Roasted Veggie Chickpea Pasta (and my Interview with Dr. Sinatra)

This week I want to share part of the wonderful interview I had with renowned cardiologist Dr. Stephen Sinatra.  We talk about how emotions, the food we eat, grounding, and even our spiritual lives affect our heart.  I also share my roasted veggie chickpea pasta recipe using Dr. Sinatra’s heart healthy pasta and olive oils.

If you are not familiar with Dr. Stephen Sinatra M.D. he is a board-certified cardiologist who is also board certified in internal medicine, and has additional certifications in nutrition, bioenergetic psychotherapy, and anti-aging medicine. He has lectured worldwide and has been a featured guest on many national radio and television shows including CNN, MSNBC, Fox on Health, the Dr. Oz, The Doctors, and 700 Club shows, and The Today Show.  Dr. Sinatra uses the best of both conventional and integrative therapies when treating his patients.  Dr. Sinatra has authored several books and medical periodicals as well as co-authoring the book Health Revelations from Heaven and Earth with Tommy Rosa.  I also interview Tommy Rosa on his near death experience coming up next month.

Excerpt from Eat Pray Get Well with Dr. Stephen Sinatra

Erin – You may know that Doug Kaufmann has a theory about statins. They were initially created to be an antifungal and then oops, we found out they also lower cholesterol! So could it be that fungus and yeast are sometimes the culprit in high cholesterol?

Dr. Sinatra: There are those theories out there and an antifungal diet is like an anti-sugar diet, he is probably very correct!

Erin: Can you explain what lipoprotein (a), also referred to as LP little a, is and why is it so important that it is monitored? Here in America do doctors routinely monitor this cholesterol particle?

The Real Truth About Cholesterol

Dr. Sinatra: This is the real truth about cholesterol. This is a very small cholesterol particle that has what we call a disulfide bridge, it is very inflammatory, Erin, it’s not only inflammatory, but it causes blood clotting at the same time, so now if you have high LP(a) you now have a substance that not only causes clotting and thickening of the blood, like red ketchup blood, but it’s also inflammation enhancing as well which is the sine qua non of coronary heart disease. LP(a) is the real cholesterol story. The problem is statins can make it worse. Statins really don’t alter it, the only things that work for LP(a) are things like niacin.

There’s a substance from Canada called boluoke. It’s what we call lumbrokinase. It’s almost like a snake venom, it’s a substance that helps dissolve clots. I really like boluoke and it’s one of my remedies for high LP(a). It’s good for people who can’t tolerate niacin. LP(a) is something the public really needs to know about. The whole aspect of medicine is changing before our eyes. The whole aspect of medicine will rely on genetics, where mapping out genomes of people so we can find out their weaknesses, and now the new medicine going forward will be shoring up the defenses on weak genes and trying to magnify our stronger genes, giving us greater resistance to illness and disease.

Erin – Preventative instead of waiting until the disease hits us.

Dr. Sinatra: Yes, it will be more preventative I can tell you that. This is why I am such a big believer in olive oil. What olive oil does is it changes pro-inflammatory genes back to a non-inflammatory state. That’s why you see more one-hundred-year-old people in the Mediterranean Basin and they all have one thing in common, they use olive oil as a main source of fat. I really think it’s the secret sauce of the Mediterranean diet. If you go on my site, HeartMDInstitute.com, I have a lot of information on olive oil. It has to be extra virgin olive oil though, the problem now is a lot of countries are cutting their olive oil with canola oil which is as you know pro-inflammatory.

Erin: Yes, and they are still allowed to claim it as 100% olive oil which seems very wrong. I want to mention you also have your own brand of oil which can be found at Vervana.com. I have tried it, it’s fantastic!

Dr. Sinatra: Yes, if it’s 75% or more, they can keep canola off the label. It’s really horrible. We are certified by California Olive Oil Council (COOC) and they will only certify 100% extra virgin olive oil.

What Dr. Sinatra Says About Grounding And The Heart

Erin: Let’s talk about the fascinating topic of grounding. I learned everything I know on this topic from you and now I make sure to walk barefoot on the beach or grass several times a week. Can you tell us how grounding works?

Dr. Sinatra: When I was lecturing across the country, two of the greatest discoveries in my 50 years of medicine have been CoQ10 and grounding. They are related because they are both electron donors and they both drive ATP (the energy of life) in a preferential direction. CoQ10 and grounding have a special connection so to speak. The way grounding works is you are taking in mother earth energy. Now what is the mother earth energy? We call it the Schumann effect, and the Schumann effect is called 7.83 hertz. It’s the humming of the earth, it actually has the same frequency as Om in yoga. When yogis would say ‘Ommmm’ they were really chanting the frequency of 7.83. The humming of the earth effect is caused by lightning strikes around the equator. We live in Tampa, and the first thing I do after a lightning storm, Erin, is I go out in the grass and walk in the grass or the sand. If you have ever smelled the ozone in the air after a storm, it’s pretty cool because that means there is a lot of energy in the air. Whenever there is a lightning storm, once it’s over, I just soak in those electrons and that’s the reason I moved to the beach!

Erin: Same here, we bought a beach house because I knew of the healing powers of grounding and the microbes in the sand and the water.

Dr. Sinatra: Yes, I did so much research on grounding and I realized grounding not only drives ATP in a preferential direction but it also attenuates the overactive sympathetic nervous system. When you ground your feet to mother earth and soak in the Schumann effect, the 7.83 hertz, you are literally taking in this energy and not only are you attenuating the overactive nervous system, you are balancing the parasympathetic with the sympathetic. You are also thinning the blood at the same time. Now this is really important because I believe with all the electromagnetics in the environment, WiFi, 5G, cordless phones, cellular phones, computers, baby monitors, the list goes on and on, grounding becomes even more important. What 5G frequency electromagnetics does is it takes red blood cells and makes it the consistency of red ketchup. When we ground to mother earth and take in the Schumann effect what we are doing is we are taking in these electrons which not only balance the overactive autonomic nervous system, but we are also thinning the blood at the same time. When I did this research I really thought that I would get this in major journals of cardiology but they all turned it down, they thought it was hocus pocus. I was on the phone with this incredible researcher from Sweden, his name is Olle Johansson. He is really a prolific guy. He is anti-cellular phone, etc., but he laughingly told me, “Your group will be dead and buried and you’ll probably get the Nobel Prize for this, but it’s not going to happen in your lifetime.” I thought that was funny.

Erin: Funny and frustrating at the same time I bet. That is great information on grounding!

Electrosensitivity And EMF’s

Dr. Sinatra: My son worked on Wall Street and he became ill. He had electrosensitivity syndrome which happens to about 3% of Americans. A lot of people can’t function from EMF’s. He actually now lives on a little island off the coast of Greece because there are no cell phone towers. There is no 5G, they have 3G at the most.

Erin: Is it in a blue zone?

Sprinkling the veggies with the basil olive oil before going in the oven.

Dr. Sinatra: Yes, he’s in a blue zone! He talks about blue zones, his name is Stephen Sinatra (same as mine) and he has a website called Ageless.com. Stephen does podcasts on earthing and grounding. He believes it literally saved his life.

Erin: It probably did. I can only imagine what we are going to find out about these cell phones and 5G in 20 years! But for right now it’s hard to convince anybody because we think we need them and can’t live without them. My son carries his phone in his pocket all day and I even caught him sleeping with his phone under his pillow. I told him that can’t ever happen again!

Dr. Sinatra: Have him listen to my interview. It’s causing male and female sterility, and tell your son this, sperm production goes down 400% within two hours with a cellphone in the front pocket. There is a lot of data on that. Female sterility used to be more common than male sterility, now it’s male infertility that has surpassed female sterility. But underneath the pillow, oh my God, it’s going into his brain. There’s more brain tumors right now in younger adults, it’s very scary.

