How To Love Holiday Food That Loves You Back

The table can be joyful and nourishing at the same time. We open the season with a simple promise: keep the flavors you love, swap the parts that don’t love you back. From a resistant starch gravy that boosts your microbiome to a mushroom-forward, breadless stuffing that hits all the nostalgic notes, we map a path to a Thanksgiving that tastes great and leaves you energized.

We rethink side dishes through a health-first lens without losing comfort: slow-roasted sweet potatoes finished with cinnamon for better glycemic control, and an antioxidant-rich spotlight on purple sweet potatoes that bring deep color and deeper benefits. For greens, Brussels sprouts or collard greens deliver sulforaphane for brain, liver, and heart support—just don’t overcook them. Along the way we break a holiday myth: the “turkey coma” usually comes from sugary sides, not tryptophan. Make protein your anchor for satiety, stable energy, and fewer dessert cravings.

Dessert still gets its moment. A pumpkin pie with a pecan or almond crust shifts the macro balance to healthy fats and fiber, pairs perfectly with warm spices, and can be lightly sweetened with monk fruit or stevia without the aftertaste. We also talk liver-friendly choices: why alcohol collides with fructose and omega-6 seed oils, and how a few tweaks protect metabolic health during a season of abundance. If you use a continuous glucose monitor, this is the perfect time to experiment and learn—no guilt, just data that helps you feel better.

Pull up a chair with gratitude, savor the company, and cook in a way that makes tomorrow brighter. If this guide helps you plan your feast, tap follow, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.

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Transcript

Gratitude And Holiday Mindset

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Health Edge, translating the science of self-care. I'm Mark Pettis and with my friend colleague John Bagnulo. John, good morning, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hey, good morning, Mark, and hey, happy Thanksgiving. My favorite holiday.

Enjoying Traditions Without Sacrifice

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Yes. Happy Thanksgiving to you and the Bagnulos, John. This too is my favorite holiday. And I love um uh the the context of gratitude and uh uh just being with family and and um so much to be grateful for. So uh happy Thanksgiving to uh the Health's Edge uh community out there. And uh each year generally we do have a podcast that uh around the theme of how can you kind of get through the holiday season, right, without uh abandoning what might be major health goals uh and still enjoying and and and being able to celebrate and and and consume that which you know tastes good. But as I like to say, and uh, you know, it it it's great to be consuming the food you love, uh, but it's even better when those foods love you back. So well said. Uh yeah what so as you work with clients, Sean, and in your own life and family, uh what what are some of the strategies you use to kind of get through this holiday season without uh compromising too much of those health intentions?

Savory Over Sweet Strategy

Gravy Upgrades And Resistant Starch

Herb Power And Neurological Benefits

Breadless Stuffing With Mushrooms

Sweet Potato Choices And Cinnamon

Purple Sweet Potatoes And Antioxidants

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, well, I love what you just said. I mean, I think there's this perception that times and it's it's important to try to break this down, but you know, the two shouldn't be mutually exclusive. I mean, I think you can have an amazing, an amazing day um filled with gratitude and love and being with family and eating food that you really enjoy. And then the food can be healthy at the same time. It doesn't have to be uh, you know, they they don't have to, there's really doesn't have to be a a sacrifice, in my opinion, with this. So I always say, like, you know, try to keep things more savory, less sweet. I think if you start out with that goal in terms of how you engineer a Thanksgiving dinner, uh how you develop recipes, I you know, I think it tends to work out really well in every direction. People really appreciate some of the differences that you can create with recipes. But um and the other thing is, look, this can be this can be one of the most nutrient-dense, healthiest meals of the year, believe it or not. I think what, you know, I think what can kind of create issues here at times are it's the amount of desserts and and and and how heavily sweetened things are. Uh, not just for Thanksgiving, but for every holiday, right? And I think um if you keep the the the sweeteners kind of at bay, um you use a lot of herbs and spices, and I'll get into some of these different ideas uh that might be able to help our listeners. You know, you can really transform what might have been uh you know, might have been a day that takes you a couple days to recover from, as opposed, and you can replace that as a really a solid day that leaves you more energized and and really in a better place uh in terms of your nutrient levels and your overall health. And so the the one thing I would always say is um, you know, just try to look at how many whole vegetables you include with this Thanksgiving meal. You know, some of the things are gonna be mainstays, like obviously turkey. I think most people stuffing. I, you know, I think some of those things, and we can we can tweak some of that, but when you get into some of the side dishes, you know, I think that that's where whole vegetables maybe, again, either seasoned with butter and herbs or olive oil if someone has an aversion to butter for whatever reason, you know, create that more savory mix with that approach, as opposed to, you know, things that are again, and there's a long list of things. Like you can you can have amazing uh sweet potato or winter squash dish without the brown sugar and without the right, without the things that kind of take it over the top. So that that's where I would start. Um I'm gonna just just kind of just if it's okay, just wrap here uh for a few minutes on my brother. Okay, great. So, you know, turkey again, that's a mainstay. I'm just gonna talk off the top of my head what's important here. What are you gonna have with the turkey? If you're gonna have gravy, how can you make gravy something that really helps it, helps you? Well, one of the big things you can do with gravy is, you know, again, everybody's gonna look at this through a different lens, but most people thicken their gravy with some kind of flour. And I think you've got a couple options here. Number one is what type of flour could you thicken the gravy with that's gonna be rich in resistant starch? And that resistant starch is something we've talked about in the past, and we can hopefully talk about it in the future because of how important it is for the microbiome in many people's cases. Some people might not need that resistant starch because they have a diet that already contains it. But a lot of people and a lot of our listeners who are interested in choosing a lower carb kind of way of life, you know, would benefit from some resistant starch. And so there's some different ones you can use to thicken gravy. Um, you know, potato starch can work well. Green plantain flour, green banana flour, believe it or not, they don't have any of the banana flavor, so they work really well as a substitute for wheat flour in what is traditionally used to thicken gravy. So that's one thing. The other thing is with gravy, use olive oil because olive oil, and again, you could use other, you're not going to use butter typically because of how it um how it thickens when it cools and it makes the gravy a little a little difficult to work with. But rather than use some other type of oil, um, it's much better to use olive oil with your resistant starch and then whatever you need for in the way of uh, you know, again, herbs. Some people put herbs in their gravy. I think that's a great thing to do. I think time is a no-brainer. Time contains a really volatile uh substance known as thymol, T-H-Y-M-O-L. And this thymol has been shown to be really beneficial to neurological health and to nerve health because of how it helps resist oxidative stress at that neurological level. And so, you know, you can get you can get a really significant amount of time into the Thanksgiving meal overall, but the gravy is a great way to do it. And most people who have gravy with added time really appreciate the flavor because of how well that goes with the with