Dr. Carol Lourie 0:03

By return minutes where you just bring energy into yourself make a really big difference in how much you love yourself and how much you can give to others and your family and friends and the world in a positive way.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:21

Welcome to the longevity blueprint podcast, I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie gray. My number one goal with the show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life.

You're about to hear from Dr. Carol Lori. She's a naturopath and chef and I was thrilled to be able to have her dive into gluten free and low sugar baking tips, especially in this timely manner before the holidays. Let's get started.

Thank you for joining me for another episode of The your longevity blueprint podcast today I have on guest Dr. Carol Laurie. She's a dedicated Practitioner with over three decades of clinical experience as a naturopath, acupuncturist and homeopathy. environmental impact of our society has severely impacted women's health and hormones and more than ever, women are suffering from hormone imbalances such as PMS, pcls, thyroid disturbances, infertility, Peri and menopausal difficulties, and even breast cancer. Restoring hormonal balance involves taking charge of as many aspects of your environment internal and external as possible. And the emotional landscape must always be considered for there to be real healing. So after 30 years and 1000s of patients, Carol has witnessed how healing is always possible. So welcome to the show. Dr. Laurie,

Dr. Carol Lourie 1:39

so happy to be here.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 1:40

Thank you knows about yourself and your journey to becoming a natural path. How did that start?

Dr. Carol Lourie 1:47

Well, I was always interested in healing, and what makes people Oh, and then how do they recover their health. And originally, I had planned on going to medical school. But as the universe would have it, I was working, living in a spiritual community in New York, and I ended up working for this doctor who in the 70s, did detoxifying programs using iridology. Yeah, to understand that in the 70s, the word detox was not a household name like it is now. So this was very avant garde and

Dr. Stephanie Gray 2:20

as cured ology. Explain to the listeners what that is, because we haven't had anyone talked about that. Yeah.

Dr. Carol Lourie 2:25

iridology is very far out, you look in the eye, and it's divided into different sections. And if there's these little black dots, and you can all go to the mirror and look, in certain sections, that is an indication that you have disease, or you have a potential to have disease in certain organ systems. And as you detoxify your eyes, irises change, and that so that is like you're sick, you do bloodwork you'd use and then you get better and the bloodwork changes, it's the same thing with the eye if you're very far out. So he used the I the iridology to help people recover their health, and he put them on these juicing diets and blended salads, and it was vegetarian and banana days and nut butter, and it was very far out and I was coming from a strictly medical background, then I thought to myself, you have bad skin, you take antibiotics, what is the big deal? I mean, that's how naive I was, huh?

And this one young girl came in with horrible cystic acne. And that's when I was thinking, Why isn't she just taking antibiotics. And the next month, she came back and she was like, 80%, better, she lost weight, she felt great. And then I started really paying attention. And I realized that he was getting all the people that had either been not served by the medical profession or actually made worse, and who was helping them get better. So I became very interested in natural healing. And one day, I was going through this huge pile of paperwork that was on his assistance desk, and there was the catalog to the National College of naturopathic medicine. And that was the lightbulb moment for me. I thought, oh, maybe I should go here. And I did. Yeah, so Portland, Oregon, here I come. And then I moved to California, and I got my acupuncture license, and I've been here ever since. And that was many years ago. Yeah,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 4:23

yeah.

Dr. Carol Lourie 4:24

And natural medicine and natural healing and functional medicine have really come a long way as has naturopathic medicine in all this time, I bet and spent over 30 years so we're making progress all the time. But it's still an uphill battle with women as far as and men, but we're talking about women here. As far as divorcing yourself from the standard American advertising messaging, which we get exposed to from a very early age. And people usually have to go through some health crisis. Before they realize that there is more to health and taking a pill,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 5:08

it seems easier to take the pill until your symptoms get so much worse, there aren't enough pills to fix all your problems.

Dr. Carol Lourie 5:13

Right? pill one deals with symptom a, and then you need pill two to deal with the side effect of symptom a, etc, etc. And that's like It's like putting a bandaid on a very serious problem, especially with hormonal difficulties. So often women come in Oh, yeah, I had bad problems. And I was put on the birth control pill. And here they are, many years later, they have infertility, they've had a blood clot, they have depression, they've had weight gain, their problem is still there. And now they're thinking, Well, what else can I do?

