228 Healthy Gardening, Healthy Foods

Show Transcript

GB 228 Healthy Gardening, Healthy Foods TRANSCRIPT

Farmer Fred  0:00  

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. It's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred.

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred  0:31  

Why is gardening so healthy for you? We explore that today with Dr. Laura Varich of freshphysician.com, who explains the health benefits of gardening, and the healthier benefits of eating what you grow. And that includes some health benefits you may not be aware of, including breathing in and touching the soil itself. As we say so often on this program, the healthiest food you can eat is the food you grow yourself. Today, we find out more about how to garden your way to better health.

We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. And we will do it all in about 40 minutes. Let’s go!

Healthy Gardening, Healthy Foods, Part 1

Farmer Fred  1:21  

If you listen to this show for any length of time, you know that one of my founding principles is you grew it now eat it. And the other founding principle of course: it all begins with healthy soil . because the healthiest food you can eat is the food you grow yourself. And the healthiest food you can grow comes from the healthiest soil. Today we're going to concentrate more on “you grew it now eat it”, and it's going to help you be a lot healthier. We are talking with the fresh physician, Dr. Laura Varich. Born and raised in California, now in Florida. She practiced Pediatric Radiology at Stanford University for 10 years, and then down in Florida. But she started noticing things and she is now on a different path to make you healthier by what you eat. And Dr. Laura Varich, it's a pleasure to have you here on the program. Tell us about the switch. Why would you go from radiology into what you're doing now?

Dr. Laura Varich  2:14  

Hey, Fred's so, so great to be here. Thank you so much. I've been a fan of the podcast and the newsletter now for a long time. And I'm just so pleased to be able to talk to your listeners a little bit today and to you. So yeah, the path for me was really an interesting one, I was doing pediatric radiology for about 20 years. And then I really, in the last 10 years, started to notice, and this is all in the same population, because I've been in Florida for 12 years, started to notice that really, the health of children has changed a lot. And it's been over a pretty short time. And we're seeing just so much chronic disease in kids now, you know, things we never saw before, like type two diabetes and fatty liver disease. And of course, we have a lot of obesity, and even autoimmune diseases, all kinds of things really escalating in the pediatric population. So I thought I need to figure out what's going on here. Because if we've made these changes so recently, if this has been happening,  we have to be able to turn them around. So when I looked into the research, I could not believe what I read, because as physicians, we don't train in nutrition, really at all. So what I read just astounded me and I thought, well, this is it. This is my life calling, I've got to get this information out to people. So I left my practice. And now I just try to speak and get the word out that it is our food. It is our food that is primarily responsible for the chronic disease that we have in our country.

Farmer Fred  3:42  

We've known about this for a long time. it goes back to people who were on television back in the 1950s. People like Jack Lalane, or Gypsy Boots, who were basically saying you are what you eat. I remember Jack LaLane, the exercise fanatic, who would lead you through morning exercises every morning of the week, and he would say the best food is in your garbage disposal, because we're throwing away some of the best parts of the food we eat. And he was very right about that. But going back to your story, and you mentioned something interesting, and I'm wondering about it, and that is the amount of nutritional training that doctors actually receive. I've talked with old doctors who basically said, “Yeah, I think we have we have one unit on that back in med school”. And that was it. I would hope since then it's improved.

Dr. Laura Varich  4:31  

Well, you know, it actually is improving. And I think it's the realization that the food is what has put us in the the health crisis that we're in now. And so it is becoming a part of medical training, not everywhere. But I know here in central Florida at the University of Central Florida there is a culinary medicine program , so students aren't medical students are actually learning a lot about how food actually is medicine and you're right, those thoughts date back to antiquity. Let thy food be thy name. Medicine and such. So, you know, it turns out that that is absolutely true. So no, it's changing a bit isn't changing everywhere, it's going to take some time. But yeah, in our day, we learned about things like the only our nutrition really was about if you have a severe deficiency in something like if you if you have scurvy, what does that mean? You know, we don't see scurvy. That's not what we're talking about. So this is about how really important food is just for overall health and prevention of these chronic diseases.

Farmer Fred  5:28  

And you mentioned that a lot, you talk about a lot in your newsletter that people can subscribe to for free at fresh physician.com. And in your last newsletter, you talked about protein and fiber, and how we've kind of overdosed on protein. And we've short circuited fiber. The good news, to bring this back to gardening, is you can grow a lot of protein and fiber in your backyard.

