Ep 98: Genius Kitchen with Max Lugavere
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Ep 98: Genius Kitchen with Max Lugavere
Episode 98 Show Notes
If you’ve ever even scratched the surface of diet research, you know there are many misconceptions and lots of loosely interpreted research that many advocates of certain diets will use to vehemently defend their point of view while denouncing other diets.
Here to help us see through that kind of research is return guest, Max Lugavere, a filmmaker, health and science journalist, and the author of the New York Times bestseller, Genius Foods. He is also the host of the number one iTunes health podcast, The Genius Life, and his most recent cookbook, Genius Kitchen, is number one in the nutrition category on Amazon. Focused on brain health, performance, and longevity, Max shares his research in order to help us eat a well-rounded diet and optimize our health.
In today’s episode, he speaks candidly his own dietary biases and what he feels are the top five foods that we should all be including in our diet. We talk about lab work transparency, his growing social media platforms, and how he was able to rise above the noise to become one of the leading voices in wellness.
We also discuss how he approaches engaging with trolls and ‘passionate' commenters, which he gets a lot of, given his position as a prolific health enthusiast! For all this and more from one of the foremost authorities on nutrition, make sure not to miss today’s conversation with Max Lugavere!
Key Points From This Episode:
A brief overview of Max’s origin story, which you can learn more about in Episode 16.
Insight into some of the biases he has discovered in nutritional epidemiology research.
How his own views have evolved and why he continually challenges his own assumptions.
Max discloses his personal bias toward human health over environmental health.
Debunking myths about saturated fat, red meat, nutrigenomics, fish, and more!
Benefits of preparing your own food and being attuned to changes in your cognitive function.
Why Max believes that talking about nutrition can be akin to arguing about religion.
Lab work transparency and the risk of false positives in the health and fitness community.
What tests to ask for if you want to have your own lab work done.
Tips for how to minimize your sugar consumption and the benefits of doing so.
What Max credits his prolific growth as a social media influencer to: adding value.
How he approaches engaging with trolls and ‘passionate' commenters.
Why he believes that his authenticity is the ‘secret sauce’ behind the success of his books.
What surprised Max about writing a cookbook: how much fun it was!
Hear about his approach to introducing potential partners to his lifestyle.
Max shares his experience with therapy and meditation.
Five lifestyle changes you can make today that will dramatically improve your life!
Tweetables:
“It’s very important to me to be responsible with how I communicate this stuff, to be clear about any biases that I might have, and to acknowledge where the science ends and my own opinion and perspective begins.” — @maxlugavere [0:07:10]
“I'm always willing to challenge my assumptions and pivot when new evidence presents itself. I think that's an important part of the process.” — @maxlugavere [0:22:43]
“Health literacy is something that we should all have, like spiritual literacy, like financial literacy. We live in the era of specialization, and that's come at a cost. We are no longer self-sufficient. I think that's a big problem.” — @maxlugavere [0:37:56]
“Talking about nutrition sometimes is akin to arguing about religion.” — @maxlugavere [0:39:14]
“You have to play the game to some degree if you want to make an impact. I learned that you've got to be a good storyteller. You've got to be a good marketer. You've got to use all of the tools at your disposal to make an impact.” — @maxlugavere [0:51:53]
“We don't consume single isolated nutrients. We consume food. We’ve co-evolved with our food. Helping people realize that health food doesn't have to taste like health food, that it can be shockingly delicious, is my mission with the new book.” — @maxlugavere [0:59:02]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: