Berries
Blueberries are phytonutrient rock stars,
containing pterostilbene, an Nrf2
activator that lowers cholesterol and
blood pressure and protects against
cancer and dementia. Among the few
fruits native to North America,
blueberries were a dietary staple of Native
Americans across the northeastern
U.S. Known for their antioxidant
properties, blueberries are also rich in
iron,
selenium, and zinc. If you can find the wild
variety, grab them: their nutrient
value is even higher. I favor the frozen
ones that are picked at the height of
ripeness.
Goji berries, also known as wolfberries,
are native to China, where
they’ve been touted for centuries as the
key to long life and are a staple of
Chinese medicine. Nutrient dense, the
berries contain two to four times the
antioxidant properties of blueberries, as
well as all essential amino acids,
making them a whole protein source, like
meat. Generally, you would eat goji
berries raw or brewed in a tea or cooked
in soup, for medicinal purposes, but
you can also use goji berry extract.
What to Eat in Moderation
Ancient humans didn’t have access to fruit
year-round, so their bodies
adjusted to eating only the fruits that grew
where they lived, harvested in
season. Except in tropical climates, in
season meant when the fruit ripened at
the end of the growing season—usually
the end of summer. From an
evolutionary standpoint, the role of
insulin—the hormone produced by the
pancreas to signal cells to absorb sugar—
was to turn these fruit sugars into fat
that was stored by the body, to provide
energy for our hunter-gatherer
ancestors throughout the long winter.
Today, however, the long winter with
few food sources never arrives, so we’re
stuck with excess fat, typically in the
midsection.
Since we haven’t evolved to eat fruit after
the growing season, consuming
too much of it throws off the insulin
system and hyper-activates mTOR.
Therefore, eat only a moderate amount of
fruit, consuming it as whole fruit,
not juice, to prevent blood sugar spikes
and get the full benefit of the fiber. If
fruit is out of season, but you really crave
it, try eating a few frozen
blueberries or sprinkle a small amount of
dried berries, grapes, or cherries
onto a salad.
The exception to the no-juice rule is the
green drink to start off the day.
Avoid premixed green drinks sold
commercially; most are just sugary fruit
juice with a little kale or spinach added to
color them green. Making your
own juice with fresh leafy green
vegetables will give you a lasting infusion
of
vitamins and micronutrients, including
those that turn off the genes for
disease and turn on the genes for health.
As you begin the seven-day Grow a New
Body program, keep in mind that
avocados, nuts, seeds, and eggs (unless
you’re allergic to them) are good
sources of protein. Avoid red meat while
on the program, but after that, as you
start to upgrade your gut-brain, you can
eat animal protein in moderation. In a
study of 6,000 Americans, Dr. Valter
Longo showed that consuming a
highprotein
diet is associated with a 75 percent
increase in overall mortality and a
three- to four-fold increased risk of cancer,
in contrast to a low-protein plantbased
diet.6
There is a lot of misinformation about
getting all your proteins from greens.
The American Heart Association states
that plant proteins are deficient
because most lack one or more essential
amino acids. And if you lived your
entire life eating only broccoli, you would
be missing out on some essential
amino acids. But the moment you prepare
two or three servings of different
vegetables, you are getting all the
essential amino acids your body requires.
The only thing that vegetarians would be
missing and need to supplement is
vitamin B12.
If you are going to eat mea