Thanksgiving is more than a meal — it’s a worldwide celebration of gratitude built around foods that started here in the Americas. Corn, beans, potatoes, and turkey didn’t just feed a nation; they changed global cuisine. Today, we blend culinary history with medical sense to show how to enjoy the feast without the nap.

🍁 A Holiday for the World

Our Canadian friends already finished their celebration. For their Thanksgiving, I roasted a chicken with Swiss Chalet sauce — if you know, you know. Thank you, Canada, for giving us Tim Hortons, Swiss Chalet, and the perfect excuse for early gravy season.

In the United States, we wait for the fourth Thursday in November to celebrate. And while Thanksgiving began as a survival story between settlers and Native Americans, it’s become a global holiday. Whether you’re in Edinburgh, London, or Los Angeles, if there’s a turkey on your table, you’re part of it.

🦃 The Turkey Truth

Turkey is a ridiculously large bird. Cooking one whole is like putting a cow in the oven and hoping all the parts turn out right — it just doesn’t work.

That’s why I separate mine. The breast goes into a sous vide bath until juicy and tender, and the legs roast separately until golden brown. This approach keeps everyone happy and the meat perfectly cooked.

Another reason to love turkey: it’s naturally low in saturated fat, especially compared to red meat. So, when prepared well, it’s one of the healthiest centerpieces for your table.

🥖 Cornbread Stuffing — Cook It Safely

Stuffing the bird might seem traditional, but it can also be dangerous. Baking bread inside raw poultry turns your dinner into a bacteria incubator. Instead, bake it separately.

My favorite? Cornbread stuffing — a true dish of the Americas. Combine cornbread cubes, sautéed onions, celery, herbs, mushrooms, and broth. For extra flavor, crisp up some turkey skin like “poultry bacon” and crumble it on top.

(You’ll find the full recipe at terrysimpson.com)

🥔 Potatoes — From the Andes to Every Plate

Long before Europeans knew what a potato was, Indigenous farmers in the Andes were cultivating hundreds of varieties. Those humble tubers crossed the ocean and reshaped diets from Dublin to Delhi. Yes, the Italians perfected Gnochi - and the Irish love of the potato brought many of our finest folks to the United States.

At my table, I keep mashed potatoes simple — Yukon Golds, butter, olive oil, milk, salt, and pepper. No truffle oil. No mountain of bacon. Just creamy, honest comfort food.

🥗 Green Beans and the Three Sisters

Green beans are another gift from the Americas. Native farmers grew them with corn and squash — the Three Sisters that nourished generations. The beans climbed the corn stalks while enriching the soil — the original regenerative farming.

In Culinary Medicine, we love beans for their fiber, plant protein, and heart-healthy nutrients.

If you’re remaking the classic green bean casserole, skip the canned soup. Use fresh mushrooms, milk, and a touch of cornstarch. Or, sauté the beans in olive oil and garlic for a lighter, Mediterranean twist.

(Full recipe posted at terrysimpson.com)

🥣 Cowboy Caviar — A Smart Starter

Before the main event, try Cowboy Caviar — a colorful bean salad from the American Southwest. It’s bright, high in fiber, and helps you eat more slowly (and more sanely).

Mix black beans, black-eyed peas, corn, peppers, red onion, avocado, olive oil, lime juice, and cilantro. Chill it and watch it vanish.

🍷 The Truth About the Food Coma

Everyone blames tryptophan, but the real reason for that post-Thanksgiving crash is carbs, alcohol, and portion size.

When you load up on potatoes, rolls, and pie, your insulin spikes, helping tryptophan turn into melatonin — your sleep hormone. Add a glass (or three) of wine and you’re down for the count.

To avoid it, eat slowly, take a short walk after dinner, and save dessert for later. Your pancreas will thank you.

🍰 Dessert and a Confession

I’m a surgeon, not a baker. So, I buy my pumpkin pie from Costco and serve it with vanilla ice cream. Sometimes, simplicity really is the secret ingredient.

🔥 FORK U with Flavor — Coming Soon Live

We’re launching a new live cooking show called FORK U with Flavor!

Join me on TikTok (@drterrysimpson) and maybe Instagram (@drterrysimpsonmd) as we cook together, talk food science, and share a few laughs.

Paid Substack subscribers at drsimpson.com get ingredient lists and recipes ahead of time so you can cook along live. Everyone else gets the replay links and recipes afterward.

If you can’t watch me set off the occasional smoke alarm, you haven’t lived.

❤️ A Final Thought

Wherever you live — America, Canada, or across the pond — Thanksgiving reminds us that food connects us all.

Eat well. Be grateful. And remember, food isn’t just medicine — it’s connection, culture, and joy.

Happy Thanksgiving from me, Dr. Terry Simpson, and the FORK U team.

>> Dr. Terry Simpson: M. This is our 99th episode of 4Q. And we're

thankful for that and thankful for you listeners.

And today we're going to do something special in

culinary medicine. We often focus on the medicine,

but today we're going to focus a little bit on

culinary and some on medicine. We're going to give

you a Thanksgiving episode for the world. Now, for

my Canadian friends, your Thanksgiving just

passed. And for that holiday, I made a roasted

chicken with Swiss chalet sauce. If you know, you

know. So thank you, Canada, for Tim Hortons, for

Swiss chalet and giving us an early reminder that

gratitude goes great with gravy. And also thank

you that we have a place we can escape to north of

the border if we could ever get over February. For

those of us in the United States, it's the fourth

Thursday in November, and we're celebrating the

foods of the Americas, the ingredients that

changed the world. Turkey, corn, potatoes, beans.

These foods built civilizations, crossed oceans,

and still anchor dinner tables everywhere. And for

my listeners in Edinburgh, uh, London, Lisbon.

Yes, turkey is an American bird. It almost became

our national bird. But the bald eagle looks better

on money, and it doesn't drown in the rain.

Thanksgiving started as a celebration for

survival. And it only happened because my other

ancestors, the other half of me, the Native

American peoples, were taught early settlers, or

pilgrims, as we sometimes call them, how to grow

corn, plant beans, and roast this silly large

bird. But they also introduced the world to

potatoes, corn, and cranberries. So if you're in

Europe enjoying fries or cornbread, you're already

celebrating a little bit of Thanksgiving. And if

you don't have a turkey in Edinburgh or wherever

you are, find a bird, any bird. Most m of my

recipes will adapt easily to hens, pigeons, or. Or

velociraptors. Although I'm still waiting on a

source for that. I am your Chief Medical

Explanationist, Dr. Terry Simpson, and this is

Fork U Fork University, where we bust a few myths

and make sense of the madness. Teaching you a

little bit about food and medicine.

Let's start with the main act, the turkey. This is

a ridiculously large bird, and the idea of cooking

it like that Norman Rockwell painting, trying to

cook it whole is like putting an entire cow in the

oven and hoping every part turns out perfect. It

simply cannot be done. But I've got a few tricks

up my sleeve. One of the great things about turkey

is that this large bit of poultry has far less

saturated fat than red meat. And if you cook it

properly, everyone will be happy. So here's how I

do It I cook the breast sous vide style, which

means it takes about an hour and a half, and it

will be tender and juicy, unlike, um, any other

turkey breast you probably ever had. I roast the

legs separately until they're golden brown, crisp

and full of flavor. And you get that wonderful

smell throughout the house of turkey. Skip the

brining because it's messy. And if you've ever

tried to put a 20 pound bird into a ridiculously

large stock pot to make the bird magically

moister, several things will happen. You're going

to have a mess to clean up on the floor, and the

bird won't be that much moisture. It also skips

the idea of a deep fryer. Unless your goal is to

have a Thanksgiving where all of your stuff burns

down and you start fresh. There's nothing more fun

than watching the silly fires that we see, because

people are trying to put a big turkey into a pot

of oil with a fire underneath it. I mean, we've

seen what can go wrong. And then there's Tom

Colicchio's trick, shoving a bunch of butter under

the skin of the breast. Yeah, it helps a bit. But

if you want true great turkey breast, you're going

to have to do it sous vide. Now, there's another

reason not to roast the whole bird. You won't be

tempted to stuff it when you fill the the cavity

of that bird with bread and broth. You're

basically building a campylobacter incubator. And

it can take up to a week for that infection to

hit. So when diarrhea shows up, you won't connect

it with Aunt Marge's famous stuffing. You might

even say, oh, you know, I've eaten stuffing out of

the back end of a turkey bird for years and never

gotten sick. Sure, because it's been so long

afterwards, you don't remember that it was the

week after Thanksgiving when you were thankful

that you had a bidet. Because we know the

Europeans know how to treat a backside. So bake

your stuffing outside the bird. My favorite

version is cornbread stuffing. The perfect way to

honor one of the great foods of the Americas.

Here's how I make it. Cornbread cubes, sauteed

onions, celery, fresh herbs, handful of mushrooms,

and just enough broth to moisten. And for extra

flavor, I take the turkey skin off the breast that

I'm going to sous vide, salt it, poultry seasoning

on it, bake it until it's crispy. It is a poultry

bacon that you can crumble into the stuffing for

the best bite on the table or even into a salad. I

mean, some people have salads for Thanksgiving.

I'm not sure what that point is. You know what

America's treasure is? Potatoes. From the Andes to

every single plate, potatoes were cultivated

thousands of years before Europeans ever thought

to mash one. When explorers brought back, the

Italians made gnocchi, the Irish made history, the

French made them fancy. For Thanksgiving, I keep

it simple. Boiled Yukon Golds, a touch of butter,

a drizzle of olive oil, a bit of milk, salt and

pepper. Creamy, earthy, perfect. No truffle oil,

no bacon mountain. Just real potatoes. Done.

Right. Now for the green beans. Now, green beans

are another gift from the Americas. They were

domesticated about 8,000 years ago in Central and

South America, where indigenous peoples planted

them along with corn and squash. Also known as the

famous three sisters, the beans climbed the corn

stalks and fed the soil. Regenerative farming long

before we had the term in culinary medicine. We

love legumes. They're full of fiber, protein, and

phytonutrients that support gut and heart health.

Green beans are the new world's contribution to a

healthier plate. So let's give the casserole a

makeover. Skip this canned soup because it doesn't

take that much longer to use. Fresh mushrooms,

some whole milk, and a touch of cornstarch for a

silky sauce. You can even saute the green beans in

olive oil and garlic for a Mediterranean twist.

Either way, it's history and health in one dish.

Now, before the turkey even hits the table, I like

serving cowboy caviar. It's a bright bean based

salad from the American Southwest. It's fiber

rich, flavorful, and keeps you from diving face

first into the mashed potatoes. The quick version

is the black beans, Black eyed beans, corn, diced

peppers, red onions, avocado, little olive oil,

lime juice, and cilantro. Mix it, chill it the day

before, watch it disappear. And when you put those

corn tortillas with it, it's another American

snack. It's what we call in medicine a preventive

snack.

Now, before dessert, a little science. The food

coma, uh, doesn't come from tryptophan, although

tryptophan is one of those fun words to say and

makes you sound actually erudite. But it comes

from the carbs, the portion size, and probably

some wine. A big meal floods your system with

insulin, helping tryptophan turn into serotonin,

then melatonin, crossing the blood brain barrier.

And that's some sleep hormone. Add alcohol,

travel, fatigue, and suddenly you're drooling

through the football game. So eat slower, walk a

little after dinner. Save the pie for later. Your

pancreas will thank you.

Dessert and a confession. True confession. I'm

about as talented at baking as I am at gardening.

If they were going to name a rose after me, it

would be a rose that is dying on the vine because

I have a brown thumb. People are amazed when they

see me gardening because I have a 15 year old son

and how he is alive for 15 years I don't know

because I can't even seem to grow an herb garden

without killing it. So for dessert I go with

Costco Pumpkin Pumpkin. By the way, another

American addition and a scoop of vanilla ice

cream. Although I do make a killer almond torte.

But that's for another episode. Now listen, I

didn't do all of this to make you just salivate.

I'm doing this because I'm announcing our new live

cooking show. Fork you with flavor. We're going to

go live on TikTok where I'm rterry Simpson. Um, oh

my God, there are a bunch of people imitating me.

Rter Terry Simpson is me. I have about 1.1 million

followers and probably on Instagram where I'm

rterrysimpsonmd where I'm gonna cook together,

talk about food science, answer your questions.

Here's the thing. For my paid substack

subscribers@drsimpson.com, they're gonna get the

recipes and the ingredients ahead of time so

they're gonna be able to cook along with me live.

The regular subscribers will get their recipes and

replay links later by email. We'll post edited

versions on YouTube and TikTok too. So sign up.

Paper and optional curiosity required. This has

been Fork U Fork University and it's been

researched and Directed by me, Dr. Terry Simpson,

your chief medical explanationist. All things

audio editing. And the reason I sound so good is

because of my friends at Simpler media and the pod

got himself Mr. Evotera. For recipes, references

and details about our live cooking show,

visit4q.com YourDoctorsOrders.com and sign up for

our newsletter@drsimpson.com they'll all appear

here live after the show. Some are already up. But

hey, if you want to watch me avoid difficulty in

the kitchen while setting off my new fire alarms,

you just are in for a treat. And remember, I am a

board certified physician. But not your physician.

This podcast is for education, not all personal

medical advice. So wherever you are, the Americas,

Europe, Edinburgh, anywhere between, we all have

something to be thankful for. And one of mine is,

you have a good week and enjoy the show. Hey,

Evil. After Thanksgiving, do you nap because of

the turkey or because you're trying to avoid the

dishes? Avoid the dishes, man. You've met my wife.

Come on.