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Scot: I've been reevaluating my eating habits. Not necessarily thinking about a diet, but more kind of making a shift. I don't want to cut things out, but I'm thinking about putting better stuff in. And in particular, I'm thinking about nuts, seeds, pulses, and whole grains. These are things that I tend to overlook. I'm not really thinking of giving up meat or tracking every bite, but I started wondering, "What if I just started adding in some of these missing elements?"

So here's my question for you guys, and I'm going to start with Mitch, because I think Thunder has a little bit more of a dynamic eating routine. When's the last time you ate a lentil on purpose, Mitch?

Mitch: Oh, man.

Scot: When you conscientiously went, "I'm going to have lentils."

Mitch: Well, consciously, never. But when did I last eat a lentil? I'm married now. I have a lovely partner who made a lentil salad last week that I ate. I didn't think about it at all, but yeah, there are lentils around.

Thunder: So it was kind of an accident.

Mitch: It was an accident. I accidentally ate a bunch of lentils.

Scot: How about you, Thunder? I'd imagine that in your life, you're like, "I'm going to incorporate lentils in this dish today." I bet you that's a thought that's crossed Thunder's mind.

Thunder: Yes, it has crossed my mind before, not just with lentils, but with other types of beans. So the last time I ate a pulse was about five minutes ago when I finished up my lunch, which consisted of this black bean salad that I made.

Scot: All right. Well, this is "Who Cares About Men's Health," with information, inspiration, and a different interpretation of men's health.

We've talked about foods that men aren't getting enough of. And we all know we need to eat more fruits and vegetables. That gets pretty good PR. But on previous episodes, we've talked about other foods that we should get more of, and I've been thinking, "How could I actively incorporate these into my diet?" Those foods are nuts and seeds, whole grains, and pulses.

So I started kind of thinking, "What would it look like to build more of this into what I eat?" I don't want to go completely extreme. I don't want this big overhaul, but just add a few of these things in that we know are good for us that we've talked about on the show previously into my diet, because I've yet to do that.

So today, Mitch and Thunder are here with me to break that down. What does that look like to make that shift? We're going to maybe even delve into why don't more guys eat that way? And Thunder, our resident nutritionist, is going to let us know if this plan makes sense or if I'm just eating a lot of lentils for nothing, because I don't want to eat a lot of lentils for nothing.

So let's start out with, first of all, why don't we think more guys eat this way? I mean, I don't think Mitch tends to eat like this. I don't think I tend to eat like this. Well, Mitch might eat pulses and beans if he gets them in a convenience store burrito.

Mitch: Yes, 100%. That's where I get most of my beans, in burritos.

Scot: Right. But it's not going to be incorporated elsewhere. Thunder, do you have any thoughts? Do you think guys eat like this, or they don't, and if not, why?

Thunder: I have a couple of completely unscientific theories. In other words, I have no proof whatsoever, but just kind of observing friends and family and so forth. I think one is it's kind of not in the man's food culture in a way. Guys are like, "Hey, let's go out and get a burger or a steak," or something. No one says, "Let's go out and get some lentils."

Scot: And how do you even grill a lentil? I mean . . .

Thunder: Yeah, they're really small. They fall through the slats.

And the other reason is I think if guys do think of it, they kind of don't even know where to start of preparing it, because these things, they're like gravel. They're really hard. How do I even get this to an edible form?

Scot: Right. And I will admit my wife does . . . she's a vegetarian, so she has made lentil stuff, and I'm not a big, huge fan.

But I did remember . . . I forgot about this. We had Easy-to-Make Man Meals. Remember that series we had . . .

Mitch: Oh, yeah.

Scot: . . . a few years ago? There was that lentil salad, Zesty Lentil Salad. And that changed my whole opinion of lentils. I mean, that's why I could even consider maybe putting lentils and other stuff.

So yeah, I think you hit it on the head why guys don't do that. And I guess what we'd like to do today is maybe expand guys' minds, figure out ways we can incorporate a few of these things in there, why we should incorporate those things into our diet.

Let's start with pulses. So let's test this. Mitch, we did the episode on pulses. Do you remember how many fall into the pulse category, specifically what those things are? And I'll start. Black beans. I know black beans are a pulse.

Mitch: Black beans are in there. Garbanzo beans. I'm trying to remember the bean episode, because we did have a bean . . .

Scot: Are garbanzo beans in there, Thunder?

Thunder: Yeah. Exactly right. Because they're chickpeas, garbanzo beans.

Scot: Oh, okay. What else?

Mitch: Peas?

Scot: What's that?

Mitch: Peas.

Scot: Peas are not, I don't think. Are they?

Thunder: No, not peas. That would be a vegetable.

Scot: Yeah. So I think most beans, right, Thunder? Your black beans, your pinto, your navy, your kidney, Great Northern.

Thunder: Yeah, any bean is basically a pulse.

Scot: Right. And we talked about this, that technically the seed is the bean, and the pulse is the plant, or something like that. I can't remember. Anyway, beans, pulses, same thing.

What's the benefit of incorporating this into your diet? And we did have an episode where we did talk about this, but let's just kind of recap.

Thunder: The really quick recap is they're a source of fiber, they're a source of carbohydrates, and they have oligosaccharides. Obviously, they have protein, and they have all the essential amino acids, and they have antioxidants in the form of phytochemicals. And then probably the practical benefit that maybe we don't think about is that they're also filling. They're dense.

Scot: Yeah, I think the big thing for me is the fiber because when I've tracked my food before, getting enough fiber can be really, really hard. So looking for those sources of carbohydrates that not only have those good phytochemicals, the antioxidants to help with the inflammation after your exercises and just day-to-day life, and have some fiber and protein in there as well, that sounds kind of like a grand slam.

Thunder: Yeah. And these really do have a lot of fiber. The benefit of that is it can also slow the digestive process a little bit, kind of slow the glycemic index, if that's what you're into, with the carbohydrate content in there.

Scot: It controls your blood sugar a little bit better.

Thunder: Yeah.

Scot: And we also know there are numerous health benefits, like heart health, cancer prevention, for high-fiber foods.

Thunder: Yeah. Absolutely.

Scot: They're really, really good for you, yeah. And they're also fairly inexpensive most of the time.

Thunder: Right, they are. You can go to the store and get a pound of lentils for $1.50 or something. I mean, it's pretty cheap. And beans, any kind of canned bean, they're usually less than $2.50. Even the nice organic ones are still not more than $2 or $2.50 or something like that.

Scot: Yeah. When we think about building a healthy plate, why don't we hear more about beans, then, or pulses, do you think? Other than in Mitch's burrito.

Mitch: They're not sexy, right? When I hear about the acai berry, it's like, "That's a superfood that must be from some foreign land," or something like that. That's going to be the answer to all my questions. Beans doesn't invoke that at all. That's my response.

Thunder: Yeah, beans are very pedestrian.

Scot: There was the episode we talked about the article that was hailing the benefits of the pulse. It said if anything is labeled a superfood, it should be pulses. It should be beans just from all the data that's out there on them.

All right, Thunder. How do we incorporate those into my diet? Where do we even start?

Thunder: There are actually more ways than you think. Let me start with something everybody has heard of and probably had at some point, and that's hummus. Hummus is made of garbanzo beans, chickpeas. Super easy. It's easy to make hummus. I mean, it's basically tahini, the garbanzo beans, some olive oil, some cumin, bit of salt, bit of lemon, and you're pretty much there. And then mix it all up.

Scot: Yeah, mash it up.

Thunder: Yeah, put it in a food processor. It's actually really easy, and it's a good snack. You can make a hummus sandwich. Throw in some greens and tomatoes and things like that, and put it in a wrap. There are lots of things you can do with hummus. So that's one.

Another, we mentioned lentils so much already, and I'll go ahead and say something about that. You can cook lentils in a rice cooker. Put them in there and cook them with a little bit of curry to give them some flavor. And then once they're cooked, you simmer them with some tomatoes and carrots and some onion for 15, 20 minutes, and you have a lot of lentils.

You can eat them with rice, and they last a long time. They freeze well. They take seasoning and spice well. And any time you can use a rice cooker or a food processor or something, it's really not that hard.

So I'll give you a couple other quick ideas. Bean salad. I have a man's recipe for bean salad, right? It's a man's recipe, because it's easy. You have a can of black beans, a can of plain corn, a diced-up red pepper. We can all use a knife. Maybe put some diced-up celery in there, and then season it with what you like. I like lime and olive oil. Some people like to put hot sauce in there, whatever. And you have this big pile that you've just made, and it's usually enough for at least two, three, four meals.

You want more ideas? I got more.

Scot: Man, I'm digging this.

Thunder: I got black bean burgers.

Scot: Oh, bean burgers?

Thunder: Yeah. Those are easy to make.

Mitch: What about refried beans?

Thunder: Yeah, absolutely. You can buy refried beans already prepped, and you can have burritos. That's about as simple as it gets.

So there are lots of ways. And the important thing is they don't really take a lot of time. Typically, when you make it, you don't have just one meal. You end up having four meals' worth. So if you're cooking for someone else or you want to have leftovers, no problem. You're going to end up making a lot.

Scot: My wife made a really good chickpea cherry tomato dish. I mean, that's essentially all it is. Olive oil, chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, and maybe a little drizzle of honey. I can't remember. Oh, no, and some feta cheese. Then you throw that in the oven. And it's super simple. It's four ingredients, and it's so good. And then you've got a little side that you can use for a lot of meals.

And one other thing that I'm going to do is for lentils . . . So I like to have tuna sandwiches, and I've been eating them on bread. We're going to talk about grains in the next segment. But I thought, "Huh, if I didn't want to do bread, if I wanted to do something else, could I do lentils?" We're going to talk about grains, which I said. Or could I use quinoa?

There are recipes online for a lentil tuna salad that you put some vegetables in, and it actually looked kind of good. All it took was just getting my mindset out of, "The only way to eat tuna is a tuna sandwich," because that's the way my mom made them. There are other ways you can incorporate that into other foods for a little bit of a bump and incorporate some of these superfoods as well.

Thunder: Yeah, exactly. And you can even take that lentil salad that Mitch was talking about and put tuna on top.

Scot: All right. Next, whole grains. Now this one is tricky. You hear it all the time: Eat more whole grains. But when I look at my plate, the only thing that I can really point to is the whole wheat bread that I'm using on my tuna sandwich. And it claims that it's whole grain, but I'm a little sus because I've heard that our breads aren't that great.

Plus, also, you guys ever notice this? You buy a loaf of bread, and it could last for four weeks. That doesn't seem right. I'm thinking there's stuff in there that I don't want to be putting in my body.

Thunder, thoughts on that before we get into grains?

Thunder: Bread you make at home will mold in two days. Bread you buy from the store, it's good three years later.

Mitch: That's weird.

Scot: Right. So whole grains, to be considered a true whole grain, what does the food need to have in it?

Thunder: Is this a test question?

Mitch: I don't know. Is this a test?

Scot: I probably didn't ask it well, but I understand it has to include all three parts of the grain kernel: the bran, the germ, and the endosperm.

Thunder: Yeah. So basically, the entire grain kernel needs to be in that food for it to be a whole grain. And sometimes we're buying foods that don't have all three parts of the kernel.

Scot: Right. For bread, how do I know if I'm getting good bread, or is there really no good store-bought bread?

Thunder: I mean, I think there can be. You just have to start looking at some ingredient listings. If it's a processed bread you buy in a bag in the store, look at the ingredients and see if it says "whole grain flour" or something. And if it's a bread you buy from a bakery or whatever, just talk to them. Ask them how they make it. So you have to do a little bit of investigation.

Scot: All right. What are some other legitimate whole grains? Mitch, can you name other grains? I could only come up with one other one.

Mitch: So I actually found a recent one that I've been way into, and it's called Forbidden Rice. There's something about the name that made me first jump up at it. And then number two, it's the most goth-looking bowl of rice you've ever seen. It's my understanding that Forbidden Rice is actually really good for you.

Scot: So oats, steel cut oats. That's a whole grain, right, Thunder?

Thunder: Yeah, that's my go-to whole grain. So I'm a big oatmeal guy and I like steel-cut oats. I make a big batch because it refrigerates really well. So I'll make the steel cut oats enough for, say, five or six breakfasts. I put it into a Tupperware and h have it in a refrigerator. And every morning, anyone in the house who wants can take out a couple of spoonfuls or however much they want, and they have whole grain oats. It's a great whole grain.

Scot: I'm going to back up a little bit here. We talked about the pulses. Let's talk about whole grains and their benefits, because I think whole grains can get a little bit of a bad rap, right? There might be somebody listening going, "Well, it has all those carbohydrates, and that's not great for me."

So are the carbohydrates enough reason that you should just try to avoid whole grains altogether, or do you really want to try to incorporate them into your diet because there's legitimate reasons to do so?

Thunder: I definitely would not avoid whole grains that we're talking about because of the carb content. So in other words, things like all the wild rices we're talking about, bulgur, oats, etc.

You've got to remember there's a lot of fiber in there, and fibers will slow digestion and slow absorption. So the speed at which a carb hits your bloodstream and elicits an insulin response is going to be reduced. And a lot of times, what makes carbs "bad" is how fast it gets into your system and an insulin rush it produces and so forth.

So don't worry about it. Have your whole grains, have a little protein with it, and it's all good. Just don't wash it down with a Coke.

Scot: Are there health benefits of whole grains? So we got the fiber, and we talked about the benefits of fiber briefly. Are there other benefits? Are there the phytochemicals in there? Are there other good things in there that our body needs?

Thunder: Yeah. Depending on the whole grain, obviously the phytochemical content is going to vary. But in general terms, the soluble fiber in whole grains is super beneficial.

So we've talked about this on previous programs where soluble fiber reduces LDL cholesterol, and that reduces the chance that that LDL can build up in someone's bloodstream and collect in the walls of the blood vessels and lead to atherosclerosis and a heart attack. So it's been documented pretty well that whole grains, like oats, reduce your LDL levels.

And then the other general benefit and, again, something we've talked about is the whole phytochemical aspect of the whole grains, and those are anti-inflammatory. Most of our chronic diseases have an inflammatory component. Atherosclerosis that we just talked about has an inflammatory component. And if you can reduce that, you can also reduce the progression of atherosclerosis doses. Same goes for cancer that has an inflammatory component as well.

Scot: Cool. So how can I start incorporating some of this? You already gave us an idea at breakfast of how we can get some steel cut oats in there. And that's really the oat you want, right? That's better than the rolled or the ground?

Thunder: Yeah, it has the most benefit, the steel cut oats, for everything we talked about.

Scot: Yeah. What else do you do to get some of these grains in your diet?

Thunder: So quinoa is something that I personally use. We have that in our house, and sometimes we make dishes with quinoa kind of as the "carb" with vegetables or things diced up in there, a little bit of some kind of protein on the side, chicken or whatever. So quinoa is one. Quinoa takes a lot of flavoring and spices, so you can get kind of creative with it.

The wild rices, the brown rices, and the rice that Mitch was talking about that sounds really exotic, those are also good ways to get in there.

The one thing I will say about brown rice is you probably . . . Whenever you cook rice, it's really best to rinse it pretty thoroughly before you cook it, because sometimes rice can accumulate a little bit too much arsenic. And if you rinse it, whether it's white rice or brown rice, you can rinse off some of that arsenic.

Scot: Oh, that sounds good.

Mitch: Sounds important.

Scot: It sounds like something I'd like to do.

Thunder: It's not a spice, so you don't have to have it.

Scot: All right. So rinse your rice really, really well.

I will say that I made a bulgur chili one time. And the bulgur was great because it was kind of the texture of ground beef in there a little bit. So it kind of gave it that heartiness. I think that might have been another man recipe, wasn't it? Didn't we have . . .

Thunder: We did an episode where we talked about easy recipes. I remember there was a bulgur one.

And the cool thing about bulgur too . . . I mean, it's kind of similar to the quinoa story and lentils and so forth. You can put a lot of flavor in there. It's fairly bland, so you can get creative with what kind of flavorings or spices you want to put in there?

Scot: Do different grains have different strengths, or is variety more important than kind of picking the best one?

Thunder: I would first go with the ones you like. I mean, there may be some, obviously, that people don't like, and it's better at least to eat the ones you like, even if it's a limited selection. But if you like all of them, then definitely a variety is the way to go, because it probably will ensure you won't get tired of them.

Scot: Oh, so you can sustain it.

Thunder: Yeah. Because it's not always about the specific health benefits. It's also about just "How can I be regular with this?"

Scot: Yeah, because rainbow chard might be the best thing for your body on the face of the earth, but . . .

Thunder: Yeah, it tastes like tree bark.

Mitch: I hate chard.

Scot: Gosh, I want to go off on a side tangent because I just had chard, and I learned how to wilt it in the pan and throw a little garlic in there and a little lemon juice, and it's not bad. It's not bad if you kind of spice it up right.

Thunder: Do you know what the best seasoning is for rainbow chard to be able to eat a lot of rainbow chard?

Scot: Chocolate.

Thunder: Well, not bad. I would say drink a lot of whiskey first, and then you won't even notice the taste.

Mitch: Yeah, just a little in the pan, a little in your mouth.

Scot: That was a joke, by the way. That is not health advice from Thunder.

Thunder: This is not health advice. Don't need to get hammered before we prepare our chard.

Scot: Yeah, that does not fall into the healthy grain category.

All right. Number three, nuts and seeds. So this probably is the easiest category to name, but it doesn't mean we're actually eating them in any meaningful way.

What nuts and seeds are in your pantry right now, Mitch? And no, peanut butter cups don't count.

Mitch: There are some peanut butter cups, but also, I got kind of a big container of low-salt mixed nuts with cashews and pistachios and things in that. And I'll put a little scoop in with the yogurt I have in the morning. I don't eat a ton of them because of too much calories or whatever, but yeah.

Scot: What about seeds? You got any seeds in that house?

Mitch: Maybe.

Scot: No?

Mitch: Maybe. I mean, I don't buy everything in this house, but maybe.

Scot: I think my go-to is I've got almonds. I usually have a handful of almonds every day. Like, I don't know, 8 or 12 of them. I love pumpkin seeds. So I have those. And I have some walnuts, and that's usually kind of what I throw in my yogurt or my steel cut oats with a little bit of fruit.

How about you, Thunder? What are your nuts and seeds of choice?

Thunder: I'm kind of like Mitch. So we have the mixed nuts that contains all those ones we were talking about. And I get the mixed nuts with salt, or if my wife buys them unsalted, then I salt them myself because they're much better with salt.

And it's easy to salt nuts. If you have plain nuts, put them in a jar, put in a little bit of olive oil, and then sprinkle in some salt and shake it up. Then it's all mixed up and the oil makes it stick to the nut.

Scot: Wow.

Thunder: Oh, by the way, that's one of my snacks, the nuts. I'll grab a handful, and I'll put walnuts in my oatmeal like you do.

Seeds? Seeds are easy because you just throw some in your salad. That's one way of doing it. Or you guys throw them in your yogurt. It's a way to do it, too.

Scot: All right. So let's talk about the benefits of nuts and seeds. Mitch said he kind of limits his because of the calories, so they can be calorically dense. Why don't you go over nuts and seeds? What makes them good for us?

Thunder: Yeah, a lot of the same concepts we've been talking about. Fiber and protein, those are present in nuts and seeds. The phytochemicals, those are actually in the skin.

So let's take an almond or walnut, because everybody knows what those look like. The skin of the walnut is where phytochemicals are. Same with the almond.

So all this stuff we've discussed before, those are all health benefits.

There are a couple specific shout-outs that we can highlight with nuts, and one is the magnesium content. So some nuts have a lot of magnesium, and magnesium is one of the minerals that the average American has difficulty consuming enough of. Something like half of Americans are getting barely half of their magnesium recommendation. Something like a Brazil nut has a lot of selenium and magnesium, for example.

The other is vitamin E. That is present in nuts. So almonds are a great source of vitamin E.

And then the last thing I'll say about nuts, kind of a special shout-out specifically for them, is they have arginine in them. Arginine is an amino acid, and it can actually be converted into something called nitric oxide in your blood vessels, which enhances arterial relaxation and lowers blood pressure. So that's a particular benefit of nuts.

Scot: Very cool. What about peanut butter? Is that okay?

Thunder: Only if it's in the form of a Reese's peanut butter cup.

Mitch: What about just a spoonful of Jif?

Thunder: A spoonful of Jif?

Scot: I called it my peanut butter spoon. I used to do that.

Thunder: Yeah, peanut butter is fine. I mean, peanut butter gets kind of a weird bad rap. I'm not sure why. People say, "Oh, it has salt." It doesn't really have that much salt if you look. And some people say, "Oh, it has a lot of sugar." Not really. I mean, I think it's less than a gram of sugar in two tablespoons or something like that. That's not a lot.

Scot: So even the Jif that has added sugar is okay because it doesn't have that much?

Thunder: Yeah, it doesn't really have that much added sugar.

Scot: Oh, that's great.

Thunder: So, yeah, I think it just gets a bit of a bad rap.

Now, having said all that, I don't think your nut intake should be exclusively from peanut butter. The nuts we talked about, first of all, they're tree nuts. Second of all, they have a few extras that peanuts don't necessarily have, right? There's more vitamin E in certain nuts, like almonds. There's more arginine in other types of nuts than in peanuts. So a few differences, but there's nothing wrong with adding peanut butter to the general mix of nuts that you're eating.

Scot: All right. So I think you covered a few ways to work this into our diet. You just throw some in something you're already eating, whether it's a salad or your steel cut oats or your yogurt, or just grab a few. I mean, don't get crazy because of the calorie count. It's pretty easy to down 500, 600 calories from nuts.

Thunder: I wouldn't be super concerned about the calories.

Scot: Really?

Thunder: Yeah, because the thing with nuts is . . . Almonds are a great example. It kind of costs a lot in your body to process the nuts, and we end up not really getting as many calories as we think out of an almond.

For example, the bacteria in your colon, they eat some of that nutrition from the nuts. So you're not really getting quite as much as you think. And you're getting it in a low-glycemic, kind of low-carbohydrate source. So yeah, I wouldn't be too concerned about that.

Likewise, I wouldn't be too concerned about the salt. Lightly-salted nuts, there's nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't be concerned about whether they're roasted or raw. Both have been studied in terms of health outcomes, like reducing risk of heart disease and things like that, and the data is pretty similar between both.

So the important thing is just to incorporate them and not get too stressed out about, "Is it roasted or not, or salted or not?" or things like that.

Scot: This was an episode we did long, long ago, and it was only a little bit . . . This was back when we had a different format where we'd have an interview, and then we'd talk about an article or something.

This was in, like, the first 10 episodes we talked about nuts and seeds, so my memory on this is a little stretched. But I think it said something like only 12% of the world's population gets all the nuts and seeds that they should have. And again, they're pretty important to our health, so need to incorporate more of those. And I like your hot take, to not get too concerned about your portion size.

Thunder: You don't want to say, "Well, I can only have six almonds because I'm concerned about the calories." Yeah, don't worry about it. I'm pretty sure by the time you get to the 40th almond, you're going to be kind of tired of almonds anyway, and you'll move on.

Scot: If you eat that, because of the fat, if you put that in your food, that also slows down the absorption of the other . . . and your insulin responses, right?

Thunder: Yeah, because you have fiber, and the fat delays gastric emptying and slows digestion and all that stuff.

Scot: All right. Any other ways to incorporate them into our diet other than just what we talked about, throwing them in something, grabbing a handful of something.? I mean, that's kind of it, right? That's probably the beauty of them, is they're just kind of handy. You can just grab them and eat them, or grab them and throw them in some. You don't really have to prepare them.

Thunder: They're great snacks. Put them in a little Tupperware or a little bag, stick them in your pocket, and when you're out hiking or whatever, you've got some snacks. They travel well. They don't leak. They're not messy. You know what I mean?

Scot: Right. Sometimes they have a little bit of protein in them and . . .

Thunder: Yeah, absolutely. You get some protein as well.

Scot: All right. Well, I'm excited to start incorporating some of this stuff, whether it's nuts and seeds, pulses, or whole grains into my diet a little bit more regularly.

Mitch, what do you think?

Mitch: I'm excited to hear . . . Because every time we've talked about these particular things, my brain just goes, "Am I going to eat like a bird? Do I look like a bird to you?"

Scot: Nuts and seeds and grains.

Mitch: Yep. But it's now dawning on me that a big part of the reason I don't eat them is because I don't know how to cook them. Man, I've looked up so many different pasta dish recipes. I've looked up so many different types of steak recipes, etc. Why on earth am I not looking up bulgur recipes or whatever?

So I think I'm going to try to start there, just kind of a little bit of education for myself. So it's not me just being like, "Well, I don't know what to do with these." Finding out that I can cook them in the rice cooker? Big change for me today.

Scot: I think I'm going to just start to try to make some of these things, even if it's just some plain beans. Make them in the rice cooker, and just have them on hand, and maybe incorporate a little into a breakfast or something like that.

Thunder: And don't be afraid of the canned beans. That's okay. It's convenient and maybe it'll make it easier to consume on a more regular basis.

Scot: Generally using these types of things, is it pretty easy to make some pretty quick dishes with any of these things, your grains, your nuts, your pulses?

Thunder: I think so. Unless you're using the dried bean, then there's obviously a preparation period of soaking. But that aside, it's not that hard. The man's bean salad I talked about or . . . Making hummus actually incorporates sesame seeds, because tahini is ground-up sesame seeds. So there's one of the seeds we just talked about a minute ago. Then you get the garbanzo beans in the hummus. So that's a twofer.

Scot: Thunder, I know you kind of drove this episode with your knowledge and wisdom, and this is a diet that you already kind of . . . or these are foods, I should say, not a diet. These are foods you incorporate into your life already. Do you have any final thoughts? Did this conversation change anything for you or give you any additional insights?

Thunder: So nothing changes for me, but I do have one other insight that we glossed over. All three of us kind of forgot about this: almond butter. We talked about peanut butter, but almond butter is awesome too, and it's probably a little better than peanut butter in terms of health.

Scot: Guys, if you think this is something that you can incorporate . . . I think just knowing, knowing that these things exist, knowing that they could be possibly really good for us, and they fall into that whole fruits and vegetables thing. But nobody ever says, "Eat your fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, pulses, and whole grains," right?

Thunder: I think we run out of breath after the vegetable part and we don't really say the rest of it.

Scot: Yeah. That doesn't decrease their value in our diet. And I'm going to admit most of these things are not in my diet, so I'm going to look for ways to start incorporating those.

If you have thoughts on today's episode, maybe a killer quick recipe that incorporates these things along with some of those vegetables as well . . .

I think what I've done is I've just talked about the Mediterranean diet, basically, right? Because all this stuff is in the Mediterranean diet, isn't it?

Thunder: It's a long-winded way of getting around to the Mediterranean diet. You take a two-minute concept and stretch it into a half-hour episode.

Scot: Well, here we are back at the Mediterranean diet again. All right. If you want to reach out, if you have any feedback, thoughts, want to say anything, hello@thescoperadio.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Start working these foods in your diet. Thanks for listening, and thanks for caring about men's health.