Video

Transcript

let’s talk about the best food or foods

for your eyes now one of the most

important structures in your eye is

called the retina okay now the retina is

Optical tissue it’s in the back part of

the eyeball it’s not just a small part

it makes up the good portion of the back

part of your eye

then we have a smaller section of that

that’s called the macula now maybe

you’ve heard of the macula as in macular

degeneration as you get older but the

macula is a small section of retinal

tissue and macula comes from the Latin

word which means spot and Lucia means

yellow so it’s like a yellow spot

because you have carotenoids in that

area which are it’s kind of like a

pigment that is photosensitive so it it

responds to light now the retina is like

um film in your camera there’s a lot of

different receptors it picks up

information and it sends it into the

brain via the optic nerve which by the

way has like 1.7 million nerves that are

traveling through that optic nerve which

carries a crazy amount of information

into your brain and so the retina has

different

um cells they’re called rods cones and

then you have other cells too which I’m

not going to get into that relate a

information to the internal clock which

is called that Supra chiasmatic nucleus

that is your internal clock and that

clock is regulated by light and darkness

via your eyeball and so you have rods

and cones the rods help you see in kind

of dim light and also they’re

responsible for the peripheral vision

versus the cones are more central vision

and they respond in light and allow you

to see finer details and the retina has

like 10 different layers of things going

on so it’s it’s it’s a super highly

complex tissue so the most important

nutrient or the retina

is something called DHA Okay that’s an

omega-3 fatty acid now there’s also EPA

as a part of that but I’m going to focus

more on the DHA so DHA is in a fat it’s

an omega-3 fat that is in pretty much

all your cells it’s in the membranes it

helps make the membranes fluid and it

has many different functions it’s an

anti-inflammatory but it only makes up

between one and five percent of your

cell membranes

whereas the retina it makes up between

50 and 60 percent it also allows you to

regenerate uh certain pigments in your

eye to allow you to convert information

into your brain its main job is to help

the retina respond to light it’s also

very protective against macular

degeneration it’s anti-inflammatory and

it inhibits um a negative or pathogenic

form of angiogenesis which is the

formation of new blood vessels because

you don’t want to overgrowth of extra

blood vessels that are gonna affect your

vision but DHA is also destroyed by Blue

Light okay and UV light and also omega-6

fatty acids like all those seed oils and

the majority of our Foods also compete

for omega-3 DHA so that can also inhibit

this so DHA is very very important for

the eye right it’s probably the most

important nutrient but there’s a couple

other things in the retina especially

the macula part of the retina that also

protect the eye against UV radiation as

well as blue light and these are called

carotenoids and there’s three very

specific ones lutein zeaxanthin and

another thing called mesozo zeaxanthin

and so the two most important nutrients

in the eye

our DHA and these carotenoids now the

question is what kind of foods make up

these important nutrients you’re going

to find the best source in oily

cold water fish as in tuna like

especially Bluefin Bluefin has like five

times the amount of DHA than other types

of tuna but you also have salmon Herring

Cod Liver cod liver oil oysters sardines

and grass-fed beef now of course there’s

also DHA in egg yolks and a lot more in

the pasture-raised organic eggs now

there’s also precursors to this DHA that

turn into DHA a very small amount but

they still are precursors it’s called

ala

and you would find these in walnuts chia

seed and flaxseed so those are the foods

primarily for DHA now what about these

carotenoids you can get them in dark

leafy green vegetable like kale and

salads Etc but they’re also present in

egg yolks just as DHA is present in egg

yolks and you can find these carotenoids

in grass-fed beef I participated in a

study that evaluated grass-fed beef

versus grain-fed beef and apparently my

cows had three times the amount of

phytonutrients then other farms in the

United States probably because of the

mixture of plants that my cows can eat

they don’t just eat a specific type of

grass there’s all sorts of weeds that

they eat so I’ve talked about that in a

different video which I’ll list down

below but a certain zeaxanthin is called

mesozo zeaxanthin is also found in

shrimp fish and of course those egg

yolks so out of all the foods that you

can eat those foods that I just

mentioned they’re going to be the best

for protecting the eyes and of course

it’s also important to mention the

opposing part of this which is avoiding

omega-6 fatty acids which is really

difficult because it’s in all of our

Foods as well as high levels of sugar

which destroy the eyes and create all

the oxidation and the free radical

damage that increases the need for the

carotenoids and DHA and for more

information on that topic you should

probably watch this video right here