Dr. Laura Varich  5:49  

Yes, absolutely. And I think a really interesting thing there is that we in America are really obsessed, totally obsessed with protein and getting more protein. And this is coming out of the media, because we get about twice the amount of protein that we need in our diet, and we are the highest in meat consumption around the world. So yeah, we definitely are not protein deficient and you talk to any physician, they'll tell you, they've never seen a protein deficiency in our country. So that is not a problem. And we don't need to be adding excess protein, it's actually not great for us. And if we think about protein, we think about usually we think about meat when we think about protein or animal products as having a lot of protein. But it turns out that there are plenty of plant foods that have a lot of protein too. And they don't come with the side effects that we get, the bad side effects, from eating too many animal foods, because they don't have saturated fat, a lot of saturated fat, they don't have cholesterol in them. They  aren't raised with a lot of hormones that are going to get into our system. And so when we eat protein that comes from plant foods, we're actually eating a much healthier plant package. And some of the healthiest plant based proteins are out there. Whole grains are one of those for sure. Tons of protein in whole grains, it's probably one of the highest sources, we usually also think about beans, beans themselves, like shelling beans are great sources of protein. And we can grow these in our garden. I'm growing right now some edamame, and some cow peas or field peas. And yeah, we can grow these in our garden and get lots of lots of protein that way. So yeah, the protein is important. And you know when again, when we think about the plant proteins, they come with positive side effects. And one of those, like you mentioned is fiber. And we're just discovering how important fiber is.  fiber only comes from plant foods. fiber, the majority of it, comes from the cell wall of the plant cell. So I know Debbie Flower could help us out with this. But so the fiber is part of  the cellulose that comes from a cell wall. And you know, animals don't have a cell wall, animal cells if we remember back to biology. But this fiber that we used to think was just about being roughage and clearing out our bowels, and that it didn't really do anything, it just passed right through us. But in recent years, and I know you know something about this, Fred, is we've discovered soluble fiber. So there is this fiber, a type of fiber in our plant foods, that can actually make a gel in our intestines, and it carries out things like it binds to and carries out things like cholesterol, and even sugars. So it can help decrease heart disease and type two diabetes by getting this soluble fiber and again, it is only from plant foods. So we get protein, but we get fiber along with it. And then one of the really interesting things, research is really exciting in this area right now is about our microbiome. And some of your listeners may have heard about that. They're basically trillions of bacteria in our intestine, and why are they there? Why would as humans, why would we have trillions of bacteria in our intestine, that's more cells, bacterial cells than our cells of our own body. And the reason is because we have a symbiotic relationship. There's another another term back from biology class, but we share things, we give each other things. So we give these bacteria our home, our body, and we give them food, this fiber from our plant foods, and they in turn, break that fiber down and give us a whole bunch of healthy chemicals, chemicals for our health, we would not have those bacteria there if they were not providing us something. And the things that they give us back are things like a particular element, a particular nutrient called short chain fatty acids. and we know that these are the healthiest chemicals ever described, to fight disease, and again, only comes from plant foods. the fiber in them is broken down by these bacteria and they make these short chain fatty acids that protect us against diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and on and on. And I think one of the most interesting things to know in an age in which We're all feeling anxious and depressed that's becoming kind of epidemic, is that those bacteria in our gut actually make when they break down a fiber, but they make up 95% of the serotonin in our bodies. Now serotonin, we use as an antidepressant people can take it, but it is a hormone in our body. It's called the feel good hormone. It protects us against depression, and anxiety, and 95% of what's in our body comes from our gut from those bacteria breaking down that fiber. So we can see how that fiber is so important. So yeah, we can get our protein. But let's get the fiber with it.

Farmer Fred  10:39  

Yeah, I think people are lucky if they're getting 15 grams of fiber per day in their diet, when it really should be double that, about 30 or so. when it comes to what bacteria in your gut are doing with the fiber, are they using the insoluble fiber or the soluble fiber? 

Dr. Laura Varich  10:55  

Well, I think it's both, they are breaking down some of both, from what I know, that is not extremely clear as to what it is. But the good news is, it's usually in most of the foods we're eating. Both of those are present. You know, anytime we're eating plant foods, we're getting some soluble and some insoluble fiber. But either way, our gut bacteria are extremely happy when we do that. And the interesting thing is that even for people who haven't in the past eaten a lot of plant foods, and maybe their gut bacteria are all wrong, because if we eat the wrong foods, if we eat a lot of ultra processed foods and a lot of animal foods, we actually get a change in the bacteria. And this can happen within a few days, we start to get these different bacterial species, and they actually create harmful chemicals. So we know now, this is a part of the reason why having too many Ultra processed foods and too many animal foods makes us sick. These bacteria produce things like hydrogen sulfide, I don't think we want that in our gut, right. And again, these can be changed really quickly. So if we start eating more plant foods, or bacteria change over within a few days, two weeks, and suddenly we have these good bacteria that can pump out these healthy chemicals.

