Top 10 Foods That DESTROY Your HEART

Hello, whole champions. Today I want to talk about the top 10 foods that destroy your heart. And that's super important to understand because cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of people in the world. 18 million people a year die globally from this, which is twice as many as the number two problem, which is cancer. And that number includes both heart attacks and strokes. So we could have a problem where the heart doesn't get enough oxygen and we get a myocardial infarction. But it could also be a clot in the brain or a bleed in the brain called a stroke. So both of those would be included in the cardiovascular disease. And there's very little disagreement on the fact that cardiovascular disease is caused by food. It's our lifestyles. It's the way that we eat that causes most of those problems. And yet we can't agree on which foods cause the problems. So that's what we're going to talk about. We're going to understand that really clearly. So it's important you follow through on all of this to understand the mechanisms because otherwise you will just fall in the trap of believing the next list or the next person who claims something. Because if you do a Google search and you look up which I did, foods that cause heart disease. Then what you're going to find is out of 759 million results, the number one results at the top of the page, which was not a paid ad, was better health channel. I think it was in Australia or something, but it doesn't really matter because they all say the same thing. And they say saturated fat is bad. It causes heart disease. And it does that because it raises LDL cholesterol, which is a bad cholesterol that causes heart disease. And we want to start understanding that that is not how it works. That was a truth, a myth established 50, 60, 70 years ago that still stays with us, even though the evidence is very, very clear that this is not how it works. That people eat good quality saturated fat, actually live longer. They don't get heart disease. It's actually the way to reverse heart disease. The mantra that we hear over and over is to avoid animal products such as butter, coconut, oil, and lard. We should not eat beef, lamb, eggs, or bacon. And all the dairy products should be nonfat or low fat is what they tell us. And that is the problem. So we need to understand what the mechanisms are instead. And then they throw in pastries and biscuits down at the end, kind of like an afterthought. And they don't realize that these two things don't belong in the same category, that the animal products are stable saturated fats. They're good for you. Whereas the pastries are actually really bad because the fat there is primarily a vegetable fat that they have hardened and turned partially saturated through a process called partially hydrogenated. And that turns fat, the vegetable fat that was processed and bad to start with, turned it very, very toxic. That creates all sorts of problems. But that's not even the only problem with pastries and biscuits because they also contain sugar and preservatives and modern wheat and other grains and starches. So throwing that into a list, we often see these different categories of foods that they just mix them together haphazardly without understanding anything about why they would have anything to do with heart disease. So let's understand the real cause of heart disease, one sum for all. And we'll start, we'll go backwards. We start with cardiovascular disease and we'll work our way up. And cardiovascular disease is caused by damaged blood vessels. So vascular disease means just that vascular vessels. And when they get damaged, that's when we experience the heart disease. If we get little cracks and damage on the inside, then we body repairs it and we get sometimes these atherosclerotic plaques and calcifications. If we get a bunch of blood clots, then they can dislodge and flow into the brain and cause a stroke. So what then causes the damage? And the answer is there's two things. There's two things that initiate that actually causes the damage and that is inflammation and oxidative stress. That's the end tool that inflicts the damage if you will. So then the question is, of course, working our way up here. What causes inflammation and oxidative stress? Which foods do that? And the number one mechanism, the number one adaptation in the body that causes these problems is called insulin resistance. And it causes both inflammation and oxidative stress. And it's the number one problem for the vast majority of people. But it's not the only problem because you can get heart disease without having insulin resistance even though it is the cause in most cases. And if you don't have insulin resistance, then it could be something like toxins. It could be stress or it could be bad fats. And we're going to talk about what those are. Fat is not bad. There are good fats and there are bad fats. And the number one problem with insulin resistance is sugar. And also to a large extent, these