Top 5 Holiday Superfoods You Didn’t Know You Needed

if you've been doing everything right eating clean exercising but somehow you're still not feeling your best your Energy's dragging your memory is slipping and it's frustrating because you know there's more to your potential well what if the issue isn't just in your routine but it's deep down inside your cells you know you're investing in the best supplements working out regularly and sticking to a clean diet but if your cells are stuck in what's called cell danger response all the hard work might not be paying off as it should think of yourselves like a house under

renovation you can bring in the highest quality materials like the best supplements in clean foods but if the workers inside the house or are on lockdown because of a storm nothing gets done the materials just pile up unused that's what happens when your cells are in CDR they can't fully use the good stuff you're giving them getting out of CDR the cell danger response is the key to unlocking your body's full potential when your cells are no longer in protective mode they can finally use the nutrients hormones and energy you're working so hard to provide

that's when everything starts to click your energy improves your workouts become more efficient and you start to feel like yourself again go to Beyond bloodwork decom to learn how to break free from cell danger response and make the effort [Music] payoff hey everyone welcome to Dr Josh ax show I'm your host Dr ax in each and every week on this show we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in Body Mind spirit and take your health and your life to the next level today I'm going to be talking about the five

superfoods that you should be consuming around the holidays to help you heal there are a lot of different options there are a lot of different foods that you can be exposed to but if you truly want to help heal your body these are some of the absolute best according to the scientific evidence and I'm going to dive deep into the nutritional profiles of certain types of berries including cranberries of certain herbals like cinnamon and cardamom sweet potatoes pumpkin certain types of nuts and certain cruciferous vegetables like brussel sprouts that have been shown to help our

body heal also when you look at traditional Chinese medicine in ayurveda uh there is an idea around eating foods that are in season and eating certain foods that are going to support organ systems at different times of the year I'm going to dive into that in a whole lot more on today's episode also before I dive in make sure to subscribe to the podcast and sign up for my weekly Wellness newsletter at the link in the show notes this is completely separate from my website this is a very unique newsletter where you get free PDFs

you get Advanced uh topics you get the podcast notes and a whole lot more so make sure to check that out and subscribe in the show notes well the first thing I want to say is is that if you are going to support your body nutritionally there are certain nutrients you want during different seasons of the year and when we're talking about the holidays especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas you want to focus on foods that tend to be orange in color that tend to be yellow in color and that tend to be this sort of

dark blue purple red those sort of colors as well tending to be the most nourishing for people um but also there are certain compounds and foods that are various colors that are beneficial that I'll walk you through in a minute but one of the first groups of foods that has tremendous benefits for you around the holidays are cranberries and cranberries have compounds called anthocyanins and these forms of antioxidants have been shown to help relieve women and prevent and treat urinary tract infections and generally keep your urinary tract your kidneys and bladder healthy and there was

a comprehensive review of 20 studies involving over 3,000 participants and they found that cranberry products reduce the risk of recurrent UTI by 26% and otherwise healthy women they also were shown to promote heart health and we know around the holiday season is when many people experience heart attacks and that being said the anti oxidants found in cranberries have been shown in a study to reduce inflammation lower cortisol levels and support cardiovascular health and it has antioxidant properties that supports cellular Health reducing oxidative stress that is linked to aging and promoting longevity so cranberries have loads

and loads and loads of benefits I also want to mention if cranberries aren't available there are some other berries that have some similar qualities of these ano anthos cins and they tend to be the berries or fruits that are more sour or Berry looking another one is kurant red and black corant have some of these compounds um aonia berries also have some of these compounds blueberries are probably the next closest one so if you can't do cranberries blueberries are a great option as well as our cran as our pomegranates in in that similar nature you'll

notice that cranberries and pomegranates have a very similar red color to them and so that that's that's another good one so again cranberry do cranberry salad do cranberry smoothies cranberry juice but cranberries are great during the holiday season because of their benefits around heart health around urinary bladder health and also being a great longevity food the second super food you want to consider consuming around the holidays is cinnamon now there are numerous reasons why cinnamon is so amazing but number one has to do with blood sugar regulation there's a a met analysis of 16 studies

and they found that cinnamon significantly reduced fasting blood sugar levels and helped fight pre-diabetes diabetes and insulin resistance also cnon has major anti-inflammatory benefits due to a compound called cinam Malahide and this anti-inflammatory compound has been shown to be effective at treating things like we talked about diabetes but also issues like PCOS dementia and a number of other health issues um in and you look at the antioxidant activity of cinnamon cinnamon ranks in the top five herbs up there with clove in terms of its antioxidant properties and and of course when you're around the holidays