Farmer Fred  12:05  

There are a lot of high fiber foods that one can grow in their backyard, you mentioned a few of them. But as far as soluble fiber goes and we've seen, as you mentioned, a lot of medical research on soluble fiber that shows that soluble fiber can help you out in a lot of situations, be it for heart disease, diabetes, and it can lower blood pressure as well. It really is something that we have to consider. You also mentioned something about whole grain. And back when I had my little heart incident back in 2012, I'm so glad that there was a cardiac rehabilitation course that went along with the surgery, because I learned more about food in that cardiac rehabilitation class than I've learned anyplace else. And they basically just talked about healthier substitutes for the junk you're eating. And we talked about bread. And most people shop for bread in the bread aisle when they should be in the freezer aisle, because that's where you're going to find the true whole grain. And boy, that phrase gets tossed around a lot, whole grain, but you really want that entire kernel in place or that entire whatever it's called in place for the most fiber. And really, if you just make one change like that, that can help a lot just instead of shopping for bread in the bread aisle, go over to the freezer aisle and look for frozen bread, healthy frozen bread. There's a lot of good labels out there. Obviously, if it's in the freezer, that means it's alive. And it has a limited lifespan, whereas the foods on the shelf have a very limited lifespan, too. Oh, you got me going now. Dr. Laura Varich.

Dr. Laura Varich  13:46  

Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah, you're so right, you know, whole grains. If when we when we talk about whole grains, really the difference between a whole grain and a processed grain, which is what we eat pretty much in America is probably over 90% of what we eat are these highly processed and refined grains. And what that means is yes, you've taken off the outside layer, which is the bran layer, that's the fiber. And you've also taken off the layer called the endosperm, which is where the nutrients lie. And what you're left with is basically just pure carbohydrate. So when we're eating things like white bread, and even those ones that are called whole wheat bread, we have to be careful sometimes it's just it's still a lot of the elements are missing. But yeah,  there's so many whole grains now it's so interesting, and yes, you can grow lots of them in your garden, but lots of them out there, you're gonna start seeing them all over the place because we're realizing that really if we can get more whole grains in our diet, that fiber is so so protective for us and again, it has a lot of protein too. So we've had you know, I've been introducing to people to things like sorghum and millet. And obviously we have quinoa and one of my favorites is oat groats, and, buckwheat. I mean,  the list goes on and on. The whole grains that are out there that I agree, if we can just make these small, small minute changes,  they're life changing.

Farmer Fred  15:06  

Among the high soluble fiber foods you can grow in your garden are artichokes, blueberries, beans, as you mentioned, but also pinto beans, apricot, green peas, kidney beans, raisins which  would be dried grapes. if you if you live in a climate where you can grow an avocado tree, go for it. avocados are high in soluble fiber as are carrots, eggplant, oranges, pears, peaches and the list goes on. We'll have that list in the show notes. It'll be a link to the “heart healthy garden” that you'll see in the show notes that can help you out if you're planning your garden. 

Farmer Fred  15:37  

Let's take a break. we're talking with Dr. Laura Varich of freshphysician.com . More coming up on Garden Basics with Farmer Fred. 

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Healthy Gardening, Healthy Foods, Part 2

Farmer Fred  17:44  

Let's get back to our conversation about the freshest food you can eat is the food you grow yourself, and how good it is for you. We're talking with Dr. Laura Varich from freshphysician.com. And  we're coming up to fall garden season, Dr. Laura, and I think the crops that you grow in the fall, the green leafy vegetables, are some of the healthiest vegetables that you can grow.

