Mindful Bites: How What You Eat Impacts How You Feel – Keith Kurlander & Dr. Will Van Derveer – HPP 147

Keith Kurlander [00:00:06]:
Thank you for joining us for the Higher Practice podcast. I’m Keith Kurlander with Dr. Will Van Derveer, and this is the podcast where we explore what it takes to achieve optimal mental health.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:00:19]:
Hey, Keith.

Keith Kurlander [00:00:20]:
Hey, there.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:00:22]:
Good to see you.

Keith Kurlander [00:00:23]:
We are. Yeah. We’re heading in food.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:00:26]:
Yeah. We’re heading into the end of the year. We want to cover an important topic of food and mood and how what you eat can really impact how your brain functions, how you feel, longevity, your ability to do the things you want to do. There’s probably something for everyone in that list.

Keith Kurlander [00:00:42]:
Yeah. Yeah, let’s do it. Where should we start off? Food’s a big topic in my mind.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:00:49]:
You know, I’ve. I’ve taught a lot on these topics, and so I have a bit of a kind of overview that I could throw out just as a framework. I think it starts with. On a cultural level. We’ve had messaging from the U.S. rDA and the FDA of what constitutes a healthy diet and the food pyramid. Many, many people, at least in our generation, can remember in the 70s being taught the food pyramid. And did they teach that in your.

Keith Kurlander [00:01:20]:
I live the food pyramid? Yeah, they got it at the.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:01:27]:
At the floor of the food pyramid in the 70s with the biggest layer. So the foundation of what you’re supposed to eat is carbohydrates. So rice, bread, wheat, anything.

Keith Kurlander [00:01:40]:
Wonder bread.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:01:41]:
Wonder bread, yeah. Wonder bread, yeah. So it’s easy to beat up on the refined carpets, carbs out there, and there’s good reason for that. My favorite piece of scientific evidence that I think is really compelling to me is that the rise of obesity and diabetes in this country is closely reflected by the adoption of this food pyramid, where carbs were the main event, and in particular, refined carbohydrates. Not. We’re not talking about whole wheat or brown rice or, you know, things that your body has to really work to digest, but we’re talking about simple sugars, refined carbohydrates, processed carbs. Think about candy bars and white bread. Wonder bread. So these things not only spike our blood sugar, but they are the cause of. Largely, they’re the cause of an epidemic of obesity in children in this country. Sugar is another simple carbohydrate.

Keith Kurlander [00:02:43]:
Yeah. It’s also worth noting that more than one in three people right now have diabetes in the United States. Pre diabetes in the United States. That’s a lot of people. That’s 100 billion people right now, adults that have pre diabetes. Isn’t that wild?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:03:00]:
It’s incredible.

Keith Kurlander [00:03:01]:
Yeah. And most of Them don’t know they have it. It’s the other shocking statistic.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:03:07]:
Yeah. So it’d be like saying this sort of analogy is like, well, if we knew that a third of the adults in this country were gonna have a heart attack, but most of them didn’t know they were gonna have that, that’s exactly what we’re talking about here. And when you put it in those terms, like, people don’t think about diabetes as like a big scary event, like a heart attack. Diabetes will get your leg cut off. Diabetes will cause blindness, Diabetes will accelerate heart disease. All kinds of really bad things happen to blood sugar regulation. It’s out of control. So.

Keith Kurlander [00:03:44]:
Oh, yeah. Well, and not to mention, when you have prediabetes, it means your blood sugar regulation, you’ve already lost control, your body has lost homeostasis on your regulation of blood sugar. And you’re. So you’re already dealing with a host of stuff at that point, which we could get more into. So here we are, right? Standard American diet, food pyramid, processed carb heavy and a lot of simple carbs and refined carbs. And, you know, so we’re. We’re looking at things with very high glycemic index that ended up translating from the food pyramid spikes blood sugar quickly in terms of high glycemic index.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:04:24]:
Right. So this, this is what led smart people like Michael Pollan to say, for example, when you go to the store, you want to shop around the edges of the store where the things that you buy look like they were either recently alive or they’re still alive. Yeah, they look like food. You get a box of eggs, you open that, if the eggs are in decent shape, they look like something that came out of an animal. Now, there are eggs, of course, that are done in a corporate way where there’s pro. Inflammatory signals coming from the yolks because, you know, the chickens were raised in bad conditions with not very good food to eat. But what we’re talking about is a huge, huge epidemic.

Keith Kurlander [00:05:03]:
Yeah. And you mentioned obesity. And I want to come back to that, because that’s a complex topic in terms of when we talk about when we bring it to body appearance and how, you know, body image. And it gets very complex because people can obviously build a lot of shame around their body. Most people have shame. I mean, I have shame about my body. Most people have shame about their body somehow, you know, whether they’re willing to admit it or not. Some body part, some aspect of their body, their whole body, their appearance, whatever it is. Right. Definitely and so there is sort of this complex conversation that unfolds there of, well, we’re going to talk about obesity or, you know, we’re talking about body composition too, when we talk about obesity. And but then like the next piece is but we’re also talking about, you know, how people feel about their bodies in that typical conversation. And obviously the United. We’re not wanting to create shame for people or not loving your body, but we want to have a real conversation here about, well, look what’s happening when you eat too many carbs. Like, look what’s happening inside your body for one. And it’s going to affect how you see the world and how you feel in your body. So it’s just nuanced is all I’m saying. For people who struggle with body size and the amount of fat on their body, particularly pretty nuanced conversation.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:06:17]:
Right? For sure. I’m glad you brought that up. I mean, we’re, we’re talking here about the long term health ramifications of what we eat. We’re not here today focusing on the psychological aspects of, you know, identity and, and shame and, you know, fat shaming and judging and all that’s real. And so I’m glad you brought that into conversation. The interesting thing about diabetes and pre diabetes is that it can impact people with any appearance. It’s associated in people’s minds with obesity. There are many, many, many people out there with blood sugar regulation problems who don’t have, who don’t have excessive amounts of fat on their body.

