Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 990: Max Lugavere on the Dangers of Plastics, Building a Social Media Page, Coping with Loss & MORE

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin catch up with good friend Max Lugavere where they discuss social media strategy, the dangers of plastics, Max's mother who recently passed and a lot more. What has he learned to ‘hack the algorithm’ when it comes to social media? (3:24) Why he wants people to cultivate their own internal compass when it comes to the foods they eat. (7:18) What is his take on ‘there is no bad food’ movement? (12:30) His recent obsession with the endocrine system and what disrupts it. (15:14) The benefits of the ‘guilty till proven innocent’ model when it comes to testing the chemicals in our food. (26:10) Does he have a hierarchy that he lives by or advises to people? (33:37) Why he reaches for HIGH quality foods on a daily basis. (36:40) Is there a correlation between poor brain health and obesity? (42:15) Max opens up about his mom’s passing, his researching process and why there is no such thing as a one size fits all diet. (46:37) Has he done any reading/research with autism and vaccines? (58:55) What are the worst offenders of food? (1:01:30) The feedback from his book and what makes it so unique. (1:02:54) What medium has he seen the biggest boost in sales for his book? (1:04:50) Why you must separate the man from the product. His relationship with Dr. Oz and take on the information he provides to the masses. (1:06:55) Why he is NOT driven by money, his perception of success and how he vets his sponsorships. (1:11:08) Has he done any research on the perception of sweetness and changes in the body? (1:17:50) What practices has he implemented to help himself cope with the loss of his mom? (1:20:46) His relationship with his brothers and has this brought them closer together? (1:25:30) Featured Guest/People Mentioned: Max Lugavere (@maxlugavere)  Instagram Website Podcast Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life - Book by Max Lugavere and Paul Grewal Alan Aragon (@thealanaragon)  Instagram Dominic D'Agostino (@DominicDAgosti2)  Twitter Kevin Hall (@KevinH_PhD)  Twitter Dr. Mary Newport Products Mentioned: March Promotion: MAPS Aesthetic is ½ off!! **Code “BLACK50” at checkout** Endocrine System: Facts, Functions and Diseases - Live Science Home — The Endocrine Disruption Exchange The Bleeding Edge | Netflix Official Site Insulin Resistance May Lead to Faster Cognitive Decline THESE ELECTRIC SHOCK CHOPSTICKS CAN MAKE FOOD TASTIER WITHOUT THE HEALTH RISKS, SCIENTISTS SAY On Death and Dying : What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families - Book by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. This guy needs no introduction. No, Max, Luke of yours. This is our boy. One of our favorite, favorite people. I remember when we first met him, we all immediately fell in love with the guy.

Great dude, super, super smart guy. His book exploded. Genius foods blew up. We had him on the show way back when he first launched it and it reached, I think, at one point, fourth on the Amazon list. And it's a book we constantly refer people to. Great information on how to eat right for a healthy brain

and of course a healthy body. Since then he started a podcast, the Genius Life and this guy's interviewed some very, very smart, intelligent, inspirational people and he does a good job doing it. Max is just, again, he's one of our absolute favorite people. So every time we have him on the show, we have a good time and we got to talk got to talk a lot of things on this podcast.

Oh, we even touched things like building a social media page and what that's like, the skill sets that he's acquired from being on television and how he's now transcended that into the Instagram world and some tips from there. So those people that are trying to grow their Instagram and are looking for good tips. And we discuss some of the ways that So those people that are trying to grow their Instagram and are looking for good tips and we discuss some of the ways

that people are doing that wrong. So I think we did some really cool topics. And that's one of those people. We really kind of look up to in terms of being in both worlds of like old media and new media and he does a really good job of integrating the two together. And there's a lot we can learn from him. He also talks about, he's been doing a lot of research

and as you know, if you know who Max is, he's a very effective and investigative journalist who's actually extremely intelligent. He's been doing a lot of research on chemicals. The chemicals were exposed to the plastics and things that are found in everyday products and how they affect our bodies. That was really fascinating part of this episode. And then we, you know, we got at one point, it got really emotional, what we talked to him about his mother, who

was the inspiration behind his book, Genius Foods, because she, you know, she was afflicted with a, you know, a type of dementia. And then she recently passed away. And so we got a chance to talk to him about what that whole process was like. And he was very candid, and open with us. And so we really appreciate that part. Now before we get into that episode, I wanna remind everybody that Maps aesthetic is 50% off still. That's the Body Building Physique Competitor

and Bikini Competitor Program. It's for anywhere between intermediate to advanced people. It helps you shape and sculpt your body the way you see fit. You got to go to mapsfitinusproducts.com and use the code black50black50. Now on that site you can find our other maps programs which are designed for everyone from beginners to advanced athletes to people who just want to go to the gym. We have quite a few programs. Make sure you go check them out. If you want to find Max Lugavir on other areas, you can check them out on Instagram,

at maxLugavir, Lugavir Spell, L-U-G-A-V-E-R-E, and his podcast is The Genius Life. So without any further ado, here we are talking to one of our favorite people, Max Lugavir. So before we got on air, we are actually having a conversation conversation that I think is a really cool conversation to have on air because this is the stuff I like.

I think you get interviewed a lot. You do a lot of talks, you've written books. So I think if you want to find the great information that you have, which we'll get into, I think there's a lot of sources out there that, but not a lot of people talk about the things that a lot of us have to talk about outside of the podcast or what's on air and behind the scenes and building a business and growing a platform and what's this like for guys like us and this this new social media world and using tools like Instagram And we were just talking about people that you know hack the the algorithm And I think it'd be cool to share with the audience some of the things that you know

We've learned that that work things that maybe seem to work that probably won't work maybe for people. You were just sharing one yourself. What are some things that you've recently found that works really well for you that's helped grow your page and attract more people, more people that you would want following your page? Yeah. I mean, I think it's all about adding value, true value in an era where information has become so cheap. And, you know, there's, it's like what I like to call like faux inspirational content online that like kind of draws your attention a little bit, but you realize that it's like

saying nothing. You know, the content that I create, I like to catch people's attention because that's an important part of the formula. But then to be able to have like something substantial that your reader can sink their teeth into, you know, like if it's just going to be sort of a one and done post, I feel like you're not going to galvanize loyalty with your fan base. So I mean, even when I post memes like nutritional, you know, information related memes on my Instagram

feed, I always try to contextualize them with, you know, more information in the caption my post memes, like nutritional information related memes on my Instagram feed. I always try to contextualize them with more information in the caption. Yeah. And then there, I mean, I think it's like hashtagging, like all those things kind of work a little bit to a degree, but when you're at my level, I mean, I think it's like, I've been very lucky and humbled and grateful

to grow a lot over the past year on Instagram. It's really about adding value and being consistent and engaging with your audience. All the stuff, I mean, you guys do that so well too. The one thing that you did that now I see you do pretty regularly, it seems to work really well is those pictures that you provide those pictures where you'll show like, instead of eating this, eat that,

or this is equal to this many calories, but so was this, or this is a better option, or whatever. That started what this year? Yeah, it started probably a couple, yeah, maybe like, I guess about a year ago, I just found that it was a, Instagram is a visual medium, so some people post screen grabs of publications and other people post photos of their food.

I consider myself a creative and an artist. And so for me, it was an interesting challenge. How to really utilize and exploit this medium in a way that grabs people's attention and also informs. And for me, having kind of knowing what, getting a sense of what people really need, having worked in television and whatever, I just kind of felt like it was the simplest way to break down these concepts and provide

really actionable information for people. Like, eat this, not that. Or use less of these, use more of these. Things like, these fats are good for you, these fats are bad for you. It also, I think, works on Instagram because just in terms of what catches your attention, I mean, you're always gonna spend more time on a post

that is a comparison, right? Cause your eye goes from one side to the other. So that's different than I think, like a food picture, which you might just kind of like look at and then scroll past. And so, yeah, it's all about, I think catching people's attention and creating something that forces them to linger on the post for

a little bit longer. Yeah, yes, since we first met you, not that long ago, you've really blown up and now you've become one of the authorities in the wellness sphere. I mean, when we first met you, you were kind of coming up, your book had just, either just come out or you were just about to release it. Now it's everywhere. And now that you're in that position, have you found yourself as a target

from other people who may disagree? Or are you finding more controversy now? Because now you're up there now, right? Now you're somebody that someone can, oh, I'm gonna go target this guy because I'll get more eyes on me or whatever. Yeah, I'm not, I don't find myself to be that controversial. And actually, like, and this is, I'm so glad you ask

because I feel like there's a good sort of, like, round table conversation to have here. But, you know, I, I don't consider myself, and I don't think anybody would paint me as like a zealot on either like the low carb, high fat side, or the paley, or the keto side, or, you know, or the keto side, or the calories and calories outside.

But I do find the calories and calories out, if it fits your macros, fitness movement, to be really bothersome. That's an area where I try to... I don't really have... I try not to be combative or confrontational online. And again, as we were talking about before, we started rolling. I don't really pay attention to what other influencers are doing. I think it's really important to keep blinders on to some degree and focus on my own stuff

so that I can cultivate my own ideas and theories and research and ways of expressing things. But I do occasionally see on social media this idea that, you know, if you control for calories, all foods are basically equal. And that's something that I think is like really bad advice. And it's perpetuated over and over and over again in the fitness community. And like, and I think that there's like this, this, this like embattled thing where it's like you either have to accept that like calories are all that matter Or you've become like a zealot and insulin is all that matters, right?

And like you're like and I'm like no, but I mean both matter like quality of your food matters and like the you know energy Balance matters like why can't we accept that both matter right? Yeah, you know You're we're on the same page with that 100% What gets my me irritated about that movement is that they complete from a personal trainer standpoint, okay, because again, I've worked with a lot of clients. What makes me annoyed about that movement is that they completely negate the psychological component that is you cannot separate from food. It's a huge component. Yeah, if it was as easy as calories and macros, we would just have processed packets of food and we would just

eat that and everybody would control their weight and all that, you know, and yes, it's true. Calories is the most important thing when it comes to just body weight, but when we're talking about long-term behavioral changes, food quality makes a big fucking difference and how you feel about the food and the context and the emotions around the food, all that plays a major role. Other way, because we've known about calories for what, 40, 50 years. We would have solved our problems by now, if it wasn't, you know, if it wasn't for me. And we also know that the self-discipline that the average person has, and when you start playing with foods that are processed,

like that, or were designed and engineered to hack that, and I've trained enough clients now to just know, like, I've been shit and personally, like, how challenging that is, if I'm eating all these things that are designed to get just know, like I've been shit and personally, like how challenging that is, if I'm eating all these things that are designed to get me to not, I mean, shit, they got tag lines, you got, but you can't just eat one. Yeah, exactly.

No shit, like it's hard, it's hard not to. So I think when you talk about things like that, that's what really bothers me with that community. I mean, I remember when we first came out with the Krispy Kreme donut logo, and it said, mine pump in the middle instead of crispy cream And it said I have wham sucks and we did that to draw lots of attention when it was first getting popular And it wasn't that is count and I got pushed by remember we got all this pushback

And it was like it's not that we think that counting your macros is bad It's like we were we're trying to say that it's the it's the first step in the right direction There's still so much more to learn about food and there's still stuff that we're not even for sure about. So this idea of, oh, once you figure out Protein's carbs fat, you know, and you figure that balance out and you keep it under your calorie intake, your goal and that's all that matters. This is more sustainable because it allows flexibility

to allow the pop tart and donut in every once in a while. I'm like, you know, I just, just because that's true, I can't stand by and let it happen without putting my two cents in that, I don't believe it's a good message. I don't think it's a good message for the masses. I don't think that I would ever teach that message to all the people that I trained in my career.

I just, I know that when you do that, you give them cartblonk to do whatever they want, food wise, and they don't realize the repercussions because they're just not their self-awarewise. Well, the problem is because the fitness industry considers only a few things, fat, how lean you are, how much muscle you have, and how you look. That's really the main thing that they consider.

They don't consider much else. And the fitness industry is really a terrible place to look, or at least the people that work in the fitness industries, these are terrible people to listen to when you're trying to get advice on long term healthy eating and living, because I'll tell you something, the worst eating disorders you'll ever see in your entire life are people that work in fitness. They're absolutely terrible. And so these are not necessarily people you want to listen to for long term success. These are people that, you know, restrict, super strict, we'll get shredded, count macros and calories,

and then they'll binge like crazy in the off season. We're on an awful, that's cool. What do you think about the whole like, food is not good or bad? There is no bad food. Yeah, I think that there are such things that are healthy and unhealthy foods. I mean, it's like, you know, I don't,

the thing is, it's another great example of like black-or-white thinking. Like either we, you know, are, we can't paint foods in moral colors right so we can't for whatever reason say that a food is unhealthy or unhealthy but I'm like I'm not painting food and I'm not you know I'm not imposing guilt onto you for choosing unhealthy foods I'm just letting you know because I think it's important to cultivate a fucking compass for you know an internal compass of what is healthy food and what isn't especially in a world where billions of dollars

are being thrown at confusing you. So they don't know what's healthy and what's unhealthy, right? It's been the mantra of the diatetics world for the past couple of decades. Up until 2015, the American Diatetics Association was actually sponsored by Coca-Cola, right? And so, not biased at all. Not biased at all.

It's a complicated interest. So that's why a new registered, you know, dietician who's in bed with and nothing against registered dieticians, but if they take money from like these junk food companies, that's why you'll never hear them talk about, they'll never use the word the term junk food because all foods can be healthy within a balanced diet,

a balanced diet where you're eating less and moving more, right? But I refuse to do junk food companies bidding for them. I'm not gonna say that because there are plenty of toxic foods in the environment. Package processed foods are loaded with refined flowers and grains, which we know are not good for you. Refined oils, industrial oils.

Many of them are contaminated with plastic compounds, like Bistphenol A and Ballet, which is something that I've become obsessed with lately. So, I mean, foods are not good for you, right? And I think that if there's anything that I'm going to add as somebody who has a voice in this industry, it's going to be, it's going to help people to cultivate their own internal compass, so that they can identify, which is actually like a really useful thing to be able to do, what's actually going to boost you know, minimize your risk for nutrient deficiencies and help give your brain the microtransmitters needs to be healthy and to, you know, preserve

your health span and all that stuff, you know, it goes beyond weight and body value. And like all the stuff that the fitness industry is obsessed with. The thing I like about you is you, you know, every time we talk, you don't necessarily have like this preconceived objection. I need to reinforce my beliefs in order to, or reinforce what my beliefs are, but a lot of other people do. Like, if somebody's like super keto or super macro, you know, zealot or whatever, they try to find research that backs it up, but you always are just trying to read the research.

And so when I read your book and I look at, I read what you talk about, you're just saying, look, here's what it says. Here's what the research says. I don't have a horse in this game. This is just what it's saying. And you were talking about some chemicals and plastics that were on oils by the time. Can you talk about that for a second because you perked my interest right there?

Yeah, so I've become obsessed with endocrine disrupting chemicals that are omnipresent in the environment. So let's talk about that. What is an endocrine disrupting chemicals that are omnipresent in the environment. So let's talk about that. What is an endocrine disrupting chemical? Well, your endocrine system is the network of hormones that basically govern everything from your behavior to your predilection for fat gain,

fat loss to development, to libido, to fertility like everything. Hormones are your body sort of like master controllers. They're like these long-range chemicals that are secreted by a gland and they affect organs throughout the body. And they're critical. You can think about insulin, which is involved in your fat storage and carbohydrate burning.

You can think about grellin, which is involved in hunger. You can think about leptin, which is your, speaks to your hypothalamus, and it's the metabolic master reggae. So hormones are like really important. Chemicals in the environment that are xenobiotic meaning they're not naturally found in biological entities can actually interface with our endocrine system in a way that's not good. And many of these compounds, the most studied of them, are plasticizers. So there's BPA, which is Bysphenol A, and Thalates, which are used to basically create everything from the interior linings of cans to single-serve single-use plastics. And what they found

is that these chemicals can actually, like in many cases, with these two compounds in particular, they can mimic the hormone estrogen in the body. And, you know, so that's not good right there. And the reason why the, the, their backstory, and this is something that like over the past six months have become kind of obsessed with because, well, we can get into why. But essentially BPA, which is now omnipresent and is present in like 98% of people, it's found in, you know, again, plastics. Fresh milk, they found it. Fresh milk, yeah.

It was developed in the 30s. It was actually created in Germany in the 1900s, but in the 30s, they realized that it had very strong estrogenic abilities in the body. And they were looking for a chemical that could pose as sort of a synthetic estrogen because they would be able to use it to treat quote unquote female problems.

So like, hold on a second. You gotta stop right there. It was invented initially to be an estrogen replacement. Yeah. That was the purpose of it to be holy shit. So when people deny the estrogenic potential disrupting properties of that chemical, they don't even know the history.

That's what it was invented for. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's insane. I don't know that. Yeah, it's undeniable. Then these researchers found a much stronger compound, but a chemically similar, but much stronger compound, but a chemically similar, but much stronger compound called

DES. I think the DES stands for diethyl-stillbastrol. And DES was a much stronger Zenoestrogen than BPA. And so that sort of displaced BPA from ever being used as a pharmaceutical. Meanwhile, DES was injected into millions of women and was also used in food production, because it could basically increase the output of meat when injected into female cows. Makes some fat in our animal. So DES, this chemically-related compound to BPA was injected into millions of women. And only later was it found that girls who were exposed to DES while in their mother's womb, they developed they had a dramatically increased risk

of developing these rare vaginal and uterine cancers. And DES was ultimately outlawed. So DES is like this whole thing. You can like, you know, Google it, it was like, it's kind of like philinomide, you know? Like one of these things that is foisted on, you know, the public, only later to be revealed as being highly damaging.

You know, we could look to like partially hydrogenated oils. There's another example. Lead-based paints, arsenic, you know, building insulation. So like, there's like all these examples in history of these chemicals being foisted on the public and it going wrong. BPA meanwhile, was had this like incredible ability to create hard plastics. And this was at a time also when plastic was like this new thing, right?

And so it allowed manufacturers to basically dream up any kind of possibility and create plastics and suddenly American homes were filled with, you know, any means of, of like BPA, you know, infused plastic product. They were heat stable, they were sanitary, you can mold them into any number of things. So BPA really went on to saturate our world. The problem is that BPA in plastic is not a nerd. It's able to leach into our food supply,

it's able to leach into water, and certain conditions catalyze that leaching. So acid, heat, things like that. And that's one of the reasons why all of us now have BPA in us, essentially. And there's this whole debate. So most toxins that are in the environment, most chemicals, if you ingest a strong enough or a high enough dose of any chemical, it can become lethal, right? This is the sort of the meaning behind the off-sided phrase, the dose makes the poison, right?

So I could drink enough water too fast and it'll kill you. Sure. Right? That's how, like basically most toxins have that sort of like dose response effect. It's called a monotonic dose response. And that's like true for the vast majority of chemicals.

What's unique and controversial about these endocrine disruptors is that they can have an effect at a very low dose. And in fact, they could have potentially no effect at a moderate dose and then be toxic at a high dose. So it's a very unusual, you shaped curve. It's called a non-monotonic dose response. And it's totally unique to these endocrine disrupting chemicals. And that's what's made them not only incredibly hard to study, but incredibly hard to predict.

And big business or the companies that have invested billions of dollars into creating plastic products, that's one of the reasons why this compound has been able to basically subvert higher levels of scrutiny. Interesting. Now, is it because... So the way that these things work,

and correct me if I'm wrong, when you have your hormones attached to receptors in your body, and these receptors are what tell your body what to do. They're basically like a lock, and the hormone is like a key, fits in the lock, unlocks it. Now the hormone expresses whatever it's supposed to express. These chemicals are almost like a key that fits in that lock, and it's a weaker affinity, so it's not like exactly like estrogen, but it has somewhat of an effect.

Why would a low dose have an effect, but a mid dose not have an effect? Is it because the receptor starts to down regulate, and then the high dose starts to overwhelm that? Do they know why that that that effect happens? I don't think they know why, but I mean, you have to consider the fact that hormones, there's this, this organization that I became interested in and I've, you know, interviewed the head of it. It's called the endocrine disruption exchange.

And basically, if, given levels, if, if levels of a given hormone in your body can fill up 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools, the additional removal of a teaspoon of water from the, can create an effect in the body. So basically, just tiny, tiny, and also, it depends on what stage in life you are. So this is like the big thing is like, you know, maybe as an adult, you're gonna be less vulnerable to the consequences of exposure to these chemicals, right?

But what about in utero? I mean, these same chemicals have been identified in placenta blood. And I don't know, I mean, they can create genital abnormalities. Somebody, this is very interesting, and probably highly controversial, it's a theory. I know we're gonna go with this.

Are you talking about the exposure to these chemicals in smaller penises? Study? No. That was enough. We actually talked about that all the time. We do what you're reading. Yeah.

Apparently, that's interesting. That's interesting. That's interesting. Sorry. I'll share that with you. Yeah, I'll share that with you. I'll share that with you. Yeah, I'll share it with you. I'll share it with you. No, somebody, so I mean, I didn't have not like

vetted this or whatever. Some person emailed me after hearing a podcast that I did on my show about endocrine disruption and they thought that it was a very interesting potential mechanism by which, you know, we're seeing a lot of like gender dysmorphia today, right? And I, you know, have friends that are trans, I have absolutely zero, like, against it or anything like that. So I just want to preface that with saying, like, I'm cool with it.

But, you know, a question that I think arises is why would this occur in the brain? And perhaps maybe, and again, like, I did not research this at all, and I don't know if there's any evidence, but somebody emailed me this idea, and I was like, I thought it was kind of interesting, that because of the just like omnipresence of these endocrine-discipline chemicals in our environment now, that obviously get into breast milk,

that get into the fetus, like maybe, a tiny alteration of these hormones. We're talking about estrogen and testosterone and things like that. At the right time, is able to... Well, that's what determines if you turn into a boy or a girl in utero, it's a change in testosterone. I use this analogy for a different example, but I think it works here too.

If you took two parallel lines and you moved one, just one degree to the left, the further down you followed them, the greater the change would become. And I think what's happened with a lot of these chemicals is they might have a tiny effect on us, but over time and maybe over generations, especially when we're talking about things like epigenetics

or maybe even just the other effects it has on things like the microbiome and how that affects us, I think you start to see changes in generational changes, but even changes in adults that you might not notice when they're kids, but as you become older, now you develop certain disorders and diseases and maybe changes in how your body moves and how you think.

Is this found in all plastics? I mean, this BPA, basically like every plastic that we have. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, manufacturers are now have started to remove BPA because of consumer concern, but they're replacing it with other types of bisonals. So they're now replacing it with BPS and BPF. And essentially what it is,

it's just, you know, these manufacturers have consumers become sort of aware of these chemicals from, you know, like people like us, right, like spreading the word about them. And then they pacify the public by removing them. Right, they know BPA. Right, know BPA. But you don't know if they're made with these very similar other compounds. and sometimes these compounds could be just as dangerous There's less research on them too. You're going down the these rabbit holes and yeah, and are you gonna start feeling like conspiracy theorists like oh man all these you know I Like everything's made out of glass at your house now Well, yeah, I mean, I'm definitely I've thrown out all my plastic stuff the reason why I became so interested in this and you guys know It's because my mom was sick for so long,

and I have no evidence to say that what took her life was genetic. It was, I truly believe that my mom was the canary in the coal mine for the modern milieu of just a, quote unquote toxic food environment. modern, you know, milieu, you know, of like just a, quote unquote toxic food environment, you know, and I actually believe that the food environment has become, you know, toxic and that's for reasons other than just like macronutrients and things like that.

It's because of these kinds of endocrine disrupting chemicals, heavy metal exposure, you know, it's like all this stuff. All these chemicals are, again, thrown into the environment. And, you know, we take this like, innocent until proven guilty approach with them. Yes, yes. I'm 100% with you on that. You know, humans got together and we solved

some of the biggest problems that mankind had struggled with for millennia, starvation, hunger, lack of energy, lack of being able to have access to food, and we solved it in our hurry, we're so fast to solve it though that there's a lot of these unintended consequences of things that we didn't even know to test for. Like let's be quite honest, for example, we didn't know to test for, you know, microbiome disruption. We didn't know to test for changes in DNA. We didn't know to test for certain hormone interactions.

These are things we learn later on. And you're absolutely right. The thing that bothers me is when I talk to people in my field and they say things like, but there's all these studies that show that it's perfectly fine. I'm like, this thing has been studied for six months or fine for five years or they've studied it. The studies last three months and now the population

and it's hard to single things out. I, and maybe you agree with me, but I'm more on the side of I think it's better to, when we're looking at these new products, the guilty-till-proven innocent, because we evolved with our food, or with natural food, we co-evolve. So we have millions of years of us working together with the food that's around us,

changing it in radical ways. Yes, we've definitely been, for example, modifying food through breeding, but that's still along those natural parameters that we've evolved with changing things so radically with radiation or modifying their genetics or spraying chemicals on them and saying, no, it's safe. We did a 90-day trial on humans and how can you possibly say that? There's no way.

Yeah, no, totally. I mean, it's, we have these crude means of measuring the impacts of these chemicals, right? Like, single end points. Some of the ways in which they try to ascertain whether or not one of these endocrine disrupting chemicals has an effect is they feed them to animals and then they weigh their organs.

And you know, if they don't see a difference in organ weight, they're like, oh, it's fine. you know, if they don't see a difference in organ weight, they're like, oh, it's fine. You know, so it's just like, there was this really funny quote, something that like, you know, you guys know, like Alan Aragon. I don't know that much about him, but like I, you know, I follow him on Instagram

and he posted on his stories. It was like, people are really quick to eat all these like packaged processed foods without even looking at the ingredients, but you offer them something that's quote unquote healthy and suddenly they become scientists. You know, like, and I think it's so like, I, yeah, the guilty until proven innocent thing I think is super smart

and super important because, you know, again, I'm not really prone to conspiracy theories or anything like that, but I do know that money caches king, right? And, you know, there's just like, there's another, there's a great documentary. I think it's called the Bleeding Edge about the medical devices in just a minute. Oh yeah, we saw that.

And I don't know if the same thing applies, the same sort of regulatory process applies for drugs and food products, but essentially what I got from that documentary is that if a medical device is similar enough to a device that had come before it, then it's automatically approved. Yeah. And so it ends up being this like game of telephone, right? Where you can end up with a product, 10 products removed from the original product that was

approved by the FDA, being implanted into thousands, if not millions of people. And only later we determine that it's like causing ruptures and tumors and disease in people. I can easily argue that the FDA has the most in the world stringent regulatory processes for regulating pharmaceutical drugs. I can say that with pretty full confidence, the cost of getting a drug from conception to market is insane, sometimes costing companies hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars and 10 years worth of research and testing

just to get it approved, okay? So we're talking about insane amounts of regulation and money. Now at the same time, drugs get recalled from the market every single day. These same drugs that passed all these regulations, all these tests that were said to be perfectly safe for treating whatever, and then we find out, oh, it causes breast cancer or it causes dementia or whatever, and we have to pull them from the market. So that's about as stringent as that gets. Now, when we're testing foods, doesn't even come close to that level of regulation.

When we're testing a new sweetener, or we're testing a new additive or preservative, doesn't even come close. And it's, I don't think it, yes, I definitely think there's some nefarious forces behind some of these things. I definitely think, like if you study the way that GMOs got the green light

to be not just legalized, but then also to not have to be labeled. If you study that, you say, okay, there's definitely some people conspiring or working together to make lots of money. And there's definitely cases that. But even at the best case scenario, my argument is this, even best, best, best case scenario, you have to err on the side of caution because we again we

evolve for millions of years with the food around us for a long fucking time generations generations generations now perhaps a million years from now humans will have evolved to have BPA be a part of their bodies and it's not gonna affect them anymore but these are things that have been introduced now we don't know really what the long-term effects. We just know what we test, and we can't test for everything. And the tests never show you 100% of what might be going on. And so when I push people to eat whole natural foods that come from that angle, and the other

angle is this, Adam brought this up earlier, these foods that have these additives, these products that have all these additives, the main reason why they have them is not to make them healthier. The main reasons are twofold. One, to increase its shelf life or make it less expensive to produce. And two, to make you want to eat more of it. That's actually where most of it goes.

And so even if you're somebody's like, I don't care about all that stuff, that's all conspiracy theory. I just want to be lean, I just don't want to be fat or whatever. You're fighting with a lot of money being spent on keeping you eating this food, good luck trying to monitor or manage your calorie intake.

When you're eating an engineered piece of food that's designed, it's literally make you eat more. Absolutely. So with all that, right, we've got all these things that are hyper-palatable, we've got all this shit that is money's being pumped into this, right? And we're fighting this uphill battle time Do you have like a

Hierarchy for yourself personally or that you advise people that are that live in this world where you're drink out of a water ball That's plastic you put clothes on that's probably got shit in it. You grow organic food that's still Shots you still got shit in the soil So do you like how do you advise because I get this question lot. And like sometimes I don't know how to answer it to somebody. Yeah, people freak out. Cause I know how it's very natural for me. I don't freak out about it.

I just, I try and be aware. I'm just aware of everything I do. But do you have like a hierarchy that you live by as far as the things that are like non-negotiable? Like fuck no, I would never do that cause of these things are like you said you got rid of your plastic or that how you advise people. Yeah, I mean, I definitely try to minimize

my plastic consumption, but I don't drive myself crazy. I mean, I'm drinking out of a coffee cup right now that's probably lined with some kind of, you know, waterproof plastic lining in it. It's not pure paper, obviously. And, you know, when I'm on the road and I'm thirsty and I need to, you know, water all bioplastic bottles. So, you know, the, to some degree, these chemicals that we're talking about,

they're just completely unavoidable. And so the best thing that I think most people can do is just kind of like minimize their exposure in the household, you know, like throw out the Tupperware, get plastic, get plastic. That's a new product. It's lodging next week. I got plastic. That's a new product. It's logic, next week. I got class tickets. Yeah, replace it with class. The non-stick pans coated with Teflon, those are not good for us.

We've known for generations that Teflon's not good for us. It's another compound that's found in the environment. Making these switches, these simple swaps, I think once people have the knowledge, you can make those swaps and then forget about it. It's like a said it and forget it method. Right, right. I agree with that. Yeah. Eating home more frequently. I mean, we all know that you're going to end up eating healthier automatically by eating home. And that's also eating out is a major route of entry for these compounds to enter your system as well because the way that restaurants store food,

especially fast food, they're always in plastic and they're being left out in the hot kitchen environment. So eating home, it's not really rocket science, but I think, I just think like arming people with knowledge. It's like a paradigm shift. It creates a singularity for people. Well, I believe it's just think like arming people with knowledge, you know, it's like a paradigm shift. It creates a singularity for people. Well, I believe it's just the like the awareness thing. I think once you have the awareness of it,

and so if there's a situation where you only have a plastic water bottle for you to drink out of, you're not gonna die of thirst, you're gonna drink the water. But if there's also an option there where you can use it without it, you're gonna make that up, that's just gonna make that choice. It's conscious of it.

That's how I feel I try and tell people, it's like, yeah, I'm not gonna freak myself, because I think the stress you would cause yourself by getting all freaked out about everything that's around us, you could go insane, right? I think it's just being aware of that and trying to make the best choice when you have options. And so in terms of hierarchy too,

do you have like a set list list of certain foods you really try to incorporate? Those are the ones that I'm always trying to get in my diet. Good question. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, it's not so much about exclusion as it is inclusion. I try to eat foods that are nutrient dense. Every day, I'm a big fan of eating a salad every day. It's a way of checking off a number of your boxes,

like the requirement for dietary fiber, I think is pretty important. Micronutrients, you know, 90% of Americans are deficient in at least one essential nutrient at this point. So I, and also our food has changed, so our food has become actually less nutritious over time. So it's all the more reason why I'm assuing grains, you know, and especially grain products, but you know, grains are energy dense, they're nutrient poor.

In the limited real estate on my plate and in my stomach, I'm always trying to, you know, preferentially include foods that I know are going to give me the most bang for my buck nutritionally. So wild salmon, grass fed beef, eggs, dark leafy greens, crucifers vegetables. Crucifers vegetables are actually, I mean, one of the reasons why I think crucifers vegetables are so important to include is that they help us detox from these plastic compounds. Yeah, they increase our body's production of endogenous antioxidants, like glutathione, things like that that actually help us, you know, they're like our liver's detox enzymes. So they help our bodies purge from, you know, some of these compounds.

There's a compound in broccoli, I think, called the endolthory carbonyl, which I believe is an anti-cancer, and good for, especially for women who, the helps, they're, convert their estrogen to a less aggressive form of estrogen. So women who are estrogen dominant, I know that I've seen some wellness experts recommend lots of cruciferous vegetables for that purpose. Is that the same as dim?

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, I think indol 3 carbonyl is one step before DIM or something like that. I know they're related. Yeah, I've done like a little bit of reading on that. But yeah, I mean, Christopher's vegetables are great. Using a sauna, it's another great way

of getting some of these compounds out. But yeah, food, extra virgin olive oil. I kind of titrate my carbs depending on what I'm, my activity levels. What are your favorite sources of carbs? Love sweet potatoes, purple sweet potatoes too, which are, they actually contain anthocyanins, which are found in blueberries and red onions,

so those are really good for you. Fruit, stuff like that. So just healthy. Yeah, I mean, well, that's the thing is like it's not, it's really not rocket science, but I really do try to like eat these foods because, and I try to eat organic whenever I can. Again, you know, to reduce pesticide exposure, some of these foods have, you know, measurably higher concentrations of like polyphenols in them. But yeah, it's like, I never count calories. I'm not that body obsessed, you know. I just think

that by reaching for high quality foods, you can really kind of like, you know, offload that anxiety that we have about like energy intake, you know. I mean, that's going back to the calories and calories out thing. How does focusing on calories lead to any less obsessive of a relationship around food? 100% then painting foods as either good or bad. I don't understand. The obsession with calories, if anything, that's something that you need a like, a spreadsheet and a pencil and paper and a scale to do.

Like, what would you do if you were stranded on a fucking island? Right, right, you know? Yeah, it's funny because I know, again, working with clients, when people eat the types of foods that you eat and they really make that the majority, the vast majority of their diet, their bodies kind of naturally bring themselves to a healthy body weight. It's almost like it's a side effect of eating healthy, rather than the body obsession, counting calories,

constantly in macros and trying to fit whatever I can in those macros and calories, that makes it much more difficult. When people eat healthy, they just kind of, because your body, look, here's a thing, that your body doesn't necessarily want to be, I think we all have this misconception that, if you just put food in front of people, they'll just eat it, but our bodies have these safeguards against overeating,

just like they have safeguards to keep us eating and not starve. Palette fatigue is one of those things, and you don't hit hit palate fatigue with processed foods quite as quickly. You just eat more of them. Whereas when you're eating these natural foods, it's hard to over eat.

It's much more difficult. In fact, I used to do that with clients. When I'd start working with clients, and these are people who they want just basic guidelines. And it's okay, well, let's start with this. Let's try avoiding heavily processed foods. And the people that would do that, you would see the scales start to drop.

They would just start to naturally lose weight without them having to try to, you know, try to pay attention so much to just the calories. You brought up grains. Grains are the way they are today because grains were bred to be very high in energy. That's what they were bred for. That's, we solved the energy problem with them. But as a consequence of that now we have energy dense and nutrient, not dense foods, which now resulted in some of the problems that we've run into.

Obesity is just being one of the side effects of them, but you've done a lot of research on poor health and in particular poor brain health, and I know there is a correlation with obesity, but you also have people who are not, who aren't obese who get these issues. People who have normal body weight, who start to get sick. So we might need to talk about that, because I think people just think of obesity and think, oh, if I'm not obese, then I'm all good.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, my mom was not obese. My mom was thin her whole life. She was not a type two diabetic, nor was she pre-diabetic, but I did go through a lot of her old medical records. And her A1C was pretty high for somebody of her age. And it was something that I didn't get to talk to her about.

It's something that I think the statements were from 2010, which was way earlier than my involvement in her health. But yeah, I mean, this is something that like we're not, none of us are immune to. We're all ultimately vulnerable to. And that's why like the conversation about like food exclusively as it pertains to our weight is something that it's just like myopic, in my opinion. So yeah, there was this great, you know, research estimate published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease that estimated that 40% of Alzheimer's cases were owed to chronically elevated insulin.

You know, insulin is a growth factor. It's secreted mostly in response to carbohydrate consumption. And it seems to interfere with the brain's custodial duties. Essentially, it interferes with insulin degrading enzyme, which is also involved in the breakdown of amyloid beta, which is the protein that aggregates, clumps, and forms the plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease. You know, whether or not there's or not there's a good debate on what causes insulin resistance, whether it's chronic carbohydrate consumption or just an excess of energy intake, I think that eating too many carbs chronically throughout the day, it causes receptors to become tolerant.

This is something that's conserved with hormones, it's conserved in neurons with neurotransmitters. Insulin resistance in the body is pretty tightly correlated to glucose metabolism in the brain. The more insulin resistant you are in the body, the less efficient your brain seems to be at producing energy using glucose. So there's this like really strong connection between the brain and the body. And ultimately while your weight may be determined and the fat that you carry may be determined by energy balance, I think nurturing and encouraging a fat burning metabolism, whether or not you're losing weight or gaining weight, like that's moot. I think being able to burn fat is good

because the brain likes to use fat for fuel. I think this conversation that it doesn't matter whether you're burning fat or carbs, energy balances, the only thing that really matters, I think that ignores the whole line of research on ketones and how ketones affect the brain. Dominic deacoustino is on of work. Mary Newport and all these other people affect the brain. And, you know, like Dominic de Agostino's line of work. And all, you know, like

Mary Newport and all these other people that are pushing the idea forward for ketones is this brain energy, quote unquote super fuel. So, so that's really, you know, like, sometimes I struggle with the articulation of like a unified theory, but that's why I think, yeah, fine, calorie balance matters, but if you're eating quality foods, whole foods, it's going to help your hunger regulate itself so that you don't have to think about calories, which is like who the hell wants to think about calories day in and day out? And Kevin Hall actually is an obesity researcher just published. I don't know if it was published yet, I saw it preprint, but he tweeted it, it was a study where ad-libitum feeding he found in subjects that were exposed to either an ultra-process diet or Whole Foods diet.

Just cutting out the ultra-process foods and sticking only to Whole Foods, you're hunger naturally regulates. So I think right there, it's just like, that's like the autopilot. It's like putting your brain in Tesla self-driving mode, right, which I think is kind of important and useful in a world where there's like,

who wants one additional thing to have to worry about? When you first started writing your book, you started in one place, and now you're reading and researching about, can you go through that whole process of where it's kind of started, and now where it's leading you? Because now I hear you talking about chemicals quite a bit where when we first met, it was more about fats

and carbohydrates and qualities of the types of foods that you have. Now I hear you talking about some other things. Like what did that path look like? Where are you at now? Well, for me, it all began because my mom, so for listeners that don't know, at the age of 58, my mom started to develop the earliest symptoms of dementia.

And she was ultimately diagnosed with a sort of rare form of dementia, and that lasted for about six or seven years. And what people don't know, so I've never actually talked about this, but she died. She three months prior to her passing, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. So that was like a curve ball, if there ever was one. And it was the most traumatic thing to, I mean, I love my mom more than anything. Me and her were so incredibly close. And to see what she went through

and in both cases with the dementia, with the cancer, how limited, like the options were for her in terms of medicine. It's just, it's really, it's created this like lifelong mission for me to try to understand what it was. Again, it was purely environmental, I think. I mean, there's no evidence that we have that it was genetic. You know, she had a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, but she didn't have any

genetic, you know, there was no cancer in my family tree. When you're diagnosed with cancer, they usually will set you up with a gene therapist, because that determines whether or not certain immunotherapies are gonna be useful. She had no genetic, you know, there were no genetic risks that they tested for. In my opinion, having the Alzheimer's, the rare form, and then having the pancreatic cancer

almost confirms that there's environmental because there's two things now that are happening. I began really interested in Alzheimer's disease only because it was the most common form of dementia and Parkinson's by extension, although Parkinson's is less frequent. And certainly there's very little, I mean, there's good research out there on Alzheimer's disease, risk factors, interventions, things like that. Parkinson's is even more rare. And there's a lot less known on, you know, potential dietary interactions.

But yeah, so I mean, I began, I think, looking into food and macros and dietary patterns and risk factors, both modifiable and unmodifiable. But then beyond that, I just started to realize that food is a major part of it, but it's not the only part. I mean, there's lifestyle, there's our sleep, our stress levels, there's exercise, what type of exercise is the best exercise for the brain? And then there's these chemical compounds. I mean, it sort of started to dawn on me

when my mom, she had these home health aids that would work for her. And they were very good at what they did for my mom, but they're uneducated people, not all-home health AIDS, but my mom's in particular, and certainly not about nutrition or health or any of this stuff. And they would always, my mom's, because of my mom's dementia, which was progressing, she would spend an increasing amount of time in her house.

And the greatest exposure for many of these chemicals, you would think would be outside, right, like in the street, but it's actually in the house. And they would use all of these like harsh, caustic cleaning products to clean my mom's house. I'm not saying that I know with any certainty whatsoever that these caused her cancer. I mean, I can't say that. But between those, you know, the cleaning chemicals that we all frequently use to the dust created by our furniture and our electronics, which are filled with, you know, thalates

and BPA and flame retardants and all these chemicals, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I can't find any other explanation as to why my mom, why my mom at 66 got so sick and it was robbed for me and my family. And so it's, you know, it's turned me into like a detective and this is something that's gonna last for the rest of my life. Because first of all, I don't want to develop cancer and I'm not gonna say that I have any kind of guarantee

that the way that I live is gonna guarantee that I'm not gonna develop what my mom developed. I have no idea, but I'm gonna try my best. And I'm gonna stay up to date on the research as I can because I mean, it was monstrous, man. I mean, it was like horrible. Was she treating the cancer towards the end or was that a stage where they didn't treat it?

No, so your... So the thing about pancreatic cancer is that most of the time it's diagnosed when it's already too late, when it's already sort of spread because I have no routine screening process for pancreatic cancer. And the pancreas sits like dead in the middle of the gut. It's very easy for those cells to migrate then to the liver and to other parts of the digestive tract. And so by the time they, first of all, she, her appetite had really kind of reduced at a certain point and I was in LA at the time, but my family called me and told me that my mom had turned yellow. So she basically had turned jaundiced. And most of the time, or a lot of the time, I should say, when somebody turns yellow,

it could be because of a gallstone. It's blocking the bile duct and billiareubin, which is this, it's what colors poop basically. It's like this dark yellow compound. It can build up in the blood. And you turn yellow, the whites of your eyes turn yellow And that's jaundice and it's a toxic product Normally it gets flushed in your stool

My mom had turned yellow and they brought her in for you know a routine MRI with the intent of like going in and removing the stone Nonetheless Because my mom was in the emergency room, I flew back from LA immediately and went to the hospital. And the next day, they told us that she, there was no gallstone, there was a tumor on the head of the pancreas, and that they believed that it had spread at that point. Now, normally, I guess, first of all, the survival, you know, for somebody with pancreatic cancer at that stage

is already very low, but they would normally give chemotherapy to somebody. Chemotherapy can potentially extend lifespan a little bit, but your success as a chemo patient depends on something called performance status. So chemotherapy is very hard to undergo. It's literally, it's such a crude means of battling cancer. It's literally poison that they put into your system, right? And for you to overcome and to persevere when having that treatment, I mean,

you've got to be a pretty robust organism, right? You've got to be strong, you know, I mean, it's hard for young people because my mom's dementia had progressed. They didn't even, they didn't think that it would do anything good for her. And so, yeah, right off the bat, it was, you know, I mean, from one day to the next, I thought I was going to have my mom for at least another 20 years or so, and then it was like palliative care straight to hospice and it was probably the worst three months of my life. That was right around the Tahoe event, right? That's how it went. Literally when was the Tahoe event? It was in September, right?

I went through a very similar process. I had someone very close to me who got diagnosed with a rare form of stomach cancer stage four. And I mean, you look up, I looked it up and said, okay, there's a 3% five year survival rate. And in that process, that's what I want to ask you about when you're faced with that, and you know, there's nothing that we can do, you know, Western medicine. I dived as deep as I possibly could, and what could I possibly do to help naturally?

What can I learn about this? Did you find yourself in that particular place? Yeah, I mean, this whole experience with my mom is one of the reasons that I've become so exquisitely aware that there is no such thing as a one size fits all diet. And that claims that you read on the internet are most of the time untrue. And that what cures cancer and mice

isn't always applicable to what cures cancer and humans. And that with somebody who's frail and fighting for their life, you can't take a kitchen sink approach. It's hard to do. So I had this rude awakening. I mean, and it was a huge learning experience for me as well. When my mom was initially diagnosed, I, you know, I guess I first thought,

okay, well, you know, fasting, like, you know, it's been, yeah, fasting mimicking diet, right? Like, it's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna help. But for somebody whose appetite is waning, and also I started buying her these protein shakes, like these ready-to-drink protein shakes that are, you know, I don't even know what brand, but it was like very high protein because I knew that getting nutrition was gonna be important for her,

but that, you know, her appetite wasn't gonna be super high. So I was like, all right, let's maximize the protein so that she should maintain her muscle, right? And that was, I think, a good instinct, but she didn't really love the protein shakes that I had bought her and what they had prescribed in the hospital was insure. And now I, well, here's the thing.

So I'm like you and everybody who's listening, I'm like, ensure is the worst fucking garbage known to man, right? It's loaded with sugar. The protein quality is terrible. The protein quantity is terrible, but one of the things that I realized is that these drinks are not necessarily made to be the healthiest drinks.

They're made to be palatable so that for somebody with no appetite is gonna drink them. For somebody perhaps who needs just fucking calories. And so I had this kind of fight with my mom's significant other where I was like, no, we gotta give her these protein shakes, these are much better. And he was like, your mom needs calories, Max. She's dying of cancer.

She needs fucking calories. Sorry to curse so much. Oh, we're my partner. Oh, yeah. And so, yeah. And so I was like, well, you're right. And so I was like, that's a battle that I didn't want to fight, didn't care to win, started giving her the ensure because she stopped eating.

And in cancer, there's something called caxia. Muscle wasting is like real. And you don't want to eat anything. So I mean, just struggling to put calories into a person who's dying of cancer and has no appetite. I mean, that's a mission in and of itself. I started buying her desserts that she would love, and of itself. I started buying her, you know, like the desserts that she would love, you know, and things like that. And that's really what it became about at the end of the day.

I mean, I was not pushing keto or fasting no way. I was like, enjoy what you can eat. Yeah. I was a hunt. I was so in that space, same exact space. You know what's strange too, looking back. You wonder about the wisdom of your own body. It's almost like when we lose our appetite to not eat, I wonder if it's our body saying, let's not eat right now, let's see if that'll help us or you ever think about that? I know when, I can't remember what study I read

on fasting, I think I had to do with viruses or bacteria. One or the other does better without food and one does better with food. I remember that, yeah. And I wonder if sometimes, you know, people don't want to eat because their body's telling them not to, or it's one of those mind games you start to play with yourself, you know. I wanted to ask you, Max, with all the research you've been doing,

have you, and especially with brain food, and where you're going right now, have you done any reading on like autism and food, have you connected anything with that, have you read anything that's interesting that interests going right now. Have you have you done any reading on like autism and food? Have you connected anything with that? Have you read anything that's interesting that interests you right now? Yeah, I mean, I you know, I'm not I don't claim to know where autism comes from But I there is a you know a relationship between the symptoms of autism and oxidative stress and the brain And so they've done a handful of clinical trials. I mean, maybe you know fewer than a handful, but Where they found

a compound called sulforophane, which is present in crucifers vegetables, was able to reduce symptoms. There's also a study that I came across recently where Tylenol, acetaminophen, taken by pregnant women increased the risk of symptoms of autism in their children. So yeah, I don't, you know, I think inflammation, oxidative stress, these are all going to exacerbate problems, whether we're talking about knee pain or depression or symptoms of autism potentially. And so I'm not definitely not an expert,

but what I do talk about in my book Genius Foods is that the same diet that's gonna help give your brain the tools that it needs to fight against oxidative stress and inflammation may help alleviate with- Right, makes sense. On that same subject, have you seen any, have you been reading at all about vaccines? Have you done a research?

Because that's like a big topic right now. People are kind of divisive at the moment. Have you done any reading into the compounds that are found in those? I posted once about vaccines and I got like a whole horde of anti-vaxxers. I mean, I did see that study that came out recently. The Mums and Measles, Verbella vaccines were not associated. Right. Increases for awesome.

I mean, I'll tell you that I was, and I would probably vaccinate my kids. I just, yeah, I mean, the brightest people that I know also are doing that. And I think that the benefits outweigh the risks. There's like different compounds that they put in these vaccines that are questionable. like some of them contain aluminum, some of them contain polysorbate 80, which is an emulsifier, but like plenty of people

are eating enough of that stuff in their food, you know, that we don't have to risk giving our kids polio. And, you know, so that's kind of my like 30,000 foot. Sure. Opinion. Sure, sorry to get you on that third rail. You skated that nicely. Yeah, that was good.

That was good. What are the worst offenders of food? What are the biggest offenders in terms of things that we eat that are just the worst things for our brains? I mean, I think we're fine flowers, processed grains, grain and seed oils, with like a caveat that I think dose matters. If you're getting a little bit of sunflower oil in your fish or your gel cap or whatever with your supplement,

I don't think it's a big deal, but our food supplies become a wash in canola oil, safflower oil, grape seed oil. I think those are pretty bad. Even whole foods uses that. I always thought that was fascinating. Oh, and they're in there. Oh yeah, I was just there.

And everything's made with the canola oil. They've done research they found that adipose tissue concentrations of linoleic acid, which is the predominant fatty acid in these oils, has gone up like 153% over the past century. So we're basically becoming what we eat and we're becoming this type of fat that basically supplies the raw materials to our bodies inflammation pathways. And so we look at all these conditions like type 2 diabetes obesity and they're heavily tethered to bodily inflammation.

Alzheimer's disease brain inflammation, I think that it's definitely related. What's the most common feedback you're getting from people who are, because you're selling tons of your books now. I see people posting about them all the time. What kind of feedback are you getting from people? Dude, I mean, it's been so amazing. People report sleeping better than they had slept in years, weight loss, you know, a shift towards a better body composition, improved, you know, lipid numbers when they go and get their annual physical. And I think most importantly, like reduced brain fog, better mood.

That was really the goal for me in writing genius foods was to give people a sort of care manual to their brain. But people have been having all these other incredible, I guess, side responses to it, which is not surprising. I mean, the diet that's gonna be most optimal for your brain, it's not different than the one that's gonna help cardiovascular function or... It's all your body.

Make your skin glow, yeah, exactly. Exactly, so yeah, it's been really humbling, really amazing, and I'm just so grateful that it has resonated with people because one of the things that I think, there's a few things that I think makes my book unique, not to promote it or anything, but I wrote it. So I didn't like, pawn it off onto a ghost writer.

I wrote it with my friend who's a medical doctor, his name is Paul Graywall, shout out to Paul, he's a brilliant guy in New York City, obesity medicine expert, and it's got humor, it's easy to read, it's funny, and I wasn't selling anything. Like, I don't, I mean, most people don't write books to read, it's funny. And I wasn't selling anything. Like I don't, you know, I mean, most people don't write books to make a lot of money.

Like most books don't make any money. And I certainly didn't have like a workout plan or an e-course or anything like that to promote in my book. I literally wrote it with the sole intent of helping get this information out to people in a way that was gonna like resonate with them and change behavior. And so yeah, I think that's people have picked up on that.

Where did you get the biggest response for? Because you've been all over the place, you've been on TV. I've seen you on network TV. I know you've done podcasts and stuff like that. Oh yeah, have you done things where like you come home and they're like, where do you get the biggest boost? Because it's such a different landscape nowadays with new media and old media, you know? Yeah. Um, I mean, definitely mind pump. You guys, uh, you're just saying that to people or you'd be nice with us or.

Many of your fans have connected with me. Yeah. And they're, they love you guys. They're like the first thing when they send me a DM is always like, I found you through mind pump, love them. Now I love you. It's been awesome.

Yeah. TV still moves a lot of books. So like the Dr. Oz show, the Rachel Ray show, that they've all been really, really great, really helpful. What else? Podcasts. Yeah. I mean, is there one single standout day you had to have a record sale and book day?

Like do you remember what it was? Yeah, when did you know like oh shit? This is gonna be a blockbuster. Yeah, well around the week that my book came out. I was doing a lot of you know different I was on a few different TV shows and a bunch of different podcasts by hard to pinpoint which one? It's hard to pinpoint But yeah, I remember I think it was the second or third day that my book had been out. We hit number four out of all books on Amazon, which is like a huge, you know, to be at number four next to Jordan Peterson at that time. Mm-hmm. It was like amazing. What else? Yeah, I mean, I can't really think of like one big, I mean, definitely, the Dr. Oz show is big for me. They did a, I've been on the Dr. Oz show a million times.

I hope that doesn't, you know, mean that I've lost credibility with some of your listeners. I love Dr. Oz. I love, you know, having worked with, you know, many of their producers. Every segment I've ever done with their show, they've been nothing but totally respectful and like I'm super proud of everything

that we've ever talked about. But yeah, so because I've been on it so frequently and they really built this like really great segment around my book. What do you have to say to people that say things about Dr. Ossi? He does get hammered quite a bit by social media and people saying he's a quack and it's bad information. You have a much closer relationship to him. What would you say about him? by social media and people saying he's a quack and it's bad information, you have a much closer relationship to him, what would you say about him? Yeah, you've, well, you've, first of all, you've got to separate the man from the show.

And the show is on every single day and they've got to fill it with stuff. So they're going to have people with dissenting and differing opinions, you know, one day to the next. I mean, I'm on it talking about how you should avoid grains and fill your bowl up with fibers of vegetables and grass-fed beef.

And then the next day you'll have a vegan doctor on talking about how all you wanna do is eat whole grains and bubble a lot. So, and I think it's good that doctora's entertains all sides of every side of that spectrum. I think that the, and I haven't seen them promote supplements personally. So I can't speak to like how they handle that. But again, he's been nothing but, and his team has been nothing but incredible.

To me, very kind, you know, they have me on all the time and they really respect what I'm doing. And, um, it's, I find you. And ultimately, I think that he's done more good than bad, too. In terms of getting this information out to like middle America, you know, I mean, we're talking about fairly high level concepts and people that follow us are following like the paleo LCHF hashtag, you know, like his audience, they don't know what paleo is. Yeah, I was going gonna ask you about that. How do you make these high level concepts

more digestible? Because isn't that the point of getting on these types of network TVs that you really only have like so much time and you have to convey a lot of like really, you know, important information, but you have to, you know, consider the audience that's listening to you. Yeah, it's totally true.

Like that's, I think, why doing, you totally true. Like, that's I think why doing, all of this experience that I've had has honed me in a way where... That's why you're bad acid Instagram. Exactly why. 100%. You do such a good job of dancing the fine line of like cheesy marketing with just fucking smart way

of getting people to try attention. So you can then add value to them in a short little snip, but it really is. It's probably a testament to your what you've had to do on TV. Yeah. I mean, I'm hyper aware that everybody's different. I'm hyper aware of the limitations of medicine and the limitations of food and, you know, the fact that ultimately we're in this environment, this world where nobody but you is going to have your own back, and

that people are generally speaking not, they don't have a ton of money, and there's differing opinions being thrown at them every which way. Most of it is from, you know, like the media in my industry, but also other, you know, quote unquote, influencers. And so it's made me, and because of my background in journalism, and my background is actually in communication, it's just made me very careful about the way that I communicate this stuff. But also because I'm not a doctor, and because I haven't had to unlearn academic jargon, I'm just more than a, like I've never actually, I don't wanna like be an influencer

so much as I wanna be a role model for people. That's my goal to like help people, to empower people, to know that they really can become experts in their own health, the same way that I've attempted to do with my health. And because I truly have this sense of on wonder about our biologies and our bodies and nutrition, all the science, I mean, at the end of the day,

I think it's so cool, first and foremost, and that I'm learning from the ground up, that's I think how I've been able to kinda talk to it in a way that is approachable to the audience because I am the audience. I just wanna have a different destiny than most people. And I want the people that I love and care about to come with me on that, on that, on that ride.

We talked all the time about how important communication skills are for if you're trying to do anything, and you're a good example of that. You've got good information, but you also have very good communication skill, which is why you're able to reach more people than maybe the scientists who are doing the research that you're reading and conveying.

So you talked about success. You're success has exploded since the first time we met. How's your life changed? Now because of that, you buy a new car or something. So when I was on your podcast a little while ago, you had a little tiny apartment in LA, but I know it's because you just, I don't know if you just don't care about material things

or has your life changed a lot? So it's all the just, I don't know if you just don't care about material things or has your life changed a lot? So it's all the success? I don't really care about material things. It's another testament to my mom, love my mom, she was not a materialist. You know, I could be making a lot more money if I didn't have the, you know, like the integrity that she raised me with.

But yeah, I mean, I do, I'm, I make a living now, which is great. I still live in the same little tiny apartment in LA. I did get a car. Oh, you did? Yeah. I did get a car. So, cool car.

Yeah, got a cool car. Yeah. All right. What'd you get, dude? I got a McCann, Porsche McCann. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That is a cool car.

I'm in love with it. It's such a fucking great car. Yeah, I mean, it's not an extravagant look at me car, especially not in LA, but it's comfortable, it's safe, it's fast, it's got a great sound system. I like it, so that's been the gift that I've given myself. I haven't really given myself any kind of gift

since, for at least the last year, still have the same little apartment in LA. Still single? Still single. Do you, Rader Mingle, do you tussle with that conversation in your head like where you are, man, if I just did a few other things like this, I could make so much more money.

Do you ever find yourself kind of wrestling with that back and forth? Was that conversation in your head sound like? I mean, the thing is, for better or worse, I'm not driven by money. And I know it sounds cliche, but if I, like when I feel like I need to make more money, that's when I get more proactive with like my emails

and like procuring sponsors and things like that. But generally speaking, like as long as I'm able to pay my bills, my priority is really just continuing to put out good content. And again, I don't care about having nice things. I'll probably never post a photo of my car on my Instagram. Like, you know, flossing. Were we talking about it on air or before you went on air? I think it was before I was talking about this, yeah.

Yeah, like I don't, you know, projecting an image of success is not something that I give any f's about. Like I don't, you know, that's not what it's about to me. And also like I don't want to, I don't want people to think that like my lifestyle and the way that I eat is exclusive to people that have a little bit of money,

it's really not. And so. I can definitely back you up on what you're saying about yourself. And I'm not gonna mention who it is, but I know of one sponsor who was trying to get your attention. You and I talked about it, and they were offering a lot of money and you wouldn't,

because the product just didn't follow your integrity. And you were getting offered, I know this company, it's a big company, I don't want to mention them, because if I do, everybody will know what I'm talking about. And so I'm pretty sure they were offering you a pretty nice penny. Was that a tough decision for you, or were you like, nah, I can't do this?

It, I tried to find a way to incorporate them somehow, but not the way that they wanted me to. And so that was a deal breaker. And yeah, it was a lot of money. It was like a lot of money. It would be a lot of money for anybody. And not life changing money, not like FU money, but like it was enough to consider.

Yeah, for sure. And I turned it down. And I turned down, even smaller sums with products that I don't believe in, or that I don't wanna have to dig up and create a narrative to promote science. It's not really there. I'll just give you a good example.

I take protein powders, right? I don't really have a particular preference for a brand of protein powder. If it's a clean protein powder, meaning it doesn't have sucralose and other artificial sweeteners in it, and if it's a way protein, preferably an isolate, I'm pretty agnostic in terms of the brand,

but if it's a good product that I enjoy using, then I'll promote it. But that's what I, with my sponsors, I'll say that. The way that I talk about a product is not that this is the best protein powder on the market. It's that protein is good for you. Most people are, many people are not consuming enough. It's satiating, it's important if you're on a weight

training regimen, all that stuff. That's the benefits of protein consumption. enough, it's satiating, it's important if you're on a weight training regimen, all that stuff. The benefits of protein consumption. And if you want to buy a high quality brand of it, then here, pick this. You're talking about artificial sweeteners, what's wrong with artificial sweeteners? Aspertames, sucralose, I just don't trust them. There have been some studies, mostly animal studies of how they disrupt gut bacteria, things like that. Yeah, that's a big debate.

We always have with people in this space. Yeah. Because so many of these supplements are flavored with them and we tell people to stay away from them. For the most part. Yeah, I know. And people in the fitness world are like, you know, it doesn't add calories, so drink as much diet coke

as you want, right? I just don't, you know, it doesn't add calories so drink as much Diet Coke as you want, right? I just don't, you know, I don't think it's good for you. I mean, I think like the connection between, there's been associations identified in the literature between diet, total consumption and obesity, diet, total consumption and dementia. These are correlations, not causation, but yeah, I just, I don't know. What do you think about?

I think it's safe to head your bets. That's how I feel, you know? That's how I feel. If you have an option and you can go the other option, then why not? Right. Why wouldn't you? It's not like a,

it's not the difference of thousands of dollars to make that choice. It's like it's a small decision or it's a little effort. Would you use a great term where you set it and leave it or would you say would you set it and forget it? Yeah, set it's like it's a small decision or it's a little effort, would you use a great term where you set it and leave it or would you say, would you set it and forget it? Yeah, set it and forget it. Yeah, exactly.

You now order that one only, now you know the fucking worry about that ever again. You have you done any research on how the perception of flavors affect the brain? What I mean by that is you're drinking this drink, it's artificially flavored, so there's no calories. And forget the fact that there's a chemical and they're giving it a flavor. And what that how that effect may affect the body, because that's another conversation. What about the simple perception of sweetness and how that may affect either your appetite later

on or how you feel or neurochemicals or any changes in the brain of the body. Have you looked into any of that? I mean, I want to say that I've seen studies where the perception of sweet increases your appetite, but I haven't looked carefully into them that recently. That's something I'm trying to look into because- You remember the stada? I think it was in China where they did the shock the tongue and they could make you taste sweet. Yeah.

So they have figured out, but they were chopsticks. Doug made duck and looked this up. They were the electro-something chopsticks that create flavor. And they figured out how to do salty and I think sweet. I think are, and by stimulating the tongue with these chopsticks to make you think that it's a different flavor. Whoa.

Yeah. But even that I would think there were, of course there's not gonna be no side effects. You're still perceiving something. And that takes, yeah, and the human body evolved for millions of years where a taste was associated with something. So it's not like the taste was never by itself.

It was always, if you tasted sweet, that meant you had sugar or something else. If you had salty, that meant there was salt. If you had bitter, that meant maybe poison or whatever. So I don't think there could be no side effects from that. But yeah. I mean, I don't want to say anything that's untrue from a research perspective.

So just from a purely intuitive perspective, like I don't want to drink that stuff because I just don't trust anything put out by big soda, you know, enough to want to, you know, regularly incorporate it into my diet. You know, there are plenty of other drinks that I love just as much. There's now like Coca-Cola's and Roopiers

that are made with stevia, which I trust a lot more than sucralosin aspartame. Yeah, what does the research say on stevia? I know that there was one study years ago that showed that it may affect fertility and animals, and then there were studies that disproved that. What's your thought process around stevia? I mean, I think a little bit is okay,

okay, but, you know, so better than aspartame and and sucralose in your mind. Yes, because it's a ground up root. So it's just a little bit more close to nature, you know, something that like, you know, it's like a South American root, right? That like they've termed tasted sweet and has no calories. And so, yeah, monk fruit is something

a rithra tall, all sometimes used, which is like that sugar alcohol, that incidentally is also good for, you know, teeth health, oral health, yeah oral health. It's sort of like, it's a more potent version of xylitol. You know, they put xylitol into toothpaste sometimes. So yeah, like, I'll use that stuff for my sweet tooth fix. And, but, you know, like, again, those are not because they're sweet, if you use them to bake things like low sugar cookies or whatever, which I will do sometimes, like the same fireworks light up

in the brain that make you prone to overeating those foods. So they don't get a, like, a free pass just because they have no calories. Exactly. So I want to ask you something kind of personal. You were talking about your mom and what a big impact she had in your life and her recent passing and obviously we offer our sincerest condolences with that. That process afterwards, I mean I went through something similar when I lost someone very close. How did you help yourself cope with that? How did you, where the practices that you did to help yourself kind of get through that and be able to maintain your business and, you know,

maintain things? I mean, I cried a lot and it was pretty difficult. Me, I've got two younger brothers and we were all there for each other. Thankfully, that was great having them. Yeah, I mean, I read a few books. There's this, I think it was called On Death and Dying. I forget the author, but she wrote, she created the five stages of grief and she wrote this book on death and dying. That was a very helpful book for me. I forget her exact name.

Yeah, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. What she talks about is that you undergo the five stages, the term stage is kind of a misnomer because you don't go through them one after the other, like in consecutive fashion, they can occur all at the same time and in random order and at various parts of the day. And so I'm still going through them, like I regularly experience denial,. I just can't fucking believe that my mom has gone. And it feels like a nightmare sometimes. And it feels weird to say that it's gotten better over the past couple of months because it's this weird,

one of the other stages I think is guilt. I have this weird relationship with grief where yes, I want to turn over a new leaf and begin a new chapter. But when I, when I think about the fact that like maybe it's been a few hours since I've thought about my mom, I kind of feel a little bit guilty about that, you know. But on the other hand, my life has gone back to some semblance of normal. I'm, I hang out with my friends, I have a good time, I laugh, I'm going back to creating on Instagram.

I went back to posting on Instagram maybe a week after, two weeks after, because it brings me joy to do that. And to, I was back in the sauna, I think the third day after, you know, because it's, it was something in the sauna, I think the third day after, because it was something that I needed to do. So it's a very strange process. And I would say most of the time, it still does not feel real to me. Like it's also it's weird because I think we have

like HD video capabilities today that previous generations didn't have. I've got like pristine, like lots and lots of videos of my mom. And I watch them and it's like, I just can't believe that that entity doesn't exist anymore in that corporeal form. It's like, where'd you go? Mm-hmm. So it's, yeah. Well, there's this beautiful quote. I think it was from Ram Das that, you know, because my mom went early and to see somebody so young

on their deathbed and the suffering, you know, it was so barbaric to watch somebody succumb to cancer like that. I mean, it made me think about physician-assisted suicide and the ethical can of worms that that is, but it was not an easy sailing off into the night from my mom. I mean, it was painful. We were with her every second. And it just made me realize how death is something that, you know, we don't talk about,

we like to sort of brush it under the rug, right? And especially as millennials, we all kind of have this like sense of immortality, but it's real and it's, yeah, I don't know, it's just it really. Did it bring you and your brothers closer together? Yeah, it did. We each have different ways of coping with it. I'm the oldest, so I've always had a very close relationship

with my mom more so than them. And I'm also the artist of the family, so I'm probably kind of like the artist of the family. So I'm, you know, I think probably the most sensitive, but yeah, I mean, we all kind of, we were all there for one another and it was, tell me a little bit about you. I don't know much about your brothers. Tell me about them and how you guys are similar

and then how you guys are really different. Like talk about the, there's three of you. Yeah. Yeah. So one of them is a software engineer, the youngest one, and the other one, the middle ones, and sales. And so they have like these very rigid, typical jobs. And yeah, they just, you know, like they were in New York

before I moved back to New York to be closer to my mom. And so when I moved back to New York, I used to live in LA. I lived in LA for 10 years and then I moved back to New York when my mom had been diagnosed with dementia, to be close to my mom and my brothers. And so I moved in with my youngest brother. And so for the past five years in New York, I lived with my youngest brother. And it was a big sacrifice for me because most of my friends were in LA and I was in my, you know, I'm in my mid 30s living with my little brother in this tiny New York City apartment,

but it was really all so that we could all be close to my mom. And they, you know, they were close to her, but they just, they were definitely not as close to my mom as I was. I think anybody who's a first born has you or yeah. It's like you have a special relationship. And yeah, I just... Are you guys have a lot in common, like you and your brothers? Are you guys the same? You guys totally different?

We're pretty different. How so? Well, yeah, I'm the creative. I took the more entrepreneurial path in my life. I love cinema, movies really resonate with me. I get goosebumps when watching a good movie. I'm a fan of directors and the Hollywood and I love music. I'm a musician.

I taught myself to play and write songs. And I obviously wrote a book and I create all this content online. That's my, I'm very sensitive and empathetic. And kind of a people person. Like I, I guess like the extrovert in my family. And they are, you know, like one of them is a computer programmer, so his social skills are not as good, perhaps.

No hit against robots. No hit against computer programmers, but you know, when you're like sitting in a room all day, like interfacing with whatever the language is that he programs, I don't know. Versus being on television, having to speak to millions of people. Probably developed different skills. You develop different skills. Any of them in sports?

Into sports? Since you're not that guy, is there any sports for that accident? My middle brother, Andrew, he's a huge MMA fanatic. He's really good at Jiu-Jitsu. He's got this like natural strength that I can't, I mean I've been working out my whole life and he's just like, he's just naturally like one of those guys who can put up a lot of weight

and he's great at Jiu-Jitsu, he's a huge fan. And yeah, he's always been like into basketball and football and things like that. I'm not athletic at all. Like I've never had that. And my youngest brother is not athletic. I would have never guessed by your beautiful golf swing like so. I'm not beautiful with you.

I'm so happy with you. That's when we all, that's when we really fell in love with you as a person. They're like, hey, this guy can put himself out there and do that. Like that, because I think we're all like that having a good time. I love that. That's a much better. Yeah, that's why it's great You know saying that says a lot about your character. It does Max your you're you're you're a beautiful soul man Yeah, I think your mom did an amazing job with you and I'm 100% that she's smiling at you right now. Oh, man Sure. Yeah. Thank you guys sure man. I always get your brother's good time now. I was good time

Thank you for listening to mine pump your appreciate you. Always get your brother's good time man. Always get time. Good, thank you. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps and a ballad, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having

Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindP pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.