Embrace Rainbow Eating For Full-Spectrum Healing

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

Oh, my pleasure, Michael. Thank you for the invite. This is a topic that I have so much passion for, both personally and professionally, especially when you see family members and friends over the years who have had cancer. I feel like this is definitely something I feel strongly about. Thank you.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

For everyone out there, Deanna Minich, a certified functional medicine practitioner, is a nutrition scientist, international lecturer, teacher, and author. With over 20 years of experience in academia and in the food and dietary supplement industries, she’s been active as a functional medicine clinician in clinical trials and in her own practice, Food and Spirit, which has now become oriented towards groups, workshops, and retreats. She is the author of six consumer books on wellness topics, four book chapters, and 50 scientific publications. Her academic background is in nutrition science, including a master of science degree in human nutrition dietetics from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a doctorate in medical sciences from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. For a decade, she was part of the research team of Dr. Jeffrey Bland, the father of functional medicine. She has served on the Nutritional Advisory Board for the Institute of Functional Medicine as well as on the Board of Directors for the American Nutrition Association. The list goes on. There are a lot of things you’ve done, but then we would just take up the whole segment of our discussion.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

Yes, let’s not bore people too much. But I think the takeaway is that I’ve been in nutrition for a long time, and that is where I spend a lot of my time and effort.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

One of the fascinating subjects is: when people talk about food and nutrition, should we do plant-based or ketogenic diets? But I want to go beyond that. I want to go into kind of the vibrational energy sort of say of food, because to me, any kind of food, any kind of herb, carries a certain energy with them over and a bit beyond just the molecular structure. I feel that that is so important for our health.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

Yes. Well, one begets the other, meaning that the molecular structure imparts a certain vibration and frequency. When we have things that are chemically synthesized or humans synthesized, they don’t quite have the same resonance that something from nature would have. So that lends us in to the whole topic of phytonutrients and why it’s so important to get those colors because color, as we know, is a wavelength of light; it’s a particular wavelength. By getting all of those colors, we do get all of those unique frequencies that we need at the cellular level. Of course, we get them at the physical level as well, in terms of the actual nutritional aspect. But I think that, much like you are alluding to, we can see food on many different levels. There are the physical, emotional, mental, and more of the spiritual connection aspect, and then I would also say the more energetic vibrational, and all of them are relevant. I think we can’t ignore any of them because they’re all part of our being as well. I’m so glad that you brought that up.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

We have more recent research when you look at the mitochondria. In my practice, we do a lot of photodynamic therapy and photomodulation, where we use intravenous laser therapy externally in order to be able to kill cancer cells or pathogens and also activate the mitochondria. What they’re finding is that the mitochondria and the different complexes are very color-sensitive, meaning that they get activated by certain frequencies and certain colors. Bringing food in to activate the mitochondria becomes a very powerful tool in order to enhance cellular health.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

You are diving into the physics of eating here, which I love. that I don’t get to talk about that too often through Summit. This is a delight. When I think of the mitochondria, I think of the Qi of the cell, the prana. It has even been referred to as Qi in a scientific paper. What does that mean? That’s like the energy harvester, and if we look very closely into the mitochondria and the pathways, especially things like oxidative phosphorylation, which is a way that the mitochondria can extract energy, it’s kind of like the finish line of the metabolic processes. Through that process, there are these cytochrome enzymes. If we just think of the word cytochrome, or cytosol chrome color, what the mitochondria are doing at that very basic level: extracting energy from these bonds of color that have been formed within foods. I think it’s beautiful. It’s not new work. If we look at Dr. Fritz Popp and other people in this whole arena of biophysics, so many people have done research on different aspects of food, spoilage, and how to increase biophotonics. I would say to preserve that within the food rather than to have emissions, because then that is a sign that we have what’s called more of the oxidative spray or that we’re decaying; we’re going rancid. Eating in its own way is an act of harnessing that energy. Some ways connecting into those biophotons, connecting into the light, and the light in the way of sunlight or spectrum light is connecting us to color.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

You are talking about emissions. when they do research in regards to the emissions. People understand that when you ingest these foods with these colors, you are essentially creating biophoton emissions within your own structure.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

We don’t have a lot of science to look at its effects. “Okay, if I eat a banana, what kind of emissions and what kind of biophotons are created?” We are just looking into other studies that have more or less, I would say, looked at it mechanically or even biochemically, but I’m still waiting for more clinical data. where we can measure biophotons, because I think that the medicine of the future will be our smartphones. We put our finger up to that camera or the light. We get a read on what kind of light we are emitting. The goal is not to emit light. We want to keep it and have fewer emissions so that we don’t have that kind of burst, that oxidative spray. There was one study some time ago looking at meditation and finding how even the act of meditation could help to conserve one’s energy or reduce, from my recollection, the ultra-weak biophotonic emission that happens just naturally from the fingertips. I just thought that was so interesting. How do we become more enlightened?

