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Dr. Susanne Bennett discusses the benefits of eating Kimchi including strengthening the immune system and we also discuss the coronavirus pandemic with Dr. Ben Weitz.
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Podcast Highlights
6:05 Kimchi is a traditional food that everyone eats in South Korea. Kimchi consists of fermented vegetables, such as greens, cucumbers, radishes, and cabbage and it is a way that vegetables were preserved long before refrigeration. Vegetables are brined with salt, which increases the lactic acid bacteria content, and it is the live bacterial cultures that make Kimchi so healthy. In Korea there are over 250 different varieties of kimchi. Prior to refrigeration, the Koreans would place large earthenware pots with Kimchi under the ground, which freezes over in the winter and then they would be able to have vegetables all year round.
8:12 Dr. Bennett went back to Korea for the first time since her childhood when she was age 50 and she discovered that Koreans were eating tons of unhealthy noodles, white rice, and sugar. But the obesity rate in Korea is only 5.8% compared to 35% in the US! And rates of other chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease are equally low despite such a poor diet. It is because Koreans eat kimchi with virtually every meal that they maintain their health. Kimchi with burgers. Kimchi with tacos. Kimchi with pizza.
11:17 The intro to Dr. Bennett’s Kimchi Diet book, which was published a year ago, talks about the SARS epidemic in Asia, which was also caused by a slightly different coronavirus than our current pandemic. The South Koreans did so well with that pandemic because of the benefits of kimchi for their immune system that it almost appeared that SARS bypassed Korea. Eating Kimchi contains lactic acid bacteria cause the body to produce immunoglobulins in the gut, which turns into IgG, which helps fight viral infections. Here is a video from Arirang News on how Kimchi Combats MERS.
17:07 Lactic acid bacteria contained in Kimchi, including Lactobacillus acidophilus, Leuconostoc, and Weissella, are the main bacteria responsible for its health promoting properties. These probiotic strains have a number of powerful health promoting properties, including improving cardiometabolic health. They help to manage cholesterol and triglyceride levels and improve insulin sensitivity. And you get approximately 300 billions CFUs in a daily serving, which is a lot more than you can get in a probiotic supplement. And you get a larger diversity of bacteria than you get in a supplement. Dr. Bennett recommends that if you are just starting to eat fermented foods like Kimchi that you start with cucumber Kimchi, since cucumber is not a FODMAP food. Cucumber does not contain fermentable carbohydrates. If you start with cabbage Kimchi you might end up getting a lot of gas and bloating and some additional bowel movements. So you want slowly innoculate your gut. Then after doing the cucumber kimchi daily, you switch to bok choi or mustard greens kimchi, and then you go to radish kimchi, and finally after about 6 weeks you go to Napa cabbage kimchi. Kimchi simulates your gut to produce short chain fatty acids like buyrate and propionic acid. Propionic acid has been studied a lot in Korea and it has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and lipid lowering properties. It also raises nitric acid levels. It has even been shown to reduce fatty streaks in the aorta. And kimchi also have anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties. You should start with one tablespoon twice per day and ramp it up till you get to 1/2 cup of kimchi per day.
23:48 You can make kimchi at home and this way you can make sure that you use all organic ingredients and you don’t use any chemicals or MSG. You take your vegetables and you add sea salt, as explained in Dr. Bennett’s Kimchi Diet book. Himalayan pink salt does not work as well. The salt brines the vegetables, which kills off the bad bacteria, like staph, shigella, klebsiella, and E. Coli. This results in the proliferation of the good bacteria. Kimchi can be eaten after 2 days but Dr. Bennett feels the sweet spot is in the 14-21 day period, which is when it will be a bit salty, a bit sweet, and there’s also a tang to it. If you ferment kimchi too long it gets more sour and acidic.
31:40 Kimchi helps to increase bacterial diversity in our microbiota, which many of us lack. Many of us are low in Akkermansia muciniphila, which is the good bacteria that’s known to produce mucin, which helps to produce the mucus barrier in our intestines. And without the mucus barrier, that’s where the toxins that we eat, the junk food, the GMO, the glyphosate, the pesticides, the alcohol, the sugars, the viruses, the bacterias, even parasites can all be penetrating through and creating leaky gut. Increased intestinal permeability can lead to increased chronic illnesses like inflammatory, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases. Kimchi can help to heal leaky gut and reduce LPS penetration into our system and this can help reduce inflammatory reactions in the brain.
36:25 Kimchi is high in a bacteria called Lactobacillus Sakei and studies show that you can take kimchi juice from white kimchi with no red pepper and put it up the nose for help with sinus infections.
46:30 Dr. Bennett recommends the following nutritional supplements to strengthen your immune system to help protect it from viruses, like the coronavirus:
- Vitamin D up to 10,000 IU per day
- Vitamin A 5,000-10,000 IU per day
- Vitamin C, like Ultrapotent C from Metagenics
- Selenium 100 mcg twice per day
- Amino acids
- Quinton Isotonic
- Restore minerals
- Liposomal Glutathione and N-Acetyl Cysteine.
- Black current seed oil.
- Herbs, including Elderberry, echinacea, olive leaf, andrographis, and licorice root.
Dr. Susanne Bennett is a holistic chiropractic physician with over 30 years clinical experience and advanced study, specializing in allergies, gut and skin disorders, environmental and anti-aging medicine. She’s the #1 international best-selling author of The Kimchi Diet: Revive Your Gut, Get Lean and Live Longer; Mighty Mito: Power Up Your Mitochondria for Boundless Energy, Laser Sharp Mental Focus and a Powerful Vibrant Body; and The 7-Day Allergy Makeover: A Simple Program to Eliminate Allergies and Restore Vibrant Health from the Inside Out. She also has a very successful talk show, Wellness for Life on RadioMD and iHeartRadio. Her website is DrSusanne.com
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also specializing in Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure and also weight loss, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Phone or video consulting with Dr. Weitz is available.
