J Hardick You know, I’m one of the coauthors of Maximized Living Nutrition Plans. There is how important it is to get more fat in everyone’s diet.
Superfood For Brain
Specifically, healthy, quality fat, that hasn’t denatured by processing. You know, we’re also talking this month about how to have a healthy brain. You know, often time we talk about fish being the superfood for the brain Well. One of the reasons why it’s a superfood for the brain is because it provides those healthy fats So, I wanna talk about more ways that we can get fats into the diet because they do benefit brain health.
You know, there’s a lot that you hear about nowadays with intermittent fasting and people going on our Advanced Nutrition Plan Which others might call more of a ketogenic plan or a healing diet Any of these plans where we’re looking at eliminating sugar, eliminating grains, getting more healthy fats in the diet They will benefit brain function Deep down at the cellular level, without getting into too much of the chemistry, you just have to understand that your brain thrives better on fat than it does on sugar.
Superfood Avocado
So, we wanna look at ways that we can get more fats in the diet And there’s a bunch of ways and I just brought a few creative ways, actually from my own pantry, just to show you what some of the options are. The first thing is, obviously, avocado You know, if you’re ever in a restaurant and you need to add some healthy fats to a salad, see if they have an avocado You know, one of the other things you can do with an avocado is literally just eaten it in place of chips.
You know, so often times in place of chips and salsa, we’ll do avocado and salsa You can make great guacamoles, a simple guacamole with literally just avocado, half a can of salsa, mix it up, throw in some cilantro, salt, pepper, and you’ve got some great healthy fat right there You know, I also wanted to talk about olives as well You know, really, you know, a lot of times we’re trying to get in more omega threes The reality is, olives, olive oils, most of those oils they’re actually providing way more omega sixes than omega threes.
And really once we start to extract the oils out of these things and we’re just having the oil on its own We do have to be careful that those oils don’t go rancid Now, depending on who you speak to, some people may say the oils go a heck of a lot rancid So, they go rancid a heck of a lot sooner than we would prefer So, I’m a fan of consuming the whole food.
I mean, ideally, for a salad dressing, I would actually churn up pitted olives and I would churn up something like lemon juice or apple cider vinegar You’re gonna get a much thicker dressing in there And you’re gonna be getting the whole food Less of a chance of rancidity, obviously, for the oil So again, you wanna be getting great olives.
Here’s some, they’re organic, these are black ones But again, there’s such a variety of olives that, you know what, there are some incredible olive bars where they really specialize in all the different oils, all the different types of olives But again, great way to get them in as a whole food Again, if you’re in a restaurant, you wanna get some healthy fats added to your salad Just see if they have some olives.
Superfood Smoothie Mix
Most times they absolutely would You know, I did wanna talk about coconut and coconut products You know, there’s a bit of a joke in the natural health world that everybody just loves coconut oil and that they use coconut oil On everything Use it in your hair, use it on your skin, use it in your smoothies And some of us may be guilty of that, including yours truly But what I will say, is that, coconut oil, again, just like olive oil, that is the extracted oil out of the coconut.
And really the whole food would be the coconut in the first place I prefer, whenever I can get it, coconut butter And this stuff tastes, I would say, like fudge It’s raw coconut butter Which is essentially a dehydrated form of the extracted meat, which includes the coconut oil in it.
And in fact, even when you look at it, the top of it actually, the coconut oil has risen to the top But once you get the coconut oil at the top, you get down to that thicker coconut meat Which has created this butter through the dehydration process It’s absolutely delicious And when you start looking at making a smoothie.
Certainly adding something like a coconut butter, it’s raw, it hasn’t been dehydrated, it’s fantastic And you can also be very creative with coconut butter, adding it not only to smoothies and smoothie bowls, but in adding it to desserts as well Coconut oil is exceptional and certainly I can’t tell you how many people have found that their brain works better when they start getting in more coconut oil and coconut products But do think about some of the other options with coconut, even including the full coconut meat The coconut butters as well, not everything has to be coconut oil.