Dr. Stephanie Gray 5:46

The root cause of the problem was never discovered, the birth control was a bandaid, it never got to the root cause of the problem, which is what you and I help patients discover. Right? So through working in that clinic, I think what inspired you to become a naturopath at some point was the change that patients were making, right, this transformation that happened and part of that involves diet, and I understand you are actually a chef, so you're going to be able to speak to diet changes. I'm better than a lot of my other guests. So how does someone go from eating that standard American diet, which they think is acceptable and normal and fine, right? to a more vegetable centric organic diet without just feeling like overwhelmed? And how am I going to do this? And how am I going to get rid of the Doritos and pop tarts and windows? Yeah, Pop Tarts? Oh, my

Dr. Carol Lourie 6:31

goodness. Um, well, I saw people working in this office, make radical changes immediately and in a month, and they were very motivated because they were being really sick. So I think if you're very sick, that's a very strong motivation. But I think, yes, it is absolutely overwhelming. Because to go from your standard kitchen, to a kitchen that is ecologically minded with no plastic, maybe you're no longer using your microwave or you no longer this is a pet peeve of mine, where people put these plastic spatulas into the heat, and the toxins from the plastic are getting into the food. So there's just a lot to learn. And there, it is definitely overwhelming. So my message is, you don't have to do it in a day. You don't have to do it in a week, you can take like a section of your kitchen, like, I'm going to get rid of all the plastic and you spend a week doing that.

And I love getting jars and putting things that are in plastic in the jars. And it makes it looks really pretty in your food cabinet. And it's it's also very healthy. And then you could take a day and go through your cabinet and throw out anything that has gluten in it or it's in a box. And you have to realize when you're throwing this stuff out, you can give it of course to a food pantry. Yeah. When you buy stuff in a box. First of all, it's lost most of its nutritional value. You're paying for the advertising and the box, the cardboard and the printing, and the chemicals that went into preserving the food. So by the time you get that food, there's very little live substance food product in a box. So yes, there are certain things we buy in a box like organic brown rice or Scruton free crackers. But we're gluten free pasta, but we're very conscious of what that is. And it doesn't make up a huge percent of what you're eating most of what you're eating you purchase from the farmers market or you know, a local health food store or CSA food delivery place boxes, which is so convenient right now.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 8:47

Yep, totally. So we mentioned how overwhelming it can be for one individual to change what they're eating, and to change what's happening in their kitchen. And you have to bring your family along with you. So what are tips for that were enticing the spouse or convincing the kids. Right?

Dr. Carol Lourie 9:05

I think that this is first of all the food that you cook, whether it's you as a woman or you as your partner, we can't always assume that the woman is the cook. Sometimes the male or female partner is a cook needs to be delicious. And the wonderful thing about eating this way and I recommend in general, a modified Mediterranean diet and I can talk about that.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 9:30

Yeah, please do

Dr. Carol Lourie 9:31

is that it's delicious. And it's very easily translatable from the standard American diet into a healthier version of what that can be with more farm to table food. And the reason I recommend a modified Mediterranean diet and I'm sure you've all heard of the keto and this protein and the no protein and the vegan I mean it's totally overwhelming and there is really no one diet for everyone. But the modified Mediterranean diet has the most research of the largest population over extended periods like 20 to 25 years. So a 1000s and 1000s, like 50,000 100,000 people and most of the research or a lot of it was done in Greece. And so that bears a lot of weight.

Because what I recommend in my practice is evidence based. It's not like I'm making this up from the air. I mean, I do spend a lot of time in PubMed researching. So I feel really confident in recommending the modified Mediterranean and I modify it because I take away gluten, I think in America, gluten is not so healthy for us, the majority of times, it contributes to inflammation, there's GMOs, and most gluten has a lot of carbs, and carbs promote sugar, and then that creates inflammatory process. And there we are, we've gained weight. So for me, it's less carbs. Because in Greece, they are eating that delicious bread and some of the orzo and all that. And I focus more on vegetables and some feta cheese and organic chicken and fish and you cannot meet every now and then if you choose, you don't have to. And then a little bit of carbs, which is which are gluten free every now and then. And the nice thing about it is you can have wine if you choose red wine every now and then. Not a lot. But every now and then a glass.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 11:31

Sure, I would agree if there was one diet that I could recommend across the board. I mean, there's no perfect diet, there's no one diet for everyone, other than I think we should be eating organic. But Mediterranean diet is close enough to that I totally agree. So we we make this entire visible to our family because we're going to cook a delicious Li is not a word, we're going to be delicious. And my husband does most of the cooking in our household. So great. I know he has a lot of spices. And when he's cooking to flavor up the food and it's notable in our now 20 month old, he doesn't want to just eat the plain hamburger he wants to eat, you know, he wants to eat be protein that has been well, that's more savory spices, shredded or fake. So it's interesting to see how his palate is developing. Well, you're,

