Supplements & Why Your Food Isn’t Nutritious Enough

Don't settle for less in your diet. Supplements can bridge the nutritional gap that modern food systems can't fill.

Nutritionists Kyle Drew and Lisa Dunford dive into the importance of supplements and their role in enhancing health in a modern diet. They discuss personal favorites like collagen, NAC, fish oil, and nootropics, while emphasizing the significance of correct dosing for optimal benefits. 

With insights into maintaining brain health and the synergy between food and supplements, this episode addresses the misconceptions about relying solely on food for nutrition. Discover how to integrate supplements into a holistic health approach with tips from Natural Grocers’ Lisa Dunford.

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/Y-YM7XG9sd8

Visit UltraBotanica.com to learn more about us and how you can get a free sample of our products.

Transcript

0:00:00 - (Lisa Dunford): The way our conventional food system is, they're not getting the nutrients. Even if they're eating a diet, you know, fairly clean, the food doesn't have what it used to have in it. And we can pull all that research at another time. But empower yourselves. Look up, look that stuff up. But. So that's why supplements are important. Foreign.

0:00:33 - (Kyle Drew): Hey, hey, hey. It's ultra life today. Kyle Drew, meat eating, tofu hating nutritionist sitting in for Josh Bellow and Adam Payne. Joined by Lisa Luz. She is a nutritional health coach at Natural Grocers. I hope you have one in your state. Natural grocers, 170 plus stores around the country. We like Lisa on this show. We're having her on for a few different episodes. I hope that you decide to be a regular guest.

0:01:05 - (Kyle Drew): We are talking today about, okay, we're supplement people. We like the supplements. That's just. Yeah. And so I don't want to do the show that says, here's the reason that you take dietary supplements. You see, food doesn't have everything that we know, we know, we know why you take supplements. We know that there is, oh, Lisa. Things that maybe you don't know. Lisa, the look on her face says, well, maybe that does need to be said. Okay. If you want to say, you can say it. You can say it.

0:01:39 - (Lisa Dunford): Okay. So I'm at the store and I'm talking to people as they come in, especially people that are new to Natural Grocers. What happens is they'll go, they'll come up for some nutrition advice or some health advice and they'll say, well, I want to get it all through food. And then we go through what they're eating and they're not gonna get it all through food. That'd be like a miracle. And then they want just one thing and that there's no magic pill.

0:02:14 - (Lisa Dunford): Except maybe me.

0:02:15 - (Kyle Drew): Yeah, right. You're the magic pill.

0:02:17 - (Lisa Dunford): I'm the magic pill. So that's cause we find out how to do it. But why? What sometimes explained to them is the way our conventional food system is they're not getting the nutrients. Even if they're eating a diet fairly clean, the food doesn't have what it used to have in it. And we can pull all that research at another time, but empower yourselves. Look that stuff up. That's why supplements are important.

0:02:49 - (Lisa Dunford): And so we do have those conversations. Why can't I do it all from food?

0:02:56 - (Kyle Drew): Okay. Lisa wanted to make sure that we knew the supplements. You were right, I was wrong.

0:03:02 - (Lisa Dunford): Okay, so we're not playing that game. I'm not trying to power you.

0:03:06 - (Kyle Drew): We're going to talk about our favorite supplements. And this is the thing that when you've done this for a while, you start taking various supplements and there are certain things perhaps that make you feel great that other people might take it and they're like, this is how it is with Josh Bellew and I. Josh and I are good friends and he will take something. By the way, I buy this at Natural Grocers.

0:03:40 - (Kyle Drew): What I'm about to tell you, he takes fulvic acid. Fulvic acid is like a multi mineral kind of thing. He takes it and it's like the clouds part. I take it because I know that I need that mineral underpinning. And so I put it in my smoothie in the morning and mix it with all the rest of the stuff. I don't feel anything, but I get the liquid fulvic acid from Natural Grocers. I can't remember the name of it, but this is the way that it's going to work with you guys. If you're new to supplementation, people are going to recommend, hey, you should take this. This just changed my life. And you take it and you're going, eh.

0:04:25 - (Kyle Drew): And the same way it is with pharmaceutical medicine, you know this, not everything works for everybody. It's just a genomic individual ality. And this is why we try different things. And a lot of times what I like to do is be kind of a tour guide of some different ideas and some different things that maybe you, you've never tried before and maybe you'd like to try them. Lisa, you're just sitting in a sea of supplements every day at Natural Grocers.

