Dr. Shmuel Shields on "A Torah Approach to Better Health Through Nutrition"

I'll just um briefly introduce myself my name is Dr schm Shields I'm a New York State Certified nutritionist I've been in practice for many years and I uh have a practice in Q Garden Hills and I basically besides my practice as a nutritionist I spend a lot of time doing things like this teaching lecturing educating any time I have an opportunity to do a workshop or a seminar I always uh you know look for those kind of opportunities because I feel in this area you tell me if I'm wrong or not there's a great need for Education when it comes to health and wellness uh especially in the Jewish Community but you know generally in the population but certainly in the Jewish Community we could need we we need more help in this area and as we develop the talk tonight you'll see um you'll see why okay I'm just going to ask if you don't mind if everybody can just turn off the uh cell phones just so uh not that it bothers me so much well it does but it will bother other people too I I'll even turn off mine too I think mine's on silent or Buzz or whatever so it won't bother anybody okay um just um a a question I'd like to ask how many people um sitting in this room would like to be world famous anybody okay a few people few people rais their hands to that uh my goal is to get every hand up so I only got a few hands up next question how many people here would like to be multi-millionaires okay we got a few hands up for that but not every hand if you didn't raise your hand to that question I'm assuming you already achieved that goal so now we go on to the last question this last question usually gets every hand up how many people here want to live healthy and happy lives healthy and happy okay that works all the time I get every hand up for that by the way before we go further I just want to make sure to thank uh a wonderful organization called kazak which all of you probably know about or have heard about they put this event together tonight and they coordinated it and we owe them a tremendous sakar Sato for all the wonderful things they do for clus RO and I want to thank this wonderful uh sh for opening its doors and and inviting us here and letting us use the facility tonight so uh thank you to everybody and for those who who' come to this lecture I want to thank you too okay so I'm hoping that over tonight's lecture we can leave here maybe being a little healthier or maybe knowing what we need to do to be a little bit healthier so I'd like to just start off with a little story and The Story Goes Like This there was a young lady that walked into a local library and she took out a book and she came back to the library the very next day returned the book and told the librarian this is the worst book I ever read in my life this book was awful it was a terrible terrible book so the librarian was a little bit curious and she said to the woman well what was wrong with the book so the woman said it had took too many characters and no plot so the librarian turned to her and said so you're the one that took our a telephone book okay um that was a joke but but anyway I I told you that joke for a reason um I happen to be an the author of the book called L 18 chapters to live by which will be available at the end of the talk tonight as a book signing uh it's a book on health it's a book on nutrition it's a book book written for the Jewish Community um it's been very well received and people really have benefited tremendously by this book it's been endorsed by Major uh rabbis and um it's provides a lot of information on how to live healthier how to be healthier there are meal plans recipes how to make your chabas healthier yoven meals healthier so it's a wonderful book for those that might be interested also if you have um family members friends children relatives it's a great gift item because this information that's in the book you will not learn in school I promise you that no matter how many years you stay in school for they just don't teach us what what's the price of the book I'm sorry what's the price of the book oh the price is $15 it's over 200 pages and I will sign it for you okay so any anyway um some of the information tonight will I will quote from from the book itself and so on each chapter deals with a different aspect of of Health um but I wanted to get you laughing a little bit that's why I told that story because laughter is very good for your health okay so so having a sense of humor is is very very important okay we have a Mitzvah in the Torah it's called which means we should guard our souls very well now in the gamarra they learn out that it means means we should guard our health we should take care of our health it's a Mitzvah to take care of our health just like we have other Mitzvah this also is a Mitzvah unfortunately I think this Mitzvah um for whatever reason is not taken that seriously and um it's unfortunate because it's very important to guard our health and we're going to talk about why in a minute um we value our health as Jewish people we know that if if your life you know God forbid is being threatened in some way you're in some sort of physical suaka you can violate chabas you can pick up the phone you can dial an ambulance you can get into a car you whatever you need to do to save a life of someone who's very sick because we put a very high value on on life um having said that why is it that we value our health so much what makes our health so precious to us is it just to have good health just for the sake of having good health or is there something more to it so I want to suggest that there really is something more to it we value our health is because through our health by having good health we are able to serve the reban we able to do the Mitzvah we need a healthy body to enable the