Have a light on the inside. I think that, Michael, there are so many things that interfere with that process. We have electromagnetic fields. We have artificial blue light at night. We have so many fields around us that are just zapping our energy, creating more rancidity in our bodies, and that takes us into something like cancer, because if we think of cancer and the processes that occur many times, it is from an overabundance of a lot of free radicals where we have this oxidative damage, and maybe that is happening to the membranes, maybe it’s happening to the DNA, but we’re damaging the body in some way through some external or even internally generated substances or compounds, fields, whatever it is. I think that the way to overturn that or to buffer that is to bring in these colors, and the colors in and of themselves will provide that reservoir of colorful energy to override and provide antioxidant support for when we are bombarded with so many different stressors in our everyday lives. There are many.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

We had plenty of them. You are talking a little bit about Professor Popp and his research in regards to photons, and in his research, he talks a lot about cellular communication and photons within cellular communication and how different reactions in the body are communicated and orchestrated through them. These, these light particles that are then kind of orchestrating all the events within the body, rather than that you have things that are chemically dependent because they’ve seen that if we are then waiting for a chemical reaction to conclude and then the next chemical reaction will start after that conclusion, things that take a very short period of time within the body will take much longer. We’re leaning more toward photons as a means of communication. So to be able to enrich our bodies, then, with these photons and utilizing these different tools, they are like colorful food, like sunlight, which becomes important for them. These are all tissues that must be able to function appropriately.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

I just want to say that I’m no expert in this area, but the whole area is intriguing to me. I often get down the rabbit hole by looking at the literature. One of the things that I have seen recently is that if we look at aromatic amino acids like tryptophan, tryptophan is an interesting amino acid. I have stumbled across some literature here looking at the conversion of tryptophan to serotonin to melatonin. Well, as it turns out, if you look at some of the cellular biology literature, it would seem that these compounds, the three of them, which are interrelated, seem to be involved in exactly what you are speaking about, which is the transfer of biophotons. There’s talk about how they can help with microtubules within the cell, kind of changing that communication within the cell. I just think it’s interesting because, in some way, I think that these are molecules of consciousness. If we were to think, how would we have the consciousness to make decisions? How do we drive our behavior?

How do we create states of awareness? Well, if you look at it even again, just go back to meditation, because there seem to be a number of studies on that kind of practice and consciousness. What you see is that serum and blood levels of serotonin and melatonin are higher in people who are long-term meditators. People who meditate have been doing it for like ten or more years versus people who don’t meditate, even when other factors are controlled for. It’s interesting: are these truly the harvesters of light because they have a certain chemical structure? It’s kind of like photosynthesis. Why is chlorophyll so important in plants? Well, it has a structure that enables it to carry the light into that plant for energy and chlorophyll in conjunction with carotenoids. Carotenoids are a large family of compounds, with about 700 different compounds. They can be red, orange, or yellow. Some of them are a little bit yellow-green. So within the plant, there is this almost like a passing of the light baton, where the carotenoids are protective and helpful against too much light. Chlorophyll is harnessing and moving that light through to photosynthesis, and I think much in the same way in our bodies this is happening. How do we move cellular communication through that vehicle of light, those photons?

Now we can’t see them. We also have difficulty measuring them. It’s hard to be tangible in this kind of science. This is where physics meets biology, and we have biophysics. This is an emerging area. Some people would call this quantum biology. It’s like taking quantum physics and applying it to biological systems. Food and eating and this whole experience of taking in these plant compounds, which all have very unique types of chemical conformations, I believe are helping us in this whole process of the extraction of light and the communication in the cell through that conductance of light. But I think for the average person, that is hard to put into practical reality. I think that the best we can do is talk about eating the rainbow because, through those colorful compounds that we are seeing with our eyes, we are able to take in color. I see color as a nutrient. Many people just kind of disregard it. We’re eating so many brown, yellow, and white, lackluster, bland foods. These foods are devoid of that high resonance of color. What we’re speaking about is more of that photonic aspect, which I sometimes call photonic nutrition. If we want the most vital form of life to come into our own being, looking for those colors, I think that that is a good signal in nature.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Yes.  talking about going back to cancer. Here you have tissue that is then lacking that vibrancy and that energy, the vitality. So to be able to ingest that vibrational energy, we’re talking about biophotons. We’re talking about light. We are talking about frequency. We are beings with frequency. We are beings of light. Things communicate; things vibrate. When they stop vibrating, that is when we’re moving towards death. then to be able to bring in vibration on a full spectrum level becomes important because you can then become deficient in certain types of vibrations, and then your body is not able to communicate and function at the level it needs to.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

