October 13, 2018
Podcast from: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/nutrition-podcasts/cleanse-your-gallbladder/
[0:00:00] Yoda of Nutriion
[0:02:00] Sponsors: Kion and Gosha's Organics
[0:04:55] Introduction to Ann Louise Gittleman
[0:09:03] Starting with the Gallbladder in The Book
[0:12:02] And Interesting Story from Ben
[0:13:20] Gallbladder and Bile Issues: Lack of Choline
[0:16:23] Bitters
[0:21:12] Test for Gallbladder Function
[0:21:58] Emotional Contact
[0:23:30] Liver Cleansing
[0:25:39] Coffee Enemas
[0:28:16] Fish Oil and Omega 6 Fatty Acids
[0:33:00] Sponsors: Zip Recruiter and Organifi
[0:35:31] The Omega Guy, Udo Erasmus
[0:37:00] Gamma-Linolenic Acid
[0:39:42] Protein Intake and Essential Fatty Acids
[0:42:06] Toxicity
[0:47:55] Intensive Cleanse
[0:50:35] Why is A2 Important?
[0:52:48] More About Watercress
[0:55:39] End of Podcast
Ben: Hey, what's up? It's Ben Greenfield. A couple of nights ago, I had this lady over to my house. She is incredible. She personally don't want to be called the Yoda of nutrition, what am I thinking? That's horrible. She's like the first lady of nutrition with the knowledge of Yoda. She knows all these people from decades ago and has learned all these amazing nutritional practices, gallbladder cleanses, liver cleanses. We talked about coffee enemas. We talk about blackstrap molasses of your booty. But more specifically, we talked about metabolism and how to elevate your metabolism using some pretty little-known tactic. She has a wealth of knowledge. Her name is Ann Louise Gittleman. Your mind is going to be blown by today's episode.
Now, before we jump in, you may have heard me talked about this before, but there's really only two mechanisms that have been shown to be successful in promoting longevity in organisms. One is to lower the levels of insulin and insulin growth factor. The other one is to regulate glucose metabolism and maintain healthy insulin sensitivity. I've always said this; glycemic variability and inflammation are the two most important things to control if you want to live a long time and have very good body composition and mitochondrial health. Now, I have created for you over at Kion, a supplement that contains: A, one of the best compounds naturally that I know of to lower insulin and insulin growth factor and improve glycemic variability; and then, B, regulate liver health and inflammation simultaneously. Those two ingredients are bitter melon extract and rock lotus. Those are the only two ingredients and this stuff is called Kion Lean. It also activates air picket pathway. This is like an exercise in a bottle. That's from the wild genotype of bitter melon that we use, which can be more powerful than the diabetic drug, metformin. It's crazy stuff. I take two every night before dinner, year-round. That simple. You'll get a 10% discount on this stuff. You just go to getkion.com. That's get-K-I-O-N-dot-com. The discount code you use over there is BENLEAN10 as in BENLEAN-1-0.
Speaking of superfoods, there's this other company called Gosha's Organics. You spell that G-O-S-H-A-S, like that, Gosha's Organics. Now, they create this really cool thing. You probably haven't seen this before, unless you've ordered from them, but it's almost the texture of raw honey. What they do is they blend phytoplankton and B Products, medicinal mushrooms and adaptogenic herbs, medicinal spices, monatomic minerals. It's like this superfood stuff that's stored in the smear-on the glass jar. It tastes amazing. You can put a little bit of this into a cup of coffee, you could store it into that bone broth I was talking about. I, sometimes, just dip in and take a spoonful of it for a pick me up. It's super flavorful but you can feel the energy just circulating through your bloodstream when you take a little spoonful of this stuff because they're really, really obsessed with quality in how they make it. They have a Certificate of Analysis for Contamination yeasts, seminal, any toxins that a third-party lab test. Really clean stuff. Doesn't require pills, capsules, tablets, powders. Everything is all-in-one formula. It's got probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics. Very cool stuff. It's called Odnova, the actual supplement that they make over there at goshasorganics.com. I'll put a link to the shownotes as well. But this is also pretty cool up hanging around your pantry, so I would check it out.
[INTRODUCTION]
Ben: Hey, folks. It's Ben Greenfield. I have sitting with me here, in my home in Spokane, really one of the very first guests that ever appeared on this show. We've been going for 11 years, twice a week, thousands of episodes now, but episode number 29.
Ann Louise: My number.
Ben: It was number 29. It was with Ann Louise Gittleman. Ann not only is a next-door neighbor of mine over in Post Falls, Idaho, but she wrote a book a long time ago that I read. It was called, “The Gut Flush Plan,” a breakthrough cleansing program. In that original episode that I linked to for you in the shownotes which you can grab at bengreenfieldfitness.com/radical, Ann and I talked about critters living in your guts, and the biome, and how to cleanse your gastrointestinal tract.
Later, several years down the road, I read a fascinating book by Ann that was really one of my first exposures to the concept of building biology and EMF and cell phones, it was called “Zapped: Why Your Cell Phone Shouldn't Be Your Alarm Clock and 1,268 Other Ways to Outsmart the Hazards of Electrical Pollution.” She's got plenty of other books. If you haven't heard of Ann and you're in the wellness sector, interested in health, then maybe you've been living under a rock because she is often called the First Lady of Nutrition. She's a nutritionist. She is internationally recognized as a pioneer in environmental, dietary and health issues. She is a New York Times bestselling author. She got over 30 books on everything from menopause, to beauty, to diet, to detox. She is considered to be one of the world's foremost experts in functional medicine. She holds an M.S. in Nutrition Education from Columbia. She's a Certified Nutrition Specialist. She has a Ph.D. in Holistic Nutrition. She, among other things, serves as the Chief Nutritionist of the Pediatric clinic at Bellevue Hospital. She's the former Director of Nutrition at the Pritikin Longevity Center. A couple of years ago, she was actually presented with a humanitarian award from the Cancer Control Society. Her list of accolades goes on and on. She is at the forefront of Health and Wellness, particularly, with regards to nutrition. That's something that we're going to focus on today because she just wrote a book. I'm holding it now. I forget who sent me this book, Ann, but I looked at it and I saw the pink cover and the big bold words, “Radical Metabolism: A Powerful New Plan to Blast Fat and Reignite Your Energy in Just 21 Days,” and I thought, “Here we go again. This is going to be some new fad diet that's chockfull of information everybody knows like don't snack all day long and control your blood sugar.” That's all who the author was. I thought, “What?” I've actually read a couple books by her. I own a couple of books by her. I do like what she has to say. So, I took a diet I remember as I was reading this, actually, over in Bellevue of all places at one of my friend's houses. I start to read it and you could see here all the pages that are folded over. See, I did my homework. You blew my mind with this book. I mean, you really did. You've got a great feedback from Mark Hyman, Izabella Wentz, and Kellyann Petrucci, and other mutual acquaintances. So, I figured, especially because you talk about things like gallbladder and things people don't know about omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids. I had to get you on the show and talk about this book. Thanks for coming on over all the way from Post Falls.
Ann Louise: It's my pleasure to be with you.
Ben: Hopefully, it wasn't too long of a plane flight.
Ann Louise: Not too long at all.
Ben: Alright. The very first thing that struck me as profound in this book, and that I would imagine we're going to be spending a little bit of time on is the gallbladder. You begin very early in the book talking about the gallbladder, and not a lot of people address the gallbladder when they talk about metabolism. Why did you start with the gallbladder in this book, “Radical Metabolism?”