Podcast Transcript
Dr. Weitz: Today, I’ll be speaking with Dr. Susanne Bennett, who’s an expert on Functional Medicine and she published a book last year called The Kimchi Diet. So we will be speaking about the benefits of eating kimchi and this has particular importance for many parts of your health as well as the immune system. And because we’re recording this in the midst of the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, we ended up shifting the focus a little bit more towards things that you can do to strengthen your immune system to possibly help you if you get infected with the Coronavirus, this new novel Coronavirus that is spreading around the world right now.
I would like to make clear that neither myself nor Dr. Bennett is saying that any of the recommendations that we make in terms of diet or nutritional supplementation will prevent you from getting the Coronavirus or should be suitable cures for the Coronavirus. We are not making any of those types of claims. On the other hand, Dr. Bennett and myself, and I hope I can speak for her, as Functional Medicine practitioners, we’re both big believers in strengthening your body’s own immune defenses and let’s make no bones about it, the reason why the overwhelming majority 80%, maybe 99% of people who get infected with the Coronavirus recover without any additional sequelae is the fact that their immune system is able to fight this off. That is how our body fights bacteria, viruses, fungi, et cetera, that we normally come into contact with every day in our environment. Now our body has antibodies to certain viruses because we’ve been exposed to them in the past. And this novel Coronavirus, we don’t have any antibodies to, and that’s one of the reasons why it’s more dangerous. But it’s very clear that the people who recover well and that’s up to 99% of us and that’s because we have a healthy, robust immune system and people who have a compromised immune system tend not to do as well. So the recommendations that Dr. Bennett is making in this video that involved diet and some rational nutritional supplementation are simply ways to strengthen your immune system. So I hope you’ll enjoy this discussion.
Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of The Rational Wellness Podcast. I talk to the leading health and nutrition experts and researchers in the field to bring you the latest in cutting edge health information. Subscribe to The Rational Wellness Podcast for weekly updates, and to learn more, check out my website, drweitz.com. Thanks for joining me and let’s jump into the podcast. Rational Wellness Podcasters, thank you so much for joining me again today. For those of you who enjoy the podcast, please go to Apple Podcast and give us a ratings and review. And if you’d like to see a video version of this podcast, go to my Weitz Chiro YouTube page. And if you go to my website, drweitz.com, you can find detailed show notes and a complete transcript.
Today we are going to speak to one of my close friends, Dr. Susanne Bennett, about her latest book, The Kimchi Diet. Dr. Susanne Bennett is a holistic chiropractic physician with over 30 years of clinical experience and advanced studies. She specializes in allergies, gut disorders, skin problems, environmental and antiaging medicine. She’s the number one international bestselling author of her new book, The Kimchi Diet: Revive your Gut, Get Lean, and Live Longer. And her book before that was Mighty Mito: Power Up Your Mitochondria for Boundless Energy, Laser Sharp Mental Focus and a Powerful Vibrant Body. And her first book, The Seven Day Allergy Makeover. She has a very successful talk show, Wellness for Life, on Radio MD and iHeartRadio. Dr. Bennett, thank you so much for joining me today.
Dr. Bennett: Thank you Ben. So good to hear your voice and see you. And you know what? Because of this time right now this is fantastic. Modern life allows us to be able to communicate and see each other.
Dr. Weitz: Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. For those of you who maybe might not be aware, I don’t know who couldn’t be aware, but we’re right in the middle of the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic and those of us in California have been given a stay at home order. So we’re supposed to stay away from other human beings, but through the digital media we can still interact with each other. I think it’s really important that we have these forms of communication right now because we still need those social connections, even though we’re supposed to stay six feet away from each other.
Dr. Bennett: That’s right. That’s right. And it’s also super important because this is our way of being able to distribute information, information that’s a clear, sound, scientific oriented so that everyone can make their own decisions, what they want to do and how they live their lives right now in these trying times.
Dr. Weitz: Absolutely. So Dr. Bennett, you’re originally from South Korea and the traditional food everyone eats in Korea is kimchi. So maybe you could explain to us what is kimchi?
Dr. Bennett: All right. So kimchi has been around for thousands of years. It is a fermented food that Koreans have made for like … I mean, I think the numbers that go back at least two to 5,000 years. And what they’ve done was that … during the wintertime, way back when, there was no such thing as having fresh vegetables in the winter, so what they would do is they figure out a way to preserve vegetables, keeping it raw with all the nutrients and the value and by fermenting it, utilizing the brining method with salt and increase the lactic acid bacteria. And that was the magic of kimchi.
Although back then they didn’t know that’s the reason why it was so healthy for you. But the whole idea was for five, six months at a time, you can have fresh vegetables without really having a refrigerator. The Koreans would put big earthenware and that’s like ceramic ware pots into the ground when it was ice cold obviously, doing it before the snow came and then all the vegetables they would harvest and it would be, ah, all kinds of radish and a lot of greens and of course everyone knows about, well not everyone, but the Napa cabbage types. We have over 250 different kimchis in Korea. So all sorts of different forms of vegetation, vegetables. And the whole idea is to get vegetables fermented properly and have it for months at a time without it literally going bad. That’s what’s great about kimchi is that you got live food, live food because it’s raw, but it also has live cultures. And that’s what I want to talk about and how important it is for your immune system. So yes, can I go on and tell you what happened though and how I really discovered this? Because I will tell you, when I went to Korea when I was 50 years old … and I’m from Korea originally, I didn’t go back until I was about 50 and with a big family trip. My son really wanted to go to where his mom was from. So I go there and I was really blown away by what people ate. Ben, I’m telling you, people eat tons of sugar, noodles, rice, white rice. There’s everything that we have here. They’ve got, in fact, a ton of those restaurants, there’s coffee shops.
Dr. Weitz: Thank you America for spreading American culture around the world.
Dr. Bennett: That’s right. The Western culture, I mean, that’s what it is. When I was there in the early … I was born in ’62 and into the 70s, I left in 1975, we barely had anything. That was when the military was there, but we didn’t have any forms of American food except on military base, which I had the luxury to be able to go to school there and all.