the turkey. So again, make that gravy, um, you know, make that gravy a little bit more than just the the turkey fat and the wheat flour, right, and the salt. Make that a little bit more, bring a little bit more saver, savory flavor to that, um, as well as something that's going to really benefit your microbiome. Um, then as we move into the the area of stuffing, which I think is has always been my favorite side dish to Thanksgiving. Try making it without uh breadcrumbs or without bread at all. And this is a and this is a recipe I'd be happy to share with our listeners. Use mushrooms, and you've got to cook the mushrooms for like 20 to 30 minutes to really get them to where they need to be. Combine mushrooms with uh obviously celery and onions, or you can use leeks instead, and then wild rice. And you're gonna use parsley, sage, thyme, you're gonna use those uh those real traditional stuffing herbs, but you bake that for about 45 minutes after the mushrooms have been cooked for 20 to 30 minutes, uh, and you've got a a really, really amazing mix of different types of fibers. You've got a lower, much, much lower carbohydrate content than you'd have if you had all that bread, all those breadcrumbs in there. Um, and you can really wit weave in a significant amount of herbs as well, because that's really what gives stuffing so much of its flavor. So you're gonna have salt and you may have pepper, um, but you're gonna have a lot more in there in the way of herbs, and you're not gonna have the breadcrumbs, you're gonna have mushrooms. And if you use shiitake mushrooms, well, shiitake mushrooms, as you know, Mark, have a plethora of benefits that have been really well, well studied over the last four or five decades. So, wild rice, again, you only need a modest amount of wild rice to kind of give it some body, but most of the flavor, the texture, um, and everything that we love about stuffing is coming from, you know, it's coming from the mushrooms, the leeks or the onions and the celery. So that's one of my favorite modifications overall. It's making stuffing uh but without breadcrumbs. And we started doing that, you know, 15 years ago with a, you know, when we started our family uh trying to get it, you know, trying to come up with a gluten-free stuffing. And I just didn't really like the uh the versions that were based on, you know, like brown rice flour and things like that. I just felt like they were they were just different. And so if it was going to be different, I wanted to be really different and really flavorful. So that's one of my favorites. Sweet potatoes, uh, and again, I'm going with kind of like your national, uh your national average Thanksgiving. I know some people don't have sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving. They have winter squash, that's fine. They're both amazing vegetables to incorporate. If you're gonna eat like a really carbohydrate-rich food, I don't think you can beat the sweet potato. It's high in selenium, it's high in vitamin A. Um, but the one thing that I'd encourage our listeners to consider is if you're gonna use a traditional uh sweet potato, and and you know, you might hear the word yam, but nobody really um has yams in in North America. You can go find them at like an ethnic market, but at most everybody has a garnet. It's gonna be called a garnet or a jewel yam, but those are really sweet potatoes. Yams are huge, they're like, you know, a foot to two feet long, um, right? And that's a very traditional uh African root vegetable. But we're gonna have sweet potatoes in this country for the most part, and rather than sweeten them additionally, you can cook them a little bit longer, okay, to concentrate some of the sweetness, and then give them a good dose of cinnamon. You know, cinnamon really goes a long way at bringing out the flavor and also helping lower that glycemic index uh of the sweet potato. But a sweet potato is like, it's an amazing food, and it can really um it can bring that sweetness to the meal, but not put it over the top. So, and the one type of sweet potato that I would encourage our listeners to try. And I know it's not a traditional uh, it's not a traditional type of sweet potato, but the purple sweet potato is uh is very, very different. It has a markedly lower sugar content, it has an extremely high antioxidant value. Uh, and there are like last time I looked, this was about a year ago, so it's been a while, there were 300 papers on PubMed that looked at how purple sweet potatoes influenced either animal or human health in different types of studies. And it is one of the, I would say it's a top 10, if you want to call it a medicinal food, just from what it brings to the um, to the physiology level of things. It's remarkable. The anthocyanins that we praise in blueberries and things like that, you know, they're found in those purple sweet potatoes at an incredibly high level. And so that's something you could introduce, you know. I know it's probably late for for this year's Thanksgiving, because you know, you don't have a lot of time and you're probably not going to find purple sweet potatoes today, but they are available at a lot of big grocery stores. They are obviously available at most of your health food stores and and places like that. But that's a you know, that's a huge upgrade um when it comes to root vegetables. That purple sweet potato is tough to beat.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Love that.

