Max Lugavere: The Problem W/ Plant Based Diets, How to Prevent Disease, The US Food Industry & The Importance Of Protein
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Harris to 500-500. The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Hi guys, it's Mari and you're listening to The Pursuit of Wellness.

Today we are joined by the highly requested Max Lugavere. He's a top health podcaster, host of The Genius Life, wellness journalist, filmmaker and author. He wrote the New York Times bestseller Genius Foods, which I have here in front of me. Max, thank you so much for joining us.

Max is incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to all things nutrition, health, performance and longevity. All topics I'm obsessed with and the listeners love so I can't wait to dive in. Max, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here. We randomly met at Gold's Gym the other day. Yes. Like completely randomly. Super randomly with our friend Crosby Taylor who works out there.

I don't normally go to that gym, but I've been a few times and it's just like... I mean, if you enjoy being in a gym, it is like the gym of gyms. Oh, you can spend hours in there. Yeah. And especially because everyone wants to talk. Yes. Like that day, I think I was there for two hours. There is a vibe going on in the gym, but it's such an iconic place. I mean, Arnold still works out there. Literally, he pulls up on a bike. It's insane. With his friends and he'll just chat with people. How does he not get like hounded? It's...

That Gold's Gym zone is just a safe zone, I guess, for him. I don't know, because I think everyone has so much respect for him there. It is kind of like the church of Arnold. Yeah. It's like he helped build that place. It's very motivating, too, to work out around all these giant people. Giant people, yeah. I don't know what I was doing there. I was there with some friends of mine who had come into town to be on my podcast, like some fitness guru expert people.

and they wanted to see the legendary iconic Gold's Venice. So I took them there and yeah, I had a great workout, lifted a lot more than I typically lift because I was like motivated by them. Just goes to show you. Yeah. And then bumped into you, which was so lovely. So lovely. And now I've been looking more into your story and I can't wait to share it with everyone. How did you initially get interested in health?

So I was always really passionate about nutrition and fitness since my earliest memories as a, as a teenager, I was really interested in, I was interested in the science of body composition. Really. I became interested. This is going to sound really cheesy, but I became interested in bodybuilding, not because I was an athlete or because I ever aspired to be a bodybuilder, but because actually I was like a pretty introverted and shy computer nerd at the time. And, uh, I, uh,

Saw fitness as a way to bend my insecure self at the time to boost my confidence, to give me the, you know, the health and the, and the body of a, of an athlete, but without having to be actually all that coordinated, which I wasn't. And I just gravitated to it. And I fell in love with the science aspect of it. The fact that I can iterate the,

things with my diet supplements that I could take practices that I could that I could engage in in the in the gym environment that would reflect ultimately in how I would feel mentally physically how I would look in the mirror and it was just something that was incredibly seductive to me and it's just that was like was the on-ramp to a lifelong obsession and then

I went to college with the intent of going down a pre-med track because I was that interested in the science underlying my passion. But I ended up, see, I had this interesting academic career where I would get A's in the classes that I was really interested in, typically all the science classes, but then I would get D's in the classes that I wasn't interested in. And these were the classes typically that kids would take to get the A's, the easy classes, but just because I couldn't focus my brain

on those subjects that I wasn't really that passionate about, it ended up leading to a really mediocre GPA. So I ended up pivoting off the pre-med track. And also at the time, I realized that I was also creative and a storyteller and I had aesthetic sensitivity. And so I ended up going into, I double majored in film and psychology, which led to me becoming a journalist. So after college, I ended up working for Al Gore for six years as a

producer and host and journalist for a TV network that he had in the US called Current TV. And so my role there, even though I was very young, I was just out of college, I was reaching 100 million homes every single night talking about really important issues that were happening in the world of young people.

from politics to the environment to technology to you name it. And I would always, as much as I could, bring the focus back to my passions, which were health, a handful of other topics, but I was very much a generalist there. When I left that job in about the year 2011,

my mom got sick and she started to show these really strange symptoms that nobody in my family could explain. But ultimately she would be diagnosed with a rare form of dementia called Lewy body dementia, which is akin to having both Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease at the same time. And to me that was like a

I mean, it was the most traumatic experience I'd ever had in my life. The moment of that diagnosis where she was prescribed drugs for both Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. And there's no stronger motivating force than the ill health of a loved one. If I myself had gotten sick, I probably wouldn't have been as motivated as I was. But because it was my mom, the most important person in my life,

that I was seeing succumb to the accelerated ravages of aging. I became obsessed with trying to understand everything I possibly could about diet and lifestyle and how they might predispose a person to developing these kinds of conditions, dementia and all the sort of like variables that fall sort of underneath that umbrella of brain health. And it became about trying to find

a therapeutic option for her that was outside of, you know, pharmacotherapy like drugs because the drugs weren't working. And it also became in tandem with that about prevention at a time when really nobody else was talking about dementia as a potentially preventable condition. I became really interested to see whether or not there was any evidence that I might be able to adopt in my own life to reduce my risk of developing what it was that my mom developed. And I could still develop what it was that my mom developed, but

You know, when it comes to dementia, there are different kinds of dementias, the most common of them being Alzheimer's disease. And 90% of what we know about Alzheimer's disease has been discovered only in the past 15 or so years. So this is a rapidly evolving field of science, but we do have enough data at this point that we can say that for at least a significant portion of the population, that we can potentially prevent this condition. We don't have to sit idly on our hands.

And so that's what it became about for me. It became about understanding as much as I possibly could. And, you know, I, just to be clear, I didn't take the academic route. I'm not a medical doctor. I never, I never aimed to misrepresent myself. I was just a concerned son trying to do everything in his power to understand as much as he possibly could. And then ultimately, the more I would learn, the more I would feel inclined to share. So sorry for the basic question, but dementia is under the umbrella of Alzheimer's.

The inverse. So you have dementia is the sort of category of conditions. And then underneath that, you have Alzheimer's disease, which is the most common form of dementia. And then you have vascular dementia. And then you have a condition called Lewy body dementia. And then you have frontotemporal dementia. So there are multiple different types of dementia, but the most common by far is Alzheimer's disease. How common is it in the U.S.?

In the US today, about 6 million people suffer from it. So that's quite a few, many people. And that number is expected to triple by the year 2050. So what did you find in your research that

kind of gave you any indication of why this was happening to your mom at such an early age? And did you apply any of your research to the way you were living? It's a great question. You know, my mom definitely was the person who I retroactively had to, was the person that

The only person really that I was able to observe and try to piece together aspects of her diet and lifestyle that, you know, I might see reflected in the literature as being risk factors, but I'll never know what pulled the trigger for my mom. And I say pull the trigger because, you know, what we say sometimes regarding this, this novel concept of epigenetics is that genes load the gun, but it's our diets and our lifestyles ultimately that pull the trigger.

But I'll never know for sure what it was that caused my mom's condition. And I don't like to portray as such.

But, you know, my mom ate and lived in a certain way that I think in many ways was counterproductive to brain health. And ironically, my mom always aspired to be healthy. My mom was an affluent woman, you know, born and raised in New York City, had access to healthful food. But she, you know, she didn't really value exercise the way, you know, our generation seems to value exercise. She didn't really, she ate a...

She ate a diet that was healthful in accordance with the healthy diet standards of like the 70s, 80s and 90s, which was a very like it was a strange diet. It was a very low fat diet. It was a diet that was very low in saturated fat, low in dietary cholesterol, really kind of put the focus on heart healthy grains. You know, if there was a red heart healthy logo on it in the supermarket, chances are that would be something that, you know, more often than not would end up in my mom's shopping cart.

And so that led to my mom eating a diet that was, you know, in many ways, I think suboptimal. And the data backs this up. What kind of diet, like foods and lifestyle in general can contribute to the chances of getting dementia or disease in general? Like what should we be looking for? So there's a lot of evidence now supporting the idea that

One of the biggest dietary villains, so to speak, are what are called ultra-processed foods. Now, you have a super savvy audience and you have a great podcast, and I'm sure that term has come up before on the show. But essentially what that is are products that typically line the aisles of our supermarkets that you couldn't possibly make in your own kitchen. That's actually one of the defining characteristics of ultra-processed foods in accordance with the NOVA

food profiling system devised in Latin America, that ultra-processed foods are foods that could only be made in a factory, essentially. They're packed with

dozens of ingredients. Not that the number of ingredients indicates whether or not a food is healthful or not, but it's correlated. The more ingredients a food product has, the more likely it is to be ultra processed. They typically have infinite shelf lives. They are shelf stable, non-perishable.

They tend to have a characteristic known as hyper palatability. So we tend not to tire of eating them. And when we do tire of eating them, we've already over consumed them. So it's that phenomena that I think most people can relate to. Like when you go to the freezer to grab the pint of ice cream, aspiring to only have like a spoonful or two of ice cream, you end up seeing the bottom of the pint, right?

It's that like the bag of chips. Once you pop, you can't stop. That's like how these food products are designed. So ultra processed foods, I think really are one of the defining characteristics of the standard American diet. And we know that the closer one adheres to the standard American diet, the closer one is to incurring risk for these kinds of like conditions, whether it's cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia. So just to give you a sense, there have been a few studies now that have looked at

how many ultra-processed foods a person typically consumes. And just as a reference point, your average American now consumes 60% of their calories from ultra-processed foods. So the bulk of their diet is coming from these kinds of foods, not fresh food, right? Not foods that are single ingredient foods. They're these ultra-processed foods that have brand names on them, make health claims, et cetera. So one study that came out very recently found that

For every 10% increment in ultra-processed food consumption that a person eats, their risk for developing dementia goes up by 25%. Wow. Yeah. So that's a big leap. They did another study where they looked at all-cause mortality, so death by any cause. For every 10% increment, a 14% increased risk in early mortality. They recently associated ultra-processed food consumption with cancer.

And I forget the exact hazard ratio, but we see that these foods are really bad. And this is like, you know, not that the occasional indulgence here and there is going to promote disease. That's not what I'm saying. But it's the overconsumption of these kinds of foods. It's the, I guess, over-reliance of these foods in your dietary pattern that seems to be at pretty significant odds with our biology.

a little bit of a specific question, but how do you feel about deli cut meat? Like Applegate, turkey, things of that nature. I'm for them. So I think like people have this fear about processed meat and processed meat, meat in general, all foods really like are like a continuum, you know? So one of the most lauded dietary patterns is the Mediterranean diet. And in the Mediterranean part of the region of the world,

they've invented many of these types of meats, right? Like that's where they originate from. And the methods of processing are much more artisanal. They don't use any of these synthetic nitrite chemicals to preserve them. So basically in a nutshell, I'm for them if they're essentially minimally processed. So like sliced turkey breast, you know,

We also have to understand that processing, ultra processing is definitely something that we should know how to define and we should know how to identify it, right? But processing is also a continuum. So like when you have a whole apple, that's an unprocessed food, right? When you slice the apple, you're processing it.

to some degree. When you puree it and you create applesauce, you're processing it even further. When you take the apple and you squeeze the juice out of it, you're processing it further. When you take the apple juice and you turn that into a fruit snack that is shelf-stable, that's an ultra-processed version of that original food product. So I think the closer we can stay to that minimally processed side of the spectrum, the better off we'll be. And I think with meat,

Yeah, I regularly will eat like uncured sliced turkey or ham or what have you because I think the benefits outweigh the risks, particularly because they're a very easy way to get super high quality protein. And we can talk about the value of protein, but protein is super, super important. Yeah, I definitely want to touch on protein and all the things we can eat to improve our chances when it comes to disease prevention. Yeah.