processed oils, which will explain why they are bad and which ones they are. But if we know that this is the sequence, this is the causation. And we know that the inflammation and the oxidative stress, those are the things that execute that inflict the damage. We can't talk about the foods without paying attention to this sequence of causation. And insulin resistance is an adaptation. It is not a disease. It's not a state. It's an adaptation. It's a temporary state that the body develops based on our lifestyle. When we change the lifestyle, the adaptation changes. So insulin resistance, which is basically the same thing as advanced insulin resistance is type 2 diabetes, is almost completely reversible in almost all cases. And if we can reverse the insulin resistance, then we can also reverse the diabetes. But then we have to avoid the foods that actually cause it. So up at the top row here, we have the actual causes of cardiovascular disease because this is a sequence of causation. Food number 10 is rice. And it's not as bad as some of the other foods we're going to talk about. But it can still be a problem. And here is why. So we need to understand what glucose and carbohydrates are. When we talk about carbohydrates, it's plant food that we eat that gets picked apart and we absorb it into the bloodstream as glucose. It's called blood sugar or blood glucose. And that's a six carbon ring that is called glucose. Now that's a monosaccharide and all plants are made up mostly of glucose. When we eat something sweet, then it is usually a table sugar. It's a dye saccharide. And if we have glucose on the one side and fructose on the other, we have a six carbon ring and a five carbon ring, that is called sucrose or table sugar. So this side of it is the same thing and then depending on which dye saccharide it is, then this one will change up. They could be different things. And here's the part that most people miss because they say that sugar is bad but complex carbs are good. And here's what they don't understand that they are exactly the same thing. That if we take this glucose and we start chaining it together, then it becomes long, long chains and they're called starch. That is what we find in rice, potatoes and grains, etc. When the body stores carbohydrate, then we chain them up a little bit different and it's called glycogen, but it's the same stuff. Even wood and fiber is still made up of glucose, except it's just configured a little differently. So in some cases, we can't break it down. So now that you understand this once and for all, that virtually all carbohydrates are glucose that becomes blood glucose. Now you can see that starch is 100% glucose and therefore it will raise blood sugar and therefore it will also raise insulin. So anytime that we raise blood sugar, the blood sugar, cannot get into the cell where it needs to perform work and turn into energy until insulin helps it through the gate, so to speak. So whenever blood sugar goes up, the body responds with insulin. It's a beautiful mechanism. It works beautifully unless we start using excess carbohydrate. If we eat some now and then and seasonally, then it's not a problem. The system balances itself, but when we eat carbohydrate as the foundation of our diet, and we eat it 365 days a year all day long, now it becomes a problem. It becomes too much and the system becomes overwhelmed and we kind of clog up the system if you will and we develop insulin resistance. So the question I always get is, well, how come Asia could eat rice for all those years? And the reason they could do that was that historically there was not an abundance of food. They ate their rice, but they didn't eat all the processed food in addition. They were physically active. They had physical labor most of the day. They ate two or three meals per day, not six meals. They didn't have soft drinks and Coca-Cola to sip on all day long, and they had no processed foods. Processed foods contains a lot of grain and a lot of sugar and a lot of chemicals. So if you eat the rice by itself and that's all you eat or very little else, there's no abundance, then your body can tolerate it. But once you start eating the rice plus the processed foods, now it becomes a problem. And once you have become insulin resistance, once you have already clogged up your body, now rice becomes a bad thing because it keeps you from reversing it. And I want to mention one more thing about what we just talked about relating to carbohydrates. Because a lot of people know that white sugar is bad and a lot of people have heard that high fructose corn syrup is bad. So they say, I'll avoid those two. But there is really no difference to all the other kinds of sugar. So whether we call it brown sugar or light brown sugar or powdered sugar, agave or honey or dextrose or grape sugar or molasses or glucose syrup, it is all the same stuff. It is different combinations and ratios of glucose and fructose. That's all it is. So it's still going to affect your blood sugar the same way it's still going