The Rich Roll Podcast - Michael Greger, M.D. On How Not To Die

Episode Date: December 7, 2015

A graduate of Cornell and Tufts University School of Medicine, Dr. Greger has published in a litany of scientific journals, testified before Congress and lectured at countless symposiums and instituti...ons, including the Conference on World Affairs and the National Institutes of Health. He was even an expert witness in the infamous Oprah Winfrey meat defamation lawsuit and has appeared all over television on shows like Dr. Oz and The Colbert Report. By day, Michael Greger, MD, FACLM can be found crafting high level policy initiatives as Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture for the Humane Society of the U.S. But more often than not he's traipsing the globe, hopping from podium to podium to deliver one of the hundreds of lectures he serves up annually. By night, Dr. Greger scours thousands of medical journals in search of the world's best, most objective nutrition research to bring you free videos and articles every single day as chief wizard behind NutritionFacts.org– the world's most authoritative, non-profit online destination for all things nutrition, health and disease prevention. If you've never before visited this site, I highly suggest you check it out immediately. A comprehensive clearinghouse that inspects every imaginable facet of nutrition and health, NutritionFacts.org features hundreds of impeccably researched, easily understandable and straight to the point videos — always my first stop when I want to get to the bottom of any question I have about food, diet and disease. Apparently Dr. Greger doesn't sleep. Because amidst all of this, he still found time to write a new book that hits booksellers everywhere this week. But How Not To Die* isn't just any book — it's a straight up game changing must read. Clocking in at over 600 pages, it's an exhaustive, heavily researched, encyclopedic examination of how nutritional and lifestyle interventions can help prevent and even reverse the 15 top causes of premature death in America. Not only has Dr. Greger delivered a ground-breaking tome for the ages, 100% of fees and proceeds he receives from speaking and book sales are donated to charity. Quite a powerful testament to this man's level of selfless service to humanity. If you are a long-time listener, you know Dr. G and I go way back. He was one of my very first guests on the RRP. Now he’s back to talk more about his life, his research, and How Not To Die – a subject I think we can all get behind. Specifics covered include: * the core idea behind How Not To Die * the daily dozen foods to focus on * the fifteen leading causes of death * confirmation bias in nutritional research * conflicts of interest in scientific studies * independent studies & objective criticism * reconciling reductionism with holistic analysis * auto-immune disorders * organic vs. non-organic foods Enjoy! Rich

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Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:01 There's no reimbursement mechanism for a doctor keeping people healthy and talking to them about things they can do to prevent illness because doctors are reimbursed by procedure, like pills and procedures. That's what they get money for. That's what sends their kids through college, not how healthy their patients were. That's the great Dr. Michael Greger. And this is the Rich Roll Podcast. Thanks for dropping by.
Starting point is 00:00:34 The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, you guys. My name is Rich Roll. Welcome to my show, the show where I do my best. I try. I really do try to have the most meaningful conversations I can possibly have about things that matter with the best and the brightest, the most forward-thinking minds across all categories of health, wellness, fitness, entrepreneurship, environmentalism, mindfulness, spirituality, and consciousness. And in the case of today's guest, health,
Starting point is 00:01:02 nutrition, and medicine. The name of the game to help all of us unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves, and along the way, hopefully create a positive footprint for a better world. Anyway, thanks for tuning in today. I appreciate you subscribing to the show on iTunes, for taking a moment to leave us a review there as well. And of course, for always using the Amazon banner ad for all your Amazon purchases, the holiday season, it is now upon us, you might find yourself on Amazon trying to pick up a gift for somebody. Well, it would mean a lot
Starting point is 00:01:36 to us. If you could first take that extra microsecond, click through our banner ad doesn't cost you a cent extra on any of your purchases. It just shakes loose a little bit of loose Amazon commission change from their voluminous coffers up there at Amazon HQ. And that really helps us keep the bandwidth flowing. So I really appreciate everybody who has made a habit of that. Okay, so a lot of anticipation about today's guest. I'm really excited. He is truly one of my favorite people, the wizard behind nutritionfacts.org, which is my favorite online destination for all things nutrition, health, and disease prevention. My good friend, the one and only Dr. Michael Greger himself. And I got a bunch more I want to say about him before we get into the interview. But first, shall we take care of a little business? All right, lots of excitement and
Starting point is 00:02:32 anticipation about today's guest, one of my very, very favorite people, a graduate of Cornell and Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Michael Greger is a physician. He's an author and an internationally recognized professional speaker on a wide array of important public health issues. When he's not traveling relentlessly to lecture, this guy's on the road constantly. By day, he serves as director of public health andours the world's best, most objective, and ironclad nutrition research to bring you free videos and articles every single day. A new video every single day. Amazing. On his incredibly informative nonprofit website called nutritionfacts.org.
Starting point is 00:03:17 If you have not been to this site, I suggest that you hit pause immediately and go check it out right now. It's always my first stop when I want to get to the bottom of any question I have about food, diet, health, or disease, and I cannot overstate just what an incredible resource it is. A robust, unbelievably comprehensive clearinghouse, essentially, on every imaginable facet of nutrition and health. Each of his hundreds of short videos are impeccably researched, easily understandable, and maybe most importantly, straight to the point. Dr. Greger has published in many scientific journals. He's testified before Congress, lectured at countless symposiums and institutions everywhere from the Conference on World Affairs to the National Institutes of Health.
Starting point is 00:04:03 He was an expert witness in the infamous Oprah Winfrey meat defamation lawsuit, and he's appeared all over TV on shows like Dr. Oz and even the Colbert Report, which we discuss in the podcast. Most exciting is that he has a new book coming out this week, December 8th. It's called How to Not Die. Wait a minute. No, that's not right. It's called How Not to Die. I always do that. I'm always screwing this up. How Not to Die. Discover the foods scientifically proven to prevent and reverse disease.
Starting point is 00:04:32 I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of the book. And I think it's fair to say that it is like a game changer. It's an absolute beast of a book that examines the top 15 causes of premature death in America and explains in great detail how nutritional and lifestyle interventions can help prevent and often reverse them. I cannot recommend the book more highly. It is an absolute must read. And because he's super cool, all his speaking fees and proceeds that he receives from the sale of his books and DVDs are donated to charity. That is unbelievable. This is the kind of service-oriented amazing person that he is. So it's just another good reason to not only pick up
Starting point is 00:05:11 the book, but feel good about your purchase. If you're a longtime listener to the show, then you know that Dr. Greger was one of my very first guests on the RRP all the way back at episode seven when I had no idea what I was doing, not that I do now. And I'm delighted that now he's back to talk a little bit more about his life, his research, and how not to die. How not to die. Yeah, that's right. How not to die, which is a subject I think we can all get behind. You ready to rock? let's rock it by the way i've done zero preparation so you're gonna take the lead here anything you want you know i can but here's one thing yeah i promise you that this time i'm not gonna lose the recording do you remember that i do remember that i thought
Starting point is 00:06:03 terrible it was a good i think it was good really well i have no idea what we said but i can't remember exactly what happened somewhere the digital audio file got corrupted or i broke the record something oh i think i was recording directly into garage band and it like crashed on me i don't know what happened but my sincere apologies that's okay this time it's gonna be better i got a sermon just for me on that one but uh yeah man you were one of the the og man the original guest i think it was episode seven that's awesome by skype but this time we're gonna really make some magic yeah wow now we have real microphones man i know it's exciting, right? So many things to talk about.
Starting point is 00:06:46 But my first question for you is this. How to not die or how not to die? Tell me about it. There must have been some behind-the-scenes conversations about that, right? Yes. Breaking out like English language. Let's get some grammar nerds in here. Quick. Yeah, yeah, yes. right yes breaking out like quick english language get some grammar nerds in here quick
Starting point is 00:07:05 yeah yeah yes yes how not to die prematurely in pain after a long disabling illness you know uh yeah yeah yeah how not to die how not to die that's not the way we want to go and the good news is that we have tremendous power over our health destiny who knew man i know and so the power is in our hands it's crazy so i got an advanced copy of this book and it's like it's a book man what is it like 550 pages 600 about 650 though it's just 150 pages of note of citations. You know, they actually wanted to put it online. Like, they wanted to dump the citations online just to save cost printing the book.
Starting point is 00:07:51 Right, right. I was like, no way, man. Yeah, it's got to go in there. We had to deal, damn it. Because you've got to be able to prove it up. Yeah. I mean, that's what it's for. I'm hoping it'll be kind of the reference book.
Starting point is 00:08:00 It's kind of like two books in one. The first half, right, is really just kind of everything I've done on the website you know the thousand videos condensed into just kind of all the most compelling stuff and then you know a chapter by chapter 15 leading cause the death but then the second half is really what I'm most proud of because I mean not that anyone wants to sit through a Gregor marathon of a thousand videos. I don't know. I think there's a lot of people out there that just might do that.
Starting point is 00:08:29 But, I mean, that's what I thought. I went into it thinking that that's what the book would be. It would just be like another format to put the same message out, the same material, but it would just be in book form. form um but then i realized you know one thing i can't do on the site is i mean i really try to keep my opinion out of it right i mean it's not it's not always easy and it slips through but it's like this is the science right here it is you can make up your own mind just as much as i do people ask me all these questions i'm like well look i mean you know okay well then what should i do okay you just said that you know eating know, a half teaspoon of turmeric does this. Okay, so what do I do?
Starting point is 00:09:09 And I'm like, well, you just saw the science. I just laid out the science. I don't know any more than you did. Like, here it is. But you're the answer guy. You're supposed to know all like us. Well, but see, I don't want it to be the Dr. Greger diet, right? I want it to be the best available balance of evidence diet.
Starting point is 00:09:26 Was there pressure from the publisher to make it the Greger diet? This has to be a diet book. It has to say diet in the title. They wanted recipe fluff, that kind of stuff. That I really pushed back on. But what the book allowed me to do is be like, all right, well, what do I do kind of in my own – how do I synthesize all this information for my own kind of day-to-day practice? And so that's the kind of free reign I had.
Starting point is 00:09:54 And it would change kind of week by week. I'd go to the library. I'd come home. My family would be like, why does everything have parsley in it all of a sudden, right? Or, well, what't we eat this week right you know that kind of you know here comes the bummer man oh no what do you read about this um but uh but slowly but surely i'd be like oh wait all right we got to get onions in our diet somehow you know we got to get this in our diet and so i started kind of this checklist of like
Starting point is 00:10:21 oh did i eat beans i ate any freaking legumes today? Oh, I can't believe it. You know, day goes by so quick. So I started making this like little whiteboard checklist and that kind of morphed into this kind of daily dozen concept that I take on in the book. And not that I have a checklist anymore, but it was like a helpful reminder at the beginning to be like, oh, I've got to fit all this stuff in.
Starting point is 00:10:49 And so that's how I kind of lay it out kind of for kind of helpful meal planning right i mean it's so dense i mean it really is a bible and a reference manual it's sort of like the be all end all ultimate authority if you're interested in plant-based at all or not or just not wanting to die you can like crack this thing open and you don't necessarily have to read it end to end, but you can find what applies to you or what you're interested in. And it's very dense in its science. You know, so I think it's easy. It would be easy without that second section
Starting point is 00:11:15 to just get lost in the science and then go, well, I don't know what to do. Like, you know, tell me what the protocol is to just avoid these things and make it simple. Right, so it ends up, okay, whole food, plant-based, butbased but what does that mean like what do i mean by whole food what do i mean by process what do you mean plant-based right well so process for me is nothing bad added nothing good take it away right so there are some quote-unquote processed foods i don't consider processed under that definition um so something like for example, cocoa powder, right?
Starting point is 00:11:47 That's processed. Did you see cocoa powder growing on any trees? No. But in that case, they actually removed the cocoa butter, the fat, which is saturated, can raise your cholesterol a bit. And so there, they actually improved on the food, right? So they took this naturally, one of the few kind of rare tropical fats with a lot of saturated, you know, so that's palm oil, palm kernel oil, coconut oil, and cocoa butter.
Starting point is 00:12:16 And so they actually took something out. So that doesn't fit under the processed definition, even though, of course, it's highly processed. But because nothing bad was added, nothing good was taken away. Gotcha. So let's break it down. I mean, basically the premise or the kind of spine of this whole thing is taking a look at the 15 leading causes of death, right? Right.
Starting point is 00:12:37 Do you have them memorized? Well, so, I mean, this is actually different. So how this came out was from my original Uprooting the Leading Cause of Death kind of annual review back in, oh, years ago, where I put it together, where I listed the top 15. But like, you know, killer number two was cancer, like all cancer.
Starting point is 00:12:56 And so you have to give a real broad overview. But here what I did is I split it all up. And so there is a chapter on breast cancer, a chapter on prostate cancer, then specifically liver cancer, specifically es chapter on breast cancer, a chapter on prostate cancer, then specifically liver cancer, specifically esophageal cancer, digestive cancers. And so there's like a chapter on each because it's, you know, there are kind of important differences, things you can really target.
Starting point is 00:13:18 So that's how I was able to kind of splay it out. So it still actually goes 1 through 15, but it's just kind of a little more in-depth, a little more, you know, because all of a sudden I had time you know in the videos like i tried to hit the four minute mark right videos under four minutes right um because that's about the the kind of time span that i don't know that people are on my side actually i mean you know it's about four minutes you lose them right um and so you know what can you do in four minutes right you can hit all the major you know the most interesting points. If you put a couple of cats in there, you might be able to squeeze another minute out of them.
Starting point is 00:13:48 There we go. See? That's what I got to do. But here, I was like, wow, I can go deep. And so I actually ended up doing a lot more research that actually I'm going to turn into videos kind of later on just because I don't want to lose this stuff. But, you know, because I wanted to really kind of do a deep dive through all of these.
Starting point is 00:14:13 And so it was actually, I mean, it was actually a lot of fun. I had time to do it. You had time. I had time to do it. Because I feel like this could easily, we could go into the weeds and this could become a productivity podcast because you're one of the most productive humans that i've ever seen i mean you the level of commitment is insane i mean you're on the road constantly every conference i go to you're there like 60 keynotes a year on average basically god well no i my book tour, I'm doing 60 cities in five countries in three months.
Starting point is 00:14:45 Wow. Starting in December? Yeah, well, it's kind of the first half of December to the holidays, but then starting hardcore in January. And then above and beyond that, a new video. You're still on one new one every single day? Weekdays. New video or article.
Starting point is 00:15:02 So new videos Monday, Wednesday, Friday. New articles Tuesday, Thursday. And then on top of that, you have a full-time job at HSU. Yeah, and then there's the whole full-time job thing. How does that work? Well, I mean, they each kind of fuel me in different ways. So during the day at HSU, I'm doing kind of infectious disease work, you know, bird flu, mad cow, swine flu, that kind of stuff. And then at night is when I, then I do the chronic disease, you know,
Starting point is 00:15:28 then I do the, you know. But how do you have time to pour through all of the research material? Yeah, that's been, that's tough. So now we're up to about 24,000 articles published every year in the English language on nutrition, right? So that's like 70 articles a day. So like you fit that. It's like how, I mean, even if you were up 24 hours, you couldn't read that many. So please tell me you have a team of at least interns. Yeah, no, no, no. So now we got 14 staff now.
Starting point is 00:15:56 Oh, wow. I mean, so we have a, we have a big staff. Are they all in DC? No. In fact, none are. The last one is actually leaving me going to Colorado. But that's the nice thing about this work. You can do it anywhere. Anywhere. In fact,
Starting point is 00:16:09 I bet there's folks I don't even know where they... You've never met them in person? I'm looking at their Skype background going, is it snowing up there? What's going on? But, I mean, that's the wonderful thing about this kind of work. I mean, you can do it anywhere. And so, yeah. So it's about a dozen researchers and then a couple of people just doing – just to get everything up on the site.
Starting point is 00:16:30 So they pour through it. I mean, do you say, look, this is a subject that I'm interested in or do they just pour through the research and come up with, here's 10 articles that I think are relevant to your subject matter? Mostly – no, it's a little more directed than that. It's mostly kind of this iterative citation searching. So let's say I find a really awesome article. Then you go two directions. You look at every single article that ever cited that article using something called Web of Science where, I mean, you want to know what did everyone else think of this article when it came out in 1977, right? Everyone's citing that article in the next few decades.
Starting point is 00:17:04 Maybe it was totally thrown out. Maybe it was like accused of fraud or attracted or you have no idea. And then you want to go through every article that that article cited to see if they actually put it together the way they say they put it together, right? If there actually is a foundation. And so you see that cone. One study cites 20 studies that cite 20 other studies. You go two levels down and you are in the you know i mean you're just you know that's crazy you're just drowning and so that's what i do is i
Starting point is 00:17:31 send people off you know uh you know uh here's this article just go through all the citations and you know pull all the articles that they cite and just you know want to make sure we're on level and you know too often and this is what scares me like i'll have the video almost like totally wrapped up and then i'll come across an article and it changes my entire outlook i mean and so my conclusion is completely different and i'm like had i not seen that article i you know it would have been completely different and that freaks me out and so that so when i was doing this all alone um you know that was a real but so now i can be like okay does this article rep really kind of
Starting point is 00:18:11 represent the kind of best available best available balance of evidence like is this like an outlier should i be looking at this askew or is this really kind of representative of what's going on in science and you can't do that by looking at one article. That's why you need a team to really dig it up. Right, interesting. So that brings up a kind of interesting question, which is you're trying to be as objective as possible. The site is called nutritionfacts.org. It is a nonprofit organization. But clearly you are a longtime whole food plant-based guy.
Starting point is 00:18:43 That's your perspective on the world. you are, you know, you're a longtime whole food plant-based guy. That's your perspective on the world. So how do you prevent that from, you know, coloring how you review these studies? I mean, what happens if you come across a study that contravenes, you know, sort of your basic philosophy, or if you ever do, and how do you kind of reconcile that or make sure that you really are approaching everything completely as objectively as possible? Yeah, that's critical, right? So there's this concept called confirmation bias, where we naturally, it's kind of inborn in our brains, it must have some kind of evolutionary advantage to kind of see the world through our particular perspective, and we seek out facts and figures and science that supports our position, and then just somehow either right disregard or unconsciously or consciously
Starting point is 00:19:26 you know we just don't take it as seriously um and uh and so that's a real death so that's like that that's the death knell for a scientist right i mean they really have to approach it with this kind of beginner's mind and come in and be totally ready to throw out everything they've always believed in if the science turns out to be different. Now, for nutritional science, I mean, there's just been this remarkable consistency for decades. I mean, the bottom line has really been the same. You know, fruits and vegetables were good for you. They continue to be good for you.
Starting point is 00:19:59 But certainly there are things that come up that really like question not just mechanisms, how we thought something was happening before, but scary news. One of the latest things that actually changed my own kind of day-to-day diet recently was they just did all this testing for lead levels in tea coming out of China. It turns out China didn't get rid of leaded gas until 2000. And so you actually see, you can actually measure the lead levels exponentially dropping off from the road, like in the tea plantations. You can see how much lead, how far it is away from the road. And it's actually not a problem for people that brew tea because the lead doesn't go from the leaf into the water.
Starting point is 00:20:44 But I've been telling people to put in the smoothies right to grind it up or use matcha tea ground you know green tea leaves because i figure it's like i mean throwing away tea leaves that's like boiling collard greens throwing out the collars and drinking the water you'll get some nutrition but why not eat the leaves like it seemed like such a waste so it's like yeah throw the tea leaves in right okay if they're from japan right but but no longer and you know all the cheapest tea is from china um and so that was bad advice of course it wasn't bad advice until i mean it was good advice at the time or so i thought but something like that where it's kind of a fundamental recommendation gets changed and then
Starting point is 00:21:22 it's like how do i get everyone who saw that original video you know on the on the new plan and so i'm like you got to subscribe because i could pull down earlier videos where you recommended putting tea leaves in what i did is i have a war i have a like i have a dot what it's called the doctor's note right below the video that gives kind of context or changes or whatever um and so eventually I'll get around to actually just rerecording the video or dumping entirely. But I have a thing saying, make sure you check out this other video where I talk about the lead contamination,
Starting point is 00:21:53 because it's a serious issue. And then for pregnant women, this is how much you can have of each different type of tea in each different kind of country. If you're a kid, this is how you do it. If you're drinking it, if it's black tea,
Starting point is 00:22:03 if it's, you know, so I go through, I got charts, like, you know, but I go through, I've got charts, you know. But, I mean, it's like that kind of thing. It's like you just feel this weight of responsibility. You tell one thing, right, because you found a really good paper on something. And then who knows?
Starting point is 00:22:18 You know, if you didn't do a good thorough search, you know, you could find out the next day and you've already kind of, you know, corrupted people's, you know. Right. And you have, I mean, 1.5 million subscribers, right? People that are consistently watching your videos. Well, we have 1.8 million hits a month. But only about half of that is people coming back. Half of that is new traffic. And how many views does a typical video get that's a good question I don't know
Starting point is 00:22:50 video by video so I just kind of know day by day and so an average day so and so average day so you know 60,000 a day something like. And, you know, it's slowly going up. See, we've never spent any money on advertising, promotion, never did ads, never did whatever. It's all just kind of word of mouth. I just have a feeling there's so many people out there that if they knew about the site, they'd be interested in it, but they've just never, you know, they don't know.
Starting point is 00:23:19 Right. Well, the book isn't going to change that. That's what I'm hoping. I mean, I think it'll really give me... You're well overdue for this book. That would, I mean, right. No, no. I mean, I think it'll really give me – You're well overdue for this book. I mean, right. No, no. I mean, if it interests some major media or it's got some morning show or something,
Starting point is 00:23:30 it'll really kind of take it to the next level. And the information – I just keep telling myself, look, it's there. It'll always be there. It's on the – right? So eventually when people figure it out, they'll go back and they can look at all the stuff that I've poured my blood, sweat and tears into. Right. And back to the process of compiling these videos and going through the research and all of that.
Starting point is 00:23:51 I think it warrants at least a brief discussion about how nutrition science works in the research arena in the sense that, look, all these studies have to be funded by somebody. And so, of course, you have to parse through, well, who's behind this and, you know, who stands to gain from this? And with more and more corporate dollars kind of pouring into this field, you know, how does that impact how you look at these studies and evaluate them and either discard them or, you know, give them weight or sort of slide that scale of value. Yeah. Yeah. So much of science is now follow the money.
Starting point is 00:24:32 And so what do you do with an egg board funded study or the Cattlemen's Beef Association? You don't know – the problem with conflicts of interest is – these financial conflicts of interest is that you don't know what to do with them because – I mean basically the big controversy is did they or did they not divulge their conflicts of interest, right? I mean, that's kind of the big, you know, oh, did they get money? Did it meet a certain level? A lot of journals be like, if you can get $5,000, but if you get $5,001, all of a sudden you have to list that you got the funding. But that's not, for me, that's not the issue. The issue isn't the fact that there's this money in science in the first place. I mean, the fact that the conflict of interest is there, not whether it's disclosed or not. And it's because you get a study, you get a study that show nuts is great
Starting point is 00:25:31 and it's done by the Walnut Commission. And you're saying, okay, is it, I mean, did they make stuff up? Did they just design a study to give a certain point? Or is it totally a great study and they just, it wouldn't have gotten done and we should be thanking the Walnut Commission because otherwise we wouldn't know about the wonders of walnuts, right?
Starting point is 00:25:52 And so basically, it just gives you – makes you think again, makes you really dive into the materials and methods and be like, okay, did they put this study together in a way to get some kind of desired result? And how often when you look at such a study, do you come to the conclusion like, oh, no, it actually, it holds up. I understand there is this conflict of interest built into it. But nonetheless, I can still see the value of this.
Starting point is 00:26:19 Or is it almost invariably a situation where you're discarding it? Or is it almost invariably a situation where you're discarding it? Well, often, rather than discarding it, I actually do a video about it and show exactly what they did. This is how the BOLD study, this beef study, they talk around how you can add lean beef to a diet and your cholesterol gets better. And what they do, they added lean beef to a diet in which they cut out cheese and chicken so much that you actually drop saturated fat below. So you added beef to the diet, but you cut out so much cheese and chicken that you actually have less saturated fat
Starting point is 00:26:55 and the cholesterol went down. Surprise, surprise. I mean, it's just such kind of blatant stuff that anyone, even taking a second look at it, would just pop right up as kind of just this outrageous manipulation. But it gets tons of press. Yeah, I mean, nobody gives it a second look other than people like yourself.
Starting point is 00:27:16 And certainly, unless you have a really kind of unusual journalist who's willing to kind of do that kind of work, it ends up in the media. So there's this enmeshed kind of media relationship that translates into, you know, butter is back on the cover of Time magazine, and you know, all this sort of stuff that occurs, or just the sort of dismissal of the latest World Health Organization recommendations on red meat and processed meats, right, which we can talk about a little bit, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, one other thing with the conflicts that makes it even more difficult
Starting point is 00:27:51 is that beyond the financial conflicts, there are kind of like ideological conflicts. So, for example, there's this amazing research on the spiced saffron, right, and it's all independently funded, they're all these iranian scientists and saffron is like this major export out of i mean that's like the number one producer in the world they have this great national pride over the stuff is it possible they're tweaking results i mean it would be nice to just get some independent even though they're not getting money from the saffron industry right or? Or if you have all these New Zealand kiwi fruits are great studies, you're just like, okay. But I would love to see a Scottish kiwi fruit study showing how great – I mean, come on. But is there such thing as an independent study?
Starting point is 00:28:37 I mean somebody has got to pay for this stuff, right? So how does that work? It should be publicly funded, right? I mean so that's what we have the National Institutes of Health for. I mean, you know, that this is a public good. And so we should have public funding. Otherwise, we run into all these problems. But what does that look like?
Starting point is 00:28:53 I mean, how many of these studies really are publicly funded? There certainly can't be adequate amount of funding to really do the extent of nutritional research that I would imagine you would prefer. Right. And that's why we have these problems. I mean, so, you know, there's, you know, you get some, you know, there's these, you know, great folks out there like David Katz at Yale who's accepted egg board money to run these egg studies. And, you know, you talk to him about it and he's like, where do you get money?
Starting point is 00:29:22 Like, if you don't accept money from, you know, corporations these days, how are you going to fund your, I mean, you just can't fund a research team. Where are you going to pay your grad students from? I mean, it's just like, you know, I mean, it's a real issue. And so the answer. And David Katz is one of the good guys. Absolutely. No, no.
Starting point is 00:29:39 Tremendous respect for him, right? But it's like you've got to deal with reality. You've got to deal with reality you gotta deal with the you know the the you know and so it's all nice for us to say oh we should be all independent but it's like okay well you gotta get the money from somewhere it's interesting some of these studies were like literally out of scientists own pocket like they thought they had this really great idea they wanted to you know see if it worked And so they did it themselves. But with no corporate budget driving its promotion, it just gets buried in some dusty stacks of some library basement and never sees the light of day. And so I saw it as my kind of role in the world is to take all that amazing science that was done, even if it gets past the funding stage, but then just got lost to the world.
Starting point is 00:30:29 Because, you know, for the same reason you don't see ads on TV for sweet potatoes. There's just no kind of profit motive to get it out to the world. Right. So what's your reaction when you see something in the media that you feel is, you know, not an accurate representation of what's going on? Like right now, you know, let's just talk about the low-carb craze. Everybody's all about low-carb. Ketosis is the greatest thing ever. Like all this sort of stuff, right?
Starting point is 00:30:53 And that's very, very popular right now. And there's a lot of people who are espousing the benefits of this, not just for weight loss, but for health. And, you know, to the extent that it makes it on the cover of Time magazine. Amen. Saturated fat. Yeah. You know, I mean, yeah, I try to stay as much away as much possible. to the extent that it makes it on the cover of time magazine saturated fat yeah you know i mean i try to stay as much away as much possible from the lay um media just because but your your job i mean you're a voice piece for the lay person right it's almost your mantle to translate this
Starting point is 00:31:19 stuff right no so sometimes i'm kind of forced it. I'm so like the saturated fat stud is just like I always am hoping someone else will take it on because I just want to, you know, cover the cover the signs and not kind of go back and fight back against, you know. But, you know, I wait. I wait. No one's going to do it. OK, fine. I'll do it. Right. Like no one did a really good thing against Atkins. So finally, I, you know, wrote the book on Atkins and then you know and so I mean I usually get kind of dragged into it later on
Starting point is 00:31:51 hoping that someone will else will kind of take the mantle and do that kind of piece and let me just stick to the science and you know rather than kind of because otherwise you just get caught in these it's like a vicious cycle of he said she said right the um but the you know the the the who story about process me that was a real
Starting point is 00:32:12 breakthrough yeah and it made a lot of media and there was a lot of internet chatter of course back and forth but i think you know it's really making people question you know their their dietary choices when it comes to that stuff you know what's interesting though which seems to be kind of burying the lead here but you know it's a process meat so you read a good you know kind of in-depth story about they talk about this 34 000 number where they looked at the burden of disease study which is the biggest study looking at risk factors and death and mortality in the world funded by the bill and melinda gates foundation the world bank this is the study to find out how many people soda kills, how many people processed meat kills, how many lives you could save if people ate whole grains or fruits or more vegetables.
Starting point is 00:32:53 I mean, this was the study that put it all together and found that 34,000 cancer deaths a year linked to processed meat consumption. to processed meat consumption. But that same study that's been quoted in all these things found that 840,000 people overall die from processed meat because it contributes to high blood pressure, kidney disease, all these other things. And so, okay, there's that, you know, but what about the other 800,000? There's like a meat-borne epidemic every year
Starting point is 00:33:22 of people dying from processed meat. Maybe cancer is just scary i maybe cancer was almost like the footnote to a bigger to the massive amount of right i mean in fact i mean there's these studies you know you know estimating that you know if uh you know if if everyone weighed processed meat cut down the processed meat consumption like a half strip of bacon a day from whatever they were eating before, like how much we could – how many lives we could save on a population level? Like a certain percentage of mortality overall for the entire population could be prevented. I mean, those are just amazing stats. Right, because all the attention was on cancer. And it was like if you broke down the numbers and the percentages, it still really would only impact like a relatively few number of people.
Starting point is 00:34:08 Right. No, right. So raising your risk of colon cancer a few percent. I mean, you know, and so colon cancer is now the third leading cancer killer. What about heart disease? What about, I mean, there's so, I don't know. I mean, the risk associated with these products, but that's maybe part of the kind of reductionism where, you know, we used to talk about individual nutrients. Now we're talking about individual foods as they pertain to particular diseases.
Starting point is 00:34:33 But, I mean, you have to look at the impact. I mean, so like the good impact of, you know, this one, you know, broccoli, not only, you know, when I talk about, you know, I have the little broccoli chapter then and say, as I mentioned in chapters one, three, five, seven, you know, liver cancer and the stroke and just like whole plant foods can benefit multiple body systems. You can see some of these foods that are adversely impact, can adversely impact the entire organism. And so you really need to look at it overall. And so when someone says – so let's say there was a study that came out that said bacon was good for preventing cataracts or something. They would never do that because it's an oxidation thing. But it's like even if it was good, here's this body of evidence showing bacon does all these other horrible things to your body.
Starting point is 00:35:25 So it's like you still wouldn't eat it you know it's like some people say to me aren't you cherry picking here i have a study that's like independent that shows that you know the opposite of what you said and you know that that's that was actually a tobacco industry tactic they they criticize the american lung association they actually have a stack of a hundred papers showing the smoking is good for you. Not neutral, not bad, but actually good for you. And they criticize the American Lung Association for never mentioning this body of evidence showing how good smoking is for you. For example, smoking protects against ulcerative colitis. Smoking protects against Parkinson's disease. Very strong protection against Parkinson's disease.
Starting point is 00:36:05 All right? Okay. Now, and why don't they ever mention? It's like this anti-smoking conspiracy. It's like, why don't they, right? And so, but okay, fine. Tobacco protects against Parkinson's. But even if you just, forget lung cancer,
Starting point is 00:36:21 if you just cared about your brain, you still wouldn't smoke because it so increases your stroke risk. I mean, so you understand how the American Lung Association is sticking with the overall balance of evidence and trying to represent what the body of evidence shows. The body of evidence shows that smoking is bad. The body of evidence shows that smoking is bad. And so're reductionist in following that scientific method and looking at specific things and their sort of direct impact on other things, right? But how do you reconcile that
Starting point is 00:37:13 with stepping outside of that reductionist method and understanding that, you know, we need a more holistic approach, that, you know, broccoli does many things. It doesn't just do one thing and trying to kind of convey that message and get that across, right? It's almost like these two worlds
Starting point is 00:37:29 are at odds with each other. You need the reductionist science in order to discover how these mechanisms operate, but you also have to keep in mind this holistic approach. Yeah, so that's why you'll see the kind of the whole scope through some of my videos. I talk about the one enzyme affected by, because I just find it so fascinating. We finally
Starting point is 00:37:48 figured out why eating plant-based boosts your metabolism or something. Oh, it's this carotene palmitoyltransferase. That's so cool, and this is how it works. You're such a geek. But then, you say, okay, but let's look at the big population
Starting point is 00:38:04 level. What are the populations that are free of these chronic Western diseases? What are they eating? And then you just kind of build the evidence up and down. When people say, like, what's the one study that I want to give to my doctor or whatever? It's like, well, it's a whole body of evidence. You give me a disease and I can say, all right, well, this is the best paper. But it's really this overwhelming body of evidence from both epidemiological studies,
Starting point is 00:38:26 in vitro studies, all the way up to these randomized controlled trials. And you put the body of science together. It's just this really powerful argument. And beyond that, this kind of cherry-picking accusation, a lot of times there's just one cherry so for example there's only one diet ever been shown to reverse heart disease in the majority of patients only one plant-based diet right if that's all a plant-based diet could do reverse our number one killer uh shouldn't that be the default diet until proven otherwise and the fact that also you know prevent treat and reverse type two diabetes and hypertension all these other leading killers seem to make the case overwhelming
Starting point is 00:39:07 but it's like it's hard to cherry pick when there's only one cherry there's no other diet that's been shown that so it's like bring it on so do you get an exist do you do you get frustrated when you feel like people aren't getting this i mean you're shouting from the mountaintops and have been for some time along with some other people and certainly plant-based diet is picking up steam as becoming you know much more prevalent in mainstream consciousness but I'm not so sure we're quite there yet right like when you read the headlines. Right no no no but you know but the my faith comes from this democratization of knowledge. Right it
Starting point is 00:39:44 used to be where if you wanted to get information about health, that's what a physician did. They held this kind of monopoly. And so the drug companies, if they had the physician in their pocket, they had everything in their pocket. Because that was like the official mediator between you and any kind of information. And so there's signs back to the 30s showing lung cancer and smoking, right? Landmark 1958 article, you know, the Adventist study, 90% less lung cancer in non-smokers. But of course, you never heard about it, right? Because you could just never get to the general public. Unless it's in the Washington Post or your doctor is going to tell you who's going to go to the
Starting point is 00:40:24 basement of some library and start going through microfiche. And Washington Post isn't going to run it because they're running cigarette ads. Right. Right? So – but now things have changed, right? Now we have access. We no longer have to have this mediator. It became us and the body of science out there.
Starting point is 00:40:44 And so I find that tremendously exciting. It's profound. Never in the history of humankind have we had this kind of access to information. So we don't have to wait for a doctor to tell us to quit smoking, right? When it comes to safe, simple, side effect-free solutions, we can take our, you know, our own health destiny and our family's health into our own hands and improve it. We don't have to wait until society catches up with the science. Not only do we not have to wait, we shouldn't wait because the doctors don't. They weren't taught it in medical school anyway.
Starting point is 00:41:11 Absolutely. So that – OK. Now, along with that millions of voices and that democratization of knowledge, of course there's all this garbage out there. But eventually you have this sense that the truth will kind of float to the surface. You're optimistic about that? Because I feel like there's a war on the internet. Who can be loudest wins the day.
Starting point is 00:41:29 And when you have a lot of resources to pepper the internet with all kinds of crazy articles, you can easily obfuscate the truth or just at a minimum confuse people. And when people are confused, then they're going to default to their basic habits. No, absolutely. then they're going to default to their you know their basic habits and no absolutely that in fact that i mean that's an explicit strategy among you know big tobacco all the way through big food there's this famous tobacco industry memo doubt is our product right this is a pr firm hired by the tobacco industry you know we don't have to convince people smoking is good for you all we have to do is introduce oh there's two sides. Yeah, some scientists say smoking is good.
Starting point is 00:42:05 Some say smoking is bad. That's all you have to do. Doubt is our product. And then people just throw their hands up in the air, do whatever the heck they want, right? Right. And I feel like sort of television news or television sort of talk show structures are set up where you have all these talking heads and everybody's given equal credibility, you know, sort of this seemingly democratization of ideas when in reality somebody could be a complete expert and somebody else could be an absolute knucklehead and they're given kind of
Starting point is 00:42:35 equal air, right? And so the consumer is left with thinking, well, there's two sides to something when no, there's the truth and then there's something that's not the truth. And so it's all about going back to the science. What does the science show? I mean, none of us were born with this knowledge. So when someone says something out of their mouth, you say, okay, well, where did you find that? I mean, how did you come to that conclusion? I mean, where did you deduce that?
Starting point is 00:42:58 And they say, oh, well, here's my body of evidence that supports this. And who has the time to go through the look to the i have the time and i've made it my you know i mean that's what you know you're the guy i i've made it my mission to take this information look ornish was ornish proved you can reverse heart disease in a randomized controlled trial 1990 july 1990 in the lancet that everything should have changed the next day and the fact that it didn't is a real wake-up call. It was a real wake-up call for me politically. It's like, wait a second.
Starting point is 00:43:29 There's more than just science going on in medicine. There's more than just – there's reimbursement. I mean there's this whole kind of structure set up to kind of go at odds with these kind of lifestyle solutions. There's been this weird kind of reductionist opinion about Ornish's work, and you see him sort of getting thrown under the bus in the media, like, oh, well, yeah, it didn't really have to do with diet, it had to do with the lifestyle recommendations
Starting point is 00:43:54 that he was making, and he's sort of been seemingly dismissed when in reality, you know, he was sort of speaking the truth all along. Right, and been an absolute pioneer, and then, of course, others have taken his work, like Essel like usselstyn and said okay let's cut out the stress management the touchy feeling as the exercise everything and just what do dietary changes show in fact in cases don't even put people on statins and just see purely can this diet reverse heart disease
Starting point is 00:44:22 and saw these extraordinary results and then it's like well not that we shouldn't be managing our stress and exercising everything else but i mean shows that the you know the proof is in the vegan pudding right just to remove all the other variables yeah yeah we can need that right what are some of the other sort of crazy tobacco industry tactics that you've come across in some of the research that you've done? Unbelievable. No, so, I mean, it's really – I mean, it's almost – those are some of the funnest studies because, I mean, you're like, wow. Like, before I even read the study, I'm like, okay, if I was an egg researcher and I wanted to prove this, how would I do it knowing what I know, right?
Starting point is 00:45:08 And so, you know, how do I prove that cholesterol, that eggs don't raise your cholesterol, right? Hmm. Well, there's this plateau effect where after a certain amount of cholesterol, your kind of cholesterol receptors get all clogged down and saturated such that you eat more cholesterol, your body is not going to accept anymore. You're kind of topped off. All right. So let's have people eat – compare 10 eggs a day to 20 eggs a day. You compare 10 to 100, you're not going to get any more. But that's not the – I mean but that's how you would design a study.
Starting point is 00:45:40 You look at the study. That's how they design the study. You look at the study, that's how they designed the study. I mean, it's just like, that's, you know, I mean, and sometimes, sometimes it takes you a while to figure out, you know, kind of, but- Is that the idea behind- I think I've seen on the internet a lot of people saying that dietary cholesterol does not raise serum cholesterol, that there's no relationship between those two. Oh, and that's completely false. In fact, we have these meta-analyses.
Starting point is 00:46:06 I mean, look, this was coming from the Dietary Guidelines Committee came out and said removing dietary cholesterol as a kind of nutrient of concern, and they did that in part based on the AHAAC guidelines, the American Heart Association, the American Academy, the American Heart Association, American Academy of Cardiology, who said in their latest review of the literature that we see no, that there's no link between the kind of dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol, but that was within their parameters, which was last 20 years,
Starting point is 00:46:45 because every 20 years they do a review. And so this is like, okay, nothing new. There hasn't been any studies on dietary cholesterol and serum because it's a research question that was definitively answered decades ago. In fact, so I think they looked at the last 20 years. If you go back like 22 years and 23 years, there's two big meta-analyses of the last 30 years of data with, you know, dozens of these metabolic ward studies where you take people, you lock them in a room, and so you have total control of their diet. You feed them exactly whatever you want to feed them, and you measure their blood and what happens. And there's a, in fact, there's an
Starting point is 00:47:17 equation that, you know, you give somebody this much cholesterol, and then their you know blood cholesterol goes up i mean and so but but so i mean so it's kind of this misunderstanding misuse of the literature what is what is behind that misunderstanding why is it that so many people are misinformed or confused by that is that because there's you know some conspiracy by big food to create that confusion or is it that people just like hearing, you know, good news about their bad habits? Like, I feel like the truth has such a difficult time rising to the surface. Yeah, no, I think all those really play. I mean, we, you know, we, we were comforted by the fact, you know, when someone says you're what you're doing
Starting point is 00:48:02 is right, you're a good person, you're not feeding your kids something that's going to give them diabetes, you know, that's a nice message to hear and all these, you know, kind of nanny state naysayers who are trying to make you eat flavorless food or something is,
Starting point is 00:48:20 you know, don't worry about them, eat your Froot Loops, and you'll be healthy because you're fortified, you know. don't worry about them. Eat your Froot Loops, and you'll be healthy because you're fortified. I mean, that's a message that everybody wants to hear. They don't want to hear, oh, you know, salt's still bad for me. Really? I mean, I'd much rather hear the dissenting scientist funded by the Salt Institute that says, oh, no, eat all the salts you want kind of thing.
Starting point is 00:48:47 What's the most surprising thing that you've come across in the last couple of years through all the research that you've done? Something that you didn't really fully appreciate or understand or kind of change your mind about? You know, all the microbiome stuff is just blowing my mind. It's crazy, right? So, I mean, only about one out of ten cells in our body is actually human, right? So 90% of us are bacteria by DNA, by cell number, and has tremendous power over everything from our mental status to our immune system.
Starting point is 00:49:25 I mean, when I think, in medical school, we learned about fiber, right? Fiber, in a sense, it was just kind of like mass kind of scrubbing down the colon walls and just kind of kept things moving. But no, it's the indigestible part of the food, right? Doesn't really do anything for you, but no, we don't digest it, but we actually do judge our bacteria digested. That's what bacteria eat.
Starting point is 00:49:55 Prebiotic. It is the, it is the prebiotic. You know, uh, Dr. Robin Shuttkan in DC. Oh, you got to connect with her, man. She is, she's the bomb when it comes to the microbiome. Oh, sweet. I just had her on the podcast. She's amazing.
Starting point is 00:50:10 Yeah, she's got a couple books out. Her latest one is called The Microbiome Solution. She's amazing. Yeah. And she's just, she has a really amazing talent at being able to communicate what the microbiome is all about to a lay person so they can understand it but it's yeah i mean it's mind-blowing the stuff that really gets me is the cravings part about how when you change your microbiome it actually can impact the foods that you crave because that that population that ecology starts to desire that kind of food that seeded it in the first place in order to survive.
Starting point is 00:50:48 It's crazy. Yeah, I just put a video up recently about something called diversion colitis, where if for some kind of surgical procedure you actually have to divert the fecal stream, like through ileostomy or something, out from the abdominal wall instead of going through the gut you get something in up to 100 of cases is something called this diversion colitis where all of a sudden your colon starts dying it starts bleeding dying why and they wonder what is going on like why all of a sudden did you know we need this fecal stream otherwise the cell died and it turns out that the that the lining of the colon literally lives off not of our blood supply it lives off what the bacteria feed it right why these byproducts from fiber and other prebiotics like resistant starch
Starting point is 00:51:35 and so if we don't have the good bacteria to feed that um uh and and so and so basically the body uses that signal of lack of, you know, butyrate, these wonderful byproducts of fiber, as a signal that we have bad bacteria, we have a dysbiotic gut, and starts attacking the bacteria in the gut to kind of repopulate with the good guys. But we can replicate that same scenario by just not eating fiber. but we can replicate that same scenario by just not eating fiber. If we don't eat fiber, then all of a sudden the lining of the colon isn't getting nutrients and thinks there must be these dysbiotic fiber-hating bacteria because we're obviously, what else evolutionarily does our body know but just massive quantities of fiber all day long?
Starting point is 00:52:23 And so thinks, oh, we must have some wacky gut bacteria. Let's kill them all off. And you get all these kind of inflammatory. Yeah, I mean, that's the definition of an autoimmune disorder, right? Absolutely. It starts attacking. I mean, from a layperson's point of view, it seems to me, it feels like there is this explosion of autoimmune disorders
Starting point is 00:52:42 and food allergies that's happening right now. Like suddenly there's so many people that seem to be suffering from everything from ulcerative colitis to, you know, all these kind of digestive disorders. You know, people are allergic to all kinds of foods all of a sudden that I don't remember when I was a kid being a thing. Is that related to the microbiome and the health of the microbiome? Or what, you know, what do you think that's about? Or am I just wrong?
Starting point is 00:53:07 No, no. So certainly the biggest, so the best study we have involved a million children around the world that looked at so-called atopic diseases like asthma, allergies, eczema, and found indeed this dramatic rise. And it's tied most closely to the lack of whole plant food consumption. As people start dropping, moving from their traditional diets to more kind of westernized diet and dropping their whole food consumption, then you start seeing this increase in, you know, a physician diagnosed asthma, for example.
Starting point is 00:53:38 And the question is why? And microbiome would certainly fit right into that. But, you know, we've yet to kind of tie those kind of ends of the chain together. But that could certainly play a role. And so, look, we feed them. They feed us back. And so it's a really powerful argument since, of course, the only source of fiber is from plant foods. And the only good source of fiber is from whole plant foods. Right.
Starting point is 00:54:09 Have you done any looking into the differences between organic versus non-organic, either in terms of nutritional content or density or the impact of pesticides on the foods that we're eating? Sure, yeah. So I have a series of videos both on the safety aspects and the nutrition aspects. And so for traditional nutrients like vitamins and minerals, there's actually no benefit from organic versus conventional across the board on average. However, for the kind of non-traditional nutrients like the phenolics and some of these phytonutrients, they do have significantly more in the organic versus conventional.
Starting point is 00:54:48 But we're talking like 20% more and organic food maybe 20% or more expensive. So you get the same amount per dollar conventional versus organic. But people aren't necessarily buying organic for the nutrients, but for the safety aspects. And indeed, what I was surprised to learn is not just the pesticides. And so certainly there's a big pesticide issue. But actually, they have metals. So, for example, was it cadmium?
Starting point is 00:55:20 I think the cadmium from the phosphate fertilizers. So these artificial phosphate fertilizers just naturally have a lot of cadmium from the phosphate fertilizers. So these artificial phosphate fertilizers just naturally have a lot of cadmium, this toxic heavy metal along with mercury and lead. And so that's why conventional produce has a lot more cadmium than organic produce. So we actually go through. And so basically kind of the bottom line that comes out of this is that choose organic whenever you can. But we should never let fear of pesticides, for example, limit our consumption of as many fruits and vegetables as we can possibly stuff our faces. Right. It's not an argument to not eat fruits and vegetables.
Starting point is 00:55:57 Absolutely. Even if you just had the most contaminated – Chilean imported grapes and bell peppers. Bathed in glyphosate. And it would still benefit your health. most contaminated. Chilean imported grapes and bell peppers. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Bathing in glyphosate? Dr. Peter Salgo And it would still benefit your house. So in fact, so there was a study, there was this kind of, it was kind of a computer modeling study in Food and Chemical Toxicology a few years ago that suggested that if just half the population ate a single more serving of fruits and vegetables a day, it would prevent every year 20,000 cancer deaths. Not 20,, it would prevent every year 20,000 cancer deaths. Not 20,000 cases of cancer, but 20,000 cancer deaths if just half the population, one more
Starting point is 00:56:32 serving of fruits and vegetables. But because the modeling was on conventional fruits and vegetables, that added pesticide load in the American population would cause 10 cancer deaths. So overall, if we did this, it would just prevent 19,990 cancer deaths, right? So we get this huge benefit, but also this tiny bump in risk. But that huge benefit far outweighs the risk. But hey, why accept any risk at all when you can get all benefit, no risk by choosing organic? And so certainly I encourage people to do so, but we should be stuffing our face
Starting point is 00:57:05 with as many fruits and vegetables as possible regardless of the source. Right. So have you looked at GMO at all and glyphosate? The World Health Organization classified it as a possible carcinogen, probable? I can't remember exactly. And that's really the issue when it comes to GMOs
Starting point is 00:57:23 is the excess pesticides, right? Because, you know— They're pesticide-resistant, which allows them to bathe them in this pesticide. Right, so you can actually put—so, you know, conventional soybean growers, they still use the same pesticide, but they use it between crops. Obviously, you can't use it during the crop because it would kill your plants. But between the crops, and so there's lots of pesticide'd kill your plants so but between the crops and so there's lots of pesticide in the soil so you grow the you grow the soybeans you still get a little pesticide in them um versus organic where it's not allowed to use it at all but right that's
Starting point is 00:57:54 we can now dump it straight on the plants and so the thought was that you'd have elevated levels and it wasn't until recently the last few where they actually were able to measure actual market levels, not in the fields, but actually what makes it to market, and show that compared to both conventional and organic soy, which had very little, that the levels of glyphosate were just off the chart. In fact, so high, you know, Monsanto pressured countries to actually raise the safety limit. So all of a sudden, it didn't exceed the safety limit anymore, but that's only because they push it up. And that gets back to the politics that are inherent in all of this. You see that in what's happening with organic certification, too.
Starting point is 00:58:39 Like, what qualifies as organic isn't what it was, you know, 10 years ago. It's been, in some some respects co-opted it's easier to get that organic certification i think it still costs a bunch of money or whatever but um there's more things that can be qualified as organic because there's money to be made there right they can charge more for it it's right yes i mean the billions in organics are not because they're selling lots of carrots right they're They're selling organic gummy bears and, you know, I mean – but, you know, you can understand, you know, the purists who want organic to maintain, you know, this little niche. I mean we also want a lot of people to have access to it. How do we have a lot of people have access to it?
Starting point is 00:59:18 You know, in this society, an entity makes a lot of money off of it right i mean so uh so for example you know i have this these uh it's interesting series of articles about patenting turmeric so for example there's actually a group that it did actually patent turmeric the spiced or not a genetically modified no no just like actual turmeric because it has these all these medicinal effects um and so they were sued by this group of Indian attorneys saying, wait a second, we've been using turmeric for like, you know, for, you know, anivating medicine forever. You can't do this.
Starting point is 00:59:51 And the patent was pulled and all was right with the world. And so it seemed like this great fight against these evil corporations trying to get the, okay. But if PepsiCo owned turmeric, oh my God, we would have it everywhere. It would be in everything. It would be in Pepsi. It would be. And so, I mean, so on one hand, it's like, great, now it can remain pennies a dose and make nobody any money.
Starting point is 01:00:20 So therefore, we're not going to have any research for it. We're not going to have any promotional budget to get it. No one's ever going to hear about it. And so there's this interesting, like, wow. It's not as easy as you think. If Monsanto really did own broccoli, which they're trying to patent a strain of broccoli, then
Starting point is 01:00:37 our kids would be eating a lot more broccoli. Yeah, I never thought of it from that perspective. It's tricky, right? It's tricky. What do you think about the food plate and the food pyramid and what's going on there and how that's sort of evolved over time? Yeah, well, I think it's – I like the – obviously, the food plate is much better. It gives people a better way to kind of visualize. The food pyramid came out, was gutted, pulled back by meat industry pressures.
Starting point is 01:01:05 But the food plate is nice. But the food plays nice. So the food plays, right? Basically half fruits and vegetables, a quarter quote-unquote protein, which includes legumes. And so actually legumes, beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils, actually are the only food that actually
Starting point is 01:01:19 goes over both. It's considered both a protein and a vegetable. It's kind of a two-for-one. And then, you know, whole grain. So it's like this great, you know, I mean... It's moving in the right direction. That is absolutely moving in the right direction. What happened with that lawsuit that PCRM filed over that?
Starting point is 01:01:37 Over, that was like, hey, that looks awful familiar. We put out that power plate years ago. Or, yeah, I can't remember exactly what it was. I'm trying to remember, but I think it had something to do with sort of the public being misled in terms of the recommendations. Well, there were certainly conflicts. Well, I mean, yeah, probably the greatest lawsuit they've ever won was divulging the conflicts of interest of who was on the board, right?
Starting point is 01:02:07 So these are the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. You know, USDA and the DHHS come together to put them together every five years since 1980. And, you know, it's not just recommendations. This is what, you know, a federal school lunch program is what we feed people in prisons. It's in every school and every public institution. I'm right. It's very important. And so, of course, huge amount of pressure from lobbyists and money pours in.
Starting point is 01:02:34 But yet they were not even divulging who was paying these signs. And so thanks to Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine, they came in, and she divulged who these people were on the committee who were making up these guidelines. And it's just absolutely amazing. So they were paid for the likes of everything. They were on Coca-Cola's Beverage Health Institute and the McDonald's Living whatever, and then the Sugar Association, the Salt Institute.
Starting point is 01:03:03 My favorite was Joanna Dwyer, who's this scientist up at Tufts, who used to be the Duncan Hines brand girl before she was like the Crisco brand girl. Like, you know, and then she went on to write the dietary guidelines for all Americans. And so like candy bar, Mars bar, candy bar companies. And we wonder how screwed up these guidelines are. And so now that has changed. It's getting much better. So this current committee has less financial ties than any other. So we're pushing things in the right direction.
Starting point is 01:03:37 And that's all good for people that want a healthy populace because that's where the evidence lies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. Do you know Andy Bilotti? He's a nutritionist. He's great. You've got to meet this guy. But him and a few others, he's a nutritionist, dietitian, but he'll go to these conferences and he'll tweet photos of, you know, these banners that are hanging from these big food brands.
Starting point is 01:04:00 Oh, right. That's crazy. Right. You know, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, the McDonald's Institute. Yeah, yeah. He's a big Michelle Simon person. Awesome, awesome. Yeah, so it's so glaring and in your face that you can't even believe it's real. It's like a scene out of Idiocracy.
Starting point is 01:04:13 You're like, are you kidding? And everyone's just sort of going along with it. Right, right. It's interesting. So Coca-Cola just pulled sponsorship from the American Academy of Dietetics. And it's interesting, though, the ADA, the former ADA, you know, now the Academy of Dietetics and Nutrition. And it's interesting though, the ADA, the former ADA, you know, now the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics,
Starting point is 01:04:29 you know, they didn't stop their sponsorship. Coca-Cola pulled back from them thanks to pressure from a big New York Times piece showing how much money they were pouring into everyone's coffers. But, you know, these are all good signs. I mean, the less money we have influencing, the more
Starting point is 01:04:45 transparency there is, the more will the real science will come out. Right. So you're optimistic. I am totally optimistic. You are? That's good to hear. Oh, absolutely. The more research is getting done, the research is getting out there, it's having an impact. I mean, you go back, you know, in my kind of latest annual review, I talk about, you know, what was like, I kind of parallel the situation now with being a smoker in the 50s. So if you're a smoker in the 50s, you have the American Medical Association saying smoking on balance is good for you. That's the AMA saying that, right?
Starting point is 01:05:21 That's so amazing. And they refused to endorse the surgeon general's report when it came out in the 60s after they had gotten that 10 million dollar check from the tobacco industry i mean absolutely the cd but okay so you go back in time okay so you can see why the ama was in bed with tobacco industry but why weren't individual doctors speaking out the majority of physicians smoked in fact the average per capita cigarette consumption of Americans was it comes out to a half pack a day
Starting point is 01:05:49 for every adult. So the average American smoked a half pack a day. Okay, so it was in the media, it was in the movies, it was ads on TV, doctor, government, everyone was telling you. So on one side, all you had was the science.
Starting point is 01:06:08 If you knew what was going on and none of that science broke through. So you had these studies done by these remarkable folks, you know, titans in the research field in the 30s, 40s, 50s. None of it made out in the mainstream because, you know, your doctor wasn't going to tell you to quit smoking between puffs. I mean, it was normal. It was just what you did. You know, medical meetings weren't a big haze of smoke, right?
Starting point is 01:06:34 You know, they're debating lung cancer in these congressional committees through this fog of smoke. And so when it's normal, right, you can't wait for society to catch up to the science because by the time it does, you could be dead by then or have cancer. Like, I mean, there's a matter of life and death. And so I see this kind of real parallel between then and now it's like, okay, the science is clear.
Starting point is 01:07:00 The science has been clear, but that's not what everybody does. I mean, what your doctor, your doctor, most of the doctors smoked back then, most of the doctors today continue to eat foods that contribute to our epidemic of dietary diseases. So you have this kind of inherent bias, this cognitive dissonance of them telling people to eat healthier than they're already eating or to get exercise if they're sitting on the butt themselves. And so, you know, I think that's a good parallel where you have this – where you can have simultaneously this tremendous body of unassailable evidence, yet that's not what the government, the medical community and society is saying.
Starting point is 01:07:40 In fact, by the time the Surgeon General's report came out in 1964, 7,000 studies. It took 7,000 studies linking smoking with lung cancer before the Surgeon General came out. I mean, you think after the first 6,000, they could have given a little heads up or something, right? I mean, but that just shows. And so I don't know what thousand we're at, right? But I mean, how much— But I think with our demand for transparency, that has to be accelerated, right? But at the same time, you're also asking... First of all, you're asking people to embark on behavioral change, which is not fun or comfortable and
Starting point is 01:08:16 not something people want to hear about. But on top of that, you're also asking the medical community to have this paradigm shift away from diagnose and prescribe because we're just prescription nutty right now and put on the preventive medicine hat, right? And our system, the current medical sort of doctor setup, it isn't really designed to function that way economically. And that's the word. It's really economically. There's really no route for doctors to function that way economically. And that's the word. It's really economically. There's really no route for doctors to get reimbursed. There's some kind of creative ways doctors are doing it now with group visits and things for diabetics on Medicare. And the Ornish program, the Pritikin program have both been accepted by Medicare.
Starting point is 01:08:58 So there's a few ways you can get in. But in general, there's no reimbursement mechanism for a doctor telling people to – keeping people healthy and talking to them about things they can do to prevent illness because doctors are reimbursed by procedure, like pills and procedures. That's what they get money for. That's what sends their kids through college, not how healthy their patients were. If we actually had metrics, and there are some in the Affordable Care Act, if we had metrics that actually rewarded doctors for actually keeping people healthy, then we could see the system change. Right. That's crazy talk.
Starting point is 01:09:33 That's just crazy talk. I think the approach should really be through corporate wellness programs because you're dealing with these big corporations who are just getting bled because of their insurance premiums, their healthcare insurance premiums, and they're ready and willing to listen if it's going to positively impact their bottom line. So to implement really, you know, really in a real way, wellness programs that aren't just, hey, we're going to run a 5k,
Starting point is 01:10:01 but like really tending to the food that their employees are eating and having, you know, sort of accountability programs and really, you know, infusing a culture that promotes wellness, which will, of course, positively impact, you know, their insurance premiums and their ultimate profitability, but also, you know, provide people with the tools to be able to be healthy. And that will trickle down from there. You know, that's the grand irony, is that the food industry has this kind of historical anti-corporate bias, right? It's big tobacco, it's big food coming in. It's these evil corporations like PepsiCo and Kentucky Fried Chicken. And so corporations are the enemy, when ironically, And so like corporations are the enemy when ironically they may be our salvation. They're the ones that are, you know, if they're self-insuring their populations, they are the ones to stand to gain the most by reducing health care costs. I mean, you prevent a few cases of diabetes.
Starting point is 01:11:05 You've saved enormous amounts of money, not to mention increases in productivity and well-being. You know, the, you know, PCRM did this great series of studies at 10 Geico sites recently published and showed a tremendous, you know, improvement in fatigue, mental health. Yeah. If I was CEO of a Fortune 500 company and came across that, I'd say, sign me up. When are we, let's do this right now. Yeah. Let's change the cafeteria. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:11:22 I think it's, you know, but it's, it's really the politics that swirl around these big corporations, you know, just take, take school lunch, you know, why is that such an incredible clusterfuck to unravel and repair? It's very, very difficult just to get healthy food options for kids, because there's so much money being made, and there's so much politics going into, you know providers that are gaining you know that are basically profiting from the food that's being provided these they're huge contracts right so yeah they're unloading these cheap commodities I mean the problem is is that healthy food doesn't have a more doesn't it you can't mark up healthy food I mean I mean the the the profit margin is so razor-thin for broccoli, sweet potatoes, that kind of thing.
Starting point is 01:12:07 You just can't charge a premium because there's no like Smith brand. You're not going to pay more because you have some kind of branded broccoli. Whereas, these processed food companies can take the dirt cheapest of ingredients like sugar and spin it and color it and flavor it to all sorts of – and so like the can of Coke is one of the greatest profit margins. So like a can of Coke and basically tobacco are the two kind of most profitable in terms of how much money they make given the raw materials that go into it. And so there's this – it's not that Coke sits around and says, how can we make the children of America obese, right? They're like, how can we make the children of America obese?
Starting point is 01:12:47 They're like, how can we make money? And it just turns out the sweet potatoes don't make you as much money. So it's not like – but – But there's subsidies involved in that, of course. Right. And so why is sugar so cheap? Because we subsidize it. So why is corn and soy so cheap? Because we feed it to the animals um and subsidize the meat industry
Starting point is 01:13:06 that way and so right so if we subsidized good food fruits and vegetables things and so europe they're actually starting so for example um a number of scandinavian countries have done this uh free fruit programs so every day every kid gets free fruit. And they found – and oh, so I have this video coming out about these programs. Absolutely amazing. And they kind of made the calculations that to make it cost-effective, it was just some absolutely wild calculation that you save so much on health care costs doing that one simple thing, giving people fruit that, you know, it pays for itself over and over and over again. It just becomes a no-brainer. Right. Right.
Starting point is 01:13:55 If. But, you know, the Watermelon Promotion Board, their budget pales in comparison. I know. So how do we deal with this problem, or at least this mentality or idea that eating plant-based is for the elite, right? Like, how can we trickle down this protocol to make it more accessible for the underprivileged? Look, they're feeding their families off subsidized foods, the cheapest, most nutritionally poor foods available, but they don't have sort of the luxury of being able to go to Whole Foods. Well, some of the healthiest foods. I mean, think about the grocery bill.
Starting point is 01:14:45 Some of the most expensive foods are some of the healthiest foods, I mean, you think about the grocery bill, some of the most expensive foods are some of the least healthy foods, particularly by nutrient, right? And so if you want calories per dollar, okay, fine, junk food wins out, right? And that's how we used to measure food value 200 years ago, when your New England bricklayer
Starting point is 01:15:01 burning 14,000 calories a day, you just needed calories. And so a pound of sugar, which was five cents, cost as much as a pound of beans, which has cost five cents. And so USDA said sugar is healthier because it has more calories per that five cents. And you have to keep your bricklayers bricklaying. But they can be excused because vitamins hadn't been discovered yet. I mean, we had no idea there was just this kind of energy value of food but now that's changed now we know oh there's actually
Starting point is 01:15:30 nutrients in food that do things for you and so on a dollar per nutrient basis then good foods win out across the board and so you know some of the healthy foods like beans, beans and rice, that kind of thing. The amount of nutrition you get per dollar is huge. Purple cabbage, right? You can get purple for 50 cents a pound. You can get a cabbage that lasts practically forever. You slice off shreds, put it in any meal that you're eating, right? Tremendous. One of the most antioxidant packed food per dollar anywhere in the world.
Starting point is 01:16:04 You can buy it so cheap, right? Apples are cheap. I mean, these are, you know, I mean, you know, compare a pound of breakfast cereal to a pound of apples at any store, right? And you'll be amazed in terms of how much food you actually get, you know. And you can buy, you know, most of these foods anywhere. Right. So how do we get that message out better than we have been? I guess it becomes about education.
Starting point is 01:16:27 So I've done a bunch of videos about it with all sorts of cool graphs that come from the USDA that actually go through and chart prices of all the commodities and really kind of neat, colorful, pretty graphs that show exactly how much more nutrition you can get per dollar. So anyway. Got it. So yeah, the answer basically, nutritionfacts.org is the – Yeah, it is. What is your most popular video? Do you know? You know, periodically, every year, and so it's coming up to be that time,
Starting point is 01:17:03 my kind of New Year's, what are the top 10 videos of the year? And I actually go back, go to the Google Analytics and see, oh, what was the – and I'm often surprised. A lot of them, because it's organic search results, it's like common questions. So what are the – so there's like – so is coconut oil healthy or something like that? I mean that will – I mean that will be – because people just Google it and then it comes up. And so people go to discover the site based on that kind of thing. I don't write blog posts that often on my site, but I did write a blog post after you posted your coconut oil video
Starting point is 01:17:38 and I embedded it in my blog post. It was called like health food or panacea or you know what i can't remember what i titled it and when i look at my google analytics it's i think it's the by far and away like the most red thing that i've ever put on my website people are obsessed with coconut oil yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's funny um so that so basically yeah because it because it's not – it's really people organically searching on Google. They're not necessarily already on Nutrition Facts like going through. Right, right, right. And so the most impactful, the most important videos, right?
Starting point is 01:18:14 I mean if it doesn't have a title that works well in a search engine, no one may ever see it. Right. And I learned that only relatively recently. And so like one of the most powerful videos is this whole IGF-1 story and cancer. And the name of that video is Ex Vivo Cancer Bioassay or something like that. It's this really cool way you can drip blood from people on different diets onto cancer cells and see what it does and how good your blood is at suppressing and killing cancer compared to someone else's blood or your blood two weeks later after eating a plant-based diet i mean all these really cool so it's just a fascinating but with that kind of title i mean nobody will ever see it you got to embed like keywords in there like kim kardashian you can see how that influences your
Starting point is 01:19:02 view right right no it's so true so yeah so I've learned to make things much more kind of, you know, like- You'll never believe what happened next was amazing. Right, right, right. Treating high blood pressure with diet or something. So my title is actually kind of very bland and boring. And like, I wanted to be all twisty and quirky and punny. But no. You need an intern to just study the headlines on BuzzFeed.
Starting point is 01:19:30 Oh, right. To see what works. That's so funny. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about the book. I mean what is your aspiration for this book? Yeah. Well, I mean this – I mean I think it's going to do just a tremendous amount of good in the world just kind of as it is. I mean, originally, it was really just a vehicle to kind of send traffic to the site because I feel that's like my primary body of work.
Starting point is 01:19:51 That's where all the science is. That's where they can see it. So this is just a way to kind of inform people about it and send people that way. But then it turned into kind of this really project on its own, kind of self-contained and offering its own kind of value. kind of self-contained and offering its own kind of value. In fact, a lot of stuff that isn't on the site, right, because it's more like, well, this is my opinion based on my kind of professional opinion, even though I can't really back it up.
Starting point is 01:20:19 This is based kind of, you know, this is my intuition based on what the science we do know, which I would never want to put on the site. But, you know, it's like dosing, right? How much dose? So we have 20 studies. Some use this massive dose. Some use this tiny dose okay well what do you eat if you think turmeric is good for you how much do you actually eat every day so i came up with a quarter teaspoon a day that's my recommendation everyone should eat a quarter teaspoon of turmeric a day okay where do you get that there's no study that actually compared a quarter to an eighth to a
Starting point is 01:20:42 sixteenth to right and so but there's you know you go through their studies that have side effects at too high dose they have studies that show no effect at too low a dose and then you look at populations how much turmeric they've been eating for a long time with a good safety record so you put all this stuff together and say okay that's kind of my best guess it's not it would never go on the site on the website because that's like if i can't have a paper and a quote showing you quarter teaspoon according to the Institute of Medicine. It's not making it in the video. It's not making it in the video.
Starting point is 01:21:12 But people want to know. I mean people have a legitimate interest. And so I can be like, all right, well, this is my best guess. And so that's what the book could be for me is to be like, all right, what do I eat? But, you know, and so that's what the book could be for me is to be like, all right, what do I eat? How do I translate this body of information into actual like, you know, day to day? You know, what do I eat for breakfast kind of stuff? And so I think a lot of that kind of practical aspect that I think people really, really enjoy. And then I just get kind of greater exposure for the movement and for the work we've all been kind of hard at doing.
Starting point is 01:21:47 I think it's good timing. And I hope it'll just knock it out of the park. Well, I think that it's a really important book. I feel like it has the potential to really reach a wide audience because in many ways it really is the definitive manual on what's healthy, how you can prevent disease. And it's so detailed. It's really bulletproof. I mean, your research is impeccable. I mean, this is like, this is a serious work. You know what I mean? It really, really is. And you should be really proud. And I just think like it's something that I could give somebody and say, this will answer all your questions.
Starting point is 01:22:25 And you don't have to read it from cover to cover, but you can pick a section. You can look into it, you know, take that as it will and go off and do your own research or whatever you need to do. But I really feel like, you know, you I mean, it's clear that you put everything that you have into it. You really did. You know what I mean? And I'm sure that's why it took so long to get it to this point. I mean, I don't know how many hours you must have put into this book, but, you know, it's an extraordinary work, man. And I'm excited for you. Thank you, man. What was it like working with Gene Stone?
Starting point is 01:22:57 Yeah, yeah. Well, it was, you know, he's a writer, not a scientist. And I think that was kind of some of the initial friction is trying to figure out our various roles so I brought him on board thinking that he would save this huge amount of time like here here's my scripts from all the kind of you know that's what you do you're a writer
Starting point is 01:23:16 you have all these best sellers behind you and he'd take it and and I'd come back and be like well wait a second you can't say that that's not true he'd say but it sounds so good. Yeah, I know it sounds great. No, it really sounds great. And it's much clearer and much more.
Starting point is 01:23:31 But it's not like that doesn't represent what actually happens in reality. Right. And I mean, it's not his. I mean, science isn't his background. I mean, can't expect it to be. I mean, can't expect it to be. And so it was just finding a way to, you know, have his strengths be his strengths and my strengths. So I actually felt I – so I actually had to be much more involved than I originally thought I was going to be.
Starting point is 01:23:58 But that turned out great. I mean, so it really turned out – I'm glad that I got much more because I started to love the project more and more and really started kind of pouring my soul into it, particularly towards the end. And so he's able to really kind of work the narrative because, you know, all my videos are very disjointed. And so he's able to kind of weave them together. And so it turned out in the end to be kind of a good marriage. But, you know, I take so much for granted that, like, well, everybody knows that, you know, the central dogma of biology with RNA and DNA, you know. But it's so easy to get it wrong. You need that person who doesn't know that who says, I don't get it. You know, you need to, like, explain.
Starting point is 01:24:38 Walk me through it. Yeah, walk me through it. And let's create something that is going to be accessible. So I'm really hoping that his contribution will open it up to a wider – because even my website is at a pretty high level. Like it really – it requires some kind of substantial background kind of knowledge. But what I appreciate is that you don't pander to the audience. You're saying, no, I trust that you're smart enough. Like rise to my level.
Starting point is 01:25:03 Watch this. I believe that you can understand what I'm trying to convey to you because it's mature in that regard. Even if they can't get it all, I try to have something for every level within the same video. It's like if you're really, really high level, like if you're the researcher whose paper I'm literally covering in that video, I want you to be like, oh, yeah, I see how you made those interesting connections with these researchers that I
Starting point is 01:25:30 didn't even know about, like that high, all the way down to, I didn't know all those long words you used, I had no idea what he was talking about, but I kind of get the gist that animal protein and acid in the kidney, bad kidney function is not good for my kidneys. Like that's all, you know. Right, right, right. Like that's all I need to kind of take away from that. Like a really good Bugs Bunny cartoon. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:25:53 That's why they were so awesome. Right, right. You could be an adult or you could be a toddler and you can both enjoy it. And you can get the subtleties that are totally lost, wasted on those kids. But right, right, right. Or the Shakespearean reference. Right, right.
Starting point is 01:26:08 You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. All right. So if somebody is listening to this, they're flirting with the idea of a plant-based diet, they're interested in what you have to say, what are some kind of just fundamental takeaways that you can impart to kind of kickstart somebody into embracing this way of living? Well, you know, so I think it depends on if someone is coming from kind of a disease reversal standpoint or someone who feels healthy and just wants to kind of maintain that health. Well, let's bifurcate it. So for somebody that's ill, right, somebody with chronic disease, diabetes, hypertension,
Starting point is 01:26:55 these are the kind of people I want to go all in, right? Because I want to see, you know, when, you know, say, well, you know, what about moderation? Well, like how moderate do you want your heart disease? Well, what is moderation anyway? It's a sliding scale and the most subjective thing ever moderate you can have you know you can end up with as a diabetic moderate blindness and moderate kidney failure moderate amputations maybe just a couple toes or something you know i mean that's but that's you know moderation in all things is not necessarily a good thing um And so for those people, they have to, of course, work with their doctor because they have to drop their blood pressure medications, drop their diabetes medications very rapidly within two weeks.
Starting point is 01:27:33 They may be off all, you know, insulin and diabetes medications. Otherwise, their pressures and sugars would drop way too low on this kind of healthy diet because you're actually treating the cause. For those people, I really want to see them really kind of go all in because then they can really see these dramatic effects within their own bodies and that will be the motivation for them to continue that lifestyle for the rest of their life. And I think for a younger, healthier crowd, this kind of prevent the ravages, then they can be a little more experimental.
Starting point is 01:28:01 They go to whatever speed they want because they may not necessarily – I mean their body isn't necessarily at that kind of breaking point where they necessarily feel the difference whether you're actually eating some dark green leafy vegetables or not. But for someone with heart failure, I mean whether or not you had spinach and got that extra nitrate load to actually facilitate blood flow you know uh blood flow and oxygen you know kind of efficiency i mean you can actually feel the difference from these foods you know a young person eats some arugula and cut a few seconds off their 5k time but you know they're not necessarily going to feel any different um and for them you know just take at whatever speed you know one resource i really like is pcrm's 21day kickstart program. It starts every month. Hundreds of thousands of people have gone through it. Multiple languages.
Starting point is 01:28:47 It's totally free. A nice community of people to go through it together and share tips and cooking and recipes. It's been a really great program, certainly for any practitioners out there. People have plant-based practices who are trying to work within the model. It's easy to give somebody a website, get somebody started, no matter how short your office visits are, and get people on the right track. Right.
Starting point is 01:29:09 I'll put a link up in the show notes to that 21-day Kickstart program. Yeah, because it is great. And if there's one habit or one sort of dietary preference that you would say is the number one thing that you got to let go of oh let go of well so add would be dark green leafy's and we just need the needy greens all day every day i mean just nothing better than greens okay so greens on everything under everything better greens for everything okay um and cutting out i mean the worst food is uh is uh trans fats pretty much gone at this point but so hydrogenated vegetable oil like
Starting point is 01:29:46 crisco probably the worst thing but you can't even i don't think you can find trans fat crisco anymore um and then uh processed meat be the highest right so all those so ham bacon hot dogs uh chicken mcdougats lunch meats deli slices that kind of thing i mean there's just no room for those in that healthy diet and and here's the thing with your book. It's 600 pages long. You have, you know, voluminous chapters on all of these, you know, 15 leading causes of death and how to avoid them. You've got 150 pages of footnotes. The final chapter, I think it's the final chapter, is supplements. Oh, okay. And I think it's three pages.
Starting point is 01:30:27 The whole book. You know what I mean? Which I found, I just, I laughed when I saw that. I go, that's perfect. Well, when you have a healthy diet. Michael Greger, yeah, yeah, yeah. When you're getting mountains of nutrition. Sheesh, what do you need?
Starting point is 01:30:40 Right. So, because that's the thing I always, what are the supplement, you know, that the solution resides in these supplements, right? And by kind of just putting three pages in, you could say that you've checked the box and addressed it, but you're also saying, listen, that's not where your focus needs to be, right? Exactly, absolutely. So vitamin B12, an algae-based DHA, right, correct?
Starting point is 01:31:02 And perhaps vitamin D for certain people. Was there another one? That's pretty much it, right? I. And perhaps vitamin D for certain people. And was there another one? Or that's pretty much it, right? Iodine for pregnant women. Right. Simple. Nothing else. Yeah. And those are all consequences of just how we live.
Starting point is 01:31:14 We're no longer running around naked in Equatoria, Africa all day and getting baked in the sun. Hopefully we're getting less feces in our drinking water, which is not getting a lot of B12 anymore, not getting a lot of cholera either. It's good. I'll take that deal any day. And so it's just, you know, this way. In terms of iodine, you don't know what, you know, there's iodine in pleated soils. You don't know where your vegetables are coming from and it has such serious consequences during pregnancy. Other than that, we're good.
Starting point is 01:31:44 We're good. Final question. You were on Colbert Report? Ha! Yes! Oh, my God. I came across that on the internet. I was like, how did I miss that?
Starting point is 01:31:56 Is that on the internet? I've got to find that. No, it totally is. And it's, right, what was the, not Groundhog, what was I talking about? I don't know. I didn't see it. Oh was I? What was it? What was the not groundhog? What was that? What was I talking about? I don't know. I didn't see it.
Starting point is 01:32:08 I just saw that. No, I just came across something that said that you had been on the Colbert report. And I was like, so funny. What? No, no. I was on as a they're like little porcupine creatures. What are those little spiny armadillo? No, it wasn't armadillo.
Starting point is 01:32:20 Not a porcupine. All right. No, no. That's so funny. Here I am. And I was like the expert. What are you talking about? No, I was like armadillo. That's funny. Not a porcupine. Right, right. No, no. Sea urchin? That's so funny. Here I am. And I was like the expert. What are you talking about? No, I was like the expert in this.
Starting point is 01:32:28 No, so they wanted somebody on zoonotic diseases, these animal to human diseases. No, I wrote the book on bird flu and all these things. And so they're doing this segment. Was it plague? Yeah, something like that. I don't know whether they're eating these creatures or something, but they're like, we need an expert on this. And so they brought me up and it was hilarious and yeah it's really fun and of course they took like hours of footage and you know it comes down to like three minutes or
Starting point is 01:32:55 whatever right right right but um but yeah and there's actually some hours of embarrassing footage and stuff they wanted me to do all sorts of crazy stuff like like drinking out of beakers and steaming test tubes and stuff i'm like i can see you being game for that and so i was i was totally doing all this stuff but then afterwards i'm like oh my god there goes my career like i'm thinking how they could make me look so crazy and of course i just wanted to release anything we want but it turns out it came up with really kind of fun yeah and played me very kind of serious and uh and so i talked about how you shouldn't eat this weird little mammalian pet or something like that because otherwise you would i don't know yeah yeah no see all right well now i gotta find that yeah no no
Starting point is 01:33:44 it's on there somewhere you find it and put a link on it that's hilarious alright man I think we did it anything else you want to say this is great I'm so psyched for everyone to read the book and check out my work
Starting point is 01:33:59 the book is called How Not To Die not How To Not Die. Although, with all these technologies these days, you extend your life long enough, and we figure out how to extend life further. We just have to extend human life one year every year, right? Right. Well, that'll be the next book. And so, right.
Starting point is 01:34:17 How to Not Die Ever. How to Not Die Ever. There you go. That's the sequel. Excellent, man. Really, add a couple decades. Maybe we'll reach a point where we can upload ourselves or something. Right.
Starting point is 01:34:28 AI, man. To the mainframe. So the website is nutritionfacts.org. It's really just – I talk about it on the podcast all the time. It really is your one-stop shop to learn everything you ever wanted to know about nutrition. How many videos do you have up now? Over 1,000 now. 1,000, right?
Starting point is 01:34:48 And you have this index. I mean, you can search any nutrient, any disease, basically anything. I can almost guarantee that you've got a video up on that. It really is extraordinary work that you're doing. And above and beyond all of that, what's really amazing and interesting is that, correct me if I'm wrong, but all the proceeds from the new book are being given to the 501c3. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't get a penny.
Starting point is 01:35:13 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, yeah, no, I wouldn't sign a contract unless it all went there. Yeah, no, it's great. It's just kind of like the Wikipedia model of, you know, like it just goes because one in a thousand people kicks in a few bucks and there's just so many millions of people on the site that it just pays for itself and we have all this big staff and the whole thing goes just because uh you know everything's free no ads anything but uh you know people just value the content and able to keep the whole thing going so it's just like labor of love that i'd be doing anyway, but the fact that I can do it completely without taking a penny and that's just, I like keeping that kind of, you know, the decommercialism,
Starting point is 01:35:51 taking commercialism out of nutritional science, which is, you know, critical piece. You're a beautiful man. Oh. Thanks for everything you do, man. I really appreciate it. Book comes out December 8th. You know it. And you're going to be everywhere at the same time
Starting point is 01:36:05 a little too everywhere yeah very cool man I'm really excited for you I'm proud of you and I'm really I'm so impressed by the work that you do
Starting point is 01:36:15 and by this book and I think it's it's going to really help a lot of people so thanks I'll keep up the work as long as I can right on man
Starting point is 01:36:23 peace peace plants people. So thanks. I'll keep up the work as long as I can. Right on, man. Peace. Peace. Plants. All right. So that was awesome. Make sure to check out Dr. Greger's new book, How Not to Die. Not to be confused with How to Not Die. I wonder if there is a book called How to Not Die. I bet you there is. I can almost guarantee you that there is. Anyway, the book that you want is called How Not to Die
Starting point is 01:36:50 and you're going to pick it up on Amazon by using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. Of course. Thank you very much. We all win. Don't forget to check out this week's comprehensive show notes at richroll.com. Lots of stuff to delve into there to take your edification and your infotainment beyond
Starting point is 01:37:06 the earbuds. And while you're at it, make a point to subscribe to my newsletter. No spam, just good stuff. If you want access to the entire RRP catalog beyond the most recent 50 episodes on iTunes, well, I've got an app for that, and it's free. Just search
Starting point is 01:37:22 Rich Roll in the App Store, it'll pop up, or you can click that banner on my website. For all your plant-powered and RRP schwag and merch, visit richroll.com. You can get signed copies of our cookbook, The Plant Power Way, also my memoir, Finding Ultra. We've got Julie's Guided Meditation Program. We've got nutrition products. We've got all kinds of cool t-shirts and plant-powered tech tees. We've got sticker packs, temporary tattoos. We have beautiful limited edition art prints, which make for a great gift, both framed and unframed. Anyway, all kinds of awesome to take your health and your life to the next level. Keep sending in your questions for future Q&A podcasts to info at richroll.com.
Starting point is 01:38:01 We're going to be doing another episode of that midweek this week to celebrate three years of doing this podcast and episode 200, if you can believe that. I cannot believe it. It's amazing. And I want to thank you guys. If you want more than that, I'm already giving you so much stuff,
Starting point is 01:38:20 but you want more? Okay. I got two courses, online courses at mindbodygreen.com, the art of living with purpose, which is all about goal setting, and the ultimate guide to plant-based nutrition, which is all about getting more plant powered. As we're heading into the holiday season and you're starting to think about your new year's resolutions, well, both of these courses kind of fit the bill in terms of cleaning up your diet and also setting goals, doing the interior work to make sure that you're
Starting point is 01:38:45 moving forward on a proper life trajectory for yourself. Really proud of the courses, both multiple hours of streaming video content, very affordably priced. And you can learn more at mindbodygreen.com. Just click on video courses there and I'll tell you all about it. Thank you so much for supporting the show, for telling your friends, you guys, for sharing it on social media. All of that means so much to me. I can't believe that I have all you guys as my audience. You've been amazing.
Starting point is 01:39:13 And I greatly, greatly appreciate all of you. I'll see you guys back here in a couple of days with our Ask Me Anything episode. And until then, try to enjoy yourselves. Try to be good to yourselves and be good to other people peace plants

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