Brassicas, Sulforaphane, And Gut Health

Cooking Tips For Brussels Sprouts

A Healthier Pumpkin Pie Approach

Protein As The Holiday Anchor

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, so that's you know, that's another thing to consider. Then again, not everybody has Brussels sprouts. Um, you know, not everybody has collard greens, but I think having one of those two uh with Thanksgiving goes a long way, you know, for a couple reasons. Number one is um both of them are really good sources of sulfurophane. That's something found in brassicas that uh as a phytonutrient has incredible anti-cancer properties, uh, very anti-inflammatory. Again, it's great for both the liver, it's great for the brain, uh, heart health as well. So sulfirophane is found in broccoli, but at a fraction of what you'll get in Brussels sprouts and collargreens. So, you know, again, collargreens is more of a traditional southern United States uh accompaniment to Thanksgiving. Brussels sprouts, more, you know, in here in New England, in northern states, but either one is incredible. And I think having those at your Thanksgiving meal brings in so much in the way of, you know, not just sulfirophane, but vitamin C in the case of Brussels sprouts. Um, also the type of fiber that are found in those is great prebiotic, great for gut health, which a lot of people need help with at this time of year, right? I mean, when when the holidays set in, and this would really mark the beginning of that stretch, a lot of people have, I mean, you and I have talked about it, Mark, a lot of people have an overall like pattern of meals or diet for two months where the microbiome is really underserved, right? A lot of heavily processed flour-based foods. And, you know, I think having Brussels sprouts and and collard greens in general, not just at Thanksgiving, but certainly at this meal, it's uh it's a great way to kind of set that pattern for the next couple months because they do offer us so much that we typically don't get from your standard American vegetables, like broccoli and things like that. So I really like Brussels sprouts a lot. Uh try not to overcook them. I think that's when they get a bad wrap. That's when kids have a bad experience with Brussels sprouts and they never go back, right? Because they're they're cooked to mush. Um leave them al Dante, leave it just a little bit of texture at the core. You know, use the salt liberally with them. It really brings out a lot of that flavor. Um, but that's one of my top vegetables, period. Uh, and to add it at Thanksgiving, again, you're just kind of turning up the nutrient density of the meal. So that's one thing. And then I I'll just I'll end with this. Um, you know, the desserts can really be, they can be very healthy, and they're gonna still have maybe some some sugar depending on the version you want to make, but a pumpkin pie that is made with an almond meal or a pecan crust. So here's the here's the I think the what really seals the deal. You take uh pecans or almonds and you put them in a like a food processor, or you put them in a cuisinar, just for, you know, just pulse it for a you know five or six uh shots with that so that you don't grind up the almonds or the pecans too much. You're gonna have some some good sized pieces in there still, and then you combine that with melted butter and you pack that in a pie plate. So that becomes your crust, right? So you've got a really a high-fat, low-carb crust, uh gluten-free. And pecans are loaded with antioxidants. People are always surprised to hear that pecans have one of the highest antioxidant values of any food per 100 grams. But you can use almond meal as well, and you can even buy almond flour if you needed to to just make this a little more convenient. And then you fill that with a combination, and the filling is really up to the, you know, to the chef, so to speak. But if you use canned pumpkin, that's fine. I would recommend you get organic canned pumpkin for several reasons, but it's it can be a heavy pesticide burden. Um, you can use obviously fresh pie pumpkins, and then you use uh ample amounts of egg yolk and use all those pumpkin pie spices, which are, you know, things like, you know, obviously allspice would work, but cinnamon, cardamom, uh, you know, coriander, it's up to really up to the chef on this. But use a lot of those spices and then try sweetening it with something like, you know, monk fruit, stevia. And the reason stevia is an option with pumpkin pie is stevia a lot of times is people have an aversion to it because it does have that and a strong flavor, right? That's that's very different than sugar or honey. But when you use stevia, and this won't even be an issue with monk fruit, but if when you use them with all of those pumpkin pie spices, you're not gonna get that off taste. You're just gonna get the sweetness. So, and again, that pumpkin pie is loaded with vitamin A. It's loaded with um selenium and so many other micronutrients because you're making it with pumpkin, eggs, uh a nut-based crust. And so, and then you can top that with some uh some heavy whipping cream that again doesn't need to be sweetened at all. You just whip the heavy whipping cream into a thick consistency, uh, and you've got it, I think, what could be an amazing and very healthy dessert. So I've been going there for a few minutes, Mark. Uh yeah, what do you think? Any wow, I mean, is anything there strike a chord?