Nish to do its job the Nish looks to the body is a vehicle to be able to do the Mitzvah that theama wants us to do so the body is is sort of the vehicle that carries out uh those uh those mitzvah for us and and that's an important reason to guard our health and to take our health seriously uh the body is um has a has has a certain kadua to it because it is the house of the Nish and and as I said it it provides a means for the Nish to express itself in this world and it allows the Nish to do what it has to do provided that we maintain the health of the body and this is something that the rambam says very clearly I'll just a quote uh from the rambam here's what he says this is the the rambam in hilos deos it says by keeping the body in health and vigor one walks in the ways of God for it is impossible to have any understanding or knowledge of the Creator while you are ill therefore it is man's duty to avoid anything that is injurious to the body and to cultivate habits conducive to health and vigor so we have to avoid things that would harm the body whether it's smoking whether it's bad eating habits whether it's obesity whether it's what whatever the things are that could be harmful to the body the rambam is telling us very clearly to avoid those kind of things okay now in the it says something very interesting it says that all man's intentions should be for the sake of Heaven meaning everything we do should be for the sake of heaven we know this from a PK that says in all your ways you should know him in all your ways we should know God so what does that mean even those things that you do for your personal needs in other words walking sleeping bathing eating drinking Etc anything that you do in this world for your own personal needs we should do those things for the sake of heaven so how do we understand that so in the kit sharak it says you should acknowledge God and do things do these things for the sake of serving him so let me see if I can give you a practical example of what we mean by this how do you serve God by eating and drinking right that's a personal need that we all have so how do you serve God by eating and drinking obviously by consuming the kind of foods that God wants you to consume kosha Foods so by doing that we're serving God but there's another step to it even if you're eating permitted Foods even when you're I should even when you're eating permitted Foods um you should you should if you're eating those Foods or drinking those beverages just to satisfy your own personal desires that is not a praiseworthy attitude we should have in mind that the eating and drinking that we're doing is to preserve our strength and our health in order for us to be able to serve uh Hashem that's how we do if we if we take these mundane activities that we all need to do these personal things and we have the Mak we have a thought in our mind that we're doing we're we're eating right now we're eating before we start to eat okay we make a braa we could also have in mind possibly that the reason we're eating is we need the the um the strength and the energy that the food is going to give us in order to be be able to fulfill God's Will by doing that every mouthful of food that you take in becomes a mitah and it's the same thing with sleeping if you sleep just because you find it pleasurable to sleep versus going before you go to sleep at night if you have a thought in your mind I'm going to sleep now because I want to get up well rested so I can DAV so I can do Mitzvah so I can fulfill fulfill hashem's will then every moment of sleep that you're sleeping becomes a Mitzvah versus just the sleeping you know um it's an interesting concept because they say we have to have intent when we do a Mitzvah if you uh get a haircut right you're actually hiring the barber to cut your hair or whoever's cutting the hair uh and when you hire a worker to do something for you there's a Mitzvah to pay that worker on time so when you're paying that person you have to have in mind that you're fulfilling a Mitzvah if you just pay the person and you're not thinking about that you don't get the scar for that Mitzvah so so we have to think a little bit about what we're doing why we're doing things and when it comes to serving Hashem we have an opportunity to keep in mind that every activity we do we should know him in all our ways whether it's drinking sleeping eating whatever activity going out for a walk exercising think for a moment that you're doing it to serve serve Hashem and to make yourself healthier and whatever you're doing is hopefully providing you with a better means to serve Hashem and so on okay let's go a little bit further in the world we live in today uh we are in the midst of a Health crisis we have more sickness today than we may have ever had before uh there's a rabbi in the Q Garden Hills Community Rabbi Noah isak obam I've heard him say that he he doesn't remember the Misha Bak lines being as long as they are now when he was growing up he just doesn't remember seeing such long lines of people coming up making a mish for people that are sick so unfortunately we have a lot of catastrophic illness today heart disease cancer diabetes and and many many other illnesses that plague us um hundreds hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of different kinds of illnesses and diseases that people are suffering from so um one of the goals of my talk today is to try to tell teach us that there is a concept of prevention in the Torah this is a Torah based talk on how the Torah how we could better understand how to take care of our health Through The Eyes of the Torah so the Torah teaches us there's a misfah in the Torah that when you build a house you make a fence around the roof of that house why do you make a fence around the roof of the house so if somebody should go up on