to create insulin resistance and it's going to prevent the reversal. And then people go, okay, I get it. I understand that those are not so great. But of course, fruit is still fantastic. We need to eat more fruits and vegetables. Actually, no. And fruit, it's not a bad thing unless you have already developed insulin resistance and poor metabolic health. So most people can have some fruit, but if you're trying to reverse a disease condition, the sugar in fruit is exactly this. It's different ratios of glucose and fructose. There is no different. The body doesn't metabolize it any differently. Fruit is better than candy bars because it has more water. It has some fiber and it's processed a little differently in terms of speed. But the sugar and the insulin required is exactly the same. So if you're metabolically healthy, enjoy some fruit. If you're diabetic, then cut it down to a bare minimum. You can still have some berries here and there, but I would avoid fruit and definitely don't buy in to the slogan of eating more fruits and vegetables, more fruits and vegetables. You eat more vegetables and less fruit. But like we said, starch is 100% sugar. It breaks down into glucose. And that includes things like rice and potato and beans. They have some other things in there, but they're very high in carbohydrate. Corn is very high. That's why they make corn starch from it. And tapioca and sorghum are also different forms of starch. So a lot of people think that yeah, I don't eat the grain. I heard that gluten and wheat is bad. So I eat gluten-free pizza and I eat gluten-free bread and so forth. Well you're still eating 100% sugar in the starch that they substitute. So they often put in rice flour or tapioca or sorghum, but it's still all starch. So don't fall for that. Food number nine is bread. And all the things we talked about for rice holds true for bread, but this one is a little worse. The starch is the same. The insulin is the same, but the allergies are much, much more common with bread and with wheat and with gluten. And a lot of people having trouble with gut health is because of allergies to bread and to gluten. So even if you don't test as allergic to gluten, you might want to cut it out and just see what happens to these things. And if you have allergies, if you have poor gut health, that creates inflammation that contributes to cardiovascular disease. Food number eight, the causes heart disease is alcohol. And why would that be? Well alcohol is natural in small amounts. It is a natural substance. We have an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase that is a fit that we can break that down. So it's not a poison in that sense. However, when we have excess, then it overwhelms the liver because the liver is the only place that can process and break down alcohol. So you put it in the body and it circulates and it affects every cell, but the liver is the only place that can break it down and get rid of it to neutralize it if you will. So a lot of things that are not necessarily toxic, they become bad when we have too much. So a glass of wine here and there is not a problem. A bottle of wine every day is a big problem. And when we overwhelm the liver, we create something called fatty liver. It used to be the most fatty liver was called alcoholic fatty liver disease. And now most fatty liver is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease caused by fructose. So if you remember sucrose is half glucose, white table sugar is half glucose and half fructose. That fructose is very similar to alcohol in the sense that only the liver can process it. And a little bit is perfectly natural, like a few berries here and there, not a problem. Excess of fructose and sugar in soda and candy and processed food. Now we overwhelm the liver and we create a fatty liver. And once that liver is filled up with fat, it becomes very insulin resistance. And because the liver is kind of the metabolic hub that fat spreads into the abdominal cavity and sets the tone for the rest of the body, so we become insulin resistant when we have a fatty liver. So if you want to enjoy a drink now and then, less is better. But if you do, then I would suggest to you that liquor, pure liquor, gin, vodka, whiskey, rum, cognac, etc. Is the best one to do because it is distilled. It's evaporated. So it is basically sugar free. Wine is fermented grapes which have a lot of sugar, but the yeast consume a lot of the sugar. So most of the sugar from the grapes are gone and there's just a little bit left in the wine. So again, it's not a good thing that I recommend, but if you're going to have some, you might as well not have the worst. So a little bit worse than wine is beer because beer has a lot of carbohydrate. It's made from grain and malt and the worst would be mixed drinks because now you get the alcohol from the drink, but you also add a bunch of sugar. So now you have two things that only the liver can process. It's like you're giving it a double load or more compared to the liquor. And I would say