Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - E177 - Shawn Stevenson

Episode Date: February 2, 2021

During this Inside Look Bedros talks epigenetics, cognitive performance, and data surrounding Covid with best selling Author Shawn Stevenson.  Dive in as Shawn shares his knowledge and  on nutrition, food, and how we can become healthier.  Tune in for some valuable hacks surrounding Magnesium and Omega’s from Shawn Stevenson’s book “Eat Smarter.” 00:37 - Welcome Author of “Eat Smarter” and “Sleep Smarter” Shawn Stevenson. 03:20 - Food is much more than our weight, Shawn explores all the parts of our body food impacts.  06:12 - Bedros asks Shawn to dive deeper into what epigenetics means. 13:32 - Our genes expect us to do certain things like eat real foods.  Learn what happens when we get away from that.  14:44 - Shawn touches on the large increase in Diabetes and Heart Disease since Covid struck. 15:30 - Shawn shares more on epigenetics and on the biology of fear.  21:59 - Hear how stress can compromise a rather healthy person’s immune system. 23:50 - Bedros asks Shawn to share why he thinks the virus is happening now. 31:23 - Shawn explains why a pharmaceutical approach to Covid will not work and how we need to get people healthier. 35:30 - Shawn encourages listeners to look at the data out there. There is another side of the story that is being censored.   38:35 - Source site: Shawn recommends looking up on Google, “Johns Hopkins third leading cause of death medical error” to start your research. 41:40 - Bedros speaks on what we can control, what we are eating and how he can help his listeners improve their lives to operate better.  42:33 - Shawn answers Bedros’s questions on how we optimize ourselves where eating is concerned.  43:52 - Number 1: Hydration and your Brain! What is your water routine and how water is so important to your brain and body function.  46:36 - Number 2: Electrolytes and how they contribute to your brain talking to your body.  51:44 - Bedros speaks to the excellence of Shawns new book “Eat Smarter” and how talented he is at breaking down science in a fun and easy way to grasp. 53:38 - Shawn shares extraordinary hacks about cognitive performance surrounding Magnesium and Omega’s. 1:09:53 - Pick up your copy of Shawn Stevenson’s “Eat Smarter” on amazon, at Target, Barnes and Nobles, and wherever books are sold.&

Most folks, when they think about diet and nutrition, automatically folks related to weight in our culture. Yeah. But food is so much more than that. I already just mentioned the impact that it can have on your cognitive performance. Food literally determines how your memory functions, period. Hey, my name is Bedrose Cooley, and welcome to another Empire show. And this guy flipping through his own book is Mr. Sean Stevenson, the author of the new book, Eat Smarter. And, of course, the New York Times bestselling author of Sleep Smarter.

Welcome to the show, bro. So good to be back. All right, guys and gals, this is another inside look. And unlike other inside looks, Sean is a close friend. And he's actually introduced me to a couple cool things in St. Louis, which we'll get into in a moment where the food is concerned. But this book, Eat Smarter for entrepreneurs is something that every single one of you should get. And before you go get it, what I want to do is prove to you why you need to go get it,

Just like I did with his first book, Sleep Smarter, because I look at us entrepreneurs as athletes, and I believe we have to always stay at the height of our peak performance. And for that to happen, obviously, the amount of water, the amount of food, the amount of sleep, our social environment, all those things matter in us making money and impact and meaning and significant. So with that said, dude, you went from writing a book about sleeping to writing a book about eating.

That's right, yeah. Why? So I'm a nutritionist, first of all, like the sleep expertise came out of necessity, really. You know, I had folks coming into my clinical practice all the time, day after day after day. And, you know, we might get the very best nutrition protocol done, very best exercise protocol. But I found that if folks weren't sleeping adequately, they weren't getting the results to everybody else was getting. So it's just a big gap in the market. And now it's just exploded.

So that was back in like 2013. Now it's been all of these waves of books. I just did a talk for Tom Brady's company. And they've got like sleep wellness coaches now. And they're using my language that I've embedded into culture. And they don't even know me. They've never heard of me some of them. First of all, is that a weird feeling?

It's super weird. It is super weird. But that's the nature of any great idea. It's going to spread. It's viral. It's viral. You know, it's a meme. It has this viral capacity.

And so, but this is really my, I feel like I was born to write this book. because as I'm looking at you, I'm seeing the food that you've eaten. It's that powerful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It makes everything about us from our eyes to the brain cells, you know, the dendrites, our axon terminals that allow us to have thoughts and feelings and emotions. It's all made from food. Our heart is made from food.

Are the tiny people hearing the tiny bones in our ears that are vibrating and sending those electrical signals. It's made from food. Everything is made from food. And so this is one of the most powerful, dynamic. entities in our universe and we get to choose what we make ourselves out of. And now what I really want to bring forth and eat smarter, because in our culture, and you know this, most folks when they think about diet and nutrition, automatically folks related to weight in our culture.

Yeah. But food is so much more than that. I already just mentioned the impact that it can have on your cognitive performance. Food literally determines how your memory functions, period. And we'll talk about that today. Which actually, when this was two and a half years of, ago my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease I reached out to you and you were like dude get her off of gluten we got her on the four sigmatic mushrooms yeah lions

main yeah the Lions main and anyway like so much of it has helped and it's it's food that controls every element I think a combination of between food and sleep and hydration like I believe like 98% of your ailments could be solved as a someone who's experienced it myself that's it's it these are called epigenetic controllers. So these are above genetic control. These are things that are determining what your genes are actually doing. The kind of copies that are getting printed out of you are determined by your environment and also the environment you create in yourself. And also even your thoughts have a big influence on your genetic outpicturing because, and that might sound a little

bit woo-woo, but every thought you have has correlating chemistry. By the way, all of it's made from food. But you can have a stressful, angry thought, and it's going to create chemistry in your body that makes that everything kind of correspond. Sure. And we don't realize in our culture oftentimes that we have the ability to choose how we want to think. You know, most of the time our thoughts are fed to us. And so a big part of this is also being able to take your power back

because the ability to manage that, that indoctrination, is to feel good. It's so much easier to choose how you want to think, to choose what you want to do in your life when you feel good. Not that you can't when you feel like shit is just harder. And the same thing, and some of the data in Eat Smarter, in my favorite section, well, it's hard to say my favorite section, but talking about how food affects our ability to connect with other people.

And the data is just going to knock people's socks off. Even our proclivity towards violence is heavily influenced by our nutritional status. If we're deficient in certain things, our brain just doesn't work right. And we're going to have a bigger issue in being able to perspective take, to have patience, to have empathy, right? Oh, dude. We needed all of those things, patience, empathy, and perspective. in this previous year.

So here we are in 2021, and we're January of 2021, ladies and gentlemen, and we saw what a shit over a year 2020 was. And we lacked compassion, we lacked empathy, we lacked understanding, we lacked kindness, we lacked perspective. And you're absolutely right. I mean, this couldn't be more timely.

But, dude, being a smarty pants that you are, I'm going to reel you back for a moment. I'm going to reel you back. And you said, epigenetics. Yeah. Meaning these are the way you eat, the thoughts that we have that we can control, are beyond our genetics. Right.

