The Rich Roll Podcast - Michael Greger, MD On Omega-3’s, Antioxidant Impact on Exercise Recovery & The Hows and Whys of Protein Intake

Episode Date: December 13, 2012

In today's episode, Rich talks with Michael Greger, M.D., the man behind the incredibly informative non-profit website NutritionFacts.org. We discuss plant-based nutrition, the pros and cons of a wide variety of popular diets from Pritikin to Paleo to Atkins, and the impact of corporate food and pharmacuetical interests on everything from food marketing/labeling to the current state of nutrition research and medical school curriculums. Dr. Greger then gets down to the nitty gritty on specific nutrition subjects like omega-3 fatty acid oil supplementation, the impact of antioxidant intake on exercise-induced oxidative stress and athletic adaptations to training, and of the course the hows and whys of protein intake. At the end of the day? All roads lead to kale. Enjoy the listen Peace + Plants, SHOW NOTES * NutritionFacts.org * AtkinsExposed.org * Pritikin Institute * Plant Positive / Primitive Nutrition YouTube Channel * Dr. Greger on Twitter: @nutrition_facts * NutritionFacts on Facebook *Disclosure: Books and products denoted with an asterisk are hyperlinked to an affiliate program. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

The Rich Roll Podcast. The podcast. Episode 7. Welcome back. We took a couple days off, but we're back. Back with a vengeance. I've got a great, great guest for you guys today. Dr. Michael Greger is coming on the show and he is the man, the brains, the energy, the genius behind my favorite nutrition website, nutritionfacts.org. If you haven't checked it out, you should check it out right away. Pause this podcast and go visit it right now. It's really my go-to one-stop shop for trying to educate myself better about the foods that I eat and whether it comes to should I eat this superfood or that superfood or what's the deal with soy? Is soy good? Is soy bad?

What about fish oil? I'm hearing that it might be toxic, but other people love it. And what about superfoods and certain antioxidants? Which, you know, which antioxidants are best of all the berries out there? Which berry, you know, packs the most punch? Whatever you want. I almost guarantee you he has a video on it. You can go there. And then on the left-hand margin, there's an index in alphabetical order of basically every single topic that he covers and it's an endless index. And then there's a search window. You can just type in type two diabetes or turmeric or pork or whatever it is and it'll pull up a series of videos. You can watch them and he kind of lays it out step by

step, his opinion, well, not really his opinion, what the science, the peer-reviewed research that exists out there, the latest peer-reviewed research says about that food, about that disease, about that condition, whatever it is. And what I love about it is that it's, A, it's a non-profit site so he's not making any money off it there is no advertising on the site it's literally a public service and what he does is he reads all these he literally doesn't sleep the guy stays up all night every night reading these peer-reviewed journals and articles and then he condenses them down and reviews them in these short, you know, two to, I don't know, five minutes might be the longest video up there, where he kind of goes through what the research says and then reconciles, you know, sort of conflicting research and comes up with a conclusion based on the evidence, based on the science, based on the peer-reviewed articles and journals and gives the viewer a takeaway that is easily implemented into your life. And so I can't urge you enough to check it out. I've used it innumerable times. And in addition to that, he happens to be a really energetic, dynamic,

fun guy to talk to and to hang out with. I had the pleasure of meeting him this past summer at a couple of VegFests that I was speaking at. I first met him in Toronto. And of course I was familiar with him. I was like starstruck to meet the guy because I felt like I knew him already from watching so many of his videos. So I met him in Toronto, was able to hang out with him, spend a little time with him, and then saw him again in Washington, D.C., where he lives, where I spoke at the VegFest there. And I just thought that he would be the perfect person to bring on the podcast to kind of kick off some intensive nutrition kind of talking points. You know, there's been, it's been really fun doing the podcast and we're really grateful for all the support.

We've got some great comments on iTunes and some really amazing feedback. But, you know, I'm getting some comments or some emails from people like, when are you going to start talking about the nutrition or getting into the nitty gritty? And so, you know, that's where Dr. Greger comes in. I mean, he is a wealth of information and I couldn't be happier to have him on the podcast.