Erin: I want to go back to grounding just for a minute. Do you find that if you want to get close to God, for example if I feel I can’t ‘get through’ and I am looking for answers from Him, there is something about taking a walk on the beach barefoot. It’s almost as if that’s where I find Him, where I can get connected, and I don’t know if grounding has anything to do with it or not? Or maybe it’s just giving yourself the quiet time to get closer, but I just feel closer to Him that way.

Dr. Sinatra: I’ll put it this way, whenever you ground and you are reconnecting your autonomic nervous system, you have a better chance at connecting to higher spiritual power. The sympathetic nervous system is neutralized. The sympathetic nervous system keeps you away from spirituality, so when you balance the overactive sympathetic nervous system you have more potential to develop your spiritual side.

Is Eating Organic Important?

Erin: How important is eating organic food and using supplements to keep our heart healthy, and tell us about the ‘awesome foursome.’

Dr. Sinatra: Eating organic is really important, you know that as much as I do. Let’s talk about the awesome foursome (CoQ10, L-carnitine, D-ribose, and magnesium).I learned about CoQ10 40 years ago and I learned about magnesium a little earlier than that because I used to use it in intensive care units for arrhythmias. I learned about l-carnitine 30 years ago and then ribose pulled it all together.

I’ll never forget, I was sitting in a meeting in 2004, and one of my colleagues, a board certified cardiologist was talking about D-ribose and I had this immediate ‘Aha’ moment because he provided me with the missing link I’d been looking for, for years! Because D-ribose, in combination with CoQ10, l-carnitine and magnesium, drives your chi energy in a preferential direction. Somebody is going to discover this, it’s not going to be me but I think what happens here is that when you give these ATP supporting nutrients it’s connecting with either our exosomes or our chemical messages and what it’s doing is it’s turning on our intrinsic stem cells and when you turn on your intrinsic stem cells – let’s say you have a damaged heart from a massive heart attack 20 years ago, and you turn on your intrinsic stem cells so now you can rebuild or rejuvenate. The best word is ‘renew’ cellular tissue in your heart and completely regenerate your heart. I know that sounds crazy but I’ve seen it over and over again. In fact, I’ve treated so many cases of congenital heart disease where parents were crying in my office because I couldn’t find a heart transplant for their-nine year-old son who was in heart failure. I’d put them on my metabolic heart program, the awesome foursome, and now these kids are living into their 30’s and beyond. By the time hearts were available for some of these patients, they were having such a great quality of life on the awesome foursome that they refused the heart transplant.

For a fantastic resource on grounding check out Step Sinatra’s (Dr. Sinatra’s son) website at Grounded.com.

Chopping the garlic in the Vitamix before going in the oven with the vegetables

Yellow Squash, Feta and Chickpea Pasta

Erin Porter

Try this super healthy and satisfying roasted veggie chickpea pasta recipe!

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Course Main Dishes

Ingredients

  

• 1 Bag Vervana Chickpea Pasta
• Vervana olive oil (I used both garlic and basil infused)
• 1 Yellow butternut squash
• 3 cloves Garlic
• Cherry tomatoes
• Handful of arugula
• 1/4 cup Feta cheese (I chose a feta with cracked peppercorn)
• Black olives
• Dash of salt and pepper
• Red pepper flakes
• Asiago cheese (for topping)
• Parsley (optional garnish)

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 425.
• Cut squash, cherry tomatoes, and garlic and place in a bowl then add about 1 tablespoon of basil infused olive oil and toss until coated.
• Place on cookie sheet and roast vegetables for approximately 10 minutes.
• While veggies are roasting boil water and cook chickpea pasta for 5 minutes and drain.
• Place pasta in large serving bowl, add roasted vegetables, add arugula, about 1 tablespoon of the garlic infused olive oil, olives, feta cheese, spices and toss.
• Top with red pepper flakes, fresh parsley and asiago cheese. Enjoy!

Update: I am so saddened to report the passing of Stephen Sinatra.  Dr. Sinatra cause of death was a brief battle with pancreatic cancer.  May he rest in peace.

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