Keith Kurlander [00:06:57]:
Oh yeah, Well, I mean, I have pre diabetes for sure. I’ve struggled a little with fat on my body on and off, not excessively in my life, but I have to work really hard to, you know, keep my body composition healthy for me. And then you’re right, like, there’s plenty of people who have issues with prediabetes and who knows, maybe they’re a fast metabolizer or something. Whatever it is, I don’t know what they’re doing to process, you know, so that things don’t turn to fat, but it’s still there. Like people are struggling with prediabetes who are leaner.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:07:31]:
Yeah, well, and so going back to the evolution of this problem in America, there, there were, I don’t know if you’re, you’re quite a bit younger than me, so maybe you might have been too young to get this messaging, but in the 70s, the message was if you eat fat, you’re going to get fat.

Keith Kurlander [00:07:47]:
Yeah, I got that message we had in our house in the 80s, we had all of our, like milk was, you know, 2, 1% and that’s it. You know, we were drinking water, but it looked like milk.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:07:57]:
And that’s what I’m talking about.

Keith Kurlander [00:07:59]:
That stuff we had all that. The cottage cheese was like, yeah, 0.2% fat and low fat.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:04]:
Yeah, exactly. And people were into these non fat dress for their salads.

Keith Kurlander [00:08:11]:
Right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:12]:
You know, it was all about the ice. The wedge of iceberg lettuce.

Keith Kurlander [00:08:16]:
Totally.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:17]:
With some fat free dressing on it. Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:08:19]:
With some Newman’s own fat free dressing. Exactly, yeah, yeah, we had all that and because the idea back then was like, oh, if you, if you reduce fat in your diet, you don’t, you don’t, you don’t gain fat in your body.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:31]:
That’s it.

Keith Kurlander [00:08:32]:
That was the idea.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:32]:
Completely wrong. Turned out to be completely wrong. So luckily, you know, and this is kind of one of the points of this episode for us coming into the end of 2024, is actually delivering like, what’s the most up to date information here? You know, for people who maybe haven’t gotten the latest information right, that when we’re talking about diet, there’s macronutrients and micronutrients. So the macros, there’s five macros. And they’re all important. Protein, fat, carbohydrate, water and fiber. So water and fiber are the forgotten. They’re sort of like the orphan macros. Nobody picks them up at school, nobody writes them letters at camp, you know, nobody tucks them in at night. They’re like these unwanted, forgotten kids that are really important members of the family. And it turns out that nowadays in, you know, in the 2020s, we know that not drinking enough water and not eating enough fiber are also involved in the development of insulin resistance and progression into type 2 diabetes. So it’s not all about carbs and fat and protein. It’s also these other macros that are important. How do you deal with hydration in your world?

Keith Kurlander [00:09:47]:
Me personally, I think I’ve been dehydrated since I was born. That’s how I deal with it. I’m definitely chronically dehydrated. I mean, I always have to remember one of my functional medicine doctors once said to me, your problem is you just actually don’t have the signal that you’re thirsty. I was like, oh. He’s like, yeah, some people just don’t actually have that signal that it kicks in until they’re really, really, really thirsty.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:10:16]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:10:16]:
He’s like, you’re one of those people. So I don’t, I don’t recognize when I’m thirsty. So, like, when I. If I have to hydrate all day, it’s because I’m forcing myself to create a pattern of just, like, it’s a good thing to do. It’s not because I’m thirsty.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:10:29]:
Yeah, I’m, you know, I’m the same. I, I forget to drink water that I, I noticed a pattern. This took me a couple of decades to figure out. And I say figure out as in, like, I got the insight. I don’t mean figured out. Like, I’ve figured out how to drink enough water. So I’m still working on that. But I noticed a pattern from mountain biking. I, I, you know, historically rode my bike three days a week, three or four days a week. A lot of mountain biking. And I always brought water bottles or a Camelback backpack, and I would drink a lot of hydration. When I was mountain biking, I would get home. I’d get home and I would. I would think, man, I feel great. It must be the, you know, endogenous opioid system. I’ve got the runner’s high, the biker’s high, whatever. I thought it was the exercise. And then it started to dawn on me that that was the only time when I was actually hydrated properly.

Keith Kurlander [00:11:20]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:11:20]:
Is when I was exercising. And so one of the benefits for me of exercise is that I actually hydrate myself. Somehow in my mind, they’re associated. So it helps me.

Keith Kurlander [00:11:31]:
I mean, honestly, if someone had to start somewhere and they had to choose one thing.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:11:37]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:11:38]:
And they had an issue in all the things we’re going to talk about today, and they had to choose one thing, and we could wave a magic wand. They would get it right. I would be like, stay hydrated. Because if you’re staying hydrated, your brain’s mostly water. So, yeah, you’re going to be a huge step ahead just by staying hydrated. So I tell myself that, but it doesn’t work. But, well.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:12:03]:
And we, we live, you know, in. Colorado is kind of a desert, and it’s. It’s very dry, and we’re supposed to have more than 2 liters of water a day. I almost never get that much unless, like I said, on a mountain bike ride. So that’s a factor.

Keith Kurlander [00:12:16]:
Yeah. I mean, exercising hard helps me. I actually get thirstier, you know, So I start to remember to. I start to remember to drink more water on days where I’m weightlifting and things. I’ll. I’ll drink a little more because I am a little Thirstier.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:12:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I. I think that if I’m on. If I’m on a good cycle, I’ll. I’ll throw a little bit of electrolyte in my water just because I. I can feel that my body holds on to the hydration better with that. It’s not required, but it definitely helps me feel. Feel more hydrated.

Keith Kurlander [00:12:49]:
Totally.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:12:50]:
So that’s a. That’s a good tip. But again, in the interest of thinking about insulin resistance and blood sugar regulation, a lot of electrolyte mixes have sugar, just straight up sugar in there.

Keith Kurlander [00:13:01]:
They do.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:13:01]:
So you have to look. You just have to read the label.

Keith Kurlander [00:13:04]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:13:04]:
Well, let’s go ahead.

Keith Kurlander [00:13:06]:
You get past water, give us water. Let’s go back to carbs.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:13:10]:
Let’s go back to carbs, okay.