When I started this, I was really kind of against the idea of bringing in guests via Skype just because there's something about, you know, sitting across from somebody and having a conversation and kind of letting that conversation unfold organically. And, you know, when you're sitting there and they're right across from you and you're looking into their eyes, there's a certain kind of energy and magic that occurs that's irreplaceable. And for the most part, I want to, you know, sort of stay true to that and continue to have most of my guests be people that I'm conversing with in person. But I thought, well, what are the people that, you know, who are the people that are not in Los Angeles that are going to be difficult for me to sit down with in the near future? You know, I might be back in D.C. or I might, you know, meet Dr. Greger along the path sometime in the next year. But I don't know when that's going to be.

And so I just thought, well, you know, let's bring in the people year, but I don't know when that's going to be. And so I just thought, well, you know, let's bring in the people that live far away, don't live in Los Angeles that I'm not going to be able to sit down with, you know, in the next couple months and get them on. And so very, very excited to bring Dr. Greger in. We had a great conversation and thank you so much for all the sort of user or listener submitted questions. I tried to get to a few of them and, you know, he doesn't even need to be interviewed. You just give him a topic and he just goes. And I tried to just get out of the way and let him speak some truth and set us all on a better, healthier path to eating better, feeling better, preventing disease, and even, and we get into this a little bit, you know, reversing some congenital diseases and how you can do it too.

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This is fun. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, it's a pleasure. It's an honor to have you on. Thanks for taking the time. Well, congrats on how meteoric the rise of this podcast is. It's so exciting. Well, it's been pretty fun. I mean, we were having a good time doing it, and there was definitely like a mad rush the first couple episodes. And I think the way that iTunes works, at least, is they have some kind of algorithm so that when there's a lot of activity in a short period of time, it kind of over inflates the rankings a little bit. So it's settled back down a little

bit. But the downloads are really, you know, really high and people are responding to it. And it's been a lot of fun doing it. So So yeah, we're rocking it. It's been good. You deserve it. You deserve it. Well, I'm just trying to put some, put, put the message out to the people, give them some good content. You know what I mean? It's the message. So I think that, you know, I think that it just shows that it's not me, it's people, you know, they want, they want something new, you know, they want to They want a new way, and they want someone to lead them there, and it's the information, really. So I'm just glad that there's an audience out there. So it's cool. I'm with you. I'm with you. No, no. And this is the same thing happened with the China study with Forks Over Knives.

I mean, they got like 300 000 facebook fans why is that is that because the movie was so great it's because the information is so great i mean you know i mean so yeah absolutely yeah exactly and you my friend are at the forefront we what have you been up to oh man it's all 2013 content man i'm gonna run out of videos january 6 i gotta get my uh get my butt in gear here so yeah that's what i've been working on but this is my favorite time of the year i got uh you know when i when i'm finally the research is done i just got to put together the put together the new uh presentations you know right right well i

want to get into that is all right if we just roll into it? Oh, yeah, man. Yeah, anything. Anytime, man. So nutritionfacts.org, which is my favorite go-to destination when I want to find out something quickly and expeditiously on a specific subject matter related to nutrition or a particular kind of food or should I eat this? Shouldn't I eat that? Or I'm hearing conflicting information about, you know, this nutrient or that. Like you are always, the first place that I go to is nutritionfacts.org and 99 times out of 100, you already have a video up that really, like, in a very elementary, objective way, you know, walks the viewer through an understanding. And based on the research, you're always, you know, showing in these videos the materials that you reference for, you know, whatever it is you're pontificating on. And even asking, you know, yourself, well, I read this,

and this didn't make sense. So then I read this research study and trying to reconcile differing opinions and coming up with a cogent reply that the viewer can kind of take away and implement into their lives. I mean, it's an amazing service, and it's really incredible what you've done. I'm so glad so glad. So glad you appreciate it. Yeah, we're up to about 1,500 topics now covered in hundreds of videos. It's really kind of the first non-commercial, you know, science-based website to provide feed daily updates on the latest nutrition research, you know, via these short kind of easy to understand video segments. You know, new video uploaded every day. So now the site's been up a little over a year.