0:04:57 - (Lisa Dunford): Yes, I am.

0:04:58 - (Kyle Drew): Over the years you've probably found a few that you like and that you keep coming back to again and again and again. Anything that comes to mind.

0:05:07 - (Lisa Dunford): Yeah, I have some favorites.

0:05:10 - (Kyle Drew): Okay.

0:05:12 - (Lisa Dunford): I take coins. Made it B complex all the time because we need it for everything, all our systems. That's just a good insurance policy for me.

0:05:26 - (Kyle Drew): And B complex.

0:05:28 - (Lisa Dunford): Yeah.

0:05:29 - (Kyle Drew): So a B complex, but you take one. And this is why we need to make sure people understand it. A coenzymated or methylated or methylated. Right. Look it up.

0:05:42 - (Lisa Dunford): You can absorb them. And if you have trouble absorbing things that you can't methylate, that's a way to make sure.

0:05:50 - (Kyle Drew): I think Country Life has one.

0:05:52 - (Lisa Dunford): That's Emerald Labs. Emerald Labs has, even Natural Grocers has their own brand of coenzymated B complex. So that's a real Good one.

0:06:03 - (Kyle Drew): Okay, so you take that most days.

0:06:05 - (Lisa Dunford): I take that most days. You know, we recommend a multi all the time. I use food based ones. I like Megafood, Garden of Life, but megafood. Cause they don't. They test for glyphosate. So if you don't know that's the active ingredient in Roundup. So it's glyphosate free. It's a whole food one. I like a multi. That's an insurance policy. That's like insurance on your home, your car. It's to fill nutritional voids.

0:06:41 - (Kyle Drew): Yep.

0:06:41 - (Lisa Dunford): So that's, that's a pretty inexpensive way to do that. Whoops. Banging the mic here. So getting a little excited over supplements.

0:06:52 - (Kyle Drew): Well, and by the way, when you talk about a multivitamin, there's the idea of the multivitamin and then the multi nutrient formula. Right. In other words, there are some that, that, yes, here are all the vitamins and here are all the minerals. But then there are others that have all of those, plus they have extra things. Alpha lipoic acid, N acetylcysteine, phosphatidylserine, a whole bunch of other things.

0:07:22 - (Kyle Drew): But a multi nutrient formula. And then there's also the capsule and. Or there are these powders, these greens that have a bunch of different foods. Berries, greens, reds, various things that are just foods themselves that are dehydrated, dried down, turned into a powder. And I think that by having. When you're doing it that way, you're supplementing actual food.

0:07:52 - (Lisa Dunford): Yeah.

0:07:52 - (Kyle Drew): And I kind of like that.

0:07:53 - (Lisa Dunford): I like that idea.

0:07:55 - (Kyle Drew): Yep. So are you much of a protein shake person yourself? Not so much.

0:08:02 - (Lisa Dunford): No.

0:08:02 - (Kyle Drew): No, I am.

0:08:03 - (Lisa Dunford): I'm a food.

0:08:05 - (Kyle Drew): Yeah. You like the real. You like the real food, right? I get it, I get it. I like make a protein shake every day. And you know what I do in the mornings? I've got this routine now. If I have coffee, if I have tea, I will put it in a. Dave Asprey is going to love this. He's the one that taught me this. As bulletproof coffee started coming around. Yeah. And so he came on the TV show Know the Cause that I was doing with Doug Kaufman and we met and it was just so much fun.

0:08:37 - (Lisa Dunford): And.

0:08:38 - (Kyle Drew): And then he blew up and it's just been incredible, his ride. But ever since meeting him, I really don't just make coffee and pour it in a cup and drink it. I put it in a blender and then I mix stuff in with it. Among those things nowadays, I put in Lisa, I put in like 30 grams of collagen protein. I used to put in about 10, you know, a scoop, and then I added a bit more. And more recently, I read some more stuff that made me think, you know what? I want more collagen.