Ann Louise: Because there's so many women in this country, Ben, that are fat, 40, and fatigue, and one of the common denominators of all those women is that many of them have their gallbladders out. It's a very, very common surgery in this country. As a matter of fact, it's probably the most common abdominal surgery that we currently have.
Ben: My sister is at it. I think, now she's 31.
Ann Louise: So, we're getting younger and younger?
Ben: Yes.
Ann Louise: That doesn't surprise me. So, the whole idea is that the gallbladder is not a throwaway organ. It's like the appendix which is not a throwaway organ. We've got to do as much as we can to keep this very vital organ because it's so important in digesting fats because it secretes bile in a timed-release fashion, it flushes toxins, and it also rips up the thyroid. The cool thing that I found which I stumbled upon completely by accident was there was a connection, an unholy alliance between the gallbladder and the thyroid. When they start seeing all the thyroid dysfunction in this country and figuring out why there's so much Hashimoto's, why there are so many problems with people losing weight, I had to look into the gallbladder and found out that there is a great deal of research from Harvard, as well as from Finland, that suggests that if you don't have free flowing bile, which people do not have if they do not have a gallbladder, then you cannot convert T4 successfully into T3.
Ben: No kidding.
Ann Louise: It was an “a-ha moment”. When I spoke to all my functional medicine practitioner friends and all these big names in the field, Raphael Kellman, Mark Hyman, you know the drill, many of them suggested to me that people started having hypothyroidism problems and a problem with metabolism and losing weight sometimes weeks but many times months and even years after having their gallbladder removed. So, there's a gallbladder connection to metabolism that I had to review, I had to take a deeper dive into. That was the reason that I really wrote “Radical Metabolism.”
Ben: So, it's because the thyroid is so intimately connected to metabolism and the gallbladder is such an influencer of, you said T4 to T3 conversion.
Ann Louise: Yes, but who knew? People that have sluggish bile are seven times more likely to suffer from hypothyroidism. It can go either way when you start having thyroid problems, you then have problems with your gallbladder. So, those two organs are definitively connected.
Ben: Do you want to know an interesting story and why this is near and dear to my heart?
Ann Louise: Yes.
Ben: In over 10 years of competing in triathlon and sport eating 5,000 calories a day, in many cases, often in stressed out or exercising scenarios, shoving lots of food down the hatch, including things like alcohol at night, caffeine in the morning, all of these things that you talk about in your book can definitely affects the liver. I found myself struggling with decreased thyroid activity. I worked on carbohydrate intake. I worked on controlling cortisol. Two things that can affect thyroid.
Ann Louise: You bet.
Ben: But I began to test my liver enzymes. I also began to do palpation of liver and gallbladder right upper quadrant areas, and I found that there were some issues: high liver enzymes, liver tenderness, fatty stool, things that indicated that I myself was having thyroid issues that weren't necessarily related to a lot of the things that people commonly talk about with thyroid, but could instead be liver and gallbladder. I think a lot of people don't realize the importance of this.
Ann Louise: No, it's an aha moment. The other concern that I would have as well are all the people that are doing Paleo-style diets or keto style diets, where there's such heavy intake of fat and you've got to be able to digest that fat, and there's a real problem with people not digesting what they should or not even being able to digest essential fatty acids. People upchucking on their fish oil and so forth. So, I think there's a bile deficiency. If you still have your gallbladder, you could have sluggish bile, and that would still go hand in hand with a suboptimal thyroid.
Ben: Before we talk about the elephant in the room or what we can do about bile, the first thing I want to ask you is, why do you think this happens to so many people, the gallbladder and bile issues, and why is it even said we look at fatty liver disease and that's a growing epidemic as well?
Ann Louise: I know.
Ben: Did you know the reason that you think that is?
Ann Louise: Yes, lack of choline.
Ben: Lack of choline?
Ann Louise: Lack of choline. I find, when I do nutrient testing, and I've always done nutrient testing with all my clients over the past 60 years, it feels like it's only been about 30, 35 years, I find that one of the most deficient nutrients is choline. If you check with the specter cell, people out of Houston, one of the most deficient micronutrient is choline. Choline has been found in studies, I think it was out of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, if I recall, that 500 milligrams of choline, three times a day for at least six weeks will decongest the fatty liver.
Ben: No kidding.
Ann Louise: Choline is a lipotropic nutrient, so will thin the bile and help to overturn the fatty liver. So, that's one of the reasons we're not taking enough foods with natural lecithin anymore because soy has gotten such a dirty word. So, the soy, the lack of lecithin, the lack of non-GMO soy lecithin, people are not having sunflower lecithin which can thin the bile, the lack of bitters in the diet. That's another issue to go on.
Ben: That should be one.
Ann Louise: Yes, nobody's eating bitters because it's not part of the American diet. All these things, I think, contribute to the problem that we're having with fatty liver and congested sluggish bile.
Ben: Where do you get things like choline, from natural food sources?
Ann Louise: Believe it or not, you can get the choline from lecithin, number one, choline from lecithin. You can also get it from eggs, if you don't have an allergy to eggs. But consequently, when I did my research, one of the most allergic producing foods that can create inflammatory responses in the bile ducts, in the liver, happens to be eggs which is one of the primary sources of choline.
Ben: They are forbidden on a lot of liver cleanse programs for that reason.
Ann Louise: They are. The research that was done, way back in the 1960's, found that individuals that had severe gallbladder pain if they eliminated three particular foods from their diet, the pain was reduced by 99%. The first was eggs. The second was pork. The third was onions, believe it or not.
Ben: No kidding.
Ann Louise: Really interesting stuff.
Ben: Wow. So, choline. What about walnuts? Do you like those as source of choline?
Ann Louise: I like walnuts but I like the eggs better if you can tolerate them. Even more so, sunflower lecithin.
Ben: Now, sunflower lecithin, that's something you would buy and supplement for than soy lecithin, right?
Ann Louise: Yes, you would. Non-GMO, of course, soy lecithin. Years ago, when I was coming up, probably before you were born, it was in the 70's, Ben, I used to work in health food stores. The one nutrient that everybody came in for their gallbladder issues, for their gallstones, for their heart was lecithin, and it's become very much out of favorite, and perhaps that's because so much soy is GMO these days.
Ben: Yes, soy has gotten better. I just got back from Tokyo last week, had a lot of soybeans, a lot of non-GMO soybeans made me so [0:15:59] ______
Ann Louise: The best.
Ben: Amazing tofu. A lot of it is really good, but is that a significant source of soy lecithin, just eating soybeans or [0:16:08] ______ something like that?
Ann Louise: Well, it's certainly a source, but I don't think you can get enough as you could with a little bit of lecithin thrown into your morning smoothie, which is what I suggest for some of my people.
Ben: Got you. That's a simple fix. Now, you talked about bitters as well. Are there particular bitters that you'd like for really enhancing gallbladder and bile production?
Ann Louise: There are bitters is in every different form. I like the bitters that you get in your fruits and vegetables. I like grapefruit if there's no contraindication. One of the reasons that the grapefruit diet actually works, according to scripts, is because there's a bitter component of phytonutrient that is very helpful for weight loss.
Ben: What's the grapefruit diet?
Ann Louise: Oh, you never heard of the grapefruit diet?
Ben: No.
Ann Louise: My God. Years ago, this was such a big, and I almost, I say this because I remember like it was yesterday, the grapefruit diet was very popular. I think it was in the 70's, felt it was a little before.
Ben: I was born in ‘81.
