Learn to Enjoy Eating Healthy
Learn more about foods that taste great but won't break your diet. Check out more from Steven Pratt, plus get additional tips and information on better living from all of our AOL Coaches.
- Listen to Steven's Interview Podcast
- Buy Steven's Book, 'SuperFoods Healthstyle'
- More Diet, Fitness & Self-Help Interviews
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Bethanne Patrick: So your new book, 'SuperFoods HealthStyle' follows up 'SuperFoods Rx.' Steven, how many SuperFoods are there now?
Steven Pratt: There are 9 new SuperFoods, and the original book had 14 SuperFoods. Of course, when you add in all the sidekick foods, you're talking well over 120 foods. For each class of food, there's also a 'best in class.' So that's why, in the first book I'd say that walnuts were the SuperFood. While every nut is good for you, walnuts have a little bit of power behind them to make them 'best in class.' For some classes of food, like spices, really there's no 'super spice' because they're all great.
Bethanne Patrick: They're all really great for you. Of course, the one that I have to talk to you about in 'SuperFoods HealthStyle' is dark chocolate. Is this really a SuperFood?
Steven Pratt: Chocolate everybody's favorite, and of course: here's a food that not only tastes delicious and stimulates the 'feel good' part of your brain, but actually is really good for you in relatively small amounts. So again it is a food that will lower inflammatory markers. It's a food that will lower blood pressure by relaxing the vessels in the body and at the same time it gives you an Aspirin-like effect, so it actually thins your blood a little bit for a few hours. So you get a lot of health benefits from something that not only tastes good but that's good for you.
Bethanne Patrick: But there are three caveats to that, right? First it has to be dark, correct? Not milk, correct?
Steven Pratt: That's right. Milk chocolate tastes delicious, but unfortunately does nothing for us.
Bethanne Patrick: About how much should we have?
Steven Pratt: Well, two things. First of all, if you look on the label of dark chocolate, you'll want 70% cocoa solids or more. That's one thing. And really if you look at the dark chocolates, the calorie content of a serving of 40 grams can be anywhere from 130 calories up to 260 calories. So again we need to keep in mind the SuperFoods healthsyler habits, one of which is portion control or your weight control. So again, you may only want to have throughout the day a half a serving, or maybe a full serving as long as you find a way to decrease calories somewhere else. Or burn some more calories with exercise.
Bethanne Patrick: And how do you know which dark chocolate is the best dark chocolate?
Steven Pratt: What you want to do is you want to look on the label. If it says 70% cocoa solids or more, it's good for you. In addition, I independently tested seven candy bars that you buy in the stores and the best to worst as far as polyphenol content is listed in the 'SuperFoods HealthStyle' book.
Bethanne Patrick: So we can figure out there which one is readily available for us?
Steven Pratt: That's right. They're all readily available, it's just like everything else: not all chocolates are created equal. Some have more of the polyphenols -- a nutrient that's incredibly healthy for you -- than others. So, again, I independently tested -- we tested each twice. We wanted to be able to stand our ground, so we had them tested at the University of Scranton by Dr. Joe Vincent.
Bethanne Patrick: What defines a SuperFood -- for people who may be coming to this book without having read the first one?
Steven Pratt: First of all a SuperFood has to be something that you can readily find in American markets -- in other words it can't be food so exotic that no one can find it. Number two, it has to be part of a healthy dietary cuisine around the world: the Mediterranean diet, the Okinawa diet, the Native American diet, traditional Japanese diet... so it has to be associated with a recognized healthy pattern of living around the world. And thirdly, there has to be a lot of research published in peer-reviewed journals to substantiate that the nutrients in the food and the food itself have properties which prevent disease or help prevent the adverse effects of disease if you already have it.
Bethanne Patrick: When did you become interested in these SuperFoods? Tell us a little about your background and why SuperFoods became important to you.