Dr. Weitz: And I bet the rates of chronic diseases like diabetes were minuscule compared to what they are now that the American diet has made its way there.
Dr. Bennett: That’s true. But I’ve got to tell you something, and that’s what was blowing me away with all the crap that everyone was eating there. And they eat enormous amounts of food, bowls and bowls of this white rice. They don’t have any brown rice. I asked for brown rice, there’s nothing there that’s brown rice, quinoa, forget it. So then I started doing some digging because I couldn’t believe how people were lean, and beautiful skin, and a lot of muscles, very active, and even the older folks were very, very energized there. And I really wanted to know their secrets. So when I started digging online, I couldn’t believe that South Korea has obesity rate of 5.8. Now 5.8 is really low because we know in America it’s pretty much close to 35%. 5.8%, so I’m thinking, “Okay, that doesn’t make sense. They’re eating all this crap. We’re westernizing Korea, but why is it that they’re not at all affected?” And so I started digging deeper and I started looking at everyone and everyone was eating kimchi, kimchi with their burgers, kimchi with their tacos, kimchi with their pizzas. So I realized the magic was really the kimchi that was affecting and mitigating any of the diseases. So when I got back home, I became a Kimchiologist and all I started doing was looking at kimchi. That was seven years ago. I’ve been implementing kimchi into my patients’ lives. And I started seeing the results that truly backs up the science that I wrote in the kimchi book here, The Kimchi Diet. All the science and majority of the science is in here. And I wanted to share that with everyone, including what it does to immunity.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. I thought it was amazing that in the intro of that book, which was written, what? A year ago?
Dr. Bennett: That’s right. Last year.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. Last year that you start off by talking about how they had the SARS epidemic in Asia, which was another coronavirus. And this was in 2003. And how the South Koreans did so well, and one of the reasons why was because of the benefits of kimchi for the immune system and even having antiviral properties. So it was just so timely that your whole intro was about the SARS epidemic. And here we are in another coronavirus epidemic.
Dr. Bennett: That’s right. And that’s what was … what I started digging up was that, boy, if we can definitely use kimchi as a way to build our immunity. And what the scientists found was that it actually, kimchi, produces immunoglobulins, immunoglobulin IgA, in the gut, which turns into IgG and which really helps with viral infections. And what they’ve also found was that it pretty much the SARS kind of bypassed Korea. If you looked at a map of the SARS, and I’m talking about the original SARS, the SARS 1, it bypassed Korea because a lot of the doctors really believed, number one, yes, they really cracked down. The Koreans’ ability to crack down and really move fast is incredible. I mean, when we think about the SARS 2 that’s happening right now, what I understand is they were testing … like they had drive through testing sites. We have nothing here. It’s really ridiculous when you compare the level. And I really hope that Koreans will come out here and start teaching us what to do because that’s what we need state to state because it’s not being done here..
Dr. Weitz: But you know what? If I can’t see anything, I don’t think you can teach me. I don’t think it’s a problem here.
Dr. Bennett: There you go.
Dr. Weitz: It’s going to be gone by next week.
Dr. Bennett: Honestly, I think there’s a lot of denial here. People really, they don’t know enough about it. They just don’t know enough of what it is. I’ve already started supporting my two patients who’ve got Corona now, the SARS, Coronavirus two. And one is a 10-year-old child, another one’s in their ’60s. But in California, we’ve got a complete lockdown, as you said earlier, and it’s going to make the biggest difference. But at the same time, I really think we’ve got to use other, food is our medicine and kimchi can do it. Evidence is the loudest voice and the evidence shows that kimchi can definitely help. I want to ask you something, if I can play something, a little video, if you don’t mind. It’s only a minute and 30 seconds video, but it’s about kimchi. And I found this video … I subscribe to Arirang. It’s a Korean news, Arirang News. And this is a video that I just got yesterday morning…timely. And this was made when the MERS was out. Remember the Middle Eastern Respiratory … that one.
Dr. Weitz: Syndrome.
Dr. Bennett: Exactly. And this is specifically about how Kimchi with a scientist found out at that time. So it was published in 2015, but it’s specifically about the Coronavirus. So I’m going to show it to everyone here so that you can see … you can get this online. If you go to Arirang, and is A-R-A-I-A-N-G, Arirang News. I think that’s how it is. But you know what? If you can put it in your notes that would be great. So people can watch it directly. But I’m going to go ahead and tell me-
Dr. Weitz: [crosstalk 00:15:18] this way, yeah. It’s too bad because through Zoom you can actually share-
Dr. Bennett: Oh, you can?
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Bennett: Shocks. I don’t know if you can see. But let’s see-
Dr. Weitz: Well, it looks kind of dark, but let’s see.
Dr. Bennett: It does? Maybe you can hear.
Kimchi Combats MERS video from Arirang News
Speaker 3: The MERS outbreak appears to be winding down here in Korea as we just mentioned. But research is always a mode of health for new ways to treat viruses like MERS and based on results gleaned from animal testing, a team of researchers here in Korea has found that lactic acid bacteria in kimchi is effective rather in preventing and treating similar viruses. Park Se-young has this report.
Speaker 4: Lactic acid bacteria found in kimchi are known to have numerous health benefits. In the past year, Korean scientists discovered its effectiveness in preventing and treating viral diseases like Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. All 2000 pigs infected with Coronaviruses recovered completely a week after they were injected with the healthy bacteria.
Speaker 5: Lactic acid bacteria from kimchi protects us from viruses by increasing immune globulin A in the intestine. The body then produces more immune globulin G or interferon gamma to prevent viral infection.
Speaker 4: The study conducted by university professors from Korea and Malaysia found that using probiotics as an alternative to antibiotics also produce healthier chickens. The researchers also believe kimchi probiotics can prevent influenza and immune system disorders in humans. At a hospital in Gyeonggi province some patients with respiratory problems are already being administered the healthy bacteria. Once proven effective, the researchers plan to initiate full-scale clinical trials. Park Se-young, Arirang News.