Keith Kurlander [00:13:11]:
Go back up to carbs. Let’s just. Let’s just hit that a little bit more. So you’ll do a better job at this than me. So carbs, what happens is the glucose and excess in our bodies convert to fat storage if they’re not used. Right. And so that’s what’s often overlooked in culture when you think about fat storage and health and things like that, is that we’re actually converting, people think carbohydrates, a lot of people don’t know this. They just think carbohydrates, It’s not fat, and so it doesn’t create fat, which is not true. Right, right. Yeah. So in this conversation, there’s sort of multiple things with carbs to think about. And when I say carbs, we’re talking about a spectrum of how many carbs you’re eating. We’re not talking about, you know, you wouldn’t do well if you never ate a carb again in your life at all. But we’re talking about an excessive amount of carbs, the standard American Diet amount. And just for reference, what do we. What are we saying that is about how many carbs a day is in the standard American diet? Over 140.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:14:18]:
Oh, for sure. I mean, I think we’re talking 182 to 300 grams a day is pretty standard. The concept or the framework, kind of accepted framework of a quote, low carb unquote diet is under a hundred grams, very Low carb, under 50. I think the last time I looked that up and, you know, going into like under 50 grams of carbohydrate a day is a difficult thing to do. I remember when you were in a keto phase with your diet, and I remember having lunch with you, and you you know, you were like counting tomatoes in your salad.

Keith Kurlander [00:14:53]:
Yeah, totally. So. Yeah, so. So. Well, first of all. Well, I want to share about that, so let’s just kind of name a few things. So when we think about high carbs in the standard American diet, we’re talking about a series of things to be aware of that you might be suffering from. One is you might have a issue in your blood sugar regulation. And we could talk more about that. Right. Which is kind of leads into the whole pre diabetes thing. You might have an issue in promoting too much fat storage. Right. And so now your body composition is taking you down a road that’s leading to problems.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:15:28]:
Let me just say one thing about that real quick is again, when we’re talking about body mass composition, we’re not talking about shaming people who are, who are carrying too much adipose tissue. What we’re talking about. The problem, as I see it as a doctor with adipose tissue is that it’s a factory to make pro. Inflammatory signals in your body. So it’s an inflammation factory. That’s why it’s not great to carry a bunch of extra adipose tissue.

Keith Kurlander [00:15:55]:
It’s.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:15:56]:
It’s not, it’s not a aesthetic concern to me. I mean, it’s. It’s a concern about what happens to your metabolism. So go ahead.

Keith Kurlander [00:16:05]:
Yeah, yeah. And I. And it’s important to keep returning to that. Again, like, you know, for me, more than you. Like, you just seem. You’re lean. Like, you’ve been lean. I mean, I don’t know, I’ve never seen you quite get what happens to me. Like, I have to work really hard just from my genetics. I mean, I don’t know if you feel this is true, but my genetics, like, I have to work really hard to keep fat down. And so I’ve had periods where I’ve, you know, definitely felt like, wow, I don’t like the way I look. So I think it’s really important to keep returning to. Like, we’re not. First of all, it’s not about shaming that at all. And also, that’s not really what we’re talking about today. Like, that’s a whole conversation we should have.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:16:43]:
Well, I mean, to, to. To share my side of my experience. The. There’s also dysmorphia around that is really common in men about not feeling strong enough or big enough or having big enough muscles and all of that kind of stuff. And in my effort to, you know, I mentioned earlier a lot of mountain biking, so pretty much had a mountain biker Physique. But then I started measuring my blood sugar levels, and they were. Every year, they were going up and up and up and up in my 30s and 40s. And so I started trying a lot of different things, and we could go into more detail there. But I ended up a couple of years ago in a place where I weighed, like, in the low 150s and I’m six feet tall. And I went and got a DEXA scan, which is a body mass composition test. We’ll talk about that today, later. But I was in this kind of skinny fat zone of, like, having gone through intermittent fasting, Fasting, ketogenic diet, and got into a place where I had lost muscle mass and put on fat, but I hadn’t gotten bigger physically.

Keith Kurlander [00:17:51]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:17:52]:
And so I needed to go through a radical kind of body recomposition path that I’ve been on for a couple years now, so I could talk about that. But, yeah, you know, the blood sugar thing is something that you and I have both been hacking in ourselves for. For years now.

Keith Kurlander [00:18:13]:
Yeah. I mean, you know, the 1 in 3 is probably higher than 1 in 3 with prediabetes, or. Or at least if you start getting into, like, are you verging on prediabetes, then it’s very high. So, yeah, we’ve both been hacking away at that. And. And then another thing that comes out of that is just when you have unstable blood sugar due to high carb diets, now you’re dealing with increased cravings, so now you’re also eating more calories than you need, than your body actually needs, because you’re in a cycle. Right. So there’s a lot of different things. And then you’re also dealing with just overall inflammation, systemic inflammation, when these things are happening. So it’s not a good playing field for having extraordinary mental health.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:18:56]:
Well, folks who haven’t listened to our show before might not. We should connect the dots here between inflammation and mental health, because not everyone has heard about that connection. There’s a huge body of research now that connects high levels of inflammation in the body with significant mental health challenges like depression.

Keith Kurlander [00:19:17]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:19:17]:
And even psychosis, bipolar disorder, ptsd, you name it. Whatever diagnosis there is, there’s an associated level of inflammation that goes with that. It’s a really helpful thing for us as integrative mental health practitioners to think about and try to address, because it’s a lever that we can pull. Easier said than done, because there’s a lot of behavior change, but it’s a lever you can pull to reduce the intensity of symptoms by simply getting your house in order with your nutrition and your inflammatory pathways in your body.

Keith Kurlander [00:19:51]:
Right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:19:51]:
And the inflammation 101. You know, inflammation is the body’s way of fighting off invaders. It’s completely healthy and necessary to have a spike of inflammation when you get a virus or you get a bacterial infection. But the, the healthy pattern of inflammation is it spikes up and then it goes way back down and to almost zero levels. What’s happening for people in the situation we’re talking about is chronically elevated levels of inflammation.