Ann Louise: I know. Then, it had a research, which I think in the 90's, but it was a diet whereby you had to have half a, I think was half a pink grapefruit, three or four times a day. It was magnificently helpful for weight loss. When my people can't lose weight and they're doing radical metabolism and taking their allotted fruit, and of course, we reduce that particular amount of fruit, I always switch them to have a pink grapefruit.
Ben: That's interesting, because grapefruit, actually grapefruit extract, I know, influences the mitochondria. I believe it speeds up activity in the electron transport chain which is why people tell you, “Be cautious with grapefruit.”
Ann Louise: Because of the medication.
Ben: Pharmaceutical medications because it speeds up their metabolism.
Ann Louise: Exactly, but it does have that beneficial aspect in terms of weight loss as well. But if you can't tolerate grapefruit, there are always lemons. The lemons thin the bile. Dandelion root is a wonderful bile thinning agent. Even coffee, the right kind of unmoldy, high anti-oxidant, high polythene, all organic coffee, which I talk about in the book. Lots of ways to get bitters. Angostura bitters. I mean, if you're going to go out and drink alcohol, put some Angostura bitters in your vodka for God's sakes.
Ben: This may have been influenced by your book. I don't recall, but it was close to the time your book was published, I went to the bar and I usually have a Moscow meal, which I actually have because it's a bitter, and I just dip in a lime, ginger, what else is in there? Usually, I haven't put a splash of bitters. Typically, I have a gin which bursts super clean, but the thing that the bartender asked me was they said if you ever had, they called it a “Ben and Jitters.” I switched to this drink now. If people go out to the bars, it was rare now, but I remember most familiar, “Ben and Jitters,” what you do is you ask for the Angostura bitters and any good fresh house-made bitters they have or anything that's more a healthy bitter, and you simply do bitters on the rocks with a splash of gin, “Ben and Jitters.”
Ann Louise: Oh, that's so healthy. I mean, I'm off for that. I need the hard liquors.
Ben: Of course, it's named after me. That's what I like.
Ann Louise: Totally cool. Totally cool. Yes, I mean bitters are all over the place. So, you can drink on radical metabolism. You can eat on radical metabolism. You got your bitter greens. You've got the bitter fruits. You've got the bitter drinks. You've got the bitter herbs and spices, and ginger certainly would qualify and there we go.
Ben: What about the one they do in Okinawa, the bitter melon extract?
Ann Louise: It's so very high in anti-oxidants. It's very good to use topically.
Ben: No kidding.
Ann Louise: I mean, they take extracts. We use topically for the skin. Oh, it's magnificent for the skin. It's very high in polythene also. Absolutely, bitter melon.
Ben: Now, some people sell supplements. There's one that I like and I want to get your opinion on because I travel with it sometimes. Because sometimes, when you travel, check-in in the hotel room, there's not like a bunch of lemons and grapefruit in the refrigerator.
Ann Louise: Bitters in the refrigerator. Now, I get it.
Ben: The Chris Shade stuff. My friend, Chris Shade, he does the Quicksilver bitters.
Ann Louise: Ben, I mentioned him in the book. It's one of my very favorites.
Ben: Okay, so you like that one?
Ann Louise: Very much.
Ben: Yes, you just store it in your mouth and you hold it for 30, 60 seconds, a little bit before a meal.
Ann Louise: Absolutely. We have do-it-yourself bitters, we call them Metabolic Series as well.
Ben: Metabolic. What's a do-it-yourself bitter?
Ann Louise: It has a little bit of vinegar, a little bit of maybe some Angostura bitters added to it, maybe some lemon, some lime. So, we've got all kinds of little drinks in the book. So, you can get it with the Chris Shade product, the Bitters #9. There are other brands that I think that are out there or you do it yourself.
Ben: Got you. By the way, for those you're listening in, the recipe in the book, I'll put over bengreenfieldfitness.com/radical. So, we talked a little bit just now about how we can support the gallbladder. That's a question I was going to ask you and wound up being answered when you talk about why people have messed up gallbladders in the first place because they're not including choline and lecithin sources and some of these bitters and digestives. But, I also wanted to ask you, is there a way, aside from looking for fat in your stool and paying attention to the way that you feel is your digesting food, is there an actual test for gallbladder function?
Ann Louise: GGT.
Ben: GGT?
Ann Louise: Which most people don't test for.
Ben: No, they don't.
Ann Louise: So, you look at your liver enzymes and I get GGT. That, as well as high liver enzymes, can usually be the clue. That could be the tip-off there.
Ben: So, like AST, AOT.
Ann Louise: Now GGT, alphabet soup. If you have light-colored stools, if the stools are very light, not the normal color, if you've got pain in the upper quadrant, if you got pain on your right side, if you have dizziness, if you get up in the middle of the night, if you have problems with your hearing, all of that is part of the gallbladder meridian, and that could spell problems with the gallbladder itself.
Ben: What about glutathione? That's talked a lot about. That and N-Acetyl Cysteine are probably two of the darlings of the liver supplement industry.
Ann Louise: Lately. Yes.
Ben: Do those have an effect on the gallbladder?
Ann Louise: Not that I know of.
Ben: Okay, but a lot of times liver issues go hand-in-hand with gallbladder issues.
Ann Louise: You bet, hand-in-hand in there. If you're an embittered person and if you're very resentful, you could have gallbladder problems. There is an emotional contact.
Ben: If you're embittered, your gallbladder sure pretty well.
Ann Louise: If you got the right kind of bitters, yes.
Ben: Actually, I don't want to neglect the importance of what you just said. So, if you're embittered or what?
Ann Louise: Resentful.
Ben: Really?
Ann Louise: It's the emotion that's tied, according to traditional Chinese medicine, with the gallbladder. Anger, traditionally, is the liver, but resentment is the gallbladder. I'm just wondering in this day and age if we have more gallbladder problems because of the upsurge of resentment for many different reasons.
Ben: Interesting.
Ann Louise: So, you have to really stew on that.
Ben: Why do so many get resentful?
Ann Louise: Resentful because of their job, maybe the politics, of what's going on the state of nutrition, the state of the world.
Ben: It's easy to be more resentful when we're living in information age where you just are more aware of things you can be resentful about.
Ann Louise: What about the resentful fact of itself? Yes, indeed.
Ben: Interesting. A couple of other questions about bile. In addition to beginning to include a lot of the nutrients that we just talked about, are you a fan of any type of protocol? There's a lot of different liver cleanses out there.
Ann Louise: I know. I did them.
Ben: Talk to me about what you like, in terms of more intensive program if someone were to have a week-free or 10-days free in their life or something like that to be able to [00:23:29] ______
Ann Louise: I'm not in favor of those cleanses. I know all about them from way back when. I'll tell you why, because oftentimes, if there are hidden bile stones or hidden gallbladder stones, I should say, because of congested bile, they can get stuck in the gallbladder duct and can create real problems.
Ben: Oh, jeez.
Ann Louise: That's a real issue. But instead if, in fact, you have gallbladder issues, if we have gallbladder stones or dust, what do they call the gallbladder residues that you can see when they come out, particularly if you're a fan of colonics or coffee enemas and you see a lot of residues that you know has to do with the gallbladder, then I believe you should take some orthophosphoric acid. And, there are wonderful protocols has been out for many years with the orthophosphoric acid which is an element that will also help to digest kidney stones. I would much prefer people to do that. It's a high-phosphorus element, Ben, phosphoric acid, of course, because we know with the name. We've got a lot of supplements out there from fast food that you can get from standard process to a phosphozyme, from biotics. A lot of these are available online and that's what I would suggest.
Ben: You were giving label, specifically for orthophosphoric acid.