Dr. Weitz: By the way, for those of us who are not aware, lactic acid bacteria essentially is referring to lactobacillus acidophilus and similar probiotics that you often see in probiotic supplements.
Dr. Bennett: Right. But just to let you know, probiotic supplements compared to fermented foods is like a drop in the ocean. We get probiotics six, maybe you get 12 strains of lactobacillus or in bifidus. But when it comes to kimchi and its number of lactic acid bacteria, you can have anywhere from 900 to over 2000 strains of lactic acid bacteria. There’s so many different kinds that are in kimchi and other forms of fermented foods. Now, there are a lot of different ferments out there. We know that there’s pickles and sauerkrauts, cavas, even chocolate is considered a fermented food. Many, many different countries have fermented food for the same reason that Korea developed and created it, and it was because of preservation of food for long periods of time during wintertime.
But the interesting thing about the kimchi is that there’s three main bacteria. One is Leuconostoc strain. There is another is Lactobacillus. And then the other one is Weissella. And what I found is that, doing the research, that these three main strains are the ones that are very, very powerful in mitigating health issues. I’d love to chat about each one in a … for instance, starting with cardiovascular, it really helps with reducing cholesterol. Amazing for metabolic syndrome, triglycerides, if you have high triglycerides, diabetes, insulin, and sensitivity. I can go on and on and maybe what we can do is just go through each one, so people could understand how important it is to have high levels of the lactic acid bacteria that you get daily, daily. I get about 300 CFUs per day, 300 billion CFUs, whereas a supplement would be maybe, if you’re lucky, five, 25, and some are a hundred which are super expensive. You know which ones I’m talking about, right?
Dr. Weitz: Sure.
Dr. Bennett: Right Ben?
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Bennett: But if you just ate regularly two servings a day, that’s where you’re going to get a great deal of lactic acid bacteria.
Dr. Weitz: A serving is like a tablespoon or two tablespoons?
Dr. Bennett: I would start … because I put in the book on how important it is to start to seed you little by little because you will start to feel, how do I say, a little war going on in the gut. Because if you’re not used to eating fermented foods, especially Napa cabbage, then you’re going to have a lot of gas and sometimes it creates extra bowel movements. And for some cases who have … constipation’s a great thing. But remember that in my book I give you four phases because the phase is important to slowly inoculate.
Phase one, I tell people to make cucumber kimchi because cucumber kimchi is not a FODMAP food. And if you know what FODMAPs are, those are vegetables that have fermentable carbohydrates. And if you make kimchi with a FODMAP food such as cabbage and I’d say that you could even make it with Brussels sprouts. There’s many, many vegetables you can make kimchi with. But if you make it with those FODMAP veggies, then you’re going to have a lot more irritation. And I just say a window of a lot of gas and bloating. But if you start with a phase one, the cucumber kimchi, then you go to bok choi or mustard greens, then you go to the radish, and then you finally, after six weeks or so, you go into the Napa, you’re going to gently inoculate and then you’re going to start getting some major power in your gut to build your immune system. And of course help you with all of the different, different conditions that it can with your skin, with your weight for obesity, like I said earlier, it really helps with obesity. It helps reduce cholesterol, LDL cholesterol. There’s a science, everything that I’m talking about, you can find if you go in and look up in the PubMed and look up kimchi and basically all the health benefits. And interestingly, majority of the studies are coming out of Korea because kimchi is Korean food. They also found that kimchi also produces what’s called short chain fatty acids, short chain fatty acid butyrate and propionic acid. Propionic acid is very highly studied in the kimchi and that has really helped as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and a lipid lowering propionic acid. So these are amazing studies. Now, some of them are animal studies as well, where streaks of cholesterol, and streaks and fatty streaks, I should say fatty streaks out of the Aorta has been literally reduced in animal studies. They found nitric oxide increases, amazing. People with hyperlipidemia, again it lowers that. And biocidin. Let’s go into the biocidin or the bacteriacidin and the viralcidin and effects as well. So if you were going to eat kimchi and use that, I would definitely start slowly, but ramp it up within the next week or so. So you started about two tablespoons, so one tablespoon for lunch and let’s say one tablespoon for dinner. And then you start to ramp it up and I would get to about a half of a cup if your body can handle it.
Right now I have about three different types of kimchis that are just made. I’ve got cucumber kimchi that I’m making and radish kimchi I’m making today because I want high levels. I just dropped some off in my mom’s a doorstep so that she can have it because it’s really difficult. My mom’s 88 year young and she’s doing great, but I want her to continue by improving. And kimchi, everyone, you can make it at home. I really highly recommend you making it at home because if you make it at home, then you know you can get organic ingredients and you don’t use any forms of chemicals, or MSG and there are a lot that’s out there that could be MSG added. And then you can make it all vegan if you don’t want. If you don’t want the fish sauce, if you don’t want the shrimp sauce, you make it all vegan by using Kombu, which is seaweed. And I teach you exactly every little detail on how to make it, all the details. There’s amazing pictures all here on what it is and what you look out for.
Dr. Weitz: Everybody has a lot of time now. You’re staying at home so you have no excuse why you can’t make your own kimchi.
Dr. Bennett: That’s exactly right. I have a kimchi … it’s called The Kimchi Diet Facebook Group and everyone comes on. They show how to make … of course I teach about how to make it, but everyone makes it after reading my book and they show their photos. And there are people that have farms and loads of vegetables. Share your vegetables so that everyone has the ability to make it. I tell this to everyone, it’s in my book, if you can just have solar sea salt. Solar sea salt basically means salt that you have that’s been dried from the sunlight at sea, sea salt.
Dr. Weitz: Can you use any kind of salt?
Dr. Bennett: No. You cannot.
Dr. Weitz: Can you use Redmond sea salt? Can you use Himalayan pink salt?