What is your stance on gluten? Because there's a lot of different opinions when it comes to gluten. I've personally found it's better to just cut it out for me personally. How do you feel? Yeah, I think that people do have gluten sensitivity. So about 1-2% of the population is celiac. And so for them, they're essentially gluten intolerant. They should avoid gluten.

But then there's this sort of vague cluster of symptoms that is associated with something called non-celiac gluten sensitivity. And I think that makes up another 2% of the population. So it's a significant portion of the population that are clinically sensitive. They have a real clinical presentation of symptoms when they consume gluten. For the rest of the population, I think that it's sort of a complicated answer, but essentially...

I think we live in a time where we should be able to indulge in gluten-containing foods, but a lot of us, we overconsume it. It's like a dose makes the poison issue. And the background

in which we are consuming it is a lot of people have preexisting like gut issues. You know, we're seeing rates of autoimmunity on the rise. We're seeing allergies on the rise. So I think like in a time where there's like such widespread gut dysbiosis and the dose of gluten that we're all collectively ingesting is more than it's ever been in human history, right? Like we eat wheat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then all in between we're snacking on wheat based snacks, right?

I think that that's probably why so many more people seem to be sensitive to it. But that being said, is gluten like the dietary boogeyman that I think many people make it out to be? I would say no. The answer is probably not even close. Like most people I think have much bigger fish to fry in their, in terms of optimizing their diet than worrying about gluten.

And dairy. I've heard you speak about dairy and the benefits of dairy. I think especially here in L.A., we kind of have like a microcosm of people who are super health conscious and all these ideas kind of pop up every now and again. A lot of people are not into dairy.

Yeah, I mean, I've actually, I've had to challenge my own biases on dairy and I've come around to it and I'm super pro-dairy for, I mean, at least for the time being, unless like other data presents itself. But I've kind of changed my stance on it. And I think I was probably influenced in many ways by this, by the wellness industry's like view that dairy is bad or unclean. And I think part of that has to do with the fact that now we're seeing so much money go into these like non-dairy alternate products

you know, dairy-free food products, whether it's like the dairy-free milks, fake cheeses and things like that.

And I think when you actually look at what dairy is, it's an amazing food, assuming you're not allergic to it or sensitive to lactose or casein. It's an amazing source of protein. It's an amazing source of minerals and immune supporting compounds. It's got tons of healthy fats in it that are actually like neutral from a cardiovascular standpoint. We see actually that people who consume full fat dairy tend to have better cardiometabolic health, biomarkers reflective of like better health.

Which is interesting because like dairy is predominantly saturated fat. So, you know, we've been told for decades that saturated fat is like dietary boogeyman. But paradoxically, right, people who consume full fat dairy as opposed to low fat and fat free dairy seem to have better biomarkers associated with like cardiovascular health.

Great source of protein, as I mentioned, minerals. Yeah. So I think there's a, there's a lot of good going for it. And I'm not saying to like that everybody should run out and start like consuming dairy with every meal. I think quality is still important. I choose to, you know, always like support organic farms just because, you know, I think it's better for the environment, the health impact on, you know, on, on dairy, I don't think is as clear, but grass fed dairy, I think is, yeah, I think it's great. I also feel like this rise of the nut milks has, you know,

It's interesting because I do feel like nuts have some inflammatory effects. I've noticed that in myself and I feel like the amount of nuts we're all consuming a day, whether it's in the milk or the protein bars, it seems like a lot. Yeah. I mean, you have to remember that for one of your ancestors, first of all, nuts are a very healthy food when we're talking about whole nuts. Whole nuts are incredibly healthy and I wrote about them in my first book that

that came out five years ago now about how beneficial nuts can be, right? But you have to remember that for one of our ancestors, they had to like go out, find the nuts, shell the nuts, right? And so today it's just super easy with all of these like ultra processed products to over consume nuts. Like in your average life,

almond flour or whatever based cookie you're consuming. I don't know how many nuts, but probably quite a bit. So, you know, people have not sensitivities and the like, but in general, I'm a huge fan of nuts. I love almonds in particular. They're actually on the cover of the book. They're a great source of magnesium, of vitamin E, certain B vitamins. So yeah, I'm a fan, but you know, you have to realize that for like

all of these non-dairy products to be good for you, dairy has to be bad for you. That's just the way that marketing works, right? And I think it's a big problem because it's like,

We shouldn't think so dichotomously about food, right? Dairy is great, and dairy replacement products can also be great. They can both coexist, right? I'm glad that we have both at our disposal. One doesn't have to be bad to make the other good. Yeah, it's almost like there's no gray area. Yeah. Do you... Maybe this is a controversial question, but it feels like in the U.S.,

we kind of have a disadvantage compared to everyone else because the food industry is so business and money focused. Is that a correct statement? Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, money, you just have to follow the money trail. I've said many times and I've caught flack for this, but I stand by it a hundred percent that the problem with following the science is that the science follows the money. And this is true in all regards. It's true with nutrition science and it's true certainly with our dietary guidelines. I mean, the

50 years ago, you know, or yeah, around 50 years ago was when the first dietary guidelines for Americans made their debut in the form of the USDA food pyramid. And prior to that, Americans, I mean, we just ate in accordance with what was traditionally and ancestrally appropriate for us, right?