Keith Kurlander [00:20:21]:
Yeah. And it’s also good to say that, you know, this is all have to be personalized at the end of the day. I mean, there are people that actually do well with high carb diets. And so it’s not to say that, you know, we don’t want to go back to the food pyramid and be like, well, here’s your food pyramid. This is the one that’s going to work for you. Because it doesn’t work that way for sure. But we, but we can say that a lot of people who are eating high carb, highly processed carbs in their diets were having a pre diabetes, diabetes epidemic.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:20:54]:
Right?

Keith Kurlander [00:20:55]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:20:56]:
Right. And you know, we might as well throw in fast food with that because there’s all kinds of highly processed ingredients that are in the drive through that you probably don’t even know what they are. All of them. Right. So you do.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:09]:
You do.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:13]:
I know.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:14]:
How many years has it been since Wendy’s?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:16]:
I know what a number two combo with biggie fries has in it.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:21]:
How many years out are you from Wendy’s?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:23]:
So I made a deal with myself to stop going to Wendy’s when I moved into an office that was adjacent to a Wendy’s because I knew it would be bad news for me. That was 2007, so.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:36]:
Oh, you’re a while out. You’re always out.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:39]:
15.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:40]:
No, you are 17 years out.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:43]:
17 years out? Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:45]:
Your ways out.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:47]:
17 years out. I used to, when I would do road trips, I would look for the Wendy signs on the, on the exit ramps and I would get off if there was one there.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:55]:
Yeah, yeah. No big deal. I used to go to when I was a kid. Did you have Roy Rogers where you grew up?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:22:03]:
No Roy Rogers. Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:22:05]:
And I would get a double base bacon cheeseburger after baseball. And then I would wonder why I felt so bad after baseball. And I never made the link. It was the double bacon cheeseburger. From what? From Roy Rogers. Of why I was feeling so bad. Because we, I was kind of good at baseball. I was winning most of the games. So it wasn’t that.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:22:27]:
Yeah, yeah. You get certain passes when you’re a teenager and in your 20s. I think, you know, most people, not everyone, but your physiology is different than from now when I’m in my 50s for sure.

Keith Kurlander [00:22:40]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:22:40]:
Not so many free passes.

Keith Kurlander [00:22:42]:
No, I mean that’s true. Especially if you’re playing, if you’re really playing the longevity game and you’re really working at it, you start to discover the free passes you aren’t getting when you put yourself under the microscope.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:22:54]:
That’s true.

Keith Kurlander [00:22:56]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:22:56]:
Yeah. Are you talking about the continuous glucose monitor?

Keith Kurlander [00:23:01]:
Any of these things like continuous glucose monitoring? Or you go and maybe you’ll go and do a carotid scan to see how you’re doing on, you know, plaque building and you know, you’re like, oh, I have the age of blah, blah, blah. Right. Or it catches up.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:23:15]:
It does, as we know, catches up. I mean, well, since you brought up testing, maybe we should go there for a minute and just talk about some of the things that you and I like to do.

Keith Kurlander [00:23:25]:
Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s talk about some testing. Again, this is looking at how food is affecting you. That kind of testing, I think continual glucose monitoring is, I think is amazing that in allopathic medicine that hasn’t become a complete standard that a middle-aged adult, at some point, a CGM goes on them just to see how they’re responding to glucose. It’s amazing.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:23:47]:
Well, and not only in primary care, but in mental health care.

Keith Kurlander [00:23:51]:
Right, that too. Right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:23:53]:
I mean it’s just not penetrating the allopathic field at all.

Keith Kurlander [00:23:57]:
I don’t know about who we talk to, but most people you talk to have never had a CGM on them. A continual glucose monitoring. Would you want to explain a little what that does?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:24:04]:
Well, to illustrate your point, I mean in the beginning, and things are starting to gradually change now, but in the beginning when CGMs came on the market market you needed in order to get one, you had to prove that you had diabetes already.

Keith Kurlander [00:24:16]:
Right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:24:17]:
It’s like what the whole point is to use this tool to not get diabetes.

Keith Kurlander [00:24:23]:
Right. That would be a good point. Yeah. Like we’re not there culturally yet.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:24:27]:
A lot of doctors who are on the front edge of trying to prevent disease and not just treat, not just sit around and wait for the disease to appear so they can then treat it with drugs. Doc. These doctors, or you could call them functional medicine docs or integrative docs are often using CGMs as a vital sign. So you think about vital signs, you think about blood pressure, heart rate, temperature and now blood sugar. I mean, it’s such a common problem that we need to have the data to do something about it. And what’s really cool is you and I have friends. I was having dinner with a friend recently who’s a younger guy in his 30s who when he put it on a CGM was in the 1 20s in his fasting blood sugar, which is about 20 points above normal. Because he’s in his 30s, he was able to make some very modest adjustments in his diet to get his fasting blood sugar in the normal range. And that would’ve never, never happened. He’s one of those people that we were just talking about who don’t even know that they have a blood sugar problem. There’s no symptoms. You don’t feel it necessarily.

Keith Kurlander [00:25:24]:
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Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:26:27]:
So the CGM is useful for me for a number of reasons. One is I can see what my fasting sugar is. It’s very helpful. I can see what changes my diet manipulations result in with the blood sugar. But there’s a couple of really cool additional newer things that I’ve learned in the last year with my CGM is number one food combinations. So you were talking about personalized medicine recently? A few minutes ago. I have a friend in St. Louis, dear friend who put on a CGM and thought she was gonna find out that carbohydrates spiked her blood sugar no matter what and cooked A pot of rice, ate rice, did the experiment, looked at the cgm, no spike in her blood sugar. Like, wow, that’s pretty good to know. I can eat brown rice and it’s not gonna hurt my blood sugar regulation for me when I, when I have a cocktail, which I do a couple of times a week, typically one or two cocktails a week. If I eat a ball of mozzarella cheese or two before I have a cocktail, it doesn’t spike my blood sugar. But if I have a cocktail, I’m not talking about one with sugary mixers in it. I’m just talking about like liquor. It will show, it will spike my blood sugar. So combinations is one thing that’s really interesting to me right now. And then the other one is the timing of a workout in the gym with what I eat. So I used to think, you know, when in my 20s it was all about, you know, if I was going to do a mountain bike race in college, it was you better carbo load beforehand. Remember that? Eat like a big plate of spaghetti the night before.