that roof they should be protected and not fall and you shouldn't be responsible for having shed blood so you can see the Torah there's a there's a concept of prevention preventing bad things from happening so why not when it comes to our health take steps that can help prevent us from maybe getting sick now the truth of the matter is you cannot change your genetic makeup if you were born into a family that where there's a predisposition to certain illnesses like heart disease or breast cancer or Alzheimer's or diabetes or whatever it might be um all I want to tell you is that you may have a greater risk for these things it doesn't mean you're going to get these illnesses but you can sometimes offset to some degree your genetic makeup by um making the proper lifestyle adjustments that you need to make so if you know if that's why it's important to know your family history to let your doctor know your family history and then do what you can hisus wise to um try to offset the genes that may have been inherited uh and and you'd be surprised it it does make a difference because the lifestyle component is a very powerful one and I've seen people in my practice I've seen people with you know who were diabetic blood sugar high blood pressure and and many times if they lose weight they exercise they eat properly they can literally reverse those conditions and literally bring down numbers that were high Okay so it's something that's a a very important thing to to keep in mind um many of the um codifiers of Jewish law including the rambam including Rabbi Gans freed the benishai the K and the they all have included chapters about proper Health Care in their H writings so we can see it's a very important it's it's an important Mitzvah to take better care of our health and to guard our health and it's been neglected so I'm trying to give you a little kiz today of the importance of this Mitzvah and some of the things we can hopefully do to better Safeguard our health our lives and our well-being okay let's go on to another area I wanted to talk about so the next question is how do we guard our health where where do we get the answers from so there's a very interesting mishna in pavos in the six paric and it's I'll just quote part of the mishna to you Ben bagbag says delve in it meaning the Torah and delve in it again for everything is in it so all the wisdom is in the Torah and from knowing the Torah we can learn some tremendous Health principles and health lessons so if we start with barus we get a little bit of an idea of what healthy eating might look like in in basus Hashem says Hashem God planted a garden in Eden to the East and placed there the man whom he had formed and Hashem God caused to sprout from the ground every tree that was pleasing to sight and good for food so we could see initially at the very beginning we were a plant based we had a plant-based diet whatever grew you know fruits vegetables whatever it was it was a plant-based uh diet in in in ganaden um now let's uh move on a little bit in history in SAA devaram uh when they talk about the land of Errol they praise the Torah Praises erel for the chinam a land of wheat barley grape fig and pomegranate a land of oil olives and date honey um once again you could see the kind of foods that the Torah is talking about the kind of foods that the land yields it's not talking about a land of french fries and ice cream and hot dogs and and cookies and cakes you know what I mean you can see the foods that that we praise the land for healthy foods whole foods that have tremendous nutritional value and foods that can be used to help promote health so these are the kind of things that we we need to think about um there's a PK that says how great are your Works Hashem you made them all with wisdom um so I want to give you a little interesting insight into anatomy and physiology one of the great things about creation uh is that every animal was created by the Creator with a certain anatomy and physiology which makes that animal best suited for a certain way of eating for a certain diet so we know there are animals that are called carnivores Carnivores are what meat eating animals and if you look at the anatomy and physiology of a carnivore you see that it has first of all very very sharp teeth and claws it also has um the saliva of a carnivore is acid which means the meat that it eats starts to break down right away in the mouth of that animal it also has a very large liver and very large kidneys because when you're eating a lot of meat there's a lot of metabolic byproducts toxic byproducts that the body has to eliminate so with a large liver and large kidneys you can quickly get those toxins out of the body it also has a very short digestive tract because the digestive tract doesn't need to be long the meat passes through and you want to get those toxins out very quickly uh so it's it's perfectly designed by the Creator to be a meat eating animal it has all the anatomy and physiology that's necessary for meat eating and then we have a group of animals called the herbivores the herbivores are basically plant eaters they eat plant foods and then we have another group called The omnivores omnivores omnivores and those are animals that can eat plant food and protein or or or or meat so man is probably more like the uh omnivore but the interesting thing about the anatomy and physiology of these animals that eat mostly plants and humans as well we seem to be better designed for a more plant-based diet I'm not saying you have to be a vegetarian to be healthy or that's the only way you should eat but it seems like the plant-based foods are better suited to our anatomy and physiology why because humans don't have acid saliva we have an alkaline saliva which basically means when you eat a piece of bread or starch that food starts to break