Ann Louise: It's orthophosphoric acid to digest some of these or break up and decongest the gallbladder stones.
Ben: So, what you are suggesting is the use of things like choline, soy lecithin or sunflower lecithin, bitters, supplementation with this orthophosphoric acid and then following some kind of a diet?
Ann Louise: Following radical metabolism. You got it.
Ben: Alright. We're going to delve into “Radical Metabolism” a bit later on. So, hold on folks. We will get to what that program actually looks like because there's [0:25:13 unintelligible]
Ann Louise: It's not really radical at all if you think about it.
Ben: No, it sounds crazy. It's pretty common sense.
Ann Louise: You bet.
Ben: But before we leave gallbladder because I have another elephant in the room that I want to open up. You mentioned it first, so I'm going to mention it now. Coffee enemas are there because there's a lot of chatter out there on the Internet and in health circles about coffee enemas. Is there a single correct way to do a coffee enema?
Ann Louise: I don't know. I think it really depends upon your individual system. I mean, I know from my experience with my clients that have had any type of cancer situation that doing coffee enemas twice a week is very sufficient. Some people can do it once a week, but whatever coffee you use, let's make sure it's organic.
Ben: Organic coffee. When you do the coffee enema, do you keep it inside of you for 10 minutes, 20 minutes?
Ann Louise: 20 minutes.
Ben: 20 minutes?
Ann Louise: It's about 20 minutes.
Ben: Do you lie on your right side or your left side?
Ann Louise: Left side.
Ben: Okay. Because that's the other thing that you see [0:26:18] ______
Ann Louise: I know. I learned from one of the best so I can tell you that it's the left side.
Ben: You learned from a coffee enema ninja?
Ann Louise: You bet.
Ben: Who was that?
Ann Louise: From way back when. From Dr. Hazel Parcells.
Ben: Hazel Parcells.
Ann Louise: She was the Grande Dame Nutrition. She lived to the age of 106. Was my original teacher.
Ben: Has she written a book?
Ann Louise: She has not. There've been books that have written, and I take that back, as I'm thinking in my mind's eye, she has not written a book. There have been books written about her but not at all the type of book that.
Ben: Yes, I've never heard of her. That's fascinating.
Ann Louise: Now, you know.
Ben: Hazel Parcells?
Ann Louise: Yes. She was the woman that changed my life, again, before you were born in 1974.
Ben: Okay. So, use organic coffee.
Ann Louise: Use organic coffee.
Ben: You've been there for 20 minutes?
Ann Louise: 20 minutes.
Ben: On the left side.
Ann Louise: She also taught me to use blackstrap molasses. She was a big believer in enemas with blackstrap molasses.
Ben: Mix in with the coffee?
Ann Louise: No, alone.
Ben: Why would you do that?
Ann Louise: Because you can alternate. One of them can get to the colon wall so the liver is not necessarily dumping but you get all the gunk that's on the colon walls.
Ben: Have you done that before?
Ann Louise: I've done it all. I've got all kinds of things
Ben: Does it feel sticky?
Ann Louise: No. It's very, very detoxifying.
Ben: Interesting.
Ann Louise: There's a certain recipe and I'm happy to give it to your people.
Ben: Well, I'll hunt it down and put it in the shownotes or grab it from you afterwards, because that's something that hasn't come up before. We've talked about probiotic enemas and we talked about coffee enemas, but we haven't talked about blackstrap molasses.
Ann Louise: This is old-time good sense. This is from the masters.
Ben: Yes, I like it. Cool. All right. So now, we've kicked our gallbladders to death and explored that. By the way, if you guys really want that deep, deep dive, get the book because there are even more recipes and digestives and bitters in all manner of more of the science of the gallbladder in the book. But the other thing that blew my mind when I was reading your book, was when I got to a section where you talked about how we could take too much fish oil and you talked about the danger of people vilifying omega 6 fatty acids excessively.
Ann Louise: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Omega 6 has always been a theme of mine since my first book which came out in the late 80's, “Beyond Pritikin.” Because I was the Director of Nutrition at the No to Low Fat Diet Model of the country for many years. What I learned after testing people who came out of the No to Low Fat Diet Model was they are very deficient in essential fatty acids, but there are two essential fatty acids omega 3s and omega 6s. The omega 6s were the one that they are most deficient in, particularly, the linoleic based omega 6s. What I'm finding when I did the research here was that when people need to feed their mitochondria to get actual energy in their systems, because energy is so important these days and fat is a perfect fuel for the mitochondria, we need more omega 6s in a ratio of 4:1 to omega 3s.
Ben: 4:1?
Ann Louise: 4:1. That's the ratio. There's such a thing as too many bad omega 6s that are altered in that they are full of hexane and that they are exposed to heat, air, and light.
Ben: Right. Just like rancid process, heated vegetable oils, that type of thing.
Ann Louise: Yes, we're not talking about that. We're talking about the parent oils from hemp oil which is why I'm such a believer in hemp. Hemp, hemp, hooray! And, it's also very protective against radiation because we are loaded with radiation.
Ben: Does it need to be the oil or can you sprinkle the seeds on a salad or drink hemp milk?
Ann Louise: I love the hemp seeds. You could do either, but you're going to get more of the good omega 6s, more the linoleic acid if you have the oil drizzled on your salads.
Ben: What are some other examples of some of these parents essential oils that people are missing out on because they're focusing too much on the fish oil?
Ann Louise: Sesame oil.
Ben: I'm trying to avoid seeds and nuts.
Ann Louise: Sesame oil is one. So, the toasted sesame oil, which is totally delicious.
Ben: Toasted sesame oil. Somebody told me–you reminded me now. Somebody told me I have to get toasted sesame oil.
Ann Louise: We cook with it all the time and it can take the heat.
Ben: Really? And it's not rancid. It's heat stable.
Ann Louise: No. There's something about the sesame that makes it very heat stable and very helpful in augmenting your platelets. It's got a lot of vitamin T. Nobody's heard of vitamin T, but it's got a lot of vitamin T.
Ben: What is vitamin T?
Ann Louise: God only knows. I don't know. But that's another thing that I —
Ben: But that's an actual thing, vitamin T?
Ann Louise: Yeah. My original teacher who used to work with Royal Lee, who is the founder of Standard Process, that's what I learned many years ago. I mean, I was at the foot of a master for several years. So, everything I'm telling you have been tried and true and it's kind of timeless ageless wisdom.
Ben: Yeah. Have you talked about vitamin T in any of your books before?
Ann Louise: No, but I will in the next book.
Ben: Okay.
Ann Louise: So, we've got the sesame oil. And then the one that I'm craziest about and I didn't know whether I should include in the book was pine nut oil. There's an enormous amount of research to suggest that the pinolenic acid and pine nut oil is very similar to the gamma-linolenic acid that you get in evening primrose oil and you get it in borage and you get it in black currant seed oil. And it's very healing for the mucosal membranes. So, one teaspoon three times a day for the first three weeks of the month will actually clear up esophageal irritation, corrosion in the large intestine, the small intestine and help to heal H. pylori. It is an absolutely unsung hero when it comes to the guts.
Ben: I don't know if you noticed when we walked through the kitchen just now that we're going to be having some toasted pine nuts on our salad at dinner tonight.
Ann Louise: Well, my God, then your wife must have read the book or read the scourge.
Ben: Oh, no, she doesn't read books.
Ann Louise: Just saying.
Ben: She's listening to me talk about the book. It's kind of funny. My wife reads about one book probably a year. I read a book a day and I just fill the family in on what I read.
Ann Louise: Well, that works.
Ben: Yeah. My kids are starting to catch up, too. My kids are almost at a book a day now but they're reading like Captain Underpants and—
Ann Louise: Oh, cute little 10-year-olds.
Ben: We'll have dinner with them. Go get to meet them. And then borage oil and also evening primrose oil, I actually take those along with astaxanthin, but they're all in the same capsule. They're packaged with the fish oil that I take.
Ann Louise: See, that's a good combination. So, you're getting at least more omega 6s. My mantra here is the 6s are sexy and if you've got issues with your skin, you want to look at the omega 6s. Very helpful for eczema, psoriasis, important for the mitochondria, and they do support the structural aspect of the cell membrane.
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Ben: Now, would those also be the type of things–this is one that's very popular. It's the gentleman in Canada who makes all the oils. Do you know who I'm talking about? I'm blanking on his name now.
Ann Louise: Are you talking about the omega guy?
Ben: Yeah. Well, he does omegas.
Ann Louise: Are you talking about Udo?
Ben: Udo. Yes, Udo.
Ann Louise: My old friend, Udo Erasmus.
Ben: What do you think of Udo's?
Ann Louise: I think it's probably a very good blend of oils because he's got the unrefined, raw, unheated sunflower oil, which is a source if it's unheated and raw of good omega 6s.
Ben: Okay. Good to know. So, a lot of these oils would be–
Ann Louise: With the proper antioxidants, of course, because they can go rancid. So, that's with the vitamin E and the rosemary.
Ben: So, you keep packages of them with the antioxidants?
Ann Louise: Yeah. And he does a very good job of doing that.
Ben: Okay. So, you could eat like a whole foods plant-rich diet that's going to give you a lot of the antioxidants and supplement that with pine nuts and hemp seeds and flax powder. But you could also, if you want to kind of take an even deeper dive, use supplements that are–somebody has prepared essential oils, packaged with antioxidants.
Ann Louise: Absolutely. So, you've got a wide variety of things that you can do. And don't forget that pine nut oil.
Ben: Yeah.
Ann Louise: It's a biggie.
Ben: It's funny because I mean there are people in the industry. This is going to be controversial for me to say but one of the pioneers of the industry who endorsed 30, 40 grams of fish oil a day, Charles Poliquin. He actually just passed of a heart attack.
Ann Louise: I know, I know. May he rest in peace.
Ben: Yeah. Huge wealth of knowledge. The Strength Sensei. And I always wondered whether that amount of fish oil was natural or good for the human body, but this idea of balancing it out with seeds and nuts and some of these–
Ann Louise: It just makes good dietary sense.
Ben: It does, it does. A lot of what you're saying is the way that we would experience life in nature rather than having unopposed amounts of these things or rather than like sitting down to a meal without eating bitters or digestives, for example.
Ann Louise: Agreed.
Ben: Yeah. Okay. So, another thing about parent essential oils, I thought it was really interesting. And I want to ask you this. I don't know if you know anything about it but you mentioned how gamma-linolenic acid actually promotes the formation of brown fat tissue, which I wasn't aware of.
Ann Louise: It activates.
Ben: I've been taking cold showers and cold baths for years and what the heck? Where were you? What can you tell me just take GLA?
Ann Louise: I know. And this has been known for ages. I mean, it was taught to me by my friend David Horrobin that was the scientist. He was out of Montreal that wrote about evening primrose oil back in the day. This would be the '70s and '80s. And we all knew, and when they talked about brown fat being the new obesity cure for heaven's sakes that the one thing that triggered that was not just cold but was also–was a supplement like evening primrose oil. So, GLA is a real promoter and activator of brown fat, which is you know is very dormant in overweight individuals.
Ben: Yeah.
Ann Louise: So, bring on the GLA. And that's the reason why people lose weight without changing their calories or even lifting a finger to exercise.
Ben: That's interesting. I had studied up and heard the same thing. I actually take this sometimes before like a cold-water immersion or going up to the cold bath. It's bitter melon extract. But I had heard of GLA. There's been a way to do that too.
Ann Louise: It's huge.
Ben: So, you get the ability to convert adipose tissue in a metabolically active brown fat.
Ann Louise: Which is what we want, which is loaded with the mitochondria.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. And you have people who lose weight without a robust exercise or diet program just by supplement like GLA?
Ann Louise: I don't like to say that but yes, it's true because we all need to exercise for other reasons but they do lose weight.
Ben: Right. Right on guys to shoot testosterone under their butt cheek. There are better ways but it's at least interesting to know. That's very interesting.
Ann Louise: Oh, it's huge and very forgotten. And it concerns me because so many of my cohorts, so many of my friends out there are still writing about how bad omega 6s are.
Ben: Oh, you see it everywhere. Yeah, you see it everywhere.
Ann Louise: I know because everybody's rehashing the same nonsense.
Ben: Yeah, exactly. No, I really appreciate that section of the book and I learned a lot. You also talked about protein intake and specifically omega–or not omegas but essential fatty acids. You referred to protein in a pill and you talk about EAAs and BCAAs. Can you delve into that a little bit?
Ann Louise: You know, I'll tell you something. I wrote the book but now believe, number one, that most of us need more protein, not less. I think we need about 100 grams a day. And if you're an athlete, you probably need a little more. You probably can speak to that. And I know that you have a protein. Is it a protein supplement that you've come out with?
Ben: I use a protein supplement. I use amino acids and then I use typically like a–or the protein powder I use that's from Thorne. I use like a Thorne vegan-based protein powder that I mix digestive enzymes into.
Ann Louise: Well, that's probably a very good idea. And I know that you're involved with a–the protein company that you have is Kion?
Ben: Kion is my company.
Ann Louise: Yeah.
Ben: That's where I develop supplements.
Ann Louise: Yeah. Well, if you have a supplement, I can always–for the next chapter of the book or the next edition of the book–it became a national bestseller, by the way, the first week of the ground.
Ben: Your book, “Radical Metabolism?”
Ann Louise: It did become a national bestseller and I'm very happy to use your brand. I don't know if it's very different than what we have in the book that has I think 9 or 10 of the most essential amino acids. I think you need just about everyone.
Ben: Yeah. The one I use has nine.
Ann Louise: Well, that's about right.
Ben: No. Does that had to do with the gallbladder or is that part of metabolic rate or what do you talk about it?
Ann Louise: Metabolic rate. It's really metabolic rate because we're trying to enhance your ability to grow stronger muscles, more lean muscle mass as we get older because we know we lose it. And one thing I discovered here when I did the chapter is that coffee, the right kind of coffee can actually prevent lean muscle. It could actually prevent you from losing lean muscle mass as you get older.
Ben: No kidding. Well, that's a great coffee [00:41:03] ______.
Ann Louise: It's the chlorogenic. And I'm not even a coffee drinker.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you're not?
Ann Louise: It's the purity coffee brand.
Ben: Well, you can if you can use it for enemas.
Ann Louise: That's where it'll go in the right place, yeah. Thank you.
Ben: It's very good. It's not like normal people drink it.
Ann Louise: That's me.
Ben: So, with protein, the idea with the amino acids is you would use those as a way to get more concentrated forms of protein without all the calories.
Ann Louise: You would, quite honestly, yes.
Ben: Okay.
Ann Louise: And I have a lot of vegan people that follow my programs and they can assimilate the carbohydrates and beans. So, I need more raw amino acid so to speak. I need those building blocks.
Ben: And you get less of the accelerated aging effect in the mTOR activation, not like a BCAA alone would provide.