0:09:15 - (Kyle Drew): Since I've been doing that and make this collagen, creamy stevia, sweetened coffee in the morning. I feel so much better. Collagen has not worked for me until I got that the dosing way, way high. That's just me. A lot of people can take, you know, one scoop be fine, and they feel the difference. Not me. I have not felt the difference until I got it up to 30 grams a day. And since I've been doing that, I feel so much better.

0:09:54 - (Kyle Drew): I mean, my skin. Feel my leg. I'm just kidding. But. But really and truly, this skin, it's so soft compared to the way that it was. And the joints, I take something for joints all the time. But golly, the collagen at 30 grams feels fantastic. So I actually do. That's not my primary protein shake. I do a different one with whey protein.

0:10:18 - (Lisa Dunford): No, I do collagen. Okay, you do. I do it and I do it his way.

0:10:24 - (Kyle Drew): The Dave Asprey way. Yeah.

0:10:25 - (Lisa Dunford): And so. And I use between 20 and 30.

0:10:29 - (Kyle Drew): Oh, do you really?

0:10:30 - (Lisa Dunford): I love my collagen. And I use either MCT oil with it or butter. Cause that'll stabilize blood sugar too. And it tastes good. I don't need stevia because I don't need sweetened.

0:10:44 - (Kyle Drew): Yeah, you don't really. You've not really been a sweet tooth from what I could tell.

0:10:48 - (Lisa Dunford): Except the whole frosting episode. Oh, yeah, but that was. That was like she went on a frosting tear. Okay. It was like just a frosting binge.

0:10:56 - (Kyle Drew): Okay.

0:10:57 - (Lisa Dunford): But I've admitted and made my amends.

0:10:59 - (Kyle Drew): That's right. But normally you're not really a sweet tooth. Right.

0:11:02 - (Lisa Dunford): And my coffee, I used to. I used to use honey in it, but I don't need it sweet anymore.

0:11:10 - (Kyle Drew): Did you eliminate it slowly, by the way, or did you just say, I just don't want it?

0:11:14 - (Lisa Dunford): You know what? As my wellness journey or my health journey progressed, I just started eliminating little things after sweeteners and stuff. Used to use sugar and coffee. Liked it. It was more like dessert coffee. Now it's I love my coffee now and does have the collage. I always have cream in it because I like cream. But I'll either use butter or MCT because I like it. Makes my tummy feel better when I drink the coffee.

0:11:47 - (Lisa Dunford): And it makes my lips feel good when it. Like that. Slick. Yeah, kind of like so I like that.

0:11:51 - (Kyle Drew): Yeah.

0:11:52 - (Lisa Dunford): But yeah, I don't have any joint pain. And we gotta remember, even if you're doing it for vanity. Hair, skin and nails, collagen, your veins have that. It's your bones. The major constituent is collagen. I mean, it's your major protein in your body. And so.

0:12:14 - (Kyle Drew): Well, and when we. Well, and you know, you need it. When it comes to the way everybody has their own theory about the way humans used to eat, so blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the whole nose to tail movement, whereby if you're eating meat, you're not just eating, you know, steak, you're adding in liver, you're adding in other things like that. But part of that is also the collagen. And part of that, you know, like bone broth. Yeah, things like that. This is sort of, according to some theories, the way that we've always eaten up until industrialization. Blah, blah, blah. I don't know if that's true, but whatever.

0:12:57 - (Kyle Drew): I do see the value in it, though. I see the value in being able to add all of those things together. And collagen is. This is what I want to say about it. There are supplements that are going to work for you if you can get the dosing right. Yes, if you can get the dosing right. I've done collagen and I was like, ho, hum, who cares? But then I got the dosing right and I'm like, oh, collagen, collagen. Okay. Now I'm on board with it.

0:13:32 - (Kyle Drew): Whey, protein shakes, I do, you know, gym and all of this stuff. But I'm like you. I would prefer that you get it through whole food. Are you a fish oil person?

0:13:41 - (Lisa Dunford): Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do that.

0:13:43 - (Kyle Drew): Yeah. Are you? I, I kind of like to get, for me also, if I can get the dosing a little bit higher, I just, for whatever reason I need, I go with about, you know, four to eight grams of fish oil supplementally. Huh?

0:14:03 - (Lisa Dunford): That's a few pills.