Like someone might say, for example, hey, heart disease runs in my family. Well, that's a genetic component. These are beyond, is that what epigenetics mean? Absolutely. And so even in this, in the creation of this book, I consult with the very best people in the field. So the person who impressed epigenetics, that term into culture is Dr. Bruce Lipton. And so I just had a conversation with him. the other day. And this is the top science. Everything else is below that. And a lot of our medical

system is still largely based on Newtonian science, which is just these kind of, this thing causes this thing. And we're basically a victim to the cars that were dealt. But the truth is, less than 1% of our diseases actually come from a true genetic defect. That's what I was going to ask you is what percentage. So less than 1%? Yeah. Yet what do we do? humans is we go oh my god I guess I'm predisposed to being fat unhealthy negative victim-minded really we succumb to the idea that almost 99% of it is just a byproduct of genetics or outside influence and I don't have much control we could talk about that specific gene I've talked about it a little bit in the book the FTO gene which is an obesity related gene

and the large number of people who never actually become obese but yet have that gene It's just not getting activated in a sense. But one of the other big issues, and this goes hand in hand with epigenetics, and I think everybody should know this, is this new term I'm impressing upon culture called epi-choloric control. All right, epi-chloric.

So when I was in college in my nutritional science class, I was taught the very first day that if you can manage calories, you can manage your body composition. If you can manage calories, you can manage your health. Which they say calories in calories out. And so my teacher was, borderline obese.

All right. He's a smart guy. But he was doing the thing he was teaching. He wasn't just like running out and, you know, just beer bonging, I don't know, freaking skittles. Milk shakes. That was the food pyramid time. He was just like, I just need more fiber. I need more brown stuff.

You know? And he was doing the thing to his detriment. And this is one of the big issues with, there's so many wonderful diaphragmarks. And I know all the guys. We know all the guys. But each of them can be limiting because they might eliminate a food that your ancestors have been eating for centuries that might be feeding a specific strain of bacteria that's protecting you from autoimmunity. All right.

Or it's adding in something that's not right for you. And you're supposed to eat five avocados a day, but it's like, you know, giving you hemorrhoids or something. You know what I mean? So what it really boils down to is our metabolic uniqueness. And so epicholoric control, there's seven factors. I'll share two with you really quickly. One of them, and this is one of the most interesting things in Eat Smarter, is this was published in the journal cell.

They found a specific strain of bacteria that actually block your intestines from absorbing as many calories from your food. Now here's the thing. When allopathic medicine hears that, it's just like we need to bottle up whatever bacteria that is and sell it. So people can continue eating and it'll stop them from absorbing as many calories. So explain this for dumb people like me. Allopathic medicine is what, like the pharmaceutical companies? Yeah, like conventional medicine, our conventional system of medicine, which is like a drug, you know, pharmaceutical model, right? We find this thing, let's make a drug out of it.

And the problem with the system is that it sees humans in parts. This is why we have side effects, but they're really direct effects, right? We're trying to treat something for, you know, giving you a statin, trying to manipulate cholesterol in your body. Now we find out 30% increase incidence of diabetes when you get on a stat. Geez. All right? Because the human body doesn't operate in a vacuum, right? And so when they come out and they give you the bacteria strain that blocks your intestine from absorb means and many calories,

that might also block your microbes from being able to produce B12 for you. Sure. Or to protect your gastrointestinal tract because they're making these little scafas, these short chain fatty acids, to protect your gut. So here's the other side of this. So they find this bacteria. And in my clinical practice, I could literally send out and have somebody. get a stool sample done.

And I'll never even see the person. They could send the report back and I can tell based on the makeup of their microbes whether or not they're obese with about 80 to 90% accuracy. That's scary, dude. So now what we know today, and this is again above caloric control,

there's a certain microbe makeup in our gut that's associated with insulin resistance, obesity, and here's what it was cool. So they found the strain in mice, right? But, you know, we're human. And so what they did was they took fecal samples from humans who had this micro makeup associated with obesity and they implanted it into mice, lean mice.

And then they took a healthy human, make microbiome sample and implanted into lean mice. Those lean mice stayed lean. The mice who received the fecal sample from humans who have the gut microbiome associated with obesity, these mice became insulin resistant, they gained weight and gained body fat. simply by changing their microbes. So this isn't talked about when people, you know, well-meaning doctors are saying, just cut your calories.

This is not addressing the real issue. Your microbes are determining whether or not you're absorbing calories and your rate of expenditure. And that's the second part. So I'll share this with you. This one's going to be pretty simple for folks to understand. So this was published in the journal Food and Nutrition Research. And this is something we've been talking about for many years,

but now we've got the data. They want to find out what would happen at, for your rate of calorie burn when you eat a meal of processed foods versus a meal of whole foods. Okay. Even if the meals are the same amount of calories. Got it. And so they had some folks that eat a whole food sandwich, all right? So they deemed this to be whole food as whole grain bread and cheddar cheese.

All right. So that was one group of test subjects. They had another group to consume a meal of processed foods, right, a processed food sandwich. So this was white bread and cheese product. And if you're like, it's cheese product, that's craft. All right? So they can't legally call it cheese because it's not enough cheese. the cheese, it's craft signals.

Right, right. So they have folks to consume. They're the same amount of calories, same amount of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. But here's what happened. The folks who ate the processed food sandwich had a 50% reduction in calorie burn after eating that sandwich versus the folks who ate the whole food sandwich. Holy smokes. What this processed food did was create what I call these hormonal clogs.

It changed the way the metabolism was working, making their body more stingy and retaining that energy and holding onto it. It was gumming up the system. It was creating some kind of a hormonal clog, as I mentioned, but some kind of a chaos, like a hormonal chaos. And is that a reaction to the fillers and the processing chemicals they put in, I guess, fake, processed food? That's the key.

It's fake. It's not even real food. But is the body reacting to it? Like, why by 50% there's a reduction of 50%? Yeah. This goes back to this epigenetic term. Our genes expect us to do certain things. We've evolved hundreds of thousands of thousands of years in this current state to eat real foods to eat things that come

somewhat close to nature we can cook and cooking has created a massive like a quantum leap in the development of the human brain But when we start to get away from that this is why even all that's happening in the world today As soon as any mandates start happening that change what our genes expect us to do I get a red flag that goes up and I know I have a cognitive bias. I have a bias towards like, what is what does our DNA expect from us? What are the things that we know to be true that humans need? We need sunlight. We need fresh air.

We need community. We need real food. All of these things create our overall picture of health, potential help with our genes. When we take away community, when we take away exposure to sunlight, when we take away the ability to have movement practices, all of these things start to degrade our health rapidly. And one of the things that's not been talked about, and this was in New York City, this was like ground zero for so much trauma that's taking place. There's about a 300% increase in deaths from diabetes and heart disease that nobody's fucking about. Nobody said a thing about it. And we now, since the beginning of this thing, as a culture, we are far sicker, far more susceptible.

When you say this thing, are you talking about this COVID virus? Yeah, yeah. So March of 2020, am I hearing you say that there's a 300% increase just in New York City? Yeah. In the preceding months right after that. Of deaths related to diabetes and heart disease specifically. Yeah, no one's talking about it. The facts are out there because the numbers are out there, but no one's talking about it.

Yeah. And so, again, why would we see such big spikes in these other conditions? It's because we're moving away from the things that make us human. And also one of the things that I specifically talked about with Dr. Lippon, again, renowned cell biologists, epigenetics is in our lexicon because of him, he shared with me the biology of fear. And I mentioned how every thought has correlated chemistry. We're just 24-7 fear. We're just tapped into it. And one of the studies I actually just share with the group today and how we get addicted to fear and addicted to stress. And we go looking for it. We go on to social

media looking for the thing that makes us feel something, you know, feel fear, feel like we've got a common enemy right and so we really have to get to take back control of our minds we have to get our citizens healthier again it's not that it's impossible it's just harder if you don't feel well to control your own mind right what why and I know this isn't nutrition related but I respect you so much and having known you for so many years now I'm asking for your opinion I know I realize this isn't science why do you think it is that people have gotten so addicted to fear in this time because I know I can put myself in check.