Steven Pratt: Well you know I think, back in the 1980's, my mother was a big Adelle Davis fan, and so she was feeding her kids full of SuperFoods way back in the 50's and 40's really -- so I was always interested in this. In the 1980's she developed 'Macro Generation.' At the same time there were a lot of research studies showing that there were some nutrients that had some beneficial effects on macro generation as to 20/20 area of the eye that gets degenerated as you get older. So I get interested then in that, and then, from my own personal life. I started getting more achy as I was playing a lot of sports in my forties, and I decided I'd better start eating better. So I started reading about all the anti-inflammatory properties of whole foods and I got interested in that. And then, I realized there was a whole body of literature, which I had not been reading, that showed that foods and the components of food can be very major players in preventing disease. So that's how it all got started.
Bethanne Patrick: And these foods -- most of them have been around for centuries?
Steven Pratt: All of these foods actually. Every food that we talk about has been around... if you were a cave woman 10.000 years ago, you would recognize most of these foods.
Bethanne Patrick: Except perhaps the chocolate.
Steven Pratt: Well actually if you look back at cultures, you had the Aztecs -- really there are Indian cultures even now today that make up a cocoa drink with the dark chocolate. This was a food which was known to cause a lot of health benefits, and actually if you look at these -- even now -- some Indians where they eat a lot of this every day, or drink a lot of it, they have no high blood pressure problems whatsoever.
Bethanne Patrick: So we've known about this for a long time. Why do you think people have this sudden resurgence of interest?
Steven Pratt: Well we now know that Grandma was right all along. And of course remember it's the synergy of SuperFoods with the other lifestyle choices which we talked about in detail in the 'SuperFoods HealthStyle' reader -- a program for life. It's an easy way to incorporate healthy fillers of health, lifestyle choices, and habits -- into your daily routine. You can crowd out the bad stuff with lots of good habits, which, again, you don't even think about. It just becomes just something you do without even having to worry about it or stress about it.
Bethanne Patrick: One of your new SuperFoods is honey, and you say for example, 'Put honey in tea,' which I am having right now. What are some other great quick ways of bringing SuperFoods into your diet easily?
Steven Pratt: Well, what I do is I have green tea, honey and soymilk mixed together in the morning, warm, delicious, and I'm getting three SuperFoods for one -- I'm getting soy, I'm getting honey, and I'm getting green tea or black tea. That's one easy way to do it.
Bethanne Patrick: There is a seasonal component to SuperFoods healthstyle. Could you tell us a little about that?
Steven Pratt: Well, yeah because if you think about it, our genes are really still back in the caveman era. We're modern people living with old genes. And genetically we're programmed... we still have a seasonal approach to choices in life, to activities, to choices in food. And genetically, of course our habits have been splayed by the seasons. Different foods, different exercise opportunities available in the summer than in the wintertime. So we do take a seasonal approach -- not that you can't do all these things all four seasons, we want you to do that -- but we want each season to represent a few healthy habits. We're trying to use our genetic background to help imprint these healthy habits into our lifestyle.
Bethanne Patrick: And foods also have a seasonal component?
Steven Pratt: Well they do because historically, you know, you didn't eat the same foods... well, for instance: berries. In the summer you ate berries fresh. And in the winter you ate them dried out. And even the Native Americans used berries to preserve temaiken -- they made temaiken out of buffalo meat, a little bit of fat and some berries -- that was a food they could eat all winter, and they could do it when they were traveling.
Bethanne Patrick: And so you use that in 'SuperFoods Healthstyle,' you propose the idea that there are certain foods that are great in certain seasons and that we can incorporate that into a modern, easy eating plan.
Steven Pratt: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. In other words, let's take dried fruit. We've introduced dried fruit in the wintertime because historically that's when people ate dried fruit. So we're using our genetic heritage with the seasons to help imprint that into our brain, hopefully. But again, dried fruit is a great source of snack food for any time of the year. You get used to it in the wintertime when maybe not quite as many fresh opportunities are available, and then hopefully you will continue on with that habit all through the rest of the seasons.
Bethanne Patrick: And are there certain new SuperFoods that will be coming out in your next book? Will they keep coming?
Steven Pratt: Well, if I find a food I haven't mentioned before -- it has a tremendous amount of peer-reviewed, published literature to substantiate why this food is so good for you... and my next book should be a longevity book so I should be especially looking for longevity-enhancing nutrients. But if I find a food that meets that criteria and that's readily available I'll certainly talk about it. Still, if you look at my list of foods now, we have 23 SuperFoods plus sidekicks, so really we're talking about well over 120 foods that people can eat now. That's quite a variety of foods. There are many studies showing that the wider variety of healthy foods people eat, in conjunction with healthy lifestyle choices: portion control, exercise, stress reduction and sleep -- you're going to live a long healthy life, chances are.