Keith Kurlander [00:28:09]:
Yeah. Or oatmeal. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Spaghetti for sure.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:28:13]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:28:13]:
When I was in high school. I remember that too.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:28:15]:
Yeah, yeah. So nowadays if I’m following my program, I’ll have my last meal at. I’ll finish eating at 7pM Relatively early and then I’ll get in the gym at 7am and not eat until 10aM and that’s actually really good for my blood sugar to not eat for 12 hours even if I have a workout in that 12 hour period. And that has a big impact. So it’s cool to. When you start figuring out like these not just primary issues, like okay, what am I eating but also like how am I timing it? What combination of like if I eat carbs after fat. Very helpful. I want to talk about protein in a minute too, but those are some of the learnings that I’ve had in the last year with the cgm.

Keith Kurlander [00:28:59]:
Yeah, I’ve learned I can’t eat much carbs, but I still do some. I’m just very sensitive to a lot of different versions of carbs. So I think my ideal target is, you know, probably a hundred grams of carbs a day from over right now. Right. At 130. 140. Yeah. But it’s helped me learn like what, what causes the spikes that I should stay away from and things like that. And it’s, I think it’s very useful. Again, this matters if it turns into symptoms. Right. And for some people it doesn’t. And you know, it doesn’t. That’s why all this data is useful. But like, sometimes some of this data that doesn’t turn into the thing we, you know, that we’re concerned about these numbers. So, I mean, there’s obviously a limitation to that where a certain number is going to always turn into a symptom to get high enough on some of these numbers. But I would highly recommend, if you’ve never had a continuous glucose monitor, it’s like, go get one on, go to a primary care doctor, ask, get one, and then track your food and see what it does throughout the day and see what’s happening. And it’s like, if you’re going above 180 to 200 in your blood sugar for meals, need to probably have a conversation with your doctor. What do I do? Like, is this causing me a problem? And looking at how do you feel when your blood sugar is going that high and then when it comes back down, very important stuff to do. You know, if, if you haven’t dove down that road and you want to again, you’re just about optimization, really. And prevention.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:30:34]:
Yeah, it’s about, you know, Peter Attia talks about the distinction between lifespan and health span. So what good is it to add 10 years to your life if you’re lying in bed and you can’t do anything for yourself or go out and do the things you like to do that bring you joy and meaning in your life? So the health span conversation, I think, is important of like, I think most people would probably like to be able to retain their functionality, be able to do things they like to do for as long as possible, or at least up to a certain time.

Keith Kurlander [00:31:02]:
Yeah, Yep.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:31:04]:
So, but there’s also the risk, if you’re a compulsive, obsessive person like me, of getting all the data and getting very obsessive about the optimizing.

Keith Kurlander [00:31:15]:
Sure.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:31:16]:
The data. So that’s a, that’s a risk.

Keith Kurlander [00:31:18]:
It’s a risk.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:31:19]:
That’s when my wife has to step in and say, I think you need to stop collecting data for a while.

Keith Kurlander [00:31:23]:
Yeah, yeah. You got to chill out over there.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:31:30]:
Well, let’s talk about, let’s talk about protein for a minute.

Keith Kurlander [00:31:33]:
Protein.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:31:34]:
There’s been, I think, a pretty big shift in the conversation around how much protein is the right amount of protein. Now, for a couple years, when I was in medical school, I was taught that a person who eats more than one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day is going to jeopardize Their kidneys going to hurt their kidneys. And I remember when I started learning about food and mood about 15 years ago, and I started counseling my patients for the first time on diet. As a psychiatrist, I was telling people to really push it, you know, push the envelope, get up to about 80, or, you know, I would say, you know, get 20 or 30 grams of protein per meal and push it up to like 80 grams a day. And I thought I was being risque, Right. And I was counseling people who, you know, in many cases weighed double that in their body weight per gram. I was asking people to push their protein intake up to half a milligram per pound of body weight. And I thought that was really risky. Nobody got into any kind of problems with their kidneys. Nobody. And I tested their consumption. So a couple years ago, some of the more advanced thought leaders in the health optimization space, like Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia, some others started talking about, well, you know what, if you’re going to be an active person and keep on your muscle mass, which arguably is really important for the health span conversation, you’re going to need closer to 1 gram per pound of body weight. So, you know, when you start thinking about consuming over 150 grams of protein a day, if you weigh more than £150, that’s a lot of protein.

Keith Kurlander [00:33:22]:
It’s a lot.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:33:23]:
It’s a lot.

Keith Kurlander [00:33:24]:
It’s hard to get it in you.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:33:25]:
It is, yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:33:27]:
And it’s even harder to get that in you if you’re a vegetarian.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:33:32]:
Really hard.

Keith Kurlander [00:33:33]:
Yeah, yeah, it’s hard. And again, this is for when we get into those numbers. Typically that’s more athletic muscle building numbers when you get that high.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:33:43]:
Right? Yeah, right. But even shooting for half of a gram per pound of body, it’s simple. It’s not that easy.

Keith Kurlander [00:33:51]:
It’s not that easy when you start looking at your, how much is in your food. But you know, I think we are generally speaking protein light, especially when you look at the ratio to carbs that many people are eating. And it is hard to get that. And then to get it in a healthy food source is harder.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:34:08]:
Exactly, exactly.

Keith Kurlander [00:34:09]:
That’s the other part that’s really hard. You gotta get in a healthy food source with healthy. That have healthy fats in it and all that. You have to kind of care. You can do it. I mean, it’s all available at a grocery store or wherever, but you have to care to get it in clean fats and get the protein. And sometimes you need to do supplementation to get it Right, exactly. Like protein shakes and things.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:34:32]:
Protein shakes. And then what if you’re dairy intolerant and you can’t do whey, so on.

Keith Kurlander [00:34:36]:
So there’s all these con, you know, there’s all these parts of it. But I think it’s good you’re bringing up protein because it’s a lot of people know. So, so then you have a subset of people, they know, they struggle with carbs and, and they’re going to have to eat carbs. We also eat some carbs. But like they know that, but the thing they haven’t dealt with sometimes is they’re not eating enough protein. And then once you get your protein levels up, sometimes it actually strains out some of the carb issues.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:35:02]:
Right.