Like everyone else, I'm a human. I run a big fitness franchise, and all of a sudden my gyms across the world are being asked to shut down or have, depending on the state they're in, have limited capacity or zero capacity, open, okay, now you're closed. And so I definitely get caught up in the fear cycle.

Yep. But I also have a, almost a self-check mechanism where I go, hey, dude, all right, now you're venturing in this place where you're going down the rabbit hole. And this seems like it's going to be bad for me. And I know how to back off. What is missing?

What is going on with the people who don't have that? They go down that rabbit hole and they go into this darkness of depression and the stay inside and fear mongering, et cetera. Yeah. That's such a great question. So first and foremost, you have to understand our evolution of the human brain itself. We're a little bit hardwired, not a little bit, but quite a bit hardwired to look for problems. all right we have to stay on guard for things that threaten our life that's a survival mechanism yeah sure but we've we've evolved this highly complex prefrontal cortex that enables us to have like executive

decision making to distinguish between right and wrong for social control you know things that we can actually deceive like okay is this threat a real threat is this actually going to hurt me and nine times out of 10 in our culture it's it's just it's framing it's not actually a threat there's something it's going to hurt you. Framing. Explain that. That's beautiful. Beautiful.

I love your mind. So, and this is, I just shared this with the group today as well. You know, our, our system of media, it's got decades of data to find out what is the thing that's going to keep you glued to the station the longest. What can we do? And the number one driver that they use a psychological trigger is fear. That's the thing that really connects you to the newscast. You know, something that makes you feel like your, your safety's in being.

threatened and also to have an enemy that you need to be on guard for and if you watch a newscasts you will repeatedly see them framing things there's something you need to be your safety is threatened and there's an enemy all right and they just do that over and over and over again and so it's the framing even if the threat isn't imminent it's still going to be something that's because it keeps you tapped in they're not going to give you the good news report my wife just driving over here i was like babe can you check the numbers what is it 90 900 million confirmed cases wait I'm sorry scratch that 90 million confirmed cases 90 million confirmed cases of COVID if you get any epidemiologists and again like I'll just bring on the top epidemiologists have a conversation

any epidemi is any epidemi is worth their salt will tell you when we have a confirmed amount of cases at minimum there's 10 to 15 times more of those cases in the population. So that takes us up over a billion. Over a billion. This is no longer pandemic. This is endemic. This is something that's just built into our culture. But you don't hear about the 99.9% of people,

because once we do that, these are simple math that you do, who are okay. All you hear about is the threat. not to say that the threat isn't real, not to say that, but what about the people who are okay? Did they survive? How did 900 million people? Would you say at the low end? Well, what do we have, 7 billion people on this planet? Right?

And so that's like one out of seven. Yeah. We'll have it. It's crazy. Yeah. And most 99.6 or 99.9.9% will be just fine, their own immune system that's designed to build antibodies and cure them. What we're not talking about it at all and again this is not to say that there isn't a threat because that doesn't trigger fear

Yes we don't have the good news report hey we have all of these cases but this cases without context Yeah all you see in his cases go up but as the cases go up that just puts the more mortality rate down lower and lower But it doesn't matter because of the the framing of fear is already there so again if we can put it in context What is the most important thing for us to do? What is the number one susceptibility to this virus and all viruses? being healthy, being a healthy resilient human being. But the media will frame it up. Perfectly healthy people are dying too. I said this in the very beginning because I went and looked at the data in Italy.

And I was like, oh, we're in trouble because they saw the rate of chronic diseases and how that skyrocketed your susceptibility. Sure enough, I'm not saying I'm Nostradamus, but the data is right there. The CDC published their study in September and anybody can go and look this up, compiled all the data and looked at all the deaths here in the United States. 94% of the folks, the souls that we lost, in relationship to COVID, whether you agree with the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, 90s of them, 90s, 90s. So I'm hearing you say that even the, the, when they say, how, even healthy people are dying, you may look healthy. That's the 6% of the 94% and they're just like, that's, that's, the media is going to frame the college student, is 19, who's, who's, Again, you and I, we can be as healthy as we want to be. But if we get stressed, we start, you know, we're taking a bunch of flights. We're not sleeping well. We're not getting into nutrition.

You know, maybe we're just eating airplane food all the time, whatever. I've got data, and we can talk about some of these things. Your immune system will be suppressed. We carry around with us. We have trillions. Both of us, everybody here in this room, we have over 400 trillion viruses in and on our bodies right now. This is normal all the time. many of them are opportunistic or pathogenic.

They can make us sick or kill us. And it happens when our immune system is suppressed. Very simple. I'm going to make an observation. One, I understand why you're so frustrated. Like, you understand so much. I don't know if you even remember this. You stood right there a few years ago,

and I was, we were talking, I had you on the show for Sleep Smarter, and I was like, oh, fuck it. I've got you here. I'm going to be like, how can I optimize my health? Because if it's going to help me with my health, it's going to help my audience, right? And one of the key things you said, I was like, dude, how much water do I need to drink? And you're like 30 ounces of water first thing in the morning.

I think I was drinking like 15 at the time, or whatever this is, 16.9, this arrowhead. Dude, no joke every single day, even like when I'm traveling in hotels, I just have 30 ounces of water that I just chug and drink. Because, like, well, Sean is so neurotic about getting the facts and the information and not just kind of, you know, social media knowledge, but actual social media. scientific knowledge and so I imagine knowing what you know not just the headline that the rest of us see on news media or social media and what you know your frustration level is high yeah and I see that passion come out like

when you made the face mask I guess was a documentary is what it was right it was like a forty-some-odd-minute it seemed like documentary what what is your take what what is and I'm not asking you to be political or you can be political but I'm not like why is this happening why didn't they use a virus two years ago three years ago four years ago like why this why right now what have you heard from the people that you're connected to okay so first thing I got it you brought up the the the mass document just in case anybody's curious I went in and looked at the data early on but I'm looking at

randomized controlled trials so real world like what happens in the real world many of the statistics people see they see the cool like photography But what they're missing out on, these are projective models. Those are theoretical models of how viruses might operate. What happens in the real world? So I went and looked at the randomized controlled trials and every one of them, every single one. People can go look one up from the BMJ. And it concluded masks are not effective.

Cloth masks specifically, with 13 times, folks who wore cloth masks versus surgical masks had 13 times higher rate of infection. Just right there, we should at least be like, well, maybe we don't want to wear cloth mask. But that's missed on people. because it doesn't fit with the narrative. I'm curious to know why people who wear a cloth mask are 13 times higher. Again, anybody can go look this up or they can go to the model health show.com for slash mask facts. And I've got all the studies there for you.

You could just geek out, but I also frame them so you can understand them a little bit better. And so what the research is concluded in the study was that the, it creates basically, especially with the cloth mask, a wet microclimate. As time goes on, the more this is happening, just even with this. in a few minutes, but especially folks are wearing it for hours a day, is creating a vector of just nastiness. You know, so it's like a climate inside of your mask. And so it creates a lower resistance for a virus particles to travel in and out of the mask is what the researchers concluded. And so they advised against wearing cloth masks specifically, but even still, and by the way,

So in the study, they found that there was a 97% penetration by virus particles through cloth mask, right? And it was 44% for surgical mask, which is not good. Yeah, that's still not. If you're 44% penetrated, it still counts, Pedro. You know what I mean? You don't need to be a rocket scientist to all that. So, and then what these pictures negate when you see the cool photography was like, clearly the mask stops the, if you could actually see the amount of viruses in the room, you couldn't see anything else but that. We're in it.