Dr. Bennett: I would not use Himalayan pink salt. And I’ll tell you why. Himalayan is a beautiful color and it has a bit of iron in it, but also that’s the reason why there’s pink color in the mineral content. But the reason why I don’t use that, it’s all sodium based. 95% of pink salt is sodium based. If it’s solar sea salt, sea salt has the most benefit of all of the other minerals. And what am I talking about? The magnesium, the chloride, the potassium, calcium, those are in it. And the sodium content in sea salt is about 65 to 75%, and the rest are healthy minerals. So you want a balance, you want an optimal balance. And if you don’t get the Korean solar sea salt, then you can use Celtic sea salt or Celtic sea salt if you want to use that. You can also use kosher sea salt. So sea salt to me is the number one choice.
Dr. Weitz: Can we use the Redmond sea salt now?
Dr. Bennett: No. Redmond sea salt, is that the one from Utah? I’m asking you this because-
Dr. Weitz: It’s from an old, ancient seabed, supposedly.
Dr. Bennett: If this an ancient sea, but I would ask them to give you the actual analysis because most of them have it. If it is lower like 75%, I would use that for sure. I’m not familiar with Redmond. I know about it. I’ve read about it in some book. But anyway, I don’t know because I don’t know the details of it. I’ve only done the details on the sea salts I’m talking about.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. Okay, sounds good.
Dr. Bennett: But anyway what the whole idea of kimchi is, well, if you’ve got salt, and garlic, and ginger, and then basically have a vegetable, you can do this anywhere in the world without any forms of gas, any forms of lighting, nothing. You can do this outdoors. I can teach you how to do it in the deserts of the Serengeti and in the jungles of the Amazon. It doesn’t matter where you’re at, you don’t have to have anything but that. And of course a jar to ferment it. And the salt is the most important. The brining process, I talk about it in detail. The brining is most important because Ben, if you don’t brine to kill off the bad bacterias and bugs that naturally grow on every vegetable, so there’s Staph and Shigella, Klebsiella, all the bad ones, and E. Coli, then you’re not going to have optimal kimchi.
Dr. Weitz: In a sense foods like kimchi is a way to get back to our roots before refrigeration and modern methods of storing food. We used to use things like salt, brining, and fermentation, and that was the only way to preserve our food. And there were lots of benefits to these, but we’ve gotten to these modern refrigeration and easy methods of storage, so we’re losing out on a lot of that. So this is a way to get back to our roots.
Dr. Bennett: That’s absolutely true. I mean, our ancestors have been doing this in thousands of years and it works. And now because of modern medicine understands why it’s so good for you because they have the ability to analyze all the bacterias and what the capabilities are, that’s the reason why we want to go back and do it. And like I said, regarding the salt and the brining, if we can get rid of the bad ones, and the salt is a medium that lactic acid bacteria loves lactis acid bacteria or LABs love salt. And that’s the reason why it increases as the time goes on. The sweet spot for me where you have the highest level of bacterias and it really starts at about 21 days, 14 days I start to really … the one thing about kimchi is you can make it and in two days start eating it. You can make it, in two days start eating it, whereas saurkraut, it takes three to four weeks minimum, pickles as well. So remember kimchi, you can start eating it and get the benefits right away and it keeps on growing. And those three bacterias I talked about keeps on growing. It kind of changes it’s levels one by one, but it keeps on growing. 14 to 21 days is the way I like the taste because there’s a tang to it, there’s a salt to it, there’s a sweetness to it-
Dr. Weitz: If you ferment it too long it gets more sour, right?
Dr. Bennett: Sure it does. The pH drops very considerably. The pH can go down to five, six, and even down to three, four the higher you let it go, but that’s okay, Ben, because you can leave it in the refrigerator for six months. I have right now old kimchi and I don’t like the taste of it as much, but I use it for cooking like kimchi … it’s called kimchi stew, kimchi jjigae. When you do cook it, all the benefits are gone. So just know that.
Dr. Weitz: I want to make two anecdotal comments. I don’t want to throw you off track, but they’re just things that came to mind. One is the acid thing, is among the nutrition world we’re kind of overboard on alkalinizing, alkalinizing as the answer for everything. And I just want to point out that a lot of the bacteria in our gut need a slightly acidic environment. And so let’s not think that acid is always bad. That’s first comment. Second comment is, we talked about cucumbers and there’s some nutritionists out there saying, “Don’t eat cucumbers because they have lectins.” But it turns out that there is actually some reports showing that lectins actually help to kill viruses. They actually have some antimicrobial activity. So just to throw that in there.
Dr. Bennett: Hey, that’s great. Absolutely. These are things that we realize and we want to work around. The reason why I like cucumbers so much is because of the taste. Keeping kimchi is by far what everyone … the Western people love the taste of cucumber kimchi. My recipes are all handed down from generations through my mother’s lineage, my grandmother’s, my great grandma, all of them use these recipes. So these are not my recipes per se. I’ve only changed it so that I don’t use a lot of sugar. I don’t use sugar in fact at all. I use the fruit, apples or pears, so that you have natural sugars. I do want to comment something on why kimchi is also important. The thing about what we have in the Western culture, in America, and pretty much everywhere else who do not eat a lot of fermented foods, is that we’ve got a huge problem of diversity issues in our gut microbiome, very low diversity. We don’t have enough. And not just that, we have very low Akkermansia muciniphila, which is the good bacteria that’s known to produce mucin, produce a mucus barrier. And without the mucus barrier, that’s where the toxins that we eat, the junk food, the GMO, the glyphosate, the pesticides, the alcohol, the sugars, the viruses, the bacterias, even parasites can all be penetrating through and creating leaky gut. All right? Leaky gut. And that is definitely one of the factors that we all … everyone’s talking about it now of course, that when there is permeability is when we start to have more chronic illnesses and diseases, inflammatory diseases, heart disease, brain issues because we get the lipid polysaccharides going in, the inflammation. And by the way, kimchi is known to reduce the LPS penetration and reduces inflammatory reactions in the brain. That is a study done with people that are suffering from brain issues and Alzheimer’s.
Dr. Weitz: You just touched your face now. You have to go wash your hand. It’s one of the hardest things not to touch your face. Right?