Keith Kurlander [00:35:02]:
Once you get your proteins up because it’ll food, it’ll kill cravings if you get enough protein. I know there’s like thermal digestive properties when you start eating enough protein and sometimes you, you’ll start actually processing your carbs differently. So there’s a lot of benefit in getting that protein count up.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:35:22]:
Yeah. And then just to underline a piece that you mentioned that’s really important is, is the protein source. So you know, when you’re going to the grocery to buy a steak, you know, the wide preponderance or you know, majority of protein sources, if you’re talking about beef or chicken, you know, these, these are animals that aren’t generally in a conventional framework, are not take, they’re not taken good care of as animals. They’re, they’re packed into small areas, they’re fed things that are not great for them. The levels of inflammation in their bodies are quite high compared to animals that are given more space and more grass to eat and things like that. So the, the kind of fat that you find in a conventional steak, it has, tends to have a lot of pro inflammatory types of fat in it that you know, kind of reverses to some degree the benefits of going out and getting that protein to boost up your protein. So it’s obviously really potentially extremely expensive and unavailable even in some areas to go look for an animal that was raised on pasture or that ate grass for its whole life. So then you have to get more creative, right? You, you, you have to go looking for sources of protein that are not completely absurdly expensive, but also that aren’t reversing the benefits of boosting your protein. Um, and, and some, and then you, you know, if you’re looking at seafood, then aside from the expense, you’re also looking at heavy metals that can accumulate in fish that are large fish that eat other fish. So as you move up the food chain and you get into things like albacore tuna or shark or swordfish, you’re talking about very of mercury. Sometimes it can be very bad for your nervous system. So eating smaller fish like sardines or anchovies, for example, can be awesome if you can find them for a good price. So those are just some of my thoughts about how to, you know, get the right kind of fats in the protein that you’re looking for.

Keith Kurlander [00:37:24]:
Well, you should. Why don’t you go a little deeper into fats, actually.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:37:27]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:37:28]:
At this point. So why don’t you just give a quick low down on fats? The down low, the low down and the down low on fats.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:37:36]:
Yeah, great. So fats are a great topic and have only really come into focus in the last maybe 10 years as a really important thing in your diet. We were talking about the 70s where it was all about avoiding fat. In some ways, maybe that was a good idea in the 70s because a lot of the fat that you saw on the shelf was like trans fat and nobody even knew what that was at the time. But margarine is full of that, it tends to be. So when we’re talking about fast, there’s sort of like two main categories. Uh, one is saturated fat and the other one’s unsaturated fat. So in general, saturated fat is the kind of fat that you find in animal protein. Saturated fat is a great fuel source. But eating too much saturated fat can be counterproductive, um, and can have negative effects on your health. So if you’re really going as clean as you can. And again, as you said, there’s a personalized conversation for individuals here. But you want, you want to, you want to get plenty of unsaturated fat in your diet. So that’s typically you’re looking at plant sources of fat when you’re looking at unsaturated fats. So these are things like extra virgin olive oil, avocados, coconut oil. What else, what are some of the things, what are the, some of the plant sources of fat that you would eat on the keto diet?

Keith Kurlander [00:38:54]:
Well, you. Avocados, nuts.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:38:57]:
Right.

Keith Kurlander [00:38:59]:
You can do the more like polyunsaturated fats. You know, fish. You mentioned salmon, for example. Yeah, high in that, I think, I think again, like the plant based oils. Avocados, nuts and then. Yeah, fatty fish. Of course, if you eat fish is another one.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:39:20]:
Now there’s a distinction to be. We’re getting a little bit Granular here, but inside of plant fats, polyunsaturated fats, we’re talking about two categories that you’ll see when you read about this. Omega 3 fats and omega 6 fats. So the correct ratio in our diet is a one to one ratio of omega 3s. Think about fish, salmon, fish oil, so on. That’s omega 3s. And then the omega 6 is what you get from grains and seed oil. So this is another big contributing factor in fast food and processed food is there’s a tremendous amount of seeds and seed oil. So it’s very high in omega 6. And the standard American diet is way off on the ratio. It’s 20 to 1, omega 6 to omega 3, not enough 3, too much 6. So that’s another thing to consider with plant based fats is making sure you get enough of the Omega 3s in there.

Keith Kurlander [00:40:10]:
Right? Yeah. And so you mentioned the ketogenic diet, which is an interesting piece to just throw into the pot here. So the ketogenic diet is. I always think of it as a prescriptive diet, personally. Like you gotta have a reason that you’re going to try that. And you also want some guidance on it because you can as, you know. And like I ended up with a kidney stone on the ketogenic diet. There’s some.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:40:37]:
Yeah, you were not a happy camper that day, I remember.

Keith Kurlander [00:40:40]:
Did I see you that day before I went to the hospital?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:40:44]:
I was at the hospital with you before I went.

Keith Kurlander [00:40:46]:
Were you, were you at the office with me?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:40:48]:
Yeah. I told you, I was like, that guy’s a kidney stone. I could tell.

Keith Kurlander [00:40:51]:
Oh yeah. Anyways, I was like sitting with a client. That was a rough, you know, was rough. That was a really rough thing. I was sitting with a client who told me they were suicidal while the kidney stone was, you know, lodged, trying to make its way out. And I didn’t know it was one and I thought I was going to pass out but I didn’t want to leave the session. So I got out of the session and I drove myself three minutes down the road to the hospital where I didn’t even think I was going to make it in the car. Anyways, that’s the, that’s the scary side of, you know, the cautionary tale of doing these things without proper guidance or, you know, watching your hydration levels. For instance, in my case, it’s very easy to get dehydrated on the ketogenic diet. And you can also, you know, there’s other things, but with all that stuff.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:41:37]:
Why, why did you end up going on the ketogenic diet?