We're absolutely immersed and inundated with viruses. And so what I was pointing to was not to say I wanted them to be effective. I looked at the data trying to find what is the best method to go about. That's why I was looking at it to it. I wanted to make sure we do this in a way that's advantageous and not venture into the ridiculous. Because I saw my neighbor, you know, late 20s, early 30s, because of he's tuning into the, this was a hundred and eight day, 108 degree day. He came outside, full on gas mask. arms covered long-sleeved shirt, long pants, gloves on, just to walk from his door to his car.

All right? So I want to make sure we don't venture into the ridiculous, but still find a way that this is effective. Now, here's where we're at today. And again, people can go and look this up. But most folks will miss this because it's not front page news. Sure. So the CDC did a randomized controlled study to find out, and this was just a couple months ago, the effectiveness of mask in the real world.

All right. How did it actually pan out with COVID cases? So even as I mentioned, the BMJ, that was with different viruses. So then people were like, well, COVID's different. Now we got data. So they compiled factual proven cases of COVID. They just took a random group of people who had confirmed cases of COVID. And what they discovered, and there's a chart that has all.

these numbers and I was just like I couldn't believe how obvious it was but what they found was that when you would see this and with the media frame let me preface this before I share the result the media frames that like all of these cases are being driven by folks who are just out here raw dog in the air and super spreader events and all these things like if everybody would just wear a mask is would go away in reality once they compile the data it took a random just a random selection of a few hundred folks with confirmed cases of COVID, and they found that 70% of them were people who always wore their mask. They always wore their mask, and yet they still contracted COVID. And then people, the thing might come up, what's not about you,

it's about protecting other people. Yes. That was great propaganda, by the way, because then you feel like an asshole and you're made to feel like an asshole by society. And that's the same concept of, again, I'm wearing this perforated holy concept. that is definitely going to protect you, but it doesn't protect me. Okay. You're safe. And it's just not based on reality. But, okay, to continue on with this.

But there's no greater level of safety for them, right? These folks were around. Okay. So 70% of them always wear their mask. Another 15% often to always wear their mask. So there's 85% of the people tested. The folks who never wore masks, 3% of the people who had a confirmed case of COVID. All right. Now, here's the biggest, this is what's different from somebody like me that has 20 years of experience and like looking at this stuff and just looking for what are the real world applications. The randomized controlled trial, it wasn't people who got COVID and people who didn't. This was people who got COVID and people who got other. All right. The researchers came into it with their own cognitive bias. They were trying to find out why people wearing a mask still were getting COVID infections. That was their mission because they believe it works.

So they're trying to manisplain a way that it works. And so what they found was that folks who contracted COVID were more likely to go out to eat. So they took their mask off to eat. And that's when COVID is going to manipulate you, all right? So that's what they found. Ships right in when you take that mask off. But here in the other group who had confirmed some type of viral of bacterial infection, they were symptomatic carriers or something.

They just didn't test positive for COVID. 74% of them always wore their mask. And they didn't go out to eat as often. This was totally negated in the study. 74% of them always wear their mask. And then a couple with folks who often are always, you know, same thing, almost 90%. And just 2% to 3% of folks never wore a mask contracted these viruses. We should just talk about this stuff because the data exist.

I'm not trying. I don't want to be controversial. I just want to get everybody healthy. You know what I mean? But if the thing doesn't work, this is what the media. has framed it, our health policies, you know, the task force has framed it as just this preventative metric. If you use this piece of fabric, it's going to stop the spread. The thing that will stop the spread or stop sickness from it is getting our citizens healthier. But not once. Have you

seen a major media? Not once have you seen a task force member. Talk about the number one susceptibility. Ninety-four percent of the people who died, 2.6 pre-existing chronic disease. In the beginning, Pedro, when I would share this data, there were a couple of f*** holes. They're just like, you're right, Sean, but unfortunately we can't get people healthy overnight. It's been almost a . Not one person has said anything about it because they never say anything about it. They never cared about it. That's not how the system is made.

It's based on a pharmaceutical model that we're going to try to drug our way out of something, but it never works. Right now, here in America, every year. Pedro's, every disease gets worse and worse. Heart disease keeps going up. Diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer's. Here in the United States, 200 million people are overweight or obese. Right now. It's a business, right?

I mean, it's a business. It's just the reality is it's a business. And at some point, you can justify your way out of it by saying, well, look, people have a choice to get fat. They can choose to be lean. They just need to do the research. average person doesn't go out there and do the research and if you are in the news media there used to be a time the news media would share facts and not opinions and not misinformation but at some point if the lobbyists control the politicians and the politicians are putting out information that

is designed to stimulate fear to sell more of the stuff the lobbyists sell might be the pharmaceutical company it might be the mass companies it might be whoever and of course the mouthpiece of all that is the mainstream news media. Like, in that way, the business makes sense, because I'm a marketer. I understand. Like, first, I'm going to drive leads, and I'm going to put you in a funnel that indoctrinates you and gets you to feel a certain way that you are not making enough money and that your profit margins aren't high enough.

And then I'm going to get you to know, like, and trust me. And it's easy to do that when you're seeing someone in your house on a screen of some sort. Right? Television does that. It's like, oh, wow, you know, Walter Cronkite. came into my house via this thing. But at some point, Walter Cronkite back in the day, was not controlled by big pharmaceutical lobbyists or any other kind of lobbyists there.

So I share all this because I see as a marketer like, oh, they drive leads, the audience, they indoctrinate them through fear, right? And watch out, there's a common enemy. And they go, but here's what you ought to do. And what they do is once we begin to choose to lean into fear instead of taking control of our lives, then we go, just tell me what to do. I don't know what to do anymore. And I remember, Sean, I took my son Andrew to the Chino Air Show when he was four years old.

And he likes stuffed lions that have like the little wispy mane hair. Yeah. You know, and he had this one particular one that he liked to carry around with him. And I happened to be holding it. And he's looking at the fighter jets going by. And when a fighter jet is going by and it's got his afterburners on, literally the jet goes by in silence. And then like one second, two second, three seconds later, you hear the crash. Sound travels a lot slower, right, than the speed of that jet.

And so when the crash happened, Andrew panicked. And he was just standing there just looking. And then you hear the crash of that, the sonic boom. And he runs between my legs and goes into a panic. And I just give him his little lion. And he holds on to it and he gets calm again. And I see what's happened now is these masks have become the little fuzzy lions, the little security blankets

that society can hold on. If I put on my mask, then I have this false sense of Andrew wasn't any safer. If that jet had munitions, it could have killed us, right? Even if he's between daddy's legs. I can't stop a missile.

But he believes that if I'm between daddy's legs and I'm holding my line, I'm safe. And he calmed down and he relaxed and he was just hanging out watching the jets go by. And I thought of that now in this era, I'm like, holy crap. We create all this spear

and then go, but if you just wear this piece of whatever, it doesn't even matter. anymore across your mouth you're going to have some false sense of security about something you can't control when all the different elements you can't control your sleep your thoughts the people you surround yourself with your attitude your mindset your emotional discipline your food your food yeah your hydration none of it matters that i don't know about that yeah yeah thank you for that man that's such a great analogy and by the way again just for everybody listening this is not to be controversial

the data exists i want everybody to be able to suspend their disbelief leave and just look at the data because there's going to be conflicting stuff everywhere. And not to say that they can't be effective in some metric, you know, but at the end of the day, what's the most important thing? And why is it not being talked about? Because, again, our system has never really talked about it. And this is why a book like this, it came out, the first week it came out, it came the number one new release in America, which is crazy.