Any kind of disease state will signify that we’re not in that place of harmony at that cellular level. When it comes to food, I think that there are certain different aspects that we can key into. One is pure; I would call it the color red. These aspects of survival protein are the grounded aspects of eating. Many of us need to get grounded. There’s so much talk about the microbiome; there’s talk about earthing; there’s talk about soil; and when we’re taking in a food, we’re taking in not just the nutrients but the microbiome of that particular food. There’s a real earthy, grounded element. Oftentimes, this presents itself in the form of protein. People have very strong views about the source of protein that they choose to eat. In fact, many times the conversation about food and nutrition starts there. Are you vegan or keto? Are you paleo? What is yours, and it’s all rallied around this aspect of how we feel that we most need to ground through protein? For some people, animal protein is not an option. For other people, it’s just about plant protein. I think that probably I would say that you and I probably share a very similar way of how we could view that there’s a personalized approach. Because when we’re talking about cancer, now we start thinking about personalized genetics. You and I were talking before we jumped on our Swedish ancestry. We have certain genes that just kind of travel along, and we’re turning certain things on and off. Then we have epigenetics. That is very strong within the whole arena of cancer, and that is very well acknowledged. Similarly, certain foods can be doing that, turning things on and off, but I think at a very basic, grounded level, so many people are focused on protein, and nutrition is so much more than we know.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

It is fascinating how things are simplified, but for people to understand because it’s such a complex conversation, and when you are dealing with certain health issues and you want them simplified, it’s important to understand that we are complex individuals, and with that, we need a rainbow of foods. We can’t just limit ourselves to one component. We need all these different nutrients because they work in conjunction with each other and they support each other by working as coenzymes and enzymes, so you can’t just limit yourself for a period of time. But for long-term survival, you need the full spectrum.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

You need the full spectrum. That’s true.  Back a few years ago, I published a paper in the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism, and I was talking about the color code. Even so, this is what I typically show: my operating system, the rainbow, and each color of the rainbow, which seemed to be keyed into a functional signature. What do I mean by that? That means that colors exist in nature to a large degree, maybe not to a complete degree, because nature is very complex and diverse. It’s hard to put nature into a box, but through the eyes of patterns, looking at just patterns of how those colors connect to functions in the body, I see that there’s a connection. The way that I see it is that the color red, if we just go back to that for a second, connects to things like red-colored carotenoids, like lycopene and astaxanthin, and then it connects to polyphenols that we find in berries. 

There are specific kinds of these kinds of polyphenols that we would find in red-colored fruits, like pomegranate, as an example ellagitannins. When I think of red and look at the science of red, whether it’s strawberries, watermelon, cherries, or these types of foods, what I see is that there’s a connection between those red pigments and inflammation and immunity. In other words, they would be helpful for creating a healthier immune-inflammatory response. In some cases, red foods can perturb the immune system. We could have a histamine release through something like strawberries, especially for children, or people with more vulnerable immune systems might be a little bit more susceptible to that because of their gut or otherwise. In general, I think of the immune-inflammatory response. Should we go through each color? 

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

I think that’d be fascinating for people to kind of understand how colors are reflected in food and then also the impact that has on the human body.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

Yes. Because this will justify why we need the rainbow, if you miss a color, you could potentially be missing phytonutrients and functions. Red is not one that I’m too concerned about. When I see people’s eating, I kind of feel like, Okay, people get some red, then there’s orange. Oranges would be things like orange fruits. oranges, persimmons, mangoes, tangerines, these kinds of foods, and also vegetable squashes, carrots, and root vegetables. What’s unique about orange is that we tend to see it connected to things like beta-carotene, which is just one of the many carotenoids. But there are other types of carotenoids that would connect to orange-colored foods, like another one called beta-cryptoxanthin, so orange in the rainbow diet system that I teach and write about is about reproductive health. It is about the fat tissues of the body, like the skin and the ovaries. The brain also has a higher concentration of carotenoids. These often orange carotenoids have an association with things like ovulation in women and even sperm quality in men.