And so when you look at these guidelines, I mean, they're not all bad, but, and, and to be fair, we don't actually adhere to them the way that many people would assume that we do, but they're subject to myriad streams of corporate influence. Like we, there was a paper that came out that found that 95% of the, of the people on the 2020 dietary guidelines for Americans committee had conflicts of interest with the food industry, with pharma,

It's just crazy. I think ultimately you have to arm yourself with knowledge. That's like my mission is to help people like

really like be able to separate fact from fiction and to be able to understand what's true and what isn't so they can make better decisions for themselves and for their loved ones. Yeah. It's just there's so many conflicts of interest. Even friends I have who are considered or consider themselves health conscious and you know seemingly are healthy they have

misinformed beliefs about meat, about various ingredients because of marketing, I believe. Yeah. I think even a lot of us here in LA, you know. 100%.

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I want to talk about veganism because I know you're a huge advocate for grass-fed meat, dairy. Where do you think the wave of popularity for veganism came from? And do you feel like it's died down now? Do you think it's still a thing? Oh man. Well, I think there are a lot of different variables, but I would say that money, again, plays a huge role here. First of all,

Plant-based food products. So there's just to be clear there's like and transparent There's money to be made in every industry everybody and like nobody is a walking nonprofit like everybody is Working to keep the roof over their heads right and like there's money to be made in the meat industry and the dairy industry but the the levels of profit that you see in the plant-based food industry are Orders of magnitude higher than you get for the for the meat industry. Why is that because the ingredients are cheaper? Obviously the ingredients are way cheaper and

They're subsidized. So you're using these subsidized crops. And when you are able to develop a plant-based food formula, right, that strikes a chord with the American public, that's like billions of dollars of intellectual property right there. Like you just don't get that kind of delta with like meat products, right? Like single ingredient, like beef, right? Like

Because at the end of the day, people don't tend to have brand loyalty for lean ground beef, right? But they do if like they are

are obsessed with Frosted Mini Wheats or the Impossible Burger or Oatly, right? So these kinds of products, they generate massive revenue streams and ultimately huge exits. Like right now we can see that there's an arms race between Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger, right? They're just the two that, I mean, there've been like meat replacement products for as long as I can remember, right? But these are the two that like really struck a chord at a time when it was just like, I

Americans were open-minded to a, you know, whether it was like all the environment, doom and gloom stuff that they've been being pummeled with for decades. So now we're like in an arms race where these two companies that are worth lots and lots of money are now, you know, are now trying to see like who's going to, who's going to one up the other, but the doors open for the next like great chicken replacement and the next

fish replacement. I mean, I was just at Expo West. Me too. Yeah, it was crazy. And the theme every year is like a different theme. Like the year, like two years ago, it was keto or no, two years ago, CBD. And then the year prior, it was like keto. Everything was keto, this keto, that. And this year it was all like plant-based replacement products. It was like, you could clearly see the commerce going into this notion. So there's that there that's like a big part of it.

And then just in general, there's actual data that shows that the more closely people adhere to plant-based diets, the more ultra-processed foods they consume. And again, these ultra-processed foods are the high margin moneymakers of the food industrial complex, right? So data actually shows that the more one abstains from meat products, right? And the more closely one adheres to a plant-based diet, particularly if you start them young,

They consume more ultra-processed foods to the degree of about 20%, 20% more ultra-processed. Yeah, so that's like you're creating a powerful consumer base by promoting this idea that plant-based is better. So what's in these Beyond Meat, Just Egg products?

products? Like what is it made of? I mean, you know, some out there will say food is food, but it's all junk. I mean, it's all like some sort of slurry of pea protein, which, you know, isn't bad by itself, but canola oil, fillers, gums, just, you know, stuff that's like, maybe like has some degree of, of, of nutrient value, but it's like

as a whole doesn't hold a candle to the original product. You know, like just egg doesn't hold a candle to like an actual egg. An egg I feel like is a ball of nutrients. It is. It's like one of nature's multivitamins. Yeah. Like when an embryo is developing, the first structure to assemble is a nervous system. So an egg yolk literally contains everything that nature has deemed important in small amounts.

to grow a brain. Like there's everything in it. B12, it's one of the top sources of vitamin B12. It's one of the top sources of choline, which we know 90% of people don't consume adequate amounts of on a daily basis. It's loaded with cholesterol. Not that you need to eat cholesterol for your brain health. You don't. Your brain creates all the cholesterol that it needs, but it's no wonder that an egg yolk is loaded with cholesterol because

25% of the cholesterol in your body is located in your brain. So it's just like, it's like a care package of nutrients postmarked for delivery to the growing neonate brain. And we've tried to, with nutritionism or whatever, hubris, right? To like deconstruct it and recreate it into this barely palatable thing that's now worth millions and millions and millions of dollars. Do you think they're taking a hit though? Because people are starting to realize what's in there or you think most people don't know?

I hope so, but people are just so mired by their own biases and the tribalism that we now see on, on social media in the so-called diet wars. You know, it's, I try to abstain from them as, as best I can, but yeah, like every, every diet cult, what they do is they create their own echo chamber. So, you know, it's like these, these kinds of messages don't really get out to the wider audience, unfortunately, because people tend not to hear the

They tend not to want to hear viewpoints that challenge their own biases, right? It's like confirmation bias. We typically only want to hear the points of views and perspectives that confirm our pre-existing beliefs. Do you get a lot of flack for your stance on veganism?

Yeah, I mean, I do, but it doesn't bother me. And at the end of the day, here's the deal. At the end of the day, I want my followers and the people who gravitate to my work to know that I don't care what diet you consume. Like, I really don't.

And here's the thing about the, about the, like the vegan cult or any dietary cult, the carnivores are guilty of this too. Like they really care what their followers, you know, how their followers eat because they're so vested in that, in that issue, right? They're making money from it. It's like a cash cow, but I don't care. Whatever you want. I just want to make sure that you're making choices with, with the full breadth of informed consent. Right.

And that's why I try to present the data, but not just the data. I try to present like reason, 'cause data can only take us so far. You have to think about these issues with like a critical lens.

So what foods or diet should we be adopting to have the healthiest life we can to prevent disease? I know you kind of refer to them as genius foods. Can you kind of switch the conversation to a more positive angle now? Let's do it. How can we avoid all of these things? Yeah, so I mean, I think the data is pretty strong that a Mediterranean-style diet, minimally processed, that incorporates both whole animal source products and vegetables,

plant source products is optimal now everybody's different so nutrition is not a hat it's not one size fits all so for you you might not tolerate alliums very well which is like garlics garlic leeks onions or cruciferous vegetables perhaps i'm not you know i love onions yeah i love onions and garlic yeah no all the time no no all i'm saying is that like everybody's different so

even though you might have a specific sensitivity to a vegetable here or there, that doesn't mean that the problem lies with the vegetable. It's like everybody's different. So we have to like embrace and celebrate bio-individuality, right? Curious. Do you think that...

bioindividuality comes from where we originate from ancestrally? I think part of, yeah, part of it for sure. But we don't, we just don't know enough yet to make recommendations based on, that's called nutrigenomics. And we don't, we just, we're like at the very tip of the iceberg. Because my theory is that I thrive off of red meat, carrots, parsnips, root vegetables. Whereas my husband, who's like from Southern Italy, can eat gluten and olives and he's feeling good. Yeah.

We eat very differently. So I've always kind of had that theory, but I have zero anything to back it. No, I mean, I think that that totally makes sense. And I hope that one day we have like a broader understanding of like with that level of like intricacy. But as of now, I think the best recommend the best take home recommendation is to like eat minimally processed foods, eat beef, you know, grass fed, grass finished. If you can, if you can access and afford it. Beef,

vegetables that are as close to organic as you can, but they don't have to be organic. Organic is not a panacea.

fruits, nuts, seeds, I think all that stuff is great. Dairy, if you're not sensitive to it. The more closely we can adhere to more traditional diets, I think the better off we'll be. And so when it comes to specific foods, yeah, I'm a huge fan of grass-fed red meat. I think that's like, I think it's essentially another one of nature's multivitamins. I think it's super, especially for premenopausal women. I think you don't get a more bioavailable source of iron and iron deficiency is still a thing.

Amazing source of protein. So yeah, I think, and the data on the data was a little bit less clear on the link between red meat consumption and brain health, but there have been a number of studies that come out recently to show that

all observational, all concede, but that this idea that red meat is this dietary boogeyman, I think that's largely being overturned. Yeah, that surprised me. Honestly, I somehow avoided the red meat marketing where anyone said it was bad because I've always loved red meat. It makes me feel amazing. But I have been in a few conversations where people have this belief that it's a negative thing or they're trying to avoid it. Yeah, it's not. I mean, arguably...

Cows are fed aberrant diets and they're excessively fatty these days. And so I'll concede that, you know, it's probably the case that leaner red meat

is better just because it's more ancestrally consistent. I mean, if you ever, I'm not a hunter, but I've spoken to friends of mine who hunt regularly and wild game is incredibly lean. Cows are manmade creations. There's no such thing as a wild cow. You know, the closest we can get is like bison and everybody knows bison is leaner. So this idea that we're all supposed to be eating like

excessively fatty ribeyes like multiple times a day like some of the carnivore community will suggest. I don't think that that's a healthy choice. But I do think that red meat in general when we're talking about lean, you know, like I regularly will buy 90% lean ground beef and I think it's, especially for the price, it's an incredibly nutritious food. And also,

For people that live in parts of the country or world where food access is an issue, red meat from wherever it comes from is still going to be one of the more nutrient-dense options at their disposal, right? Especially compared to ultra-processed food.

So yeah, I'm a, I'm a huge fan. You don't have to. And, and, and also like, you don't have to eat it. I'm not saying, I'm not like trying to force it down anybody's throat. I think like wild fatty fish is also incredible. Like if you're, if you're vegan or vegetarian, you should absolutely try to at least occasionally consume seafood, right? Like seafood, bivalves, mollusks, things like that. There's actually a, there's like a sect of veganism. I forget the, the exact like

nomenclature, but it's like they're vegans plus oysters. I've heard of this. Yeah. Because don't they say oysters have less feelings than plants? Yeah. I think ostrovegan maybe is the term. Ostrovegan. Yeah. Interesting. I think don't quote me on that. I love oysters because don't they have all of the organs in one? Like you're just getting all of it? You're getting a ton. Yeah. Well, it's like they're rich in micronutrients that are

that in particular are nutrients of concern for vegans. So they're rich in like zinc, highly bioavailable zinc, copper, vitamin B12. They're like a really powerful multivitamin that is especially like potent for somebody who's on like a plant-based diet. Yeah. Oysters. They're amazing. So, okay. We mentioned protein before. Why is protein so important? So protein's crucial. Protein...

