The advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition. heroically King and welcome to the mother's market podcast, a show dedicated to the Truth, Beauty and Goodness of the human condition. On today's show, the foods we eat can determine how we feel and how our bodies react to our diet, they can also determine if we have more energy or feel sleepy, the key is to strike a balance, and we'll go over the foods you can eat to keep you going strong? Plus later.

We'll tell you what's going on around town. But First up, Ken Babel has a clinical nutrition practice in Los Angeles and is a consultant to the natural food and supplement industry.

He's the author of numerous books, including mushrooms for health and longevity, and his latest book, The Indian diet for balanced nutrition, health and harmony. And we welcome him to the mother's market podcast.

How are you?

Oh, well, thank you, I should be with you.

Nice to have you here. Why don't you feel our audience in a little bit on your mission and work before we get to today's show topic... Well, we're gonna talk about yin and yang, I guess, right?

Yes, yeah.

Well, in an anger is an ancient asen concept, and I chose that to frame modern nutrition science in that perspective of N and Yang and yang described polar opposites and how they function in relation to each other, they describe how they're interconnected, interdependent and complementary. There are in Yang pairs, for example, like we could think of in Anyang as male female, active, passive, masculine, feminine, front back, hot, cold outside inside. But in Anyang also describe the process of change. Like Day and tonight, or night and today, so energy moves in a pendulum swing between opposites and one side is either better or worse than the other, unless it becomes too extreme.

Some people are probably familiar with the Indian symbol. It's that circle and some say it looks like two nestling fishes within that circle, one dark, one white represents the dark represents the end, the light represents Yang. And within each of those, you'll find a dot, a black dot within the white portion that represents... Nothing is purely yen or Yang. You find both aspects, for example, a peach is soft, and that would be described as he in but it has a hard core, which would be young, but this Anyang sample, you also see it represented in the South Korean flag is to the part of their flag.

I didn't realize that. I guess I have to think back to that, but how do you gain... Relate to health and disease.

Well, this is a fundamental concept in traditional Chinese medicine that's been practice for 3000 years, and in that system disease is an imbalance between E and Y, so when either is deficient or excessive, it fails to restrict the other in this balance relationship we have.

So being to yen or being to Yang without being able to return to balance constitutes a state of disease, yen illnesses would be characterized by weakness, slowness, coldness under activity, Yang illnesses on the other hand would be characterized by strength or forceful movements, heat over activity. It's set up.

So if this harmony is slight and we might feel kind of vaguely off balance and how do union relate to food?

Nutrition Science is based on chemical composition of the food, where in traditional Chinese medicine, it's based on food, energetics on food has various properties, and of course, in traditional Chinese medicine, food is viewed as medicine and something that nourishes us, harmonies the body and the mind and the spirit, but in this traditional Chinese medicine approach to the energetics, I'm speaking of would be food, for example, heats us or cools us, it energizes or calms us, it acidification us, and that's the general swing between the polar opposites is what keeps us stable.

So if one side becomes out of proportion for too long, balance is disrupted and we feel unwell and we become susceptible to disease. And in your book, you talk about the union life battery. What is the unione life battery?

Yeah, if I could back up for a little second, foods can be catered as yen or gang, and on the extreme end of in you would find alcohol and sugar, and on the extreme end of Yang, you would find red meat and salt, so near the balance point near neutral, you would find vegetables and fruits being slightly in and whole grains and fish being slightly... You don't want to become trap of eating extreme food solely, so it's best to focus more in the middle, but it's about being flexible, diverse, moderate, and harmony with your own rhythms and needs, sometimes we might need to emphasize more yang foods, sometimes you might need to emphasize more on foods. Yeah, and as you say, it's that balance... So again, I was gonna ask you that about your book, and you talked about the union, the life battery. What is that like?

If I can give you another example of... And Yang fast, for example, have a negative charge and protein has a positive charge, which would be going and I... That's the negative would be in... So this concept of a life battery actually was attributed to a fellow by the name of Hansell, a... He was a Canadian scientist, he was actually nominated for a Nobel prize for his work into the nature of stress, and he theorized that humans have sort of a life battery to Steere Gul AR battery with a positive and a negative pole, so he wondered how we might recharge this life battery, and as I say, turns out facts have the negative charge, protein has a positive charge, so it's important to get good quality protein and good quality essential fats. One of the first persons to consider the health implications of fat consumption was this German biochemist by the name of Johanna Baig, and this is going back in the 1950s, she was renowned for a cancer clinic, and she had this protocol for her cancer patients, which included flax seed oil, and she used cottage cheese, a dairy protein.

Nowadays, we tend to favor the way protein, a little bit more for providing a good type of protein, so the young battery, I think a good way to keep it charged, and by the way, new life is created by this interaction between fat and protein, for example, sperm and a woman's oven come together to form new life, the sperm is Yang, the oven is mostly fat, comes together to form new life. So one of the things I like to do to help recharge our life battery, so to speak, and help people rebuild healthy new tissue, is to consume a protein oil shake every day, it's a convenient way to start the day off, and it's easily digested. And that's one of the anion recommendations I'm making my book, and that one of the examples of how we recharge our life batteries was with that protein oil shake and protein and essential fatty acids like you find in flail primarily.

Okay, can you put the flax seed oil and also in that shake, which one can you put black seed faxed in the protein oil shake as well. So these are really... I was gonna ask you how you can recharge that life battery... Yeah, I would go with a flat seed oil.

Oh, okay, yeah. Or a similar essential fatty acid supplement that has some of these high quality essential fatty assets, and can you give us another example then of Nan relating to nutrition, also such as sodium and potassium.

Sodium is Yang, and potassium is yet... And they exist in this... The sea saw balance, most people get far too much sodium in their diet and not enough potassium, but minerals are linked to the universe, all minerals were once part of a star, so we have... I'll have that element in our human bodies, but I guess a common misconception is some people think that, Oh, I don't have high blood pressure, I'm not salt-sensitive if I could have all the salt I want, but not... So the sodium potassium ratio is something that's very critical for all aspects of health, a sodium, for example, is a risk factor for osteoporosis, it's implicated in some types of cancer, so everyone should be cognizant about being careful to restrict sodium and at the same time, getting adequate potassium, sodium, of course, most of it doesn't come from the salt shaker, most of it comes from packaged processed foods, so if you're careful to eliminate those processed foods, you can have a little bit of healthy salt in your diet, maybe possibly from Celtic salt, which is kind of a gray salt, Celtic salt in comparison to like the difference between whole grain bread and white bread, the Celtic salt has other minerals in it besides the sodium, and this summit potassium ratio is possibly the single largest contributor to ill health, and another example of interplay between yin and yang, and what are some of those high potassium foods? Some other of those, our ancestors thrive on a high potassium diet, about 16 times as much potassium is sodium, and now in the modern, it's just the reverse, we get more sodium than potassium, but the foods, beet greens, beet greens, a cup would give you about 1300 milligrams. White beans are a good source about 1200 milligrams, tomato products, baked potatoes, plums, raisins, lima beans.

Some people might be inclined to go to the health food store. Maybe you get a potassium supplement, but we're only limited to about 99 milligrams in a potassium supplement, and as I say in our potassium requirement is in the thousands. So people ask me for a potassium supplement, I say, How about a glass of vegetable juice, a glass of insulted V8 would give you about 800 milligrams of potassium compared to the 99 milligrams in a pill, FDA limits on how much potassium we could put in a pill, potassium-depleted individuals need to be monitored by a physician, and potassium supplements can be irritating to the digestive track, so that's the way the best way to get the potassium, think of vegetables. Every meal.

Okay, what about other major union imbalances that you see in the modern diet?

Yeah, there are some major imbalances that I think need to be addressed, we could talk about, for example, carbohydrates, you've got refined and unrefined carbohydrates, that's a big problem, big major imbalance is high glycemic foods, you can talk about fats and oils, some people are getting far too much animal fat and not enough of the essential fatty acids.

There's some facts that we need just like vitamins every day, another measure, imbalance, I would say would be digestion and elimination, we need to strike a proper balance between those two, some people might be eating all the way up to bedtime, food and food abstinence. There are benefits to that balancing act, and sometimes a fast is a very quick way to correct health problems who might be experiencing... Of course, the most natural way to fast is from early evening when the sun goes down until the following morning when you break fast... Mm-hmm.

Another imbalance would be, I would say between acid and alkaline, many people are eating a lot of grains, too many grains, too much meat and animal products that creates this asset state in the body, so to neutralize that the body pulls calcium from the bones, to neutralize that acidity, again, another risk factor for osteoporosis, so quite simply, vegetables and fruits are alkaline, those are some of the major imbalances, if we are really concerned about longevity and living up to our full potential for health... Well, this has been really interesting information, but right now we need to take a quick break more in just a moment with Ken Babel and don't go away. We will be right back.

Welcome back to the mother's market podcast, and we wanna remind you that if you missed any portion of today's show, you can find us on iTunes by searching mother's market or download the show from our website, mother's market dot com, click the link for podcast and listen to past shows, plus download our Healthy Recipes and money savings coupons, all available at mother's market dot com. And now back to our interview with clinical nutritionist, can Babel, and we're talking about the Indian diet and can... What else might we do to maintain a Gagan balance?

Nature has provided some wonderful herbs that help to maintain and yang balance, and so that's... Part of the program I'd like to suggest is that people consider a Antoni and a yang tonic.

There we go.

I love it. So what are those? Yen and Antonis.