that sugar is probably even worse than alcohol because alcohol you know when you consume too much, but sugar, you don't know that. It's very, very addictive and when you had one, you just want one more and one more and one more of whatever it is you're consuming. Number seven is ultra processed foods. So whole foods like meat and nuts and eggs and fish and vegetables and tubers and fruit, they are natural whole foods like the earth produced it. But when we chop it up and we dry it and we pulverize it and we add things, we put it in a box. Now it becomes ultra processed. That type of food has been around for a while, but up until maybe 50 years ago, it was less than 10% of the food that we consume. And today, in the United States, it's 73% of the food we eat. 73% of the calories come from ultra-processed foods. And for the world as a whole, it's little lower than that, but it's becoming more and more of a problem. A lot of countries are up to 50% or more. And the problem here is the ultra-processed foods, they are full of sugar. They're full of all these things that we're going to talk about in this video that you don't want. You find them in processed foods. So toxic chemicals, preservatives, flavor agents, things that make you addictive. And there's a whole chemical industry that come up with concoctions to make this bland food taste more. So they base it on salt and sugar and artificial flavorings to make it attractive. And of course, they also use seed oils, and oftentimes hydrogenated seed oils and shortening, because that oil is so bad that not even the bacteria wanted. So it helps turn the food stable. And it's also devoid of nutrients. When they process it so harshly, they destroy a lot of nutrients to start with. But they also don't want. They remove a lot of nutrients on purpose because the nutrients that can do good in the body, they are also the things that would react with air and heat and light. So if they, the more they can put these processed oils and remove nutrients, the longer the food lasts on the shelf, which is of course good from a manufacturer or a store point of view because it doesn't spoil. But it's bad for us because it's not food anymore. And as a result, the whole world is becoming overfed and undernourished. We get lots and lots of calories, but we don't get the building blocks that we actually need. As a result, we overeat because the body says, I'm still not getting all the things I want. Keep eating. And of course, they've added all these chemicals that make it attractive. So we keep eating. And as a result, we clog up the body. So poor metabolic health and insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome and all these things, it's really just that we're not processing through where the bodies, we're putting more stuff in and it's becoming clogged. So if we can just stop doing that, then the body can process through and clean it up again. Number six is fast food, which is a type of processed food. But a lot of people think that because it's warm and it looks like food and it's kind of similar in some ways and they do put some meat and things in there, then it looks to them like real food. It seems like it would have some protein from the burger and the fish and the chicken and the bun has some grain in it and there's some veggies sometimes, a little bit of pickles and onions and so forth. But the problem is also then you get a sugary bun with it and the sugary bun is like we talked about. It's bread. It is pure sugar made of starch. The dressing has a bunch of seed oils and sugar in it. And then they cook the potatoes, which is pure starch in seed oils. And they reuse the oil. We're going to talk more about that oil. So fried food also contributes to all these problems. And then of course they sell you a soda and or a milkshake with that. So recently I did an experiment where I ate 100 hamburger patties in 10 days and with that I mostly ate salads and I contrasted that. So I ate about 2500 calories per day and I contrasted that with if you had eaten the 2500 calories in a fast food restaurant and what I came up with was very, very scary. This is not what I ate. This is what it would have been in a fast food restaurant with the same number of calories. You would get over 300 grams of carbohydrates. You only get 70 grams of protein and about 100 grams of fat, which isn't all that much but it's the wrong kind of fat. And so carbs were 65%, which is pretty much on par with the recommendations. 