Dr. Bennett: Honestly, it’s ridiculous. I mean, this is … I’ve had for a long time. This mask, I use it for other forms of toxicity like formaldehyde and stuff.
Dr. Weitz: Do you want to play ant woman in a new science fiction film?
Dr. Bennett: For the life of me, I can’t find anymore masks.
Dr. Weitz: No, you can’t get them right now.
Dr. Bennett: There’s nothing, there’s absolutely nothing.
Dr. Weitz: They’re telling healthcare workers to put a scarf around their face.
Dr. Bennett: Oh God, this is awful.
Dr. Weitz: That’s America in 2020.
Dr. Bennett: Right now I’ve contacted already Korea to see if we can get some. I’m serious. I’m literally serious because one of my best friends called me and asked me for a mask and I don’t have them.
Dr. Weitz: You know what’s happening right now in LA? The TV hospital shows like ER are actually taking the masks that they have on the set and bringing them to the hospitals because the hospitals are in such short supply.
Dr. Bennett: This is terrible.
Dr. Weitz: That is what a bad state we are in right now in America.
Dr. Bennett: That’s terrible. I’m just hoping that-
Dr. Weitz: Totally unprepared.
Dr. Bennett: Exactly. If you look at pictures and videos of Korea, everyone wears a mask. Everyone. It’s just the nature of … they understand it. Nobody. I went out and I went out with a white mask and I had these goggles on. These are my fashion, Beverly Hills goggles. And I had gloves on at the Farmer’s Market on Wednesday this week. And I’m going to tell you, I think myself and one of the person out of the people at the Farmer’s Market had the mask. Nobody has it. And it’s a serious thing because 50% of us can actually be carriers. And the reason why I’m wearing it, because last week I saw patients. This week I closed it up and I’m not seeing anyone, but who knows? It could have been two weeks ago that I might’ve been exposed and I’m someone that doesn’t get sick in the 30 years I’ve been in practice. I don’t know about you, Ben, but I haven’t at all missed a day of work in the 30 years plus I’ve been in practice and maybe it’s because I’ve been eating kimchi. Right?
Dr. Weitz: Absolutely.
Dr. Bennett: That’s it. There’s so many benefits. I mean, I will tell you what? There’s a bacteria because it enters through the nose. Lactobacillus Sakei, it’s called. It’s one of the bacteria that are very high in kimchi. And there are studies where they show where you can actually … I tell my patients to do this. If you make white kimchi, I teach you how to do that in the book. White kimchi, which means no red pepper, no red pepper. Let me tell you something, you know Ari Whitten, right? I love that man.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Bennett: I did an interview for his podcast last year.
Dr. Weitz: The Energy Blueprint, yeah.
Dr. Bennett: Exactly. And Ari I am talking to because I recommend you to put basically the juice of the non spicy kimchi. You don’t have to put red pepper in it, non spicy. You can do all non spicy.
Dr. Weitz: So he used the spicy one.
Dr. Bennett: Yes. Oh, he said that it hurt like a mother, you know what, hen. But can I tell you it totally got rid of his sinusitis. That and he did get off a dairy. And I’m going to tell you why it’s so important not to eat dairy. Dairy has bacterias that causes acne and phlegm. There is a bacteria that’s in dairy. It can be a natural ferment, like let’s say cheese, right? Cheese. I’m talking more about cheese. Cheese’s a natural ferment of milk, cow’s milk and sheep’s milk, et cetera. But there’s a bacteria called Propionibacterium acnes bacteria. Are you familiar with that bacteria?
Dr. Weitz: I’m not.
Dr. Bennett: Yup. That bacteria is very high in cheese, dairy products. I treat a lot of skin disorders including acne, eczema, psoriasis, neurodermatitis. I treat a lot of that because my son used to have it when he was young, and so I became pretty much an expert on skin diseases. But anyway, and there’s the bacteria Propionibacterium acnes and that’s super, super … The bacteria that also is on the skin and that causes acne. So if you cut the cheese out, all dairy out, the acne will go down at least 50% of the time. This includes foods that have dairy in it, and I’m talking about sour cream-
Dr. Weitz: That’s a great clinical pearl.
Dr. Bennett: Oh, it’s amazing the difference, how your skin will heal. Sugar too.
Dr. Weitz: Now what about yogurt? Does that have that same bacteria?
Dr. Bennett: Yogurt is different. No. yogurt is more lactobacillus because of the way they use a starter. There’s a difference between yogurt as well as kimchi. Kimchi is a wild ferment. And what I mean by wild ferment, there is nothing you need to put in to start the process. Every vegetable you have in kimchi to make kimchi has its own microbiome. Did you know that ginger has its own microbiome and its own quality of bacterias compared to garlic, compared to the cucumber? On the outside it has its own microbiome. And that’s the beauty of kimchi and all natural wild ferments. Yogurts, the reason why it only has a certain number of bacteria and it’s because of the starter it uses. The starter develops the different kinds of lactobacillus, right? So lactobacillus and streptococcal thermophilus, lactobacillus acidophilus, bifidus. So that’s the reason why you want to have wild ferments, not just yogurt. Yogurt to me, again, is a minimal amount and the amount you get is nothing. Nothing like kimchi, sauerkraut, fermented pickles, the cultured pickles. And to me, vegetable ones are better because you’ve got a whole variety and you’ve got the antioxidant properties. Kimchi is known to be an anticarcinogenic. It has properties like mannitol. Mannitol is anti-carcinogenic. If I remember correctly, they found that kimchi helps with pancreatic cell lines and it reduces that more so than liver apparently between the two. There’s many different studies out there. So many, I must have, I don’t know, went over 200, 300 studies for my book. There’s also very, very good high, high levels of GABA. So if you have anyone who has anxiety, sleeping issues, I tell my patients who have that, you take kimchi or kimchi juice and I teach people how to make kimchi juice.