And you know, it has been in the news the last few months about this controversy over coconut oil You know, providing too much saturated fat Therefore, elevating cholesterol, therefore creating heart disease problems You know what, you would have to subscribe to the theory that elevated cholesterol always causes more heart disease and the truth is that’s a myth from about 50 or 60 years ago So we know, frankly, that more saturated fat, more healthy saturated fat in the diet is not always going to be associated with a greater risk of heart disease.
It’s more when that elevated cholesterol becomes oxidized from having too much sugar, having too much pollution in your body through forms of different toxicity Having a lot of inflammation, abnormal hormone levels as well That lead to this oxidation of all that cholesterol in your body That’s more of a concern than just the total cholesterol that you would see What are a few others that are here? You know, one thing that I would definitely encourage people to look at is consuming more nuts and seeds if they need to get in healthy fats.
But definitely look at getting in more seeds typically than nuts, you know, nuts can be a little tougher to digest But in any case if you’re consuming nuts and seeds, always try to find ones that are sprouted and raw You know, when we cook these healthy fats, it does denature the fats so they’re not as well processed in your body, not as well digested And not only are they good to have raw, but when they’re sprouted it helps to release some enzymes that allow them to be a lot more digestible in the body So, I’m a giant fan, I’m a giant fan of this company, obviously.
But anywhere you can find something like a sprouted pumpkin seed, or a sprouted watermelon seed Here I’ve got some sprouted sunflower seeds as well The big this is just to mix it up You know, we don’t get enough variety in a diet I think one of the reasons why people get a lot of gut issues is because we’re not changing up the foods enough.
Superfood Nuts
I mean if you really think about it in ancestral times, we wouldn’t of had the luxury of having the exact same food in our fridge every day of the week So make sure that you’re mixing these things up. One thing I also point out too, with most nuts and with most seeds you are gonna find that they will have far more omega sixes than omega threes If you really, really wanna throw more omega threes to look after that balance, which again, is vital for your brain Look at getting those things from things like flax seeds, things like chia seeds.
Again, you can get chia seed powder, you can get flax seed powder Throwing those onto a salad, throwing them into a smoothie Great way of doing it You know, one thing I would also point out with sprouted watermelon seeds, most people don’t realize just how much protein is in a watermelon seed as opposed to the others as well Still high in omega sixes but definitely, you know, look at getting that variety, so you can increase your protein boost, if you like to do
that.
And you know, a couple more that I’ll just point out as 
well You know, everyone knows that dark chocolate is more or less a super food because it does have some benefit of preventing heart disease But of course, we can’t have, you know, dark chocolate where it’s 30 percent chocolate and 70 percent sugar Really we’d just have pure chocolate on its own There is no question that chocolate, via the cacao bean, brings some incredible properties that will benefit your overall health.
Will prevent, will help to prevent a lot of diseases. But at the end of the day it comes from that cacao bean I mean, it’s this magnificent food that really should be considered a superfood Well cacao butter is absolutely amazing And for people that are trying to follow more of a healing diet plan or an advanced nutrition plan or a ketogenic plan.
Any of these types of plans, a specific, even the core nutrition plan in Maximized Living, talks about getting more healthy fat into the diet Cacao butter is exceptional This is the oil that is extracted from the cacao bean It’s not gonna look like chocolate, it’s actually gonna look a lot more like this And again, this is incredible though if you wanna get some additional healthy fats into your smoothies.
Superfood Desserts
Again, this can also be melted down to be used on desserts And frankly, a lot of people just use it on their skin as well So, cacao butter, great way to get that oil from the cacao bean which is the source of the healthy dark chocolate that everybody has raved about for so long And, you know, just the last of couple of the really obvious ones too.
You know, don’t forget You know, I think we started this discussion talking about salmon and talking about fish I’m a big fan of any type of fish that we can add on to a salad But I would obviously wanna make sure that these are coming from bigger oceans You know, so one of the concerns with fish is when they come from the smaller waters, they’re typically more polluted.
And they’re typically fed a lot of, you know, bad stuff They’re fed a lot of soy, they’re fed a lot of corn and such, when they’re farmed So, whenever you look at a fish to add to a salad or any other meal for that matter, we wanna be looking for something that’s wild And we wanna be looking for something, as well, that comes from those bigger bodies of water Something like the Pacific Ocean or Alaska.
Source: Youtube
