5 Foods You Should NOT Eat This Thanksgiving (Doctor Explains)
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Dr. Sean addresses requests for guidance on holidays and family gatherings with food confrontations. Focuses on five things to avoid eating on Thanksgiving and anytime, contrasting with advice on what to eat. Typical American Thanksgiving meal includes turkey with many carbohydrates, processed foods, macaroni and cheese, baked goods, breads, sodas, and punch—foods to avoid for a fantastic body.
Your most important asset, physical asset that you got is your body. Your most important asset that you really have is your soul, your eternity, but your body is your most important physical asset.
People protect homes from spills on couches or carpets more than their bodies, yet consume junk. Thanksgiving is a wonderful occasion, not for celebrating bad food. Holidays are when people indulge in turkey, carbohydrates—a minefield for microbiome and metabolism.
Dr. Sean has optimized people for 15 years. Offers free course at growingbetternotolder.com revealing what medical establishment doesn't teach because they're incentivized to keep you sick.
Avoid carbohydrates, especially sugars and refined starches: pastas, potatoes, bread, pies, cookies, desserts, sweet beverages—all concentrated sugars.
Carbs feed wrong gut microbes (candida, klebsiella, streptococcus, anaerobati), causing pathogenicity, chronic inflammation, leaky gut, disrupting epithelial cells. Leads to cravings for more sugar/carbs, visceral fat, fat around heart (epicardial fat), fat in muscle (marbling like ribeye or Wagyu beef), poor oral health (gums, oral pharynx).
Every carb feeds microbes that cause fat storage, pathogenicity, tissue inflammation.
Carbs drive glycation: sugars bind to proteins, stiffening tissue, damaging collagen, mitochondria, creating advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) that age and disease the body.
Aging is a great thing if you're living correctly. You should be getting better. You should look better. You should be living better, performing better.
Fructose (from fruit, beverages) glycates/diseases tissue 10-20 times faster than glucose or sucrose. Leads to more visceral fat, muscle fat, epicardial fat (contributes to heart attacks, atrial fibrillation—cardiologists unaware due to omission in medical school).
Modern constant carb intake (fruit year-round, sweet drinks, desserts, processed grains) differs from seasonal, active ancestral patterns. Lost microbiome that fermented fruit; now overwhelmed by pathogenic microbes from grains/sugars.
Recommendation: Avoid carbs, eat meat and fat (protein and fat) instead. Skip refined carbs on Thanksgiving; stick to fat and protein for microbiome and body health.
Processed foods are hyper-palatable, easy, cheap, abundant, marketed to young/short-on-time people. Destructive to microbiome and metabolism—worst when combined with carbs.
Contain seed oils (oxidize quickly, cause reactive species, oxidation, inflammation), emulsifiers, preservatives (disrupt gut barrier, cause leaky gut), refined carbs (feed pathogenic microbes, increase glycation).
Leads to deadly fat depots (visceral, heart, muscle), inflammation, mitochondrial disease, endothelial dysfunction (declining blood flow: wrinkled face, erectile dysfunction, poor cerebral perfusion).
On Thanksgiving: Avoid processed stuffing, canned/bagged desserts, jarred gravy. Double hit: feeds bad microbes, accelerates glycation.
Stick to real unprocessed whole foods, mostly meat—the closer to the animal in natural state, the better (even meat can be ultra-processed).
Raw or unfermented fruits and vegetables problematic due to plant defenses: anti-nutrients (lectins, oxalates, phytates, alkaloids)—minor toxins causing gut inflammation, systemic inflammation, block mineral absorption, feed pathogenic microbes.
Even cooked vegetables don't adequately remove toxins. Carnivores avoiding plants recover from autoimmune disorders, but just meat has issues.
Fermentation reduces anti-nutrients, making them safer. Eat fermented for microbial benefit, increased polyphenolic compounds and nutrition, beneficial microbes (probiotics), enzymes.
Fermented vegetables: sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented pickles (not vinegar-pickled). Pair with meat/fat on Thanksgiving: reduces toxins, protects gut, aids digestion of heavy proteins/fats.