I have a detox program. It’s called Kimchi Detox program and you can be a student of mine and learn how to make kimchi juice. And is basically I use radish and then a big jar of liquid and it creates just juice and you just drink that every day. If you don’t want to eat the veggies, then drink the juice. If you’ve got FODMAP problems, just drink the juice. It’s like the kimchi cure. I’m telling you, it’s the best gut sealant around. And I was talking about GABA. High levels of GABA. It has a lactobacillus [inaudible 00:42:00], I believe it’s called. So if you take it at nighttime or when you’re under a lot of stress, which is right now everyone’s stressed out, you take a little bit of that and drink it or eat it and that will help with GABA levels. GABA is high in kimchi.
Dr. Weitz: GABA is a calming neurotransmitter for those of us who are not aware.
Dr. Bennett: Yes, thank you. GABA, gamma-Aminobutyric acid. Now you can buy GABA online and also use it. But they say that the GABA doesn’t cross the blood brain barrier. But I’ll tell you why it works for anxiety is because it calms your gut down, and the connection of the gut brain, and then of course the psychobiotics, which is the good bacterias that make GABA. It’s just promoting that and the connection of the vagal nerve to the brain, parasympathetic nervous system and the gut, that’s where you’re going to have it work. And it works. I’m telling you GABA works. And if you combine it with L-theanine, you even have a much better reduction of anxiety. I also, for anxiety, use other nutrients like low levels of lithium, micro dosing lithium as well as some zinc and B6. And that combination is just powerful in addressing anxiety. So I can go on and on about the health benefits.
Dr. Weitz: So let’s see. I think we’ve got about 10 more minutes left. I know you wanted to maybe talk about some nutritional recommendations to strengthen our immune system since we’re in this Coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. Bennett: Oh, absolutely. I’m a big believer in supplements and the reason is because our food that we have and most of us eat out, we bring food in, take out. We don’t have the opportunity because people to work. We all work across America and everywhere around the world, our mother and father.
Dr. Weitz: [crosstalk 00:44:03] that is, we did before yesterday.
Dr. Bennett: This is going to pass. This is going to pass.
Dr. Weitz: I know. I know.
Dr. Bennett: I know there’s a lot of hysteria about millions of people, but if everyone, everyone globally, everyone in America will stay home for the next two to four weeks, then we’re going to contain this virus. There’s no other way and we’re going to contain it for sure. We really need to buckle down and don’t go out. I’m telling all my patients to only go shopping once a week and having everyone wear their garb. There is what’s a seriousness about fomites. Do you know what fomites are.
Dr. Weitz: It is part of how the virus spreads, right?
Dr. Bennett: Well, you’re absolutely right. It does spread that way. But fomites are anything inanimate, inanimate objects, not a human person, but objects that can actually keep the virus alive or any infectious agent. It can help spread it, a purse, a phone, your sunglasses, clothes, things like that. Those are called fomites and fomites, depending on what it is, it can keep the virus alive a specific amount of time. And like cardboard is a certain amount of hours, stainless steel clothes. So I recommend person who goes out once a week for the food, you get your mask as much as you can or whatever to … you can use a Gator. Let’s say a Gator is like when you go skiing, you put it on your face. Get goggles because you don’t want any type of virus going in. Remember, in your eyes there’s a tube that that goes in the tunnel that goes in from your eye, the duct that goes into your nose. So it’s all connected, all connected.
So goggles, mouth, and wear your gloves, and clothes. And I would say that I would layer it and I’m going to tell you why. Because when you walk back in, before you do that, you take off all your top layer, take it all off. All right? Because those are fomites. Fomites again, carry the infectious agent, anything that’s inanimate. So it’s important that you do that. And if you do that, then the likelihood of you contaminating indoors will be much, much less. So social distancing is important and the recommendation that I make for all my patients to what kind of supplements to take to keep their immunity strong so that they start to create T-cells and immunoglobulins to be able to fight off this virus. And of course, this is a new virus and a lot of people have not been exposed yet, but some of them actually have and they don’t even know it.
Some of them have been exposed and, like I said, 50%. We just don’t even know it. And if you take the following supplements, it’ll make a huge difference. For instance, vitamin D. We don’t get enough vitamin D and I like high levels. Right now you can do about 10,000 IUs a day. That you could take daily so that you can build your immune system. A vitamin A, I love vitamin A. And vitamin A, you could go up to 5,000, even 10,000 per day. Not longterm, because it can be toxic. Both vitamin D and A can be toxic, but at 5,000, 10,000, that’s not going to happen. And then I love zinc. I like zinc lozenges. Vitamin C, of course. Vitamin C IV drips are great, but you can use vitamin C liposomal which delivers much easier.
But I love Ultra Potent-C from Metagenics. That’s my number one go-to because it’s been tested by Dr. Vojdani many, many years ago. This must have been 20 years, 25 years ago, Vojdani did with Immunosciences a test on the natural killer cells, increasing natural killer cells, increasing by taking Ultra Potent-C. Yeah, he and I talked about this I don’t know, three, four years ago we were chatting about it, how long I’ve been taking it. And I knew about it because I read a very old study that he did. Anyway, let’s go into selenium. Many years ago I’ve been using selenium because it works like a … how do I say? It’s like a viral control, birth control for viruses. Yeah, that’s what I called it for a long time, birth control for viruses. But apparently it also reduces the spread of the virus, mitigates the spread.
So anyway, I think selenium is a really great product, maybe a hundred micrograms twice a day, which is what I tell my patients. And then I’m a big believer in immuno acid therapy, mine is called Super 8 Aminos. And amino acids, why is it important? Because all of your immune factors are built through protein synthesis, every one of them. And if you don’t have amino acids, then your ability to build your immunity is altered. So I highly recommend that. I love Isotonic by Kington and that really helps with your gut, microbiome, and the flora, the terrain, and support of micro nutrients, minerals. I’m also a big fan of the ion, which the old name is RESTORE liquid. This is Zach Bush’s work. And I love that because it does help again with the leaky gut and the tight junctions as kimchi does as well.
