(upbeat music) – All right, it's time
to head back to Costco to get our produce, snacks,
and all sorts of other things. First of all, Costco is a great source for dried herbs and spices. And the more you can get herbs and spices into your life,
the better off you are. Because herbs are one of the best easy-to-use
sources of polyphenols. And polyphenols, as you know, feed your good gut buddies
and also are really important for protecting your mitochondria
who make energy for you. You can also find a great
selection of olives at Costco. Costco, believe it or not, has organic rice cauliflower in the frozen food section. They've got sesame seeds.
They've got Sanpellegrino. But buy the ones in the glass bottles, not the plastic bottles right next door. If you like the flavored
Sanpellegrino in the can, that's perfectly safe as well, but please, resist the urge to pick up Sanpellegrino in the plastic bottles. Avocados. There's always
avocados in Costco.
Preferably, look for the organic variety, but Costco is a great
place to pick up avocados. Costco is a great place to buy guacamole. Thankfully, they have guacamole in individual serving containers that doesn't have any tomatoes. And guess what? Tomatoes are not part of guacamole. That's somehow missed by most people. But they have tomato-free
guacamole, and it's great. Their pesto over in the
refrigerator section, usually next to the cheeses, is some of the best pesto you can buy. I'll tell you why. Number one, it uses a type of basil from the Liguria region of Italy. By far, Ligurian basil
is the most flavorful, the best source of polyphenols
of any basil in the world, and it's in the Costco pesto. It also has pine nuts. It
also has Parmesan cheese. And the wonderful thing about
it is you can buy it fresh, and then you can put it in your freezer and just thaw off what
you're going to need.
Personally, it's phenomenal. On Gundry MD, sorghum spaghetti, and that's how we use it most of the time. In the produce area, you can find organic shiitake mushrooms, you can find cremini mushrooms. Often, particularly this time of year, you can find some really exotic mushrooms, like chanterelles. They're vastly cheaper at
Costco and well worth including in your really daily routine. More and more, we're seeing
organic whole lettuce heads that have still got their roots attached. They're fantastic as a salad. Kiwis are easy to obtain at Costco, and Costco often has the golden kiwis.
And fun fact, the golden
kiwi has been shown to be the source of one of
the best prebiotic fibers to feed your good probiotics there is. And there's some really
cool golden kiwi studies in humans showing it promotes
gut microbiome diversity. So if you see them and
they're in season, buy them. Speaking of in season, pomegranates are a great
buy at Costco in season.
Often you'll see the
pomegranate seeds in season. You can find in-season organic raspberries and blackberries and even cherries. But word of warning: Look for where these produce came from. There is nothing seasonal about a raspberry in February. You'll see it at Costco, but you'll see it came from
Chile or Argentina or Uruguay. That's not a seasonal produce. Oh, it looks good, and you
go, "Oh, it's organic," but please, we are not supposed to encounter fruit 365 days a year. And sadly, I see it in
my patients' blood work, when they're eating these
wonderful fruits non-seasonally.
But it's a great place to pick
them up on a seasonal basis. Costco has artichoke hearts, and they also have whole artichokes. They have pine nuts.
They have hemp hearts. They have pistachios
in multiple varieties, whether you want them
peeled or in the shell. My advice is please buy them in the shell. And you can get them salted or unsalted, but the key is if you
buy them in the shell, it will slow down your
eating considerably. It is far too easy and fun to eat handful after handful
of peeled salted pistachios and not think about what you're eating. On the other hand, it's
far more entertaining to pour yourself out a bowl
of in-the-shell pistachios and pop them open slowly and enjoy. It really slows you down, and you'll get the
benefits of the pistachios. Costco has a great choice of walnuts, both organic and non-organic.
Why buy walnuts in a big bag from Costco rather than somewhere else? Well, whenever you're looking to buy nuts, particularly shelled nuts, you really want to go to a
place that has a high turnover. Because these nuts will go rancid. And, good news, Costco
has a very high turnover, if you've ever noticed. And that's good for nuts, 'cause you are going to get
literally very fresh walnuts or pecans or pine nuts, and you're not gonna have to worry about the rancidity of these nuts. And that's another really good
reason to buy them at Costco. Now, you can also find almonds at Costco, but word to the wise, almonds have a pretty nasty
lectin, in the peel of almonds. So even if it says organic
almonds, just put them back.
Luckily, most Costco stores
have Marcona almonds. Marcona almonds, as you
may know, are peeled. And in traditional cultures, particularly in Spain and Portugal, mothers teach their daughters how to soak and peel the skin off of the almond, 'cause they've learned through generations that the peel is the problem. So that's the safest of
the almonds in Costco, the Marcona almonds.
But word to the wise, if
you've read "Gut Check" and you have an autoimmune disease, or think you have an autoimmune disease, almonds are way up there on the nut that so many of my patients with autoimmune disease
unfortunately react to. And there's so many other better nuts. Speaking of which, macadamia nuts are a really
great choice at Costco. Macadamia nuts are expensive. If you want to gain weight, macadamia nuts are the way to go. But macadamia nuts have a
really fantastic oil profile within them. They're mostly monounsaturated fat, but they also have an omega-7 fat that's almost impossible
to find in any other nut. So they should be included
in your repertoire. Next, vinegars. Costco has an amazing
selection of vinegars. And if you've read "Gut Check," you know that you want to
get vinegars into your life. Whether it's balsamic vinegar, whether it's apple cider vinegar, whether it's red wine
vinegar, you name it.
Vinegars are great for you. Make yourself the famous
Dr. Gundry fake Coke. Buy some Sanpellegrino at Costco, buy some balsamic vinegar at Costco, pour some balsamic vinegar
in your Sanpellegrino, and make yourself a fake Coke. Balsamic vinegar, any vinegar, is a great source of acetic acid, which is a short-chain fatty acid that is actually needed for
your gut microbiome to make this all-important short-chain
fatty acid called butyrate.
And you gotta get vinegar to kind of supercharge the process. Next up, most Costcos have
a pretty decent selection of greater than 72% chocolate, either in bars or in other forms. Now, it comes and goes,
you gotta look for it. But if it's there, get it there. Finally, Primal Kitchen Caesar dressing is a pretty doggone good choice. It's made by my friend Mark Sisson. Primal Kitchen in general
are safe products. Their avocado mayonnaise
is a safe product.
But try their Caesar dressing. Now, there are a few snacks that could be used in moderation, and I specify moderation for a reason. So you'll see really buys on Siete chips. You'll see really good buys on TERRA root vegetable chips. And yes, they're pretty safe, except people overeat them. And I see this over and over again, that I saw Dr. Gundry say that
TERRA root chips are safe. That means I can have
the entire bag I bought at Costco this afternoon. No, you can't. You gotta be really careful because these are concentrated
sources of carbohydrates. And yes, they don't have any lectins, but they still have lots of
easily digestible carbohydrates. So the word is moderation. And use these chips not to munch on, but as a delivery device to get avocado into your mouth. Buy the guacamole in individual
serving containers at Costco and use that chip only
as a delivery device.
It'll slow you down, and you'll get all the benefits
of the guacamole as well. More amazing episodes just
like this one. Watch now. Since pistachios have
the highest concentration of melatonin of any food,
let's do an experiment and have yourself a handful of raw or roasted pistachios
before you go to bed. And let's see what happens..
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