And so now it's another few hundred videos added. And I mean, I started this because I wanted to know the material. But there's so much wonderful information out there. I needed to get it out to the world. And so that's what I've been doing for, well, for a decade now, but just only recently online. Right. And when I first started watching your videos, I thought, well, you must have a staff of dozens of people that are working on this because I think you're putting up at least a

video a day. What is the rate at which you're uploading these videos? Yeah, I wish. Yeah, new video every day. Although I'm afraid in 2013 I'm going to have to back up on that. But I promised I'd do at least a year of video every day. Basically, so every year there's about 13,000 articles published on human nutrition, at least in the English language. And so I scour through all those, download, categorize, and read about 3,000 of those that look interesting. And then, you know, out of those 3,000, I'm usually, you know, I pull, I get pulled together, you know, 365 videos to put one up every day. Um, and then, but, you know,

then the next year rolls around and I got another 13,000 in my inbox. And so, you know, it's kind of hard to keep on top of them. But, you know, there's just so much amazing stuff out there. You know, I mean, you hear, you know, there's a new drug, there's a new, you know, medical procedure or instrument, you'll hear about it, right? Because there's a profit motive behind it, getting that information out there. But, you know, some new article pops up on the wonders of broccoli or something, it'll never see the light of day. It just gets buried, right? Because there's just no incentive to kind of get it out to the masses. And so that's really what I, kind of what started me on this journey is just kind of to take this mountain of great nuggets of life-changing,

Take this mountain of great nuggets of life-changing, life-saving information and, you know, just get it out to the world, you know, from instead of it just being buried in these medical library basements. Right. And, you know, there's not a lot of big, giant corporate interests rallying around, you know, getting to the bottom of broccoli, right? It's really a public interest kind of offering that you're doing here. Right, and that's the point because there's just no – I mean, even you say, well, we're saying people make money off of broccoli. The problem is there's no – you can't brand broccoli. So no broccoli grower is going to pay to put ads on TV saying how wonderful broccoli is because odds are you'll go buy someone else's broccoli.

So you won't kind of profit yourself. You know, it's funny. That's why we see so many articles on kiwifruit, for example, because there's basically one company that basically has kind of a monopoly on the world's kiwifruit exportation. And so they know there's odds about 80% that if you buy a kiwifruit, they're going to benefit. And so they've been pouring money into kiwi fruit research. And so you've got all this amazing research. You see research on soy because it's a big soybean industry, right? But there isn't a big pinto bean lobby.

But the few studies that have come out on pinto beans, you know, these amazing effects, not only in terms of prevention, but even treatment of some of these clinical conditions. And so it's, you know, follow the money. And sometimes there is money, there's government money going into doing this research. But then once research is done, it needs to get out to the world. And so that's, I kind of feel I'm that bridge to get this science out there. And as you said, you know, all the studies I cite are all linked from the website, you know, a full free text whenever possible. You can read the original studies yourselves, make up your own mind, you know, and so I'm constantly, you know, trying to kind of, I mean, every time I go to the library, my family's like, what do we got to eat now? You know.

Yeah. And it's always evolving and changing, I'm sure. Yes, I know. And so, why is there parsley in everything all of a sudden? Or, you know. Right, right. Well, that's really interesting about, you know, corporate interests behind certain kinds of fruits and vegetables uh you know and following the money that's that's fascinating um and just so the viewer knows i mean if you go to nutritionfacts.org uh i think on the um is it you just did a site

redesign but as i recall on the left hand side there's you know literally like every subject matter under the sun and there's a search window and you can just search in whatever it is you're trying to get to the bottom of, and it'll pull up blog posts and videos on that specific subject matter. And you can quickly navigate to exactly what you're trying to inquire about. And if there's something I'm not covering, email me, call me. My contact information is on the site. I'll look into it. I tend to have a bias towards kind of the more common conditions like diabetes and things. But if people have these rare cancers,

I mean, I'd be happy to, I'm in the library anyway, I'd be happy to look and see what the latest is out there in terms of kind of dietary interventions. And the nice thing about dietary interventions, I mean, I'm so privileged to be a physician that, you know, uses so much nutrition in their practice because, you know, there's essentially no downside, right? There's no side effects. In fact, the side effects are good side effects, right, and benefit other conditions. And so, there's a very low bar in terms of how much evidence one needs to add some of these healthy things to one's diet. You know, so, you know, a study will come out saying, you know, cinnamon helps, you know, control blood sugars or something.

And so, you know, I start, you know, having people sprinkle their cinnamon on their oatmeal in the morning. And, you know, I'll have a colleague say, wait a second, one study, you're changing your clinical practice based on one study? You know, but they're coming at that from the pharmaceutical model, which is very true because drugs kill people. In fact, kill about 106,000 Americans every, which is very true because drugs kill people. In fact, kill about 106,000 Americans every year. You know, surgery can kill people.

