Change Your Brain Every Day - Brain Healthy Dishes to Try During Thanksgiving

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

We live in a culture where we celebrate with food. It’s ironic that most of the food we choose to celebrate is actually hurting us, and is therefore nothing to celebrate. So what are our options? In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen give you some suggestions for healthy (and delicious!) dishes you can bring to the next family gathering to help set an example of wellness for your loved ones.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We are talking about gratitude versus gluttony through the holidays. Which one are you going to show? Do you want to be healthy or do you want to

feel miserable through the holidays? Christmas Day, number one day of the year for heart attacks. And there's a reason for that. It's because of all that we give into, all the bad habits that we have established as a society, the culture that we live through with the holidays. So before we- And we try not to do that. We try not to do that. Because we love ourselves. It's about love using Thanksgiving or the birth of Jesus or holiday

parties as a reason to hurt other people. Brain warriors, it just doesn't make sense to us at all. And one thing that's really interesting, we aren't perfect. It's not like we wake up and we're like, oh, everything we do is going to be perfect today. No, it's a conscious choice. We have days where we don't want to do it. We have days where maybe we have a bump in the road and we make a mistake, but we consciously are aware and using these same strategies we're giving you to be healthy. So Olympic athletes are pretty perfect. And I want people to think you don't have to even do the 5%. It just depends on where you're at. Initially, people go, oh, I do it right 80% of the time. Or if you remember Bill Phillips' book, Body for Life, there was cheat days, right? I'm not a fan of cheat days at all. Do it six days and then Sunday gorge and do anything you want.

I don't like that plan. And yeah, no, I'm not a fan of that. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has situations, but the more you do the right things, the better you're going to feel. So I have a podcast review that's actually very interesting. Good morning. I listened to your talk about our skulls being too small. I am faculty in the animal science department at a community college just north of Boston. For years, a condition called called syringomyelia has plagued cavalier King Charles spaniels. Your favorite. One of my favorite.

Well, no, white shepherds are my favorite. But I bought a King Charles cavalier for my parents, and they just adore Vinny. It is the issue where the skull is too small due to selective breeding and the brain does not fit. The ramification for these dogs are excessive scratching at the neck, pain, and seizures. And as soon as I heard your podcast, I had to comment. I thoroughly enjoy your podcast. I participated in your weekly webcast several years ago on Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. Getting rid of the ants has been a game changer for me. Thank you both. Carol W. Lynn from Massachusetts. Love that. You know, I actually

heard about, I've heard about this for a long time with dog breeding. I believe that's one of the problems with Dobermans too, because we had Dobermans when I was growing up. We had Dobermans and Shepherds. And I love them. And two of them were amazing and two of them were just completely psychotic. And no training, no love, like they were never beaten. They just went a little crazy. And I had heard that that was a problem with Dobermans too for certain breeding lines. So yeah, it's an issue. So interesting. And wait, when we get to Brain in the News next podcast, there is something that's just going to blow your mind, very much like the small skulls causing lots of emotional problems. Okay, we're back to the holidays. We're coming into Thanksgiving and we are thankful for all of you who listen or watch. And we're really grateful for our brain

warrior community. And brain warriors don't celebrate with food that hurts other people. It just amazes me how people just don't think about that at all. Right. And one of the strategies that I want to give you for this podcast, we told you we were going to give you tips. So what I started doing when I first really got into changing how we eat in our home, it's not easy when you come from a, especially a Middle Eastern family or a Hispanic family or many different cultures, they celebrate with food. Italian family. Right. They celebrate with food, right? We know that. Southern families. Pretty much most families. So I knew it was going to be challenging at the holidays. And so I started trying to figure out what I was going

to do. Cause when we go to those places now, interestingly enough, there's plenty of food now when we go, cause several of your siblings now, like your sister grows her own produce, like she, beautiful, beautiful salads that she brings and fruit plates and gluten-free stuff. It's gorgeous. But that wasn't the case when we started. And so I started bringing my own because it does two things. I started bringing two or three things, two or three dishes that were gluten-free, dairy-free, low glycemic, and they were healthy and they were tasty. And it did a couple of things.

Number one, it gave me, us, something to eat. Number two, it served as an example that healthy food doesn't have to be miserable, that eating healthy at the holidays, it can still be beautiful, it can be tasty. And I'm going to set that example. It starts with you. So you beating other people over the head doesn't generally work.

You living as an example and bringing food to them and giving this as a gift, giving health as a gift is generally a lot more effective. So you have to live it. If you don't live it, you can't give it. And when we did the Daniel plan, I came up with this phrase, get it. Get the information by listening to the podcast, reading the Brain Warriors Way book, getting the cookbook. Get this information. And then you have to give it away.

Why? Because it's in the act of giving that you get to keep it because by creating your own support group makes it more likely you're going to stay on the program forever and so right and sometimes you find yourself in precarious positions so i ended up being hosting a party a birthday party for an 18 year old and this group of people had never been exposed to the way we eat. And it wasn't really the time for me to, in an 18 year old's birthday party, the time for me to like lecture everyone and do everything my way.

So what I did instead, because you find yourself in those positions and you're like, well, I'm just, it's too awkward and I'm not gonna make it miserable for the person I'm throwing the party for. So here's what I did instead. We still live, you know, our message. I made burgers, but I made grass-fed burgers and then I

had the option of the bun or lettuce wraps and the person who was who was in charge of bringing desserts of course brought cupcakes but we had gluten-free dairy-free low glycemic brownies which are in the cookbook so as an option so point is, is if you can't make it perfect, do the next best thing, you still be the example and you have options. Well, let's talk about healthy foods. So you can cut up veggies or get a veggie tray. Right. You can have guacamole.

Salsa. Salsa. Hummus. People like these things. I have a recipe for- You can have cut up low glycemic fruit. You make an amazing turkey. I mean, your turkey is just- On the cover is cupcakes.

There's cupcakes, there's brownies, there's- But still, even with those, you don't want them to be the staple. You want the vegetables to be the staple. Do you know there's less sugar those are lower glycemic than the salads because of the tomatoes interesting yes the tomatoes are actually they're higher glycemic but they're higher glycemic than the desserts in this book so my point being it's not impossible to do there's a recipe in there for one of my favorites is the basil pesto. There's so many things you can do that make it tasty and doable and just really healthy.

You can do spa water with watermelon and mint and blueberries for parties. That's what we do. The spa water is really popular. Yeah. Tastes good and it's beautiful. And there's like no calories. One of the things that makes it work is just the aesthetics. Whenever something is really pretty, for whatever reason, people associate it with tasting good. So right there, people,

they're interested. They're attracted to it. So there are all sorts of different flavored sparkling waters. And sometimes just adding a little bit of liquid stevia can help it. So again, no calories. I just want you to think, you can get well quickly with this one simple tip. You just need to find 20 foods you love that love you back. And so I love guacamole. And I mean, you can't have like a ton because it's fairly calorie dense, but it's good for you. It tastes good. And yes, you could do it with potato chips. That's not good for you. Tastes good, not good for you. Or you could do it with celery, or you could do it with potato chips. That's not good for you. Tastes good, not good for you. Or you could do it with celery.

Or you could do it with carrots. Or you could do it with cauliflower. Or you could do it with broccoli. Or you could do it with orange, yellow, red, green bell peppers. It literally takes very little time to make kale chips. And again, loving food that loves you back is just so important. Love it. So we would love to hear from you if any of these tips have helped you, which tip you liked the best.

If you have tips for us, also leave that. Leave us your questions and comments. You can go to Apple Podcast. You can go to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com and leave us a question or a comment. We want to hear from you and we will enter you into a raffle to win the cookbook, the one we've been talking about with all the great recipes for the holidays. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that

helps others find the podcast. If you're considering coming to Amen Clinics or trying some of the brain healthy supplements from BrainMD, you can use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at brainmdhealth.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.