Which, by the way, you know, you were just telling me right before the camera started rolling. The book was up there with Obama. Obama, Matthew McConaughey. Right. But this isn't about celebrity. It's not about fanfare. It's not about politics. It's about health.

People do care about this, you know, but we have to, sometimes we don't realize. We're not. Part of that frustration that you mentioned earlier, you know, I definitely, because I thought we were better than this. In the beginning, I really did. I thought we were better than this. But we are. We just don't know it. And we really reverted back, even people that we know, colleagues, reverted back to that

primitive, like everything is scary and not really understanding how powerful we are. And all of a sudden, they're listening to, just quote, follow the science. Listen to the scientists. I'm a scientist. 20 years. I'm telling you there's another side of the story and that side is being censored. Now, we can actually take all the data and just have a rational conversation. When they make mandates about shutting down businesses. Let's talk about the downstream effects of that. When we make mandates about shutting down our schools, let's have a conversation. Let's bring in some experts and talk about what are the downstream effects of that? What is the psychological impact that's going to have on our children who need social interaction for the development

of their brain? Thank you. Are they going to be permanently scarred? Are we raising a generation of Dexter's because they don't know how to relate and socialize with other human beings? beings and understand the parents aren't there 90% of the time they can't turn their world upside down to now be a homeschooling teacher right so they're not nobody nobody in this chaos is being served and talking with the top psychologists psychiatrists epidemiologists everybody can agree the top folks the treatment for for this issue is far likely going to be far worse than the issue itself yeah one thousand you know but here's the great thing after all it's out of the doom and gloom,

I love it, I love it that this happened now, because again, I thought we were better than this, but I knew we weren't. I knew we weren't, but I was like lying to myself because we get into our bubbles where we're around healthy people. We see this certain type of message. The great news is this.

These systems that we've upheld as being of integrity are not. Our medical system that's being real, it's fluxed up right now. There's a lot of turbulence happening with it. Our medical system, again, anybody can go look this.

If anything that I said today, go look this up and then go look at everything else. Take this study I'm about to share with you as the number one thing to start to have more trust in what I'm saying. Go to Dr. Google, look up Johns Hopkins. Third leading cause of death, medical error. All right? Look that up. The third leading cause of death in the United States. Every fucking year.

Number one is heart disease. Number two is cancer. Number three is death by doctor. Death from the healthcare system. Every year. And it's as if it doesn't exist. It's as if, and my argument is that it's really number one because of how poorly it treats number one and two.

Right. Right. Right. Exactly. We have to understand that as a template from, now here's the good news again. That system is being shaken up now. It might not be the way that we wanted to look.

look right now as far as being shaken up but there's so many problems with it when something becomes more malleable it's easier to change before it was very rigid kind of firmly in place we've had more integrated physicians coming in functional medicine you know it's taking so long people keep dying we needed the shaking of the snow globe to happen and as you're saying I'm glad it happened over a long period of time because like you I was like hey I thought we were better in this and again it's because one I lean into optimism we lean into optimism we lean into optimism Right? So it's like, I think humanity's better than this. And then two, you're right. We hang out in a bubble where people are healthy and optimistic and caught up on real facts and science and not necessarily fear. And so I was like, oh, shit, maybe we're not better than this. But enough time has gone by where people realize, wait a minute. They're telling me mask, no mask. Six feet, no feet. They're telling me, go back to school, don't go to school, et cetera. Like, bro, I'm not a scientist. I just saw that when the first time I put the mask on to go into a grocery store, maybe I'm a mouth breather. I don't know. But Sean, by the time I got out, at the grocery store with my wife, and we spent maybe 15 minutes in there.

Yeah. Bro, it was all, like, humid in here, right? I'm like, all right, something tells me if it's humid, stick. Who knows what kind of bacteria and germs and his shit is sticking. And I'm not going to do this. And so immediately, the wife and I decided, if our kids are going to have to go to school, because school was like, hey, they can come to school, but they're going to have to have the mask on all day long?

I'm like, no, in 15 minutes, I had a goddamn Turkish bath going on right here. There's no way, bro, there's no way my daughter or son are going to wear a mask for eight hours. Yeah. Right? So I was like, all right, they're going to do the homeschool version of it. And that's that. And that's, but so many people are like, well, that's okay. And the reality is, look, we have someone at home that could watch, they could be there with our kids.

We've got a full-time housekeeper and Marlon's a badass and she's like there and adults. Most people don't have that. So they're like, well, I'm going to have to mask up my kid. And then when I hear stats like you're sharing, you know, and never mind what it's taken away. from their immune system that mask what it's doing to their self-confidence like bro I'm a grown man and I can't tell when someone's got a mask on like are they smiling at me do they understand what I just said what is it doing to our communication but anyway all that said this goes back to what we can control which is what we're eating our food

all right and one of the sections that I really love most is section two and I think that's selfishly because I want to know how I can optimize myself at my audience how can they think better how can they feel better how can they control their mood, their energy, their metabolism, so that they can operate better because our audience on the Empire show here knows one thing. The money is a vehicle to meaning. And I want to help them create more money so they can have meaning, donate to the churches, the causes, the charities you want to donate to. I want them to buy back their time and freedom. And I want them to have an awesome experience with their family. And money does bias those things. And so how do we operate

better from section two like what how do we eat what time should we eat what do we eat what are the things that we can do to optimize ourselves where eating is concerned perfect perfect so the most important thing and for me this is a habitual question I ask when I'm trying to identify a root issue for a root solution like at its core what is the thing I ask what is it made of where did it come from right so in talking about cognitive performance this has to do with our brains and theoretical physicist, Michi Okaku said that the human brain is the most powerful entity in the known universe. It is powerful beyond measure. It created everything that we see here in this room. It's so remarkable, but we don't get an owner's manual, largely. We don't know anything about it.

And there's this thing in, it's really out of the world of personal development. We only use like 5% of our brain, 10%. It's not like there's parts of your brain that are just like sitting on time out. They're just like, I'm not playing with you guys. Our whole brain works all the time. We just don't use it very well. There's so much more potential for our brains. And so to be able to be more productive, to have a better memory, to be able to focus during, especially when you're under stress and distraction at this time in human history, we've got data on how we can do that. So first question is, what is your brain made of?

Number one answer is made of water. So when you mention your water routine, your inner bath you take every day, inner bath, I love that. The first thing, and just to give a little metabolic side for folks, and this is one of the great studies that's any smarter, there's something called water-induced thermogenesis. So what the researchers did was have folks who just consumed 17 ounces of water in just a couple of minutes, and it led to a dramatic increase in their metabolism. And we might think, try to mansplain it, well, the body's heating the water up,

but no, it just makes everything work better. It doesn't matter the temperature of the water. And what they found was that the folks, their metabolic rate went up to the degree that they burned about 25 to 50 more calories simply from drinking water. So you're drinking something with no calories and it makes you burn calories. And now in our culture, some is good, more is better. So it's just like, well, I should just drink, you know, three gallons. Right.