Keith Kurlander [00:41:39]:
Yeah, so, you know, I went on the ketogenic diet because of two factors. The main factor was I had, you know, daily chronic migraines for years and I, nothing was touching them. And I was like, what can I try? Like, what’s the left? And I had been doing research, not that there was much research about, there wasn’t a lot of research about ketogenic diet and migraines, but as you know, there’s a lot of research around the ketogenic diet and seizures.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:42:05]:
Right.

Keith Kurlander [00:42:06]:
And so I was like, you know, and some neurologists will talk about migraines having some similarities to seizures in some way in terms of brain function and things. And I was like, I have to try this. So that was one reason. And then I was also still in a period of pretty significant mental health symptoms. And I’m like, let’s see what it does. Like, I knew there were anti-inflammatory effects in the brain from doing the ketogenic diet and I also knew I had unstable blood sugar. And I knew there was some data on the ketogenic diet regulating blood sugar levels, you know, corrective, where actually there’ll be some durability even when you get off the ketogenic diet where you can maybe light up your insulin receptors again for all those reasons. Right. So I was on it for nine months. This is over 10 years ago. I think it’s a while ago because it was, it’s got to be at least 10 years now. Maybe eight years. Eight to 10 years ago. I was on it for nine months until I got the kidney stone. That’s when I came off it. But it completely got rid of daily migraines. I wasn’t even getting migraines by the end. And ever since that round, again, daily migraines, the severe level at times for years now I get like a mild to moderate migraine less than a handful of times a year since then. So that was such a radical thing for me. I’m not saying this is, you know, go try this if you have migraines. Because I don’t, I don’t know, you know, there, there’s not a ton of data on it. And then my mental health systems also went way down, way down. So I think the ketogenic diet is prescriptive. It’s like a prescription. You know, you don’t just do it for fun. Some people do it for fat loss because you’ll start to burn fat in your body. Because the ketogenic diet is converting your energy consumption from glucose to fat.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:43:55]:
Right.

Keith Kurlander [00:43:56]:
So you’re going to start to burn a lot of fat and that’s fine. That might be a way for some people to get rid of some excess fat on their body if that’s what they choose to do. And it’s an interesting way to do it for sure. But it’s also something to just be aware of, of like you’re dealing with some symptoms. You know, you have to talk to your provider about it. Like it might be a good experiment to see if it can help for some period of time.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:44:23]:
Would you say that what’s been the, you mentioned how doing an intervention like in your case nine months can have longer lasting effects after that intervention is over. Um, what’s the, what’s the report on. Do you feel like that reset your migraines more or less permanently from that? Wow.

Keith Kurlander [00:44:43]:
Reset them permanently.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:44:45]:
Wow.

Keith Kurlander [00:44:45]:
In my case, I also know of some people with migraines that tried it and it didn’t work for. But in my case it definitely changed the migraine pattern permanently, which is cool.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:44:56]:
One of the things. And we could do a whole show on the ketogenic diet. But I do want to say that one of the big issues with keto is actually getting into ketosis is what it’s called.

Keith Kurlander [00:45:08]:
It’s a big issue.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:45:09]:
It’s a big issue. And, and the thing is, a lot of people, and I’m talking about myself here too, when I tried it, is a lot of people don’t, number one, limit enough, limit their carbs enough. Number two, they continue to eat too much protein with respect to fat. So in, in the keto diet, as I understand it, it’s 80% of your calories are fat based, right?

Keith Kurlander [00:45:30]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:45:32]:
So yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:45:33]:
And the amount of carbs is typically very low. You know, under 20. It could be under 20 usually. I mean, again, it depends on your body size, but it could be under 20.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:45:44]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:45:45]:
You’re talking about you can’t even have an apple.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:45:47]:
Can’t have an apple. You’re done.

Keith Kurlander [00:45:49]:
Ever.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:45:50]:
Well, and you gotta watch tomatoes on your salad.

Keith Kurlander [00:45:52]:
Yeah. Because you’re talking you can end up with 5, 8 grams of carbs right there. So like you have to count. But that’s if you know, if you, if you want to, you’re either in keto or you’re not. Right. So.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:46:04]:
Well, yeah, so that’s what I was going to say is that I didn’t do a good job of checking. They’re now more modern ways like you. I think they have like a breath test and like you can do a finger.

Keith Kurlander [00:46:13]:
They have those, but they’re, they’re, they’re okay.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:46:17]:
Yeah, yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:46:18]:
But they, the problem with urine, they measure ketones, but like if you’re dehydrated you’re going to show high ketones anyways. So they don’t, they’re not, you know, it’s not like a total scientific thing. You can’t rely on it. That would help. You could do a finger stick, but I think that it helps. But I think, you know, you, you really have to go down to counting what you’re putting in your body.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:46:40]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:46:41]:
And I, I again, I don’t think you should do it alone. Like, I think you really need a professional because. Yeah, I got myself into trouble there and. Yeah, but I also. Nine months is very un. That’s, that’s very typical to go nine months on the ketogenic diet. That’s not a typical length. That’s long.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:46:57]:
Longer than most people would need to do.

Keith Kurlander [00:46:58]:
Yeah, yeah, most people, three to four months, they’re done.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:47:02]:
Yeah. So it’s a metabolic intervention. It’s not without risk. It’s, it’s kind of extreme. I mean it’s sort of like you wouldn’t, you would never start with going to the ketogenic diet from a standard American diet necessarily, if you could get your metabolic problems addressed without having to go there.

Keith Kurlander [00:47:20]:
Yeah, it’s extreme. And you know, I mean, infants are in ketosis basically, so it’s not unfamiliar to our bodies.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:47:29]:
And let’s talk a little bit about that. I think it’s fascinating the physiology of ketosis. I guess the, basically what I want to say about it is that, you know, the energy needs of the body are met either from, as you said, earlier, glucose or fat. And we have these organelles in our cells that are sort of like the battery packs for cells that produce energy and they do it by breaking down either glucose or fat. Breaking down glucose is a dangerous. It’s, it’s a little bit like a nuclear reactor in a way. Cuz it’s, it’s kind of dangerous for the mitochondria to handle glucose because of a thing called a reactive oxygen species, which is a side effect or it’s a byproduct of breaking down glucose. It’s. You’ve probably heard the term free radicals, right? This stuff that can damage tissue in the body. And reactive oxygen species is another name for that that can actually damage your cells to, to burn sugar as a fuel only. And so what’s been emerging in the last probably year or so is like this conversation about metabolic flexibility of mitochondria that have the ability fluidly to, to use what fuels available. Maybe sometimes you have fat available, maybe it’s sometimes glucose, but, but the, what happens often for people is eating a standard American diet. You’re going to get stuck in, in burning glucose and your mitochondria are used to that and they’re, you know, it’s like running a very high octane kind of dangerous fuel, if you will, in your mitochondria that your body would use evolutionarily, probably not that often, you know, in evol. In cavemen diet, probably not getting a lot of added sugar or, you know, high fructose corn syrup or highly processed carbs. In that diet, you’re, you’re, you’re burning store stored fat while you go look for food for days on end.

