#1

I’m curious what are some uncommon foods you eat regularly (at least once in a week or two) because you think they may have positive health effects? I’ve noticed that sometimes people who grew up or lived abroad have favorite foods that others may not have heard about.

For me:

  1. Weekly or so:
    Salmon roe and mushrooms (in the order of preference, lion’s mane, maitake, or shiitake — ergothioneine, spermidine, beta glucans, etc)

  2. At least a few times a week:
    Buckwheat (a good carb source, alternative to quinoa/oats; may have a good amount of quercetin), black rice (anthocyanins), corn (lutein), sardines (convenient, omega-3), kefir, hibiscus (anthocyanins, hypotensive effects, etc), spearmint tea (potential cognitive/memory benefits), sauerkraut (with purple cabbage), capers (quercetin), strawberries (fisetin), black olives, and tomato juice (this one is common obv, but a great source of lycopene), aged cheddar/gouda (K2, spermidine, etc), chocolate (flavanols, brain blood flow potentially).

  3. These are common but I try to more than usual (e.g. daily)
    EVOO, certain herbs and spices (parsley, oregano, sage, and/or rosemary — CD38, apigenin, rosmarinic acid, luteolin, ursolic acid, etc), green tea, blueberries, kale, broccoli, lean protein, eggs, greek non-fat yogurt, oats (beta glucans, etc), mustard (whole seed and yellow).

  4. Planning to experiment: brown algae (fucoidan and SIRT6).

What are some of your favorites?

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#2

Kefir, cod liver, steak, butter, eggs

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#3

I like your list. When I say uncommon I mean not commonly eaten or eaten in high enough quantities. You could find all these at your supermarket/health store

  1. flaxseed/linseed: Omega 3, fibre, lignans all fantastic for health. Also even small quantities of flax given in RCTs can drop cholesterol, inflammation etc and lignans especially important for cancer risk.

  2. Parsley mainly due to the apigenin CD38 link. Just adding a teaspoon a day to your lunch could have positive effects and a bit safer than high dose NAD boosters.

  3. Beans/lentils in general, good source of plant protein and fibre and low methionine so pretty much the perfect protein source in my opinion. Also strongly associated with longevity in population studies

  4. Mushrooms: eaten but not regularly or in enough quantity for optimal health. In terms of the phytochemicals you are getting mushrooms are pretty unique and adding them in gets a huge amount of diversity into your diet. Low in calories and high in nutrition not to mention a good source of ergothioneine

There are loads more but these are generally under eaten and really easy to add into your diet.

Also your buckwheat recommendation for a healthy carbohydrate source is great, especially high in glycine and you can mix it into oats to make porridge. Love the purple cabbage also fermented or otherwise. Really cheap and good source of anthocyanins if you aren’t eating berries with every meal.

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#4

My goal is 30 different plants each week. I’ve only just hit my goal. Some everyday, and some only 1-2 times per week. Each one might fail to qualify as uncommon but it’s a broad list.

FOODS (22)
Onion
Chickpeas
Black beans
Pinto beans
Peas
Green beans
Apple (multiple varieties)
Blueberries
Raspberries
Blackberry
Grapefruit
Oatmeal (steel cut)
Wheat germ (everyday)
Carrots (a lot)
Celery (daily for nitric oxide)
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Tomato (multi varieties)
Almonds (raw)
Walnuts (raw)
Moringa (powder)
Cacao (powder)

HERBS / SPICES (6)
Garlic
Black pepper
Dried red pepper
Thyme
Rosemary
Turmeric

DRINKS (2)
Coffee
Green tea

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#5

I haven’t seen Brazil Nuts listed. Selenium

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#6

Looks a lot like my diet, everyone seems to be talking about wheatgerm recently but not sure what the specific benefit is. Vitamin E?

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#7

Buckwheat, Teff, Barley, Millet, kefir, cranberry morse, parsley root tea, ginger tea, broccoli sprouts, mung beans sprouts, bok choy.

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#8

wheat germ = spermidine (autophagy inducer). Perhaps it also leads to “leaky gut”. I’m rolling the dice on this one.

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#9

I am going to extoll the virtues of one of my favorite foods:

Brie Cheese

So I often have an ounce or two of brie full-fat cheese with my morning coffee.

Not because of the health benefits, but because for some reason I am abnormally fond of brie cheese. It was one of the things I also ate regularly when I was on a Keto Diet.

I know brie is uncommonly consumed because of the small selection if any at my local market.

I have to visit the bigger stores such as Costco to find a selection. I think that this is a supplement worth taking. I am also in the camp of Keto, in that I find that fats have little or no effect on my lipid levels when I am in the desired BMI range.

Brie is an alpha-glucosidase inhibitor as is acarbose. Caffeine inactivates α-amylases from various sources.

“α-Glucosidase inhibitors are competitive, reversible inhibitors of intestinal α-glucosidases”

“Overall soft cheese digestates (Brie, goats’ and feta) had greatest a-glucosidase inhibitory activity (range 96.7–100.2% inhibition)”

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"Indeed, among all dairy products cheese is reported to have

the highest antioxidant potential (Fardet and Rock" 2018)

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file:///C:/Users/Charles/Downloads/10.1080@09637486.2020.1825644.pdf

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#10

For me, its:

  • Sardines (lots of good omega 3s)
  • Japanese Sweet Potatoes (the purple sweet potatoes), usually available at Trader Joes…
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#11

High levels of spermidine in brie, as well as other aged cheeses.

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#12

Good to know. Thank you.

Costco has Brie, and Goat Cheese. Their goat cheese is soft and creamy, similar to regular cream cheese.

I am now torn between the taste of aged cheddar and the high score of Brie. If I remember correctly, Brie is mild tasting.

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#13

Thank you, everyone! This is very interesting.

Now, I want to go down the rabbit hole of researching natural α-glucosidase inhibitors. :slight_smile:

By the way, if you see any problems with my list (e.g., any foods you wouldn’t consume regularly), please do share!

#14

@Bettywhitetest, I’m on a low-sodium diet, which moves Swiss to the top of my cheese list.

1 Like
#16

Broccoli Sprouts, about 100g/d
Salmon oil, 12g/d
dried parsley, 6g/d
probiotic mix of yogurt, skyr, kombucha (all homemade) + kefir, 50-80g/d
lots of prebiotic fibers powders, including psyllium, inulin, konjac, beta glucan

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#17

@desertshores
Brie is an α-Glucosidase inhibitor!
This Is Awesome! :grin:
Roquefort too, even though it’s slightly less.
As somebody born and raised in France I will extend that to all the other French cheeses until proven otherwise.

@JuanDaw Brie can be pretty strong if aged enough which is not the case of most of the ones we can find in the USA for instance.

BTW I make my own various kefir, yogurt and other fermented food like sourdough, sauerkraut, etc.
I also hydroponically grow: tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, various leafy greens, herbs (parsley, thyme, rosemary, oregano, etc.)

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#18

Brie is mild tasting, and at room temperature, it is easy to eat. This is a recent change in my cheese preferences. In the past aged cheddar was my favorite. It also goes well with many wines.

#19
  1. Organ meat lamb, beef, pork(liver, heart, tongue etc) hard to find fresh though. Eat them maybe monthly would love to eat then 2-3 times weekly. Used. To love animal brains also but haven’t had that in over 20 years
  2. 2 -3 spoonfuls of organic flax daily or 3-4 times weekly
  3. Salmon wild caught about weekly should do more like 2-3 times though
  4. Onions, garlic and ginger usually daily
  5. Organic 12 oz steak about twice weekly
  6. Probiotic organic A2 yogurt often
  7. Always use organic A2 milk for coffee and sometimes drink a cup
  8. Organic Veggies 2-3 times weekly, I’ll try to do daily
  9. Organic chickpeas rarely as legumes give me inflammation for some reason, otherwise would eat beans more often
  10. Organic EVOO usually daily, couple time weekly do eggs also. Also organic butter often for taste…
    Have almost entirely eliminated bread, reduced sugar intake a lot. Use raw unfiltered honey as sweetener on coffees or teas
  11. Sometimes organic camomile tea, and or organic spearmint tea. Should do daily
  12. Organic walnuts and other nuts often, but have a problem of overeating them when I buy them. Haven’t been able to say stick with a handful daily. If that were the case I would eat them daily.

  • Crave roasted/fried caviar from carp fish. Used to eat it many time yearly while growing up. Don’t care for fancy/expensive Russian caviar. Tried at functions couple times, not a big deal to me. Much rather have cooked carp caviar. Also crave a special cajmak made by boiling milk and let it cool then collect the top crust. It is usually mixed with a little crumbled feta cheese, and fermented for couple weeks or so, but the taste is out of this planet(can’t say it’s good nor bad for health,but I crave it so much that at times I almost convince myself to travel to Balkan region just for that at a cost of about $2000 lol) Common in Balkan regions of Europe. Haven’t found any in USA searching for it in last 20 years lol. Sometimes I buy 5-6 gallons of A2 milk, boil it and let it cool in shallow pans and collect the crust in the morning. Delicious but not exactly what I grew up with, plus a hassle to use up the 5 gallons of milk after that lol

  • one thing I’d also like to mention is that I would NEVER eat raw meat, fish, or even milk even if you held a gun to my head. There’s absolutely nothing anyone can say to convince me that these foods eaten raw are healthy. Actually, it is the opposite especially if consumed often.

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#20

I wouldn’t eat meat raw either, though if you just killed it (it’s that fresh) then it’s probably safe. I doubt there’s any advantage (maybe less glycation).

Raw milk, I disagree. This stuff is safe. I drank daily for 20 years from our goats. I made kefir daily and drank it all raw. Very hard to get sick from fresh raw milk. I’ve read this in books as well. Treatment of milk makes it last longer on the shelf, if you’re not storing or selling definitely drink it raw.

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#21

One thing I forgot… this time of year, there are always tons of pomegranates available… Costco has reasonable deals. So I regularly buy a few boxes of the large pomegranates…

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