um we we tend to overc consume carbohydrates right and so cinnamon is very spec is is probably maybe the most powerful food I could list here today in terms of the number one super food you should get around the holiday season because of its ability to balance blood sugar now one of the ways I love to get cinnamon is via pumpkin pie spice and that's a blend of cinnamon along with clove nutmeg sometimes alls spice sometimes cardamon some sometimes almost always Ginger when you look at the blend that's in there but cinnamon is always in

there but pumpkin pie spice is really great to add to your smoothies in the morning you could add a little bit of extra cinnamon to your pumpkin pie recipe but cinnamon has loads and loads and loads of benefits about a teaspoon a day would be tremend tremendous for you and for your health and other herbs similar to Cinnamon I mentioned cardamom earlier um cardamom has major benefits for Digestive Health and so that's another one I would encourage you when you're eating more food around the holidays cardamom reduces gas and bloating it also has blood sugar

benefits and so combining cinnamon and cardamom adding that to your coffee adding it to Hot Chocolate can be great so those two flavors in particular cinnamon cardamom these herbs that have been used for thousands of years for their medical benefits um are ones you're going to want to incorporate around the holiday number three food group to heal around the holidays are squashes things like and potatoes like sweet potato pumpkin and forms of squash like butternut squash and there's a principle in Chinese medicine that in the fall season especially uh early fall you want to consume

more um foods that are orange in that yellow in color so spaghetti squash acorn squash butternut squash sweet potatoes a pumpkin these foods are very nourishing to your pancreas and and these are foods that are naturally sweet but also don't have to necessarily tax your pancreas and blood sugar levels what I love to do is take sweet potato pumpkin and squashes and use pumpkin pie spice use cinnamon use ginger use these sort of herbals on there to actually bring a little bit of flavor to them but also create additional health benefits now when we're looking

at sweet potatoes and pumpkin and squash in particular they are very rich in vitamin A vitamin C beta carotene fiber a medium-sized sweet potato provides over 400% of your daily recommended of vitamin A it's also they're also incredibly high in potassium we tend to overc consume sodium during the holidays and not get enough potassium in our diet potassium helps lower blood pressure decreasing your risk of a heart attack or stroke so we know that in particular sweep potatoes and these squashes are tremendous around this time of year and there there are again this is the

number one food recommended in the in the fall season in Chinese medicine um I want to also mention that there was a study published in the journal of clinical nutrition showing that there are certain forms of cancer that uh sweet potatoes and pumpkin actually help fight uh and of course ey Health macular degeneration because of all the vitamin A content is also that's very very highend uh but the these are beneficial now I want to mention another big bonus here when I have people that struggle with constipation which tends to happen around the holidays right

you might notice this for yourself when you travel you don't have as many bowel movements and doing foods like sweet potatoes pumpkin and squash in a smoothie can help this so what I will do often times is rather than doing fruit in a smoothie is I'll take a half a sweet potato along with some flax meal and some you know some some protein powder typically vanilla flavored and then I'll add in like a whole teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice and I'll do that in the morning and it's really good for bve movements and bow Health

do that drink a lot of water go on some walks and and it's going to help you with your bowel movements but there are loow and and one of the reasons why these foods are so beneficial they're very high in fiber especially pumpkin I mean pumpkin is very very high in fiber and sweet potatoes and squash are fairly high too that when you get this fiber it's great for gut health it's good for feeding the good bacteria in your gut so loads and loads of benefits here as we're talking about sweet potatoes pumpkin and squash

I also do want to mention sometimes people get concerned about the carbs in sweet potatoes in particular and pumpkin and squash actually tend to be lower than sweet potatoes are but it's relatively low on the glycemic index and pumpkin and squash are very low there's a study published in the Journal of Academy of nutrition and dietetics and they found that those people who consumed more sweet potatoes and pump pin uh had lower blood sugar levels uh than others and so it's important to recognize that this tends to be a fine food especially if you're doing

it with pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon and you're not doing a lot more carbs in in your other meals and loading up on other carbs this is probably the ideal carb for anyone wanting to support their blood sugar balance and there are a lot of great ways to do this again just throwing them in the oven for an hour on at 400 and letting them just bake you know just like that tremendous benefits something I'll do is I'll add again pumpkin pie spice sometimes add some quick oats to it um some raw oats and it

almost tastes like a little bit of an oatmeal cookie um you can add pumpkin purey to soups you can do butternut squash soup you can do pumpkin soup you can do smoothies you can do of course sweet potato pie and pumpkin casseroles and other options there and you know adding in things like uh grass-fed butter or coconut milk can also be very complimentary along with again cinnamon and ginger and some of those sort of herbals there as we're talking about sweet potato now listen you can definitely make sweet potato pie very unhealthy by doing conventional