9% protein and 25% fat. So these match the macros that we get recommended. So the fast food industry, they jump on the bandwagon and say, hey, look, we have the carbs and the fat and the protein that they recommend. But it is way, way, way too much carbs and what they don't mention is that with this kind of food, you also get 150 grams of added sugar per day, which is pretty close to the norm to the average of what people eat. So now let's talk about seed oils. That's number five. So recently someone asked me, why does he always bash the seed oils, which in the plant oils and the vegetable oils, but then he says that extra virgin olive oil is good. So let's clarify that. Yes, they're all made from plants, but there's an enormous difference between them. So the seed oils made from seeds are high in omega six. And we do need both omega threes and omega sixes, but they need to be approximately in a one to one ratio. And when we eat these seed oils, they're about a 20 to one with the omega six being the high one, which is pro inflammatory. So again, if it's in balance, it's not a bad thing. When it's out of balance, it becomes pro inflammatory. And when we make these oils, not only are they high in omega six, but we process them very, very harshly. It's not that easy to get oil out of seeds. You have to apply a lot of pressure, a lot of heat, and very often even chemicals. They add solvents like acetone to extract the fats out of the seeds or whatever grain in some cases. And in doing that, the fats become oxidized and rancid. So when we talk about vegetable oils or seed oils, there's three oils in particular. They're account for something like 99 percent, the vast majority. That's soybean oil, canola oil, and corn oil. And of course, soybean oil is the bean. It's a legume. Canola is a seed, it's from rape seed. And corn is a grain. And it's not all that easy to get the oil out of these raw materials. So that's why they have to use the pressure, the heat, and the chemicals. So now they damage it. And the oil tastes terrible. So now they have to bleach it. They have to degum it and de-odorize it and go through all these different chemical processes. And in the end, you end up with this bland, absolutely tasteless, absolutely destroyed oil that can sit on a shelf for years. So when I say that vegetable oils are bad, these are the kinds I'm talking about because they've gone through that process. There's nothing wrong with oil per se just because it comes from a plant. So if it's been minimally processed, then it's perfectly okay. So when they make extra virgin olive oil, the olives are very, very high in fat. Coconut is very, very high in fat. And if you just apply a little bit of pressure, then you can get the oil out and you haven't destroyed the oil in any way. Even canola, you can't get as much oil out of it, but you can do cold pressed canola. And now it's a completely different thing. So it wouldn't be my favorite oil, but it would be okay if it is cold pressed and organic. And then it still fall in this minimally processed. And it's very, very different from this harshly over processed vegetable oil. And there are other oils as well, such as walnut or avocado oil that they can do a cold pressing. But what you will find is that these are all going to have a fairly strong flavor. If they don't process them, a lot of the flavor compounds are still going to be in the oil, which I think is kind of nice, but a lot of people don't like that because they're accustomed to that bland oil. So if you make mayonnaise or something, then these are going to have too strong a flavor for the most part. Problem food number four is fried food. And it's not specifically the fact that we're frying it. It is again about what kind of oil are we using? And I'm calling it seed oil, but it's really all these harshly over processed bland vegetable oils. And as if it's not bad enough, it's the fact that we reuse it over and over that we reheat it over and over that it stays at a high temperature all day long. And in doing that, it gets damaged, it gets more and more off. oxidized and it gets more and more rancid. So it start off with a terrible product and then it gets worse and worse. And doing that, it creates a lot of oxidative stress on the body. So if you were to fry something, it wouldn't be a terrible idea if you wanted to once in a while to use lard or tallow or coconut oil. And these are stable, they're heat stable, they resist oxidation and turning rancid because they're already saturated. And that's why these oils, these fats are good because they don't get rancid. They don't become oxidized when exposed to air. You can keep them on the counter. You can keep your coconut oil on the counter for months and it's still good. Food number three is margarine. And that's kind of taken a step back lately, not as many people use it. And they have developed some better forms, but it's still a huge problem. And they still make them from the same oils that we talked about. There are some brands now, they're starting to use some olive oil, et cetera. But don't believe all that hype because they're not using extra virgin olive oil. They're using a much more processed version of olive oil, otherwise the flavor would be too strong. So there are some decent margarine or butter alternatives, but be very careful and know that they're not always putting the best stuff in there. And in order to get an oil to stop being an oil and turn into something spreadable, they need to hydrogenate it. They need to harden it. And it used to be that they did partially hydrogenated