Ann Louise: I believe so.
Ben: Yeah. I don't feel good on BCAAs.
Ann Louise: No, no. So, I'm really getting away from it a little bit.
Ben: It continues blood glucose monitor before and they push my blood glucose through the roof. I think it's all of the losing in them.
Ann Louise: I would agree.
Ben: Okay. Another thing that you talk about is toxicity. You talk a lot about toxicity and its effect on metabolism. And a lot of people are aware of heavy metals and toxins and plastics and whatnot. But you have specific ways that you encourage people to test for toxicities because there's a variety of different ways to actually test whether you're toxic. Can you go into the test that you actually like or something like that?
Ann Louise: Well, I like something that's kind of non-invasive. I like a tissue mineral analysis. I like a hair test because not only can we figure out what the body is excreting or isn't excreting but we take a look at the mineral ratio in a typical hair test to see how your glands are functioning, whether there's a blood sugar problem, a thyroid problem or an adrenal problem.
Ben: Are all hair tests the same?
Ann Louise: They should be. The lab that we use I know was the lab that my master teacher worked with in his later year. So, I would say so. At least he was the fellow that's now involved with this. It's the lab down in College Station, Texas. The name right not now escapes me.
Ben: I can look it up. It's probably in your book, I think.
Ann Louise: Trace Elements.
Ben: Trace Elements.
Ann Louise: Trace Elements.
Ben: Your husband piping in from the back, trace elements.
Ann Louise: Thank you. It's Trace Elements.
Ben: Yes. Okay. I've heard of that one. So, that would be a good way to actually test for toxins versus like–you know, a lot of people will talk about doing like a urine provocation test where you drink a substance.
Ann Louise: That can be very hard on this system. Any of the pills that people now take to excrete heavy metals is also very hard on the kidneys. So, I've had people over the years that simply can't tolerate such a test. But I think that's important. And I think it's also important to know what you're cooking in that you're getting a lot of toxicity from your pots and pans. And lo and behold, this was like a piece of enlightened self-interest. I started reading about cast iron that I had been promoting for many, many years until I did the research for the book. And we've been cooking in cast iron. I can't tell you for how long.
Ben: Us, too.
Ann Louise: Well, I tested my ferritin. It's the highest it's ever been. I tested my husband's ferritin and everybody that eats with us on a regular basis, and we're all stockpiling iron, which is not good if you want to live a very healthy long life.
Ben: Oh no. It's not. I'm lucky. I'm an endurance athlete. I burn through a lot of red blood cells. I go through iron and like it's going out of style.
Ann Louise: Well, you're unusual.
Ben: I test ferritin iron, but yeah–
Ann Louise: What is your ferritin?
Ben: I don't remember the exact number but it's low. I want to say it's like 60s, 70s, something like that.
Ann Louise: As long as it's under 100.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. What about sauna? Does sauna have effect on ferritin iron?
Ann Louise: You know, I don't know.
Ben: Yeah. I don't either. I know in certain situations, it's a red blood cell builder. It can cause a [00:44:37] ______ production. But you hear sauna often champion for heavy metal detoxification.
Ann Louise: Well, that's good, and it's also good to get rid of virus because it can penetrate so long. But it's depending upon your ability to detoxify. It can be too much for some people. We have a lot of sick people out there, Ben.
Ben: Yeah.
Ann Louise: And they can't detoxify. They don't have the ability to make glutathione. Their detox pathways are blocked. I happened to be one of those people. Three detox pathways blocked. So, if I can do my program, which I created for people like me as the canary, anybody can do this.
Ben: Me too. My SOD pathway is–it is the worst [00:45:11] ______ can have. Same with my kids, we all take liposomal glutathione every day.
Ann Louise: Very interesting. And that's what I do. So, what is your MTHFR?
Ben: I am heteros, I guess for MTHFR. So, I use–
Ann Louise: Which gene? Do you know?
Ben: I don’t remember which gene.
Ann Louise: Well, I'm–
Ben: I take methyltetrahydrofolate and I'm very careful with synthetic sources of folic acid.
Ann Louise: You have to be but I'm homozygous and 1298 and heterozygous and 677. So, I've got three to four pathways blocked, which is not an ideal situation.
Ben: You're fall on mother-F as they say.
Ann Louise: Yes. You got it. There I am.
Ben: Yeah. Okay. So, one other question about metals, just over on this topic, and I'll hunt down for those of you listening in that hair test and put a link to it over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/radical because–
Ann Louise: Or they can do it through our office, Ben.
Ben: Oh, they can, probably. Okay.
Ann Louise: And then, they can meet with one of our nutritionists who could actually decipher what's going on.
Ben: So, you guys have a nutritionist at your office?
Ann Louise: We got it all.
Ben: You have supplements?
Ann Louise: We test your poop, your saliva.
Ben: Is it all over in Post Falls?
Ann Louise: Yeah. Well, the main–
Ben: Like the main offices.
Ann Louise: We're in Texas and we're in Post Falls. Our sales and marketing are in Texas, in The Woodlands, Texas. And we're in Post Falls. It's where the Hayden Lake actual area.
Ben: I got to ride my bike down to Centennial Trail sometime and say hi. So, I'll put a link to Ann's website as well over in the shownotes. But one other thing regarding toxicity, aluminum foil. You're also not a fan of that?
Ann Louise: Never have been. I'd rather have a poisonous serpent in the kitchen than aluminum foil because it can easily absorb into the foods, much more so than aluminum pots and pans, particularly, if it's acidic-based foods.
Ben: So, if we can't use cast iron or aluminum foil, what are the alternatives?
Ann Louise: Anymore. Enamel covered iron or a high-gauge stainless steel, or my very favorite is the VitaClay where you're cooking in some kind of earthenware. That's, of course, is unglazed.
Ben: Yeah. I’ve got those. I got that from Japan. I've been doing a lot of cooking in the clay because—
Ann Louise: It is the best. And the food tastes the best. It's kind of infrared cooking PS and it's very high in biomagnetic energy.
Ben: Is there a brand you like for clay?
Ann Louise: VitaClay is the name of that.
Ben: VitaClay.
Ann Louise: It's a slow cooker called VitaClay. See how radical we are?
Ben: I hate you, Ann, you can make me spend a bunch of money on my kitchen.
Ann Louise: Oh, God.
Ben: My wife will be happy, new pots and pans.
Ann Louise: Well, it's important. Nobody pays attention the way they should.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, in the book, obviously, the foundation of it as we've alluded to is, and correct me if I'm wrong, a four-day program and also —
Ann Louise: Four-day, an intensive cleanse.
Ben: A 21-day?
Ann Louise: And the 21-day, and of course there's a week of maintenance, which just shows you how to put the program together. So, it's a four-day intensive cleanse which has a soup. It has watercress soup because the research was so compelling about how watercress contains 10 of the most cancer-fighting phytonutrients on the planet. So, I had to make a watercress soup. Yeah.
Ben: Where do you buy watercress?
Ann Louise: Trader Joe's.
Ben: It's Trader Joe's. You just got watercress package or the can?
Ann Louise: Whole Foods, packaged, and it can be hydroponically grown as well.
Ben: Okay. So, the four-day cure is watercress soups.
Ann Louise: Watercress soup, watercress soup. And juices that we make, which of course are low-glycemic-low-fruit and have a lot of prebiotics in the very cleansing and very priming of the pump.
Ben: Okay.
Ann Louise: And full of polyphenols. So, they're juicing. So, they are juices without any pulp.
Ben: Is celery juice included?
Ann Louise: So, little celery is included.
Ben: Okay. You're going to laugh because I have a big glass of celeries use before dinner. You'll hear the juicer up there grinding–
Ann Louise: What's very good for your digestion, yeah.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Okay. So, the four-day cleanse is a little more intensive. Basically, it's juices, soups–
Ann Louise: It is very intensive. But people lose weight very quickly, 8 to 10 pounds. And quite frankly, for women that are of a certain age and stage of life, as well as men that haven't been able to lose doing anything else, that's a welcome weight loss.
Ben: Yeah. They lose weight because they're just like…
Ann Louise: Oh, it could be water weight.
Ben: … [00:49:08] ______ the bathroom or–
Ann Louise: No. A lot of it is water weight from inflammatory responses from allergic producing foods. But, so what? They feel good and it motivates them to continue on a healthy program.
Ben: And if some were to follow that four-day, would it also affect the gallbladder?
Ann Louise: The four-day. We don't include bitters per se but I think there is some grapefruit juice–grapefruit in one of the programs.
Ben: But you could do that four-day and include like the soy lecithin and that choline and things like that.
Ann Louise: You could put it and sprinkle it in the juice, quite frankly, or you could put it in the soup.
Ben: Fascinating. Okay. So, you do the four-day and then you go straight into the 21-day?
Ann Louise: And then you do the 21-day. And we give you support 24/7. We have unsurpassable support because I'm very invested in people doing this right. It's a little different. It's a little radical. Although, it's very common sense as you and I have discussed, I want people to really get success.
Ben: Okay. So, how's the 21-day work?
Ann Louise: Well, we start in the morning with what is called the Citrus Blaster, which is a coffee-based drink because it's so important in terms of burning fat three times more than any other beverage. Coffee is very important in terms of its being bitter. We have a little whey protein.
Ben: Coffee all by itself?
Ann Louise: No, it's coffee with whey protein, our Fat Flush Whey Protein, A2 base protein. We were one of the only companies years ago that has A2 [00:50:22] ______.
Ben: Oh, no kidding. Yeah. There's not a lot of A2 protein out.
Ann Louise: Well, we knew what we were doing. So, we sourced it correctly. Thanks to Uni Key Health Systems.
Ben: Not to delve too deeply down that rabbit hole but can you give people that 30-second overview of why A2 is important?
Ann Louise: Because it's based on the non-mutated casein milk that has not been implicated in the diseases the way A1 has, which is connected to heart disease, diabetes and all kinds of cardiovascular implications.
Ben: And most of the cow milk in the U.S., even the organic stuff.
Ann Louise: It's A1.
Ben: It's A1. Yeah.
Ann Louise: But we have A2.
Ben: Okay.
Ann Louise: Fat Flush A2, yay the Uni Key.
Ben: And about like goats, camels, water buffalo, a lot of these milks that people are drinking as alternatives, those are A1?
Ann Louise: Most of them I believe–you know, it's a good question. I believe that they're A1.
Ben: I'm pretty sure it's mostly cattle that are bred for the A2.
Ann Louise: Yeah. No, I think you're right.
Ben: Yeah. Okay. So, you do the coffee with the whey protein?
Ann Louise: Coffee with the whey protein. And what else do we put in there? We put in a little MCT, high-fat coconut milk. We put in some herbs and spices and then we've got breakfast.
Ben: Okay. Yeah.
Ann Louise: So, it's got the protein. It's got the fat and it'll just trigger and it'll get the body into a fat burning mode.
Ben: And you're okay with–because you talked about the paleo and the keto and the high-fat approach.
Ann Louise: I'm okay with all of that as long as you can digest it.
Ben: Okay. So, you'd want to make sure you do the four-day cure beforehand so that you can have good digestion before you start in like 21 days of good and–
Ann Louise: Or fasting isn't for you or [00:51:46] ______ to go right into the program.
Ben: Okay.
Ann Louise: People do exceedingly well either way.
Ben: Just make sure you've got good bile production beforehand.
Ann Louise: Bile is where it's at because bile is beautiful.
Ben: Okay. What are few other examples of meals that someone would eat on this 21-day?
Ann Louise: We've got all kinds of meals in the program.
Ben: I've got a book right here, too. So, I can thumb through the book and give you guys kind of an idea of–
Ann Louise: And the recipes are actually very tasty, by the way. We've got desserts, we've got recipes. You're using the omega 6s a little bit more. We've got some vegan recipes as well.
Ben: Lamb burger refreshment and dill, arugula, basmati rice, celery sticks, grapefruit slaw. There's the grapefruit [00:52:26] ______.
Ann Louise: It's really very delicious.
Ben: Yeah. It's pretty straightforward. Not a lot of crazy expensive ingredients either. You know, the one thing I hadn't discovered too much in your book though, and I didn't know that about the anticarcinogenic potential as watercress. Do you have a whole section in the book about that benefit of watercress?
Ann Louise: There's such good research about watercress. And particularly, the watercress soup, it is a wonderful weight loss tool.
Ben: Are there other ways to eat watercress aside from soup? I mean, can you just eat it like a salad?
Ann Louise: You could. I would put it in a salad. I would use it as a green. So, instead of sautéing your kale that you grow out there, we could start growing watercress.
Ben: Amazing.
Ann Louise: Yeah. You could do it all.
Ben: Yeah. That's interesting. And, [00:53:07] ______.
Ann Louise: Very cancer-fighting, very cancer-fighting.
Ben: Yeah. Kale, a lot of this cruciferous, they have a lot of sulforaphane in them, which is fantastic for the gut, for shutting down a lot of inflammatory pathways. You can combine it with mustard and it's even better. I'm curious if watercress has an effect on those pathways, too.
Ann Louise: I bet so.
Ben: Yeah. And is it considered cruciferous you think?
Ann Louise: Oh, it's considered a bitter, I believe. It's not totally considered a cruciferous, or because it's so uncommon in this culture, we probably haven't classified it correctly.
Ben: Okay. Yeah. But you can buy it in a package?
Ann Louise: We buy it at Trader Joe's. And if you can't get it there, get it at Whole Foods or you get it at germination market. It can be found.
Ben: This podcast is brought to you by watercress.
Ann Louise: Thank God for watercress.
Ben: We'll hunt it down along with a lot of the other things that Ann and I talked about in today's show. She, like I mentioned, had–what's the name of your actual company? I knew this a long time ago–
Ann Louise: Uni Key. I'm a spokesperson for Uni Key Health Systems. I help develop products for Uni Key Health Systems, which is in Hayden, Idaho.
Ben: Hayden. Not Post Falls, Hayden?
Ann Louise: I live in Post Falls. It's in Hayden, Idaho.
Ben: Okay. Not far. Yeah.
Ann Louise: No, it's a stone's throw away.
Ben: Interesting. Okay. So, the book is “Radical Metabolism: Powerful New Plan to Blast Fat and Reignite Your Energy in just 21 Days.” Ann Louise Gittleman is my guest. Here at my home, we're going to go have a fantastic meal. I do not guarantee it will have watercress. It's [00:54:32] ______ in it.
Ann Louise: That's perfectly okay.
Ben: But the next time that you come over, it might because I learned a lot just now. All the shownotes along with the link to Ann's book and the other two books of hers that I've read and owned, they're over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/radical. So, we're all going to go stuff our faces now and think of our gallbladders. Ann, thanks for coming on the show.
Ann Louise: My pleasure. Thank you.
Ann Louise Gittleman was one of my very first podcast guests.
She first joined me on podcast episode #29: “How Many Critters Are Living In YOUR Gut, Making You Fat, Tired, Lazy, Bloated and Sick?”