down in the mouth the alkaline saliva starts to break down that food we also don't have very very very sharp teeth we have a lot of molers which are used for grinding grains and plant Foods uh we also don't have very large livers or kidneys and we have a very very long digestive tract it runs about 30 ft long from beginning to end when you unravel all the intestines and everything it's a 30ft digestive tract which is necessary for the digestion of of plant-based Foods so you could just see from some of these Concepts that our eating should resemble a little bit more how our anatomy and physiology is made up and I and I believe this is my understanding I believe the Torah supports this by telling us when it comes to on shabas and on yantv the light in the shab and Delight in y and it tells us how do we Delight we eat buser we eat meat so the Torah seems to designate certain times when meat eating seems to be more appropriate doesn't it doesn't say it should be done every day I'm not saying it's an AA if you me if you eat meat more often than that but it seems to be limiting our use of these kind of foods in the diet um let me just take a look at something here that I wanted to quote as well um but this is something to give some thought to to understand this this concept there's also an interesting PK inmos Moshe said when in the evening Hashem gives you meat to eat and bread to be satiated in the morning so Rashi rashi's explanation of that verse is it says meat to eat but not to be satiated in other words uh the Torah is teaching a rule of conduct meat should not be eaten to the point of satiation in other words you don't want to overindulge on on on meat um another thing you can think about is that think about how complicated it really is to eat meat all the steps that have you have to go through okay anyway if you for example had to um eat meat from scratch I mean you would have to she your own animal and and caser it and salt and drain all the blood and go through the whole process I think there'd be a lot of people here that wouldn't be eating meat okay or or wouldn't be eating it as often so um because we live in a world where it's it's accessible and easy today we tend to maybe eat it more often than we should the volume and the quantity is is beyond what it should be and there could be Health ramifications because of that so I think the Torah establishes some very important guidelines for us and if we can work with these guidelines it becomes very important uh the next area I want to address just briefly is that the world we live in today most of our foods are processed 100 years ago at the turn of the century 10% of our Foods were processed today 90% of our foods are processed um which means many of the vitamins and minerals have been Stripped Away and taken out of those Foods once that happens the food is not the same you don't get the same nutritional value from it and anytime you're missing nutrients that you're not getting from your Foods it can lead to a disease there are 40 different nutrients that the body requires if you become deficient in any one of them for a long enough period of time it leads to a disease for example if you don't get enough calcium eventually your bones deteriorate and you develop osteoporosis and other nutrients that you don't get may affect your brain or your eyes or your blood vessels or other organs in the body that all depend on these various nutrients so because the diet has been highly refined and processed we are missing out on a lot of these nutrients and the rambam and the kit sharak brings it as well says that the grains that eat should not be refined so all the fiber and brand is sifted out of them and most people today unfortunately use a lot of white flour products where all the good things are taken out okay let me just give you a couple of other uh points here the next point is how do we go about eating healthier and what should we do to eat healthier so I given I gave you some ideas I just want to give you a few other things to think about one of the best ways to keep your diet healthy and to be healthier is to try to have more of a plant-based diet also keep that diet colorful make sure that you have your diet should really look like a rainbow and you should have all the colors uh in in that diet in my book L 18 chapters I I have a chapter that lists all the colors and all the foods that make up those different colors and how to incorporate them in and also the benefits of those different colors for example if you go for many days and you're not and you haven't eaten a food that's orange in color there's a certain chemical in that food that your body is not getting called beta carotene anyone know what beta carotene is good for eyes it's good for the eyes it's also good for the skin it also May reduce the risk of certain cancers one of the reasons we know that beta carotene is good for the eyes is because rabbits eat a lot of carrots and they don't wear glasses so we know that uh thank you so we know that beta carotene is good for the eyes anyway um if you're missing a food that's red in color uh you are missing another important plant chemical called lopine and that also has many benefits in the body uh this is a whole new area they're just discovering they say there could be 10,000 thousand different chemicals that are in Foods they've discovered maybe a thousand so far and out of that thousand only about a hundred have been researched things like lopine and lutein and betacarotene and chlorophyll and all these things but the Plant World and the colorful foods are loaded not only with vitamins and minerals and antioxidants like vitamin C and so on but they're loaded with these various plant chemicals that protect the body from harm and from oxidative damage and from all the other factors that could harm harm the