0:14:05 - (Kyle Drew): It's a few pills or you get the good concentrated liquid and, you know, it's, it's a good tablespoon. But once again, fish oil was just always something that I took because it was good for me. And then I got the dosing and suddenly it's like, oh, so this is what all of the fuss is about.

0:14:25 - (Lisa Dunford): Okay, yeah. Brain health, magnesium. Wait, I didn't finish on the fish.

0:14:31 - (Kyle Drew): Oh, you're. Oh, oh, good, good.

0:14:32 - (Lisa Dunford): What I was going to tell you is the way I do it and talk to the people that come in for that is I never do just one thing. So just not just the supplement, but if you can do it, add the fish, add the sardines, add the stuff. So you're getting things from different angles. The hard one or the one to pay attention to. Cod liver oil because it has vitamin D and A and A in it. And sometimes you have to. They're fat soluble, so they stay in your system.

0:15:08 - (Lisa Dunford): You have to watch the dosages on that. And I'm not a doctor. Doctors will check your levels on those things. But so I kind of go from both angles is what I'm saying.

0:15:20 - (Kyle Drew): So I. Again, talking about just different supplements. Maybe not.

0:15:26 - (Lisa Dunford): That's exciting.

0:15:27 - (Kyle Drew): It is exciting. This is what I'm saying. Supplements and dosing that not everybody thinks about. I'll tell you one thing that I bought. Remember during COVID and everything shut down. This is just me. This is not advice. It's just what I did. But among other things that I did during that time, I raided the shelves of every health food store in Oklahoma City of nac N Acetylcysteine. I'm getting some applause from the studio group.

0:15:59 - (Kyle Drew): Nac N Acetyl cysteine. Lot of reasons why. Look it up. Don't want to pretend like I'm going FDA just keeping it. But it looked like NAC was about to be eliminated as an over the counter option there for a while. And so as a result, I just backed the truck up and bought as much NAC as I could. And that was 2020. This is 2024. I am only just now on my final bottle of that nac. Lisa, this is. But I love it.

0:16:37 - (Kyle Drew): I love it for liver. For liver. My understanding is that emergency rooms carry NAC for those who come in having overdosed on acetaminophen. Acetaminophen. And it is just a liver detoxifier. I know a lot of people don't care for that term, but we're gonna use it loosely. A liver detoxifier. I take it every day and I take it a couple of times. Do you?

0:17:07 - (Lisa Dunford): Because they also use it for respiratory health. That is the big thing. For kidney support. They use it for detox pathways. And you say, oh, that's not sexy, Let me tell you. Oh, it's very sexy. Let me tell you. I think it's very sexy. Because if your detox pathways aren't working, you're collecting poison, you're in trouble. Yeah. So some of it's your digestive system, your renal system, all that stuff, you want it to be optimal. And that's one of those things NAC is great for.

0:17:41 - (Lisa Dunford): So I've done that for years now too. I did not buy everything on the shelf. I was arguing with the TV at that point. Yeah, Covid, I had to argue a little. I thought it was interactive, but nobody listened.

0:17:57 - (Kyle Drew): Nobody listened. I will say that I remember back in literally the 1980s, I was watching a TV show. I was a teenager from 80 to. To 89, so those were my teen years. And I came home from school and I watched a show called Donahue. Phil Donahue was hosting it. And there. And there was a. A couple of guests one day, and I don't remember their names, but they wrote a book called Smart Drugs. Smart drugs.

0:18:39 - (Kyle Drew): This. I bought the book. I still have the book. Do you know what it was? Actually, it wasn't drugs. It was nootropics, okay? Brain nutrients. They didn't know any better than to just call it drugs back then. But we were talking about natural brain health nutrients. That was back in about 1985. Now we're in 2024. And lots and lots and lots of your friends and neighbors now know about nootropics. There's a lot of them on there.

0:19:13 - (Kyle Drew): Joe Rogan and his crew. Great stuff. These are tremendous products. I love the ones that they're doing it on. I love so many of the other ones. I take different combos of these brain nutrients. And let me tell you, it's like everything else. You are a fingerprint. And when you take some of these, some of these nutrients. Let me give you an example. Dr. Daniel Amen, brain health doc.

0:19:48 - (Lisa Dunford): Yes.

