so um yeah another thing that I've changed my mind on and this is actually very very recent is it's kind of interesting but it's it's adding bananas to my smoothie well I did stop adding bananas a long time ago but like I've now really like now I have to avoid it and um and know you're looking at me like please do tell this is interesting yeah yeah so so smoothies um there's actually one of the reasons I like to make smoothies well there's a couple of real important one so I most of my smoothies I get greens so a big dose of like greens you know a lot of times it's kale ends up being kale and then a lot of berries like blueberries and blueberries have polyphenols in them they have flavonoids they have anthocyanins all of these things have been shown to improve blood flow this is in human studies berries giving people like even just berries Frozen extract of blueberries um it increases brain Drive neurotrophic Factor actually these flavonoids brain Drive neurotrophic factor is essential for for growing new neurons um that's you know called neurogenesis that's very important for cognition it's important for staving off brain aging and um and so uh I always feel really good after doing the berries and so I love doing this my smoothies and so it used to be I would add a banana it kind of like I'd also get some potassium from that but also um just kind of make it a little creamier and stuff well it turns out bananas have an enzyme in it um called polyphenol oxidase as the name implies it actually degrades polyphenols so it's counter and this was a human St that came out recently adding bananas to the to the berry smoothies blueberries and stuff metabolites of polyphenols were significantly lower in in um plasma from people that had the smoothie with the banana added versus not with the banana I know it was kind of like oh my goodness so this is like the one thing I'm trying to get the polyphenols like that's the whole goal of why I'm I'm you know partly part partly the goal of why I'm drinking the Smoothie is for those polyphenols like a high concentration of blueberries so um the other foods that are high in it are are collared greens and also um like charred and I used to add chard to my smoothies because Swiss Chard is like a great source of magnesium it's a great source of potassium of ludine like so I no longer add CH to my smoothies and then beets are also high so I don't add beets I never really added I I didn't really ever add beads to my smoothie in the first place but I did do bananas and chard interesting nothing none of the other foods that I've looked at have quantities that have been shown to even be relevant at all so we're talking like these foods are like exceedingly high so after today's video our sponsor is seed I put a link down below for 25% off their daily symbiotic so it's a probiotic and a Prebiotic in one so it has a really unique delivery system so I am a fan of probiotic when you're making a change to like your diet or a lifestyle because it kind of help remodel that gut microbiome to help you make that shift a little bit sooner now full disclaimer they're a sponsor on this channel that's how this channel Works how we're able to create amazing content but my promise is that I only recommend products that I personally have used or currently use so seed down below that is a 25% off discount link again for their daily symbiotic I would probably guess that you'd notice a difference within about a week of taking it start noticing it digestively you might start noticing it in other ways but for me I got more energy I started sleeping better things just seemed more regulated so anyhow that link down below 25% off and so like I said again you know the anthocyanins the polyphenols the flavonoids flavonoid is a type of polyphenol that are in for example berries blueberries strawberries these are they are beneficial they've been shown to be beneficial in a variety of you know human studies randomized control trials beneficial for cognition um for improving cardiovascular health for improving blood flow to the brain in both young and older individuals for increasing brain Drive neurotropic Factor um which of course exercise can do omega-3 can do other things but like this is you know this is something that you want from the berries and if you go to any smoothie place literally every smoothie place if you want to get a smoothie there's like a banana in it yeah and I think that that needs to change like that needs to be the banana needs to be taken out and if you want a creamy sort of consistency to your smoothie the avocado is the way to go because the avocado gives it to you it's po levels that's the polyphenol oxidase like negligible yeah um and it also has high in pottassium so then you're getting like what you wanted from the banana but and then it has less sugar so I mean it's just wiwin and it's got a little bit of fat so it makes some of the carotenoids in the Smoothie like ltin and zanthin um it increases their bio bioavailability up to fourfold and these are things that are actually not just good for Eye Health but they're been found to accumulate in the brain and they're they're associated with improved cognition so there've been like studies where supplementation with it improves cognition so that's cause and effect right but also there's