Keith Kurlander [00:49:19]:
I mean, there’s no doubt that hundreds of thousands of years ago or millions of years ago, there’s no doubt that our ancestors were entering ketosis frequently. Frequently. There’s no doubt about that. Yeah. So, but you can, you know, if you eat too much protein, you’re not going to be in ketosis.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:49:38]:
That’s right.

Keith Kurlander [00:49:38]:
There’s also, there’s also, they weren’t always in ketosis, probably because they were eating high amounts of proteins at times.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:49:46]:
Right. So Keith is explaining that when you eat a lot of protein and not very much fat or carbohydrate, what happens to the protein is you actually convert that into sugar and then burn that in the mitochondria. So it goes through a sugar pathway to convert protein into fuel for, for metabolism. But, but my point is that the mitochondria don’t, to put it simply, they don’t run so hot or, or, or burn as many dangerous side effects or, or side products when they’re burning fat as they do with sugar. So sugar’s meant to be a, a infrequently used but necessary quick of energy. And the mitochondria like to burn fat as a baseline. Is what we think about, is our theory about sort of caveman metabolism. One of the problems, so to speak, with modernization and urbanization and you know, living in a country where you can grab, or really anywhere in the world now you can grab a sugary or glucosey snack anytime you want. You’re never going through the adaptive, beneficial, physiological benefit of not being able to find food for a while. Right.

Keith Kurlander [00:50:57]:
Yeah. And I think that, you know, if we just keep talking about this from like more of an evolutionary perspective. The higher carb diet is pretty new.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:51:07]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:51:08]:
It comes when we develop agriculture. It’s not that long. You know, let’s say it’s 10,000 years, 12,000 years, we start.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:51:15]:
10,000. Sure.

Keith Kurlander [00:51:16]:
Yeah. So we get carbohydrate rich crops starting. And now it’s possible that we weren’t as sensitive at first, I don’t know, to the carbohydrates, but over time it’s clear that we’re getting sensitive to carbohydrates, these high carbohydrate diets.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:51:35]:
Well, I think we’re, we’re less sensitive to ancestral grains.

Keith Kurlander [00:51:40]:
We are less sensitive to ancestral grains. And grains obviously were different 10,000 years ago. Yeah, yeah, that’s true too.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:51:46]:
Yeah, yeah. And then we have the whole roundup glyphosate issue with grains nowadays.

Keith Kurlander [00:51:52]:
Yeah. So with that said, we’re. You actually have to have a good amount of education to know what’s going on here. Like, you need to understand a lot like what, what happened in history, that here we are, this is the options we have. And our bodies are not designed from an evolutionary perspective, typically to handle the diets that we’re mostly consuming. Right. And that’s, that’s where, you know, that’s what this conversation is about. Like, okay, well, more education you have, and then you slowly chip away at it and hopefully design a, you know, a type of food plan that works for you in your body. And it’s not easy. Right. There’s a lot of options around us in terms of what to eat. I mean, think about that, how many options we have in general. Like when you go in a grocery store.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:52:44]:
Yeah. It’s incredible.

Keith Kurlander [00:52:45]:
Thousands of options.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:52:47]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:52:48]:
Probably tens of thousands of options in any one grocery store. Like a big grocery store. That’s a lot of options.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:52:55]:
Yeah, yeah, it’s a lot of options.

Keith Kurlander [00:52:57]:
You know, when, and then our ancestors, they didn’t have tens of thousands of options. So it was, they were presented with what was in front of them that they had to go find. And it was very limited options. So, you know, sometimes options create new problems. Sometimes. In this case, there’s, there’s some problems here with all these options.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:53:18]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, and it’s interesting. I mean, processed food, pro inflammatory food, food that’s, you know, empty calories or too rich in refined carbohydrate. You can, you can find this kind of food in any health store. I like going into these little mom and pop health stores and all over the, wherever I go and when I travel and yeah, they’re, they’re, they’re full of these kinds of foods.

Keith Kurlander [00:53:39]:
It’s true. Yeah. So it take, it takes some effort to just learn and. Yeah, but that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to learn.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:53:46]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What else have we here? Yeah, I think that’s a pretty good overview of.

Keith Kurlander [00:53:51]:
Yeah, you know, that’s a good, that’s a good brush stroke. Food and mood and mind and body longevity. And we’re here to learn.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:54:01]:
Yeah, I mean, I think we’ve one, one piece that we could get into another time is the micronutrients. We talked about macronutrients today. If you, if you’re doing pretty good job with a well rounded, let’s say Mediterranean style diet, is not too heavy on carbs and, you know, enough healthy fats and a good amount of protein and so on, you’re, you’re probably gonna do pretty okay with your micronutrients. But I’m talking about vitamins and minerals which are critical for cellular functions metabolic health. But there is some evidence to support the view that farming that depletes the soil of vitamins and minerals can, can cause people who, even people who eat an organic diet or, you know, relatively healthy diet to be a little short on micronutrients. So it’s, it’s good to, to keep that in mind as well. But we could, you know, we could expand on that a lot in different combination. Yeah. Cool.

Keith Kurlander [00:54:55]:
All right, well in there.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:54:57]:
That sounds good.

Keith Kurlander [00:54:58]:
Okay, I’ll see you at Wendy’s. Bye. We look forward to connecting with you again on the next episode episode of the Higher Practice podcast where we explore what it takes to achieve optimal mental health.