0:19:50 - (Kyle Drew): He reports that he loves looking at the brain scans of people who take ginkgo and vinpocetine together. Ginkgo and vinpocetine, these two circulation, that kind of thing. Do you know, I have taken Ginkgo and Vinpos 18 for 20 years and I don't feel a thing. I don't feel a thing. But I like what Dr. Amen said about who. It really brightens up the old brain on scans. There are other ones, other brain nutrients that when I take it, oh, baby, I feel it.

0:20:31 - (Kyle Drew): Alpha gpc, citicoline, different things like that. I feel the difference. And if you start to try some of these, maybe you try the on it. Maybe you try other nootropics that different folks make. But really and truly, this just, I think, can change the game for a lot of people. We lose our brain health we're in trouble.

0:20:55 - (Lisa Dunford): Yeah. And I know that. Well, my stepmom just died last week.

0:21:02 - (Kyle Drew): Oh, no.

0:21:03 - (Lisa Dunford): And had dementia. So that is a big focus for me is brain health. I teach classes in it, talk to my people that come in to see me. And so, yeah, those nootropics, starting with food, starting with movement. But there are some really good ones. I'm a big fan of Paul Stamets. I'm a lion's mane girl.

0:21:29 - (Kyle Drew): Lion's mane is medicinal mushroom. Yeah.

0:21:31 - (Lisa Dunford): Paul Stamets. Yes. And that's how I add into my. That's every day. Things like that. Phosphor title. Searing. And so. But. And that would. We were talking about the omegas, the fish oil. That's another brain health.

0:21:49 - (Kyle Drew): It's a big deal.

0:21:50 - (Lisa Dunford): Yeah.

0:21:51 - (Kyle Drew): And so my mom also died with dementia in 2018, and she is one of seven sisters. All of her sisters died with Alzheimer's. And so it runs like a river through my family. Do you think I'm not interested in preserving brain health?

0:22:12 - (Lisa Dunford): Yeah.

0:22:13 - (Kyle Drew): Anyone who has watched a loved one. It's a challenging, challenging situation. And God bless you. I'm sorry. This is one of these shows that kind of goes from this to that. Let's take a break, fellas, if we can.

0:22:31 - (Lisa Dunford): We're fine.

0:22:32 - (Kyle Drew): Are we okay?

0:22:32 - (Lisa Dunford): Fine. Yeah.

0:22:33 - (Kyle Drew): Okay.

0:22:33 - (Lisa Dunford): Because this stuff needs to be out there. You need to know how that you might have some power. And my disclaimer. This is not intended to diagnose, treat, or mitigate any disease, But I believe Dr. Bruce Lipton, Joe Dispenza, hanging out or listening to all these people on these nootropics, it makes a difference. And wherever we are, however old, because we. Yeah, I'm paying attention to my. My paternal grandma had dementia and died that way.

0:23:10 - (Lisa Dunford): My maternal didn't. So I'm thinking, at least I got one. I'm doing good there. But then I also looked how they live and eat.

0:23:22 - (Kyle Drew): Oh, yeah.

0:23:23 - (Lisa Dunford): And so I also remember lifestyle, what we're thinking, who we're hanging with, that it's not all. We're just doomed. Epigenetics is above genetics, so that's where these things come into play, these nootropics.

0:23:39 - (Kyle Drew): So, yeah, when we think about favorite supplements, we have to remind ourselves that they are supplemental. Obviously, it is part of the overall picture. It's not. I have done this. A lot of people have done this, where you try to make supplements the central thing.

0:24:03 - (Lisa Dunford): Yeah.

0:24:04 - (Kyle Drew): That's just not gonna work, y' all. We need to make sure that we're getting it done with the whole lifestyle.

0:24:12 - (Lisa Dunford): Synergistically. Yeah, the whole thing. Yeah.

0:24:15 - (Kyle Drew): I think that you get the point. There's a lot of folks out there who are new to supplements. I would invite you to visit Natural grocers, natural grocers, 170 plus stores around the country. And every single one of their locations comes equipped with a real life nutritional health coach. Lisa Luce is the one at my store in South Oklahoma City. Find yours, depend on them, visit with them and develop your good health plan. Give me your hand.

0:24:55 - (Kyle Drew): I love you.

0:24:56 - (Lisa Dunford): I love you.

0:24:56 - (Kyle Drew): I feel you. I know what you're going through. Hey, thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Ultra Life today.