The head of the sperm is concentrated in these carotenoids. As you go down the rabbit hole, looking at the studies on orange, it’s interesting because even in the animal kingdom, orange is often used as a symbol that connects to mating and confers some kind of viability or survival. Like you see with guppies, you see that with certain birds, which is just interesting. Other animal studies, like with goats and cows, would suggest that there’s an association between certain carotenoids and hormones. I don’t know. I just think it’s kind of interesting that there’s a connection between fertility, reproductive health, the adipose tissues of the body, and these carotenoids. oranges, and I usually see that people get orange juice.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

It’d be interesting, though, if there was any kind of correlation with the type of cancer and also with which kind of color you might be missing.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

That is an excellent research question. I’ve never seen that specifically. But there has been a study looking specifically at the ovarian tissue of people with ovarian cancer versus non-ovarian cancer tissue, and they found different levels of carotenoids. That is interesting, in fact. I was just wondering if it was a study from Poland, so that was just intriguing. Yes, all the colors. Yellow is a color that we find in things like lemons, plantains, bananas, and pineapple. When I think of ginger, I typically think of digestive health. They contain proteolytic enzymes, which can be important. They contain prebiotic fibers, which can be important for establishing a good, healthy gut. I think that those foods are also connected to higher levels of serotonin. Now, we don’t know if eating more yellow foods makes you a happier person, but I do think that the bananas and the smile are kind of interesting, and they also have high serotonin levels. But we don’t know that food serotonin translates to more happiness in the body. If I were to think about cancer, I would be thinking about green and the rainbow diet that I teach. I talk about green as the color of the heart because of the nitrates that are naturally occurring: folate, magnesium, and some of the B vitamins. It helps to create a healthy vascular system and healthy blood flow. I also think of it as connected to detoxification, keeping the blood pure and green. It is almost like we’re supposed to have green because that is the color that is in the greatest proportion in nature. Green binds things like different toxic compounds in food and can carry them out. I think that chlorophyll in green foods is important for that reason, for sure.

I would be thinking about the binding; the nutritionally supportive effects of green foods like leaves and different legumes and beans of that nature would be very important. But the color that most people don’t get enough of out of the whole rainbow is blue-purple. It is like the color I’m wearing. That would be blueberries, blackberries, the color of eggplant, figs, raisins, purple grapes, or even Concord grape juice. These foods are precious. They’re rare by nature. We were talking about how, in the north of Sweden, you get all of these highly intense berries that are small. They’re wild. They tend to be very high in certain compounds. Now, those compounds tend to be very favorable for the brain. When I think of blue and purple, I think of the brain. That would be mood-learning memory. We see that there is a connection—a strong connection—in the literature between a number of these studies looking at eating those foods and improving those different markers. I think all of the colors are relevant for cancer and reducing the risk of cancer, as well as for overall health. With most people not getting the blue-purple color, I do have concerns that they’re missing out on certain compounds that are uniquely connected to brain health.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Is there a way for an individual to do something like a test or something a person can do to maybe analyze and see what I’m deficient in this color versus that color? Should I focus more on this group of foods? You want to do the whole rainbow again, but can you then analyze and see that I’m more deficient in this area versus another?

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

There are some laboratory tests that would involve taking a blood sample and looking at things like levels of beta-carotene or certain tocopherols. It wouldn’t be covered by health insurance since it is not commonly done, and the way that I’ve seen most people do it. How I’ve coached people is to very simply use what I call and eat the Rainbow Tracker, where every day you focus on and I have seven colors on my tracker, so I have red, orange, yellow, green, blue-purple, white, and brown. I bring in the white for cauliflower, coconut, and garlic things of that nature. I bring in brown for things like cocoa, tea, and different kinds of grains for people that eat them. that is said at a very simple level. Am I getting 5 to 7 of those colors per day? I’ve had families do this together. Children like to do it now. That’s one thing. Most people—eight out of ten Americans—have some phytonutrient gap, meaning that they’re missing one of those colors, so that is a problem. That is just one level. On the other level, for people who eat a pretty good diet, they say, “Oh, I’m doing good; I eat the rainbow.” That’s such a simple message.

