Change Your Brain Every Day - Is Our Food Policy Driving a Disease Economy? PT. 4 with Dr. Mark Hyman

Episode Date: May 10, 2018

When we give in to the Standard American Diet (SAD) of highly processed foods, we’re contributing to the demise of more than just our health. In the fourth and final episode of a series with Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen describe the effects our food policy has on the environment and social systems we live in. 

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. And stay tuned for a special code for a discount to Amen Clinics for a full evaluation, as well as any of our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Well, we're back with our friend, Dr. Mark Hyman and his book, Food, What the Heck Should We Eat? And this is going to be my favorite segment because it's going to be very controversial.

And I like a little bit of an argument. So we're going to talk about- Really? Yeah, I do. Really? I'm not afraid of a fight. After 12 years. I practice karate because I like to break things.

Come on. She actually has two black belts, Mark. So I'm always very nice to her. I have a black belt. I'm wearing it. So we're going to talk about food politics. I love this because you don't back down to this. And I love this.

I think what most people don't realize is how our food system itself is driving so much of what's wrong with our world. And I think I can kind of break it down for you, but essentially we don't connect the dots. One, our food system, people understand, is causing our chronic disease epidemic. That's sort of fairly well understood that our processed food, sugar, starch, although there's people who debate this, are causing heart disease, diabetes, obesity. You know, one in two Americans has a chronic disease. It's spreading across the globe, but it's driven by our toxic processed food system. The second thing is our economy is struggling because the healthcare costs of this chronic disease is caused by food, are going to account for 100% of Medicare and Medicaid, 100% of our federal budget because of Medicare and Medicaid, meaning there's no money left for roads,

transportation, the military, anything except dealing with chronic disease. Third, the way we grow our food causes climate change, and is also causing environmental destruction. So, one, the climate change is caused by the loss of soils, which then can't hold the carbon, which then causes increased carbon in the environment. The methane from the factory farms, from the cows, also a huge contributor. The transportation, I mean, the food system is the number one cause of climate change, which most people don't understand. Three, it's also causing environmental degradation, pollution from pesticides, herbicides, runoff,

the nitrogen in the rivers and lakes is causing algal blooms, which kill off all the life and basically suffocate the waterways, leading to dead zones the size of New Jersey and the Gulf of Mexico. And then we have the effect of food on our brains and our minds, which you know all about. And we know that poor diets cause ADD, depression, cause behavioral issues, violence, homicide, suicide, all driven by our toxic food system. Of course, there's other reasons for that. It perpetuates poverty and social injustice. It affects kids' ability to learn in school. There's a whole achievement gap because kids are eating junk food. They go to breakfast with Doritos and Coke and expect to learn and focus. They can't.

And we see the increasing achievement gaps with kids who are eating this way and are sick, don't go to college, earn less, lower incomes, have shorter, sicker lives than the rest of us. And of course, even national security can be affected because we have, you know, populations that are too fat to fight. In fact, almost no military recruits from the South now are admitted to the military because they're unhealthy and overweight. So all these are happening as a result, and the question is what's driving all this? What's driving this is our food policy. Our food policy primarily is driving a disease economy, and the reason is because we subsidize the commodity foods through agricultural subsidies. One, corn, wheat, and soy are the biggest ones. Sixty percent of our calories come from those. And those who consume the most of these foods that are government supported are actually the sickest. We know that we then pay

for these foods through food stamps. There's $7 billion a year just for soda. That's 20 billion servings for the poor every year. And junk food is a tenfold increase over every other category of food that's caught with food stamps. So we're paying for the food to be produced. We're paying for people to consume the food. And then we're paying on the back end through Medicare and Medicaid. We're literally triple taxing Americans, and we're privatizing the profits that all go to the food companies, and we're socializing the costs that we pay for.

And we have policies and dietary guidelines that don't match science. And if you change, we have guidelines that don't match science, and they need to be changed. We have guidelines that don't reflect science, for example, around saturated fat or around low-carbohydrate diets or talking about the benefits of vegetable oils and all these ideas that really aren't scientifically valid. They're corrupted by scientists on the panel that are paid by the food industry. They ignore huge swaths of science. This is a process that's undergoing revision now, thank God. We do food marketing to kids.

There's no other countries except Syria, I think, that allows unrestricted food marketing to children of junk food. In Chile, they banned it. They banned Tony the Tiger. They literally killed Tony the Tiger and all the cartoon characters and all the cereal boxes. They put warnings on the front of the box saying, this is going to kill you, right? And it's like cigarettes.

They eliminated any advertising of junk food or any processed food to children and in radio tv uh and cinemas i was in i was in watching a movie black panther and i you know this big ad came out at the beginning of the movie which coke and regal cinemas are partnering to create these movies i'm like what is this this is like this is driving me crazy we then have food labels that are driven by industry, not by science, right? Should say green, this is good for you. Yellow, eat with caution. Red, it's going to kill you. Instead, it's like a bunch of numbers that nobody can understand. Even you and I who are experts in this probably look at it and go, I don't know, it's like looks okay, but I don't

know. And then, you know, you have all of our guidelines policies that are driving school lunches and federal programs. And it's just like, it's just a ripple effect. So we have all these food policies that are driving a disease state that are driving an economy that's being crippled, that are, that's affecting our climate, that's affecting our children, it's affecting our national security and nobody really connects the dots. So we have to make change in these policies and we have to actually start to shift that. And it's going to be hard as long as money is in politics. So slightly off topic, but do you remember the, do you remember the article that, where

Putin made the comment? Putin was basically saying, I think it was in 2016, he said that he wanted Russia to become, I'm paraphrasing greatly, but he said he wanted Russia to become the number one grower and exporter of natural and organic foods. And he said that America was basically making its own people sick and killing them. All they had to do was pretty much watch it happen. Actually, that's been, there's some controversy about whether or not he really said that, but- Well, if he did, that's probably the only thing he ever said that made sense. That we would agree. But when we wrote The Brain Warrior's Way,

we basically started it with ISIS has nothing on our food industry. What we're doing to our people. The real weapons of mass destruction are highly processed, pesticide sprayed,

high glycemic, low fiber, food-like substances stored in plastic containers. And people get upset when we say it, but it's true. We are killing our country. People are all upset about gun violence, and it's a big problem, and it's real, right? But 1.3% of deaths are caused by gun violence, and two-thirds of those are suicide. But 70% of deaths are caused by chronic disease, which are primarily driven by food. So our food system kills, you know, 70 times the number of people that guns kill. But we don't hold the food industry accountable at all.

Time, the lobbyists are terrible. So what are some practical things our listeners can do besides not supporting the companies that are producing um yeah toxic foods and but if you look at coke and you look at pepsi they also have their quote healthy lines but ultimately they're making the money from Pepsi and Coke. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's interesting. I just recently was with the vice chairman of Pepsi, and he's a doctor, and he said only 20% of their income comes from, revenue comes from sugar-sweetened beverages. And I think that's because Pepsi is a conglomerate of many food companies,

you know, Frito-Lays, Doritos, you know, you name it, or Tropicana Oranges, they have a huge multinational global corporation, much bigger than Coke, actually. But it's interesting, they're being pushed to change their behavior. They're like, well, how do we design packaging that allows people to have real food, that preserves the food, that doesn't need preservatives or chemicals? Like, they are being pushed to change their behavior by the voter, I mean, by the eater behavior. So I always say you vote three times a day with your fork, and that's the most powerful thing you can do to help your health, that planet, the economy, simply by choosing differently. And

that will drive the behavior of these big corporations. But it's tough because you've got populations that they go after, like the poor minorities. African-American kids drink twice as much soda as white kids. Why? Because they're pushed it. And they're like these junk food pushers. But I got to push back on this for a second because I have a sister who had to be on food stamps. And fortunately now she is not. But while she was on food stamps, it's really hard to buy healthy food on food stamps when they make it so easy. And you've got a bunch of kids and they make it easy to buy the really cheap stuff. And one of the big pushbacks is going to be eating well is expensive. And what we often say is being sick is expensive.

But there does need to be a better solution because we ended up helping her because we wanted to. I agree. And eventually she got well. I think there's, you know, this is an interesting conversation because the food industry is very deliberate in their mess. And they hijack the narrative. They say, one, it's difficulty. Well, it's expensive. It's elitist. It takes too much time. It's not convenient. Now, you guys know,

and I know that that's not necessarily true, that you don't have to eat a $70 grass-fed steak, right? And you can't always eat everything perfectly organic, that you don't have to eat a $70 grass-fed steak, right? And you can't always eat everything perfectly organic, but you can get out processed food and eat real food. And there are plenty of guides on how to eat well for you, eat well for the planet, and eat well for your wallet. One of them is the good food on a tight budget by the Environmental Working Group. And I gave that to a family of five who live in a trailer on food stamps and disability, who were all mass-maverick weight, sick, one had renal failure, one had diabetes, one was severely hypertensive and very obese. And they lived in one of the worst food deserts in America.

I gave them this guide. I showed them how to cook one meal. I went through the kitchen with them. I literally made a house call. And rather than telling them what to do, I said, look, let's look at what's in your cupboards. Let's look at what really is in there. They thought it was healthy. That Cool Whip was healthy because it was a what to do, I said, look, let's look at what's in your cupboards. Let's look at what really is in there. They thought it was healthy. That Cool Whip was healthy because it was a, you know, it said zero trans fats on the label, but it was all trans fats. Right. Or they thought their, you know, peanut butter salad dressing was good because it said, you know, low-fat salad dressing, but it was all sugar. Right.

High fructose. And chemicals. And chemicals. Right. They didn't know. So I showed them how to make a simple dinner. I gave them this guide. They were able to lose hundreds of pounds.

The son lost 128 pounds simply by having this one meal. So I was like, wow, we're one meal away from teaching America how to actually save themselves. But they don't really know, and I think it is possible to do for less. You're not going to be eating the best cuts of this, and the organic imported that, and all this. But there are basic foundational principles of getting rid of the junk. And one family I went down, they lost 335 pounds as a family in Florida, and it was part of the Dr. Oz show.

And they were massively overweight. Even the 11-year-old kid was like, could not believe it. She probably weighed more than I did. And I went to their kitchen. I'm like, they had coconut oil. They had avocados. They had almonds. I'm like, listen, guys, isn't this expensive for you? Because they were on a very fixed income. And

they're like, no, actually, it's cheaper. I said, well, how? Because we used to buy everybody a case of Coke in the family a week. We used to buy huge things of chips and blah, blah, blah, blah. We don't do that anymore. And I was like, wow, that's interesting. Yeah, so what you're saying makes complete sense. But what I'm trying to say is, and the part that frustrates me after being with someone who's on food stamps is that they target them and they make it easier to buy those products.

Oh, yeah. So we have a lot of work to do in order to educate these people on this. You know, this is the whole reason that we titled our program The Brain Warrior's Way. You have to be a warrior. Because it's a war. And if you're not arm prepared and aware, you are going to lose what ultimately is the fight of your life, which is the fight for your health.

I was angry than when I was like working with her. And I'm like, she's like, but I can't buy that. I can't buy. I'm on food stamps. I'm like, no, you can. I can't buy that. I can't buy, I'm on food stamps. I'm like, no, you can. She's not, like you said, she can't do it a hundred percent, but, but I'm like, if you do it 80%. And so we spent a lot of time in the grocery store, but I gotta tell you, it was like, it was kind of a battle just like educating her against what they had, what they're targeting. And we have to stop, but that's why people should go out and buy right now, food,

what the heck should we eat? It's an amazing book by someone we hold very dear to us, by Mark Hyman. It can change your life and not just your life, what Mark and I have seen and you too, is when you change your life, you then become an agent for change for the people you love. Yes. Oh, by the way, the sister I'm talking about now has two jobs. She is no longer on food stamps. They eat very healthy because she can think better, because she feels better. So thank you, my friend. For sure. Yeah. This was awesome. All right. Food, what the heck should we eat? Thank you. We'll talk to you soon.

Thank you so much, guys. Great to have you have this conversation with me. I appreciate it. Great. All right. Love you. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. free signed copy of the Brain Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook

we give away every month.