and that turned out to be really, really bad. So now they do more fully hydrogenated. But if you check the labels, you'll find that virtually all margarine still has partially hydrogenated on the label. And when you partially hydrogenate something, you turn it into a trans fat. And a trans fat starts off being one of these oils we talked about, but then we change the molecule even more. So now it's really, really super toxic. And it changes the function of your mitochondria and it basically poisons them. Your mitochondria is the thing inside yourself that makes 95% of your energy, the energy for your thinking and doing everything you do comes from the energy from mitochondria. And these mitochondria are very sensitive to oxidative stress, to free radicals. And these trans fats, just one of a thousand bad things they do, is they interfere, they increase the free radicals in the mitochondria and basically poison them. So a lot of longevity has to do with how healthy your mitochondria are. So that's why they figured this out. And now trans fats are banned basically. And they have to put it on the label if they have any trans fats. It must be disclosed. But can you trust it? What does it mean if something is trans fat free? Because we know when something is partially hydrogenated, it does have trans fats. The question is how much? So you'll find very often on the label that it's partially hydrogenated and yet, it says on the front of the package, trans fat free. And the reason they can do that is they reduce the serving size down to something very, very small. And as long as there is less than 0.4999 grams of trans fats per serving, they round it to zero. And now they call it trans fat free. But it's not trans fat free. It's just less than 1/2 a gram per serving, which can still be a huge problem. So just understand what they're doing and how this stuff works. Food number two is donuts. And it's not just donuts. But understand as I'm going through these categories, it's the food I talk about and all related foods. That's why we have to understand the principles and the mechanisms rather than just memorizing a list. So what's so bad about donuts? Well, it combines virtually everyone of the bad things that we've talked about in this list. So they're shock full of sugar. They are full of starch. In the flour they make them, they have gluten in them, which causes allergies and sensitivities. They cook them, fry them in seed oil. They have some oil in the dough already. And then they fry them in more of this oil. And with the deep frying, they go through all of the same problems. It's like it's almost like they tried to combine all the bad things. The only thing we don't have in here really is alcohol. And they would probably try to put it in there, but it would cook out when they deep fry it. So they missed that one. And of course, they'll have some chemicals, all those artificial fake flavors that they put in, all that processed foods. And problem food number one, I would say, is sugar. And the reason I put that, I would say donuts are probably a little worse in how it combines all those bad factors. But sugar is the number one worst food because it's everywhere. It's empty calories. We don't get any nutrition. It upsets virtually every metabolic process in the body. 50% of the sugar is the fructose, which acts very much like alcohol and creating fatty liver. And it is very, very addictive. So a lot of the things that are bad for you, there's kind of a limit in how much you will eat. You'll have a few things, you have a few bites, and then you're good, you go eat something else. But sugar doesn't work like that. After you've had a soda, or you can have another. And very often people can drink a two liter bottle in a day. They can drink a bottle or half a gallon, or a gallon of sweet tea in a day. Because sugar is so addictive, and it doesn't leave any sense of fullness at all. And like I said, the problem is that it is in so many things. Some people are aware of it. Some people don't really think about it. But in things like soda that you can drink one after the other. And when I say sugar, I'm including high fructose corn syrup. They're the same molecule, just slightly different configuration. It's in cookies and desserts and ice creams and in food that we very often don't think about. Like barbecue sauce is sweeter than Coca-Cola even. And it is ubiquitous. It's in virtually all processed foods. And that's the problem with sugar is that we get it everywhere. And remember that everything that we talked about here is bad because it contributes to inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance. And virtually all of the foods you're told that cause this heart disease are fine if you lay off the stuff that we talked about as bad. If you enjoyed this video, you're going to love that one. And if you truly want to master health by understanding how the body really works, make sure you subscribe, hit that bell, and turn on all the notifications so you never miss a life-saving video.