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Uh it all strikes a chord, uh John. That was just amazing. And um as I uh listen to you describing um some of these adaptations. I mean, I love John that you're sort of working off the traditional foods, right? Because some people, I do think, perceive that uh that we have to abandon some of those foods, right? Abandon you know, those traditional foods that you love in order to uh eat in a more healthy or health-promoting way. And so you you know, you've you've totally um uh challenged that that misperception. Uh and I um uh in addition to just this uh principle of of minimizing processing uh I love that um uh you know the the the nutrient density, every everything is of course is nutrient dense. And then this reverence, right, for healthy fat sources from butter to olive oil to nuts. Um uh it I mean I think we remind folks that um fear of fat um is is really important to kind of address as you to modify uh because therein, right, you will discover things that you love that you've been perhaps avoiding. And so to bring uh more butter in, to bring olive oil in.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Um you can enjoy the holidays, just enjoy it, enjoy it with yeah, I mean, enjoy it with savory.

Satiety, Energy, And Post-Meal Habits

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yeah. Uh and so I I love that. Um and then I think you know, we talk a lot about protein, and um people uh still traditionally think of turkey as this tryptophan, riddled, uh, you know, sedating uh, you know, meat uh where you know really what makes people sleepy is all the carbohydrates that they consume with it. Uh, turkey gets unfairly condemned. But the importance of protein in general and uh getting enough. And um for those with really big appetites, you know, going for an additional portion of the turkey or protein uh as opposed to another slice of of pumpkin pie uh or another couple of scoops of mashed potato, anytime you can substitute right a protein a carbohydrate as a as a as an additional energy source, even though all the carbs you describe are root vegetables, sumptuous, fiber-rich. I think that's the that's the beauty of this, is that you you see the some carbs just serve you better than others, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:59

So But that's a really good point. Let protein be your anchor, because it's gonna do, you know, it's gonna really uh it's gonna go a long ways to uh to not only supporting like our physiology, you and I talk about this all the time, right? It's a it's a movie we've seen, you know, hundreds of times, right? Where year after year we accrue this basically lean body mass debt. And a lot of it has to has to do with the fact that just we underconsume protein. But the other side of this story is that if you have that extra serving of turkey, like that's gonna really probably keep you out of the desserts a lot more, right, than if you didn't have that serving of turkey because of just how the satiety value is uh it's unmatched. It really is.

Using CGMs To Learn And Adjust

Alcohol, Seed Oils, And Fructose Risks

SPEAKER_00 20:59

You know, after the meal, right? You uh sit back and then there'll be more snacking, maybe so I I think this this uh eating, not just for that moment, but how anticipating how it'll make you feel in the several hours after. So to be more more satiated without the sleepiness and loginess and brain fog, you'll just be more into what's happening around you and and have more energy, whether that's to maybe go out for a walk after your meal, uh getting a little, you know, natural light, um, playing with your kids or your grandkids. So it it it's it's not just the meal, but you know how we feel right in those in those hours afterwards. So I just I love the way you put all of those principles together, uh John, um in obviously um uh just a uh a huge upgrade from some of the traditional meals. The other thing that I sometimes think about uh as as people plan for the season is uh you know, for those that have a continuous glucose monitor, yeah, or for those that might be eligible, uh which usually implies you have a diagnosis of pre-diabetes or or diabetes. We talk a lot about this, John. You know, I would love to see these made available to any person. Uh but that but but the holidays can be a really good time to just look at that information, not not to be guilt-ridden about it, uh, but to say, hey, you know, I I I tried this, uh, and wow, look at look at the numbers an hour or two after eating. Uh, I can do better than that. You know, 210 is just not where I want to be, right? So I think anyone who's wearing a CGM uh will notice very dramatic differences in those excursions of sugar from what you described. And um, I think that is is probably the holy grail from a metabolic health perspective, is no matter what you're choosing to eat or drink, and you know, we didn't you know get too into that, but obviously uh sugar sweetened drinks on top of a lot of sugar in the meal is just you know adding fuel to the fire. So um finding it.

