Next Level Pros - #73: How This Raw Vegan Is Changing The Health Industry: Doug Evans and Sprouts

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

For this episode featuring Doug Evans, founder of The Sprouting Company, dive into a journey of health, discipline, and innovation. Doug shares his transformative path from a health-conscious individual to an entrepreneur on a mission to bring sprouts into the limelight of the dietary world. His story is not just about building a business; it's about nurturing a healthier, more sustainable way of living. Highlights: "Embracing discipline is the first step towards freedom.""Innovation in health isn't just about technology; it's about going back to the roots."“Every sprout I grow is a step towards a healthier planet." Timestamps: 00:00. Health Journey & Inspiration 07:07 Company's Mission 02:23: Writing The Sprout Book 04:42 Lessons from the US Army 11:57. Early Career Influences 14:23. Steve Jobs' Influence 19:14. Plant-Based Diet Impact 23:55 Innovating Sprouting 31:06 Business Philosophy 47:23 Future Plans

Cooked food is poison. That stuff isn't food for me. That's poison. That's going to put me six feet under. Sprouts are the complete living organism. They are growing. They are alive. They're enzymatically rich with the root and shoot growing as they're sequestering carbon.

You're telling me that the seed versus the sprout, the sprout has more calories than the seed. 100%. That is so crazy. It was nature's cheat code. To me, it was the biggest like revelation. Yo, yo, yo, yo. Welcome to another episode of the Founder Podcast. Today, I am in beautiful, beautiful desert California out here with Mr. Doug Evans. Doug is the founder of The Sprouting Company. He is an author, an incredible author of The Sprout Book and just a health guru. I'm super excited, especially at the kickoff of the new year. A lot of us are focused on health goals and what we can change and different things like that. So I wanted to bring Doug on and really spend some good time diving into the benefits of sprouting, the benefits of raw vegan, and just the overall health lifestyle. Welcome to the show, Mr. Doug. Thank you so much for having me, Chris. So Chris, I'll accept the word guru if it means teacher. Yes. Sorry. Guru in my, in my mind is, is not a,

is not a, a dig. It's, it's a good thing. Right, right. No, I, I get that. I just, you know, to me, one of like my tenants is about equality and justice. So I want to treat everybody equally. Love it. Love it. So. Very good. So Doug, tell us, tell us a little bit of your, your health journey. So, um, you know, you're 57 years old, right? And extremely healthy. Obviously. I mean, you're sitting in a position that I probably could not be comfortable in. You know, I could go into a more complex yoga position if you like. I love it. I love it.

Because everything that you're doing right now, I aspire to be. I aspire to be extremely healthy at the age of 57, fit, lean, flexible, eating right, taking care, living life to the fullest. So tell us about some of your magic. What makes Doug Evans tick? living life to the fullest. So tell us, tell us about some of your magic. Like what, what makes Doug Evans tick? What has led to who you are today? I mean, I think the interesting thing when you think about it is like, what is this meaning of life? Like these deep existential questions. And I was, you know, New York city, juvenile delinquent. I was a graffiti writer.

Wow. And in New York City. At what age? 13 to 17. Oh, wow. So I was out like creating mischief every single day. Like that was what my deal was. Like how could I create mischief?

Because I couldn't sit in a classroom. I didn't do my homework. I didn't relate to most people. So being out in the city in the world was very interesting, exciting, and kept me engaged. And I know your, your son, you know, is like the speed cuber. Like part of me thinks like, oh, I could do that, but that wouldn't keep me engaged enough. Like I need variety. Like I would do that for like five seconds and jump to the next. I remember I wrote the Sprout book in this house.

Oh, wow. In this house. And I would sit down and like I'd start to work. Then I'd go get like a green juice. Then I'd go eat some sprouts. And then I'd go take a walk and I make a call and I got no words down. And the publisher is like putting heat on me that we got to get it out. Here's the dates, here's the print dates. And I spoke to my then, my wife now, then girlfriend. And she's like, Doug, you're just like a college student. And I said, what do you mean? She goes, you're procrastinating. Like, and I was like, what?

And that triggered me. And I said, okay, I'm going to write 500 words a day, every day until the book is done. And when I sit to write, no phone, no computer, no messaging, no getting up to pee, no eating, like just sit and bang it. Just do it. How long did it take you to write the book? It took then about four months straight. That's awesome. That's awesome.

And I had enormous breakthroughs in writing the book, but back to my journey. So I was just a troublemaker. And then my friends were getting into serious trouble. Like I had, you know, kid in my class, you know, dead, other kids arrested, right. Other kids, you know, um, like getting into serious serious problems and i knew that if i didn't change that i would be just like them right and so i self-selected and i went to the u.s army 82nd airborne as a paratrooper because I thought that would teach me discipline. This was at the age of 18? 17.

Oh, wow. 17. As a juvenile, I needed parental permission to join the military early. And the military kicked my ass. Like it just kicked my ass. There's no bullshitting. There's no laughing. Like you are an indentured servant. And that was what I needed. Like all of a sudden, you know, the army put enough guardrails on and boundaries where I learned discipline.

I learned about health. I learned about mind over matter and mindset. You ever heard the term mind over matter? Absolutely. Well, in the military, the drill sergeant would say, I don't mind and you don't matter. And so they would force you, literally force you to do what they told you to do. Yeah. And when I got out of the army, I had all this pent up energy. How long were you there? Four years? I signed up for three. I got out early, which is a whole separate story.

But I did 13 jumps out of airplanes and helicopters and spent a lot of time in the field and clearly wasn't raw vegan back then. And when I got out of the army, I just became a workaholic. Like I was working 12 hours, three different jobs, seven days a week. Like my goal was to be such a great employee that they'd want me to work overtime and double time. What industry were you working in at the time? Bars, restaurants, grocery, selling baseball cards, like any hustle that I could turn a trick on, like I would do that. And then, you know, I wasn't passionate about those things.

It's just about making money and working. Right. And then one of my graffiti mentors was. I didn't know there was such a thing as a graffiti mentor. Yeah, this was a guy who was like in the graffiti scene. But unbeknownst to me, he came from like a Carnegie family trust. Oh my goodness. He came from like a Carnegie family trust. Oh my goodness.

So he was like, you know, super, you know, millionaire, could have been a centimillionaire, but lived on a trust and like had a house, had a studio, had cars, had expensive equipment. And was a graffiti artist. Well, he was a more graffiti anthropologist like he he followed this scene but he wasn't in it but i met him i was 13 he was 41 wow and he you know was very like there was one time in my life where I had a car at 16 and I totaled the car blew up into flames and this was like a a sports muscle car it's a 1967 Camaro muscle car yeah and I called up one of my guys after the car like burst into flames and he told me how to take off the the tags and the plates so there'd be no trace of it so now i got the the tags that were in the door not on the windshield then and like um these my my friends were like um conniving on how we would just get me a replacement car, same color,

same style, same look. And you'd get a bang bang and a slim Jim. And this was keeping me up at night. Like I was like, couldn't sleep as I'm wondering like, well, what happens if the owner of the car comes out? At this point, are you still living in New York city? Still living in New York city. Got it. And, but thinking about like going to the outer boroughs or long Island or New Jersey to get this, you know, my replacement muscle car. And I sat with him one day and we were just, you know, sitting, you know, and he's like, I was telling him, like, I couldn't sleep. Like I was really like in this obsessive state.

And he goes, Doug, that's called anxiety. And I said, well, what am I supposed to do? He goes, you can just forget about the car, you know, take the train, work and like, just forget about the car you know take the train work and like just forget about this and it's and i go what will that do because as soon as you make the decision to forget about the the mischievous activity with the car the anxiety will go away so i was was like, you know, I trust you. And like, I knew he always had my best interest in mind. So I, I made the decision and all of a sudden I could sleep again. And then, you know, other decisions were like, like one of the guys that, um, I had beef with as a graffiti writer, jumped me. And my friends didn't support me. And I was like, this doesn't make sense.

This guy's like a man and he's jumping me, taking my stuff, and no one's doing anything. And that guy ended up in jail for murder. Wow. The guy that jumped you? The guy that jumped you. The guy that jumped me. Wow. So that's when I made the decision.

I needed to get out of Dodge. Yeah. And so when I sat with my mentor again, and he's like, well, if you like graffiti, maybe you could do graphic design. And I had no idea what graphic design or commercial art was. And so I went to Barnes and Noble and I'm going through the books and I discovered this book by this author artist named Paul Rand. And Paul designed IBM, ABC, UPS, Westinghouse, and was the man who was accredited for the transition of commercial art into fine art in the form of graphic design. And he taught the master's program at Yale in graphic design. And I didn't even know there was such a thing as a master's program in graphic design. And so I contacted Paul, his name was Paul Rand.

The author of this book. The author of this book. And we became friends and I worked for him for seven years as an unpaid intern. Unpaid? Unpaid. How'd you survive for seven years as an unpaid intern unpaid unpaid how'd you survive for seven i did my other side hustles but being with him was like being in the presence of picasso like he was such a master everything was thoughtful everything was brilliant and he had a new client um at the time named steve jobs and paul at the time named Steve Jobs.

And Paul- So at this time, you're still living in New York? Still living in New York. Okay. Still living in New York. So as far as getting out of Dodge, it was just getting around, get out of who you were hanging with. Yeah.

Well, I took this kind of sabbatical to join the army. I went to Fort Leonard, Missouri, Fort Benning, Georgia, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, you know, and I still get my veteran rights and part of GovX and I send them my DD-214. And so the military, but then I came back to New York, but I disassociated myself from all of the old guys. Got it. Like I wanted nothing to do with any of them

like you're working for this author and he's got a client or a partner with steve jobs yeah he was designing the logo for steve's new company next wow so like i'm in this thing and i worked for paul for seven years yeah and until paul died and then when Paul died, I went out on my own. And now I gave up the side hustles. I'm all in on the graphic design and computer graphics and obviously learned a lot, you know, from the connection, you know, with Steve Jobs. And you could. So did you keep that connection with Steve Jobs? Of course. Yeah. You could see, if you Google Doug Evans and Steve Jobs, you'll see a video on YouTube from 1993 with, you know, 400,000 views of a young Steve with a full head of hair like

you. So we had a, we had a great relationship. Awesome. And did you keep that for, for as long as? Yeah. I mean, Steve became, you know, when, when Steve went back to Apple, you know, every millisecond of his time was very focused. Right. Right. But I still had his home number, you know, still, you know, connected, but the, there, Steve was no small talk. Right. Like if you, if you digressed on a conversation, he would interrupt you and say, get to the point. Like there was no small talk, like just none. Wow. And you can learn a lot from that.

Right. And I'm grateful that Steve lived when he lived and did what he did. Because in today's society, he would have been canceled. There would have been canceled. There would have been lawsuits. I mean, he would not have been able to operate and create what he created in this environment. This environment is soft. This environment is really, really soft. I agree. Everyone's walking around on eggshells. It's soft. Now, there's some improvements that have been made, you know, around equality and gender protection and safer environments. But in terms of productivity, like I don't,

it would be hard to operate in that area. So I did that and then everything was going great for me, right? But a few things were a little off, right? So one, I was about 36 pounds heavier. I'm 155 today. How tall are you? I'm like 5'10". Okay, 155, wow. So I'm very lean, very flexible, very strong. But I was like 36 pounds heavier heavier like in the 190s and like did you

consider yourself overweight or just kind of more i i mean i was thicker right but i had a gut and like i i i remember having a picture of a silverback gorilla, you know, justifying the, the gut saying, oh, this is the natural anatomy of a primate, you know? And it was, it was just being comfortable, but like I was, I didn't think anything of it, right. It was just, I was heavier, but then my aunt developed type two diabetes. I know you have type one diabetes. She developed type two diabetes. She was overweight. And then like, we got this call that we need to go visit her in the hospital because she was going to have surgery. And I was like, what kind of surgery? Like I didn't make the connection diabetes and surgery. And they were going to do a double amputation oh both of her feet were being cut

off below her ankles and to me like i wasn't having suicidal ideation but i couldn't fathom like i couldn't fathom what it would be like not to have my feet yeah right not to have that faculty that agency to move and then she died from complications with diabetes how old was she when she died she was like my age now and then my uncle died of heart disease my mother died of stomach cancer my father died of heart disease in the same hospital as my mother and then my brother how old were both your parents when they passed my mother was 66 wow so and and my father maybe was 70 wow so but my father by the way worked out every day great shape great shape But they call heart disease the silent killer. Right.

Right. Silent killer. And so then my brother became overweight, obese, diabetic, and then had the first of three strokes and two heart attacks. Goodness. So- How much older is he then? He's two years older. Wow.

And when did this take place? This took place 1999 he had those things yeah he had the first he had the first so what is his 30s at that point yeah goodness so crazy crazy stuff wow and so you know and now like i mean three weeks ago he had his second heart attack i took him to the hospital he's still not home so it's it and we're not like identical twins right we're we're brothers right you know we we think we have the same parents um but uh the we i don't know i weren't able to do 30 no what is it 23 yeah i mean in the 23 and me it's telling me i've got like a gazillion

half you know half brothers half sisters half things so but i was terrified and i thought that like i was going to die like everyone was sick like my my days were numbered and then i met someone who was plant-based someone who was vegan and they told me doug you are living a carcinogenic heart disease laden lifestyle how old were you at this i was 33 wow and i was like well what do you mean like Like I run around, I exercise, like I eat, I barely eat fast food. And she's like, no, no, like you need to be eating fruits and vegetables. And I was like, really? And then she took me to the Big Apple Vegetarian Society. And they were having, and there are no coincidences. They were having the battle of the

diets, but it was all plant-based diets. So it was the macrobiotic diet. It was a vegetarian diet. It was the vegan diet and there was a raw vegan representative. And like, this was in New York. Yeah. Big apple. And, and the raw vegan one resonated with me because he was saying, Hey, you can eat as much, as much fruit, vegetable seeds, nuts, seaweed, and sprouts as you want until you're not hungry or you're full. And if you do this, you will lose weight, you will gain energy, you will tap into like the universal source of life of eating enzymatically rich live food. And it really resonated. So in a two week period, I went from eating anything, fast food, processed food, refined food, meat food meat dairy animal products to being raw vegan wow right raw vegan and that was over 25 years ago never looked back never looked back wow never looked good for

you and and then you know i've continued to optimize my raw veganism, where today I'm about 50 to 60% sprouts and 40% fruits and other vegetables and some seaweed. And I'll tell you the sprout journey, because I always lived in a big city, New York, LA, San Francisco, and always had access to food. And fortunately, I always had money so I could buy whatever food I want. I could eat wherever I wanted. And then I had this hunch that there were hot springs near Joshua Tree. And I always- While you're living in New York. I was living then like San Francisco, LA, and I still had a place in New York, but most of my time was in California.

Got it. But I had this hunch that there were hot springs near Joshua Tree. I had never been to Joshua Tree, but for 20 years, I had dreamed about living in hot springs, living on an oasis, being able to soak under the stars. Like you saw the stars last night. Yeah, it was incredible. Yeah. So for those that are listening, so we had the opportunity, me and my crew, to stay here on the hot springs and this beautiful Airbnb. And he's got these incredible stone bathtubs

that are naturally fed from the hot springs. And the stars out here, unbelievable. Yeah. Unbelievable. And so had the opportunity to soak out there at 11 o'clock last night, looking up at the stars. You know, I thought, so I have a place in Northern Idaho up in the mountains

and I also have a small hobby farm. We're out away from the city. And I thought, man, we had incredible stars. But man, there was nothing like last night. Yeah. Well, look, so this was a little town called Wonder Valley, 100 square miles with a population of 600 people. And it's the next town over from Joshua Tree. And so when I discovered the hot springs,

I said, I got to live here. So I started buying land. And then I was soaking in a cowboy tub with a hose from the hot spring. And then as I was renovating the houses and looking for furniture i went to bali indonesia and then in bali i saw these 5 000 pound monolithic boulders made out of granite marble and onyx and they carved them by hand into soaking tubs wow and that's when i put two and two together and i go wonder valley hot springs so i i started bringing over these boulders and stone i've got to ask you what did something like that cost if you were to make it here oh i know if you made it here would be like unbelievable so they're you know just thousands of dollars like single digit and you were able to import them and oh yeah i brought over six shipping containers with 30 tubs

wow man i needed to look into that because those things are awesome like as i'm sitting in this thing it's like i'm sitting all the way on the bottom and the walls are up like by my head you know just huge and like you could fit two or three people on them yeah yeah we have we have tubs that could hold six people wow like you know seven or eight thousand pound tubs so so i so i i discovered this thing and now i'm here yeah but i realized there's no farmers, no health food stores, no restaurants. So if I want to live here and I want to be healthy, like I need to grow my own food. And that's when you started looking into sprouts?

Well, yeah. I mean, originally I thought like, oh, I'll do gardening. And turns out it's hard to grow anything anywhere, right? I grew up in the city, so I wasn't a farmer. But in the desert, it's exponentially harder. And that's when this little light bulb went off in my head because I'd been sprouting for 30 years. Before I was vegan, I loved sprouts.

I loved wheatgrass. But I always thought of them as a garnish or as a side dish. Rather than a main dish. Yeah. Didn't think of them. I never took them seriously. It's like the girl that's in the class that you don't take seriously until the captain of the football team is now dating her and all of a sudden she's looking better.

Right? You ever see that? Oh yeah. So, so all of a sudden sprouts looked like they could be the answer. Right. And within 30 days in one cubic foot, I was growing thousands of calories a day of food. And I lived exclusively on sprouts. Wow. So you're telling me you said in a cubic one cubic foot, one cubic foot, you're able to produce enough sprouts to consume most of your diet. All of my diet. Wow. Then now it's about 50, 60% of my diet. That's unbelievable that you could grow that much. It was nature's cheat code. To me, it was the biggest revelation. I know you were doing solar and other stuff. There's so many mysteries and miracles of the universe. Right. But the fact that you could take a seed, add water, and in five days, it would increase its size 10 times or 20 times.

And these seeds would contain every micronutrient, phytonutrient, polyphenol, bioflavonoid, antioxidant, every essential amino acid, soluble and insoluble fiber in this like little seed. And that a seed was a complete living organism but in a dormant state so yeah walk me through that real quick by adding water in it growing does it actually increase its calorie content from just yeah yeah how is that how is that even possible that it goes from a dormant seed so you're telling me that the seed versus the sprout, the sprout has more calories than the seed. A hundred percent. That is so crazy.

But if you think about it, you know, you have five kids, right? Somehow your sperm meets an egg and it forms some magic pixie dust. And then nine months later, a full-born fetus comes out. Right. And then it doubles in size. Right. And it grows. So what happens is the seed itself contains an endosperm, an embryo, the testa, and the sexual reproductive organs. And it's by the

water is activating those and then it's growing. And when the sprout is growing, it's not just gaining water weight, it's actually gaining the fiber and the nutrients along there. And so these seeds were just magic to me. And sprouting, as I started to research, has been around for 5,000 years, 3,000 years before Christ, like the pharaohs, the, you know, in China, in Korea, people were sprouting, but it was always like a secret. It's just like, people just did it. No one talked about it. And then, you know, over time, especially like in the United States, food became industry. Like there's a fine line between pharmaceuticals and food, right? In this country. And so sprouts never got legs in America. They just never got legs. And so I always thought of them as a side dish, like as a garnish or as a superfood.

And here I was like, wow, can I live on sprouts? So I thought that being in the desert, maybe I'm hallucinating, maybe this is a mirage. So I better like do some research. So timeout before we, I want to dive deeper deeper into sprouts because I think that's where the focus of this would want to be. But I want to go back to when you made the shift from eating just a typical American diet. Yeah. Somewhat healthy to shifting to being a raw vegan. Yeah. So you did it in a two-week period.

Yes. What were the mental shifts or do you remember the mental shifts? Because for me, any type of shift like that, it's really not about the difficulty of doing it. It's about the mentality and the shift of like, what did you recreate about your identity that was like so certain that made the shift and you never looked back i i mean there was one sentence that i would repeat over and over again when i would see the other food and like i'm saying on the podcast i i've never said this before publicly on the podcast so you're pulling out it was cooked food is poison and when i looked at that other food i thought i looked at it as poison and it's the whole way and you're happily married 18 years right like there's a lot of other women you know or whatever your fancy is right and you made a commitment you know to your partner other women are poison yeah like that that

will destroy your relationship with your wife your relationship with your kids doesn't matter how big they are how small they are how sexy you know what whether they're wearing gucci or prada or nothing like you're not going there right right? You're just not going there. So to me, my standard was that I was going to eat fresh, ripe, raw fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, seaweeds, and sprouts. And anything other than that wasn't food in my book. The same way, like I'm not going to eat this pillow. It's not like the pillow's not food. That stuff isn't food for me. That's poison. That's going to put me six feet under. I like that. Yeah. One of the, I know as I've made different shifts, cause I've gone through different seasons in my life

where, you know, I was a vegan for, uh, it was like five or six months. Uh, I've, I've eaten raw. I've done a 60 day juice fast. I've, I've done, I've done different things. And, and, you know, I always have to make a shift in my mentality that gets me there. And, you know, one of, one of the things that I, uh, that's, that's helped me during those times, but for whatever reason, I've slipped back into other things was like, I'll look at my food and I actually asked myself, do I identify with this food? Right. Like is, because if it's going in me, like, do I, do I want to be a chip or do I want to be like an apple or a vegetable? Right. Do what, which more do I actually identify with? Yeah. It's very similar to that. Well, I mean, for me, when I looked at that palette and the offerings that were available. They were so rich, so abundant, so logical.

Like you can look at a piece of fruit and you could say, is this ripe? Is this rotten? Right? You can look at it. You can smell it. You can feel the vibrational energy, right? We're all energy. This is high vibrational food. What makes sprouts like, so like I'm so fanatical about sprouts, sprouts are the complete living organism. They are growing. They are alive. They're enzymatically rich with the root and shoot growing as they're sequestering carbon. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, I've never actually thought about it that way. But yeah, when you're actually putting it, when you're actually consuming it, it's in the middle of the growth phase.

Yeah, as opposed to like even, you know, a normal like piece of vegetable like lettuce that you're getting in the farmer's market, you're getting in the supermarket, could be pulled out of the ground weeks ago, but it's cut off from its root system, right? And the root system is what, you know, feeds like the fluids that, that are going through it. So the fact that with the sprouts, you're getting a fresh harvest every time you're eating the sprout, I became excited for like my next consummation, you know, of what I was eating. And there, if you think about the world, like there's an abundance of fruits and vegetables in the world. So as long as I had the mindset that I was going with the flow, like I'm going with the current

and there was an abundance. And I like to eat, right? I mean, I've overeaten in the past. Like you give me a Ben and Jerry's in the past and I would eat a pint and maybe another quarter or half a pint. Right. And I remember eating like a whole bag of double-stuffed Oreo cookies, dipping them in whole milk,

and continuing to eat it. After I was full, after I was nauseous, like I'm still willing to eat another one. So I have to ask, have you slipped up over the last 25 years? No. There's never a time a birthday that you go and eat ben and jerry's or no no no that's that's remarkable that i mean see but it's not remarkable because it would be like once you see the light right and you understand the equation

right you don't do stupid shit anymore what do you think was the most impactful to you seeing the light obviously you went to this competition the big apple competition you saw what's going on uh you have all these health issues going on with your family what do you think was like the biggest driving factor for your mind to actually be open and be like, wow, yeah, this is no longer me. I mean, there are a few revelations, realizations that you have in your life, right? So for one, and so many people are looking for shortcuts, right? And people have all sorts of lies. They've got white lies. They got standard lies. They got black lies. And they don't know like that why they're lying, right?

So if I identified like why someone lies, the main reason why they're lying is because they don't feel like they're good enough, right? So the lying is a little bit of a cheat they don't feel like they're good enough. Yeah. Right. So the lying is a little bit of a cheat to make them feel like, okay, like even small shit, like, you know, like I could be in the bathroom and my wife can say like, Doug, where are you? And I'm like, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm peeing. And she goes, are you on the phone? Right?

And there's a choice. Do you lie and say no? Or do you say, yeah, I'm on the phone. I'm on the phone and I'm peeing and I'm a grown man and that's what I want to do. And I'll come out when I want to come out. But I would say 90% of people would just lie.

They would just lie. I'm not a phone, I'm coming. And because they don't want to deal with the truth. And like, you know, I think you with your family and your things, like I think you're a guy of the truth. So when I understood the truth that that food was poison, that that was the cause of chronic illness, and now we sit back, right? And I look at the number one status symbol for me is health.

It's health. And we look at 266 million people in America are overweight or obese. 96 million people are diabetic or pre-diabetic. Every 18 minutes, someone's dying of a heart attack, of heart disease. It's crazy. So this is not something that I want to fuck with. And I also know if you eat something, right? How long does it take to take that bite of the Ben and Jerry's and ruin your sobriety? It's like what they say in AA, right? All the alcohol in the world would not be enough. But one drop is too much. So it's very easy for me

to have guidelines and principles of what I follow. And that's where, you know, when you're vegetarian, like there's, you know, a lot of people are vegetarians because of the animals. Like they really love the animals and they do that. But they don't, you know, they draw these funny lines between vegetarian, well, pescatarian or dairy or this. And the lines are very blurred. Right. Right. And, you know, they can go into a restaurant and, you know and they'll serve a salad.

And I just want a plain salad. And they'll put some feta cheese in it. And I'm like, no, no, I said I just wanted salad. And they go, well, it's just a little cheese on it. And I was like, no, you don't understand. It's no cheese for me. Right. This is poison.

Yeah, yeah. Don't sprinkle poison on here. So I don't want to spew negative things. You. This is poison. Yeah. Yeah. Don't sprinkle poison on here. So I don't want to like spew negative things, right? You're asking me what? No, this is great. So what, what, what I do now is I speak about like, I live in abundance. I have an abundance of sprouts, whatever fruits and season in the market and the other interesting thing. So I really interested so i want you to continue your story but i'm really interested like how you do this on a day-to-day life because i'm thinking about like my travel right i'm here with my crew late night there's not a lot available so are you

are you traveling with sprouts are you yeah i mean i i travel with sprouts. I also, like late night crew, you drove from wherever you're driving. You're driving past a supermarket. I would stop by in the supermarket, get a five pound bag of carrots. I would get a bag of apples. I would get whatever fruits in season. And that's the fastest food, easy to eat. And then are you bringing a sprouting thing with you to always have sprouts? Depends where I go. So when you're on the road, you're not always eating sprouts. I'm always eating

sprouts. Depends. Like it's interesting outside the country. It's even easier to eat sprouts, but like if I'm going to New York, like Mike, you know, um, Mike, Mike Posner developed this technique. He'll have his assistant call the hotel, say, empty out the mini bar, go onto Instacart and then send, you know, two packs of broccoli sprouts, two alfalfa sprouts, two avocados, a tahini, a sauerkraut. So when he's getting into the hotel or I'm getting into the hotel, we have the abundance of the stuff that we love. So there's no, like, for me, it's not even an issue. Like I would look at like a Kit Kat bar as a relic from some old movie. It wouldn't even be like conceivable as food.

But if I saw the seasoned nuts, like they might have salted roasted almonds, that might get my brain thinking because it's still vegan, but it's not raw. And salt is a- So how do you handle that situation? Do you eat salted nuts? No. Okay. No.

But that would be, it's still on the vegan side. And so I don't even want to have that mental discussion. Right. So by carrying around, like I carry around in my suitcase, wherever I go, you know, chlorella, spirulina, um, raw, um, raw nuts that are soaked, sprouted, and dehydrated. So I'm always having like my emergency reserve foods. And I also, you know, you've done, you know, long water fast. I've done long water fast, long juice, you did juice fast. I've done, you know, 30 day, 45 day juice fast i've done 14 day water fast i've done so yeah i'm interested so 14 days is that your longest that you've done with the with the water fast yeah awesome during that time did you uh do you use any type of supplements like any type of pills at all in your life everything comes from your vegetables the only thing i do now which i want to move away

from is vitamin b12 okay right because there's there's still something that says b12 you know deficiency of b12 can cause brain damage and the like um the b12 is less prevalent so i'm looking at how i can um form a natural b12 maybe by eating soil you know and other oh actually eating dirt yeah eating dirt wow wow that's awesome so so that that's what i'm looking at but right now i'm just taking a simple supplement you've done you've done a 14-day water fast have you done this multiple times yes okay and what's your experience with that uh it's very spiritual very liberating yeah um feeling that food is is an option like when i'm on the fast and after you get past day three or day four you have a lot of more energy well the energy i i don't work out you know when i'm

on a long water fast i just try to read and just be in nature, but you become less dependent and you feel much more like you can survive, you know, in harmony with nature. I've done multiple 72 hour fasts, water fasts. You know, it's, it's tough as a type one diabetic because the battle I'm against is because I have an insulin pump that's like trying to be a mechanical pancreas, right? Yes. And so the battle I always go against is like not having enough sugar in my stream. And so making sure that I'm not overdosing on insulin. Right.

Right. During that time with a steady basal drip or whatever it is. And so that's always been my difficulty. But I've seen. So I'm interested. I want to do longer. That's the longest I've been able to make it until my blood sugar has gotten too low.

But I am interested. There's so many incredible stories and studies that have been done on this. Are you familiar with Russell Okung in his recent fasts? I have not. So Russell Okung is a former NFL player, offensive lineman, 330 pound offensive lineman. He did two 40 day water fasts. Wow.

With no supplements, only water. And he's gone from 330, you know, what would be considered even obese. I mean, very muscular and everything else, right? Down to 190 pounds and just completely transformed his life. And this is the first one he did. He came out at like 230 pounds and no one believed him that he did a 40 day fast. And so he's like, I'm going to document the next one on Twitter. And so then the next one, he had all of his vitals and everything every single day

put up and pictures of him and he did it for 40 days. Amazing. Yeah. I mean, I've gone and I've done, um, managed, um, doctor supported water fast at the true North facility with Dr. Alan Goldhammer. And so I, I think fasting is great. What What I think about like in every day, like eating raw vegan is the easiest thing to do. You're like fruits and vegetables are ubiquitous and you can eat them. And my old mindset was if I didn't have meat, chicken, fish, bread, pizza, or pasta pasta chocolate and soda or a milkshake every day like my like i would

i'd be famished like i would die of starvation you said if you didn't have those if i didn't have those things yeah and now i look back and it's like a joke it's interesting so you know this is very intriguing for me because everything that you stand for that you're living is like where i aspire to be like uh so like currently i i live a pretty strict lifestyle i uh in in normal people's terms i think i would put you in the abnormal category because i'd say most people haven't made that decision to go completely raw or whatnot so like for me, I don't eat white flour, fried foods or sugar of any type unless it's natural, you know, fruits and vegetables

or whatnot. And so for me, that's produced great results and everything like that. But I think for me, it's like the next step is getting to this point where I can look at the rest of it as poison. Yeah. Well, if you think about it it you have five kids yeah right they're gonna have kids right and they're gonna have kids and that you love kids right if you care about the kids you want to make decisions today right that because you can't like roll back the clock. So the sooner you make the decision, not to be, you know, a purist, right. But if you make the decisions today, you will increase your chance of longevity. And it's not a matter of just like living as long as you can. It's like, what is the quality of life that you could have? Like I had my child at 56

years old. Right. Right. So right now, you know, only three people have called me grandfather. You know, like they think they think my wife is my daughter and they think my daughter is my granddaughter. Right. But only three. That, that's pretty remarkable because I'd say most people your age living in unhealthy lifestyle, they would probably call, yeah, for sure. Be like, Oh, this is the grandfather. Yeah. So, but for the most part, like I'm thinking like, I want to be here, you know, for my daughter. Yeah. Like I want to be able to lift her up and carry her. Like we, we went on a four mile hike the other day, you know, and it's the desert. You're not bringing a stroller in the desert, right? So like I'm slinging her around on my shoulders, on my back, all over.

And she now weighs 25 pounds. So it's like carrying this rucksack around all the time. But she's only going to get heavier and I'm only going to get older, right? So I've got to continue to be strong and healthy for her. And if you think about the short levels of gratification that you can conceivably get from those old habits, you can make a decision right now to just raise your standard, right? Look at this setup that you created, you know, to do the podcast. You got two lights, you got three cameras, you got two geniuses in tow and everything is moving, like you're a high quality, high standard guy. So if you raise your standard

about what Chris is willing to consume, then it becomes easy. I love it. I love it. You know, you're converting me. The reason I did a 60 day juice fast, I watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead on Netflix. And literally I turned off the

TV and I was like, I'm starting now. And I went immediately into it and I, and I did it for, it did it for 60 days. And so this is, this is good. I'll show you a clip of me and Joe cross. When Joe came into my store in New York. I owned a company called Organic Avenue. And I was getting Joe started on his juice fast and he wanted to buy my operation. And we're still friends. This is 15 years later. So juice fasting is great,

but you can't live on juice all the time. You need fiber if you want to have good, healthy poop. And what I loved about the sprouts was that they were raw, they were living, they were complete foods with fiber and all the nutrients, and that you could live on them. You could eat them every day. So what I don't record, what I'm not promoting to, you know, your audience here is like eat only sprouts. What I'm saying is U S dietary guidelines recommend seven to 13 servings of fruits and vegetables every day, a fistful, you know, um, four ounces, eight ounces of sprouts is a serving of fruits and vegetables. And the more healthier things that you're eating, like if you eat sprouts on an empty stomach, they'll be very satisfying. Like if you're hungry and you eat sprouts, you'll be satisfied.

If you are, I mean, this is one of the problems with youth of america like if they're watching pornography right and they're going to strip bars and prostitutes how can they ever have a relationship with the girl next door right right it's just the expectations are so skewed. And that's one of the issues with social media and the filters and the body dysmorphia that people are expecting real people to look like the fictional parts. And that's where, to me, I want to be real. I want to convey honest. I want to convey, you know, honest information that can help, you know, people. And, you know, so on one hand, we've talked about the chronic illnesses and the 266 million people overweight. On the other hand, there's 10,000 people a day dying of starvation,

like dying of starvation. And the reason why is because all of these vegetables that are being grown aren't being fed to humans. They're being fed to cattle. Right. Right. So to grow one pound of beef takes about 1500 gallons of water. Wow. Right. And 90 plus percent of the calories that that are being grown on plants are being fed to animals not being connected. So, you know, there's different extremes. And by making your little choices of saying, hey, I'm going to have a fruit based meal. I registered a domain. The website's not active now called still raw. And when I went raw, I would list publicly what I was eating every day. Okay. So I had three packages of blueberries, two pounds of cherries and, you know, a head of Romaine lettuce. And I would just list everything that I ate during that day. And that kept me accountable. That would be very engaging in today's society.

I think, when were you doing that? 25 years ago. Yeah, 25 years ago, nobody was following that kind of stuff. But if you were doing that daily in 2023, I mean, you would gain viral followers. Yeah. I mean, it, you know, right now I, I, I want to be approachable and I want to like inspire people to, you know, be healthy. And one of the things that they can do is they can eat, you know, fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, seaweeds, and sprouts. What makes sprouts one of the most attractive things is you can grow them without soil,

without sunshine, without fertilizer, and that they grow in days. So, um, this shows this so this a sprouting kit from the sprouting company right has a drip tray has a stand has the the jar made out of glass and stainless so how does this work you i let me take the other one here You, I, let me take the other one here. Yeah, watch that. So literally one cup, one like tablespoon, measuring spoon. This is actually a quarter cup of, so you take the empty jar, you put a measuring spoon filled with seeds, you fill it up with water to soak the seeds

and you can buy the organic. You kind of keep it that way? You keep it that way till the seeds soak. And then? And then you strain them out and then the stand is designed to hold it and then you rinse them twice a day. And by rinsing them twice a day,

you're germinating the seeds and then it'll go from you know this to this in five days and how many calories of sprouts is that this this practice this is a broccoli sprouts this jar in its entirety is about, you know, maybe 350 calories. So this is relatively low calorie, but you could eat more of them. And this, you know, the interesting thing about the broccoli sprouts is there's been more than 2000 peered published papers on the medicinal properties of the broccoli sprouts that you can literally take this one. So for those that are listening on here,

we're taking a look at his sprouting kit. This is sold through your company? Yeah, through thesproutingcompany.com. Thesproutingcompany.com. Is this also sold through Amazon? Not yet. Not yet? Awesome.

So thesproutingcompany.com, you can go in and pick these up. What is a kit like this? It's $49 for the basic kit, and then you can choose your seeds and you can choose your subscription and you can buy things a la carte. And people generally start with one or two jars. And before they know it, they have a whole sprout. Yeah. What does it look like at your house?

I got to understand that. We have like 12 jars going. So you use this same kit? Same kit. Yeah. Are there any other type of tools that you use i mean this is like this is really all you know we designed this kit because there hadn't been any improvements in sprouting gear for like two or three hundred years people were using a mason

jar that was designed for canning i'm pretty sure that's what my mom uses. For sprouting. And so we just wanted to make it contemporary and have better drainage and better airflow and better air exchange. Yeah. But the fact that you can take like two or three tablespoons of seeds and get six cups of sprouts in a few days was just miraculous. Right. So what does your diet look like with sprouts? How many of these containers are you eating a day? I'm eating one to one and a half a day. And then on top of that, you're consuming a lot of fruit. Yeah, a lot of fruit.

Awesome. And what are your favorite fruits and different things that you like? I like what's in season right now. Pomegranates are in season. Persimmons are in season. Some really good citrus i love pomelos you know which is like a cross between an orange and a grapefruit and so are you are you growing any of these things or most of these you picking up from farmers markets and grocery stores we're growing figs here mulberries um and medjool dates but for the most the most apart once a week we'll go you know down the

hill to a farmer's market nice and so you're able to get that keep it fresh for a whole week and consume that yeah i i buy enough fruit for the week and then my goal is to have a a jar ready every day that i can start to dig into oh Oh, this is awesome. This is awesome. So when you switched over to being raw, you know, like what were some of the immediate health benefits that you saw? One energy was, was phenomenal. Like energy was through the roof. Do you drink caffeine or any type of, no coffee? No. When was the last time that was 25 years that was i never had a cup of coffee in my life really that's fantastic i don't drink coffee either but uh and i've recently removed other forms of caffeine from my life so yeah so no caffeine but i think the the one was energy two was sleep like uh and now like i'm tracking my sleep with whoop like even on a short night i get really

great rem and deep sleep wow so that's a good thing i also do intermittent fasting so i have a small feeding window of like noon to six okay and that's every day that's every day got it every day got it so what walks through kind of your morning routine or your daily routine because obviously very health centric. Yeah. So what time do you go to bed? I go to bed. I set my alarm to go to bed at nine o'clock.

We probably wind down and we're in bed by 10 o'clock. And no TV. No TV. Screen time on your phone I mean screen time is minimal like most of my Communication is you know on? Messaging mm-hmm. So I do you know fair amount of messaging right probably more than I'd like But I got a lot of irons in the fire, right?

But I don't consume, you know a lot lot of media when I'm running. I listen to podcasts. OK. You know, when I'm running. It's a great way to consume good content. Yeah. And I'm driving. I'll listen. I'll listen to podcasts. I think I, you know, I'm doing more now that I have a I'm a parent of less, you know, activity on the phone when driving, like if I'm driving, you know, the phone is really, you know, not your friend. Right. So I, my goal is to like put the phone on, do not disturb, put on a podcast and go for the drive. Nice. And then if I need to check something, pull over and have, and, and tap tap into that abundance like i have enough time i don't want to be rushed or pressured yeah i want to just be at a state where i'm very deliberate

on the use of my time yeah so you go to bed nine to ten what time do you wake up five five set an alarm i know no i mean if i have an air if i have a flight to catch i'll take it but right now like this morning i got up 5 38 so i get up and then i will go and grab um my my daughter and then we will go soak in the hot springs and then we'll soak we'll play for about an hour or so so you grab your daughter at 5.30? Yeah. Okay. Well, she gets up around that time. So I literally like, we'll sit there.

She'll be on the boob. And then, you know, I let my wife sleep in. Yeah. So I grab the kid and then we go soak in the hot spring. Yeah. And then when she's ready to drink again, you know, I dish her back. Then I do a cold plunge. So I'll do three minutes or five minutes.

Have you ever read the book, The Greatest Salesman in the World? Yes. It's been a while, but yes. Yeah. So I will either recite the scroll two, which is I'll greet this day with love in my heart, or I will recite scroll three. I will persist until I succeed. I love it.

And those, you know, very much. You do that while you're cold plunging. While I'm cold plunging. Yeah, that makes the time go by. I'm happy to. I have a song that I sing when I cold plunge. So I kind of understand like you. Yeah, I'm happy to give you.

Would you prefer I'll greet this day with love in my heart or I'll persist until I succeed. We'd love to hear it. You'll persist. Okay, let me get, let me get zoom in on this. Okay, I will persist until I succeed. In the Orient, young bulls are tested for the fight arena in a certain manner.

Each is brought to the ring and allowed to attack. A picador who pricks them with the lance. The bravery of each bull is then rated with care according to the number of times he demonstrates his willingness to charge in spite of the sting of the blade. Henceforth will I recognize that each day I am tested by life in like manner. If I persist, if I continue to try, if I continue to charge forward, I will succeed. I'll persist until I succeed. I was not delivered until this world in defeat, nor does failure course in my veins. I'm not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion, and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. I will hear not those who weep and complain,

for their disease is contagious. Let them join the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny. I'll persist until I succeed. The prizes of life are the end of each journey, not near the beginning, and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal. Failure I may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner. Always will I take another step. If that is no avail avail I'll take another and not another in truth one step at a time is not too difficult I'll persist until I succeed I will never consider defeat and I'll remove from my vocabulary such words and phrases as quit cannot unable impossible

out of the question improbable failure unwork, unworkable, hopeless, and retreat. For there are the words of fools. I'll avoid despair, but if this disease of the mind should infect me, then I will work on in despair. I will toil and I will endure. I'll ignore the obstacles at my feet and keep mine eyes on the goals above my head. For I know that where dry desert ends, green grass grows. I'll persist until I succeed. I'll remember the ancient law of averages, and I'll bend it to my good. I'll persist with the knowledge that each failure to sell will increase my chance for success at the next attempt. Each nay I hear will bring me closer to the sound of yay. Each frown I meet only prepares me for the smile to come. Each misfortune I encounter will carry in it the seed of tomorrow's good luck. If I must

have the night to appreciate the day, I must fail often to succeed only once. I'll persist until I succeed. I will try and try and try again. Each obstacle I will consider as a mere detour to my goal and a challenge to my profession I'll persist and develop my skills as the mariner develops his by learning to ride out the wrath of each storm I'll persist until I succeed henceforth I will learn and apply another secret of those who excel in my work when each day is ended, not regarding whether there's been a success or a failure. I will attempt to achieve one more sale. When my thoughts beckon my tired body homeward, I will resist the temptation to depart. I will try again. I'll make one more attempt to close with victory and if that fails I'll make

another. Never will I allow any day to end with a failure. Thus I'll plant the seed of tomorrow's success and gain insurmountable advantage over those who cease their labor at a prescribed time. When others cease their struggle then mine will begin and my harvest will be full. I'll persist until I succeed, nor will I allow yesterday's success to lull me into today's complacency, for this is the great foundation of failure. I'll forget the happenings of the day that is gone, whether they were good or bad, and greet the new sun with confidence that this will be the best day of my life. So long as there is breath in me, so long will I persist for I know one of the

greatest principles of success. If I persist long enough, I will win. I will persist. I will win. Wow. That was amazing. That's incredible. The fact that one, you have that all memorized and two, so this is what you do while you're in the cold plunge. I love it. I love it. I can, I can feel the intensity, which is like, I know when I'm saying this, I am putting myself through, you know, just persisting love it but now like i get in the cold plunges like ah i'm like i i know that i'm doing it yeah but the i've done it so many how many degrees is your cold plunge at right now it's 41 yeah 41 but it's a moving 41 so it feels a little bit colder right yeah i i uh i keep my cold plunge at 39 and it's kind of kind of filtration system. But yes, I mean, both are very cold.

Yeah. I mean, I, you know, it's as cold as it will go. Right. On this one. Yeah. That's awesome. Nice. Well, man.

So that's that's where you start your day. And then do you dedicate most of your day right now? Do you view yourself as retired or you're I know you have. No, no, no. I mean, I've got the sprouting companies like full throttle, like we're, you know, engaging, you know, we've raised some capital on it. We're lining up, you know, a launch. And so what is your day-to-day interaction with that look like? Oh, like we're, we have a whole product roadmap we're working on, hardware products,

seed products products agriculture products nutrition product research papers you know i published my first peer-reviewed published white paper on safety and now i'm doing another one on the life cycle analysis you know of sprouts so i i i'm going deep on a lot of different things i I love it. I love it. There's, I can see your passion for your product, for, uh, for health, for like sharing the message with the world. Uh, what is, what is the main thing that drives you now? I mean, I think that, uh, people need to be eating real food. Yeah.

Right. And sprouts are real food and they're accessible. And so my, my, what's driving me is to get this message out there. So it's not like building a product or, or, or having a company per se. Like I'm, I'm doing this, you know, as a movement. I love it. Like this is a movement and around food justice, food equality, nutrition equality. And how can our listeners, Founder Nation, help support you in your movement? I mean, I think that the several things is just like, you know, consider, you know, raising your standard of your diet, right? You know, think about sprouting as an option. Like everyone knows someone who's diabetic or overweight or obese, you know, the

cancer, the chemoprotective properties of sprouts have been well-researched and well-documented. And if you think about the thousands of papers, there's cancer preventive properties in the sprouts. And this isn't just, you know, Doug talking to Chris, like this has been on Joe Rogan with Rhonda Patrick and Andrew Huberman. Like this is well known. What happens is like they have a little podcast and then people go on to other things. And what I want to do is I want to plant seeds that become sustainable so that people can have an awareness and actually shift the lifestyle because food is the most addictive drug, you know, in the world today. I agree.

You don't have to smoke crack. You don't have to shoot heroin, but you have to eat, right? You don't have to smoke cigarettes, but you have to eat. And what happens is the food engineers, the 5,000 food engineers in Minnesota and New Jersey, they know exactly how to trigger the dopamine and serotonin in your brain by using salt, oil, sugar, processing food, even the artificial colors and flavors and preservatives, they know exactly how to play, you know, the unsuspecting person. And so if you have a standard, then it's easier to navigate. So in a way, I'm applying my entrepreneurial, you know, zest towards creating a movement.

I love it. So I have a quick question. What are your thoughts on electrolytes? Like, should we be consuming electrolytes? I mean, you're saying no, we shouldn't be eating salts and stuff with our food. I mean, I think that if you're eating, they're not electrolytes naturally occur, you know, in the plant kingdom. So if you're eating and drinking enough natural things, you're getting enough electrolytes.

The other intriguing thing that we talked about before the show was the fact that you really don't drink much water. No. Yeah. You drink how much on a day? Probably one glass. One glass. And this is due to what well

most of what i'm eating is water water-based food so all fruits and vegetables have water molecules in the cytoplasm and i'm having a high concentration you know you eat a couple of pomelos or grapefruits or oranges mostly water water. You have obviously watermelon is water. Salad is water. Sprouts are 70% water. So if you're eating enough and water is this whole mysterious thing where they're taking water, whether it's groundwater or spring water, and they're filtering it and they're adding UV and then they're re-chlorinating it because they've taken away the natural living microorganisms in the water because there's this fear-based part. So like I'm not against water. We are drinking our own spring water from Wonder Valley Hot Springs. Like that's what we drink here.

And that's what you're drinking. But for the most part, I would rather, you know, eat my vitamins and nutrients and eat my water by eating water-based fruits and vegetables. I love that. Where's the best place to find your book? So we talked about The Sprouting. It's the sproutingcompany.com? Yes. All right. Sproutingcompany.com. And then where can my viewers pick up a copy of the book?

I mean, I would encourage you to go to a local bookseller and they'll have it in two or three days. You know, Amazon and Books A Million and Barnes and Noble, you know, have the book. And I'm on Instagram at Doug Evans or the sprouting company. Awesome. So guys give him a follow at Doug Evans on Instagram. Um, best way to reach out to your questions. Is there any DM on Instagram? Awesome. Awesome. Very good. Well, thank you so much, Doug. It was a pleasure diving in. I think this was like very educational, especially for me. Hopefully it was great for the users. I appreciate this was like very educational, especially for me. Hopefully it was great for the users. Appreciate your time and for your accommodations. Hey, my pleasure. I'm glad

you're able to make it. That was very entrepreneurial driving out here, you know, late at night. It's been awesome. Until next time.