body so I'm just trying to give you a list of some guidelines now on how you could hopefully maintain Better Health by eating the eating the right way um so I would probably suggest to you there is one way of eating today that really a lot of the research has singled out as being one of the healthiest ways of eating um so it's it's actually the Mediterranean way of eating Mediterranean they call it the Mediterranean diet it's not really a diet but it's a way that countries that's that surround the Mediterranean Sea uh it's how they eat um so how many people just by show of hands are somewhat familiar with the Mediterranean way of eating okay okay uh it's a very important um way of eating and I do talk about it in the book L uh but basically it's a colorful diet it's plant-based health healthy fats and oils coming from like olive oil avocado nuts and seeds fish whole grains and when they use animal proteins it's the side dish it's not the main dish see that's the difference and they don't use a lot of red meat it's more fish and chicken and things like that so so that's something to keep in mind uh as well when you're thinking about making changes the Mediterranean way of eating seems to be one of the healthiest ways uh ways of eating okay um the next thing I want to tell you is when it comes to transitioning from going from how you're eating now into a better way of eating many people find it very difficult they don't know how to do it sometimes people feel you got to jump in all at once I would say go slowly the ramom talks very clearly about taking small steps when you transition I do give information in the book L on how to transition slowly into a better way of eating and for all the bad foods and snacks that people typically eat in the book I have substitutes that are healthier whether it's sweeteners uh whatever it is I do try to give healthy alternatives because to tell people not to eat all these foods and not give them any options is not going to work okay so I do give you a whole bunch of options of of how to transition um okay let me I'm going to open up for some comments and questions in a minute uh the last thing I want to really tell you today is that there is a concept that we have where we really are responsible for each other so if you're planning let's say a Sim or you're planning some activity that involves food try to think that some of the guests that are coming may not be able to eat the kind of foods you're serving because they may have a health issue so try to keep that in mind try try to plan your your Simas where that try to plan them in a way that they can be healthier most Caterers will accommodate you if you tell them you want some healthier meals you want some healthier foods you could be a tremendous role model and you could um really make a very powerful impact on other people and you could make it better and easier for other people to participate in your sim so uh I think it's a very important uh important concept okay I'd like to open up maybe for some questions and comments before we do a book signing so any questions or comments that people may have on uh okay this lady here drink milk okay so your question is what's the story with dairy drinking milk is it good to drink it not to drink it how uhuh okay uh it's interesting I did a talk today in Manhattan at a company and that same question came up Dairy is a very infusing group of foods for people many people are lactose intolerant and people do have legitimate uh allergies to dairy products if you know you have a problem with dairy or you don't feel well when you use Dairy so I would say that's a that's a good sign to keep off of it I can also tell you that after the weaning period no animal ever drinks milk again except for humans okay in the wild no animal if you have a cat in the wild will'll never drink milk again after it's weaned we have cats that we bring home domestic cats we give them milk but that's not what they're going to eat in the wild so having said that I'm not telling you to drink it or not drink it I'm not so convinced it's as important that as it's been Led Out led to be there are I'm sorry in general cese of cheese or farmer cheese it used to be said that it was good for you that yeah I'm saying there there are many different opinions my criteria is like this it is a major food group and many people do rely on it as a source of protein a source of calcium I would say if you really don't have a problem with dairy that you're aware of and you can get better quality Dairy like for example organic yogurts or organic eggs and you use them moderately um because even the Mediterranean way of eating they do use cultur dairy products and many civilizations have used cultured dairy products uh whether it's goat milk or fermented you know yogurts or things like that um so so you can't totally Wipe Out the whole food group and say you know it's not good it should never be used because for thousands of years people have used it and it is part of the Mediterranean way I usually advise people to use Dairy as a side dish instead of a main dish if you can get better quality Dairy you know more natural dairy products um less fat less salt maybe organic some of the cultured products are very good like yogurts and things like that and if you use it as a side dish let's say you make yourself a nice healthy salad and tonight you want to make it a little difference you want to put an ounce or two of grated cheese in it or something you know if you use Dairy as long as you don't drown things with dairy that you don't overuse it I think it I think for most people it can still fit in and it could provide some nutritional benefit um but on the other hand if you don't use it and you eat carefully and you get your calcium from other sources I'm not so sure you need to use it you understand