And also, this is another reason why ultra-processed foods tend to be protein depleted, because you tend to eat more of them when there's less protein. And all that is to say, the reason why that is, that protein is the most satiating of the macronutrients. So if you experience hunger regularly, reach for protein. People who feel like they can't get their hunger under control, protein is the most satiating micronutrient. When we consume more protein, we tend to consume

fewer carbs and fats. And carbs and fats are essentially energy. Like it doesn't matter if the bulk of your energy excess is coming from carbs or fats, they're much more easily stored as fat than protein. Protein is actually not very easily stored as fat and it's very hard to over consume. Like people seldom, you know, binge on lean chicken breast, right? It's just like, you can't do it. It directly supports your musculature and

And, you know, every other organ system in your body. But we know that your muscles are essentially a vital sign. A fifth vital sign is how, you know, your skeletal muscle is now being referred to because it's that important for keeping your hormones healthy, helping you age well. Yeah, just so important. And with protein, you get a bit of a caloric free ride because about 30% of the calories that you ingest from protein are burnt off just via digestion alone.

It's called the thermic effective feeding, and it's higher for protein than it is for carbs and fat by about six times.

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We were talking about liver king before. Yeah. What is your view on organs? Because I'm seeing more and more people try and incorporate liver into their diet, liver smoothies, they're freezing it, they're putting maple syrup on it. Do you eat liver? Yeah. There's nothing magical about liver. I mean, it's like, it's a very nutrient dense food. Certainly there was a

paper that came out by Beale and colleagues in, I believe, 2021 that basically spotlighted all the most nutrient-dense foods at our disposal. And they were all animal products. And most of them were organ meats, with the exception being dark leafy greens. Dark leafy greens are actually also a very nutrient-dense food. But yeah, liver is super rich in vitamin B12. It's a great source of copper, which is an important micronutrient that people don't typically eat enough of.

But you can get those micronutrients elsewhere if you don't like liver. I mean, I'm not the biggest liver fan. So yeah, you don't need it. If you like to incorporate a little bit here and there, I think all good. Have at it.

What are your non-negotiables? I want to know your routine. Oh man. Well, sleep. It starts with good sleep. Yeah. I didn't actually get the best sleep last night, which is kind of an anomaly for me. What happened? You know what? I had a little bit. I found this like sugar, low sugar ice cream brand. Tell me which one. And it's called Nubocha.

Oh, I haven't seen that one. Yeah, it's pretty good. Well, there's like a few. So I've got, I've got like, uh, my right now I've got like this like freezer stock because I've got seemingly I've got a bunch of like ice cream brands that are trying to get, you know, ice cream. So I love, there's a brand called Holy Scoops that I really love. Shout out to them. New Bocha. There's, they're all great. And so, you know, I'm appreciative that now we can find low sugar, like generally low calorie versions of, of, of, of ice cream.

And what I did last night, I made the mistake of having like a coffee flavored version of it. With espresso beans in it. It must have had some degree of caffeine in it because I had it pretty close to bedtime. I had just a little bit, like I had like one serving.

And yeah, it messed up my sleep. Oh no. Remember when Halo Top came out? Yeah, I'm actually a fan of Halo Top. I think Halo Top is good. We love it in my house. When it first came out, we got it every day. Yeah, I think it's great. I think it's great. Because like, you know, I mean, if you look at some of these pints of typical ice cream, they go up to like 700, 800 calories. They're just so calorie dense. And for me...

You know, it might not be, the experience might not be identical to having one of these like super high calorie varieties, but it like does the job. You know what I'm saying? So good sleep. Yeah. So good sleep is crucially important. I try to get, you know, I'm a good sleeper typically. So I get typically about eight and a half hours a night.

And then I wake up, I try to get some bright light in through my eyes. Even if it's an overcast day, I try to get some of that like ambient daylight in through my eyes to anchor my body's, my brain's circadian rhythm, which is a huge topic in and of itself. But that really sets me off on the right foot. I feel like it kind of anchors my, all of my different biological processes. And I feel alert and active, primed really to go to the gym, which I love to do in the morning. So I go to the gym in the morning,

I used to go fasted. I used to go fasted. And now typically these days I'm eating a little bit of, uh, I do like some carbs before the workout. Cause the thing is like carbs are great as a workout fuel. Like people love to demonize carbohydrates, but like you need to fuel your muscles and carbs are like, they're there for you. You know, they, they,

get stored as glycogen in your muscles and they and that glycogen waits there until you do some kind of high intensity exercise activity that utilizes that stored sugar as a fuel source. And so when I work out, sometimes I feel generally I feel better. Like when I'm on an empty stomach, I just feel more like limber, but I feel more energized and stronger when I have carbs in the system is what I'm finding these days. So I'll do like

I don't know, a little bit of like morning gluten-free like oatmeal I've been experimenting with. I'm always like tinkering really, but for me starting the day with protein is crucially important. So whether I'm having, you know, oatmeal or whole fruit or whatever as my carb source, I'm also trying to get between 30 and 40 grams of high quality protein in first thing in the morning. The eggs? Yeah, I do eggs or I'll do like a protein shake, whatever.

What else do I really like? I like, uh, this is controversial, but cottage cheese. I'm a big fan of with like some sliced apples. I've been curious to try cottage cheese. Yeah. It's pretty good. It's an, you have to get used to it. And I think brands really matter. Like you got to find the right brand. Which one are you into? There's like a few and I have no affiliation with any cottage cheese brand, but, uh, like Nancy's is really good. Okay. There's another one. Oh my God. I'm forgetting the brand. Uh,

There's like two that I go back and forth. But cottage cheese is high in protein, right? It's super high in protein. Okay. And it's high in particular, it's high in casein protein.

which is a much more slow. So dairy proteins, there's, there's two types of proteins present in dairy. You've got whey and casein. Whey is very rapidly absorbed. It's why like protein shakes typically are whey based, but casein is a much more slower digesting protein. So it keeps you satiated for quite a long time. And you just get like this really, this really sustained time release, uh,

absorption of amino acids into the blood which are really good especially like to sustain you through the through the workout so your workout is generally weight lifting yeah i love to lift weights i think it's super important no matter who you are no matter what gender you are i think no matter how old or young you are weightlifting is is crucially important it's an amazing opportunity to celebrate what your body can do at the very least it's amazing for mental health