Dr. Carol Lourie 12:16

you're grooming him. That's how you eat as a family. I mean, you sit at the table, and he looks at what you're eating, and he tastes it and it tastes good. And so he's developing his taste buds according to what he's being fed. And every culture has their own seasoning base that they use, which is I think, a beautiful part of epigenetics, which is you know, we have genes but whether they're turned on or turned off has a lot to do with our environmental lifestyle and nutritional factors. Absolutely.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 12:46

I want to go back to the kitchen. Again, because you you bring up a good point that is often not discussed. So we talked about many times, with at least it with my patients. I'm sure you do, too, about changing the diet, but we have to change the kitchen. So can we talk about how to make the kitchen less toxic? So you talked about removing plastic, and I think that's very important. Please do not microwave plastic, please do not microwave food sitting in plastic. Oh my goodness, scientists I swap out so I used to have a lot of nasty Tupperware and I've swapped out most of that for glass containers. I do look prettier and nicer. More likely to break when my son, you know, goes through though. Yeah,

Dr. Carol Lourie 13:22

absolutely. Ready for that.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 13:25

But, but I've swapped out that for glass. And so that's one swap. And it sounds like that's something you're recommending to your patients. What else do you recommend we'd be aware of in the kitchen. So what other swaps Can we make

Dr. Carol Lourie 13:36

pots and pans. So the nonstick stuff has chemicals that Leach through. Even if they say they don't a tiny little scratch happens, it's inevitable. And then you're using those plastic based spatulas or spoons, and so that he hits out that plastic and then it gets into your food. So actually, there's been a lot of research that one of the number one ways you can prevent iron deficiency anemia is by using those old fashioned black cast iron skillets. So I love those. I also love the silver stainless steel that you can get from you know, sturla taba. They have or Macy's, they have these sales where you can get a whole set out that I yeah, we can. Yeah, and you know, you only need to buy it once. And the holidays are coming up, they'll be having sales, you can ask a couple people to get together. And this is a present that you will use every day and you'll have for many, many years. So I like that. I mean, you know, nobody needs another shirt or a pair of pajamas, you know,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 14:41

something useful? Yes. My parents gifted me with a salad master set. I mean, years ago and I you know, I went to college, I'm thinking why do I need this what this is really expensive. I can't believe they thought it was one of my gifts. You know, at the time I was thinking I wanted something else but now I'm really thankful. Because I understand why I feel blessed that they were thinking of that with no my health and cooking moving forward. So that I 100% I'm on board with with that. So for the utensils though, do you then recommend like wooden spoons or your

Dr. Carol Lourie 15:16

old fashioned wooden spoons are your best bet. Now I'm a pastry chef I used to be. So I do have my baking spatulas, which I use when I'm folding egg whites or putting something in a cake in a pan, but they never go near heat. So if something is near heat, it's either my wooden spoons, or my metal spoons, and you get used to it. Like those plastic things are very toxic for you. And what I should explain is that they have at chemical in them that's released into the food that mimics estrogen. So when estrogen is processed by your body and needs to bind, and needs to park, like in a parking lot, let's say as an example, it binds with the receptor and then it's eliminated through your urine or feces. But these estrogen receptors get blocked up with these chemicals that are called estrogen disruptors because they look very much like estrogen. So when the real estrogen comes in to park and then be eliminated, there's all this parking spots are taken up. And that can create estrogen dominance. You can have lots of hormonal problems. pcls, infertility, breast cancer, Dr. Gray knows a lot about this. So he don't want to use plastic.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 16:37

No, no, that's a great analogy. I really like that so many women are now realizing, okay, I need to get fragrances out of my life, or I need to switch up my personal care products. But the same is true, not only in the bathroom, it's true in the kitchen. So I really like what you're saying about those utensils. So definitely don't park your plastic next to heat like just don't let those touch you can use the or even silicone. Like, I don't know, silicone bleeds or what are your thoughts on silicone?

Dr. Carol Lourie 17:03

I don't like silicone. I was just talking to hanging out on zoom with a colleague and she's met and she is in naturopathic oncologist. And she was using plastic to heat up her food and I said, What are you doing? She said, Well, it's silicone. And I said, I don't care. It's like, don't take a chance. It's just not worth it. They go it doesn't but I don't believe it. Sorry. It's like plastic is plastic. So I mean, I would need to see real research that silicone absolutely does not Leach but it's not you know, use a wooden spoon. Like

Dr. Stephanie Gray 17:34

Sure. Makes sense. Makes sense. So what else can we do in the kitchen are those kind of the main main tips exchange Oh, we should make