Kimchi’s known to tighten up those junctions. So use that because remember the mucosal, the gut, you can eat it and it can still get into your body. All right? Because the ACE receptors are also in the gut. It’s in our respiratory mainly. It’s also even in the kidneys, small intestine in our gut. So it’s important that you’ve got to protect your gut. And then let’s dig into … I like herbal remedies for boosting your immunity. Of course, Elderberry, Echinacea, things like that. But antivirals, I love olive leaf. If you don’t have the virus, if you don’t think you have it, and you don’t have any symptoms, you can do a very mild maintenance dose of olive leaf and Andrographis. Andrographis is also really good for viral infections. I love Viragraphis by Xymogen, but I’m all out. I’m getting some more, which is great.
But what’s great about of Viragraphis is it has licorice root in it. And I’m going to tell you why licorice root is so important. One of the problems about this SARS-CoV-2 is that it accelerates very quickly in an autoimmune type of condition where your own immunity fights for the virus and it tags it, but it also attacks your own tissues. And that’s the reason why all the lungs end up being loaded with your own dead tissue. And that’s how white people need to be on ventilators and possibly die. You literally die in your own juices. So the thing that mitigates that is anti-inflammatory agents, but not NSAIDs. And Ben, you know this too, you told me a part of this as well, not NSAIDs. NSAIDs are ibuprofen, Motrin, Aleve, things like that, that reduce inflammation because apparently that actually effects and could spread the virus more.
But I’m talking more about corticosteroids. Natural cortisone is what you need and we all have it, and it’s called cortisol in our own body. And what licorice root does is that it stops the breakdown of cortisol and it keeps the cortisol around longer. And Viragraphis has both the Andrographis and the licorice root. Now, I never give this to anyone who’s got high blood pressure. If you have high blood pressure, licorice root is contra-indicated. So please do not take it if you’ve got high blood pressure. But you can get Andrographis. It’s a natural herbal formula. You can get Andrographis.
And before I finish, black currant, black currant seed oil and black currant seed extract. I use GMO base stem cells. I like plants’ stem cells because it’s super powerful. You got the stem cells of the bud of the plant and that’s like major power. We all know what now stem cells are. And so I use plant stems a lot. And black currant will do the exact same thing similarly to the licorice root. But before I’m done, we have got to talk about antioxidants such as glutathione and a precursor NAC. I highly, highly recommend glutathione. I like the watermelon flavor because it tastes the best. And that’s by Research nutritionals. It comes in a yellow tube and I use a teaspoon twice a day right now. That’s the dose I use and that’s about 450 milligrams twice a day. And so it’s a high dose. But if you’ve got genetic issues where you can’t make glutathione, for instance, as of myself, then you are going to have more viral infections, so I use that powerfully.
Dr. Weitz: And by the way if you’re taking Tylenol because you have a fever or you’re using it for pain because maybe you’re avoiding your ibuprofen because ibuprofen makes it easier for the Coronavirus to attach and you may get a worse response. So you avoid your ibuprofen, you take your Tylenol, Tylenol actually lowers your body’s production of glutathione. So beefing up your glutathione production through glycosomal glutathione or you’re just about to talk about NAC is even more important for that reason.
Dr. Bennett: Oh, absolutely, because NAC is the precursor, right? It makes glutathione, so you want optimal levels of N-Acetyl Cysteine. There’s so much more I can go over, but these are the basics that I tell people to get. And then you just got to avoid it, and wear your protection, and eat real food. Make your own kimchi. Kimchi makes glutathione. The studies show that the glutathione levels just spike up when you eat kimchi and they’re finding that in Korea. They’re using it for Alzheimer’s cases because glutathione levels are super low in people who’ve got dementia and Alzheimer’s. But you know what? We need glutathione altogether all around, all around.
Dr. Weitz: Absolutely. One more hand for everybody out there. As much as we need to be informed, don’t watch the news all day and especially don’t watch it at night because you’re going to have trouble sleeping.
Dr. Bennett: That’s correct. There’s one other thing that I don’t like using hand sanitizers, Ben, because of the chemicals and toxicity in the hand sanitizers, Triclosan is one of them. But anyway, what I use is I use a gel. I like the Silver Silent Gel or Silver Sol Gel. It’s called Silver Sol Technology. There’s a lot of different types of labels that use this. The gel works just as good. It’s more of an expensive product than regular hand sanitizers. But Silver Sol Technology, it kills off all the bad bugs, including viruses within 60 seconds, but it doesn’t get rid of the lactobacillus bacteria. And Dr. [Pedersen 00:55:50] mentioned that in one of his old videos and that was brilliant because we all have lactobacillus bacterias and good probiotic lactic acid bacterias on our skin. So we want to protect that. And Silver Sol Technology products will prevent that from … you won’t kill it as the hand sanitizers do.
Dr. Weitz: Awesome. Awesome. Great information. Rapid Fire, great clinical pearls. Thank you so much Dr. Bennett.
Dr. Bennett: You bet. You bet Dr. Weitz. I love you guys. i love everyone. You take care.
Dr. Weitz: Tell us about your contacts real quick.
Dr. Bennett: Everyone can go on my website, drsusanne.com, is at D-R-S-U S-A-N-N-E.com. And I think right now you can get information about the kimchi. There’s a pop up. Please sign up because I’ll send you more information about what to do and how you can get into The Kimchi Diet Program, et cetera. But also my recommendation is get the book, everyone make your own kimchi. You will be able to find my email and my phone number to the office. I take care of people. I take care of people. I have consultation all around the world. I’ve been doing that for the last two years, three years now. So most of my patients, in fact, I don’t go to the office much, majority of the time it’s on the phone. So I consult with everything on the phone and I’ll be able to help you boost your immunity, get your energy back, get rid of all of your problems that we’re all suffering from throughout the world. But most importantly right now, let’s get you and your family safe and healthy. Okay?
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. Thank you so much, Susanne.
Dr. Bennett: Thank you, Ben.
Dr. Weitz: Be safe. Talk to you soon.