Yeah. I just, I really love it. I don't know. And then I've, and I, and I'm also a huge fan of low intensity, steady state cardio. So I'm not a big like runner or anything like that. I love to lift weights and then I'll go like spend 10, 20, 30 minutes like walking on the treadmill. Yeah. Walking is like magic. It's like an incredible fat burning activity. It's easy to do. It's easy to sustain.

and you know a lot of people like i'm gonna i'm gonna take up cardio i'm gonna start running and for me like i've done that many times throughout my life and you know how long that lasts for me a month you know for me walking is just it's so easy it's so sustainable it's so beneficial and the reward to agony ratio is so high you get so much benefit from walking and the agony is relatively low

If you compare that to the ratio that you get with running, the reward might be comparably high, but the agony side of that equation is way high too. So it's like, yeah, to me, walking is just the best. It's like the greatest thing there is. How many steps do you try to get a day? Well, I try to get, I mean, on my good days, I try to get like 8,000, 9,000, 10,000. I mean, our iPhones naturally track them now, which is kind of cool to look at. There was a...

You know, I always like go into the data and there was a meta analysis that found that for people under 70 years of age, the greatest impact on

risk for all cause mortality. So the number of steps that was associated with the lowest risk of death by any cause for somebody under 70 years old was between 7,000 and 10,000 steps a day. So I try to get within that sort of like window, seven to 10,000. There's nothing magical about like either end of that spectrum.

but that generally seems to be like a good and easy to attain achievable target for me. Yeah. I aim for the same. I looked at my phone, I think it was yesterday. I had meetings all day. It was under 3000 at 5:00 PM. Well in LA it's hard. You have to intentionally create a walk for yourself because you can't just like walk to the coffee shop or like walk

walk to the gym really. I mean, I could. Yeah. No, it's just not built into the LA ecosystem. I'm lucky I live in a really walkable part of town, but I go to the gym. I have no shame. I go to the gym. I get on the treadmill and I'm just like... Why not? Yeah. I plant myself there. It's a great opportunity to listen to podcasts like this one, like mine. Just these two. Yeah. And I find that when I'm listening to a podcast, when I'm engaging my mind, it just goes by so much faster. How impactful...

is diet and lifestyle on our mental health in general? I think it's, well, so lifestyle is very impactful. I would say exercise is incredibly impactful. Exercise is like medicine for the brain, whether it's depression, anxiety, depression,

exercise should be your first line of defense. With diet, the data is not quite as strong, but the data does suggest that for a significant portion of the depressed population, particularly if the patient who's depressed has a baseline diet of a predominantly junk food rich diet, that by improving their diet, they'll see benefit to their mental health. There was a seminal study

published out of Deakin University's Food and Mood Center. And there have since been other trials that have confirmed this, but this is the one that was sort of like the most groundbreaking because it was the first where they actually used diet as an intervention. So it was a randomized control trial where they took clinically depressed patients suffering from major depressive disorder. And these patients were all eating typical like standard American diets, right? It was actually in Australia that the intervention was performed.

but they were, you know, similar diet, Western diet. And they gave them a Mediterranean style diet, very similar to the kind of diet that I recommend, if not identical. It was inclusive of animal products, red meat, eggs, dark leafy greens, berries, things like that, nuts, seeds. And they found that in the group where, and the, and the rent, the control group was just, you know, had the standard of care. They were just given standard of care.

And the group that had the dietary intervention, they saw like three times the remission rates as compared to the control group. So diet from a mental health standpoint for at least a subset of patients is medicine. But is diet like the, you know, is it going to be the magic bullet for every depressed patient? No, and we shouldn't, you know, we shouldn't treat depression as if it's like, you know, necessitated by a poor diet. That's not necessarily the case. But I think as like a first line defense,

If you are suffering from, you know, any kind of mental health problem, I would say try to adopt a healthier, healthier dietary habits and exercise before reaching to the more intensive, you know, therapies. Yeah. I kind of did it the other way around. When I was first diagnosed, cause I have BPD, I was put on a number of medication and I

I had a steady decline of progress when I was put on those medications. And then when I discovered or finally discovered

tried eating a healthier in a healthier way I eliminated the muffins the giant coffees the way I used to eat was almost like Unrecognizable compared to how I eat now It just gave me a base to go from because I had a more stable mood more stable energy. It wasn't life-changing I still had depression and anxiety But I was able to make more clear decisions when it came to exercise and lifestyle in general So I think it is a good start

Yeah, and no stigma on drugs. Some people certainly benefit from them, but there's this new sort of thinking about depression that's been dubbed the inflammatory cytokine model of depression, that for some patients, depression seems to be sort of an exaggerated behavior, essentially, from somebody who's under inflammatory assault. I mean, we all know that animals, when

when they're sick, when they have an infection, they tend to show, they tend to exhibit behaviors that you might expect to see in a person with depression, right? They retract from the herd. They're less interested in socializing. They see a decline in their appetites. They don't groom as much, right? So these are all kinds of like, they're essentially what are called sickness behaviors, right? And so for some people,

This might be an exaggerated response to an inflammatory, a pro-inflammatory diet and lifestyle. This isn't the case for all depressed people, certainly not, but I mean for some, and this isn't to replace going to see a qualified healthcare professional, of course not, but

But I mean, before I think getting on the, on the, you know, jumping on the pharmacology bandwagon, I think this, it should absolutely be a first line of, of defense. If for no other reason than it's like safe, it's like a safe thing to try to improve your diet and to, you know, exercise a little bit. And I know it can be hard when you're depressed. Like I've been depressed in my life. I've, I've never suffered from major depressive disorder, but I know even with my own little microcosm and of one experience that it can be hard to peel yourself off the couch, but it can be worth it.