Well, the Antonis help with the accumulation of energy and moisture in the body, they are the cooling and anti-inflammatory anti-aging, and I'm in... When we think of herbs, we might think of culinary herbs, we might think of medicinal herbs, which we take when we're sick, you'll take it for a given time and then we stop, but you have these tonic herbs that are more like super foods and can and should be used routinely. These are the superior health builders, also broadly known as adaptions, and just like the name implies, adaptions help us to adapt to stress, various forms of stress, whether it's physical, chemical or emotional stress, and so they help to restore altered body conditions back to normal, so they're Antonis and they're Antonis, as I say Antonis, help with the accumulation of energy and moisture, their anti-inflammatory anti-aging. I'll give you a few examples flower pollen, the cereal grasses, like barley grass, wet grass, Correa spirulina, bone broth, clogher and ginseng Trammell mushroom. These are examples of these Antonis and the boy, the freshwater algae like Corella and spirulina, they are among the most concentrated foods on earth, you could probably live off them, as far as the yang tonic, the Antonis help us tap into that energy that we accumulate and they are the sexual tonics? The athletic tonics, they stimulate metabolism, they help to build muscle. Some examples of an tonic would be ohana and Luther, which used to be known as Siberian ginseng, and by the way, the Russian cosmonauts, when they went into space, they were given a Luther to help them cope with the rigors of space flight. And in this country, our astronauts were given amphetamines, pep pills, uppers.

Other examples of yang tonic would be apamea maradona.

I suggest people choose the Antoni and Antoni, everyone can use a Antoni to help with accumulation of energy, some people, I would say with a very Yang constitution, red face for a very outgoing... A very Yang constitution probably should use the Antonis with a little bit more moderation, emphasizes the Antonis also, if a person is extremely depleted and exhausted, it would probably be best to really, again, work with The Antonis for a while to build that Yin energy before getting into Antoni, there's so many wonderful choices... When people learn about them, I think they're gonna be really excited.

Wow, well, that's fascinating. I know you've done a lot of... You've written a lot about mushrooms, and so it's interesting to hear you talk about the mushrooms and how you can use them, and can you talk to us about why you're such a big fan of mushrooms and what they can do for us. Yeah, and mushrooms are in the Tonic category, mushrooms, whether we're talking about like she take race, cortices, my take... They are unique. When you think about it, they're not a plant, they're not a vitamin, they're sort of in this third kingdom, if you will, the fungal kingdom, and as such, they have very unique properties, mushrooms actually actually a little closer to humans than they are plants, really, as you think about it. They mimic human respiration, in other words, they take in oxygen like we do, and give off carbon dioxide, or it's just the reverse with plants, and plants of course, obtain their energy from the sun and they contain chlorophyll, whereas mushrooms, they kind of spring up overnight and they're a subject to be under the influence of the moon, which is set to foster intuition and imagination.

So they're really unique. Some talk about a Antoni Trello mushroom is a wonderful Antoni. And then you have cortices would be a good example. It's both a Antoni and a yang tonic. Yeah, the one common property, I would say, among the mushrooms is their ability to support the immune system, so much so that mushrooms have crossed over into mainstream medicine, becoming a part of a juvenile and cancer clinics.

That's what I'm hearing. And I was gonna ask you if you have any kind of favorite kind of mushrooms, I've been hearing this though about crossing over and cancer, I guess what they're finding out about with mushrooms and what they're finding out about what it's doing for cancer therapy or... Cancer, right? Yeah, and mushrooms may be the best thing, drug, drug or natural product, rigor vitamin, in terms of stimulating immunity, we actually have receptors for the beta-glycans that are found in mushrooms, we have receptors on our white blood cells that are activated by these bush room beta glues, and the white blood cells kind of seek out and destroy anything perceived as foreign, whether it's viruses or bacteria or foreign tissue, so my take is one of the outstanding mushrooms in that area, and people don't often realize that that the all-time best selling cancer drug in the world is a mushroom extract, so mostly in Europe and Asia called PS, but we have mushroom extracts you're available in your local health food store right off the shelf that actually been compared with PS and showing to be actually even better in their anti-tumor properties. The PS, the anti-cancer drug, it was actually administered by injection, but when you compare it to an extract of my take called de-fraction, which is a concentration of the immune-enhancing components of the mushroom actually had better anti-tumor properties than the PS... The anti-cancer drug.

So I take one of the very best things to support immunity.

How would you sum up the union diet? Going back to your book and what your research has... Yeah, well, I think in are another way of looking at food and the energy that foods provide, and so I would encourage people to be conscious of this delicate balance and not to eat too much of the extreme foods, whether it's meat or coffee or salt, not too much of the yen foods, whether it's alcohol, not that they're good foods and bad foods, some people like to categorize foods as bad or good, be as I say is it's a question of balance.

For example, alcohol, it's a highly Ying type of food, but by the same token, we know that moderate wine consumption, for example, as cardiovascular benefits, so everything in moderation. And just be aware of the eating more... YEO makes you more in. Eating more yang foods make you more Yang.

Perfect summary.

Well, thank you very much for your time and for some great advice, and we really appreciate your knowledge and we look forward to having you on again, but in the meantime, you can get some more information on Ken babe, and his website is nutrition musician dot com. I like that ring. And the... Congratulations on your new book. And look forward to your next visit.

Thank you. Pleasure to be with you.

The advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition AE.