 All right, it's time to head back to Costco to get our produce snacks and all sorts of other things. First of all, Costco is a great source for dried herbs and spices. And the more you can get herbs and spices into your life, the better off you are. Because herbs are one of the best, easy to use sources of polyphenols. And polyphenols, as you know, feed your good gut buddies. And also are really important for protecting your mitochondria, who make energy for you. You can also find a great selection of olives at Costco. Costco, believe it or not, has organic rice cauliflower in the frozen food section. They've got sesame seeds. They've got San Pellegrino. But buy the ones in the glass bottles, not the plastic bottles right next door. If you like the flavored San Pellegrino in the can, that's perfectly safe as well. Please resist the urge to pick up San Pellegrino in the plastic bottles. Avocados. There's always avocados in Costco. Preferably look for the organic variety, but Costco is a great place to pick up avocados. Costco is a great place to buy guacamole. Thankfully, they have guacamole in individual serving containers that doesn't have any tomatoes. And guess what? Tomatoes are not part of guacamole. That's somehow missed by most people. But they have tomato-free guacamole. And it's great. Their pesto over in the refrigerator section, usually next to the cheeses, is some of the best pesto you can buy. I'll tell you why. Number one, it uses a type of basil from the Liguria region of Italy. By far, Ligurian basil is the most flavorful, the best source of polyphenols of any basil in the world. And it's in the Costco pesto. It also has pine nuts. It also has Parmesan cheese. And the wonderful thing about it is you can buy it fresh and then you can put it in your freezer and just thaw off what you're going to need. Personally, it's phenomenal on Gundry MD Sorghum Spaghetti. And that's how we use it most of the time. In the produce area, you can find organic shiitake mushrooms. You can find crimini mushrooms. Often, particularly this time of year, you can find some really exotic mushrooms like chanterelles. They're vastly cheaper at Costco and well worth including in your really daily routine. More and more, we're seeing organic whole lettuce heads that have still got their roots attached. They're fantastic as a salad. Kiwis are easy to obtain at Costco and Costco often has the golden kiwis. And fun fact, the golden kiwi has been shown to be the source of one of the best prebiotic fibers to feed your good probiotics there is. And there's some really cool golden kiwi studies in humans showing it promotes gut microbiome diversity. So if you see them and they're in season by them. Speaking of in season pomegranates are a great buy at Costco in season. Often, you'll see the pomegranate seeds in season. You can find in season organic raspberries and blackberries and even cherries. But word of warning, look for where these produce came from. There is nothing seasonal about a raspberry in February. You'll see it at Costco, but you'll see it came from Chile or Argentina or Uruguay. That's not a seasonal produce. Oh, it looks good. And you go, oh, it's organic. But please, we are not supposed to encounter fruit 365 days a year. And sadly, I see it in my patient's blood work when they're eating these wonderful fruits non-seasonally. But it's a great place to pick them up on a seasonal basis. Costco has artichoke hearts and they also have whole artichokes. They have pine nuts. They have hemp hearts. They have pistachios in multiple varieties, whether you want them peeled or in the shell. My advice is please buy them in the shell and you can get them salted or unsalted. But the key is if you buy them in the shell, it will slow down your eating considerably. It is far too easy and fun to eat handful after handful of peeled, salted pistachios and not think about what you're eating. On the other hand, it's far more entertaining to pour yourself out a bowl of in the shell pistachios and pop them open slowly and enjoy. It really slows you down and you'll get the benefits of the pistachios. Costco has a great choice of walnuts, both organic and non-organic. Why buy walnuts in a big bag from Costco rather than somewhere else? Well, whenever you're looking to buy nuts, particularly shelled nuts, you really want to go to a place that has a high turnover because these nuts will go rancid. And good news, Costco has a very high turnover if you've ever noticed. And that's good for nuts because you're going to get literally very fresh walnuts or pecans or pine nuts and you're not going to have to worry about the rancidity of these nuts. And that's another really good reason to buy them at Costco. Now, you can also find almonds at Costco, but word to the wise, almonds have a pretty nasty lectin in the peel of almonds. So even if it says organic almonds, just put them back. Luckily, most Costco stores have marcona almonds. Marcona almonds, as you may know, are peeled. And in traditional cultures, particularly in Spain and Portugal, mothers teach their daughters how to soak and peel the skin off of the almond because they've learned through generations that the peel is the problem. So that's the safest of the almonds in Costco, the marcona almonds. But word to the wise, if you've read Gut Check and you have an autoimmune disease or think you have an autoimmune disease, almonds are way up there on the nut that so many of my patients with autoimmune disease unfortunately react to. And there's so many other better nuts. Speaking of which, macadamia nuts are a really great choice at Costco. Macadamia nuts are expensive. If you want to gain weight, macadamia nuts are the way to go. But macadamia nuts have a really fantastic oil profile within them. They're mostly in mono-unsaturated fat, but they also have an omega-7 fat that's almost impossible to find in any other nut. So they should be included in your repertoire. Next, vinegars. Costco has an amazing selection of vinegars. And if you've read Gut Check, you know that you want to get vinegars into your life, whether it's balsamic vinegar, whether it's apple cider vinegar, whether it's red wine vinegar. You name it, vinegars are great for you. Make yourself the famous Dr. Gundry fake Coke. Buy some San Pellegrino at Costco. Buy some balsamic vinegar at Costco. Pour some balsamic vinegar in your San Pellegrino and make yourself a fake Coke. Balsamic vinegar, any vinegar, is a great source of acetic acid, which is a short chain fatty acid that is actually needed for your gut microbiome to make this all-important short chain fatty acid called butyrate. And you've got to get vinegar to kind of supercharge the process. Next up, most Costco's have a pretty decent selection of greater than 72% chocolate, either in bars or in other forms. Now, it comes and goes. You've got to look for it. But if it's there, get it there. Finally, Primal Kitchen Caesar Dressing is a pretty doggone good choice. It's made by my friend Mark Sisson. Primal Kitchen in general are safe products. They're avocado mayonnaise is a safe product. But try their Caesar Dressing. Now, there are a few snacks that could be used in moderation. And I specify moderation for a reason. So you'll see really good buys on Siete chips. You'll see really good buys on Terra root vegetable chips. And yes, they're pretty safe except people overeat them. And I see this over and over again that I saw Dr. Gundry say that Terra root chips are safe. That means I can have the entire bag I bought at Costco this afternoon. No, you can't. You've got to be really careful because these are concentrated sources of carbohydrates. And yes, they don't have any lectins, but they still have lots of easily digestible carbohydrates. So the word is moderation and use these chips not to munch on, but as a delivery device to get avocado into your mouth by the guacamole in individual serving containers at Costco and use that chip only as a delivery device. It'll slow you down and you'll get all the benefits of the guacamole as well. More amazing episodes just like this one. Watch now. Since pistachios have the highest concentration of melatonin of any food, let's do an experiment and have yourself a handful of raw or roasted pistachios before you go to bed. And let's see what happens.