been observational data people that have higher circulating levels of these what are called carotenoids they're lutein in zanthin they're really high in leafy greens also um so adding again adding the avocado they're fat soluble so adding the avocado increases their bioavailability well people that have higher circulating levels of them have higher crystallized intelligence like so when they're older so again and coming back to cognition as well so it's really um you know I think adding the avocado is a really good substitute for banana it might be a little bit more expensive maybe that's why smoothie places don't do it but I do think that it's something important to keep in mind because a lot of people that are getting smoothies now you still look look you go get a green smoothie it has a little bit of banana like you're still going to be getting magnesium you're going to be getting some lutein zanthin you're going to be getting calcium you're going to be getting important micronutrients but if you have berries in there the polyphenols or if you're mixing a cacao smoothie with a banana people do that like the cocoa has high amount of flavonoids as well which again improve blood flow to the brain they increase brain dve neurotropic factor that again should be aoid like do not add the banana to that because it degrades those polyphenols and then it's like I know it's like not having any so um that's another thing that I've really changed my mind on I've mentioned bdnf a lot so I did just come out with a free bdnf guide um people can learn a variety of protocols that can increase bdnf including what I just mentioned some of the the berry um drinks and the cocoa Doses and stuff as well as exercise protocols intensities and stuff um so I have a free guide you can find that at bdnf protocol.com for anyone interested in like learning more about protocols for bdnf and increasing it as well sweet yeah I'll link that down below as well so do do you happen to know if uh like does does like with chard for instance like does heating it possibly break down this enzyme because I mean I don't know a lot of people would eat like Swiss CH raw I mean maybe put it in a smoothie which would be practical for this conversation but like if I ever had it it was usually like sauteed or something with a little bit of you know olive oil or something I think it does uh it is a heat sensitive enzyme as far as I remember um I don't know to what degree but I mean no one's cooking their banana the banana is the major smoothie Source no yeah no one cooking the banana um the chard again yeah most people that are eating Char and it's it's it's it's only a problem if you're like cooking if you're eating your Char and then drinking your cocoa flavanol drink or you're eating your blueberry and you're trying to get the flavonol they're trying to get those just inhibiting the absorption it's not like a lasting it's degrading them so it's like essentially not it's like you have a big cup of blueberries that's high in polyphenols and then you mix in the banana and it just chops up it degrades the polyphenols as if they're not there yeah cu the polyphenols I mean in essence they also act similarly to a Prebiotic they kind of are a Prebiotic so i' imagine when you also degrade them you're not getting any of the gut Flora effect either short chain fatty acid benefits or anything like that um not necessarily there's other components in berries like skin and stuff that are also fermented by the gut but a large part of the health benefits of berries are from polyphenols for sure so it's it's definitely like for me it was like you know and it really like it's just one study that just this is like a new very like five months ago it was so recent you know that it's like I don't there needs to be follow-up studies but I mean it was pretty compelling and it was humans too yeah yeah that's awesome it's just like I mean I don't know that it's awesome but it's good to know I mean because usually when you have these like kind of like almost esoteric seeming things like oh okay this enzyme you know like people might sensationalize online but like this is actually out of a human study that's like legit it's not like saying like oh don't eat Apples because pcon going going to make your hair fall you know or something it's no no it's not connecting the dots but I'll do I will say they didn't like so there have been studies looking at you know giving humans either like a big you know fresh Berry you know mix or freeze-dried blueberries like where the the polyphenol contents very high and it improves X Y or Z so for example X being cognition right the study didn't look at the end points that were like functional like to say that oh if you give them the blueberries plus the banana the cognition benefit they usually get from the blueberries was gone it didn't show that it just showed the polyphenol levels so there's certain metabolites that are measured in plasma after drinking a high like for example Berry mix because there's a lot of polyphenols and berries and that you can measure that in your plasma those metabolites were like dramatically reduced dang So biomarkers speaking like look speaking about biomarkers yeah the biomarkers of polyphenols that you would normally see in plasma were like really really really low