So, I mean, the bar has to be very high, any new treatment, any new therapeutic, right, because it could have negative side effects. It could hurt people. And so that's a good knee-jerk reaction among physicians to be like, wait a second. That's a good knee-jerk reaction among physicians to be like, wait a second. I'm not giving somebody something new, you know, unless I'm sure. You know, we have a good decade of data. But it's like, well, we're talking about cinnamon, right? You know, I mean, so, you know, these kind of common spices that, you know, people are, you know, eating anyway.

I mean, they, you know, that's why I can jump around so much. And, you know, one year I'm recommending one thing, another year I say, oh, we got to pull back on that because we have new data in. You know, that's my recommendation, change every year. And they have to. I mean, I think anyone who follows nutrition, who is basically spouting the same stuff they said 10 years ago, is just not following the literature or they're just kind of tied up and kind of it's more about their ego you know they kind of come upon this is the way to eat and so then they filter the information that comes in based on that you know screen okay if i think food x is good then i'm just not going to look at anything that questions otherwise and i'm just going to kind of cherry pick the articles that support my view that cherries are great. And so, but, you know, that's, you know, you need to have more intellectual integrity than that, especially when what you say, you know, can, you know, I mean, you're affecting people's lives.

You know, you really have to have that real burden of responsibility on one's shoulders before, you know, anything comes out of your mouth. Right. I mean, it's hardly the scientific method to do otherwise. But you see it a lot, and you see it a lot in the sort of plant-based nutrition world, of course. I mean, you know, and I talked about this on an earlier podcast, how powerful and, you know, often sort of podcast how powerful and often sort of misconstrued or misinterpreted the word vegan can be and how somebody who is a quote unquote vegan carries that as an identity and there's an ego attachment to that and it becomes like a whole thing. And it can make you sort of myopic, I think, in certain respects or you become so attached to that one thing that you become unable to kind of consider or look at, you know, alternatives. I mean, I'm convinced that

plant-based nutrition is the way to go, but I don't think that I would be a very, you know, intellectual human being if I wasn't willing to look at the counter arguments or consider them or, you know, try to have the best understanding that I can about what I'm putting in my body. Absolutely. Because, I mean, what could be the best understanding that I can about what I'm putting in my body. Absolutely. Because, I mean, what could be more important than putting in your family's body? And, you know, and for both of us, I mean, you know, there are people that are following, you know, our suggestions. And so, you know, it can't be based on anything else than the best available balance of evidence

at any one time, right? It doesn't mean that it's great evidence, but it's just the best available balance of evidence at any one time, right? It doesn't mean that it's great evidence, but it's just the best available evidence. How else can we make decisions about anything in life other than with the best available evidence? Right, and sometimes there isn't peer-reviewed research or the research is spotty and you do your best to infer what it's trying to say and extrapolate from that, I suppose. Yeah, well, I mean, for me, if it's not peer-reviewed, it basically doesn't exist. I mean, if it just isn't in kind of these so-called refereed scientific journals, I don't, I mean, I just don't cover it just because, you know,

it's really, it's hard to separate the kind of wheat from the chaff there. And so, you know, I just don't I just don't deal with kind of anecdotal accounts. And people say – I mean in a lot of ways, you can tell – you know more about your own body than any doctor can tell you, right? So you eat food X. No matter what the science says and you don't feel good, don't eat food X, right? There's food allergies, no matter what the science says, and you don't feel good, don't eat food X, right? There's food allergies, food sensitivities, you know, and so people come up to me and say, you said that this was great, and I ate it, and I felt crappy. Then don't eat it, right? I mean, you know, they do large numbers. And so, for example, you know, 1 in 200 people has a soy allergy,

and so for them, soy is no good, right? And and so um you know i see a lot uh you know but i see a lot of kind of failure to thrive folks and people that uh start eating plant-based diets and for a variety of reasons don't do so well and and this can be part of it so for example they never ate soy in their life and now their whole diet is centered around soy eating these kind of meat analogs and they just happen to be you know, one of the few people that's allergic to soy. And they had no idea because they'd never really been exposed to soy. And all of a sudden they feel crappy.

Well, I mean, you know, there's no reason you have to eat soy. You can eat any of the other legumes, beans, peas, lentils. And so, you know, it's important to, you know, there is the best available science for, you know, we can make these kind of public health recommendations. But at the same time, you really have to be in tuned to your body and really anything that makes you think about what you put in your mouth.