Dr. Laura Varich  18:10  

Absolutely. That is true. The green leafy vegetables, we are going to be you and I are going to be talking more about phytonutrients in the future. But phytonutrients one of the ways we can tell where phytonutrients are is by the flavor of foods. And it turns out that and actually in the color too, we're going to talk about that. But it turns out that the greens that the really kind of dark greens that we can get are extremely healthy for us, obviously they have fiber in them. But they also have are some of the  highest levels of phytonutrients. These are plant chemicals that are good for our health. There's some of the highest levels out there. So yeah, I say and I think there's some of the easiest things to grow. I don't know about you, Fred, but I think greens are pretty easy. And I'm kind of a confessed lazy gardener. So I like to put stuff in and then then I want to go out and pick it and eat it. I don't want to have to do too much. So greens are one of the ones you can do that with.

Farmer Fred  19:04  

especially the loose leaf greens too, that are much healthier than the head lettuce types.

Dr. Laura Varich  19:09  

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, more exposure to the sun means the plant is having to work harder, and it's going to be making more phytonutrients.

Farmer Fred  19:19  

we should point out to that at your website freshphysician.com , You have a whole section on gardening because you want people out in the garden. you want people to be healthier and gardening can do a world a good for you both physically and mentally.

Dr. Laura Varich  19:32  

Absolutely. I think if there is one sort of take-home point to this whole conversation that we're having today, it is that  humans have lived for almost all of our time on this earth, 99.9% of our time on this earth, we’ve lived in a natural environment, and it's only one-100th of a percent of our time has been in our modern surroundings. And really, this is a problem for our health, both mentally and physically. So I think if we can remember that getting back to a more natural way of living is key to our health. And gardening really does that for us. gardening brings us all the most important elements that we're missing in this modern world that make us stressed out and unhealthy. Because in the garden, we find healthy food, right. And like you said, if you grow it, you eat it, and it's the healthiest food, because we've picked it fresh. So healthy food is super important. Also, we're getting a lot of exercise out there in the garden, the amount of exercise recommended is, as a minimum is 30 minutes, five days a week of moderate exercise. And we get that in our garden, it's shown that gardeners get that amount of exercise. And the good news is, it's fun. At the same time. I know when I get out in the garden, I think, Oh, I'm just gonna go 10 minutes, pick a few weeds, you know, and three hours later, I'm still out there. And  I've hauled a bunch of mulch, and I've raked some things up. And I've  replanted some plants. And it's just because it's fun and engaging. And we have something to show for it. At the end, we've got great food and a beautiful garden. And so the exercise comes naturally and easily. And it's been shown that this kind of exercise is as good for us as going to the gym is. But who likes the gym?  when you go to the gym, you don't get this third component, which is the exposure to the natural world, that improves our mood. It's so important. I know, we all feel this as gardeners, we don't have to have research that shows us. But there is research out there that shows that when we step out into our gardens into the natural world, we decrease our anxiety levels, we decrease depression, our blood pressure goes down, our heart rate goes down, we as humans are connected to this earth. And when we step out into nature and get our hands in the dirt, and our feet in the grass, that is when we are at a really healthy place, mentally particularly. And there was this really interesting thing that I don't know if you heard about this, Fred, that came out in the literature was about mood and gardening. It was that there is a particular type of bacteria that was discovered in the soil called mycobacterium vaccae, and this bacteria in the soil, if we eat it, or we breathe it in, that it actually triggers the release of serotonin in our body, that's the same happy hormone that we have. So there's another reason why when we work out in the soil, we actually feel good.

Farmer Fred  22:45  

it makes sense. And just like some forms of exercise, I know that I have that same release when I'm riding my bike, it usually hits about mile 17 or so, where I'm just the happiest person in the world.

Dr. Laura Varich  22:57  

Yeah, I know, it feels so good to get our bodies moving. Our bodies weren't meant to sit in buildings all day long, be away from the outside and not be moving and not not be eating healthy, healthy foods. So yeah, you're right, it makes us feel good. And we know it. And now we have lots of research to prove it to as if we needed that. But there it is.

Farmer Fred  23:15  

I remember years and years ago, a local grocery store chain here had a staff nutritionist, and she used to appear in public. I talked to her one time, and this had to be back in, I guess, the 1990s. And she was talking about how colorful food is healthier for you. choose a wide color palette when it comes to choosing your food. And I thought at that time Oh, that's interesting. But you know, time has proven that out. that actually colorful foods are better for you.

