Thank you Rob Tourtelot, Teresa and many others for tuning into my live video with Chef Martin Oswald!

Tonight’s Transatlantic Cooking Session: What This Meal Can Do for Your Heart

Tonight’s live was a true two-continent collaboration.Chef Martin cooked from Austria. I joined from the U.S.He brought the skill and flavor; I brought the physiology behind why this meal works so well for metabolic and cardiovascular health.

He made a porcini mushroom barley risotto layered with kale, along with a fresh kale salad topped with red onionsand sunflower seeds. He’ll be sharing the full recipe soon. He also walked through several ways to make homemade vegetable stock — a simple upgrade that changes the flavor and the nutrition of everything you cook.

While he demonstrated technique, I explained what each ingredient can do for your heart and metabolism.

Barley gives beta-glucan, a soluble fiber that forms a soft gel in the gut and helps pull LDL cholesterol out of circulation. About half a cup of cooked barley gets you close to the 3 grams shown in studies to meaningfully lower LDL.

Porcini mushrooms add ergothioneine, a cellular antioxidant that protects DNA, along with beta-glucans that support immune function. Certain mushroom compounds can gently reduce aromatase activity, a pathway linked to lower lifetime estrogen exposure and reduced breast cancer risk. They don’t contain isoflavones; they work through entirely different biochemistry.

Kale played two roles tonight, in the risotto and in the salad. When you cut or chew kale, you activate myrosinase, an enzyme that converts its glucosinolates into isothiocyanates. These compounds reduce inflammation and support endothelial health, which is essential for keeping arteries responsive and resilient.

Red onions bring quercetin and anthocyanins, both of which improve blood vessel dilation, reduce oxidative stress, and help prevent LDL from becoming oxidized, the form that contributes to plaque.

Sunflower seeds offer vitamin E, plant sterols, and healthy unsaturated fats. Vitamin E protects LDL from oxidation, sterols reduce cholesterol absorption, and healthy fats improve lipid profiles and support flexible blood vessels.

And throughout the demo, Chef Martin showed how simple it is to build a flavorful homemade vegetable stock, one of the easiest ways to reduce sodium, deepen flavor, and add more phytonutrients to everyday cooking.

This is why I love cooking alongside him. The food tastes amazing, and every ingredient has a job inside the body: lowering inflammation, supporting arteries, calming oxidative stress, improving lipid handling, and gently tuning metabolic pathways.

What we made tonight wasn’t just dinner.It was a heart-healthy, metabolism-friendly blueprint you can use every day.

If you want to keep cooking this way — and understand why it works…

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If you enjoyed watching Chef Martin cook and hearing the science behind the ingredients, this is exactly what the Culinary Healing group is designed to give you, every week.

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