uh so it's um that's the way I would would address it let me take this gentleman's question yeah on the topic of dairy if I'm having cereal do we do Whole or 1% okay so so that's a good question he wants to know if you use a whole milk or 1% if he's actually using Dairy um I would say if you can get an organic milk I would start with that because then you don't have the issue of pesticides you don't have the issue of um you know things that the animals are injected with hormones antibiotics and then you also have an animal that was fed the diet it was supposed to be fed so um for example cows are supposed to eat what kind of food anybody know what is a cow supposed seed grass most cows in this country you know what they fed cornmeal yeah cornmeal it's not the natural diet of a cow so U the nutrients that they're getting are not going to be proper and you know green grass actually contains omega-3 oil so getting back to your question I would say um I would maybe whether it has to be whole or 1% it's a little bit hard I would I would probably say maybe a lower fat milk might be better maybe a 2% or 1% um if you if also if you don't want to use a dairy product you could use a uh a non-dairy milk there there are many nondairy milks available today there's they make milk from quinoa they make it from uh from almonds they have all different kinds of non-dairy milks that are fortified with calcium so so there are a lot of options available to us today that we never really really had before by the way with with the milk issues some people might argue that even the whole milk might can be better you know it may have more nutrients that uh so it's uh you know it would depend maybe more on on your medical history and other health issues before I can really fully answer the question uh this the need of the land better for you the need of the camp it's a good question I would say it's probably more dependent on how the animal is raised and what kind of diet the animal has I can tell you there are tribes in Africa today that eat nothing but red meat that's all they eat and they have very good cardiovascular and heart health because the animals they're eating are wild and those animals are eating their natural diets they're eating Greens Greens as I said are a source of Omega-3 oil so when they're eating all this red meat by eating animals that are wild and on their natural diets they're getting omega-3 oil which protects their blood vessels and their cardiovascular system but if the meat isn't isn't um raised properly and it's very fatty and it's injected with hormones and antibiotics and the animal's not on its good diet so that's where it may be be more of a problem you see what I mean they do have stores even locally that that have what they call natur Natural pastured meat where it's given grass and no hormones or antibiotics yeah I noticed you enough for myself when um when I have an unsuccessful s in the job and all for 3 months and I came back to New York I was staying you know at a friend's house it wasn't too good atmosphere but I kept more or less to a very vegetarian diet except maybe when you had chicken times that kind of thing and the funny thing is is during the stress I was able to weather it quite well whereas back way back in 1981 when I was eating the regular diet with the red BS and all all the kinds of ride to the restaurant and the stuff you know happen to me if you're under stress turns into like street drugs in your body uhhuh and you know like that you don't feel as good forget about it uhhuh okay interesting okay anybody someone didn't have a chance yet this lady here yeah what do you think about coffee and chocolate oh they're my two favorite foods she wants to know coffee and chocolate you know the coffee and chocolate used to have bad reputations as well as eggs now they flip-flopped and they say that these foods are have some health benefits to them coffee is a healthy beverage it does have caffeine if you're sensitive to caffeine or you have a problem with caffeine or a medical reason you can't use caffeine that's a different story but in moderations there's nothing really wrong with coffee as a matter of fact there's research today that says it may even reduce the risk of Parkinson's and things like that um when it comes to Chocolate if you're talking about Bittersweet with at least you know dark chocolate cholate with at least a 70% cocoa content lot of health benefits to it you know it does have calories so you can't overindulge on it uh but there are a lot of antioxidants that are coming from the cocoa bean that this dark chocolate is made up of so the higher the cocoa content the more antioxidant benefits you have blood pressure lowering benefits cholesterol lowering benefits that actually are coming from that and you don't need a lot maybe an ounce or two you know you know um so so dark chocolate in moderation certainly is a good thing and coffee in moderation you know water is really your beverage of choice and then when you feel you want something else so there are there's green tea there's coffee there are herbal teas there were other beverages that that could uh fill in okay go ahead uh you mentioned that alternative sweeteners by assume you don't like sugar right so sugar and I know somebody's going to ask about the artificial sweeteners that no good I would stick with um there are some natural sweetness probably something like Truvia or Stevia I heard that those increase your chance of diabetes Stevia yes Stevia I haven't heard anything to that increases your risk of diabetes matter of fact they say Stevia is one of the better sweeteners for someone who is diabetic because it does it does not really spike your blood sugars you know it's one of the few sweeteners that really won't it's first of all it's not a sugar it's not a sugar and it's not