The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Top 5 Holiday Superfoods You Didn’t Know You Needed

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

Discover how to transform your holiday feast into a wellness wonderland with scientifically-proven superfoods that do more than just taste great. Dr. Axe reveals the hidden health benefits behind five festive favorites, backed by groundbreaking research and practical tips for incorporating them into your holiday meals. Explore how these seasonal superfoods can boost your immunity, support heart health, and enhance your overall wellness during the celebratory season. You’ll learn: The surprising truth about cranberries that's revolutionizing heart health research The common spice in your cabinet that could be the missing link to balanced blood sugar The secret power hidden in specific vegetables that could transform your health  Tune in to revolutionize your holiday menu with these evidence-based superfood strategies. You'll walk away with practical tips for creating delicious, nutrient-dense holiday dishes that your family will love, plus the scientific knowledge to understand exactly how these foods are supporting your health. #nutrition #superfood #draxe Want more of The Dr. Josh Axe Show? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook TikTok Website ------  Staying healthy in today's world is an upstream battle. Subscribe to Wellness Weekly, your 5-minute dose of sound health advice to help you grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. Every Wednesday, you'll get:  Holistic health news & life-hacks from a biblical world view Powerful free resources including classes, Q&As, and guides from Dr. Axe The latest episodes of The Dr. Josh Axe Show Submit your questions via voice memo to be featured on the show → speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe  ------  Links:  https://www.lifelongwellness.org/wellness-academy/health/5-science-backed-health-benefits-of-cranberries/ https://www.healthshots.com/healthy-eating/superfoods/health-benefits-of-cranberries/ https://www.eatingwell.com/cranberry-health-benefits-8726317 https://foodrevolution.org/blog/is-cinnamon-healthy/ https://www.health.com/nutrition/sweet-potato-health-benefits https://www.verywellhealth.com/fall-produce-for-brain-health-8725726 https://www.verywellhealth.com/superfoods-8726545/  ------  Ads:  Even if your bloodwork looks "normal," your symptoms could point to Cell Danger Response (CDR). Discover how to break free from CDR and unlock your full potential at https://beyondbloodwork.com/. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you've been doing everything right, eating clean, exercising, but somehow you're still not feeling your best, your energy's dragging, your memory is slipping and it's frustrating because you know there's more to your potential. Well, what if the issue isn't just in your routine, but it's deep down inside your cells? You know, you're investing in the best supplements, working out regularly and sticking to a clean diet. but if your cells are stuck in what's called cell danger response, all the hard work might not be paying off as it should. Think of your cells like a house under renovation. You can bring in the highest quality materials like the best supplements in clean foods, but if the workers inside the house or are on lockdown because of a storm, nothing gets done. The materials just pile up unused. That's what happens when your cells are in CDR. They can't.

fully use the good stuff you're giving them. Getting out of CDR, the cell danger response, is the key to unlocking your body's full potential. When your cells are no longer in protective mode, they can finally use the nutrients, hormones, and energy you're working so hard to provide. That's when everything starts to click. Your energy improves, your workouts become more efficient, and you start to feel like yourself again. Go to beyond bloodwork.com. to learn how to break free from cell danger response and make the effort pay off. Hey everyone, welcome to Dr. Josh Axe show. I'm your host, Dr. Axe.

In each and every week on this show, we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. Today I'm going to be talking about the five superfoods that you should be consuming around the holidays to help you heal. There are a lot of different options. There are a lot of different foods that you can be able to be. exposed to. But if you truly want to help heal your body, these are some of the absolute best, according to the scientific evidence. And I'm going to dive deep into the nutritional profiles

of certain types of berries, including cranberries, of certain herbals like cinnamon and cardam, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, certain types of nuts, and certain crucifers specials like Brussels sprouts that have been shown to help our body heal. Also, when you look at traditional Chinese medicine and Iyerveda. There is an idea around eating foods that are in season and eating certain foods that are going to support organ systems at different times of the year. I'm going to dive into that and a whole lot more on today's episode. Also, before I dive in, make sure to subscribe to the podcast and sign up for my weekly wellness newsletter at the link in the show notes. This is completely separate from my website. This is a very unique newsletter where you get free PDFs. You