I say, “Well, what about? What kinds of red foods are you eating?” Typically, what happens is that people lack diversity, so they get into what I call a phytonutrient rut, meaning that they eat the same foods every day. For their red, they have tomatoes, but it’s always tomatoes for their orange. They might always have carrots for their yellow, and they might always have a banana, but that is not enough. You have to create diversity within each of the spectra of the rainbow in order to get that full breadth of phytonutrients. Because of each food, let’s just take the green family. They’re all so different. They have different phytonutrients. If I were to eat a green apple versus a red apple, even though they’re both apples, they’re going to give me different phytonutrients, and even if I had two red apples of different varieties, like a red delicious apple and a pink lady apple, I’d be getting two different kinds of sets of phytonutrients. I think that there’s the Eat the Rainbow message, and then I think that there’s another one, which is having diversity within the rainbow. That is where many people are falling short. They think that, if I eat a healthy diet, I’m eating all of those colors. But they’re in a food rut. Having diversity has been shown to be helpful for so many things.

With cancer, one of the things I think about is toxic exposure. I teach on that topic a lot, and I know a lot about that as well. One of the ways to reduce our toxic load is to rotate our foods. We don’t concentrate on any one particular, I would say, nutrient or even a toxin. So that is why, many times, I’m not loyal to brands. I like the diversity of brands. I like the diversity of different kinds of food, even grocery stores, different spices, different herbs, and different brands of tea. as long as they’re of higher quality than what we can choose, but then create diversity. Instead of buying a big bag of apples at the grocery store, what I would recommend is, well, just spend an additional minute and pick seven apples that are all different because you are going to get a lot of variety there. Variety helps to ensure better nutritional status and a reduced toxic load. It also helps to fortify the gut microbiome and make it more diverse, which will help the immune system, which ultimately will help in being much more preventative in the way of looking at that path into something like cancer. Getting out of ruts is important not only from a food perspective but also from a life perspective. I think that oftentimes one begets the other.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Yes, I couldn’t agree more. In regards to the microbiome, it is proven that the more diverse it is, the better your immune system is. You are talking about serotonin and the different neurotransmitters that are produced and how that impacts our health, our mood, and how we relate to other people. All of that is also produced in the gut. The more diverse your food selection is because of the different types of food or because all the bacteria they use are different, they eat different types of fiber. One type of fiber will promote one area of bacteria, and another type of fiber will promote another. By achieving that diversity, you will then have a much more well-rounded group of bacteria in your gut.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

100%.  I think that dietary diversity is overlooked. For some people, they won’t change how they eat, but they can change what they’re eating within that. What I’ll say to people is to just try one new food every week. One of the benchmarks is if people are thinking, “Well, what does she mean? How many diverse foods per week?” Well, if you look at the American Gut Project and some of the other types of scientific publications, they would encourage 30 to 50 unique plant foods in seven days. That sounds like a lot, but it’s not. For example, you could bring in spices, like spice blends. If I have a curry powder that I use at home and that curry powder has 11 unique plants in it, it’s not just turmeric; it’s got 11 plants.

There, you are getting diversity. If you have an herbal tea with maybe five different plants, now you have five. But now that means that the next day you can’t have that same herbal tea. You have to be thinking, How can I have something different? I do think it’s one of those things that is incredibly important for health. I did a 90-minute lecture just on dietary diversity, going through all of the benefits based on the research and how to measure them. I can tell you that from mood state to the immune system to nutritional status, as I spoke of, and even to things like fractures and falls and later life, it does translate. I think it’s essential to have color, creativity, and variety. It is important. Michael, one other thing I would like to address as it relates to thinking about cancer is how we cook our foods. We could have diversity in how we cook based on the seasons and our bodies. But I think one of the issues with people is that they are overcooking even healthy foods, making them unhealthy.

The science is telling us that grilling, broiling, and frying are all producing what would be called advanced glycation end products. These are nasty, inflammatory compounds. in the body, they create inflammation. They lodge in our skin. They can cause discoloration of the skin. They can change, lodge in the brain, and cause inflammation. One of the familiar advanced glycation end products that most people know about is hemoglobin A1C, which is something that we make in our own bodies that is not even from food. that is a glycated protein. We can do a very similar thing with food in the presence of high heat. When we have that brown, crisp crust, or when we take a piece of bread and put it in the toaster, we have a nice-tasting piece of toast, but we also increase the advanced glycation end products.