Dr. Laura Varich  23:46  

Yeah. Oh, so true. So true. Yeah, we found out a lot about that. And again, this comes back to those phytonutrients those plant chemicals. So if you think about a plant being out there in the world, the plant is literally rooted in the ground, right. So if a plant has something irritating it, like maybe too much UV light or something trying to chew on it, it can't react in the way that we could. it can't run and hide. So a plant makes chemicals for its protection. And some of those chemicals we talked about a little bit that the bitterness in food is some of those vital chemicals. It's a way to tell that the phytochemicals are in the food is things that are really strongly flavored, but also things that are really strongly colored that is protection against the UV light.  say you get a lettuce, maybe a red leaf lettuce, where it has a bright or dark red tip on the lettuce. that lettuce has made a lot of phytonutrients and we can look at the colors and foods to tell us that those different foods have lots of different phytonutrients and it turns out there's hundreds to 1000s of these different nutrients in each plant food. we can sort of discern which are in there and how we get a wide variety because that's important to get tried to get a wide variety of these nutrients by eating lots of different colored foods. So we want to find strongly colored foods, dark greens, reds, you know, bright reds and a bright oranges and try to get as many of these different types of foods in our diet as we can.

Farmer Fred  25:20  

There are those gardeners who say, “Oh, why should I plant an apple tree? Because there are apples at the grocery store a year around.” And that's part of the problem, if you want the healthiest food possible. You want the freshest food possible. tell us about how long some of these grocery store vegetables and fruits have been sitting around.

Dr. Laura Varich  25:39  

Yeah, well, that's a really good question. Because if you talk about things like apples and pears, you think about when those are in season, that's usually the fall time, right, but you can get them in your store year round. And why is that? that's because they sit in cold storage for the year. So you're not getting an apple that was just picked for the most part. I mean, you might be but if you do that's coming from the southern hemisphere, which is traveling a long way to get to you. But otherwise, it is an apple that's been sitting in cold storage, and it can be there for a year. And we also know that when we first pick our food, that we have so much more nutrition in that food, as compared to say, even if we're getting food at the grocery store. California delivers most of the food around the country, you guys give us most of our food. And so even here in Florida, a lot of our produce is coming from California. And that can mean it's actually been  up to 17 days, since it was picked before somebody like me here in Florida will, will actually be eating it. And that was a study that came out of UC Davis, that showed how many days it takes in transit, that it sits in distribution centers, and then it sits on the store shelf, and then it sits in your home and then you finally eat it. So 17 days, and that's a long time. And what they've shown is that in that amount of time, you can lose up to 60% of the vitamin C in there. And for things like broccoli, you lose 80%, of what's called sulforaphane. And that's the anti cancer agent in broccoli, you lose 80% of it in that time period. So it's really good to try to get food as fresh as you can. So you're right. If you even though you could grow it, I mean, you could buy it at your store, I could go in and buy a head of broccoli today. But if I picked the broccoli off of my plant and brought it in, it has a huge amount more nutrition in it. The longer it takes, the more that that has degraded. So yeah, I say grow everything that you can in your area.

Farmer Fred  27:32  

Oh, exactly. And it'll be in season, which helps the nutrition as opposed to something that like you say was grown as much as a year ago or so (such as apples). We are fortunate here in California to actually have first dibs on the products that were picked. Also the rise of farmers markets. And I'm so glad to see that out here, especially for people who can't garden or are looking for specialty items that are in season, they can usually find them at a farmers market. and there's a very active Farmers Market program here in California. Most locales have a farmers market at least once a week, if not more often. And I would hope that that the Farmers Market program is spreading across the country.

Dr. Laura Varich  28:14  

Yeah, I sure hope so too. I have to say when I come back and visit family in California, I'm always jealous about the the amount and variety of food at your farmers market because of course again, you guys grow so much of our food for the country. But we do have farmers markets out in Florida too. If we're getting things that are in season though our seasons will be a little bit different and we usually don't have quite the variety that you guys have. But yeah, I think farmers market is a great way to get out there. It supports  your community too. it's supporting your local farmers, keeping the money in your own community. It's an amazing thing to do. And of course, like you said, it's more fresh, and so it's going to taste better and it's going to be healthier for us so and plus it's just a fun outing.

Farmer Fred  28:56  

Exactly. like you say, it was probably picked that morning.

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER

Farmer Fred  29:05  

If you listened to our conversation with Dr. Laura Varich from fresh physician dot com about healthy gardening, you heard the term phytonutrients. What are phytonutrients? Not only are they nutrients that protect the plant, they can protect you, too. That’s the topic for Friday’s Beyond the Garden Basics Newsletter and Podcast. Dr. Varich does a deep dive into the phytonutrients in homegrown crops.

Find a subscription link to the newsletter in today’s show notes, or visit our website,

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