Steven Pratt: There are 9 new SuperFoods, and the original book had 14 SuperFoods. Of course, when you add in all the sidekick foods, you're talking well over 120 foods. For each class of food, there's also a 'best in class.' So that's why, in the first book I'd say that walnuts were the SuperFood. While every nut is good for you, walnuts have a little bit of power behind them to make them 'best in class.' For some classes of food, like spices, really there's no 'super spice' because they're all great.
Bethanne Patrick: They're all really great for you. Of course, the one that I have to talk to you about in 'SuperFoods HealthStyle' is dark chocolate. Is this really a SuperFood?
Steven Pratt: Chocolate everybody's favorite, and of course: here's a food that not only tastes delicious and stimulates the 'feel good' part of your brain, but actually is really good for you in relatively small amounts. So again it is a food that will lower inflammatory markers. It's a food that will lower blood pressure by relaxing the vessels in the body and at the same time it gives you an Aspirin-like effect, so it actually thins your blood a little bit for a few hours. So you get a lot of health benefits from something that not only tastes good but that's good for you.
Bethanne Patrick: But there are three caveats to that, right? First it has to be dark, correct? Not milk, correct?
Steven Pratt: That's right. Milk chocolate tastes delicious, but unfortunately does nothing for us.
Bethanne Patrick: About how much should we have?
Steven Pratt: Well, two things. First of all, if you look on the label of dark chocolate, you'll want 70% cocoa solids or more. That's one thing. And really if you look at the dark chocolates, the calorie content of a serving of 40 grams can be anywhere from 130 calories up to 260 calories. So again we need to keep in mind the SuperFoods healthsyler habits, one of which is portion control or your weight control. So again, you may only want to have throughout the day a half a serving, or maybe a full serving as long as you find a way to decrease calories somewhere else. Or burn some more calories with exercise.
Bethanne Patrick: And how do you know which dark chocolate is the best dark chocolate?
Steven Pratt: What you want to do is you want to look on the label. If it says 70% cocoa solids or more, it's good for you. In addition, I independently tested seven candy bars that you buy in the stores and the best to worst as far as polyphenol content is listed in the 'SuperFoods HealthStyle' book.
Bethanne Patrick: So we can figure out there which one is readily available for us?
Steven Pratt: That's right. They're all readily available, it's just like everything else: not all chocolates are created equal. Some have more of the polyphenols -- a nutrient that's incredibly healthy for you -- than others. So, again, I independently tested -- we tested each twice. We wanted to be able to stand our ground, so we had them tested at the University of Scranton by Dr. Joe Vincent.
Bethanne Patrick: What defines a SuperFood -- for people who may be coming to this book without having read the first one?
Steven Pratt: First of all a SuperFood has to be something that you can readily find in American markets -- in other words it can't be food so exotic that no one can find it. Number two, it has to be part of a healthy dietary cuisine around the world: the Mediterranean diet, the Okinawa diet, the Native American diet, traditional Japanese diet... so it has to be associated with a recognized healthy pattern of living around the world. And thirdly, there has to be a lot of research published in peer-reviewed journals to substantiate that the nutrients in the food and the food itself have properties which prevent disease or help prevent the adverse effects of disease if you already have it.
Bethanne Patrick: When did you become interested in these SuperFoods? Tell us a little about your background and why SuperFoods became important to you.
Steven Pratt: Well you know I think, back in the 1980's, my mother was a big Adelle Davis fan, and so she was feeding her kids full of SuperFoods way back in the 50's and 40's really -- so I was always interested in this. In the 1980's she developed 'Macro Generation.' At the same time there were a lot of research studies showing that there were some nutrients that had some beneficial effects on macro generation as to 20/20 area of the eye that gets degenerated as you get older. So I get interested then in that, and then, from my own personal life. I started getting more achy as I was playing a lot of sports in my forties, and I decided I'd better start eating better. So I started reading about all the anti-inflammatory properties of whole foods and I got interested in that. And then, I realized there was a whole body of literature, which I had not been reading, that showed that foods and the components of food can be very major players in preventing disease. So that's how it all got started.