Another thing would be even nuts. When nuts are roasted in oil, this leads to more of these advanced glycation end products; now, nuts, seeds, and toast would not be the heavy hitters. The heavy hitters here would be bacon, which would be taking meats and cooking them, grilling, charring, and frying. This becomes very inflammatory. There have been studies where they show the same meal. One of them is steamed, and the other is broiled or fried. Very different responses in the body, even though it’s exactly the same food, just prepared differently. The one that is fried causes all of the problems. That’s probably easy for people to know. But I just want to tell you, it’s a big thing, especially when we’re thinking of reducing the risk of cancer.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Yes.  People have such a hard time stepping away from their barbecuing and their smoking there, and then by recognizing the impact they have on their health—not we’re talking about cancer, but any kind of inflammatory situation moving towards things like dementia or Alzheimer’s, which is becoming such a big deal as well. All of that will be impacted by the improper preparation of food. It’s vital to recognize the best way to do it.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

I would say to your listeners, if they’re thinking, Well, what am I supposed to do? I would say that steaming, slow, low-moisture methods, and water are good. Water is a great conductor of heat. In fact, I’ve been on a cardiovascular summit before with Dr. Joel Kahn, and there’s always a question about cooking with oils. I just don’t think we need oils to cook. I think that even in high-smoking-point oils, there are different kinds of fats in there that can degrade or break down. My preference is always heat with water, just steam or poach. I think that those are better methods. You don’t have to eat raw. That is not for everybody. Sometimes you need just a little bit of heat to liberate the fiber away from the nutrients so that they can be absorbed, especially the carotenoids. I do think that cooking is important. Now, let’s just say that you still want to have that hamburger on the barbecue well before you cook the burger, put spices in it, even put blueberries in it, then cook it, and then put half of an avocado on top. Now you are buffering yourself against the inflammatory effects of whatever carcinogens or whatever, and I can’t say that in all cases to the same degree, but you’ll at least be reducing a lot of the main offenders that would be causing inflammation.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Talk to me about microwaving.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

Microwaving is a different kind of cooking, so it doesn’t produce the same burning and charring that grilling and frying do. It is interesting because you don’t find a lot of data to suggest that microwaving is bad. But what microwaving does is vibrate the particle rather than have heat go from the outside in, which is why you get more of the crusty outside versus the inside. Microwaving is just vibrating; those molecules in the food all move at the same rate. The thing that I don’t like about microwaving is that it generates a field. I have a Gauss meter, and a Gauss meter measures electromagnetic fields. You can take the Gauss meter and then just move it through your home, and you can see where I have fields that I can’t see. They’re electric, or I’ve got things plugged in. The microwave emits radiation when it is cooking. But I’ll just be straight. I don’t think that there’s a lot of science to show that it is an inferior method, and in fact, it might preserve certain nutrients because they’re not lost in water or subjected to high heat. But for me personally, I don’t choose to use it. The house that we live in did have a microwave that came with the house, but we don’t use it. I don’t know, either philosophically or just because it just doesn’t feel right. as part of the cooking process. I try to, but so far, some people don’t think it’s terrible. I just don’t think if you are going to use a microwave, don’t stand in front of it when you are using it. Just look at the containers that you are using in the microwave because, again, subjecting heat to plastics could be detrimental. You start to release certain compounds. Just be thinking about those things.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Yes, I agree. I just wanted to bring back a point that you made in regards to when you pick food and diversity and pick apples from different stores because you have apples that are grown in different soils and different climates. Based on that, they will create different phytonutrients. then that will enhance seed diversity as well as mineral content, nutritional content, and so forth.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

You buy in season when you can. I think that the science on that, as well as traditional literature and the ancient ways of eating, have always encouraged that. What we would see is that it’s fascinating that fruits grown at certain times of the year have certain phytochemical compositions that can metabolically affect us differently. Now, there haven’t been a lot of human studies doing this, but there have been animal studies. It’s fascinating to see how certain polyphenols, like cherries eaten at certain times of the year, can have different hormonal effects. Be very in tune with whatever is in your local environment. I have a good friend. You might appreciate this one, Michael, because it connects to the land and to the energetics. But I have a good friend who did a lot of gardening with me on our property. We live on five acres, and we have these nice gardens. Well, they’re not so nice. I haven’t worked on them so well this year, but he would also say that whatever is growing on your property is probably what you need. I often think, “Okay, I have a lot of dandelion, and I have a lot of nettles. Is there a liver immune system at certain times of the year? Why do we do that? Why does nature present us with those things? How can we be more savvy about taking that into account? Like, why is nature? Why do we get apples in September?” We have about three apple trees, and in September, they’re exploding with apples. Well, apples are rich, and polyphenols are rich in quercetin. They’re anti-allergy.  That is perfect for the time when we start to feel more immune compromised when we move into a different season. We might have seasonal allergies crop up. I just think that the more that we harmonize with nature, the more in alignment we can be.