Dr. Carol Lourie 17:43

there's the plastic there's the pots and the pans. There's the dishwashing detergent, because your hands are exposed to this liquid that you're using to wash your dishes as well as what's in the dishwasher. And luckily there's the Eco products up the kazoos for dishwashing material and that it doesn't have the fragrances natural because as you said the fragrance gets into our systems through our nose which goes right into our brain and then there we have estrogens disruption, so and the sponges that you use and the cleaning products that you use on the floor or the sink all of that is gets your body is exposed to that aluminum foil is a very big one. That is a no no in my opinion. It's like plastic wrap plastic grab is another no no

Dr. Stephanie Gray 18:36

what if the food doesn't touch it so what what if you have aluminum foil I'm just thinking of the only only time I use aluminum foil is on the bottom of a baking sheet and then I'll have like a I'll put wings like if I bake chicken wings on I don't know the kitchen terminology like a rack I almost put like so if it's not touching the aluminum foil is catching the drippings it's okay but don't cook on the aluminum foil or that can beach I don't put the chicken wing directly on the aluminum frame that could Leach right

Dr. Carol Lourie 19:04

okay could also put just paper parchment paper parchment paper instead of aluminum

Dr. Stephanie Gray 19:10

makes sense. I wonder about that parchment paper I wonder if it's you know coated with what is it coated with is there plastic out you know, that's

Dr. Carol Lourie 19:18

a good point. I mean, I think as you get more into it, we have to do some research as a baker I use that parchment paper all the time. I think that different types of parchment paper and I try to even get organic or organic plastic wrap. But it's

Dr. Stephanie Gray 19:34

still plastic.

Dr. Carol Lourie 19:35

And you can get organic aluminum foil and you can get organic wax paper which

Dr. Stephanie Gray 19:40

is I think that's what I buy. Yeah, me too. So

Dr. Carol Lourie 19:44

I mean, the best we can right right what and it's you know, you don't want to become Orthorexic in your kitchen which means you're and I had a patient like that obsessed about every little detail but you know that's not healthy food. It

Dr. Stephanie Gray 19:58

stresses you out. Exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Carol Lourie 20:00

And abundance and sharing and having fun. So we want to keep that as the foundation and remember that,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 20:06

yes. So we just slowly start making out swaps, right knowledge is power. We don't let it overpower us, but we just slowly make out swaps. So let's talk about gluten and sugar specifically, which are heavily used in the kitchen and in pastries. Yes, they are.

Dr. Carol Lourie 20:22

I took my foot off of that.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 20:24

And did that impact your health? I shouldn't.

Dr. Carol Lourie 20:27

Well, you know, when I was a pastry chef, I got so immune to it that like making mousse for like 500 people with all that chocolate and huge vats of heavy cream, huge, bad chocolate, and literally for 500 people because I was working in a hotel kitchen. I was like, Don't even I don't ever want to see a chocolate mousse again, and I still don't eat it very often, but. But when I worked as a chef in a restaurant, when I was in naturopathic school, the husband of one of my friends owned this phenomenal restaurant, and I worked there and I was Ms. pudgy because the food was so good. And we made everything from scratch. This was before the concept of farm to table. I was very overweight, and I ate everything. And I loved it. And I wasn't healthy. And that that is not healthy. I mean, I realized when I left there that I couldn't eat like that. And so I don't.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 21:29

So why is sugar bad? Why is gluten bad for our health? And then we'll take it a step further and our hormones.

Dr. Carol Lourie 21:34

Okay. Um, well, I think that gluten First of all, it's the type of food that it's in. It's in pastries, it's in pasta. And it's in cookies. And it is crackers. So it's in this fast food that we as Americans, how many people have start start their day on their way into the office, and they stop at the local coffee shop and get a crappy coffee with sugar creamy stuff in it, and a pastry. And that's how they start their morning. So that is like the

Dr. Stephanie Gray 22:10

worst possible breakfast. Tastes good ones not good, very healthy. Doesn't even taste good.

Dr. Carol Lourie 22:17

Not that I mean, you know, you

Dr. Stephanie Gray 22:19

get that dopamine hit, I guess right. So you, that's why they're addicted to it many times.

Dr. Carol Lourie 22:25

Well, also the sugar creates, you know, when you eat pastries, it creates a lot of sugar in your bloodstream, and then the insulin is released to eat that sugar up. And then so you have a lot of sugar for a while. But then you have that 1030 crash. And that's when you go for another cup of coffee. So you're not sustaining your energy in a positive way. It's very draining and I mean, healthy flat flour when it's grown healthy is and it's milled freshly. I don't have any problem with that. But it's what you know, a lot of people buy flour in bags that has that they press in bleached and you eat and it's bleached. It has to be super white. I mean, that's not natural food.

That's just a bleached thing that has lots of GMOs in it that has no nutrition. It's sort of like eating broken down cardboard. And then you add you know, margarine. And to bake with instead of real butter or some kind of saturated fat and white sugar by It's so sweet. Nobody can eat it. But people are used to that. And you have this scone or something that's been mass produced that's being sold in Safeway and that's how people start their day. It's very unfortunate. I mean that and then people wonder why they have obesity, blood sugar and hypertension, cardiovascular disease, I mean, change that. Just that one thing can change only that one thing make a commitment. I'm going to change what I eat for breakfast in the morning. That will make a huge difference in your health.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 24:09

Totally agreed I many times my patients are are trying trialing I should say intermittent fasting so sometimes they will slowly change them to not have breakfast but some people especially like you know when I was pregnant, I can't get breakfast like some of us do need to eat right now. So of course not healthy fats healthy protein first thing in the morning I'm okay with some fruit. You don't want to just have a banana that's gonna spike your blood sugar but I'm okay with some some fruit in the morning. But choosing a better breakfast is a great way to nourish your body, prevent chronic disease, and even help with mental health as well as I'm reducing autoimmune disease and that's something that I greatly think gluten contributes to and maybe you can speak to this a little bit since I'm not a chef, but the way that gluten has been explained to me is it helps hold food together. It kind of helps it stay like gunky or how would you I don't know What the correct term is why do they use gluten? And even some some, I've heard that even some chefs will use a high gluten dough. Like what what's the purpose of that?

Dr. Carol Lourie 25:11

Right? Depends what kind of bread texture you want. If you want a sourdough, it depends on if you want to condensed bread, or if you want to puffy light bread. Or if you're making pastry, you definitely don't want to high gluten because then the pastry dough or the cookie will sound like lead. But if you're making a dense bread, you are going to want to use a high glue flour. And if you're making a more lighter bread, or you have a sourdough starter, you don't need to use that. So when you're baking, and bread, baking is very separate from making a crust or making a croissant or making a cookie or making a cake. It's a very different department so to speak. And there are people who specialize in only baking bread. And it takes a long time because you have to like prove it, you have to know how much water you have to decide how much flour you're going to add. And there are recipes. And sometimes if it's too humid out, the bread doesn't turn out or if the temperature isn't right turn. I mean it's not. It's not that easy. And baking gluten free is a challenge. I've developed gluten free flour recipes, and I've gone through a lot of bags of flour, and a lot of pastries to come up with the right combination. And that's just part of what happens. I mean, if you're dedicated to being a gluten free chef, you have to be willing to, you know, give away a lot of cookies that didn't come out or whatever, because I'm not keeping it in the house, that's for sure.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 26:47

I usually just buy a pre mixed you know, gluten free flour combo are Can you to our listeners, can you mention some of your? I mean, I know you can't give us your exact recipe but of course kind of wheat alternative flours do you recommend?

Dr. Carol Lourie 27:02

I think these what's what's on the store. Now, in the shelves, some gluten free prepared flour mixtures is great. It's nice if it doesn't have only white flour in it, that's part of the problem with gluten free flours. They're all white. So like, you know, corn starch and tapioca and brown rice flour, even if it's brown rice is going to be white, so it has a very high glycemic index smoking, very high glycemic index. So I like to find a brand that has some caffeine in it, because that's more natural grain. And then what I often do in my baking is, let's say calls for two cups of flour is I'll do one and a quarter cup of the gluten free flour substitute. And then I'll do three quarters of almond flour, or even a whole cup so it's half and half sugar, almond flour, there's two different types of almond flour one is finely ground without the skins and one is brownish and has the skin and I use the finely ground one. Okay, because it gives you a less dense product and I'm talking about making cookies or cakes or crust. Sugar. crust is difficult crust, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 28:24

So it's very

Dr. Carol Lourie 28:26

hard to get that crispy, flaky thing that you get with gluten regular when you make with butter when you make gluten free it just it doesn't quite translate.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 28:39

What do you have any other tips for gluten free banking that you want to?

Dr. Carol Lourie 28:43

Yeah, just general baking tips on the eggs need to be at room temperature. Take them out the night before or a couple days before when you leave eggs out the protein and the egg whites solidifies. And it is especially if you have a recipe that calls for beating egg whites, they'll beat more. And when you beat egg whites, you want to make sure that the bowl and the whisks are very dry, or else they won't. They won't and there's no egg yolk in a white or else it won't whip up and you want to start by putting a pinch of salt in it because that helps bind the protein which is going to get the egg whites fluffy. You start out at a low speed and then you'll increase it after you see a few bubbles. And then with so we have eggs at room temperature butter must be also kept out overnight room temperature. If you're making cookies or cake if you're making crust.