You know, some people that do detoxes and stuff, all sorts of crazy stuff. I mean, the benefit, no matter what they are, the benefit is it gets people just conscious about what they're eating, what effect they have. And so it's when people eat unconsciously where I think they can run into a lot of problems. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that's great advice. And all the time I have people saying to me, oh, I tried a plant-based diet. I tried a vegan diet. It didn't work for me or whatever.

And just write it off in the most, you know, generalized terms. And, and, you know, my question is always, well, well, what exactly were you eating? You know, I mean, you can eat poorly on a vegan diet, you can eat poorly on a plant based diet, and you really have to, you know, delve down and mine into exactly what someone's eating and, you know, work with that person to figure out what they're missing or what they're eating too much of, et cetera. I mean, just because you're eating, quote unquote, plant-based or whatever, that can mean so many different things. Right. And typically those that move towards the plant-based tend to be eating healthier than the vegans who are doing it often for kind of political or animal welfare reasons who, you know, they could care. I mean, they just want their favorite

junk food in vegan form. And so now they can have marshmallows. Well, great. who, you know, they could care. I mean, they just want their favorite junk food in vegan form. And so now they can have marshmallows. Well, great. But, you know, vegan donuts aren't, you know, it's just the same trans fat content that non-vegan donuts have. And so, right. And, you know, and some people, plant-based is just vegetarian. They're eating cheese pizza all day and they feel crappy.

Well, duh, you know. So absolutely. So I have people send me basically three-day diet histories where I tell them to eat just what they typically eat and then record everything that goes in their mouth, water, anything. And you get a good sense and you just kind of crunch the numbers and see where people are doing. And there's never been a case where I haven't been able to kind of figure the numbers and see where people are doing. And, you know, there's never been a case where I haven't been able to kind of, you know, figure out a way for someone to be able to, you know, be healthy and happy on a plant-powered diet. Yeah. Well, I wanted to backtrack a little bit. You know, we met a couple times over the summer.

I was out, you know, doing speaking gigs with my book, and we came across each other. I think I met you first in Toronto at the VegFest there, and then again in D.C., and for those out there, Michael is a delightful man, and he's an amazing public speaker, so if you have a chance at the end, we'll, you know, throw up some links or any upcoming speaking gigs you want to promote, but anyway, fast friends from the get-go. And I love this guy. So I wanted to know a little bit more about your background and kind of what led up to this. I mean, from college going forward, where did you develop this interest and fascination in nutrition?

Did it come before medical school? Is it a product of practicing medicine? And then, you know, how did you kind of go from there to become an advocate for a plant-based way of eating? It was actually way before. I mean, it was when I was a kid back in the 70s. It was my grandma, actually. I mean, that started my whole career path. You know, I think the spark for many kids to, you know, kind of want to become a doctor when they grow up is, you know, watching grandparent get sick or even die. But for me, it was watching my grandma get better. And I actually have a video on the site where I show,

you know, picture my grandma at her grandson's wedding, you know, 15 years after doctors had abandoned her to die. She basically had a couple bypass operations. Basically, at some point, you kind of run out of plumbing. And so basically, there's nothing more they can do. They sent her home to die, you know, wheelchair-bound, crushing chest pain. And then she heard about this guy, Nathan Pritikin, who was one of the early lifestyle medicine pioneers. And it's basically like he ran this live-in program. You stay a few weeks, put you on a plant-based diet, teach you how to cook. And basically, they wheeled her in and she walked out. And I'll never forget that. And for a kid, that's all that matters. You get to kind of play with grandma again. But she was given her medical death sentence at age 65.

And thanks to a healthy diet, she was able to enjoy another 31 years on this earth until 96 with her six grandkids, including me. In fact, I was so delighted to run across – she's even mentioned actually the official Pritikin biography. It was called The Man Who Healed America's Heart. And it talks about how, you know, the people you saw are really kind of the death's door people. And it talks about Francis Gregor, you know, who arrived, you know, wheelchair, heart disease, angina, claudication, great pain, chest and legs, three weeks. She was out of her wheelchair walking 10 miles a day. That's incredible. Three weeks.

