasty ways. Um, you're staying away from that, the boxed, canned, preserved, chemically preserved foods. You're allowing your immune system to, to, um, calm, and you're allowing the phytonutrients to also lower inflammation. And we're getting back to a more natural state. Like that's how I-

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:14:53

        Mm

    12. WLDr. William Li1:14:53

        ... that's how I explain the kind of broad observations that you actually had, is probably allowing, un- unburdening the body, uh, pissing it off less, and allowing the body to actually get back to a more natural state that's, where it's capable of being less inflamed. Allow the health defenses to reassert themselves.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:15:12

        Yeah. I love that explanation. And moving to a whole food diet, no matter who you are, no matter what your current state of health, there's very little side effects or negative side effects, I should say. There's many effects, mostly beneficial effects. Very, very few negative side effects of doing that.

14. 1:15:29 – 1:21:01

    Swapping Foods You Can't Tolerate and Closing Thoughts

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:15:29

       One thing I must ask, uh, Dr. Li, before we end this conversation is, in our first chat you mentioned many foods which have super helpful properties. Two that come to mind are kiwifruit. You mentioned how they can actually help repair DNA, which is remarkable. The amount of people who stop me in the streets since then to say, "Dr. Chatterjee, since that conversation, I've been buying kiwi. I've been buying kiwi." I've heard it over and over again. So that's credit to you, Dr. Li. But also tomatoes you mentioned. I know we covered lycopene in this conversation as well, but many people contacted me, including some family members, to say, "Listen, I don't tolerate kiwis. Like, I get a really bad reaction when I have them. I don't tolerate tomatoes. I get a really bad reaction when I have them." And of course this is individual, because not everyone has intolerances or reactions to certain foods. But for people who've heard your great advice and wanted to bring those in but thought, "Well, I can't have that," how would you respond to them? Like, what would you say to them to, to give them some sort of hope?

    2. WLDr. William Li1:16:34

       Yeah. Well, look, uh, what I always tell people is when it comes to food and health, it's not just about the food or any single food, whether it's a kiwi or a tomato. It's really about how our body responds to what we put inside it. So if you, um, uh, don't like kiwis, can't find kiwis, or are allergic to kiwis, all right? Those are three easy reasons. Or can't afford a kiwi, um, you can do a swap out, okay? So what's, what is, what are in kiwis? Kiwi's got vitamin C. It's got fiber. What are some other foods that actually have vitamin C that also have fiber? Red bell pepper can actually have that. Um, what if you're like, "Well, I'd like, I'd like something a little sweet"? Okay, guava, that also has vitamin C, and it's also got fiber as well. Now, the research that we discussed last time about the kiwi was research done with kiwi itself. But the properties of the kiwi, which is vitamin C and fiber and some of the other phytonutrients, um, those can be found in other fruits as well. So kiwi, I always say, like, if you wanna kind of stick with the research, you gotta go with the food that was actually studied. But the properties and the principles allow you to actually think about how to swap things out. What... A tomato, great example. I don't really like tomatoes. Um, I'm allergic to tomatoes. Some people have hypersensitivities, like a histamine reaction to tomatoes. I have, I, I remember in college, I had a, um, classmate who, um, would never go to the salad bar. She would stay as far away as possible because, um, tomatoes kind of gave her this, um, super histamine mast cell reaction. Her whole face would puff up, uh, when she actually had anything that had tomatoes on it. And, um, um, well, guess what? Lycopene, if you wanna get the lycopene benefits, you know, lowers risk of breast cancer by 20%, lowers the risk of prostate cancer by twen- almost 30%, protects your DNA against sunlight. What else has lycopene? Watermelon.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:18:21

       Yeah.

    4. WLDr. William Li1:18:21

       Watermelon has lycopene as well. So maybe you don't like tomatoes. Maybe you can't get tomatoes. Well, what about a slice of watermelon?

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:18:27

       Yeah.

    6. WLDr. William Li1:18:28

       And so again, these swap outs are, are really... And this is something I think is so important, and, and this is what I hope to be able to convey through my book. And I, you know, I, I created a, a free masterclass. I've been trying to teach people periodically online, um, h-how to do this, is, is thi- Think about why something is beneficial for you. And then if you can get that food, that's perfectly fine. If you need to swap it out 'cause you can't find that food or can't afford that food, think about what else might be a good stand-in.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:18:57

       Yeah.

    8. WLDr. William Li1:18:57

       Right? And at the end of the day, it still has to taste good for you. So maybe you don't like tomatoes, but you like watermelon.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:19:02

       Yeah, yeah.

    10. WLDr. William Li1:19:02

        Maybe you don't like kiwi, but you actually like guava.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:19:05

        Yeah, I love that. And in my experience also, when we go to more of these whole foods that we can tolerate, over time, actually, I find that we often repair our gut, and then we become more tolerant to foods that we previously couldn't manage. I'm not talking about over allergies, but a lot of food intolerance, that I've definitely seen that that happens. I just wanna echo what you just finished off there, Dr. Li, with that for people who want to swap things out, your book, Eat to Beat Disease, I think it's a fantastic resource for people. Because you can see the properties, and you can find a food that you like that suits your culture, your background, your tastes. And I think the master classes that you put on for people, I can see why so many people around the world really enjoy them because they're very beneficial. They're develops with... They're really delivered with passion and engagement and quality information. So I wanna say thank you to you for all the work you're doing at raising awareness of these little things that we can all do each day to make a huge impact on our health. Any closing words for my audience who might be confused, inspired, empowered by what you said? Any closing thoughts for them?

    12. WLDr. William Li1:20:13

        You know, I have a, I have one motto that I want everybody to just sort of try to take to heart, which is that when it comes to food and health, I really believe that you should love your food to love your health. Both can happen at the same time. You know, uh, we should find the foods that we love that are good for us and really lean into it, and that's the best way to have a long and enjoyable life.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:20:36

        You're incredible individual. You're an incredible doctor. You're doing such wonderful things for the world. Thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

    14. WLDr. William Li1:20:43

        Thank you for having me. [upbeat music]

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:20:44

        If you enjoyed that conversation about the foods to stop eating, I think you are really going to enjoy this one that's all about inflammation.

    16. WLDr. William Li1:20:51

        Chronic inappropriate inflammation is at the root of a lot of our cancer, coronary artery disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and so forth

Episode duration: 1:21:01