That's a different story. But those are but those are just standard baking recipes. And sometimes the baking time with gluten free is going to be less than with regular so you have to like check it a little bit more. And sometimes the liquid component might need to be either increased or reduced. creased, you'll have to use your, if you've made the recipe before as a regular recipe and you're switching to gluten free, you'll have to try to remember what it looked like the first couple of times and don't you know if it doesn't turn out perfect. It's not going to be like a horrible disaster. So you just have to lower your perfectionist expectations when you're baking gluten free and realize that it's a process to learn how to do

Dr. Stephanie Gray 30:28

you have patients? Yeah. I've noticed a lot of the pre package like mixes have something like xantham gum, or something in there. So can you explain why that's in there? Is that just a substitute for the

Dr. Carol Lourie 30:45

fight? Yeah, it's a stabilizer and it helps bind? Yes, absolutely. And they do have it like those Bob's Red Mill brownie recipes or chocolate cake recipes. Yeah, their corn bread. They

Dr. Stephanie Gray 30:59

have some good recipes, or good mixes, I should say. Yeah,

Dr. Carol Lourie 31:02

right. But it's so easy to make your own corn bread with, you know, half cornmeal. And then I use cassava flour. Okay, because it has a lot of protein in it and you know, glycemic index. So it's so easy to make a cornbread, you just take any recipe in the and you use half of a gluten free flour mixture, and then half of the cassava flour or you mix that up with the cassava flour instead of the white flour. And then the other half is the corn meal. And then you just follow the regular recipe. And it's a one bowl thing, it doesn't need to be complicated. So there are times when those prepackaged things are really as a lifesaver. But in general, I try to start from scratch with that stuff in case I need more

Dr. Stephanie Gray 31:45

to build my confidence.

Dr. Carol Lourie 31:48

Well, we have some zoom appointments, where you go

Dr. Stephanie Gray 31:51

together there you Oh, I want to talk about baking low sugar also. But before we do that, I want to go back because we've not that we skipped over. But we just I was just kept grilling you in questions with baking gluten free. So I want to go back to why sugars bad for our health and our hormones. So what's the impact? How does it impact your hormones? Well, sugar,

Dr. Carol Lourie 32:14

when you eat it causes your glucose in your blood to become elevated. And then that causes insulin to be released from the pancreas. because your body is getting a message there's too much sugar. So you have the ups of the initial spike of the glucose and then the down when that glucose is removed. And that is a lot of pressure on your adrenal glands to keep your energy stable. Despite you're having this up in this down of sugar, like the gas in your gas tank, sometimes it's there, sometimes it isn't. And then your adrenal glands have to come in and try to save the day and keep your energy stable. So all of this really impacts your pituitary gland and your inflammatory process. And your pituitary is where that master mess or mistress I should say messages are coming from to turn to get the hormones to be released from the different organs. So this whole stress system, your body has to work harder to function healthily. And sooner or later, all of this working harder. One of these systems of compensation is going to say I'm too tired, I can't keep up. And that's when you begin to have symptoms. But the process leading up to those symptoms has been going on for many years before they actually showed up.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 33:41

That's good. So essentially, I would argue that then your thyroid can tank right so it can impact your thyroid. And also this can impact sex hormones also. So the more overweight you are, a good analogy is I'll kind of tell my male patients even you know, have you seen You know, Friends with big beer belly, many times those guys have higher levels of estrogen because that though that fat there that you packed on from eating sugar, right, so creates the aromatase enzyme which converts their testosterone over to estrogen. So having that sugar developing that beer belly or in women, they can have you know, larger, you can be larger in any area, we all put it on differently, that can actually indirectly lead to more of an estrogen dominant situation. dragging down progesterone and that can lead to a whole slew of symptoms, which we won't get into today. But we've discussed on some other podcasts. So sugar is not good for your hormones, it can impact all of them. So go ahead if you want to expand.

Dr. Carol Lourie 34:36

I was just going to say and sugar drives breast cancer.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 34:40

Ding ding ding. Oh.