an artificial sweet it's a it's a no Stevia is actually a plant-based sweetener it's made from a plant that happens to have a sweet taste so they make it in liquid form they make it in powdered form and it's it's used to add a sweet taste to to a beverage or or whatever um yeah what about uh the fish uh it's better to eat wild or fish so the question was if you didn't hear it fish wild or or farmed so wild is going to be a better choice it's going to be a better choice but um there are some that argue that even farmed fish because it does have a pretty high omega-3 content uh is probably beneficial too I I I don't think I would go overboard with the farmed I would try to use more of the wild if you could by the way most canned salmon is actually wild so if you're currently eating tuna which has a much higher Mercury content I would switch over to a canned salmon you know but fish is a very important food almost every country in the world that eats fish as a regular part of their diet has a very good cardiovascular health and better longevity and things like that in some of the Scandinavian countries they might eat fish five or more times a week but but you should try to get fish in a few times you know at least two or three times a week um and if you don't use tuna that much you're probably better off because of the higher Mercury content so choose other kinds of fish and and get it in someone who didn't have a chance yet anybody here uh I'll come back to you in a minute let me just yeah go ahead we're talking about um eliminating your meat intake so then how many times a week would you suggest okay it's it's a good question she wants to know how many times a week would I suggest having meat I don't know if I can give an answer that's going to work for everybody in the room because some people um may need a little bit more animal protein than others you know what I mean they might feel that they have more energy and they might feel better with a little bit more animal protein so it's very hard to say exactly how many times a week I would say more importantly um even if it's let's say a few times a week if your portions are small in other words they say like when it comes to red meat red meat I usually recommend not more than once a week for people that are going to eat it and even then the portion should be like the size of a deck of cards about 3 3 and 1/2 o um if you when you say meat are you including Chicken in that and things like that so I would say if you feel a few times a week you know you feel better or you feel your meal plans work out better uh with it a few times a week as long as you know you're getting enough fiber and enough colorful fruits and vegetables and it's a whole food diet and it's not really the main part of your meal meal but more of a side dish so then it could probably fit in a few times a week I mean uh some people with certain medical conditions like diabetes for example the protein is going to be a stabilizing force on their blood sugars you know so it it it sometimes helps them a little bit as as well um okay any other questions or comments uh anybody here yeah yeah uh what about the vitamins is it like I hear that it's really doesn't do nothing the research mean a multivitamin like a multivitamin supp okay I I would tell you like this in today's world you can argue the point for taking a multivitamin supplement because our foods are processed do you know when you pull a head of spinach out of the ground a fresh head of spinach one day later it loses 50% of its vitamin C so when that head of spinach is pulled out of the ground somewhere in Ohio and it's put on a truck and it goes to the supermarket and it sits there for a couple of days you buy it it goes into your refrigerator for 2 or 3 days and then by the time you eat that spinach it's 2 weeks old so you have a lot of losses along the way I'm not saying it doesn't have anything but you've lost a lot when your grandparents grew spinach they grew it in the backyard organically they pulled it out on the plate that night I'll tell you if you buy when spinach is picked out of the ground if that spinach is going to be Frozen the Frozen holds on to the nutritional value better than the fresh you see so getting back to your question on vitamins and minerals if I did a blood test on everybody in this room right now 50 to 80% of the people in this room would have a low vitamin D level I would guarantee it anybody here have their vitamin D level checked recently how many people were low are the ones that got everybody who had them checked was low so to say for anybody for a doctor or anybody else to say there's no you don't need vitamins or you shouldn't take them is really not accurate because the first thing a doctor is going to do if your vitamin D level is low is going to recommend the vitamin D supplement I I would say that there are problems if a vitamin supplement is not properly designed or it doesn't have the right mix of vitamins and minerals or it's not made properly you may not get much absorption out of it but if a vitamin or mineral is made properly and balanc properly I'll give you an example um let me show you I must have known you were going to ask the question right cuz I happen to have a bottle of vitamins and minerals here this is a Formula that I I formulated um it's called Vitter shield and I I spent a a lot of time doing research to put together a good formula because a lot of my patients were coming to me with formulas that were not well designed you know not wellmade so I put together my own formula it has more Vitamin D it has more you know more nutrients than other formulas in terms of the vitamin D I put extra vitamin D in there's no sugar there's no starch there's no coloring there's no preservatives there's no tar there's no you know things that could be other