She was out of her wheelchair walking 10 miles a day. That's incredible. Three weeks. And so she was like this. She was like the poster child of, you know, this guy's practice. And that was my grandma. And it was like since then, it was just like, you know, it's like medicine from the movies. Like where you heal, you know, you heal on hand, right? You lay hands and it's like, you know.

But then I kind of looked at it. And so realizing that, wait a second, heart disease, our number one killer of both men and women every year since 1919, a number one killer can not only be, you know, prevented, not only be stopped in its tracks, but actually reversed, right? You know, arteries opening up, unclogging without drugs, without surgery, just with these simple lifestyle changes like exercise and a plant-based diet. But since that time, right, I mean, since, and, you know, in 1990, when Ornish finally published this, I mean, Pritikin had been reversing heart disease for decades before Ornish showed up, but Ornish finally published this. I mean, Pritikin had been reversing heart disease for decades before Ornish showed up. But Ornish actually published it in the most prestigious medical journal in the world, 1990, showing this reverse actually with angiography. In Pritikin's day in

the 70s, people got better, but basically they said they got better. And so people were like, well, maybe you didn't have heart disease in the first place. But now we have what's called angiography where you can inject dye into people's veins and do the special x-rays. You actually see how patent, how open the arteries are. And so Ornish was able to publish and show that, yes, put people on a strictly plant-based diet, see their arteries open up. Since that was published decades ago now, hundreds of thousands of Americans have died, right? Completely needless deaths, right? I mean, we have the miracle cure. We've had it for decades, yet hardly anyone's even heard about it.

And so if that, if our number one killer, if kind of the cure to our number one killer isn't out there, isn't publicized, isn't well-known, then what else is there in the – that we don't know about? the privilege of doing my postgraduate medical work up in Boston. So I had access to Harvard's medical library. And so I could just like, you know, and they have like the last century of medical science and you could just pour over this stuff and find all this lost information that just never got out there because there's no kind of, you know, financial incentive for it to get out there. And so that's why I went to medicine. That's how I choose the kind of medicine that I'm doing. And as soon as I got out, I was doing clinical medicine full-time for a while. But then I realized that even though I was changing whole families at a time, you could change generations of people's eating by curing one person's diabetes or something.

But seeing how many people can you see in an hour, I realized I needed to do medicine on a broader scale. So about a decade ago, I went on the road. I kind of went to – if you go back on my website, like my speaking schedule, I was doing like 40 talks a month. I do like a morning rotary and then afternoon I do kind of a medical school launch and a community talk in the evening. And literally I was on the road for years. Like I had no – I mean I didn't own a pillow. Oh my god. I mean, I didn't own a pillow.

Oh, my God. And, yeah, I lost a marriage over it. Not an easy life to live. But I was just so driven, right, to get this information out there, particularly kind of train the trainers, get the first and second year medical students and, you know, really inspire them. What kind of tools they don't even know are available. So that lasted as many years as it possibly could. So then I started doing this, my annual nutrition reviews where I literally read through every issue of every English language nutrition journal in the world. I made it into kind of an e-newsletter, then started this annual DVD series.

And so then when someone wanted me to come speak, I'd be like, here's a DVD. So I can reach thousands of people that way. But this information really has to reach millions. And so I, you know, couldn't have been happier when I was contacted by this public health foundation up in Canada, actually, that contacted me, the Julian Jesse Rash Foundation. And it basically said, you know, your stuff has to be online. I was like, couldn't agree with you more. but, you know, that's not my strong suit. And so that's how Nutrition Facts got started. They just put all my work from all the old DVDs, just put it up online, and then, you know, been able to, you know, showcase all the work in there since then. Went up August last year, so a little over a year now and still going strong.

Unfortunately, the foundation is kind of a – they see themselves as kind of a venture philanthropist. They like to seed money projects and are looking forward to moving on to the next big thing. seed money projects and are looking forward to moving on to the next big thing. So actually on this Friday, I'm going to kind of send out a pledge plea to get some end-of-year donations hopefully. Now, NutritionFacts.org is a 501c3 nonprofit charity. is a 501c3 nonprofit charity. And so hoping to kind of keep the, put up a new donate page, hoping to keep the website going,

you know, using this kind of, you know, Wikipedia model, you know, where, you know, offering a public service, you know, hopefully considered valuable enough that people, you know, will feel kind of moved to support it. You know, everything on

