The Rich Roll Podcast - Bassem Youssef: The Jon Stewart of Egypt On Political Satire, The Power of Plants & The Pursuit of Happiness

Episode Date: August 6, 2018

One minute you're a heart surgeon. Blink once and you're hosting the most watched television program in Middle East history. Blink again and you're exiled from the homeland that made you famous. The story of Bassem Youssef is legend. But there's far more to this tale than meets the eye. Dubbed the Jon Stewart of the Arab World, today's guest is an Egyptian cardiothoracic surgeon and member of the Royal College of Surgeons who caught lightning in a bottle making catchy 5-minute YouTube videos in his Cairo laundry room. A flash moment later, he’s a media mega-star, the man behind a controversial, first-of-it’s-kind political satire program entitled Al-Bernameg that garnered a massive and unprecedented 30 million viewers every week. Insightful as it was incisive, Al-Bernameg received global acclaim and coverage in some of the world's biggest media outlets, culminating in Bassem appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – twice. But Bassem's bold criticism of the ruling powers led to accusations that he was disrupting public order, insulting Islam and its Armed Forces. Over 120 complaints were lodged with the General Prosecutor's office. Tens of lawsuits were filed. He was publicly smeared. Opponents put his theatre under seige, even jamming his satellite signal during airing. Then came the arrest — a detainment that brought Bassem to the realization that his media career in Eqypt had come to a swift and decisive end, culminating in Bassem fleeing his homeland for the United States. Nonetheless, Bassem’s work made an indelible imprint on Middle East culture. He landed on TIME magazine’s annual 100 Most Influential People list. He was awarded the International Press Freedom Award by the CPJ and chosen by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the global thinkers. The focus of the acclaimed documentary Tickling Giants, Bassem is the author of Revolution for Dummies: Laughing Through the Arab Spring*. And when he isn’t developing television projects or performing stand up comedy, he hosts a recently launched podcast entitled Remade In America. But Bassem's latest act could be his most impactful to date: the quest to revolutionize nutrition and health across the Middle East. As passionate about the plant-based lifestyle as he is about political satire, Bassem is on an unlikely yet zealous quest to leverage his medical background and massive influence across the Middle East (10+ million twitter followers!) to better educate the region on the inextricable connection between nutrition, illness and optimal health. This is a powerful conversation about how one doctor became a lightning rod media figure in the cross hairs of political power and social unrest. It’s about fake news, free speech and the cultural imperative of political satire in responsible citizenship. And it's a discourse on how this man's personal evolution and relationship with food motivated a desire to redress the chronic lifestyle illness epidemic America has exported across the Middle East. Enjoy! Rich

Whether we talk about politics or diet, the mechanism and the rhetorics are the same. I think we as humans, we are experts in putting so many obstacles between us from different places, and maybe health and food is one thing that can unite us. Maybe if we know that we are the same mortal bodies that have the same exact diseases because of the same habits, maybe we can get together in order to change these habits together. And if you think that a good dish of food can unite people, maybe good health can even unite people in a much better way. That, my friends, is Bassem Youssef, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast.

Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? What is happening? How are you? I am Rich Roll. That is my name. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome one and welcome all. Quick announcement before we dive into today's episode, I mentioned previously that I wanted to start doing more live podcast events. Well, good news for those of you in the Los Angeles area. On August 23rd, all of you can come spend an evening with me as I host the world premiere of a brand new movie, Running for Good. It's the Fiona Oaks documentary. It's the Fiona Oaks documentary. And I'm going to be following up the screening with a live podcast event right in the theater with the film's director, Keegan Kuhn, and Fiona Oaks herself, which is really special because she lives in the UK. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It's going to be an awesome evening. It's an honor to showcase another brilliant work from my friend, Keegan, who I'm sure

you know as the co-director of both Cowspiracy and What the Health, and introduce you guys to Fiona Oaks, who I truly believe is one of the great but untold stories in modern endurance athletics. And I think that her story is something that will really move and inspire you. I receive a lot of requests to do public events. It's been my desire to do more of them as well. So this film and this rare live podcast are really a special way to kick off what hopefully will be more regular opportunities to share time with some of you guys. The event, again, is going to be August 23rd at

the Royal Lemley Theater in West LA. The movie starts at 7.30. A link to buy tickets, which I think are going to be $25, is in the show notes on the episode page for this episode, or you can click on the appearances menu tab on my website. Pick them up as soon as you can. They're going to go quick. All right. Super excited. Today's guest, this man is truly like no other. Dubbed the Jon Stewart of the Arab world, today's guest is Bassem Youssef, who is this cardiac surgeon who basically woke up one day and started making five-minute YouTube videos from his laundry room in Cairo, his home city. A flash moment later, he finds himself hosting the most watched and most controversial television show across the Middle East. It's the first of its kind political satire

program in the region, and it garnered this massive, unprecedented, gigantic audience, 30 million viewers every single week. The show received wide acclaim around the world. It got coverage in some of the planet's biggest media outlets, culminating in Bassem appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on two occasions. The show was insightful. It was incisive. It was funny, but it was also boldly, boldly critical of the ruling powers, perhaps a little bit too critical for the political palette of the region, which led to tens of lawsuits being filed against the show and Bassem personally. He was even arrested at one point. And due to all of this extreme pressure, he was ultimately compelled to terminate the show in 2014. And he actually even had to flee his homeland for the United States. And he

currently lives in Los Angeles. But Bassem's work and this show created this legacy. It made this indelible imprint on Middle East culture. It landed him on Time Magazine's annual 100 Most Influential People list. He was awarded the International Press Freedom Award by the CPJ, and he was also chosen by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the world's great global thinkers. Bassem is also the focus of an acclaimed documentary entitled Tickling Giants. He is the author of Revolution for Dummies, Laughing Through the Arab Spring. And when he isn't developing television projects or doing stand-up comedy, he hosts a recently launched podcast called Remade in America. But what is really interesting and really what brought the two of us together is Bassem's latest focus, which is aimed at leveraging his influence and this gargantuan social media profile that he has.

This is a guy with 10 million Twitter followers, to improve health and nutrition across the Middle East. And I'd like to explain a little bit more about this in a minute, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life.

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you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, Thank you. journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Bassem. Bassem Youssef. So, many of you may know this guy. You might know his story. You might have seen him on Jon Stewart a while back. You may have read about him in Time Magazine. But even if you are familiar with his story, you might not know that Bassem, who, again, is a cardiac surgeon by trade, has become this perhaps unlikely yet quite ardent advocate for the plant-based lifestyle. perhaps unlikely, yet quite ardent advocate for the plant-based lifestyle. This is something that he has become super passionate about,

just as passionate about as he is about stand-up comedy and political satire. And it's this recent passion that, again, ultimately brought us together. Bassem's story is beyond extraordinary. It's a story I would have wanted to share irrespective of his nutrition evangelism, but it made it all the more prescient for me. So this is his story. It's a conversation about how a doctor became a lightning rod media figure in the crosshairs of political power and social unrest. It's about the cultural importance of political satire in responsible citizenship. And perhaps most interesting for this audience, it's about how his personal evolution and relationship with food and nutrition motivated this desire to redress the chronic lifestyle illness epidemic America has exported across the Middle East. across the Middle East.

Final note, we conducted this interview at Bassem's apartment in the midst of this crazy heat wave that was happening a couple weeks back in LA that left my studio with a power outage. So we were unable to capture this podcast on video, unfortunately, and apologies if the sound isn't quite up to par, not what you're used to.

But I think it's great. You guys are going to enjoy it. And I wanted to thank publicly my friend Jason Purdy for making the initial connection introduction to Bassem. So this is me and Bassem Youssef. Okay, guys, we are going live Facebook. Okay, this is Facebook. This is Instagram.

Is the Instagram working? Do you think the Instagram is working? Yeah, people are on. All right, cool. They're watching you. Like hearts and smiley faces and everything? 1,800 people. All right.

Okay. All right. Good. All right. So again, let's do that again. This is Rich Rule, the legend of he's the fittest man on earth. Officially the fittest man on earth. the the fittest man i don't know about that okay and uh we are going to have a podcast about plant-based diet los angeles and food and

everything else so let's do this enjoy everybody nice to see everybody yeah let's let's just like make sure that we have volume we have volume good yes all right good yes here it is we have volume good yes all right good yes here it is good to be with you my friend thank you so much i'm so excited to talk to you uh as a sort of prefatory remark uh this is plan b the original intention was that you were going to come out to my house and we were going to record this in my studio and we were going to film the whole thing and we're having like crazy brownouts because of this heat wave and our air conditioner went out and some of our outlets aren't where it was just inhospitable so this is a first for los angeles this might happen in egypt you might be more familiar with this phenomenon than i am the middle eastern to take get you out of your hole

yeah exactly so now we're over at your abode. So thank you for hosting this. Okay. And excited to dig into your story. I mean, you have lived this extraordinary, magical life of rebirths and reinventions from being this cardiac surgeon to being this media figure throughout the Middle East and now reinventing yourself here in the United States and having, you know, a giant impact here as well. I mean, it's just phenomenal what you've done. And that's not even getting into this latest chapter with your fascination with plant-based nutrition

and your advocacy about spreading a message of health and nutrition throughout your homeland. So it's gonna be cool to talk to you and unpack this whole insane story. So why don't we start at the beginning? All right. This all kind of begins around, I mean, Arab Spring is really the catalyst for everything that had happened. So maybe even for, you know, the U.S. listeners, explain what Arab Spring was.

Well, on a personal level, I was like working as a doctor heart surgeon, and I finished almost most of my transfer exams to the United States. I got accepted in a fellowship here. I was ready to come. And suddenly, the Arabs... At Cleveland Clinic, right? Not Cleveland Clinic. It was a children's hospital at Cleveland, Rainbooks Children's Hospital, one of the best hospitals for pediatric heart surgery. And I was ready to come. And then the Arab Spring happened. And me, like thousands of doctors, took to the streets to help people injured from the clashes. People wanted the regime to be gone, our president to be gone.

And just maybe just explain as a primer what exactly was happening politically in Egypt at the time. Well, we had a president for 30 years, and that's a lot. Yeah. And people had hope that change can happen. So we were inspired by Tunisia. Tunisia were the first to kick their dictator out,

so we followed. And then we were hopeful that things will change. Now, as I was in the streets of Cairo witnessing the demonstrations, I saw a discrepancy between what was happening in the streets and what was happening in the state-run media. Because that was a massive brainwash to the public. And this is 2011. 2011, exactly. And so after the revolution ended, I said, like, I want to do something about it. So

I had created these YouTube videos following the Daily Show style. Right. So let's park it here for a minute. Like, I don't want to go too quickly through this because I want to know every detail about how this came about. So you were impacted by the difference between the people that you were meeting and what you were seeing as an eyewitness on the streets and what you were hearing in the state-run media or viewing on the state-run television. Prior to that, had you grown up? I mean, you were familiar with Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart, like the Comedy Central website was available in Cairo at the time.

And as I understand it, his show would run on CNN International like once a week. So you became a fan. Of course. And I didn't understand what he was talking about, because I didn't understand what is Democrat, what is Republican, what is Fox News. And it took me a while to understand what was happening. And I educated myself about American politics. And then I appreciated more his kind of satire and his kind of humor. And I said, like, I wish we had something like this. But of of course that under a dictatorship for 30 years that was almost impossible right and so when i saw an opening after it was just like i

i want to do this uh-huh and this begins with you recording these amateur videos like in your laundry room yes like five minute political satire absolutely yes based on what you were observing and your impressions in a satirical fashion. Exactly. And, like, what were you thinking? Like, what was, you know, what inspired you? Like, what made you think

that this is something that you should do? As a cardiac surgeon at the time who's looking to come to America. I did. Like, honestly, I didn't think that even people would watch it.

I think, like, maybe I'll have 10,000 views for a video. And then, and a few weeks later I had millions. Yeah. And then suddenly every single TV station wanted me on their platform to do the show on TV. And so like, and I said, and that was like a, an incredible choice because are we going to do this or am I going to continue with my medical career? Right. So you make the first video with the idea that maybe 10,000 people will see it. And within a day, there's 100,000 views. And within a week, I don't know, a million or something like that. And in two weeks or three weeks, there were like 5 million or something. Right. Exactly. So after five videos or five weeks, you had like 30 million views?

Yeah. Something like that? Yeah, it was just like growing. But the 30 million views actually spilled into television in my second season. Right. But before that, I had a TV offer. Like after three videos, right? Yeah, three, four videos.

The TV stations start calling you. Yeah. And after eight weeks, I was on television. Right. And right after these networks were inquiring into developing something with you, that's when you got your H1 visa, right? Yes. And the paperwork was all cleared for you to come to Cleveland, which created this very

difficult decision that you had to make about the trajectory of your career. Should I continue saving people's life and mending people's hearts, or should I choose empty fame and money? Uh-huh. I chose the money. We all know what you chose. Of course. Empty fame and money.

Yeah. And what do you think it was that made it so instantaneously popular? Because people in the middle east are used to humor we are have a very long tradition of humor and comedy but political humor and political satire was totally absent to actually to speak against the people in power was not available was not common well it's not safe either and it's not safe. So when there was kind of like the show was following the hope that came with the revolution, that everybody can speak up, everybody can say what's on their mind. And that was like for a very brief moment after the revolution.

And then after the first season in television, which was like a very small studio, pre-recorded, I wanted to do a live show. And that, again, was unheard of in the Middle East. So that was like another step that I wanted to take that was unprecedented. So I came to the United States. I came to Jon Stewart with the intention of just shadowing his team. I had a talk with him for an him for, you know, an hour. He wanted to speak to me. And then suddenly he said, why don't you come on the show?

Right. And that kind of like changed everything. Because now I said, like, I have to prove to him that we can do that show in Egypt. We went back in Egypt. We got like a huge theater. And we, for the first time in the middle east we did a live show and he came out and was a guest on that show he came and he came to be on a guest on the show and he came and he appreciated what we were doing because this was not just like a comedy show

where everywhere satire is a settled uh right it was something that we had problems under the military, under the Islamists. It was problematic for us. So, to do actually comedy under these circumstances, these were very difficult. Right. So, what kind of numbers are you getting? Like, you're getting crazy, like, mash, right? Yes. Because there isn't the disintermediation of media in the Middle East like we have here now, right? Like, it was easier to focus eyeballs. And when you struck lightning, you were able to develop this massive audience, not just in Egypt, but across the Middle East. Yeah, in our peak, we had 40 million viewers.

That's insane. And that's Egypt. And everybody in the Arab world and in the diaspora was watching the show. Wow. That was like, and people would just maybe, because of the time difference, if they're living in the United States, they would like save it for the next day to watch it on YouTube. Uh-huh. And this is like in a very compressed period of time, right? Yeah, yeah.

So you go from this guy thinking you're going to Cleveland to perform heart surgeries to becoming this massive media figure almost overnight. I mean, it had to be rather disorienting. Absolutely. I mean, every day I had to wake up and pinch myself to see if that's real, if that's true. And they let you get away with it for a while. But here's the thing. At that time, the wave of the revolution was too high.

Nobody really can have the choice to let you do something. There was a momentum of the revolution that people couldn't really stop. So the Islamist, the Muslim Brotherhood, I was interrogated. I went under for the general prosecutor. I was interrogated for six hours. They tried to stop the show. I had my problem with them, but they couldn't stop it. But after the coup, after the military came over, they were strong enough and they came

over a wave of like popular demand, which was easier for them to stop the show, not just once, but twice. I continued. And that was in the second or third season? Yeah. Yeah. The final season. So under the military, I continued for a year, working for a whole season.

But eventually it was stopped. Because the military was very popular. And they used the popularity and the excuse of security issues and terrorism to close down any window of dissidence. And that was what happened to the show. And for me, it was not safe anymore to stay in my country, so I left. Right. How long were you doing the show before that wave started to recede and turn against you? So I did it through 2011, 2012, 2013, where the military took over.

Then I continued until the middle of 2014 and meanwhile somewhere along the line death threats come in, lawsuits basically every tool in the toolbox to try to get you off the air people threatening to burn down the theater, people putting the

theater under siege harassing people coming in and out and did you feel unsafe? Just like it was funny that we didn't really think about how bad things were. We were thinking about doing a good show. We really didn't think what was going to happen to us. We thought, are we going to meet our deadlines every week? Right.

We were too focused on the on on uh on the material on the concept of the show that we didn't really care about the the threats it's interesting that you say that there's this rich tradition of of comedy throughout the middle east you know i'm somebody who spent a fair amount of time in the middle east but i i sort of think of that culture as a little more serious. Oh, no, no, no. So what is the difference in the comedic sensibility in the Middle East versus in the United States? Oh, no, we have like very high sense of comedic sensibility. But I mean, Egypt has a very long tradition of comedy, but traditionally it was only allowed

to do social satire. And if it's going to be political, it's going to be like, you know, underhanded, you know, hidden, insinuated. But we have like, I mean, we had our cinemas, our theater pretty much at the same time as Europe were having them. We had a very long tradition of entertainment, music and comedy. So Egypt, but it was the political comedy that was not allowed to flourish. Was there pushback by the public when you got yanked off the air? I mean, was there, because you're sort of the voice of the people.

No, not the voice. I don't like to use that term of voice of the people. I mean, I would be the, because like that is kind of a representation that is, I don't like, I don't want to have that kind of responsibility because i'm i'm my voice and people might find it to uh agree with that voice and people might find that they don't agree with that voice but there was a lot of pushback yes from people who were supporting the military and there were before that there were a pushback from people who supported the islamists both of them thought that i was too rude and i was uh and too insulting and the that and my show was counterintuitive to the stability and the safety of the country yeah counterproductive now being here in the united states you know we're

we're mired in a fair amount of political turmoil at the moment, and things are in many ways different than they ever have been. When you look at what's going on in the United States and kind of reflect back upon what you experienced in Egypt, how do you think about the political climate in the U.S.? Do you think like, well, you know, they don't know anything about what it's like to endure hardship? Or are you seeing the seeds of what could become what you experienced there? Well, the only difference between the United States and what I left back in the Middle East is that so far you still have a system in place that can prevent full-blown fascism from happening so far. I mean, you have a president who has been not very, I don't know, like compared to the people that came before him, it's very disturbing. But what is putting him in check is the system. What is putting him in check that every two years you have midterms that can change the constituents of the House and the Senate. I think if he didn't have that kind of system, he would have actually abused that power.

So what you have in check is the system, which hopefully that can prevent further damage. I don't know how much damage that could be done before you can prevent that i don't know how much would people will turn out in the next midterm and the following midterm to abort that kind of damage it's really up to the people so at least you have the mechanism where all right in two years time we can change this but back in the middle east you can have like a military taking over or an Islamist regime taking over and not allowing any kind of change to happen. In definite, in definite future. In definite, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And that's a big problem. But if you're talking about the same narrative, the same kind of mindset of like, I don't want to be questioned. I will not be held accountable. Trump has the same exact mindset as many of our dictators. The only thing that is preventing him from going full-blown dictator is the system. Yeah. And so how does that translate into how you think about our responsibility or obligation to speak truth to power or to bring voice to dissent?

Absolutely. And that's what you see here in every single night when, you know, when late night shows, you know, not just holding the president accountable, but like basically making fun of him every single night. You have like an annual tradition like the White House Correspondent Dinner, which Trump for the second reading didn't show up to which is pretty much his heart thing but these tools are always reminding the people that this is a human being that he is a

public servant and he needs to understand that he's a public servant and that's what's missing from the mind of Trump and that's definitely what's missing from the mind of so many dictators in the Middle East from the mind of so many dictators in the Middle East. So ultimately, you're foisted off the air, the show gets canceled, and you essentially have to flee to come here, right? Yes.

And you can't go back. So far, I don't think it is safe for me. But your family is back there now? Some of them are there. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And you've been here for a little over a year at this point? Yeah, I've been outside of Egypt for four years, and I've been in Los Angeles for a year and a half. Right.

And how's it been? Oh, Los Angeles is amazing. I mean, I'm kind of trying to reinvent my career here in comedy in a language that's not mine. Speaking English as a second language is something, but doing comedy in English as a second language is something totally different. Yeah. Well, that's the amazing thing. I mean, the fact that you came here as a complete outsider. I mean, you have this massive following, but it's essentially a Middle Eastern demographic.

You have to reinvent yourself, reestablish yourself and make your way, you know, for lack of a better phrase in Hollywood. And you're doing that. I mean, you're doing stand up, you're going to New York tonight, right? You're doing like a standing show there. You've got this new podcast remade in America. You've had, I know you've had a variety of television shows and development and you've got a lot of like, there's a lot of activity and interest in doing something. Well, Los Angeles is maybe one of the most competitive places on earth when it comes to entertainment so i have to compete with other people who've been living all their lives here having english as their first language and it's not uh easy but it and it's sometimes i have to

say that i get nervous that like maybe i will never be able to make it. But the challenge, that's a new challenge for me. And I hope that I will have some foothold in American media because I think people from my part of the world need to be heard. Because you always hear people speaking for us instead of people speaking from us. And I want to be one of these voices. What do you think the biggest misunderstanding that we have as Americans about Middle Eastern culture or the Muslim faith? Here's one thing, but not all Middle

Eastern culture is Muslim. So people think that Middle East is one monolith. That's not true. You have Christians, Muslims, non-believers you have people who are pro-military pro-islamist that are very secular uh and i think one of the biggest misconception is that people especially on the political level people think that the the you either have to it's a duality between an islamist regime or a military regime and they think a military regime is a secular regime, which is not true. And these two regimes are two sides of the same coin. And you need to support more secular, liberal Middle Eastern who need to have a voice.

And that's our only way out. Because if we keep oscillating between these two, there's nothing good that can happen for the Middle East. Right, right. And you grew up Muslim. What's your relationship to that faith these days? I mean, I'm like a Muslim by birth, by culture. And when I speak, whatever happened to Muslim people here

will affect me even if I'm Christian or an atheist or an unbelieving Muslim. Because at the end of the day, we are grouped together, right? So my relationship with the faith or the religion is that I should ask for liberty and freedom for all, whether in my country or here. And this is basically also some of the things that I sometimes be critical about my people in here, that we talk a lot about like our freedoms in Europe and in America, but we should also talk about the freedom of other minorities in the Middle East. So I want that balance to happen. I want people to have the freedom of worship, the freedom of not wanting to believe if they want to, whether in America or back in the Middle East. And what's your sense of where we're at in that evolution?

Well, I think there has been huge steps because I find it very interesting to find people from the Jewish faith or people who are atheists or people who are Christians who support the rights of Muslims to come and immigrate and stay and have their rights to worship here. I think it has been actually moved by people who are not Muslims. And I think that I appreciate that. And I think we should as Muslims and as Middle East and as Arabs do the same back in our country. But you have to understand that one of the biggest obstacles of that happening back home is authority. Because like the people can, they were also like a big obstacle. But if you have an authority that is very adamant about like providing freedom for everybody, the people will comply at the end.

Well, packed into that, that authoritarianism is a restriction on not just free speech but the free flow of information you know we're in the midst of this technological renaissance where information has become ubiquitous amidst the free world if that information pipeline can penetrate those areas i think it will only lead to reform and evolution. Like we're seeing, you know, Saudi women are driving now. Like there's changes that are occurring, right? But when the authoritarian regime cracks down on the availability of that information, then it becomes restrictive and regressive. Absolutely.

And you have to understand, like 70 years ago, Europe was going through a whole military fascism, right? Military dictatorship, right? And it took blood, it took victims, it took people to suffer. So, I mean, I don't want to say that we should have that, but if you look to the evolution of the whole world, it went through suffering, it went through blood. And hopefully we don't have to do this, but it is history. Yeah. So when you hear the phrase fake news, how do you think about that? Well, when I hear the phrase fake news, I said, like, guys, you don't even understand what fake news is.

You have to come to my country to understand what fake news is because this is an art that we have mastered. my country to understand what fake news is because this is an art that we have mastered uh our state run media is maybe uh it's just like it's fake news can put any other kind of fake news to shame give me an example of that so uh one news anchor came out on that egyptian television and he said that we have defeated the American Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and we have captured their commander. And that is based on Hillary Clinton's book. So, of course, nobody read the book.

Nobody will even read it. But he didn't just like claim that as news. He said that this comes from Hillary Clinton's book, which is absolutely like Bullocks. Right. And so when you get a glimpse of what we consider fake news here, like how do you think about that? Like you think of that as fake news light or? No, I mean, or do you see the sort of seeds of what could become what you've experienced? Well, I have seen many similarities.

For example, the whole thing about Obama being a a secret muslim and a secret muslim brotherhood here we have the same thing back in egypt the whole thing about uh obama is supporting isis and you have isis training camps 40 isis training camps in united states because i've talked to to Trump supporters and they do believe that it's just like and I think the whole thing about fake news is a way to confirm your bias and a way to confirm your own misconceptions about other people so

because hate is illogical and hating other human beings is something that is outside of our nature. So what do you need to do? You need to have a set of information, set of bias, in order to allow you to hate those people. So like when Hitler said that the Jews and the liberal socialists and the communists did this and this and this in Germany and they are the reason for our downfall so people needed a reason to hate those people to allow the atrocities that happen towards them the same thing when you do hear about immigrants or Mexicans are rapists or Muslims are terrorists you know you need these kind of fake

news these kind of narratives in order to have a clear conscious, it's a permission to hate. Right. Yeah, I get that. I mean, basically it's finding somebody's pain point or what they're most afraid of and finding a way to weaponize that to affirm your position of power by feeding them a certain kind of information that affirms that sensibility. Yes. And the same was plant-based diet. Because like, you're going to call vegans militants, they are hippies, they are... So, I'm going to tell you the funniest thing that was said about veganism. So, when we talk about veganism in the plant-based diet group in egypt uh one of the things that like this is a conspiracy by westerns westerners in order to make arabs and muslims weak so we can

eat plants not meat and if we will be overrun and we're gonna be overrun which is like really we already overrun right so this is one of the things that this is a conspiracy by the hippies by the uh deviant liberals by the west in order to make uh arabs and muslims weak i mean this is of course one of the craziest thing some of the stuff that's been said that this is of course and they're all a misconception of if you don't eat meat you're not going to be healthy if you don't eat meat you're not going to grow muscles if you you't eat meat. You're not going to grow muscles. You're going to be weak. There's not enough protein in plants. All of this.

It's just whether we talk about politics or diet, the mechanism and the rhetorics are the same. Yeah, it's pretty fascinating how even if you just use Twitter as a case study to look at the arguments that take place, how impassioned they are on both sides, you realize how much it mirrors and reflects the political dialogue. Yes. It's very similar. Yes. And for the people watching this from Egypt, I mean, this is a guy who's like a living proof. At the age of 41, you were like pre-diabetic or something like that.

I mean- I was not in good shape. I was 50 pounds overweight. I was, you know, my heart was in poor health. I had a little bit of a scare one evening and that really triggered me to reevaluate how I was living and eating. Yeah, and then you change your life and I'm sure people say, what are you doing?

You're gonna die. You're not gonna have enough protein. And then you went and you did like five Ironmans in seven days. Yeah, well, you're looking pretty fit yourself. I'm trying. You know, yeah, you look good. And then you went and you did like five Ironmans in seven days. Yeah. Well, you're looking pretty fit yourself. I'm trying. You know?

I'm trying. You look good. So let's talk about how the whole vegan thing came about for you because that's how we initially connected. I mean, I was aware of who you were and what your work was, but I was not aware of how passionate you have become about plant-based nutrition. This was news to me. So walk me through that. September 15th, 2013.

This is where I changed. I remember the date because this is where I talked to a friend of mine. His name is Nader. He's in Egypt. He's in the Red Sea, Hurghada. And I knew that he was diagnosed by an advanced stage of multiple sclerosis in 2006. And they told him, in five years' time, you're going to be on a wheelchair. In 10 years' time, you're going to be incapacitated.

And then I heard these news, and I was devastated because Nader went to school with me. And I knew him. We played basketball together. We played soccer together. And I was heartbroken. And then when I connected no i'm fine now i'm actually in a much better how are you in a better shape like and nobody advanced ms nobody comes back from ms it's like no no just like come and let's have a talk so we we had a

long talk and 15 september 2013 i was eating a double cheeseburger french fries and a diet cook and he was like every good cardiac surgeon exactly and i was that one of those people who made fun of vegans and plant-based and all of that and he told me his story and how he went into fasting and then he went into retreats and how he changed his life into plant-based diet and then he suggested all of these reading materials and all of that and when he explained to me he talked to me scientifically medically and i said that's it i'm changing of course he said like yeah okay you know because when people tell you they're gonna change you know they're gonna come back and 15 september 2013 i never went back wow and i started to not just keep this information to myself but but kind of like to

spread it as much as possible. And then a friend of mine who was screenwriter who had a big obesity problem, he was about to go in and do like a, an operation. Yeah. He's going to do, I think a sleeve or a bypass, whatever he talked, he called me and I kind of coached him. He became an advocate. He created this plant-based diet group in Egypt. And he was. And then now we have almost like half a million people there. And this became a support group for recipes, for people putting success stories. And it was amazing.

And, of course, we had a lot of our share of resistance. Because whether this resistance comes from a religious point of course, we had a lot of our share of resistance. Because whether this resistance comes from a religious point of view, we're not telling anybody to stop believing what they believe. Or it became from a medical point of view. A lot of doctors and nutritionists and personal trainers started to criticize us. And they said, like, we are spreading false science. Although plant-based whole food diet is one of the most researched diets in in the past 20 or 30 years it's not like other fat diets like paleo or whatever other diets are so we the more that like we spread the this kind of information the more people get the benefit out of it. And as a matter of fact, at the end of next month, I'm going to start to shoot a mini docu-series,

a digital series in Arabic and in English to explain to people plant-based diet in both languages. Because what people don't understand that people in America and people in the Middle East, they share the same problems with food, with diet. One doctor told me once, you guys has been always wanting to live like the West. Now you're dying like the West.

We have like the highest rates of diabetes, of obesity in the Middle East. And people are just like looking for another magic pill or another fat diet. And that's why they always keep coming back. I got a million questions for you. But I've spent a lot, like I said, I've spent a fair amount of time in the Middle East. I've been, I did a speaking tour where I did three cities in Saudi Arabia. I've been to Karachi, Pakistan. I've been to Bahrain. Where else? A bunch of places across that area. at first I was like, why am I, why do I keep getting called to come to this part of the world to speak about these things? Like, it seemed like the cultural divide was so vast. Like,

how could these people even be remotely interested in what I have to share? And what I realized was that it's exactly what you just said. Like, as you sort of tour these cities, you see American fast food restaurants everywhere. You see giant malls like in Riyadh, just massive malls. And I would convene with small groups of people. Most of these were in private homes, young parents of young children. And these people are experiencing health problems that are unprecedented in the history of humanity. They have childhood obesity. They have childhood onset diabetes.

Their kids are, it's too hot to go outside. They're at the mall. They're playing video games and they're eating fast food. And as the parents start adopting this Western diet that we've exported across the world, they're starting to experience these health dilemmas, these health problems for the first time ever, but they don't have as much of the awareness that we have in the West about how to deal with it and what exactly is going on. And this is only continuing to spread. And I think it's really reached epidemic levels across the Middle East, but they don't have the

educational resources quite, it's not quite as matured as it is here so that's what i think why i think what you're doing is so important yeah and you could be a voice of this and they can actually hear it and with your pedigree and and you know being a doctor and all of that it's super powerful yeah and well again if i'm one doctor there's like a hundred doctors that will oppose what I'm going to say. Yeah, but you're used to that. It's almost like what you did in media was like boot camp to get you ready for this. Exactly, because the thing is we have a problem in our medical education, not just in Egypt, but also in America and the West, that we think that we have good nutritional scientific education.

We don't. As education. We don't. As doctors, we don't. Right. So in medical school, what did the nutritional curriculum look like? It's the same as here, and it is not enough. The whole thing about protein means meat, calcium means milk, and this is the kind of education that we get. the kind of uh education that we get and a lot of doctors will not uh accept this because out of ego out of like oh i i know everything but there's a lot of doctors here in the united states who are leading the movement of plant-based diet who are very humble about it's like guys we did not get

enough nutritional education in even in the best american schools and this is what we they are trying to change and this is what we need to to change uh there's a lot of nutritionists of course and because there's no money of in telling people go and get just fruits and vegetables and eat whole food diet it you have to get this kind of supplement, this kind of pill, this kind of fancy food that you can only find in one store that I can sell to you. So we're just telling people to go back to the basics. And there's no money in that. So you're not going to have the support of pharmaceutical companies.

You're not going to have the support of the meat and dairy industry, which are subsidized by $30 billion by the American government, while they subsidize fruits and vegetables by less than $3 million or $30 million, something like that. I mean, the difference is just humongous. And in a media context, you can't get adequate airtime because traditional media is funded by the pharmaceutical industry and the sugar industry and the beef and dairy industries. But there are doctors who have actually tried to break into that, like Dr. Michael Greger, a doctor called Stoll, Dr. Dean Ornish. These people have got like good good airtime but not enough there are people like you who have like showed the world through their work and through their activity like what

they can do because what is that what is the biggest uh uh criticism oh you cannot build muscles you cannot be healthy you cannot do this effort and when you find someone doing iron man on plants or someone who's lifting weights on plants, I mean, it just like goes outside the window. And yet you will find people, oh, they're taking steroids. They're taking steroids or they're some kind of weird outlier.

So they don't count and they get dismissed. But I think the athletes have an important role in this whole movement because they can be the counter the the counterpoint to this you know conventional wisdom yeah so your friend has this incredible remarkable health turnaround not just that he started he started to go back to Egypt and he started to have these retreats, fasting retreats in the Red Sea. So now in Egypt, people will go there for two weeks that would fast, only water fasting, and then do refeeding on plant-based diet. And did he come to the United States to get that experience and education initially?

He traveled all around the world. He went to South Africa, Costa Rica, the United States. He actually, he's all over. He was very dedicated. And where is his MS right now? Oh, he's playing water polo now. That's unbelievable. Yeah. 12 years after being diagnosed. Wow. That is amazing. But there are more stories like this. I mean, when you talk to the doctors that I mentioned, there are some stories of MS patients who have been on wheelchairs and then they do triathlons.

Or someone who had a visible lesion in the MRI and the lesion is gone. So the lights go on for you. And who do you seek out first? What are the books that you end up reading or who are the doctors that you seek out? The China study. Forks Over Knives, The Star Solution. I started to watch all kinds of videos for Caldwell S. Leston, Joe McDougall, Michael Greger, you know, Dean Ornish. And then I started to reach out to them. And then I attended one of the San Diego Plantrition Conference a couple of years ago. I met all of them and I, and I'm

working with Dr. Scott Stoll right now in order to bring that kind of information. Right. He runs the Plantrition Project. Yeah. He's great. I'm trying to get him on the podcast soon too. Oh yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll connect you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're connected. We're, I'll connect you. Yeah, we're connected. We're gonna make it happen. But what's interesting is that had you, I'm wondering like, had you made that decision

to go to Cleveland, perhaps you would have crossed paths with Dr. Esselstyn anyway. No, but I don't know. But I mean, but what sold me the idea was a patient, was a friend of mine, someone who I knew personally. Right. An anecdotal experience. Yeah.

So maybe I would go to Cleveland. I would never have met Dr. Caldwell and Celeste. Yeah. And did you go, you've been up to True North too, right? Not yet. Have you told me that? No, but I sent friends there who really found like amazing difference in their health. Right. like amazing difference in their health right so talk to me about the state of health in the Middle East and kind of the general idea that people have around

nutrition and obstacles that you're you touched on it earlier but the obstacles in trying to help them see a different way so health-wise the Arab countries are one of the highest in the world in diabetes. The obesity, MS, is starting to appear. We never heard of Crohn's disease. Now it's everywhere. I think Egypt is number nine in the world as in number of diabetics and one of the top ten as in percentage. Same with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Jordan.

The health indices were heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, autoimmune disease. It just skyrocketed. So that's the state of health in the Middle East. The problem is that they're dealing with it the same way America dealt with it. They're throwing more east uh the problem is that they're dealing with it the same way america dealt with it they are throwing more money at the problem and uh through procedures and pharmaceuticals oh absolutely and the and the problem that they're the the obstacles that we're having is um traditional uh religious because they think that we are telling them not to eat meat because

we have one day where people sacrifice you know uh uh you know it's it's it's it's a religious ritual and and we said all right if it's just like one day a year fine you know just we're talking to you about 364 days a year. So explain to me the religious resistance. Like, unpack that. So because, you know, they consider that meat is a blessing by God as mentioned in Scripture. So if it is created by God,

created for us by God, it has to be good. But we tell them that God wants you in a perfect health. So at the same time, he gave you signs to understand this. And if you, for example, go to a doctor tomorrow and you're having liver and kidney failure, the first thing the doctor will tell you is stop eating meat. Is this doctor an antichrist or anti-God? He is giving you the kind of signs that God also created for you in order to be a better person.

So we try to tread very delicately when it comes to this, because we don't want this to be a clash of beliefs or religions. So we have the religion. We have, of course, the tradition, because the Middle East is a very hospitable place. It's all about tradition. And to show appreciation to people is to show it by food. Food is a whole social experiment, social way to get people together. So now it's a lifestyle problem. It's like the barbecue in Texas.

Yeah, except, you know, on steroids, right? A thousandfold more important and more emotional for people. So when you come in and say, listen, you know, I know you like to serve this and this is very important to you. And this is part and parcel of what it means to celebrate this holiday or to show love to your loved ones. Now you got to do it a totally different way. That's a difficult pill to swallow. Absolutely. And this is the kind of obstacles that we're facing. And so they try to

oppose it by saying all the way from this is not right, this is not scientific, or everything is okay with moderation. And that's the little word there, moderation. We all have a different definition of moderation. Yes. And people who think that they are eating a moderate diet or living a balanced lifestyle generally aren't. Yeah. And that's why my goal in this new docu-series is to basically focus on disease. So people who have diabetes or autoimmune disease will be more willing to listen because a lot of people say, hey, I'm healthy. I don't care. I'm not. All right, fine. Do whatever you want. I'm not going to be speaking to you. So as a doctor, a cardiologist, perhaps it's worth,

especially for your followers on this plant-based nutrition group in Egypt, especially for your your followers on this plant-based nutrition group in Egypt to really walk people through the relationship between animal products and these diseases because there's a lot of people think well diabetes a sugar or yeah you know you haven't really established that the meat is really the culprit here maybe there's some anecdotal evidence but how can you really convince me that these are the foods that i exactly remove exactly because you know diabetes when we in arabic you know it's called mar the soccer which actually translate to the disease of sugar so in their mind it meat and fat doesn't have to do

anything with it it is sugar and carbs which is we want to explain to them that that's not the culprit the main culprit the main culprit is actually animal products and what animal products do to you. And there's a lot of like how dairy is not as healthy as you think. So it is a long road and we're just like chipping in into like this big structure of misconception that hopefully people will come to realize

that that is not whatever what we were told about food is not true and so this docu-series explain to me what this is all about so basically it's going to be five minutes episodes each episode will either deal with a certain uh disease or a certain misconception about food so it's going to be either like heart disease or one of them is actually about erectile dysfunction uh that's very important that gets people's attention yes diabetes dairy uh the the misconception of of protein the misconception of uh omegas you know is is fish good for us all of is egg good for us so every five minutes will just be dedicated to

one of these misconception and we try to debunk it whether a little bit by humor a little bit by information a little bit by conversation so we're gonna try different styles in each one and is this gonna be on YouTube are you doing it it's gonna be free for everyone like on Facebook YouTube I wanted to be to reach out to as many people as possible. Right. And you're doing some interesting things throughout the Middle East, right, on a kind of top tier level in terms of meeting with political bodies and corporate heads and things like that. Can you speak about that? Yeah, well, I'm trying to actually find investors in the Middle East to kind of support this kind of narrative in a way that actually will bring them money.

Middle East to kind of support this kind of narrative in a way that actually will bring them money. So hopefully when people see this, they want to try so we can open retreats and centers and do services in order to help people to maintain that kind of lifestyle. Because a lot of people get convinced by that, but their first question is, all right, how can I start? We even have a 30 days challenge that we're going to create a website and have a 30 days challenge that we're going to create a website. We have a 30 days challenge in order so they can follow that kind of lifestyle. And I want to bring governments. Because a lot of governments in the Middle East are paying so much money in medical insurance bills. Can you tell me that story you told me at lunch the other day? Which one?

The one about if you need uh a heart procedure oh yeah so a certain country in the middle east a certain country in the middle you're not going to say which one a certain country of the mid-east when you are a citizen it's a it's a gulf country and you need a heart procedure they send you to germany or to uh eng, first class ticket with two family members, paid leave for six months, including all of the accommodation expenses and pocket money for six months in order to make an operation. And this is causing them to pay billions of dollars each year. Yeah, I can't imagine the price tag on just one. Yeah. So imagine if you said, all right, take, give us those patients and we can reverse their disease and you can only pay

a fraction of the money. Right. Yeah. They'll save billions of dollars. Yeah. Because that's only going to ramp up. There's going to be more and more people. Exactly. Because you're not changing the lifestyle. Yeah. And do you have a sense that this is taking root, that people are listening and that change is happening? You have groups now for vegan Arabs. We have groups for plant-based diets and Arabs in Egypt. And people are starting to wake up. So, at least if people are starting to understand that they need to eat less meat or less dairy, dairy is a little is a diff is a difficult not to crack. So because because everybody

think nothing bad comes out of dairy. Dairy is healthy. It's full of calcium. You know, every everybody will say, Oh, yeah, eating too much meat is bad. But nobody will tell you that eating yogurt, or cheese, or dairy is bad. For us, it is the absolute health food, the same with eggs. And do you speak at all about the environmental considerations or you just keep it strictly to the health? I try to keep it strictly to health for one reason, because a lot of people see the environmental impact as too remote for them. They don't understand it or they don't care or they think they are like pretty much away from it so there's no reason for me to kind of waste too much

of like the real estate of the material that i'm using to convince them with the with the environment i think when people uh i'm sorry to say, but humans in general are selfish. I need to make it important to their everyday health life, their medical bill, the fact that they're not going to be constipated anymore, the fact they're going to sleep better. When they feel the effect, then they can go into the ethical problems. They can see that they don't need to kill plants

or animals in order to survive they they that their uh footprint actually have an impact on the environmental uh problem in the world but i have to start to and keep it and focus on health right i know that in china we're seeing the the growth like massive growth of the middle class and the sort of lower upper class and with that comes a sense of entitlement to eat a certain diet that was previously unavailable to them and that means more meat well that happened also in the middle so that was my question is yes is that occurring especially in the oil rich countries so 40 years ago saudi arabia emirates qatar were very simple people you know they were like they had. They lived on trade and fishing. They were basically, they have a rich...

Date farming. Yeah, they farm dates. They come from a rich Bedouin tradition. Then when oil was discovered, they have acquired this amazing amount of wealth all of a sudden. And with that comes the ascension into a separate class and then meat becomes now more of a stable diet not just like something that they eat and feasts same thing happened in egypt but in egypt we still have the problem not

just in the richer classes we have a problem in the lower classes low socioeconomic classes because they compensate with the lack of meat with a lot of oil and sugar right yeah that becomes a huge problem all the oil yeah everything oh yeah so everything is deep fried so because this is how this is for them this is how they get the calories right and what about kids kids follow their parents and this is why we have a we're now seeing an increase in the rise of diabetes type one. We have an increase in autoimmune diseases for kids. So yeah, their obesity, child obesity off the roof. And how do you feel about the prognosis for the future? Like, are you optimistic that this can become? I need to see what's going to be the impact.

Maybe what I'm going to do is going to inspire other people to do more stuff locally. Because when you see big bodies like Facebook page or someone who's a certain level of celebrity, do that, people will follow. And I think we can judge that kind of impact in four or five years from now. Right. So it's cool that you, I mean, look, you have this insane social media profile, like 10 million followers on Twitter, like millions on, I don't even know what the numbers are. They're all in the millions though. And you've made this choice to leverage that for this good, this passion that has now come into your life. And I think with your sort of pedigree, not only as a cardiologist, but as a media figure, you're perfectly positioned and very uniquely positioned.

I don't know if there's anybody else who could bring voice to this in the way that you are. Well, I hope I will smoke them out. I mean, I want to mention a friend of mine here. His name is Khalid bin Walid. He's an amazing, he's a Saudi royalty, and he is one of the, he's another Arab prominent vegan, and maybe he will help me. And there's Prince Khaled, right?

That's him. Oh, that's him. So I got lost in the, yeah, yeah, yeah. Are we talking about the same person? No, yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, I know exactly who he is.

So he's, he's been investing exclusively in plant-based oriented startup businesses. Yes. And it's pretty cool. I'm trying to get him on the podcast as well because I think what he's doing is really remarkable. And he, like yourself, has the ability to really move culture in a profound way. And I think past that,

you've got to get more doctors on board. Yes, absolutely. The people that the average person is going to see needs to be mimicking the message that you're putting out there yeah absolutely so what's next uh next well uh for the plant-based hopefully that video these videos will actually make a change and hopefully i will find investors in the middle east and in here to bring more um not just awareness but but tools to make people sustain that kind of diet and that kind of

lifestyle. And there is money to be made, you know, it's not going to be like, all right, eat fruits and vegetables. There's ways to make money for those investors in a good way in making people maintain that kind of health. So I have like a number of business plans for that. On a personal level, I'm trying, you know, I'm starting this comedy residency in New York. I'm going to be there for three weeks performing in New York. Hopefully that will turn into a one hour special. And maybe that will be my the beginning of, you know, having a place for me in the American media scene. Yeah.

So you're balancing these two kind of careers or professions that overlap at times, but are also their own unique things. I would imagine, you know, what the original impetus for you to go into medicine was to be a healer of some sorts, right? And now because of this media experience that you've had, you have the ability to heal on a level that you could never have if you were just operating person by person. Exactly, yeah. Right? And there's an interest, like I'm interested in how the skill set overlaps or is distinct with respect to being a surgeon, which is a very practical but precise skill set.

And then there's comedy, which also requires a very specific level of precision in order for it to work. How do these two things inform each other? Well, the one thing that I got from medicine is dedication not not giving up easily being inert study because this is what comedy is about is about studying by the way it's actually big yeah big so you grew up watching like American television oh yeah absolutely yeah so what were the shows? Frasier, Friends, Seinfeld, The Muppet Show. And as a child, did you find yourself trying to deconstruct them to try to understand how the comedy worked? Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely.

So the comedy thing, that was always with you. I mean, you like to say, I've heard you in other interviews, and you're like, well, this all came out of the blue. I was a surgeon. Like, who would have thought or whatever? But really, you know, in your heart of hearts, that was there. Maybe, but like a lot of people watch comedies

and they try to deconstruct them, but not everybody has a chance to actually. I don't know, most people just watch them and they don't think about it that much. Yeah. Yeah, so, all right, so Frasier, Friends. Just like maybe the nerd in me. Yeah, yeah, but then Jon Stewart comes along.

Oh yeah, Jon Stewart, then Colbert, and then that changed like my perception of comedy. Absolutely. So when you came to the United States and you were a guest on the Jon Stewart show, I mean, that must have been an insane moment of thinking, like, how did my life get to this place? Imagine you being on your dream show as a guest and everybody in the America and back home watches you. That is something amazing. And the Venn diagram continues to overlap because he's, you know,

he's got the animal sanctuary, huge farm sanctuary supporter, him and his wife. And, you know, he's, as far as I know, he's eating a vegan diet these days. I hope he is. Yeah. Are you in contact with him? We are. And I know that like he started that a few years ago because of his wife. Right. And he's doing great.

And I hope that we, our path will cross again into the plant-based thing. I do a lot of talks at conferences, you know, a lot of VegFest and things like that. But I've spoken at a lot of medical conferences, medical-oriented conferences. And what I noticed is that a lot of these doctors get up and they convey tremendous information, but they're not exactly schooled in the art of how to move an audience. You know what I mean? Like they sort of intuit it as if they're giving a lecture to a classroom of medical students. It's very information-based. And I've often thought, and I've had many conversations with other doctors saying, look, you got to learn how to like move these people. You got to take them on an emotional

journey so that the information that you're conveying, which is so important and life-changing and culture-changing, can really land and make an impact. And I think you're somebody who not only understands that, but I think could really make a huge impact on that kind of circuit of keynote speakers in that space. Is that something that you've started to do? I hope so. I mean, like, I didn't get the chance yet to speak that, like, to speak about that openly, but I hope that the, um, the, uh, the videos that I will do will be a start. Yeah. Uh, and I hope that like, I'll continue speaking to people live, not just in America, but also back in the Middle East. Because that's important. And this is why we're having these live videos.

Because I want people to understand what is happening. I want them to see that there's another reality other than just you eating meat and dairy. And I want them to see that there is a reason why you're feeling tired. Why you're feeling exhausted. Why you're having these diseases. a reason why you're feeling tired, why you're feeling exhausted, why you're having these diseases. We have been brainwashed like the media does even on a political level. Yeah, it all goes back to that again.

It pushes that same button of understanding like, look, the information you've been fed may not be correct. It's time to step outside of that box, think more independently, think more critically, speak truth to power, really look at the research that is validated and help people to understand that there is a different way absolutely yeah and then this is why it's this why a lot of people like kind of like when they they they they resist what is not common for them they resist what's not what is uncomfortable for them so whether that is like a political

religious narrative or it's going to be a nutrition narrative maybe it's even more difficult because you're being fed that kind of narrative from an early age you have a mother's like what should i am i supposed to feed my kid now like what do you mean i'm not going to give him milk and then i'm going to make his bone weeks and then there's a lot of guilt because a lot of people may resist you. They're not like evil or anything, but they want to do the best for their children. But if you can bring that satirist wit to this space, that would be unique and new, right? Because that's what you found in your previous vocation to be the sweet spot of getting people to think differently, right? You have to bring humor into it. You have to like, you know, hit a button that relates to

their own personal experience that gets them to shift that prism of perspective. And if you can do that in a health context, I think that opens up, you know, the keys to the kingdom. Yes, absolutely. So, you got to put together like a one hour, like I know you want to do a one man show on comedy, but you got to do your one man show for- Plant-based diet. Plant-based diet in the health community. Maybe I will.

Maybe I will. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe I will. And then just go, you know, I mean, you should speak at the Plantrition event and there's many other events like that too. I will tell Scott, maybe he'll put me on the panel. You should, man.

It would be good. Yeah. Cool. So what else do you want to talk about? events i will tell scott maybe he'll put me on the panel you should man it would be good yeah um cool so uh what else do you want to talk about no i want to talk about you because this is what like my like the people like i want you to give me like i know that you've said this like a hundred times before but like this is something going to be very inspiring back home in Egypt and the Middle East. What happened? Like, how come, like, you know, is it still on? I'm just going to make sure. Yes.

Is it still beaming? Yeah, it is. Okay, good. So what is, what made you change? What were you, what was happening to you at the time that made you, all right, I'm going to change my lifestyle right now? I think pain. Pain.

You know, pain. Pain's the only thing that's really truly motivated me to change any of my errant ways or behaviors. And I thought a lot about, you know, I get asked that question a lot. I think that change is available to us all the time. It's a choice that we can always make. It's just easier to make that choice when you're in pain. And I think that the decision to change my relationship to food came on the heels of a decision some years prior to get sober. Like a big part of my story is a battle with alcoholism. And I had

that moment of reckoning, that moment of clarity that you hear about from people that are in recovery, where enough was enough and I was ready to accept help and change. And that was a very painful moment. But that decision changed my life so dramatically in so many unbelievable ways that when I had this health scare moment, it felt very similar to that day that I decided to get sober. And so I think what it did is it allowed me to have a greater awareness of the significance of these kinds of moments that I think are visited upon all of us in some way, shape, or form. And that if we are present enough and have enough self-awareness, we're able to recognize as pivotal, can be pivotal moments that can change our life.

And so when I had that scare, it felt very visceral and real and similar to that other experience. And I thought, this is happening again. I'm being given another opportunity to change my life in a way that I think could lead me in a direction that I can't conceptualize right now, but certainly will be better than how I'm living right now. So that was kind of what was going on in my mind at the time. right now. So that was kind of what was going on in my mind at the time. But at the same time, I was 50 pounds overweight, like I said earlier. I was semi-depressed. I was pretty unenthusiastic about this life that I'd worked very hard to create. And at the time, if you were to look at my life from the outside in, it looked pretty good. Like I had a great career as a lawyer.

I had a fancy sports car. I met my wife. We were building a family. We were living in a beautiful home. My career trajectory was on the upswing. Like everything was solid. But on the inside, I felt like I was living somebody else's life. So I was having this existential crisis about what I was doing with myself.

And that just happened to kind of overlap and coincide with this health scare. So it was like this perfect storm of events that crashed into each other that I think put me in a position to really reevaluate top to bottom how I was living. And that set in motion a series of events and behaviors and actions that have led me to this

point. But it took a long time and it wasn't linear. It wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I didn't just get struck vegan like you and immediately go cold turkey and do it perfectly. It took me a while to get a handle on it. And then the whole advocacy and kind of career path that I'm on now that came much more gradually. I mean, it's been, you know, 10 years of working on that to get to this point. And you did some incredible feats, like doing all of these crazy races. Yeah. You did like Ironman, like five Ironmans in one week.

Is that true or am I? So no, it's true. Okay. Yeah, that happened. So what happened was to kind of back it up was when I ended up adopting what I later found out was called a whole food plant-based diet, I felt a lot better pretty quickly. Like within seven to 10 days, I felt like a different human being. And I suddenly had this resurgence

of vitality and energy. And I actually wanted to be physical with myself again and move my body for the first time in a very long time. I had been a swimmer in college and in high school. So being an athlete was part of my life, but it was a chaptermer in college and in high school. So being an athlete was part of my life, but it was a chapter that was very much in the past. And I got interested in revisiting that again. And I just was reconnecting with myself. And that felt good. I had no designs on returning to becoming a competitive athlete. But I had a couple experiences early on in my kind of fitness renaissance that led me to believe that perhaps I had some proclivity in this area. And because my changed relationship with food had created such amazing results in such a short period of time, it started getting me thinking

about human potential in general and our ability to kind of be blind to the truth. And when we kind of realize that something that was right in front of us could have such a profound impact on our ability to navigate our experience, I started thinking about other areas of my life that perhaps I'd been blind to. And because alcoholism had really short-circuited my athletic career in college, I think I felt some unfinished business there. I had something I wanted to prove to myself. And so that's what motivated me to get into the world of ultra endurance sports. But really it was a spiritual journey of trying to struggle with and answer some questions that

would help resolve this existential crisis that I was having. Because training for these things is so all-consuming and so exhausting that it strips you down to the very core of who you are until you're able to see yourself exactly as you are and not through the veneer of denial. And that was my experience. And ultimately along the way, yes, I was able to do five Ironmans on five Hawaiian islands in seven days. I competed at a very high level in a race called Ultraman, which is a three-day double Ironman distance triathlon, 320 miles, circumnavigates the big island of Hawaii. And I was pretty competitive at that race in my mid-40s. And that got some media attention because here was this guy who was a corporate lawyer who, you know, not so long prior had been, you know, sitting on the couch eating cheeseburgers. And now was doing very well in a discipline that was brand new to him. And he was doing it without eating any animal products whatsoever.

And so people were interested in how could that be possible? And that's sort of led to the books that I've written and you know, the advocacy that I do today. That's amazing. And, and you're, may I ask your age now? 51. He's 51. He's 51. He's putting all of us here in shame. Nah. 51.

It's, it's possible for all of us. Not everybody wants to be an athlete, certainly not an ultra endurance athlete. But I think, you know, the message that I want people to kind of take from my experience and the things that I've done is that we're all capable of much more than we allow ourselves to believe. much more than we allow ourselves to believe. And I think that applies across the board to our relationships with other people, our relationships to the planet, our relationships to our loved ones, our relationship to food and fitness, and all of these very basic human needs. So not everybody wants to go do five Ironmans on five Hawaiian islands, So not everybody wants to go do five Ironmans on five Hawaiian islands. But I think everybody has capacity to be better, to live healthier, to live more fully actualized lives. It's amazing.

We should all follow you, man. I mean, I don't know. I'm 44 right now. Do you think it's too late to start the ultra thing? No. Well, I started at 40. I think you can get going. I'll coach you up. All right. What do you want to? Well, let's sign up for a race right now do you think it's too late to start the ultra thing no i just well i started at 40 i think you could get going i'll coach you up all right what do you want to well let's sign up for a race right now 100 miler ah dude i have two knee i have two you're pretty fit i have two knee

operations i have like minisca minisca on both sides oh he starts off with the excuses i know i know i mean i'm fit in the, but I need to get my cardio back. Yeah, so what's your fitness routine? Because you're looking pretty jacked. I work out in the gym every day. I do like pull-ups, push-ups, planks, dips, weights, but I need to get back on the cardio train. I kind of feel, I do a little bit of swimming

and I haven't trained in a long time because of my knees and I need to get back to that. So swimming could be good for you train. I do a little bit of swimming and I haven't trained in a long time because of my knees and I need to get back to that. So swimming could be good for you then because it's easy on the knees, right? But it's not available like running. I need to get back to running. All right. Well, here's the deal that I'll make with you, right? Because I kind of need to get back to the gym more. I like to be outside. I like to be on the trail. I like to ride my bike. I like to swim. It's all great, but not a huge gym rat. But now at 51, functional strength and just strength in general has become much more important, particularly with respect to mitigating injury and all these other things. So I've committed to spending more time working on my strength. So if I being, spending more time working on my strength.

So if I commit to spending more time working on my strength, I'll get you into the pool. I will get you back into the pool. Whatever it is. I don't want to blow your knees out, but. No, no, I'll do the running and I'll go back, like do more swimming when I come back. But like, I'm going to actually use these three weeks in New York.

I'm going to be staying in Brooklyn. So I'm going to be running there a lot. Oh, good, man. All right, cool. So let's wrap this up. I know that in the United States, chronic lifestyle illness, heart disease, diabetes, these autoimmune diseases, obesity, high blood pressure, dementia, these are the epidemics of our age. We're now experiencing this in the Middle East for the first time in the history of humanity. It's not a small thing. These are huge, huge issues that need redress. So I applaud your commitment. You're somebody, you could just

be doing standup acts and working on your Netflixflix special or whatever and you've made this choice to be of service in a very profound way to you know these to your homeland and to these people that um you know i know you feel you have a lot of love for and feel very strongly about so thank you for doing that thank you if you could leave us with just one final message of hope and perhaps something that somebody could take away from this to start implementing in their lives to make this switch? I think we as humans, we are experts in putting so many obstacles between us from different places. And maybe health and food is one thing that can unite us. Maybe if we know that we are the same mortal bodies that have the same exact diseases because of the same habits, maybe we can get together in order to

change these habits together. And there's nothing that can unite people much. I mean, if you think that a good dish of food can unite people, maybe good health can even unite people in a much better way. Amen, brother. Yes. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. We always end the podcast. I kind of sign it off with this tagline, peace and plants. So I was wondering if you would sign us off, but do it in Arabic.

Oh, peace and plants. Okay. Salaam. We never did. How do I do it? It doesn't work? Doesn't sound good in Arabic. No?

Does that translate directly? Yeah, but like maybe salam ukhdor, maybe like peace and vegetables actually sounds better. Okay, all right. Say that again. Salam ukhdor. Salam ukhdor. Ukhdor. Ukhdor. Ukhdor.

All right, I'm never going to get there. All right. Thank you, my friend. Thank you. Come back and talk to me again, will you? I will. All right, cool. So if you want to connect with Bassem, the best way to do that is probably on one of his social media platforms.

Yeah, or listen to my podcast, Remade in America. Oh, that's right, Remade in America. That's right. We didn't even talk about that. That's exciting, man. Yes. You've come out of the gate strong with that. Yeah.

It's pretty cool. It is. So, yeah, everybody listen to that. Bassem Youssef on all the social media platforms. Pretty easy guy to track down and find, right? Thank you. Cool. Thanks, man.

Thank you so much. Good dude, that Bassem. Crazy story. What an incredible human being. Oh my Lord. Do me a favor, let Bassem know what you thought of today's conversation. Hit him up on Instagram at Bassem Youssef. On Twitter at B Youssef.

Watch his documentary, Tickling Giants. Check out his podcast, Remade in America. And don't forget to check out the show notes on the episode page on my website to extend your experience of this conversation beyond the earbuds. Another reminder, I'm doing a live screening and live podcast event, August 23rd at the Royal Lemley Theater in West LA. We are going to be screening the new documentary Running for Good, The Fiona Oaks Story, followed by a live podcast with me and the film's director, Keegan Kuhn, who you know from Cowspiracy and What the Health, as well as Fiona Oaks in person herself. It's going to be amazing. Tickets are available. Check out

the show notes on the episode page. There's a link there. Also click on appearances on my website and you'll find another link there. If you are looking for nutritional guidance beyond a typical cookbook experience or food blog, check out our meal planner, meals.richroll.com. We've got thousands and thousands of plant-based recipes, totally customized based on your personal preferences. We have unlimited grocery lists. We have grocery delivery in most US cities. We have amazing customer service and support,

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put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, and interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for graphics. Reese Robinson for photos and portraits and theme music as always by Annalema. Thanks for the love you guys. See you back here in a couple of days with a great midweek conversation with Chinese medicine doctor Colin Hudon and Ayurveda expert Jennifer Ayers. And after that, next week's show is with vegan bodybuilder Nimai Delgado.

That's coming Sunday night. It's going to be amazing. Until then, be well, do good. Peace plants. Namaste. Thank you.