marshmallows and adding about a pound of sugar to it but again you can eat them a healthy way by just adding a little bit of grass-fed butter to it or some pumpkin pie spice and or adding it to a smoothie as I talked about earlier so loads of benefits there as we talk about these sweet potatoes and pumpkin and squash number four are nuts like walnuts pecans all almonds you know these foods are heart healthy and especially walnuts and pecans you know pecans are high in alic acid it's probably the most powerful anti-aging Compound on

the planet that we know of that turns into urethan a walnuts are very high in omega-3 fatty acids and other unique antioxidants that support heart health weight management brain and neurological health so walnuts and pecans are great options when you are traveling around the holidays having snacks of walnuts pecans and listen I also do like almonds macadamia nuts Brazil nuts um you know these can be great as well pumpkin seeds but walnuts and pecans in particular are are are tend to be more complimentary around a lot of the foods we're talking about around the holiday

season of course peon pie is very popular and you can do a lower sugar healthier version of that if you focus on doing more uh dates as the sweetener and not trying to make it too sweet okay doing a pie crust what I what I did I did a pie crust this year and I took my Now Chelsea typically does an almond flour pie crust which is great I like to try new things and so I did a mixture of of um roasted chestnuts um uh oat flour and in corn flour and I I mixed

date in there with some sea salt and coconut oil and that was fantastic it was amazing so you can get create of there with your pie crust but you can make a pie crust out of nuts like pecans like walnuts like almonds like Macadamia and they're really delicious doing but almond flour is probably the easiest to do there as as that sort of option but again when you're Trav so you can do pie crust you can use walnuts and pecans just as a snack uh when you're traveling or on an airplane tend to be better

options than than than most others and you can do that with a handful of dried cranberries okay there you go dried cranberries or dried blueberries uh with some walnuts and pecans it's sort of a trail mix you can have when you're traveling there as well a great way to do it um last food here I want to talk about superfood around the holidays are Brussel sprouts brussel sprouts are an incredible superfood uh now we we tend to hear people talk more about the benefits of broccoli sometimes even coflow and other cruciferous vegetables but brussels sprouts

are a Cru cruciferous vegetable that are very high in vitamin U or sulfur which have powerful detoxic ation properties so if you want to detoxify your body and fight cancer brussel sprouts are one of the top foods you can consume now brussels sprouts another thing that makes them so unique is not only are they very very high in vitamin U and sulfur which supports detoxification they're also an excellent source of vitamin C they're very high in vitamin K they're extremely high in fiber and antioxidants and so as we're talking about brussel sprouts they are an

incredible SuperFood and they contain compounds like glucose and elates and these have been studied for again their anti-cancer benefits we know cruciferous vegetables many of them have this but brussel sprouts are particularly high in this compound that has these can anti-cancer properties and they're also great for Digestive Health if you cook them I I am not a fan of raw brussels sprouts I think they're too hard in the digestive system but I do love them if they're steamed or if they're baked I mean one thing you do is Coke them in butter butter or coconut

oil bake them uh or fry them up in in butter or coconut oil or just steam them and have them with something like a hummus or tahini sauce garlic sauce something like that that that's also or a raw vegan cheese or a real true raw cheese uh as well so there are lots of great ways to do brussel sprouts we I I had done before kind of frying them up in like a coconut olive oil or a butter and doing a little bit of Honey with them they're also go very very good with balsamic vinegar

so lots of great ways to get brussels sprouts in but a simple way again you can drizzle with olive oil add garlic to them add them to casseres but brussels sprouts are an amazing superfood you want to consider incorporating around the holidays and and and the reality is this is that be mindful around the holidays of what you're eating incorporate these five superfoods and superfood groups as much as you possibly can and you're going to have substantial health benefits from the antioxidant-rich benefits of cranberries and cinnamon to the nutrient-dense benefits of sweet potatoes nuts and

Brussels sprouts these superfoods are going to help you stay healthy around the holidays and I want to say thank you so much for tuning in here to the Dr Josh a show I do this show because I want to help you heal I want to help you grow I want to help you be the best you and know that I am praying for you around the holidays for Extraordinary health and I want to wish you a merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone out there hey make sure to subscribe like and share share this podcast

I I just want to say one I am thankful and grateful for all of you that are subscribers and that have shared any single episode over the past couple of years of this podcast I'm so so grateful for you and being on Mission with me we're making a real difference in the world again have an amazing holiday and a Merry Christmas I'll see you on the next episode