intrastatefacts.org is free for everybody. Everything always will be free. No one should have to pay, you know, for life-saving information. We accept no advertising, never going to run ads. Unfortunately, commercial interests too often have kind of corrupting influence in nutrition. You know, we don't accept, you know, corporate funding, you know, never will. Even been accused of being in the pocket of big broccoli. It's, it's not true. Well, I mean, I can't think of a more worthy cause. I mean, if you have any, you know, additional information on that you want to forward to me, I want to help you,

you know, promote that and get the word out because, uh, you know, I can't think of anything, you know, that I think would be more valuable to, to everybody than to have that thing get funded. So you can just do what you do. And getting back to what I said earlier about thinking that you had dozens of people doing these videos, I know for a fact that you do them all yourself and you sleep very little in order to get all this stuff done. So you've sort of borne this cross and taken on this, you know, not really burden, but responsibility, like you said.

And it is a huge responsibility. not really burden, but responsibility, like you said. And it is a huge responsibility. And, you know, you deserve the help that you need in order to continue to keep the quality high and get the message out. Yeah, yeah. So all my time is donated. Basically, there's one and a half paid staff. We have our web developer, and then we have someone working part-time just helping with some of the logistics. But yeah, yeah, I'm afraid, yeah, helping with some of the logistics. But yeah, yeah, I'm afraid, yeah, I'm going to have to pull back to three videos a week just because I have to pay for access to some of the scientific publications and some of the illustrations, images. And so, but I'm hoping to keep it up and as many videos as possible. But yeah, yeah. Any help getting the word out would be appreciated.

Yeah. All right. Come on, people out there. Let's help this out. Well, I want to get back to about you. You talked about Pritikin and how that had such a big influence on your grandmother and your life. And I remember I was a kid, but he was like the first real kind of big name in nutrition and diet. And it was quite a splash. But then it was, like you said, quiet for several decades before, you know, this kind of movement, the pendulum kind of swang back. And now this is, you know, really in the zeitgeist in a way that it never was before. And Pritikin really, I mean, he was the precursor to, you know, the forks over knives and everything that's

happening now. I mean, you had people like Dr. Esselstyn and, you know, pockets of other people practicing this, but it really didn't reach, you know, any kind of public consciousness until really recently with forks over knives and the like that has put it out there in a whole new, you know, way that the mass populace is, you know, able to really see it and absorb this information. It's really cool. This summer, I think, was the real kind of breakthrough with Clinton and the last heart attack on CNN. And it's funny, they made it sound like breaking news.

We found this way we could reverse heart disease. For anyone who's been involved in this for decades, it's like, oh, God. I mean, in fact, both of the folks they profiled, Ornish and Esselstyn, have literally been publishing in the medical literature for over a decade on this. It's been no secret. It's just it hasn't got out there. But hopefully, I agree. Well, I think it was ballsy even today for CNN to do that. I mean, look at who advertises on their website and on their network. And, you know, no other major broadcasting network was going to go near the story.

So it is interesting that it still is kind of this maverick thing to talk about this kind of stuff. And, you know, our conglomerate big media companies are beholden, you know, And our conglomerate big media companies are beholden, and they can only move so much when it comes to getting good news out to the people. So that's why sites like Nutrition Facts are all the more important. You know, actually, I looked back. Pritikin cites all this work back from the 20s in terms of saying, well, where did Pritikin get it from, right? So he basically had the same story as my grandma. He was 43 when he was told by a cardiologist he was going to die because of his heart disease.

And so he did all this research. He was actually an engineer by training. And so actually I have some videos coming up on Nutrition Facts to talk about kind of where he got it from. It's actually these fascinating studies from Uganda back in the 1920s in all these East African countries, the last ones to westernize. It's actually this influx of all these thousands of British expats. So we have this kind of rich English language literature of all these doctors that started medical societies, started a medical journal, because they found that in these large populations, you know, 15 million, 17 million people, that these chronic diseases that are laying to waste Western societies today were practically non-existent.

African diet in that area was sweet potatoes and vegetables, corn, millet, pumpkins, potatoes, green leafy vegetables, protein from beans, eating meat maybe once a month. And otherwise, ate like vegans, had the cholesterol of vegans, averaged 145, no heart disease. Literally, they did these autopsy series, 1,500 people, sequential aut autopsies over age 40, not a single death from heart disease, right? Our number one killer, not a single death. They didn't have hypertension, all these diseases that weren't even known in these societies. And that is what kind of got Pritikin on his track. And so it's really neat to go back and say, wait a second, this is not just, we didn't know this, it's been lost from the 70s. Literally, we have a century of data showing the kind of diet that can not only prevent, treat, but even reverse many of our leading killers. It's been there, it's been published. It's just a matter of getting this information out to the world.