I think just taking that first step and putting in effort, you'd be surprised at how much of an impact it can have. Well said, exactly. This is a big question, but how do we get our friends and families to care? Because I know everyone listening, myself included, we have family members who may be

aren't eating the best. We have partners who maybe don't understand how impactful lifestyle and diet can be on our long-term health. Is there anything we can do to push them in the right direction?

Oh man, well, I would say from personal experience, the best way to do that is to just lead by example. You can't, I mean, it's kind of a cliche, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. And ultimately people live the way that they want to live. And you don't want to compromise your relationships with those people in your life.

and become some kind of zealot in your own community. That's, I don't think that that's productive. And I, and I experienced this with the people that mattered most to me in my life, my mom and, and, and also my dad, which I'm now experiencing. So my, my mom, you know, I, there was a time when I would, when I started going down this rabbit hole and I, I came back from the other side of the mountain, so to speak. And I had all these like insights that I couldn't wait to share with my mom and, and revolutionize her diet. And, you know, and that was a futile attempt. And in fact, it,

it started to do a little bit of harm. And that's when I fully retracted. And I was like, I'm going to share my excitement for what I'm learning with my mom. And I'm going to lead by example, but I'm not going to try to impose, you know, even if as strongly as I believe in the power of food and all the data that I have in my head, like you, you, you can't push it on anybody else because it's only going to make them retract and it's gonna make them feel guilt and shame when they, um,

when they do want to comfort themselves with their old, with their old habits. Right. And it's not for you to decide what a person should or shouldn't be doing. Right. And that's how I treat my followers too. I treat, I treat my followers the same way with my dad. I love my dad. And, uh, and you know, it's really hard to see him as a, as a lifelong smoker and he, he drinks and, you know, he's starting now in his mid seventies to see the repercussions of those, of those, uh,

lifelong habits manifest. And, and it's really hard. It's hard for me and my brothers to, to see. And we, we desperately, I mean, we want, we want so badly to, you know, to see him adopt the same kind of healthy diet and lifestyle and, and whatever that, that, that, that we've all adopted, right. It's just innate to us and our generation, but you just can't, you just can't. And you don't want to compromise the relationship in any way. You just have to show love. You have to lead by example and show love and hope that they, you

you know, that you can inspire them to a greater vision of life. I love that advice. I think even from my own personal experience, I didn't start until I was ready. You know, no one could tell me to do otherwise. My husband is a bodybuilder and he was bodybuilding far before I started becoming interested. So it really is individual. And I think leading by example is the best route.

Now it's time for the question we ask every guest. I started this podcast because I believe everyone's pursuit of wellness looks different. What does wellness mean to you? Oh my God. What does wellness mean to me? Oh man. Well, I think it means securing your base, so to speak, so that you can then go out and operate in the world with agency and with power and

in a way that can actually have impact. But if you aren't taking care of yourself first and foremost, I think that's where a lot of people get led astray. So for me, I can only show up in the world and be my best after I've done the self-care. And a lot of people might say to themselves, well, that's, you know, that's, there's like a degree of selfishness there, but there, I think there has to be, I think there's a virtue in a reasonable amount of selfishness.

Whether it means prioritizing a certain budget for you to eat healthy, nourishing food or earmarking time in your day to get to the gym or to get that bright light in through your eyes. Whatever it happens to be, you don't have to do everything all at once. You don't have to live like me or the wellness influencer that you're following on social media. But there has to be concession made where you look after yourself.

Because, you know, it's like that cliche in the airplane, right? You've got to put your own mask on first before you can be expected to help anybody else. And I think that that's definitely true. I mean, when my mom was sick, I remember I wanted to spend every moment with my mom, especially in her remaining months. But I had to take time to go...

to the gym for my own fortitude and mental health. I would sit in the sauna for hours because I loved to do it. I would continue to read and explore the internet and do all the things that I knew was important for my mental well-being.

Even though I knew that like, that that was very valuable time, I had to do it because it would mean that the time that I was spending with my mom, I'd be so much more present and so much more alive for her. And I, and I, and you know, I just, it's a, it's a hard balance to strike sometimes, but I feel like it's something that you just have to do. You have to like, you have to have that mindset about things. Yeah. And so, yeah, secure the base. Really well said. Thank you for that. That was,

Perfect answer. Where can people find you online? Listen to the podcast, all the things. Thank you so much. This was, you ask amazing questions by the way. And it's like, yeah, and it's, it's great because like, I know your podcast is new, but you're like a seasoned pro. No, absolutely not. I'm learning from people like you. No, you're so great. So I'm super active on Instagram at Max Lugavere and it's M-A-X-L-U-G-A-V-E-R-E. And then I host my own podcast called The Genius Life. It's like,

a health and wellness podcast. We break it all down, make these topics super easy and accessible for people from all different backgrounds, academic backgrounds, lay people backgrounds. And then my books are out. So I've written three. My most recent one is called Genius Kitchen, which is a cookbook. So if you like to cook, it's a cookbook and wellness guide. And then my first book

The firstborn, it's always going to have a special place in my heart. It's called Genius Foods and it's a deep dive into all these topics. Thank you, Max. This was awesome. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Go comment on my last Instagram at Mari Llewellyn with the guest you want to see next. I'll be picking one person from the comments to send our bloom greens to. Make sure you hit follow so you never miss my weekly episodes. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to share and leave a review. See you next week.

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