Dr. Carol Lourie 34:42

In 1931 Otto Warburg, who is a German scientist won the Nobel medicine prize for discovering something that was called the Warburg effect and given a choice of like gas or energy. Cancer will choose sugar over oxygen, even though When it chews makes that decision, it has to work harder and get less energy from the sugar department than it would if it just went over to the oxygen side. And that's called a robot glycolysis. And so sugar if you have any type of inflammatory autoimmune infertility pcls a thyroid problem sugar is it's not just driving cancer, it's not feeding cancer cells only. It's just creating so much more inflammation. And inflammation is the root cause of disease for all of all of these illnesses no matter what they are.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 35:36

Totally agreed. So the holidays are coming up. So this is the time of year I think, many of my patients not all of them, but some veer off the bandwagon. A little Yes,

Dr. Carol Lourie 35:47

yes, we're all slipping off. We're just cheering on the bandwagon to eat or not.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 35:53

Especially with COVID this year many of them I've already said I've gained 10 pounds already this year. Right and I said okay, though I say back, the holidays are coming. What are we going to do here? How are we going to not pack on another 510 pounds? So that's too much Dr. Laurie tell us Yes. How can we cook sugar free? How can we still you know have been enjoying the holidays have been delicious. I'll say still treats right? How can we still not over indulge but still enjoy it indulge have fun with our family have some treats that are more low sugar? What are your sugar substitutes? What do you recommend here,

Dr. Carol Lourie 36:26

I should just start out by saying that my free gift to everyone here is every year I put out my pastry baking got a book that I have spent many months and trying not to gain the weight from trying the pastries. Taking recipes where I make gluten free and maybe have either no sugar or extremely low sugar. So I've really changed my my palate. And it takes a while but now when I try a regular pastry with all that sugar, I just very unattractive. It's too sweet. So I there are ways like if you're making a date nut bread, you do not need sugar, because dates are naturally sugar. Yeah, if you're making banana bread you don't need it's very easy to not need sugar. If you're making a chocolate cake, you need very, very little sugar. So it is a bit about adjusting your palate. And if you are going to put sugar what are the options that I use are either monkfruit sugar, which you can easily find at the health food store.

Yep, or date sugar, or a maple syrup, sugar, or honey. Or I mean that's just those four things are enough. Now brown sugar is white sugar that has molasses in it. No, we don't want to do that. But sometimes a couple tablespoons of molasses, especially if you're baking a spice cake or something are just fine shot, I think we have to realize that the old way of looking at things as far as being super sweet. It's not happening anymore. Now if you're making a delicious butter cookie recipe to decorate your cookies, you can easily use maple syrup and serve the white sugar for that. And I would hate I would start out by doing a quarter or a third of the amount. So if it called for two cups of flour, you can use the gluten free and then if it called for like a cup of sugar, which is just so much. I would do a quarter cup of maple syrup sugar and I would be fine with that.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 38:29

So go down you're saying so literally just to make sure I heard you right. Instead of a cup of processed white sugar. You could use a fourth cup of maple syrup. Yeah. Okay. What about what about coconut sugar or even stevia?

Dr. Carol Lourie 38:43

I think coconut sugar is great. Okay. And I'm sorry, I forgot. Thank you for that. Okay, I

Dr. Stephanie Gray 38:48

just I don't know what you think

Dr. Carol Lourie 38:50

coconut sugar is great. But you have to realize that some of the food that you're making is going to taste like coconut. So you have to be as is coconut flour. So you have to be you know, you have to experiment and you have to really like, just be okay, if it's like, oh, it has a little too much coconut. It's like fine, it's still delicious. People love it. And I'm not a big stevia fan, especially for baking. I don't I know it's a natural leaf, but it's just so processed. I just I think that, you know, go to go to nature. What's in nature, honey, maple syrup, maple sugar, monkfruit coconut sugar, it's all from nature. You can't go wrong with that. I mean, that makes sense. Like, we have options.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 39:34

So how does changing this diet and changing our diet and living this way, impact our health and longevity. So what are we going for here? We've already mentioned reducing glucose and insulin. How else is that going to impact our longevity

Dr. Carol Lourie 39:50

where as we get older, it gets more difficult to hold on to what we had. And I know this sounds strange, but I'm like past my 50s already on. Great, thank you. Thanks for the beauty parlor. And I also take a ton of supplements and I watch what I eat. So I guess what I preach and I exercise. So I think I know this sounds strange and you don't think about it when you're in your 40s. But you want to begin to think about how you're going to hold on and maintain what you have, as you get older. And nobody is talking about this. So in your 40s, you really want to if you're out of shape, and if you don't worry, exercise has such negative connotations to people. So I'm going to reframe it positive, fun movement for you go for that is walking, Pilates swimming, doing dancing at home in front of the television, there's now this thing I've seen on Facebook, it's like a mirror that you put

Dr. Stephanie Gray 40:51

up on the wall. Yeah.