get advanced topics, you get the podcast notes, and a whole lot more. So make sure to check that out and subscribe in the show notes. Well, the first thing I want to say is that if you are going to support your body nutritionally, there are certain nutrients you want during different seasons of the year. And we're talking about the holidays, especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas, you want to focus on foods that tend to be orange in color, that tend to be yellow in color, and that tend to be this sort of dark blue, purple, red, those sort of colors as well, tend to be the most nourishing for people. But also there are certain compounds in foods that are various colors that are beneficial that I'll walk you through in a minute. But one of the first groups of foods that has tremendous benefits for you around the holidays are cranberries.

And cranberries have compounds called anthocyanins. And these forms of antioxidants have been shown to how. relieve women and prevent and treat urinary tract infections and generally keep your urinary tract, your kidneys, and bladder healthy. And there is a comprehensive review of 20 studies involving over 3,000 participants, and they found that cranberry products reduce the risk of recurrent UTIs by 26% and otherwise healthy women. They also were shown to promote heart health. And we know around the holiday season is when many people experience heart attacks. And that being said, the antioxidants found in cranberries have been shown in a study

to reduce inflammation, lower cortisol levels, and support cardiovascular health. And it has antioxidant properties that supports cellular health, reducing oxidative stress that is linked to aging and promoting longevity. So cranberries have loads and loads and loads of benefits. I also want to mention, if cranberries aren't available, there are some other berries that have some similar qualities of these anthocyanins, and they tend to be the berries or fruits that are more sour or berry-looking. Another one is corinths. Red and black carots have some of these compounds. Aronia berries also have some of these compounds. Blueberries are probably the next closest one, so if you can't do cranberries, blueberries are a great option as well as are as our

pomegranates in that similar nature. You'll notice that cranberries and pomegranates have a very similar red color to them. And so that's another good one. So again, cranberry, do cranberry salad, do cranberry smoothies, cranberry juice, but cranberries are great during the holidays season because of their benefits around heart health, around urinary bladder health, and also being a great longevity food. The second superfood you want to consider consuming around the holidays is cinnamon. Now, There are numerous reasons why cinnamon is so amazing, but number one has to do with blood sugar regulation. There is a metanalysis of 16 studies and they found that cinnamon significantly reduced fasting

blood sugar levels and helped fight pre-diabetes, diabetes, and insulin resistance. Also, Cimonyl has major anti-inflammatory benefits due to a compound called cinemaldehyde. And this anti-inflammatory compound has been shown to be effective at treating things like we talked about diabetes. but also issues like PCOS, dementia, and a number of other health issues. And when you look at the antioxidant activity of cinnamon, cinnamon ranks in the top five herbs up there with clove in terms of its antioxidant properties. And of course, when you're around the holidays, we tend to overconsume carbohydrates, right?

And so cinnamon is probably maybe the most powerful food I could list here today in terms of the number one superfood you should get around the holiday season because of its ability to balance blood sugar. Now, one of the ways I love to get cinnamon is via pumpkin pie spice. And that's a blend of cinnamon along with clove, nutmeg, sometimes all spice, sometimes cardamins, sometimes almost always ginger when you look at the blend that's in there, but cinnamon is always in there. But pumpkin pie spice is really great to add to your smoothies in the morning. you could add a little bit of extra cinnamon to your pumpkin pie recipe, but cinnamon has loads and loads and loads of benefits about a teaspoon a day

would be tremendous for you and for your health. And other herbs similar to cinnamon, I mentioned cardamom earlier. Cardamom has major benefits for digestive health. And so that's another one I would encourage you. When you're eating more food around the holidays, cardam reduces gas and bloating. It also has blood sugar benefits. And so combining cinnamon and cardam, adding that to your cough,

adding it to hot chocolate can be great. So those two flavors in particular, cinnamon, cardamom, these herbs that have been used for thousands of years for their medicinal benefits are ones you're going to want to incorporate around the holiday. Number three food group to heal around the holidays are squashes, things like and potatoes like sweet potato, pumpkin, and forms of squash like butternut squash. And there's a principle in Chinese medicine that in the fall season, especially early fall, you want to consume more foods that are orange and that yellow in color. So spaghetti squash, acorn squash, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, these foods are very nourishing to your pancreas. And these are foods that are naturally sweet, but also don't have to

necessarily tax your pancreas and blood sugar levels. What I love to do is take sweet potato pumpkin and squashes and use pumpkin pie spice, use cinnamon, use ginger, use these sort of herbals on there to actually bring a little bit of flavor to them, but also create additional health benefits. Now, when we're looking at sweet potatoes and pumpkin and squash in particular, they are very rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, beta-carotene, fiber. A medium-sized sweet potato provides over 400% of your daily recommended of vitamin A. It's also, they are also incredibly high in potassium.

We tend to over-consume sodium during the high. holidays and not get enough potassium in our diet. Potassium helps lower blood pressure, decreasing your risk of a heart attack or stroke. So we know that in particular, sweet potatoes and these squashes are tremendous around this time of year. And there are, again, this is the number one food recommended in the fall season in Chinese medicine. I want to also mention that there was a study published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition showing that there are certain forms of cancer that sweet potatoes and pumpkin actually help fight. And of course, eye health macular degeneration because of all the vitamin A content is also

something that's very, very high in. But these are beneficial. Now, I want to mention another big bonus here. When I have people that struggle with constipation, which tends to happen around the holidays, right? You might notice this for yourself. When you travel, you don't have as many bowel movements. And doing foods like sweet potatoes, pumpkin and squash in a smoothie can help this.

So what I will do oftentimes is rather than doing fruit in a smoothie is I'll take a half of sweet potato along with some flax meal and some, you know, some protein powder, typically vanilla flavored and then I'll add in like a whole teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice. And I'll do that in the morning. And it's really good for bowel movements and bowel help. Do that. Drink a lot of water. Go on some walks.

And it's going to help you with your bowel movements. But there are loads. And one of the reasons why these foods are so beneficial, they're very high in fiber. especially pumpkin. I mean, pumpkin is very, very high in fiber. And sweet potatoes and squash are fairly high too, that when you get this fiber, it's great for gut health. It's good for feeding the good bacteria in your gut. So loads and loads of benefits here as we're talking about sweet potatoes, pumpkin and squash. I also do want to mention, sometimes people get concerned about the carbs in sweet potatoes in particular. And pumpkin and squash actually tend to be lower than sweet potatoes are.

but it's relatively low on the glycemic index and pumpkin and squash are very low. There's a study published in the Journal of Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and they found that those people who consumed more sweet potatoes and pumpkin had lower blood sugar levels than others. And so it's important to recognize that this tends to be a fine food, especially if you're doing it with pumpkin pie, spice, and cinnamon, and you're not doing a lot more carbs in your other meals and loading up on other carbs. This is probably the ideal carb for anyone wanting to support their blood sugar balance. And there are a lot of great ways to do this.

Again, just throwing them in the oven for an hour at 400 and letting them just bake, you know, just like that. Tremendous benefits. Something I'll do is I'll add, again, pumpkin pie spice, sometimes add some quick oats to it, some raw oats, and it almost tastes like a little bit of an oatmeal cookie. You can add pumpkin puree to soup. You can do butternut squash soup. You can do pumpkin soup. You can do smoothies. You can do, of course, sweet potato pie and pumpkin casseroles and other options there.

And, you know, adding in things like grass-fed butter or coconut milk can also be very complimentary along with, again, cinnamon and ginger and some of those sort of herbals there. As we're talking about sweet potatoes. Now, listen, you can definitely make sweet potato pie very unhealthy by doing conventional marshmallows and adding about a pound of sugar to it. but again, you can't eat them a healthy way by just adding a little bit of grass-fed butter to it or some pumpkin pie spice and or adding it to a smoothie as I talked about earlier. So loads of benefits there as we talk about these sweet potatoes and pumpkin and squash. Number four are nuts like walnuts, pecans, almonds. You know, these foods are heart healthy and especially walnuts and pecans.

You know, pecans are high in allergic acid. It's probably the most powerful anti-aging compound. on the planet that we know of that turns into uralithin A. Walnuts are very high in omega-3 fatty acids and other unique antioxidants to support heart health, weight management, brain and neurological health. So walnuts and pecans are great options. When you are traveling around the holidays,

having snacks of walnuts, pecans, and listen, I also do like almonds, macadamia nuts, Brazil nuts. You know, these can be great as well, pumpkin seeds. but walnuts and pecans in particular are tend to be more complimentary around a lot of the foods we're talking about around the holiday season. Of course, peacom pie is very popular. And you can do a lower sugar, healthier version of that if you focus on doing more dates as the sweetener and not trying to make it too sweet. Okay. And doing a pie crust, what I did, I did a pie crust this year.

And I took, now Chelsea typically does an almond flour pie crust, which is great. I like to try new things. And so I did a mixture of roasted chestnuts, oat flour, and iron corn flour. And I mixed date in there with some sea salt and coconut oil. And that was fantastic. It was amazing. So you can get creative there with your pie crust, but you can make a pie crust out of nuts, like pecans, like walnuts, like almonds, like macadamia.

And they're really delicious doing it. But almond flour is probably the easiest to do there. as that sort of option. But again, when you're traveling, so you can do pie crust, you can use walnuts and pecans just as a snack when you're traveling or on an airplane tend to be better options than most others.

And you can do that with a handful of dried cranberries. Okay, there you go. Dried cranberries or dried blueberries with some walnuts and pecans. It's sort of a trail mix you can have when you're traveling there as well. A great way to do it. Last food here,

I want to talk about superfood around the holidays are Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts are an incredible superfood. Now, we tend to hear people talk more about the benefits of broccoli, sometimes even cauliflower and other cruciferous vegetables, but Brussels sprouts are a crucifrous vegetable that are very high in vitamin U or sulfur, which have powerful detoxification properties. So if you want to detoxify your body and fight cancer, Brussels sprouts are one of the top food you can consume. Brussels sprouts, another thing that makes them so unique, is not only are they very, very high in vitamin U and sulfur, which supports detoxification, they're also an excellent source of

vitamin C. They're very high in vitamin K. They're extremely high in fiber and antioxidants. And so as we're talking about Brussels sprouts, they are an incredible superfood. And they contain compounds like glucose andylates. And these have been studied for, again, their anti-cancer benefits. We know cruciferous vegetables. Many of them have this, but Brussels sprouts are particularly high in this compound that has these anti-cancer properties. And they're also great for digestive health if you cook them. I am not a fan of raw Brussels sprouts. I think they're too hard in the digestive system.

But I do love them if they're steamed or if they're baked. I mean, one thing you do is Coke them in butter or coconut oil, bake them or fry them up in butter or coconut oil. Or just steam them and have them with something like. like a hummus or tahini sauce, garlic sauce, something like that. That's also, or a raw vegan cheese or a real true raw cheese as well. So there are lots of great ways to do Brussels sprouts. I had done before kind of frying them up in like a coconut olive oil or a butter and doing a little bit of honey with them. They also go very, very good with balsamic vinegar.

So lots of great ways to get Brussels sprouts in. But a simple way, again, you can drizzle with olive oil, add garlic to them, add them to casserole, but Brussels sprouts are an amazing superfood you want to consider incorporating around the holidays. And the reality is this is that be mindful around the holidays of what you're eating. Incorporate these five superfoods and superfood groups as much as you possibly can. And you're going to have substantial health benefits from the antioxidant rich benefits of cranberries and cinnamon to the nutrient dense benefits of sweet potatoes, nuts, and Brussels sprouts. these superfoods are going to help you stay healthy around the holidays. And I want to say thank you so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Jack show.

I do this show because I want to help you heal. I want to help you grow. I want to help you be the best you. And know that I am praying for you around the holidays for extraordinary health. And I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone out there. Hey, make sure to subscribe, like, and share this podcast. I just want to say, one, I am thankful and great. grateful for all of you that are subscribers and that have shared any single episode over the past

couple of years of this podcast. I'm so, so grateful for you and being on mission with me. We're making a real difference in the world. Again, have an amazing holiday and a Merry Christmas. I'll see you on the next episode.