Now, she's back on the show. Ann came to my house in Spokane, WA to talk about her new, amazing book “Radical Metabolism: A Powerful New Plan to Blast Fat and Reignite Your Energy in Just 21 Days“. This new book reveals the secrets to reviving a sluggish over-40 metabolism – secrets that work even faster if you're in your 20s and 30s, or you suffer from liver, gallbladder or thyroid issues.
You'll discover which “forbidden fats,” forgotten flavors, and fat-busting beverages you can eat and drink in order to increase your metabolism, protect against autoimmunity, address gallbladder issues, type II diabetes, and other devastating health problems.
The Radical Metabolism program consists of:
-a 4-day Radical Intensive Cleanse designed to rest your digestive tract and detoxify your body
-21-Day Radical Reboot where you'll learn exactly what combinations of foods to eat for results you can feel and see
-a Maintenance Plan for a healthy life
A Columbia University graduate, Ann Louise Gittleman is often called “The First Lady of Nutrition”. She is a nutritionist and internationally recognized as a pioneer in dietary, environmental, and women's health issues. She is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author of over 30 books on health and nutrition including diet, detox, women's health, men's health, perimenopause, menopause, beauty and the environment.
As one of the world's foremost experts in functional and integrative medicine she holds an M.S. in Nutrition Education from Columbia University, has the title of Certified Nutrition Specialist (C.N.S.) from the American College of Nutrition and a Ph.D. in Holistic Nutrition. Ann Louise has also served as the Chief Nutritionist of Pediatric Clinic at Bellevue Hospital and is the former Director of Nutrition at the Pritikin Longevity Center in Santa Monica, CA. She has won numerous awards, including The American Medical Writers Association Award for Excellence.
In 2016 Ann was presented with the Humanitarian Award from the Cancer Control Society. She currently sits on the Advisory Board for the International Institute for Building-Biology & Ecology, the Nutritional Therapy Association, Inc. and Clear Passage, Inc.
During our discussion, you'll discover:
-Why the gallbladder is such a crucial component of the Radical Metabolism program…8:40
- Women in the U.S. are FFF: Fat, Forty and Fatigued.
- Gallbladder removal is one of the most common procedures in this country.
- It's not a “throw away” organ; we need to do everything we can to keep it.
- The “unholy alliance” between the gallbladder and the thyroid.
- If people do not have free-flowing bile (which they don't if they don't have a gallbladder) they can't convert successfully convert T4 into T3.
- Because the thyroid is so intimately connected to metabolism…
- People with sluggish bile are 7 times more likely to suffer from hyperthyroidism.
- Ben struggled with decreased thyroid activity while training for triathlons.
- People who do keto or paleo diets with high intake of fat are at risk; you need to be able to digest the fat and essential fatty acids.
-Ann's thoughts on why the gallbladder and bile issues are so common among American women…13:00
- Lack of choline.
- Study: 500 mg of choline 3x a day for 6 weeks will decongest a fatty liver.
- Choline is a lipotropic nutrient.
- We don't eat foods with natural lecithin; stigma surrounding soy products.
- Lack of bitter herbs in the diet.
- Natural sources of choline:
- Lecithin
- Eggs (if you're not allergic)
- Walnuts
- Sunflower lecithin supplement
- Bitter herbs Ann recommends: Grapefruit Diet (very popular in the 70's, with a resurgence in the 90's)
- Grapefruit extract influences mitochondria.
- Bitter melon extract.
- Ben's favorite cocktail: Bitter herbs, on the rocks, with a splash of gin. “Ben and Jitters”
-How do we test for gallbladder function?…20:43
- GGT
- High liver enzymes
- If light colored stool, dizziness, hearing problems all part of gallbladder meridian.
- Glutathione doesn't affect gallbladder.
- A bitter and resentful personality indicates gallbladder issues. Anger is associated with the liver; resentment is associated with the gallbladder.
-Is Ann a fan of any of the cleanses out there that increase bile levels?…23:00
- No. Because of congested bile, they can get stuck in the gallbladder duct and create serious problems.
- The use of choline and bitters, then following Radical Metabolism…
-What is the “correct” way to do a coffee enema?…25:25
- Depends on the individual.
- Ensure the coffee is organic.
- Keep it inside you for 20 minutes; lay on your left side.
- Hazel Parcells: The grand dame of health.
- Blackstrap molasses.
-The balance of omega 3 and omega 6 fats and why there's such a thing as “too much fish oil”…27:45
- We need a 4:1 ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fats.
- Watch out for bad omega 6 fats. Parent oils.
- You'll get more omega 6 fats from parent oils.
- Toasted sesame oil – Has lots of Vitamin T.
- What is Vitamin T?
- “Sixes are Sexy.”
-Ann's thoughts on Udo's Oil…35:37
- Uses unrefined, raw sunflower oil.
- Uses proper antioxidants.
-The role of Gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) in the formation of brown fat tissue…37:15
- It actually “activates” the tissue.
- Evening primrose oil;
- GLA helps people to lose weight without watching their calories or exercising.
-Why Ann is a fan of essential amino acids…39:15
- We need more protein, not less.
- Has more to do with metabolic rate than the gallbladder.
- The right kind of coffee can prevent you from losing lean muscle.
- It's a way to get more concentrated amounts of proteins.
-The best way to test for toxicity in your body…42:00
- Non-invasive: hair tests; tissue analysis.
- Urine provocation test can be very hard on the system.
- Lots of toxicity in cooking tools and utensils.
-Why Ann would rather have a poisonous serpent in her kitchen than aluminum foil…45:48
- Use enamel covered iron as an alternative.
- Vita Clay Pot
-Ann's 4-day and 21-day intensive cleanses…47:37
- Lots of watercress soup, which contains cancer-fighting phytonutrients. (Buy it at Trader Joe's.) Can also eat watercress as the green in a salad, as opposed to kale.
- Juices that are low-glycemic. No pulp.
- Not uncommon to lose 8-10 pounds during the cleanse. Water weight.
- You start with the 4-day, then take a week of maintenance and then the 21-day.
- Why A2 is far preferable to A1 (found in most milks).
Resources from this episode:
- Unikey Health Systems
- Book: Radical Metabolism: A Powerful New Plan to Blast Fat and Reignite Your Energy in Just 21 Days
- Book: The Gut Flush Plan: A Breakthrough Cleansing Program – Flushes Fattening Toxins – Boosts Metabolism – Fortifies Your Health
- Book: Zapped: Why Your Cell Phone Shouldn't Be Your Alarm Clock and 1,268 Ways to Outsmart the Hazards of Electronic Pollution
- Podcast Episode #29: How Many Critters Are Living In YOUR Gut, Making You Fat, Tired, Lazy, Bloated and Sick? (hint: more than you think)
- Choline – 500mg of choline 3x/day for 4 weeks
- Soy lecithin
- Bitters #9
- Orthophosphoric acid
- The fish oil Ben takes
- Hair test from Trace Elements
- Watercress
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Hi! I love your podcasts!
Do you have the bread recipe that and Louise Gettleman gave out during the podcast? From flaxseed? I would love to make it. Thank you. Lynette Jenkins [email protected]
I’d like to invest in a VitaClay, but already have a slow cooker, rice cooker, and pressure cooker. Do you or Ann Louise know if VitaClay produces the Clay inserts where I could replace the steel container in my rice cooker with that for the same effect?
Is it possible for the recipe for the molasses enema?
Haven’t yet found it, as she had mentioned not needing to add it to coffee.
Thanks!