Eat meat or fat together with fermented foods—chew them together (not separately).
Mouth filled with pathogens (worse than rectum for disease: cancers, arthritis, heart disease). Human bites highly infective due to oral pathogens (periodontal bacteria, fusobacteria, prevotella—linked to colon/pancreatic cancers, heart disease, systemic inflammation, visceral/heart/muscle fat).
Better off with stool in punch bowl than spit (studies show oral pathogens more pathogenic).
Even grass-fed/finished meats (ruminants: beef, bison, elk, venison), turkey (higher omega-6:3 ratio—prefer red meat). Pair with fermented: sauerkrauts, kimchi, kvass, fermented carrots/vegetables, olives, fermented pickles, fermented cheeses/dairy (non-fermented dairy has lactose—avoid; babies can ferment via mom's microbiome, adults can't).
Chewing meat/fat with ferments turns dead meat into living meat: neutralizes oral pathogens, adds beneficial microbes, acidic environment, improves digestion, reduces inflammation, optimizes microbiome/metabolism (e.g., turkey with kimchi, steak with kimchi).
Traditional peoples healthy because they never eat meat without ferments.
Avoid bad liquids: sodas, fruit juices, sweet teas, punch, energy drinks, bottled/homemade smoothies—liquid processed foods causing disease.
Spike blood sugar, drive glycation (age/disease tissues, face, brain). Bypass chewing/saliva/microbial processing; feed pathogenic microbes.
Instead: non-chlorinated water (natural spring water, probiotic if European like San Pellegrino, Gerolsteiner sparkling in glass jars—not plastic/store-processed). Unsweetened coffee (black on fasting days; add kefir to cold brew on feasting days).
Recap of five to avoid: 1. Carbohydrates (sugars, refined starches). 2. Processed foods. 3. Unfermented fruits/vegetables. 4. Meat/fat without chewing with fermented foods. 5. Bad beverages.
Skipping protects gut, reduces glycation/aging, keeps metabolism/microbiome healthy. Holidays can improve health: enjoy while metabolically fit/sharp/microbiome-friendly.
Be the hero at family gatherings: model health without judgment. Show appreciation for healthy life. Don't cheat—be strong, demonstrate value of healthy living.
Make the right choices and demonstrate them to others. Treat it like playing basketball: go into the party and practice eating healthy in a group setting. Practice with family, friends, at work, with clients, or others.
If you found this video helpful, give it a like and consider sharing it with others so they can learn. Share with family and people you care about. Consider subscribing to the channel and join to help the content grow and reach more people. Comment to give encouragement, suggest other videos or content, share perspectives, or disagreements for a response.
Come work with me or one of my doctors. Visit growingbetternotolder.com for services and products available to as many people as possible. If you're a real influencer, come work with me. I regard myself as an executive consultant helping leaders, executives, and influencers become the best biological examples of themselves possible. Get more information at drfordando.com.
Thank you for watching the entire video. Looking forward to more interesting videos and your suggestions.
I'm a physician, MD, and researcher specializing in health and performance optimization. I specialize in eliminating deadly visceral fat hidden inside people's abdomen and around their heart, increasing risk for heart attacks and strokes, and also inflammatory fat inside muscles. I have the most experience in the world in this area.
I work with US senators, congressmen, governors, senior executives of major corporations, ambassadors, and the most important people in the world to get them to be the best biological version of themselves possible, improving their appearance and performance, helping them become better influencers.
Example: A senior member of a major corporation who in three months went from looking like this to this by getting rid of his visceral fat.
Example: A senior executive who went from looking like this to looking like this in 11 months.
This isn't weight loss. This is disease loss.
If you want to be the best version of yourself possible, come see me and work in my medical practice by going to drm.com or clicking the link below. Maybe I will work with you. If not, I have plenty of other physicians in my practice that I ensure working for me who can help you as well. We're looking for more motivated clients.
Keep Sean OMara, MD JD, Health & Performance Optimizing in your library
Save the videos and channels worth coming back to, and find them again in one place.