Metabolic Health And Mindful Eating

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Yeah, and the other yeah, the the other thing on the topic of beverages is, and this is again, not to tell people not to enjoy a glass of wine or you know, to have you know the spirits that that help them with their traditional plan. The one thing that I think people should be aware of is that our liver has a really difficult time metabolizing alcohol in the presence of large amounts of polyunsaturated fats. And the only scenario that's worse is when our body tries to metabolize alcohol in the presence of fructose. Those three things are very unique challenges to the human liver: fructose, polyunsaturated fats, and alcohol. So if you're gonna have one of those, it's important to be really vigilant around the other two. Because when all three are present, it's a nightmare for the liver, right? It can only, it can only really address a very small, finite amount of any one of those at any one time. And, you know, I've I've looked at some of the research on this, and if you're gonna have a couple drinks, you know, you definitely wanna make sure that you're not having, in addition to that, some type of really fructose-rich dessert or some recipe made with, you know, large amounts of some seed oil that's very high in omega-6s. So, you know, you look at the typical Thanksgiving meal, and you're gonna have a couple drinks with the meal. Um, well, okay, but like if you start looking at the dark meat of turkey, you start looking at the oils that most people make their stuffing with, you start really looking at the ledger here, right, Mark? You got sugar in the desserts, you got a lot of you know, a lot of seed oils used in some of those recipes, the dark meat on turkey. You put it all together and it's it's it's tough. So it's important to like address at least two of those three, right? Again, not to not to tell our listeners that you know you can't have a glass of wine or a couple glasses of wine with Thanksgiving, but that may not be the end of the story. It might be everything that your your liver's trying to do at the same time that it's it's detoxifying that alcohol.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Great advice, John. And and and that too falls so nicely into this concept of metabolic health, right? Minimizing that that fatty liver tendency, that uh, you know, that that lipogenic, right? Just um and and so really great news to use there, John, for folks. I appreciate I took a lot of notes, and um I just I love that. And and you know, we talk a lot about mindfulness and uh you know the importance of obviously bringing that in to the to the spirit of of Thanksgiving celebration, as one would do with every meal. Uh and so uh there's what we're eating, and then then there's sort of how we're eating it, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

It's it's it's and who we're eating it with, and who we're eating it with.

Closing Gratitude And Season Wishes

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Yes, what we bring to the table, uh reverence uh for where our food has come from. And uh there and I yeah, I I know I'm uh I'm not saying anything that people don't already know and hear all the time, but it's good to be uh reminded that food is about so much more than just uh satisfying hunger, and uh there's an energy to it, uh uh there's a there's a quantum signature to it. And the more love and gratitude right we bring to that engagement, um I I I do believe abundance comes in many forms, and uh and it all it all just kind of adds up to what hopefully for most will be a joyful, satisfying and meaningful experience.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

So why don't you I'm grateful, yeah. I'm grateful for you, Mark. I'm grateful you know for our listeners and their interest in you know what we talk about, and um, there's so much to be grateful for. Um, and for me, that's the antidote, gratitude. So that's why it's my favorite holiday.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Yeah, and I am grateful for you, John, and and the bag news. And um as uh I think it was the Dalai Lama that once said to pay full attention to another is a generous gift. And uh and you give so much to so many, John, in in your um uh uh generosity of of spirit and and sharing information. And uh it makes makes the world a better place. And uh I'll look forward to reconnecting with you after Thanksgiving, John. We will uh we we'll have some football to talk about. Uh yeah, for sure. Uh uh so you um you have an awesome uh season here, John, and uh more to come soon. Thank you, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

You as well, Mark. My love to you, buddy.