I guess the only other thing I’d like to say about this has been on my mind with respect to temperature. Just to go back to that topic for a second, I don’t know what it is, but I have family, friends, and colleagues who have experienced more in the way of pharyngeal and throat issues and cancers related to this area. One of the things to be very cognizant of is the temperature of the foods that we take in. So many people are drinking coffee and tea on the run. They go to cafes; they go to those drive-through cafes. They’re drinking those coffees in those plastic containers. The temperature is hot. I’m always the sensitive one. I’m letting that cup sit there and waiting for it to cool in the room too. But just be careful of that very tender mucous membrane, the mouth, because it just requires a lot for your mouth to have to be repaired over and over again if you are damaging it with hot liquids. That could be soups, broths, or anything that you are heating; it could even be like a meal of solid food. It doesn’t have to be liquid. I’m just thinking in terms of liquid beverages, how much that is commonly done, and people drinking potentially very high temperatures of those things. Sometimes it’s not the food or the beverage; it’s how we prepare it, how we consume it—what is our mindset? Are we in that state of awareness? I think all of those things—the circadian rhythm and that kind of timing—are also key.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

And looking at your food—kind of gazing at your food—prepares your system to be able to utilize those phytonutrients even better. It kind of starts the whole digestive process by observing the food for a little bit and taking a moment to appreciate it. There’s so many aspects of food that I think the culture, the American culture, and how we consume our food have moved us away from healthy eating. It’s not always true that the kind of food also determines how we consume it. We can consume a green apple the wrong way, and then it just doesn’t become as beneficial for us as it should be.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

Yes.  to that point, which is excellent. I think even smelling the food in the process makes me wonder if people do better at home with cooking because they can smell. There is something like a building-out process in the olfactory system. We’re learning so much about the aspects of taste, taste receptors, and taste receptors found throughout the body, as well as the olfactory, smell, and odors, which are so strongly connected to the brain, memory centers, and our digestive tract. that initiates the salivary juices. We start to get hungry just by smelling certain foods. I do think that rather than having to take copious amounts of digestive enzymes doing exactly what you are suggesting, which is spending a couple more minutes on being in that food, that mealtime experience, smelling the food, just being there, eating with community, or if you are eating by yourself, just being attentive, chewing, not scrolling on social media or watching the television or reading on Kindle, some of those silent meals can be very profound in many ways. There are some studies on setting an intention and then having mood states change after a meal. There was a beautiful study with tea where people didn’t know that there were certain kinds of teas that were either blessed by a Buddhist monk, or I think it was, or there was no blessing.

What the researchers found was that there was an amplification of mood when they drank the tea that had been blessed, and they didn’t know it was blessed. But when they had to drink the tea again and they knew it was blessed, it was like it took it to a whole other level. I think that we eat our intentions. This is why I grew up Catholic, and I think one of the best practices that I had growing up was that of saying grace, giving thanks for the food, giving thanks to the farmer, giving thanks to the animal, giving thanks to the plant, whatever it was; it just sets the tone for your psychology, which then informs your physiology and your energetics.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

Yes, I love it. Well, Deanna, this has been so fascinating. You are so amazing in the research that you are bringing forth and what you are educating people about, and in this arena, where can people go to learn more and to experience this type of eating more intentionally?

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

That is a good question. There are some resources out there. If people go to my website’s name, which is deannaminich.com, on my website, under resources, I have so many downloads that people could just take for free. I have a food and mood tracker. I have even recently put this together, like a way to cook food, and what are the best practices with that? We talked about that. that is available on the website. then I would just say that on social media, I do like to make a lot of infographics that connect to the energetics as well as the physical aspects. People would be able to find that on Instagram.

Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD

I love it. Well, thank you so much, Deanna. I  appreciate this conversation. Thank you.

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, FACN, CNS, IFMCP

It was lovely. Thank you.