Bethanne Patrick: And these foods -- most of them have been around for centuries?
Steven Pratt: All of these foods actually. Every food that we talk about has been around... if you were a cave woman 10.000 years ago, you would recognize most of these foods.
Bethanne Patrick: Except perhaps the chocolate.
Steven Pratt: Well actually if you look back at cultures, you had the Aztecs -- really there are Indian cultures even now today that make up a cocoa drink with the dark chocolate. This was a food which was known to cause a lot of health benefits, and actually if you look at these -- even now -- some Indians where they eat a lot of this every day, or drink a lot of it, they have no high blood pressure problems whatsoever.
Bethanne Patrick: So we've known about this for a long time. Why do you think people have this sudden resurgence of interest?
Steven Pratt: Well we now know that Grandma was right all along. And of course remember it's the synergy of SuperFoods with the other lifestyle choices which we talked about in detail in the 'SuperFoods HealthStyle' reader -- a program for life. It's an easy way to incorporate healthy fillers of health, lifestyle choices, and habits -- into your daily routine. You can crowd out the bad stuff with lots of good habits, which, again, you don't even think about. It just becomes just something you do without even having to worry about it or stress about it.
Bethanne Patrick: One of your new SuperFoods is honey, and you say for example, 'Put honey in tea,' which I am having right now. What are some other great quick ways of bringing SuperFoods into your diet easily?
Steven Pratt: Well, what I do is I have green tea, honey and soymilk mixed together in the morning, warm, delicious, and I'm getting three SuperFoods for one -- I'm getting soy, I'm getting honey, and I'm getting green tea or black tea. That's one easy way to do it.
Bethanne Patrick: There is a seasonal component to SuperFoods healthstyle. Could you tell us a little about that?
Steven Pratt: Well, yeah because if you think about it, our genes are really still back in the caveman era. We're modern people living with old genes. And genetically we're programmed... we still have a seasonal approach to choices in life, to activities, to choices in food. And genetically, of course our habits have been splayed by the seasons. Different foods, different exercise opportunities available in the summer than in the wintertime. So we do take a seasonal approach -- not that you can't do all these things all four seasons, we want you to do that -- but we want each season to represent a few healthy habits. We're trying to use our genetic background to help imprint these healthy habits into our lifestyle.
Bethanne Patrick: And foods also have a seasonal component?
Steven Pratt: Well they do because historically, you know, you didn't eat the same foods... well, for instance: berries. In the summer you ate berries fresh. And in the winter you ate them dried out. And even the Native Americans used berries to preserve temaiken -- they made temaiken out of buffalo meat, a little bit of fat and some berries -- that was a food they could eat all winter, and they could do it when they were traveling.
Bethanne Patrick: And so you use that in 'SuperFoods Healthstyle,' you propose the idea that there are certain foods that are great in certain seasons and that we can incorporate that into a modern, easy eating plan.
Steven Pratt: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. In other words, let's take dried fruit. We've introduced dried fruit in the wintertime because historically that's when people ate dried fruit. So we're using our genetic heritage with the seasons to help imprint that into our brain, hopefully. But again, dried fruit is a great source of snack food for any time of the year. You get used to it in the wintertime when maybe not quite as many fresh opportunities are available, and then hopefully you will continue on with that habit all through the rest of the seasons.
Bethanne Patrick: And are there certain new SuperFoods that will be coming out in your next book? Will they keep coming?
Steven Pratt: Well, if I find a food I haven't mentioned before -- it has a tremendous amount of peer-reviewed, published literature to substantiate why this food is so good for you... and my next book should be a longevity book so I should be especially looking for longevity-enhancing nutrients. But if I find a food that meets that criteria and that's readily available I'll certainly talk about it. Still, if you look at my list of foods now, we have 23 SuperFoods plus sidekicks, so really we're talking about well over 120 foods that people can eat now. That's quite a variety of foods. There are many studies showing that the wider variety of healthy foods people eat, in conjunction with healthy lifestyle choices: portion control, exercise, stress reduction and sleep -- you're going to live a long healthy life, chances are.