Dr. Carol Lourie 40:53

And it's connected to some I don't know what and the you know, there's exercise stuff going on there. There's the peloton bike I mean, which is a lot of my friends are getting. So whatever you need to do, which is going to be fun, positive movement, let's delete the word exercise because we all had traumatic gym experiences, and start having fun with movement. And we want to build muscle mass. And we want to build bone and tendon strength in your 40s. Because you don't want to end up in your 90s or in your 80s with a walker or in a wheelchair. And the way to keep that from happening is 40 years in advance. I know you can't relate to this conversation. But it happens before you know it. So what we want is as we get older, first of all, I think how we feel about ourselves, we all have this little negative voice in our head where you know, we're not good enough. We're not pretty enough. We're not tall enough. We didn't do this, right? We only did that we should have done a and we did B I mean, we need to begin to become aware of that negative voice and just you can't tell it to shut up. But you can say okay, I'm going to take a break. Let's let's turn the volume down and

Dr. Stephanie Gray 42:07

just turn I mean girl off. Yeah, don't listen to her. Yeah, I

Dr. Carol Lourie 42:10

mean, inner voice of you know, you're not enough you didn't doing did something wrong, or whatever. It's like we need to begin to really embrace how much we do in a day. And you as a mom of your beautiful boy and this work that you do. I mean, if you made a list of every single thing you did in a day, there probably be 1000 things in it. I mean, and who acknowledges that most of us don't get that acknowledgement. So it needs to come from ourselves. So I think that is really important for our longevity with our attitude, and then maintaining an understanding that we're building our health in our 40s for as we get older, that will help maintain your longevity.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 42:58

I love that word, Bill. And that's the whole purpose of my book. I mean, it's about building your longevity blueprint.

Dr. Carol Lourie 43:03

I see it. It's beautiful, beautiful,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 43:06

all about building longevity. And so you've given us many tips today to help, especially since the holidays are coming up. Hopefully we'll have more fun in the kitchen. I have not felt deprived, but have no I'm not

Dr. Carol Lourie 43:18

into deprivation. No, no, I don't, you know, we don't want to do that. We want to have the holidays, especially with the difficulties we've all had this last year be times of joy. And baking and shipping things to friends who can't get together with in person is a really nice thing to do.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 43:35

So how can our listeners get a copy of this free pastry guide that you're preparing for the year?

Dr. Carol Lourie 43:40

Well, it will be on my website under the download sections. So my website is my name Carol Laurie dello, you are ie.com and under the download section, you just go there and you'll have to put in your email but we don't spam or nothing. And you're this and anything else that you want this on my website will be sent to you immediately.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 44:04

Awesome. So we'll have this post and just posted in December so you can get a copy of that pastry guide I know time Yeah, exactly. I'm looking forward to using that. So I wanted to include with your top longevity tip. This could be something that you utilize daily as part of your daily routine. What's your top longevity tip?

Dr. Carol Lourie 44:24

I do something every day that has nothing to do with anything other than nurturing my inner being like so give me an example of what that is. And even for me, that is often gardening. Okay, you know I can go out and I have all my pots and my my plants and pots. Water them I'll talk to them and I will deadhead them. And that can take five or 10 minutes and and I'm outside in the sun

Dr. Stephanie Gray 44:55

yes and exposed to the microbes your grounding you have

Dr. Carol Lourie 44:59

yet Yeah, and that's what I do. But if you can go out, especially as it's getting going to be colder and snowing more, or a lot of people live or raining, hopefully where I live, I think just sitting and looking out the window and meditating and just clearing your mind. I mean, those five or 10 minutes, where you just bring energy into yourself make a really big difference in how much you love yourself and how much you can give to others and your family and friends and the world in a positive way. And that needs to happen more for all of us. It starts with our inner connection.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 45:42

That's so good. We should start the day that way in the day that way.

Dr. Carol Lourie 45:46

Yeah, totally.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 45:47

Wonderful point. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I'm glad I had a chef on I think our listeners will find this very valuable. Come the holidays and year round. So thank you for all your expertise. Thank you for coming on the show today.

Dr. Carol Lourie 45:59

Oh, thank you for having me. It's been great to be here.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 46:04

I can't wait to get my hands on her free pastry guide. my talents have not been good in the kitchen. But I have a feeling this guide will help me up level those baking skills. I hope this episode inspired you to have fun in the kitchen and to reframe your idea of exercise into positive movement. Enjoying clean, healthy, low sugar foods, and keeping our bodies moving no doubt will help us hold on to what we have in age more gracefully. Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint. And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck, you can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time, not only is the course 50% off, but you also get your first consult with me for free. Check this offer out at your longevity blueprint.com and click the course tab. One of the biggest things you can do to support the show and help us reach more listeners is to subscribe to the show. And leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics, guests or how you're applying what you've learned on the show to create your own longevity blueprint. The podcast is produced by the team at counterweight creative. As always, thanks so much for listening and remember, wellness is waiting.

The information provided in this podcast is educational. No information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai