The Rich Roll Podcast - Live In Dublin With The Happy Pear

Episode Date: November 30, 2017

This special mid-week edition of the podcast features a Q&A event that Julie and I hosted along with our friends Stephen & David Flynn of The Happy Pear that took place before a live audience at the gorgeous Smock Alley Theatre this past summer in Dublin, Ireland. Long-time listeners will well remember David and Stephen from #RRP 233, one of my most popular episodes of 2016. For those newer to the show, David & Stephen Flynn are the joined-at-the-hip identical twin brothers behind The Happy Pear, a family run chain of natural food stores and cafés in Ireland as well as a line of organic, locally harvested plant-based food products available across the UK. David & Stephen are also the co-authors of two incredible cookbooks – The Happy Pear (of course) and the more recently released World of the Happy Pear, both runaway, smash bestsellers across Ireland the UK. Fundamentally, The Happy Pear is a movement. A movement rooted in family and community with one singular goal — to make healthy food and lifestyle mainstream. When the super fit dads aren’t making pre-school breakfast picnics on the beach, engaging in impromptu handstand competitions, conducting community-oriented health education courses, or traveling extensively for public speaking, they enthusiastically guide a vast and devoted global audience of wellness warriors across every social media platform from YouTube to Instagram to Snapchat with an endless stream of highly entertaining, quality nutrition and fitness tips, recipes, and daily slice-of-life vlogs with inspiration for miles. David and Stephen Flynn just might be the most charismatic and emphatic advocates for healthy living I have ever met. I sincerely hope you enjoy our live presentation, which includes loads of great questions from the audience. Peace + Plants, Rich

Eating plant-based, taking a plant-based approach to your plate is the single most powerful, most positively impactful thing that you can possibly do as a conscious, compassionate consumer. It is the medicine that will prevent and reverse all of these chronic diseases. It is the way to live more sustainably and more compassionately on this planet. And it is the first portal to greater self-actualization. If you change your plate, it holds the crazy, amazing potential energy to change the planet. That's yours truly, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey people, what do you know? What is the latest? How are you feeling?

Thanks for bringing me along during your daily commute, allowing me to join you on the treadmill. Maybe you're riding your bike, maybe you're trail running, lifting weights, or secretly listening at work, hoping your boss won't overhear. Wherever you are, I hope you're good. I'm Rich Roll. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. Today's episode is the audio from an event that Julie and I hosted along with our good friends, Stephen and David Flynn of The Happy Pair that took place before a live audience at the beautiful Smock Alley Theater this past summer in Dublin when we were visiting Ireland. Long-time listeners will well remember David and Stephen from

episode 233 of the podcast. That was last June. That was a very popular episode. I suggest you definitely check it out if you missed it the first time around. For those newer to the show, David and Stephen Flynn are the joined-at-the-hip identical twin brothers behind the happy pair. And the happy pair is many things. It is a family run natural food store and cafe with locations in both Greystones and Dublin, Ireland, where the brothers conduct wildly popular health education courses for their community. It's an enterprise that also encompasses a line of organic, locally harvested plant-based food products. But mainly, the Happy Pair is a movement. Through the boys' cookbooks, their live presentations, their year-round daily dips in the Irish Sea, and through their YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram platforms, these guys are truly the face of healthy living in

Ireland, and they are inspiring millions of people all across the world to live and eat better. Before we get into it, can I read an email? Let's read an email. For reasons that will become obvious, I'm going to keep this one anonymous, and it goes like this. Hello, Rich. I am an avid podcast listener because I have a long commute and recently stumbled upon your podcast after hearing you on 10% Happier. That's Dan Harris's podcast that I recently guested on. I struggled with depression and an eating disorder almost my entire life. I am your age. I was vegan for two years, almost 20 years ago,

but became frustrated and embarrassed by it. So I gave it up and went back to eating the typical American diet and gaining and losing year after year. I am a runner too, but can't really because of chronic Achilles tendonitis. Sorry to hear about that. And a serious dressage rider. I would go off and on diets according to the latest trend and always feel frustrated and angry at myself for not being perfect. I was suicidal this past June. I almost went to the emergency room, but called a hotline instead and started seeing a new therapist. I've gone through this in the past and nothing seems to really help. Medicines, doctors, exercise, more of a temporary band-aid. I took up meditation again in September and tried to use mindfulness and yoga to help myself feel better about living this life.

Then I heard your interview, I read your book, and decided to give plant-based eating a try again. I felt better immediately. It is so much easier now than it was 20 years ago. More options and ways to eat plants, as well as easier access to ingredients. I know it is everything combined that is helping, but thank you so much for spreading your message. I feel much more out of my head now so that I have the capacity to give to my family and my students like I've always wanted, but never had the energy. I'm writing this at work quick and not that

thought out, but I just wanted to let you know how grateful I am. Well, I am grateful to you for that message. Thank you for sharing that. I'm sorry to hear what you have been going through, but I appreciate you being so vulnerable and open in sharing your story and your struggle. Life is so hard for so many people, and it breaks my heart that you got to that point where you seriously considered taking your life. But I'm very grateful that my work has seemed to strike a chord with you and is in a small way helping to ease your suffering a bit. But it's the work that you put in. It's the changes that you put in place that are making a difference. And I think that takes strength. I think it takes courage. And I commend you for

that. So, well done and keep going. It's just the beginning. And please understand that it's messages like this that really make a difference to me and make all the work that I put into this show and the other things that I do worth it. It really does. So I greatly appreciate you trusting me with that 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. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and

the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders,

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I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that 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. So, Stephen and David are two of my very favorite people on earth. They are inseparable. They are just so full of energy and charisma and infectious enthusiasm. And they joined us for a couple of days during our Ireland retreat. And then we joined them for two consecutive nights

in Dublin for these live events. And this is the audio from the second night. You can't help but love these guys. So with that being said, please enjoy this live event with audience Q&A with me, Julie, and the happy pair lads. Good evening and welcome. Good evening and welcome. I love Dublin. Oh my God, you guys are beautiful. Thank you for coming out tonight.

Thank you to Steve and Dave for organizing this amazing event. Much love for you guys and everything that you have done and the message that you are putting out to the world that is sending ripple effects across planet Earth. It's really beautiful and it's great to be here tonight to be able to share with you guys a little bit about our story, and also to include all of you. I'm really excited tonight about the Q&A part. What we're going to do is I'm just going to talk for like five minutes, and then that's the fake story, and then Julie's going to tell the real story.

These guys might say a few words, and then we're just open it up. We're gonna have kind of a roundtable discussion. So to kick things off I have a question for you guys. How many here are vegans? That's a good number. More than that man. How many here are like vegetarian like veg heads? All good, cool. And the most important question, who here thinks this whole vegan, vegetarian, veg head thing is just utter nonsense and you got dragged here by your husband or your wife or your boyfriend

and you're like, I'm not having it? You can raise your hand. Yes. Always brave person. Very brave of you. Yes, thank you. Well, we're going to go on a journey tonight. And I'm going to check in with you at the end and see how you're doing.

My name is Rich Roll. I am an ultra endurance athlete. I'm an author. This is my beautiful wife, Julie, otherwise known as Sri Mati. And I guess, you know, how can I encapsulate what I want to say in five minutes? That's tough. You give me two hours, I can go. No problem. Five minutes is rough. But I will say this. Ten years ago, I was a very different person. Ten years ago, I was 50 pounds overweight, a basic, classic,

fast food addicted, couch potato, hurtling into middle age on a crash course with lifestyle disease. And I had a health scare shortly before I turned 40. It was a very specific, crystallized moment in time where I realized how I was living was leading me in a very bad direction. And I was blessed with the willingness and the wherewithal to actually take action and do something about it. It didn't happen overnight. It wasn't linear. It was often one step forward, two steps backwards. But ultimately, I found a lot of solace in a plant-based diet. When I stumbled into eating plant-based, I didn't realize at the time it was called a whole food plant-based diet. I felt an incredible resurgence in my vitality and in my energy. For the first time in a very

long time, I had the impulse to move my body to exercise to take care of myself and I became very interested in the potential of the human experience because I became aware that I had overlooked so many important areas of my life and I wanted to search within myself to see what I was capable of what areas of my life I had overlooked. And I sort of was attracted to this world of ultra endurance sports as a template to wrestle with these questions and hopefully find answers. That's what led me into all of the races that I've done in 2008 and 2009. I did this crazy race called Ultraman. It's a double Ironman race, a 320 mile race, which over the course of three days, you circumnavigate

the big island of Hawaii. You know why it's called the big island? Because it's super fucking big. And I was as surprised as anyone to finish quite well in those races. In 2009, I was the fastest American and I was sixth overall. And in 2010, my buddy Jason Lester and I did something called Epic Five, where we did five Ironmans on five Hawaiian islands, all five Hawaiian islands, and we did it under a week. And that was something that no one had ever done. And we did it fueled on nothing but plants,

nothing but plants. But where do you get your protein? Where do you get your protein? Hopefully somebody will raise their hand and ask that question. I'll be happy to answer it because I can't answer it in five minutes. But the upshot is, or the point I'm trying to make is the results of my experiences in that world really helped me to answer these questions for myself. It helped me to understand what's important to me, how I want to invest my energy and my time. And the answer to that is in helping other people better self-actualize, to help other people find the kind of answers that I found for myself, to help them get on a better, healthier trajectory for their life. Because right now, the truth is, we're in a crazy healthcare crisis. I don't know what the stats are. In Ireland, but in the United States, one out of every three people will die of

a heart attack. One out of every three people. 50% of Americans are obese or overweight. And by 2030, 50% of Americans are going to be diabetic or pre-diabetic. This is the epidemic of our age. be diabetic or pre-diabetic. This is the epidemic of our age. It's really quite heartbreaking to hear that, especially when you discover, as I did, that about 80 to 90 percent of these chronic illnesses that are killing millions of people all over the planet are completely preventable, if not entirely reversible, through eating plant-based, by getting more veg on your plate, by being plant-centric in your approach to your diet, and changing certain rudimentary fundamental lifestyle habits. So that's what I like to talk about. I think it's never too late. I didn't start this journey until I was 40. I'm 50 years old

right now. I'm performing at an athletic level that I wasn't even able to do when I was in my 20s. Age is just a number, and I'm really happy to be here with you guys tonight to talk about all of these issues, to answer your questions, and to hopefully inspire you guys to think differently about your food choices and your lifestyle habits.

Now Julie's going to tell the real story. Woo! Is that five minutes? That was pretty good. That was good. So that was all true. That really all really happened. And I don't really know if this is where the real story is going to come out. Maybe in the Q&A it's going to come out deeper. But there's a couple of things that I think that I could share to add value. And the first is that food is the first portal to connecting to your deeper spiritual path. And a lot of us have been eating chemistry,

and a lot of us have been eating violence, and this does have an effect on your spirit. It has an effect on your ability to sense and feel and commune with your heart's deepest desires, which the universe has completely designed for your evolution and for the blessing of everyone. But I was raised in Alaska on game meat. I incarnated into a family of a big game hunter, and I grew up eating caribou tacos and moose stew and more salmon than anyone would ever want to eat. And then I found yoga and I started practicing yoga.

And I like to say that I never had to give up anything. Because when I embraced a practice of yoga and meditation, the habits gave me up. So it was very easy. Suddenly I just couldn't eat meat anymore. I couldn't drink anymore. And I started to find this deeper awareness. It was very spontaneous and very natural. And I had this condition in that I was a skinny person my whole life. So I never had issues with food. I didn't have to diet. I didn't even know what that was like. And I received what I'd like to call a gift in the form of golf ball-sized cyst in the front of my neck. And this is a condition

called thyroglossial duct cyst. It is common in children. It's a rare childhood disease that occurs in kids between the ages of 8 and 12. And I was already, you know, in my 40s, so it made no sense whatsoever. So I had been practicing yoga for quite a few years and had been eating vegetarian-ish, but I really wasn't eating food as medicine. I hadn't really connected to my body in that way. And Rich and I went and we saw some physicians and had an MRI done. And I was advised by three different physicians at UCLA that I would have to get this cut out of my neck. And it was not an easy surgery. It was kind of a medium level surgery where they would have to cut some bones and work around some delicate nerve issues. And at this time in my life, I decided to take my health

into my own hands and to work to heal myself through predominantly embracing a plant-based diet and working with an Ayurvedic physician, which is an Eastern science of medicine that incorporates lots of herbs, extremely smelly herbs. Super smelly. Super smelly. So I would have to drink this concoction of herbs that smelled like sewage, sulfur, and dirt on a nightly basis. And I would make an external paste that I would then put on the cyst. The cyst was right in the front of my neck, so it couldn't be hidden. You could really see it. And I would wrap that in a bandage. And much to everybody's horror in my family, including Rich, I just felt driven or compelled to embrace this gift and not waste it. I knew that it wasn't malignant, so I consider myself

lucky. It wasn't like you're going to die in four months, and I didn't have to face that level of seriousness, but I really took it seriously, and it wasn't pretty. In the beginning, I had hundreds of pus kind of pimples that would come out on my face, literally for three months, and it was upsetting everyone in my community. I think when we really go to heal, we have to look at the dark parts of ourselves, and this cyst was coming out on my face, and people were begging me to stop taking the herbs and just go get the cyst cut out of my neck. But I stuck with it and after about three

months it started to go down and I knew I was gaining on it and I knew that I was going to get this thing. So about a year and a few months afterwards it completely healed. It's completely gone and it never came back. This diet that I embraced during this time was predominantly a plant-based diet. There was some medicated ghee that is traditional in Ayurvedic medicine and some warm milk, sort of more as a tonic to bring the stress level down, you know, before bed. But this has been my journey into food. Um, I went through this experience before Rich became plant-based. And then, um, when he went all the way vegan, I decided out of solidarity to go vegan. Uh, and my experience has been, I've never been stronger,

healthier, and more alive since I made that final transition. Cool. So I think now we're going to open it up to Q&A because I think that's the best bit and it makes it most relevant and ever not different things which they want to get out of Rich and Julie. And maybe we can add something too. But so I think if anyone's kicking off and and ask questions i think last night we went boy girl boy girl yeah definitely boy girl boy girl so let's go girl boy girl boy yeah girl girl oh

and the roaming mic i'm just so happy to be here um i just want to say I have a question I'm a triathlete I train with the Irish team and I became vegan I turned vegan in um February and spiritually I am just I can't even I can't put it into words I feel so connected with myself I've never had this sense of self-belief and trust in myself and that was sparked when I turned stopped eating like animal products and so I feel like that's really really it's it's going really well and I'm so grateful to have to have I guess made that change or for to come to me but I am struggling with one thing and I train usually throughout the year, like four times a day, three times a day. And I am getting tired, and I have to nap all the time. And to be so, I guess, spiritually and mentally, I guess, just, I feel like healthy.

I am, I do feel like I may be lacking, I don't know. and I am I do feel like I may be lacking I don't know I feel like I'm doing I'm trying my best and I I am feeling pretty tired a lot of the time great great well thank you for your question and that's beautiful uh what you just expressed as Julie would say food really is the first portal to self-actualization and it's sort of nutty and out there as that may sound i truly believe that like you are we're all energy so doesn't it make sense that the energy that we put in our bodies is going to impact the energy that comes out of our bodies right and when we're more mindful of that vibration that we're taking into ourselves we can shift not only how we feel but our perspective on the world. It is like a portal that can open you up to many, many different things. I mean, when I started, you know, I just

wanted to lose the belly fat. Like, I just wanted to have, you know, good energy to enjoy my children. That was my only goal. And now here I am getting up in front of groups of people talking about the environmental crisis and this ethical crisis and how we're, you know, how we've created this food system that creates so much harm, not only on the planet, but on all these sentient beings. That is not what I thought I was going to be doing with my life. So I have experienced that myself. And to answer your question specifically, it's hard to give you a specific answer

without knowing exactly what you're eating and what your training program looks like. answer without knowing exactly what you're eating and what your training program looks like. I would say that it probably has just as much to do with the training load that you're trying to manage as it does with your food. There could be an overtraining aspect to what you're trying to do. At the same time, when you're training hard, you need to nap. There's nothing wrong with napping. But to the extent that there is some relationship between the fatigue that you're experiencing and the diet that you're eating, it's worth taking a look at. You might want to get a blood panel, see if you're deficient in anything, and you can make some dietary adjustments from there. But one thing I hear quite commonly when people start eating plant-based and are having that kind of

fatigue experience, it's usually because they're not eating enough calories, right? And you're somebody who's out there pushing your body very, very hard. So it could be as simple as eat more, you know? And then, you know, we could talk after and you could tell me a little bit more about what exactly you are eating and I could make some suggestions from there. And then also, you know, do you have a coach?

I'm sure if you're on the Irish team, you probably have a coach, right? Like, so there's many tweaks that can be made. But I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater and just say this plant-based thing doesn't work. Obviously, there's some aspect of it that is agreeing with you, and I think this issue can be easily rectified. I think boy now.

Do you want to go find a boy? Look at how much energy these guys have. Hi, Rich. Hi, Rich. Hi, Julie. Thanks a lot for all that you're doing. Just a couple of quick questions. Firstly, it's fasting. Where does fasting, or does it play a role in your life,

and especially when you have heavy training loads? Rich, do you do any fasting? And secondly, also, you guys are extremely busy. You have a lot of things you're trying to accomplish. How do you kind of manage living your life while also aspiring for all these great things and changes you're trying to make in the world? Great question. That's the question we just answered for the Q&A video we just made with these guys. The first part, intermittent fasting. I have begun experimenting with that a little bit i would

not hold myself out as an expert in that field but i've been playing around with how it feels and what the impact is of doing sort of short little fast like one day fast so i'll wake up in the morning and i'll train and i won't eat until until dinner time um and then see how that impacts my training throughout the week and i think the that sort of this is like an N of 1, just experiential results that doesn't have to do with any studies out there. But I've had good results with it. I think there's something to be said for training your body and acclimating your body to going without.

And the body is unbelievably adaptive, right? And if you go through short periods of depriving it of certain things, it will strengthen itself to accommodate that. I wouldn't overdo it, though. But I think this field is very interesting. There's a lot of cool research that's coming out. There are certain people that are having great results with it. And there's some indication that it is connected with disease prevention and reversal.

So I'm keeping an eye on it. And I will say the first impetus for me going plant-based at the very beginning of my journey in the wake of this health crisis, this health scare that I had, was a seven-day vegetable juice cleanse. So it wasn't a complete fast, but it was a fast from solid food, and I'd never done anything like that before in my life, and that was kind of a remarkable experience that helped me kind of reboot my operating system and got me thinking about food in a new and different way. As for the second part of the question, I'll let Julie answer that and then maybe I can chime in. What was the second part of the question? About balancing

your lifestyle with all the things that we're doing to make it all work. Oh right, well I'd like to answer the first one as well from my perspective. I think that fasting is really good seasonally. Just short for my body, I can't go a really long time. And I think using vegetables and not sweet fruits. So like a vegetable juice fast for three days or possibly on a Sunday of a week, a day when you're not doing a lot is really, really good. I also think that if you need to reset what you're doing, like Rich was saying, sometimes doing a cleanse or a fast is a great way to kind of shift and begin anew.

And then as far as... I can say one more thing about that, though, before you go on. I guess you can, because you have a mic. Yeah, yeah. I think the important thing with that is to really use it to reset your trajectory. Like, I think a lot of people, they do these cleanses or these short-term fasts or whatever periodically, and then they just go back to eating whatever they were eating before. Like, if that's what you're going to do, probably not the greatest idea. Like, use it as a tool to then reframe what you're going to do after the conclusion of that period. Yeah. And I think it's all a journey. And as you start going down the rabbit hole, different things become relevant. Like once you get stabilized as plant-based, then you might want to try fasting more. In my case, as far as balancing it, right now I'm writing cookbooks. I just finished

my first solo book called This Cheese is Nuts, and it has over 75 amazing recipes of plant-based cheeses, absolutely delicious, like a new evolution of cheese. But now I'm turning in Plant Power Italia, which is over 120 recipes of plant-based Italian food. So I won't be fasting until I turn those books in. So it's been a little bit of an imbalance because I've been in that vibration for a long time, or that task, that expression. So that's sort of mandated how I'm eating.

So that's one challenge. In terms of the balance aspect of your question, you know, there's a lot of moving pieces in what we do. You know, Julie's writing books, I'm writing books. There's events like this. We just completed this amazing retreat down in where we took 20 people through a seven-day, you know, extraordinary experience. I'm training for a race that I'm going to be racing in a race in September, and we're raising children, like there's a lot going on, and it can be difficult to apportion your energy and your time so that you're meeting all the requirements and all these categories in your life,

and you know, we do it imperfectly, but we do it with the best of intentions, and I look at all of these different things that we do as different as just different modalities or distribution methods for the same thing, the same message that we're trying to put out. So how I perform in a race is a way of me carrying the message that I'm trying to deliver to you guys today through a microphone. Same thing with the podcast and the books, et cetera. They're all just different ways of communicating with people to try to, like I said at the outset of this,

trigger or catalyze some deeper thinking and behavioral changes around food and lifestyle. Beautiful. Girl, is there any girl who'd have a, no? Great. Thank you. Hello. So I've been vegan for two years now, and I live in the States, and I've been traveling around Ireland for the last week, and I've noticed whenever a restaurant says that something's vegan, it has honey in it, and, or that's what I found so far in Ireland, but in the States, or I'm just not, I'm kind of confused. What, I want to know what your opinion on honey is and whether or not it's vegan and if it has health benefits. I'm going to let Julie manage most of that question. I think the honey thing is a trigger point for a lot of people. There's certainly

a contingent of vegans that are very anti-eating honey, a very Puritan kind of, you know, subculture within the vegan movement. We're more lax than that. Like, we do have honey in some of our recipes, and, you know, there's some indication that, you know, eating certain kinds of honey is appropriate medicinally. But I think the broader question is, you know, the sort of vegan ideology is do no harm to animals, right? But we're in this crisis right now where the bee population is dwindling. And so to the extent that there's a way to get involved in cultivating bee communities, like we have hives on our property, right? We're trying to create more beehives because this is such an important thing and we're in a crisis with this.

So the honey that we get is from these hives and it's apportioned in a way that it's not harming the bees and they're getting plenty of it. So there's not a harm quotient that gets built into that. So I think it's about how the honey is manufactured when you're trying to evaluate the impact of that choice for yourself. We have three hives in our garden and similarly the vegan religion says one should not consume honey. However, I think it's down to personal choice and I think we keep bees because as Rich said, I think there's a huge issue with colony collapse disorder and I'm curious, how do bees work? It's a perfect female colony.

Female do all the work, men do nothing but impregnate the queen um but but i but i think we take possibly one frame out of it and most beekeepers feed sugar water and that's part of the reason for colony collapse disorder so i think it's a personal choice uh in our experience i try not to use it in recipes but if we get it from the garden i'll lash into it. You know, so. Yeah, agreed. Bees are really magnificent life forms that we have a lot to learn from. And I feel that they have a spiritual energy that is beneficial to us. So I think rather than shut the door and say, I'm not going there, we need to cultivate awareness and bring them in and learn from them. but that means to understand what a gift honey is it's an offering it's a it's a reverent healing elixir that should be consumed you know very

sustainably so it shouldn't be your number one choice of sweetener and so that's my stance on it i don't use it in recipes either for this same reason but I do mention it in the Plant Power way as something we need to learn more about and become reverent about. My question is in relation to family and you both went vegan relatively late in life maybe 30s and myself my wife are transitioning I suppose as you want to say I have been slower to transition than my wife but how did your families react to it your parents brothers sisters has that been a difficult journey how do you

when you're raising your children do people react the fact that you're only feeding them a plant-based diet how has that been for you and how do you deal with it answer that first um yeah i think you know i think this is something we need to get comfortable with the bottom line is when you're shifting a paradigm you're going to make make people uncomfortable and the last people that are going to go along with you are your birth family. They're just not, you know, it's like, it's kind of set up that way. So I think with your siblings and your parents, there's going to be some, you know, some moments. But I think if you can just understand that you're creating a new way and stay in love

and compassion and just neutral in your own experience and not try to be too enthusiastic in imposing what you're going through on other people, I think that you will cultivate more of an example, like you're a shining example for them to see. It may take a long time. I mean, my own siblings and my mom still are not vegan and they eat at my house all the time and they love my food and they have my cookbooks, but they're still not vegan. So they haven't stopped and they have all the information. So you would think that our families would be, you know, they'd be like, oh, look what they're doing. Let's do it. That's not how it works. Just doesn't work that

way. But then our own family though, we came into this way of living very organically. So we've allowed everybody to have their own organic process with it and understand that, you know, when we started this, I was vegetarian, Rich was eating In-N-Out burger, then he switched to, you know, vegan diet. They have In-N-Out in Ireland. Oh, they don't, like really greasy burgers, like super greasy. McDonald's basically. And then one of our sons was more naturally vegetarian, the other one was eating what we thought was clean meat, you know, the white meat or whatever. And then our little girls have never eaten meat, but they did eat some dairy at a young age. And I think it's a journey. It's not a black and white thing. It's a process. And when you learn

to respect people at their own stage of the journey, it's much more powerful than judging them or, you know, so we need to be open and diverse and and like your what it says on the building down the road of this beautiful irish decree the city of dublin this tolerance what i don't know what that's called but you know it seems like this culture is is um very open and very tolerant of a lot of different viewpoints and that's beautiful to see. So I would, I would cultivate that perspective. Yeah. It's a dance. You know, I think food is incredibly emotional. We associate it with love and especially with our nuclear family members. So when you make this shift, it can be interpreted as a rejection of love and that complicates it and so you have to be really grounded and mindful and neutral in how

you communicate about it when you're going over to a family member's house and they're not necessarily down with the program how are you going to you know do that dance and handle it with that level of grace and I think it involves really looking at yourself and your own behaviors. What are the buttons that get pushed that make you react that then turn something into like, you know, a cascading argument and try to be this lighthouse, like this person of strength. And just because somebody else doesn't agree with you or they're giving you grief because they don't understand doesn't mean that you have to compromise your values to make somebody else feel okay. You know, this is about self-empowerment and it's about healthy boundaries. And so it does take time. You know, my parents aren't vegan. I don't know what

else I could do to try to, you know, get them. It's inevitable. But my sister is now. My sister now, after many, many years, she like messaged messaged me on Facebook maybe a year and a half ago. And she's like, did you see this movie, Forks Over Knives? And I was like, dude, I've been doing this for 10 years. But it takes what it takes. They don't want to hear it from me. They have to find their own way to it. And it's beautiful and it's great. And with respect to the children aspect of it, you know, within our own families,

our approach has always been to try to empower our kids, to understand that they are sovereign beings in their own right, and to, you know, provide them with decision-making ability for themselves, as long as we're constantly arming them with the education and the tools that they need to make those choices. So every aspect, every facet of food is a learning experience, a homeschooling experience for our kids. Take them to the farmer's market. Every booth is an opportunity to have a discussion with a farmer. Why are we getting this food and not this food, et cetera. And also teaching them at a young age how to make certain recipes.

The first recipe that we taught our boys was chia seed pudding. They loved it. That's what they want to make. And when a child knows how to make something delicious that's healthy, that's what they want to make. And they want to show you. They want to show it off. And that's that self-empowerment thing taking shape.

And, you know, they'll go off to a birthday party, and there'll be pizza, and there'll be cake, and whatever, and we allow them to make their own choice over that, and there's no shame, and there's no judgment. There might be a conversation on the car ride home about the tummy ache, and we could talk about that, but it's not about that. It's about the long term.

It's about cultivating the awareness and the mindset and the skills so that 10 20 years from now they can make the best choice for themselves can I just tell a story from Mark like an Irish context I remember we went away traveling after being a pair of meatheads and leaving and coming back and remember we talked with mom on the phone and the lads were coming home they're coming home like what do you want last you want the beef or the lamb what are we gonna have for dinner and I remember on the phone and the lads were coming home. They're coming home like, what do you want, lads? Do you want the beef or the lamb? What are we going to have for dinner?

And I remember on the phone saying, no, mom, I told you I'm a vegetarian. I'm a vegetarian. Mom was like, ah, enough of that shite, right? What are you having? You know? And anyway, we both came home and mom said, I didn't know which to cook, the beef or the lamb. So I cooked the beef and the lamb. And then mom was here last night, so I couldn't tell the full version of the story.

the beef or the lamb so I cooked the beef and the lamb and then mom was here last night so I couldn't tell the full version of the story um but uh I remember we came home my mom was like you know she was serving out everyone and she was like now Stephen what do you have the beef or the lamb and Steve said mom come on I told you I'm a vegetarian now and then mom said yeah what no son of mine's a vegetarian I prefer if you tell me you're gay than a feckin' vegetarian. You know, this was 16 years ago and she wasn't very PC. But, you know, she's probably been vegetarian for about seven years now. What's that? Get it from my mic. Yeah, yeah. But we had our first vegan Christmas last year for 17 people, the aunts and the uncles and the cousins and everyone, and they all, you know, it was gas.

So it's funny, over time, it just kind of changed. Now we're on to girl. I should get in the back. Great, there we are. Hi, I'm a mum of two, and on my second child, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. And the consultants at the time advised me to eat a mum of two and on my second child I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and the consultants at the time advised me to eat a lot of protein and said that I was lucky I was Irish because I could have a full Irish breakfast every morning, eggs for lunch and that it was

going to be really easy for me and I'm just wondering if we're thinking of having say a third child they've advised me six months in advance to change my diet, increase my protein, reduce my sugars and carbohydrates. Is there any kind of good reads that I should be thinking about on how to change my diet to think about more vegetarian and possibly vegan options with this in mind, thinking about... Yes. What's your name? Eva.

Eva. Nice to meet you. I'm not a doctor or a nutritionist, nor do I play one on the internet or in front of large groups in church-like halls. So I can't, I'm not going to give you medical advice, but I will say this. Most doctors are not well-versed in nutrition. It's not on the curriculum at most medical schools. And we're in a culture in which we have decided that doctors know everything, and we have empowered them to make decisions for us. We've turned over our decision-making authority to them, and our job is to just do as we're told. And if there's anything I can relate about my experience, Julie's experience, and the many, many people that we've encountered and met on this journey, is that it's important to take

personal responsibility for your own health, to educate yourself, so you can make the best, most informed decision about what is right for you. With respect to your specific condition, I would encourage you to educate yourself as much as possible. There are plenty of resources out there. I would start with Dr. Michael Greger's book, How Not to Die. He also has a website called nutritionfacts.org. He has short research-based videos on every conceivable ailment and food, anything you would ever want to know the answer to, chances are he probably has a video on it. Dr. Garth Davis has a book called Proteinaholic that you might want to check out, especially in light of the advice you're getting to increase

your protein intake. And I'm happy to provide you with more resources. We can talk after the event. But I would start there. And from my perspective, I would, if you're interested in an Eastern Indian perspective and how Ayurveda might balance the body and deal with those issues, I would go to ayurveda.com. It is the website for the Institute of Ayurveda for Dr. Vasant Lad,

who is a world-renowned Ayurvedic physician. And I would also seek out an Ayurvedic physician locally, someone that can take your pulse and can sort of give you an assessment of where you are. It's extremely powerful practice. If myself, with anything very serious that I'm facing, and even women's hormonal issues these type of things I always turn to Ayurveda that's my that's my thing also PCRM.org which is dr. Neil Bernard's organization he's written a book called prevent and reverse diabetes I think that's the title something like that I would I would check he's dead yeah he's brilliant a male question now. Any lads? Yeah, this guy here.

Christy. Cheers, yeah. Hiya, Rich. Just want to check with you how the plant-based diet affects your macros. And I'm sure you change your diet according to your training as well, coming up towards your races. You probably balance a little bit with the carbohydrates and fats. And if you could, you know, say something about that.

Have you seen his calves um that's an interesting question you know the the the most honest answer i can give you is i don't think about it i really don't like i i know there's a lot of people that put a lot of thought and planning into their ratio of macros, carbohydrates to fats, to protein, etc. I will say this, I eat lots of carbohydrates. I eat a tremendous amount of food. I eat when I'm hungry. I basically, my rule is eat plant food as close to its natural state as possible. And from there, I don't get too caught up in the specifics and the details. When I'm training for a performance goal, I'll be a little bit more mindful of it. I do a lot more super nutrient-dense smoothies, and I make sure that I get my healthy fats and all that kind of stuff. But I don't overthink it. And I think the point behind that really is you got to find a way to make it sustainable in the

construct of your busy life. And in my experience, people that get really caught up in very specific protocols around these kinds of ratios, et cetera, they tend to burn out. You know, they'll like do it for a while and then it just becomes too onerous because we're busy living our lives, right? So for me, I'm just eating lots of super, you know, nutritious plant foods as much as possible. That's the truth. Female? Okay, yeah, great. The girl, the no-sayer. Where do you get your protein?

Dudes! Where do you get your protein? Have you ever been asked that one before, Rich? I know. Thank God somebody asked that question. Could we have possibly gone through this whole evening without somebody asking that? Beautiful. Where do I get my protein? I get my protein in the same place

some of the largest, most ferocious, powerful land animals on Earth get it. The elephants and the Cape buffalo and the gorilla, I just get it lower on the food chain. So beans and greens, nuts and seeds, etc. There's a lot of confusion and misunderstanding around protein and our protein requirements. Essentially, when we're talking about protein, I wish the word protein didn't even exist because it creates so much confusion. confusion essentially we're talking about amino acids the building blocks of protein and specifically the essential amino acids the nine amino acids that our bodies cannot synthesize on our own and we need to get them from

the foods that we're eating but those nine essential amino acids are found in almost every plant like different plants have different proportions of them. Some don't have all the amino acids we need, but nature's almost rigged it. Whereas if you just graze randomly on plant foods all day long, you are not going to have a problem meeting your recommended daily allowance of protein, which is about 10% of calories.

The World Health Organization actually has set that standard much lower, around the 2% to 3% of calories taken in every day. And we're in this culture where we've been brainwashed to believe that if we don't drink a massive protein shake in the morning immediately upon waking up, that we're going to be unable to breathe air in and out of our lungs. It's like, it's insane. There's no study that I'm aware of that shows that intake of protein beyond your recommended daily allowance has any impact on you being healthier or recovering more quickly or getting bigger muscles or anything like that. Most people are eating two to five times the amount of protein that they should be eating. So the truth is, it's really a non-issue. It's like this red herring. We shouldn't

even be talking about it. What we should be talking about is how are we getting more fiber in our diet? We're mostly fiber deprived. No doctor that I know, all the doctors that are in my orbit as a result of this journey and the podcast that I do, none of them have ever treated a patient for a protein deficiency. And yet most people are walking around incredibly fiber deficient, and that's a contributing factor to so many of these diseases and the obesity that we're seeing. I think to try and statistic, I think 8 out of 10 Irish people don't get enough fiber.

Wow. Okay, there you go. But not these people. No one statistic, I think eight or ten Irish people don't get enough fiber. Wow. Okay, there you go. But not these people. No one here, I'm sure. I think it's a boy question. Oh, yeah. Good evening. I remember the first time I heard your name, Rich.

It was said to me by a yoga teacher that I knew, and I found yoga first, and that was my in to realizing that we're all connected and there's no difference really between us. So I'm really nervous talking right now, so I'm just going to acknowledge that fact and carry on, okay? What's your name? My name is Kevin Kiley Jr., and I own one of the owners of the old fire station, a vegetarian vegan restaurant, Limerick. Beautiful. Yeah. So my question is going to come at the end,

but I just want to say something into your spirit because you deserve to hear it, okay? I'm an actor, so it's really apparent and apt that we're here, and this is where we meet. It's bizarre to me, really bizarre. A year ago, I was in the Happy Pear Cafe. Derek Hartigan asked me would I do a triathlon series, and I said yes. Never done one before, and I fucking hate swimming, but I said yes anyway, and I did 10 triathlons in a year. I also want to say that when I was in London I became successful. My first job out of drama school was at the Old Vic. My second job was the Dark Knight Rises. My third job was the cop that gets murdered in World War Z

off the motorbike. So I was successful in going going somewhere I was never so upset or or disconnected then when I was being successful and I developed a gambling addiction and I was homeless twice in London so I just want to say that for me to be a businessman for me to not be an actor anymore, to turn to owning a restaurant, and the fact that that's more important than being a successful actor, that journey happened because I found out about you. you. So everything that you've done has got a resonance with me and I'm really grateful to just say thank you. My question is, as a vegetarian vegan business owner, how do you guys cope with allowing milk to be sold on your premises and allowing butter to be on the

scones even though they're vegan how do you kind of show how do you kind of show beyond the looking glass without being judgmental and harsh and angry kind of how do you let people in without pushing them away? That's my question. Brilliant, well done.

Terrence, wasn't it? Your name is Terrence or Kevin sorry. I got lost in your story. It was fabulous. I think it's... Kevin. I think none of us are perfect. I think when we started the Happy Pair in Greystones, a small community south of Dublin where there was 15,000 people, no extra vegetarians and what we really needed was community sport. And we were going out on a limb, even serving, being a vegetarian cafe, and we were two stinking hippies that most people were suspicious we were selling drugs out the back.

So I guess we saw dairy as an entry point to people eating more veg. And for many people who'd come in and go, I'm not into this fecking vegetarian shite, you know, this type of thing. But then they'd see a cheesy thing and they go oh that looks nice I'll start with that and before they know it they're eating dahl or eating brown rice and they're starting to become a little healthier so I think even for it was last last month we sat down me Dave and Dara who kind of work kind of we started the company and we kind of you know it's

very much in our heart and we've been eating a vegan diet for about 16 years. And all our YouTube videos are and our latest cookbook's exclusively vegan. And I guess we're much more that way. It was like, is it time to turn it vegan? And then dad was very adamant. Well, you've got to be an entry point. You're trying to make healthy food more accessible to everyone. And vegan makes it a niche.

And many people, it turns it into exclusive. So we try to not even brand it as vegetarian it's just healthy food and if people are vegan great if they're not sure enjoy your steak try to eat a bit more veg I guess that's our point that ultimately we're all gonna die and no one's getting out of here alive so I think it's to do the best we can and I think there's a huge amount of research saying the more whole plant foods you eat the healthier you're gonna be so I think it's to do our best and to not suffer the Irish guilt stick. Yeah. And if I can just add too, is I think sometimes we get tripped up in this absoluteness and, you know, I'm a chef and I just released a plant-based book on cheeses, right? And I did that

in service to the planet. It's dedicated to Gaia and all of her children, including the cows, including the goats, including us. However, when I was doing my book launch, I did some videos with Neil Barnard, Dr. Barnard, who just released the cheese trap. And I use coconut oil in most of my cheeses. And he doesn't advocate coconut oil, but we came together over these videos

and we made cheese together. I don't serve milk in my home. I don't serve animal products in my home. These guys have made the decision to do it in their cafe and we collaborate together. All I do is love them. We need to connect in the ways we're more similar. If you feel like it's your life, like, mission

to have a totally vegan cafe and you want to draw that line, then I support you in that. I completely trust you and believe in you to do what's right, just as I trust these guys. I trust them completely to the ends of the earth. And I've got their back, and I've got your back. And we have to get out of this absolute. I trust you to make the right choice.

I trust you to not eat honey if that's your choice. And I trust me also to have my own experience. Woo! to have my own experience. Woo! APPLAUSE I was just going to chime in by saying it's about including people. I think that's something that, like, bringing,

attracting people rather than, like, we found if we... I think when we first became vegan back, like, 16 years ago, we were fecking weirdos and we were already socially exclusive and every time you went to dinner in someone's house, it was like, oh, what are you eating eating why don't you eat meat and it was like i don't know we sell dairy products and it includes people and we're doing our best uh i think just just to like tag on to that a little bit. I mean, I think the umbrella issue, the broader issue is, is creating that welcome mat, creating a, you know, cultivating a sense of, of inclusion and welcomeness for the uninitiated.

And I think there's, you know, there's a contingent of the, of the ardent plant-based vegan community that get very caught up in the minutiae and the details and it can be off-putting to somebody who perhaps might be interested if the presentation of the information was a little bit softer and gentler and i think that's kind of the approach that you guys are trying to to foster right very eloquent much more elegant to say. We do girl question. Great. Maybe I'll do this girl. This is still a dairy-related question.

So I'm not vegan, so I would be in the happy pair with my milk and my coffee eating a vegan meal. So it's good that you do that. My question is, Julie, you mentioned earlier that when your girls were younger, they had dairy.

Was that a choice to give them dairy, or were you not yet vegan at that point? Yeah, we weren't vegan yet at that point. So it was organic, you know, very limited. Maybe yogurt once in a while, something like that. Or a piece of pizza at a party, something like that. Okay. It's just, you know, obviously when you have young kids and you're deciding whether or not to be vegan or give up dairy, but you give it to your kids,

how do you wrestle with your choosing not to have that? And I'm sure you guys are the same. You're not having that, but is it okay for them to have it? Or will the grannies go crazy if you don't let them have any milk? I just think, I mean, I know that dairy is not good for us at all. So, you know, that's my experience. That's my awareness. Um, in my own experience, it caused, um, a lot of inflammation in my sinuses. It caused cystic breakouts on my face. Um, I just, I don't think it's good for any of us. Uh, that being said, it tastes good and we have an emotional component and also an evolution in it. And that's why I spent two years and I came up with an entirely new technology to actually,

and I say technology, it's so simple and so easy. We made three recipes together today. They were freaking out at how easy these recipes are. So you can make these delicious, creamy cheeses out of nuts, seeds, tofu. It's easy. It's simple. You can all do it at home. So we have to start to look beyond our taste buds and into the environment and what our choices are doing to our health first, also to the planet, and also to our animals. And this is Cheese 2.0. It's an amazing,

really just an amazing body of work, and I'm extremely proud of it, and I hope you'll check the book out. I think it's tricky when you have small children, right? Every parent wants to do right by their kids, and it's terrifying because every day you're presented with decisions, and you're like, oh my god, am I doing the right thing? Am I not doing the right thing? And it's easy to just do what everyone else is doing, right? Because there's comfort in that, there's safety in that. And it's challenging to say, I know every other small child is eating this way, but I'm going to eat this way. It's a scary thing, right? It takes courage to step outside of that. But, you know, I've met tons of people that have vegan babies, have raised vegan children from

day one. And, you know, it's a weird thing when you kind of realize that we're the only species that drinks the milk of another animal. It's like we've made this cultural decision that this is okay. And it's just so integrated into our culture. But it's kind of weird. It's a little bit weird, right? And to, like, challenge that, then you're a crazy person, right? But, you know, the hormones and the sort of nutritional components of dairy milk are basically concocted to blow up a tiny calf into, like, this thousand-pound beast in a very short period of time. Is that really what we should be taking into our own bodies and so i would encourage you to again you know neil bernard's

name is going to come up he's done a lot of work around this and there's lots of resources on his website pcrm.org about raising uh raising kids without dairy so maybe check that out as well. I think we've time for two more questions. So I think it's girl or boy. Steve-O. I was the boy one. Hi, Rich. A question that probably has multiple layers, unfortunately. You mentioned Neil Bernard and a lot of doctors who you've also spoken to on your podcast and probably generally. There seems to be an awful lot of mainstream medical professionals who are cottoning on to a plant-based lifestyle being one of the ways forward to revolutionize how we become more healthier as a society. to revolutionize how we become more healthier as a society.

What do you think is the stumbling block or what will be the catalyst to change perception in more wider medical community and public consciousness? Because that seems to be the thing that's most lacking. Yeah, I would agree with that. We're in a war of ideas right now. And we have a divide within the medical community. There's a contingent, a growing contingent, and a very passionate contingent of the medical community that is realizing that this research around plant-based nutrition with respect to not only just living well, but disease prevention and disease reversal is really potent. But it basically requires like a leap of faith. If somebody's been practicing medicine for 20 or 30 years, and you're presenting them with something that's so radically different from everything that they ever thought, the way that they see the world, it's going to take time,

you know, and we're seeing it happen. I mean mean it is just the fact that all of you guys are here tonight and there's so much enthusiasm and excitement about these ideas, I'm very optimistic about the future. But it is challenging in the sort of forum of popular opinion because you're telling people like, hey all those things that you like to eat, you gotta stop eating them. And people, you know, psychologically want to hear good news about the bad habits. So when you tell them they should be putting butter in their coffee and it's great to eat bacon, you know, for breakfast and it's healthy and this is what you should be doing, this high fat, high protein diet, they're more likely to jump on board with that because that is consistent with the way that they would like to eat and live their

life. So you have this challenge. There's this hump that we got to get over and I think the way that we're gonna win this war of ideas is to, it's really from, it's from the top up, it's from the bottom down. So it's a grassroots movement. I really think that we're gonna win the hearts and minds by, by events just like this. You know, people getting together to talk about these things, taking these ideas back into their own lives and incorporating them into their daily habits and sharing it with their communities and their loved ones. And from the top up, there's a lot of work that has to be done at the government level. We need to get, you know, corporate funds out of some of this research.

We need to do a better job of how we vet all of these studies that, you know, get put out into the world that journalists cover without even reading who funded these studies. There's a lot of work that needs to get done there. We need to overhaul how governments subsidize certain industries like animal agriculture that depress the prices of these products and make unhealthy foods the cheapest foods. And that's really a driver in, you know, a lot of these problems that we're having. So it has to come from both sides. And there's a lot of work that needs to get done. I don't think there's any magic bullet about it, but I think we all need to understand that, you know,

we're up here talking about these ideas, but every single one of you is an agent of change. Every single one of you. You have the information and you have a choice. Are you going to use this information and how are you going to share it? Understand that you're all very powerful. You have the power. You have the potential energy to impact not only the trajectory of your own life, but the lives of those that surround you. And never forget that. Take that to heart. And really, I think that is the way forward.

Beautiful. Just to give an Irish context to that, Steve, last night we met the fourth Irish plant-based doctor that we've met. And it was very interesting. She sent us a text this morning. I sent Steve one, which you'll read out. This is quite interesting.

She or he. She or he, yeah. Just wanted to thank you for putting on such a good evening with rich role and julie also didn't get a chance but wanted to say thank you for you and dave for helping me with my plant-based journey okay a few years ago i was diagnosed with a kind of complicated word and reactive and reactive arthritis walking was difficult and i felt rotten i was offered nasty drugs by my rheumatologist and told I shouldn't try to run anymore long story short I decided to ignore conventional medicine even though as a doctor and try plant-based your books and blog kept me fed and played a big role in teaching me

how to cook vegan I'm now completely well I'm back running again plant power all the way which is quite but. But even more, we've been doing the Happy Heart course for years, and we've probably seen thousands of people reduce the symptoms of cardiovascular disease or some of the measurements. And last year, we were invited to the Royal College of Surgeons to talk to 80 doctors. And I remember Dave was absolutely shitting himself.

Excuse my language. Oh, Dave, we're going to go into the doctors. They're going to grill us. they're going to rip us apart like tigers being fed a lion, or a lamb. And we went in, and we just spoke of our own experience, and they were so receptive, amongst the most receptive people

we've ever spoken to. And even this year we were invited to Galway Hospital to talk to the... I think they were trainee doctors, there was about 200 of them, but it was amazing to see how receptive and interested and just really, really... It was a totally different kind of paradigm for us.

And there's four plant-based doctors in Ireland, which is... I think there's a lot of change happening, which is fabulous. I think we've got time for another one or two questions. I think it's a girl now. I think we'll go time for another one or two questions. I think it's a girl now. Girl. Anyone?

I think we'll go down in the back just because you already did that. Hi, I've got two questions, if that's okay. First of all, do you take any supplements? Do we take any supplements? Can we answer that question first? That's the first question. Yeah. Occasionally a B12.

I'm not super strict about it. When I see it there, I'll take it. I think not like super strict about it. Like when I see it there, I'll take it. I think the lads have the same experience with that. But, you know, I've had my own journey with supplements. When I first started this, I was still trying to break free of all this conventional wisdom. And I, you know, went out and bought all kinds of plastic tubs of all sorts of things and, you know, have slowly weaned myself off of them, wondering whether these things are doing anything or I'm just wasting my money. And now I really don't use anything other than the occasional beach well. I get my blood work done every three to six months. Everything's super in check and perfect. Occasionally a little plant-based protein and a smoothie, but by no means a daily occurrence.

And so I think supplements are okay. If you have a deficiency, you can are okay if you have a deficiency. You can find out if you have a deficiency if you get a blood panel done. Then you can address that. But supplements are to supplement. We shouldn't be looking to supplements to meet our nutritional needs. Our nutritional needs should be met from the foods that we're eating, whole plant-based foods close to their natural state. On top of that, if there's something that you need to tweak, perhaps you're vitamin D deficient. A lot of people are. It has nothing to do with being vegan or not being vegan.

Then that's something that you need to look into and address and either eat more vitamin D fortified foods or supplement. But first, understand what your baselines are and then kind of go from there. And yeah, that's all really in alignment with me as well. However, in addition to a whole food plant-based diet and B12, I also take Ayurvedic herbs on top of my food. My second question is for you, Julie. How did you discover yoga? How did I discover yoga? Well, let's see. I just started going to my local yoga studio. I actually met this very controversial fellow named Steve Ross, and he taught yoga to loud hip-hop and funk music. And I remember doing his class the first time, and I was shaking so bad. Like, my whole body was shaking uncontrollably, and there was sweat streaming down my body.

And I wanted to go back so badly, I just couldn't even handle it. So that actually helped me get the bug. I stopped practicing with him some years after that and went into a very deep practice in another way. We met in that class. We met in that class, actually. into a very deep practice in another way. We met in that class. We met in that class, actually. So it was really just in a community class,

and then it opened up a whole world of beautiful, beautiful practices. I really believe that yoga as a science, asana as well as meditation and pranayama, these are sacred techniques that are what I call shelter. They offer a shelter from this very intense life. And without those practices, I would not have lived such a beautifully meaningful,

miraculous life. So any way you can find it in any form, it's the foundation of everything that I do. And had I not had that connection, Rich and I wouldn't have had this journey together because what was underneath this plant-based journey was a very very deep spiritual connection and conviction about what we were supposed to do and I was holding that theme for many many many years. So find some yoga everybody, meditate.

And maybe maybe last question, quick one one quick one chris you have to spring stuff up so we have to ask you cheers man how's it going guys uh delighted to be here and uh yeah you're all brilliant some of my favorite humans in the world sitting up there so thanks very much i actually first saw rich i saw you on one of the lads youtube videos and you were talking about microbiome. And I was like, this fella looks smart with his glasses. Check out this podcast.

I fooled you. Jesus, that podcast, honestly, it sent me on a serious trajectory, man, to just crushing life across the board. It's absolutely amazing. And I've put about four or five of my mates onto it in the last year and literally three of them in the last six months have gone totally plant-based, purely from your podcast, so it's amazing stuff.

So I'm obviously sold on plant-based stuff. It's really the way for me. I have a huge family, is the issue, one of these big Irish families, like brothers, brothers sisters nieces nephews cousins aunts uncles like beckon loads of them and none of them have a clue what being vegetarian or vegan you know what I mean is about so I don't really know where to begin and I do find as well particularly with the family there they won't read anything or they won't look at anything if you give it to them they want all the information from you directly when

they're sitting down chatting if they give you an ear for a few minutes so I found myself having to just dig out all the information listening to Neil Bernard Michael Greger all of it and educate myself so I'm trying to to help people get get the message across and but it weighs on me a little bit and I'll give you an example. So I'm from Cork, but I just came up to, to, to come to this for a couple of days. I got some family here in Dublin and I'm staying with them right for two, three days, my aunt and uncle. And, um, I haven't seen them in about a year and a half and they're both looking a bit unhealthy now, like just aging fairly rapidly.

And if you look inside the fridge, you'll know why. You know, it's bacon rashers, milk, eggs, the whole shebang. And just today, I called over to my grandmother, and I was walking back to their house. And they'd gone out. They'd given me the number to get into the house. So I walk into the house, and there's the smell of smoke, and I walk inside, right, frying pan's been left on, there's nobody in the house, sure I'm only up visiting, and I opened up the top of the pot that was in there, and it was just beef being cooked, right, and I'd been left there, and it

was all black, and there's smoke coming out of it, like, and I'm going, fucking hell, like, I'm just up here visiting, what if I hadn't come back in here to the house like the whole thing could have gone up like so go mad like so I'm kind of taking this as a sign like you need to share the information with them like you need to push a little bit to help them see the madness that they're doing by eating the stuff that they're eating but as far as when I mean, so all day, that's where my head was, all day, how can I prepare something inside my head

to get the information across to them which is the least pushy and the most inviting. But honestly, it wrecks my head. I'm stuck up at night trying to meditate half the time, thinking of these conversations I'm having with my family. I see all the little babies getting fed bacon and ham and all this stuff.

And it's hard. So I don't know if any of you is going to resonate with it, but how might you go about managing that and keeping yourself in a good headspace and centered to be able to help other people? Yeah, it's a tough question. It's kind of like what we were talking about earlier. It's a dance, right?

And I think that the first thing you have to kind of recognize is that they might not get it, right? So it's your relationship to the results of this advocacy that you're trying to share with them, right? And your desire, your need, your attachment to this result, that they're going to see things the way that you see them and change their behavior. That is a setup that usually doesn't go so well. So the first thing you have to do is, first of all, be convicted in your own habits, learn how to stand in your strength as a lighthouse, and detach from the results of this. You will have a much better chance in actually activating them or catalyzing change if you can get into a scenario in which they're approaching you as opposed to you approaching

them. You know, when you roll up on them and start, you know, giving them a laundry list of all the things that they're doing wrong in their life, it's probably not going to go so well, right? So you being a vibrant, healthy human being and choosing your moments where, like, hey, bring your own food that's delicious, you know, and be an example for these young people. Ultimately, over time, like, they will see that light in your eyes, and they'll be like, hey, what's going on? You know, like, what's going on? You know, like what's going on?

And I think you need to like take a little bit of the emotional charge out of it. There's a book by a guy named Doug Lyle. It's called The Pleasure Trap. It's all about this. You might want to read it. You might find it helpful. But, you know, it's a process. You know, it's a process.

Yeah, and I would say just, you know, just make some really incredible food, you know, come just on the positive, come with your arms full, like, and if you can't cook or you're not at home, then go to the happy pair. Like just come with stuff, like lots of stuff, make a salad. Just be like, oh, cool. You know, I brought you all these organic or just say veggies. I brought some salad. Just start making it. Make it like positive. And then, you know, that's the best way. I think that's the best way. And when you show up with amazing food and people eat it and there's no like dialogue behind it or there's no teaching or test, you know, just make amazing food, commune with love, be love, and, you know, have compassion

and understand everybody's in their own journey. And definitely keep an eye on that stove. I mean, you guys might have, you probably have. I just have a quick point that I'd just say that, like, I think like for the first couple of years when we became vegan or vegetarian, we were like preachers.

We were horrible. You know, everyone fucking hated us. Particularly at family events, events was the center of every conversation it was awful like and uh i think we realized after a period of time that like gee shit no one's getting it this way so we just shut our mouths and people would eventually start asking you questions going oh what's that what are you eating and and the conversation kind of shifted where we kind of just felt we as rich said when you take the charge out of where you're not kind of always trying to defend your corner when you're when you're kind of feel comfortable with it for you you're doing it for yourself not to preach to others you know that kind of way so it was almost for ourselves it was like making peace with you

know i don't have to preach to everyone you know i don't know if that's any use so last one for joe us any use. Joe, last one for Joe. Hi, it's not a question. It's just a comment from the guy from Cork. I'm plant-based for about 13 months and I come from a big family as I'm from Tipperary. Go on,

Tip. We'll win on Sunday, yeah so we um big family loads of kids mom and dad like you know definitely overweight but um very happy very meat-based family and we just became vegan like about 14 months ago i think and not like exactly what you guys were saying i'm literally nodding it's exactly what I want to say they started to like look at our food and be like what what is that can I taste it and then it was way more delicious than what they were eating and slowly but surely they've you know they eat a lot more veg but my sister has struggled with her weight for like her whole life and the two of us she's a little bit older than me so it's always harder for her to

look at me never struggling and never having problems and then little by little she kept looking at me every time I saw her um she lives in Cork and she was like you know what fuck this I'm sick of going on that spinning bike I'm sick of like all of these struggles that I'm having I'm going vegan and she went to her boyfriend who also struggles with his weight and has lots of health problems and said look we're going to be vegan and he was like okay's do it. So they've just got back from this camping trip all over Ireland. They got this little stove and they're vegans for about two months, I think. And he's got a blog called the fat vegan cork. Cause he said, you know, people are going to be in restaurants going, that guy can't be a vegan. He's way too fat. So he decided to embrace it and

go, do you know what? This is me. This is who I am. And this is what I'm going to do. This is my journey through plant-based life as a fat person. And you should look him up, the fat vegan Gork. And just by being that person, being that like vibrant person, just being yourself. And my sister, another sister, there's loads of us, asked me, oh God, what's your makeup? You know, what makeup are you using? My other sister said, she's not, it's not her makeup it's inside her body what she's putting in and that's what's what you're seeing isn't this a makeup thing it's what's coming from inside and we can be the change and you are just being yourself will be enough namaste beautiful yeah all right Rich, do you want to do a wrap up? Yeah, let's wrap things up here

So Hippocrates got it right However many thousands of years ago When he said Let food be thy medicine And medicine be thy food It's so profound I'd heard it growing up in school, but I never really thought about it. And I've experienced it now, and everybody up here

has experienced it, and most likely many of you in this room have experienced that. Food can heal. It's super powerful. And in addition to all of the crazy health care crises that we're weathering at the moment, at the same time, the population of the planet is growing at an alarming rate. Pretty soon we're going to have 8 million people on the planet. How are we going to feed everybody? Our system of feeding the planet, animal agriculture, factory farming, is broken. It's unsustainable. It's incredibly wasteful. And it's decimating our planet's precious and dwindling resources. Right now, we're in the midst of

the biggest mass species extinction since the dinosaurs. We are raping and pillaging the Amazonian rainforests at a ridiculous rate, something like one to two football fields every second. This is the planet's lungs. This is how we create oxygen in the atmosphere. Animal agriculture uses way too much land, way too much water, and it's polluting our water table. It's acidifying our oceans. It's creating these massive dead zones where nothing can live. This is insanity. If an alien came down to our planet and said, show me how you make your food, and we show them what we're doing, they would say, what is wrong with you people? We need a better way. The great thing is, there is a better way, and it's been staring us in the face all along. Because every meal, every plate where you swap off the

animal products and replace them with plant foods saves a tremendous amount of resources. Tremendous amount of resources. Animal agriculture also contributes more greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere than all of transportation combined. Think about that for a minute. And as citizens, as consumers, it's easy to feel disenchanted, like our vote doesn't count. I can't make a difference. I'm just one person. It's a huge problem. Who can do anything about it? But when you make that choice, you are making a difference. You are taking a stand for yourself. You're making a statement about what you believe in.

You are aligning your actions with your values. And that has consequences, positive consequences to everybody around you. It's very powerful. It's very empowering. And together, if we embody this ethos, we really can make a difference. Because the truth is, eating plant-based, taking a plant-based approach to your plate is the single most powerful, most positively impactful thing that you can possibly do as a conscious, compassionate consumer. It is the medicine that will prevent and reverse all of these chronic diseases. It is the way to live more sustainably and more compassionately on this planet.

And it is the portal, the first portal, to greater self-actualization. If you change your plate, it holds the crazy, amazing potential energy to change the planet. So with that said, I wish you all well. Thank you for coming here tonight. Take this into your life and be the agent of change for yourself and make the world All right. I hope you guys enjoyed that.

Please make a point of checking out this week's show notes on the episode page for this episode at richroll.com. Lots of resources to take the experience of this conversation beyond the earbuds, including a list of all the Happy Pairs cookbooks, which I strongly suggest that you guys check out. If you would like to support my work, please make a point of subscribing on Apple Podcasts on iTunes. It only takes a moment and it really does help with the show's visibility. It helps extend reach. It helps expand the audience, which in turn will make it easier for me to book the very best people for future episodes. Other ways you can support my work.

You can share this podcast with your friends and on social media, leave a review on Apple podcasts, subscribe to my YouTube channel, where we have videos of many of the episodes going forward, youtube.com forward slash richroll. We also have a Patreon account if you want to support me financially. And I'm providing exclusive content to Patreon supporters in the form of monthly live video AMAs, ask me anything. But you've got to be a Patreon supporter to have access to that. The next one is coming up soon. I'm going to be scheduling it shortly and we'll let all of you guys know. You can also follow me on Twitter and on Instagram. I'm at

richroll. And you can also subscribe to my weekly free newsletter called Roll Call by entering in your email address and any of the email capture windows on my website. It's a free weekly newsletter, just five or six things I came across over the course of the week that I found inspiring or interesting or helpful. That's it. As I mentioned in the last episode, I am looking for a new filmmaker slash photographer slash editor to collaborate with for a rundown on the exact details and qualifications for this gig. Please see the blog post for this episode at richroll.com. I want to thank everybody who helped put on today's show, Jason Camiolo for audio engineering,

production, show notes, and interstitial music, Sean Patterson for graphics, and theme music by Annalema. See you guys in a few days. Until then, peace, plants, and namaste. Thank you.