There are diminishing returns, right? Because there's a level, there's your extracellular fluid and the cells themselves. And I talk about hydration a lot in the book. But here's why this matters for the brain. One of the studies found that just a 2% drop in the test subjects' optimal kind of baseline hydration level led to decrease reaction time, decrease ability to focus, decrease spatial recognition. So like being able to manage yourself in space, like map recognition. So basically, you'd become dumber, all right?

You become more of like the Lloyd Christmas version of yourself. And that's just 2%. That's it. That's it. It doesn't take much, you know. That's a small amount. That's a small, that's a pretty small amount, but most folks are walking around and like a, their baseline is like right under dehydrated, you know, and so simply by getting and by they reverse the

issue by getting them hydrated. So what does that look like? I go, I go through and give a big kind of dissertation on water in a way that's fun in a way that makes sense. There's so many different little nuances with it, but, and I don't really like to give specifics. at all. Like that's not what you're going to find in the book. Eat this thing. Don't eat that. I'm going to tell you what the data shows, but everybody is unique. You need a different amount of water than Shaq. You know what I mean? You need a different amount of water than Simone Biles. This cookie cutter shit of like drink eight ounces, eight glasses of eight ounces a day, whatever. But I do give a baseline of like take your body weight divided in half. That number you come up with,

target that amount of ounces. But even that I don't like to do. Because, the number one metric on how much water you should drink is your brain and your body telling you. Right. But we're so externally focused, we're not getting that data. And that has to do with your hypothalamus. And, you know, maybe we could circle back to this. But so number one is water. But number two, and this is, this goes hand in hand with the water.

So it's very important what I'm about to say. Electrolites. All right? Listen, dude. One of the craziest studies was on the impact of sodium in the brain. So electrolytes literally are needed to make the electrical impulses in the brain for your brain cells to talk. It matters. We know about electrolytes from Gatorade.

You know what I mean? Right, right, right. This is literally talking about your brain being able to talk to its, your brain cells being able to talk to themselves. So they found that deficiency in sodium led to decreased cognitive performance. So getting adequate amounts of sodium, but the real game changer was magnesium, which is another electrolyte. And so one of the studies found that folks with already documented cognitive decline, right? So they're in their 50s to, I believe, 50s to 70s. They already have cognitive decline taking place.

By increasing their intake of magnesium after the study was complete, they found that the folks who got their magnesium levels optimized had brains that were operating as if they were nine years younger. Holy crap. A decade of youth. Dude. When we talk about issues like dementia, Alzheimer's, in conventional medicine today, it's just all you can do is try to slow it down. There's nothing about making it better.

The data exists. Your body, magnesium is responsible for over 625 biochemical process in your body. That means that 625 things your body can't do if you're deficient in it. All right, selfish question. I take magnesium at night 400, I think it's milligrams. to go to, you know, just to help with going into a deeper sleep. Do I need to spread my magnesium out throughout the day in addition to what I take at night,

or does my body know, all right, I got that, I'm going to spread it out? That's a great question. So this is why I love having you here. I love having smart people on the show because I can just selfishly ask all the right questions and help everybody. This is what E-Smarter is all about, man, is looking at the bigger picture.

When I was in my nutritional science class in college, We were taught, you know, make sure you get your essential vitamins and minerals, amino S. But you can get it, just get a multivitamin. There's so many different types of magnesium. There's not just one. The multivitamin has fucking one. Is that the one that you need?

There's different types of vitamin C. There's different types of omega-3s. There's different types of B-12. There's different types of everything. Food has it all. That's what makes food so remarkable. And it has biopotentiators and co-factors that come along with it that make your body be able to use it better. Circles right back to Whole Food.

So that's the number one tenet is when we're talking about magnesium, we want to make sure we're getting in a variety of high quality food sources. But what I want folks to realize is that because it's responsible for so much, it really has a lot to do with modulating stress in the body, modulating your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, and modulating muscle contractions. And so with all that said, modulating your nervous system, what's our life like today?

How's our nervous system doing? We're stressed the f***. So it's getting just burned through. Your body is using so much of it. This is why it is the number one mineral deficiency in our country. Documented in the book, about 60% of people are chronically deficient in magnesium. Based off the best studies that we have. So this is not something to take lightly or joke about.

So folks are this kind of impact on our cognitive performance, folks are walking around and their brains are not working right, wondering why we're so pissed off, wondering why we're so irritated when just having a conversation about mass. Let's talk about it. I can't. Can't. You know, so number one, food first.

What are some good food sources? Anything that's green. There's another thing we talk about in the book as well. These powerful clues that is just provided in nature. And there's a science. We also go to the science of flavor, right? So I'll circle back to that in one second. It's really cool.

But the green pigment is a, indicator that it's high magnesium food. And coincidentally, a study from Rush University Medical Center found that the test subjects who consumed at least two servings of green leafy vegetables each day had on average brains there were 11 years younger compared to folks who got less than two servings a day. Bro. So that goes hand in hand. All right. So we've got anything green. Chocolate is actually a great source of magnesium, very high magnesium. But you don't want the shitty, you know, the, Hershey's, whatever, kiss my, you know, whatever. And not to say that you can't have it. That's the thing, too. Like, everything has its place, but that's not going to,

if you want to get magnesium from chocolate or that experience, let's upgrade it. Let's get something higher quality. Different nuts and seeds, you know, hemp seeds are a great source of magnesium. You know, there's a whole different list. There's many different, it's kind of hard. It's so needed. Nature has made it very available. But one of the biggest, like, you get, stacked when you get those green leafy vegetables. And that's what you're after. Yeah. So let me first of all say something to you,

and this isn't just blowing smoke up your ass. You did this with Sleep Smarter and you've done it with Eat Smarter. You have a gift, my friend, of taking complex science and making it simple, understandable, and I'm even going to use the words fun. You do that with the Model Health show when you do your documentaries or when you go on a rant on a podcast. You do that here in your book too. And so I want to encourage all of you watching this right now. I want you to buy two copies.

One copy for yourself, one copy to give to a friend because no media, no government official, no food organization corporation is going to tell you the facts that are in here in a simple, easy to understand way because everyone wants to kind of sell us on the idea that, look, nutrition is complex. So just take your multivitamin and, you know, eat the stuff that says high in fiber and you'll be good. But that fiber doesn't even get used. in your body. And so if you really want to understand science and have it broken down to you in an easy to understand in a fun way, the dude's done it right here. So I get two copies. But with that said,

going back to cognitive function. Yeah. Like high level of mental performance. As an entrepreneur, I see myself as an athlete. My sleep is scheduled. I sleep at the same time, wake up at the same time, seven days a week, my water, the thoughts that occupy my mind, the people I surround myself with, the food. What other, I don't know, I'm using the word hacks? Yeah. Tips? This is the big one right here, what I'm going to share. Because like I said, it's still, if you're eating real food, you're going to get your magnesium. All right.

This one right here is a game changer. And it's stacked on so many different levels. The first part of the book is dedicated to metabolism and teaching everybody to science around that. How your metabolism actually works, nutrients that create the hormones that make the magic happen. But it's also a big player in your cognitive performance. Now, you've heard this before, but we're going to take it to another level. So the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, they were testing folks on cognitive performance and found that simply by increasing their intake of Omega 3 DHA, specifically DHA and EPA.

I'm going to talk about the difference. DHA and EPA getting those in specifically led to improved memory just within a matter of fucking days. Improved memory, improved ability to focus under stress. So that's one side. That sounds cool. Okay, cool. Here's the other side. Here's what happens when you don't get enough.

And so these researchers took, and they did MRIs. They actually went and actually looked at the brain and found that the folks who had the lowest intake of DHA and EPA specifically had the highest rate of brain shrinkage. Ooh. All right. And this isn't like, it's cold outside. and you know you're maybe like you're doing a cold plant shrinkage this is like permanently can mess you up shrinkage and so but here's the thing it was just the bar was 1.2 teaspoons a day 1.2 teaspoon under that brain shrinkage just 1.2

teaspoons can protect your brain from go from atrophying all right so how do we do this DHA and EPA now here's the the bigger arching thing because there's different types of omega-3s sure as I mentioned When I was in my clinical practice, when I first started, I was just telling people to get their omega-3s in. ALA is the plant form and it does some cool stuff, but it's not what the brain uses. So it's a platform? Am I thinking flaxseed? Flaxseed, chia seeds, hemp seeds. These are all great. Gotcha.

And they're cool, but the body is so hungry for DHA. It can actually convert some ALA into DHA. But you can lose upwards of 90% in the conversion process. So for you to get the amount of DHA you need, you're going to need to literally consume clinically speaking assloads of chia seeds every day. That's a clinical term. Yeah. This is how we do it.

Assload. Write that down. So it's just not viable. And also you just need to, you might as well just put your office into a porta potty as well. Sure. Right, because you're just shitting all the way. Because it gets that gel, you know. But it's not that those foods are not wonderful, but here's the difference with DHA and EPA.

with DHA and EPA, we have something, we have the brain being the most powerful entity in the known universe that we know about. It doesn't come to the party without protection because it is incredibly delicate as well. Your brain is about the consistency of soft butter. It's very delicate. And to be the most powerful thing, but super delicate, it's kind of like crang in the Ninja Turtles. Yes, yes. He's got this, he needs this metal body protective. It's like super gushy. That was actually really good metaphor there. That was really good. First time, I was. thought about so there's a whole generation that has no idea what the fuck we're talking about because

that was kind of more our error but anyway so the we have it's the only organ that's fully encased in hard hard bone right Scott we've got a built-in helmet the cranium but your brain is so sensitive and it's so important you also have an internal security system as well it's called the blood brain barrier and I picture it like it's a toll booth on what's allowed to get into the brain only as literally a couple dozen nutrients are actually allowed to get into your brain. You might eat all this stuff, but your brain has its own diet. We call it neuronutrition, all right? And I picture it is that this toll booth is Duane the Rock Johnson,

clones of him sitting at all the different toll booths. Sure. Kicking unwanted nutrition, nutrients asses and then toxins asses and taking names later kind of thing. But there's an express pass for DHA and EPA. Like they can just shuttle in. people come because of this the fats on our bodies the fat that we're quote trying to burn those are storage fats your brain doesn't have storage fats those are called structural fats if your brain was made of storage fats and during times of famine effectively your brain would eat itself right it's like

homemade zombie food right so our brain is made of structural fats dHA and EPA are used to create to literally create the the physical structure of your brain cells the plasticity and something called transduction. So this makes them able to talk to each other. This is how important DHA and EPA are. So when I'm saying we need to absolutely get this in our diet, I'm not just saying this. I didn't know it was this important when I went into this project.

I knew it was important, but not this important. And so how do we do this? Plant sources, that's cool, but not for your brain. If you're taking a vegan or vegetarian approach, we have to address this. We evolved having food sources, animal sources of omega-3s of DHA and EPA. Now we can take based on, we can be successful on many different diet frameworks, but we don't want to do something that hurts us to our detriment.

So number one, most of the studies, 99.5% of the studies on DHA and EPA are done on fish oil, all right? It just, it works. And the data, it works. And I've got some really mind-blower studies on fish oil effects. first though where's the fish come from the journal neurology this journal one of the most prestigious focused on cognitive health the journal neurology found that folks who eat just one seafood meal a week do in fact perform significantly better on cognitive skills tests than folks who get less all right

just one a week all right but if you're not doing the you know seafood thing or if you just like don't like fish at all like you can't even fucking watch aqua man you know what i mean if if you're like that with fish, there's also eggs. There's also grass-fed beef. There's other sources. But now we move down the rung from fish oil to krill oil, right? Crill, microscopic shrimp. But when I say shrimp, that might put off if somebody's doing a vegan or vegetarian approach, it's microscopic shrimp. You'll probably kill more sentient organisms like licking the air. You know what I mean? Like a few times a day. But even still, just to respect our own ethics, if that doesn't fit into your, but by the way, that other 1% of studies on that those include

krill oil, it's shocking how effective krill oil is because it's red. It's rich in astazanthan. And it makes the omega-3s work even better. So krill oil next level, full plant source. If you're taking a vegan protocol and your ethics don't allow for you to get more of a food source, I want you, no matter what, get yourself an algae oil. Algae oil. Algae oil. Now here's the issue, and this is a thing that's different from me. I'm not just gonna blow smoke up your ass.

We don't have much clinical evidence of its effectiveness in placebo-controlled trials. But we do know that the DHA and EPA are there. So chances are they're probably gonna work well. At what point on the rung or on the latter does like omega-3, you know, the capsules come in? come in or the so we're suggesting like eat krill like take krill oil by way of those capsules yeah so food food first yeah so fish um fatty fish specifically yeah right fatty fish cold water fish then we get in a fish oil capsules yeah but that's that's a whole food extraction sure right krill oil is another whole food

concentration right so you're not going to go and just start like opening your gull like a whale and scoop and krill, you know. So you got to take the bills. Right. And you want to just, of course, when it comes to these things, make sure you're sourcing good. Some folks who are trying to do things sustainably. Bro, I'm going to ask you a question,

and to your beautiful brain, Sean, it's going to be like, oh, you got water right down there. Oh, dang. Yeah. I'm going to ask a question. And to your, to your beautiful brain, this question that might sound like I'm a neo-year. fight. But I remember hearing when the whole farm-raised fish came about that like, man, you don't

want to do that because they're feeding those fish. They're in tight quarters. And so they're feeding them antibiotics. And so you don't want to go down that route. Now I'm out at high-end restaurants, and it's almost like they're touting the fact. And it's like, you know, farm-raised. I'm like, what the f*** just happened? Like, I thought that was bad. I don't want farm-raised. I want, like, fresh caught. Yeah. Did they change something in farm-raised where it's okay now? Or are they Am I being marketed to? Yeah, yeah. I mean, because it can be fed organic food, right?

I didn't know that. But that doesn't mean that it's okay either, you know, because fish should be eating things, fish catch naturally. Anytime you feed an animal, including us, that is not designed to eat, they get sick. Sure. And so, you know, a lot of these farmeries fish, of course, they're fed like GMO, soy, all this, like whatever.

Right. But then some people have better, you know, higher standards of feed them organic fish food. But the real fish food is a fish being out in the ocean actually doing this thing and being healthy. You know what I mean? So fish too. But now then we get into issues with sustainability and all. There's so many. This is a, this is a nuanced thing.

There's so much to consider. But what's best for us is wild food for sure. We might have to make some concessions. And this is a thing too. We don't have to be perfect. If you're eating some farm raised salmon and you know, you're getting in, you know, maybe taking some krill oil, you're drinking, getting your hydration, you know, you're making sure you're getting plenty of magnesium through your leafy greens, you start stacking conditions where, like, it's okay. We don't have to be neurotic. Even the water we're drinking out of in a plastic bottle.

There was a time I would have told myself, like, I'd probably drink my pee before I drink out of a plastic bottle because of the BPA. And one of the studies I share in E.E. Smarter really looked at the impact. the data exists and it's crazy that BPA has on fertility for both men and women, it's going to shock you. But the thing is when your body is always constantly choosing better than, once you get a better source of something, whether that hydration is coming from your food, whether it's coming from another source of water, it's going to outplace the other stuff. Sure. You know, but, you know, the number one thing is getting hydrated rather than having this huge, because

I'm the guy, like I had huge conversations about the best. types of water. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in reality, in our world today, man, there's so much, there's so much to talk about, so much to debate about. We just need to do the overarching important things first. Most 90% of people here in the United States don't have those things remotely dialed in. So we're like preaching to the choir debating about minutia.

You know, we got a paleo versus a vegetarian protocol. We got, you know, keto protocol versus, you know, carnivore protocol. we need to get our citizens eating real food. Like first and foremost. Amen. But so what I did was I wanted to create. And these are all my friends. I love these guys.

You know, from the person who made lectins, you know, the big thing, you know, the plant paradox, Dr. Gundry, I was just with him the other day.

I love these guys. My mission was to create something that is a unifier that takes the best because I can see it. I can see it looking because they'll get tunnel vision with their own framework.

Yeah. It's a natural human tendency. I did this in my practice. I'm grateful I did it. If I was doing something, my clients were going to do it. But it got to a point where I realized it was like a revelation. I have to do its best for this person. And this person, their ancestry might be from, you know, they might be Greek. So like, let's go, let's take a look at what are some of the food sources. You know, what happened when you got like when did you, I start digging and we find out what's best for you right now. And even that can change. That's what I want to give people the tools to do is to be able to adapt and change as they have. adapt and change. Sure. Because nobody in the history of humanity has a metabolism exactly like

Bedros. Never and will never in the future. Nobody. But the point is, you next week, your metabolism will not be the same as today. Sure. It's different. It evolves. So health is fluid. It's dynamic. We need the tools to learn how to take care of ourselves. Diet frameworks are wonderful. But what I do was I give an overarching understanding of here's the things that make every one of these diets successful. Let's do these things. Here are the things that can hurt you no matter what diet you're doing. Let's really nail these things down and get our citizens healthier. Brilliant. So again, you cover it all in here. And what I love about you is you seek out knowledge and then you acid test the knowledge and then you feed it to us in a way that's understandable. You take the

complex, like I said earlier and you make an understandable easy and I dare say fun. Eat smarter, guys and gals. Eat smarter. Get two copies. One for you. One for a friend. you love and you want to see live longer and live happier. Now I would be remiss if I didn't talk about my St. Louis trip. Bro, I don't know what that restaurant was. We don't have it in California, but the appetizer, one of the appetizers we ordered was fried chicken skin. For all our friends here that are probably foodies like I am, like you are. By the way, well, I'll get to this, by the way, in just a moment.

What was the name of that restaurant of St. Louis who went to? Uh, salt and smoke. Salt and smoke. Yeah. I knew the salt I didn't know. Salt and smoke. I got to tell you, I've been there twice there with you now and, um, just a spectacular place.

And again, going back to what you said, you could eat at a salt and smoke if you keep everything else dialed in. Right. Right. People are like, wait a minute. You just had this great conversation. Now you're talking about eating fried chicken skin. Like how many ways do you just poison yourself?

But you can do that. And be just fine. And then we went to a place that it wasn't ice cream. Ted Drew's frozen custard. Man, let me tell you. This St. Louis experience. Bro. Bro.

I don't know if I ever told you the Uber experience back from Ted Trues. I'm going to tell you that in just a second. But guys and gals, first of all, you got to go and experience this in St. Louis. And then from there, you're going to go after you're going to fried chicken skin. You're going to eat at Ted Cruz. Show up with cash because they don't take credit cards, if I remember correctly. That was crazy. Right?

Yeah. The line, the whole place, this custard shack, is not even indoor. It was twice the size of this desk. Yeah. And they had like three windows and the lines were long. Crazy. Bananas. And we were there pretty late.

Yeah, yeah. And so first of all, they're making money hand over a fist, which is great. I love businesses that do that. But then we said our goodbyes and me and the family, I call an Uber. I kid you not, bro. Have you seen the movie Friday? Of course. Right, with Ice Cube and The Worm and Chris Tucker.

There's like a lowrider that one of the dudes, one of the Mexican gangbanger shows up in and he's like, hey, Smokie, come here. This cat pulls up in a, I like cars. There's a badass lowrider, but we get in and the kids are looking at me, the wife's looking at me. I'm like, guys, this, you know, it's an Uber, so maybe there's some level of rights. But, you know, we definitely got the thug life vibe off our driver. And anyway, he ended up being the coolest cat ever. We just rapping about the car the whole time. It was an Oldsmobile from the early 90s.

And he just, he spent so much dough on it. Like, it was sick. It was sick. And I'm guessing now he's like Uber and just. You never told me this. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah.

But what, what, I was like, hey, man, this is a sweet-looking ride. And that's all I had to say. And he went from just being the dude that was driving to, like, Man, let me tell you all the work I did on it. And it was just a great experience. So just capped off the day perfectly. Wow, that's awesome, man. All right, so how can people get their sweet little hands on eat smarter?

Perfect. Well, when this is coming out, when this episode is coming out, it'll probably be back in stock in Amazon. We completely sold out of them. You did. And we know that they're available at Targetstores, target.com. Dude, it's in Target. It's in Target. Every Target store in America.

You and Jane Fonda. I know. It's crazy. to work at Target when I was a kid, man. So now my book is there. Also, of course, Barnes & Noble, independent bookstores. You can get it wherever books are sold. Amazon.

Yeah, Amazon, if they're back in stock, which it should be when this comes out. And also, the audiobook is just taken off. It's just incredible. Did you record the audiobook? Yeah. Okay, good. So it was such an experience. And also, whenever you hear Sean talk anyway, get the audiobooks.

Because if you listen to it at night because you're having issues falling to sleep, you're a sweet mellow voice. We'll just put anyone to bed. And there's not going to be any bids. There was some b-a-day. Okay, right. You know, well, there's one little Samuel L. Jackson part that I talk about in the book, but other than that, yeah, it's a good vibe.

Of course. I love that. Of course. I've seen it 26 times. Holy moly. Do you know what was in the briefcase? I don't remember. When Vincent Vega and Jules, Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta went into the kitchen

to get Marcellus Wallace's briefcase. And you remember when Vincent Vega opens the briefcase and he opens it up and he's looking at it It's glowing. And he just doesn't have any words. And then Jules is like, Vinny, Vinny, did we get what we're looking for? And he's like, yeah, it's beautiful. Do you know what was in there that was so beautiful? What was it?

You really don't know? I don't remember. I'm going to change your life right now. And this is the truth. It was, it was Marcellus Wallace's soul. Dang. And remember, these guys were thugs, right? They were his muscle.

Marcelus Wallace was a gangster, and there were his muscle. And really the narrative of the movie is, that even a thug gangster deep down inside all of our souls are just beautiful and immaculate and i thought that was a very powerful that pulls up at ted drew's man i'm telling you see that you just brought a full circle there is all right guys and gals thank you so much for watching this episode of the empire show with my dude sean stevenson get yourself two copies of eat smarter and above all when this episode comes out take a screenshot shared in your stories tag sean tag myself and as always don't forget to tell your mama we'll see you guys later