vitamins so I would say if it's a properly designed vitamin and it has the right formula and it's made well that along with good eating habits could cover a lot of nutritional basis you know what I mean I don't think you have to go overboard some people use too many supplements when I see people in my practice I the first thing I tell them to do bring in your supplements somebody once came in with a suitcase I opened it up I couldn't believe it there were 40 bottles in there so the first question I had for the person is how long does it take you to take these supplements he told me I spend uh 20 minutes a day just swallowing my supplements imagine that 20 minutes is a long time to take supplements so I I went through them all and I told them you're taking far far too many things and he even told me that he started to have like nose bleeds because um I looked at some of the supplements he's taking he was taking things like a green tea supplement he was taking a a garlic supplement he was taking gko Bobo and he was taking you know what all those things have in common they're all blood thinners and that may have caused his his nose bleed the you know that he was getting and he was also taking a baby aspirin also another blood thinner so too much of a good thing is not a good thing you know so so a lot of people just Unfortunately they read a magazine or whatever and they and they buy something that may not be appropriate for them uh but if they if they really if you supplement sensibly and you eat sensibly then you can hopefully get the best of uh of Both Worlds um okay um let me just see anybody else didn't have a chance yet uh maybe we'll take just one or two more questions okay you want to go ahead yeah what about eating fresh ginger I could eat that in the morning with my uh coffee just with the coffee I have to bite my Ginger uhhuh frh fresh ginger is very healthy it's for the circulatory system for the digestive system yeah again I don't know you know I I you don't want to do too much you know at one time but but but fresh ginger has has a lot of health benefits as a lot of herbs and and plants do so to season foods with these things using garlic or Ginger uh are excellent things to use when you're cooking or adding to foods and so on yeah how about soy soy products so chees yeah so when it comes to Soy a lot of the soy that we use is very heavily processed uh I would stay away from things like soy powders but if you really use things like there are soy Foods called Tempe they're the edamami beans if it's the real soy that really has them been processed those are good choices um tofu is a little bit more processed than the edamami or the um Tempe so I wouldn't a lot of tofu but uh I think soy can fit into a healthy meal schedule especially if the soy is being used to replace some of the animal protein it is a plant protein there are a lot of health benefits to it and I would say in moderation if it's a good quality soy uh it it could play a I think a healthy role in the diet okay um yeah you mentioned Stevia as a replacement for sugar what about honey honey the sugar and H honey okay honey is more of a food item you know it is a food item but it is a sugar and if you do have a blood sugar disease like diabetes honey will raise your blood sugar so it may not be the best thing for everybody but if your blood sugar is are normal and you're basically healthy and you use it sparingly it it could be used as a sweetener um but it does have an it does have an impact on on blood sugar so you just have to be be aware of that doesn't Stevia doesn't Stevia really even a diabetic can use Stevia you know again I wouldn't use anything excessively I would just try even if you're using Stevia use the bare amount that you need you know uh of these things and then maybe you take time off from using it also yeah got alies to things like apples and hairs you know where I start coughing a lot when I had apples and um question the the bad apples from the bre get the supermarket then I was reading a book called brain allergies I probably heard of it where they they say that rising of people who are on the Spectrum and all they should stay away from it because because people get giggly and that kind of thing Allergies have you done any Research into that into allergy specifically or just is book called I may have heard the book I haven't read the book but uh but it sounds interesting something to look into maybe um okay I I think if there are any other questions or comments I I am going to be here if anybody if you came in a little bit late uh we did promote the event uh we said at the end there would be a book signing I'm the author of the book called L 18 chapters to live by uh it's a wonderful book a lot of practical and interesting information it's got stories in here very easy to read people have gotten tremendous benefit from it I have people that have called me and said the book changed their life changed the way they eat an excellent book to help your family to help children children uh and an excellent gift item for people as well so I do have some copies um I I will sign copies for anybody that's interested the cost of the book is $15 and they can be paid for by check uh cash or even credit card so I want to just thank once again kazak uh for the sh who've let us come and um I want to thank you for coming out I hope this was uh helpful to you and um if there aren't any other comments or questions anybody who's interested and wants to come have another Le I'm sorry have another Le I don't know I got to speak to the boss that's uh he's not here but uh uh you'd have to call them and see right now I don't have anything scheduled officially but uh I would hope to if anybody wants a a card and wants to keep in contact me with that way I have some cards also okay thank you so much for coming