And now, with the wonders of communication, we can finally do that. Right. And yet, still, to this day, heart disease is America's number one killer. I think, what is it, like 600,000 people a year have a heart attack? Or 800,000 and 600,000 die from a heart attack every year or something like that these people it depends how you uh it depends how you die it has you define death from cardiovascular disease so for example do you include stroke deaths or not but absolutely our our number one leading killer both men and women um basically half of americans are going to die from heart

disease um a disease that no one should have to die. Literally no one should have to die from heart disease. There are still a few kind of congenital heart abnormalities. If you were born with some problems with valves, you still get rheumatic fever. It would screw up your heart. But in terms of this coronary artery disease, the leading killer need not happen at all if we just eat healthy. What do you think the biggest misconception is that most people have about eating healthy or nutrition?

It's probably they just underestimate the power, all right? I mean, if you think about it, our entire, you know, we are what we eat. No, literally, physically, right? We are made up of, you know, air, water, sunlight, food, period. Like our entire bodies, right? You know, and different organs and cell systems in the body regenerate at different rates. But literally, we are entire new bodies based on what we eat. And so it should come as no surprise that, you know, nutrition can have such a powerful impact, what we put in our bodies. But, you know, I mean, it really kind of hit home to me with, you know, my 2012 presentation. Every year, you know, my presentation is brand new because every year the science is brand new.

So every year I kind of do a little highlights of, you know, what's been – what's kind of the latest, most interesting stuff or most groundbreaking practical work published over the last year. And so this year, as I was putting it together, I kind of did this framework, well, let's just look at the, you know, the CDC's top 15 leading causes of death in the United States and just go through each one of the 15 and see what role diet may play in preventing, treating, or reversing. And what I found surprised even me, and I've been doing this for so long, where I realized, you know, I get to one of the diseases, like, oh, well, you know, diet's not going to affect this disease, but, you know, look, this is my talk, so I better look it up. And one after another. So, basically, a plant-powered lifestyle can help prevent 15 out of our 16 leading killers, can help treat more than half of them, and even reverse a number of them, including our top three killers. So we're talking about heart disease.

We're talking about diabetes, high blood pressure. What are the top ones beyond the three that we all kind of know? Right. So the top three now actually has changed over the last year. Heart disease, cancer. It used to be heart disease, cancer, stroke. Heart disease, cancer, COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and then accidents is the one that we can't have all over. And then you go down into diabetes and includes hypertension. These are reversible conditions, kidney failure,

liver failure, the other kind of chronic disease issues associated with obesity. And these diseases can, I mean, we can treat them. Nutrition can be used clinically, therapeutically, and that's really some of the most exciting things. So, for example, Alzheimer's disease, two years ago was the eighth leading killer. Last year is the seventh leading killer. This year is the sixth leading killer here in the United States. And we've known for 20 years that vegetarians have about half the risk of becoming demented. So those eating any kind of meat, white meat, red meat, have been seen about two to three times more likely to become demented.

But some of the new exciting research is actually on treating Alzheimer's, which is one of the causes of cognitive decline with various kind of natural plant-based remedies. Same thing with COPD, like emphysema. Basically, we used to think emphysema, you get worse, worse, worse, then you die. But for the first time, we actually showed just this last year that with an intervention which involved basically just giving people a few extra servings of fruits and vegetables, you could actually reverse the decline, actually improve lung function, something that we thought was impossible. And how'd they do it? Fruits and vegetables, right? Whether it's the anti-inflammatory effect, the antioxidant effect, who knows,

who cares? I mean, that's really exciting. As a physician, that's, I mean, on a public health scale, you want prevention, prevention, prevention. But as a physician, to be able to treat some of these conditions that we thought completely untreatable, that's really some of the most exciting things for me. Yeah, that's quite amazing. I find that when you start talking about, you mentioned cancer, and people start to get real crazy when you talk about using nutrition to deal with cancer. So I was wondering if you could kind of talk a little bit about that, because it's such a sensitive thing. I mean, you know, heart disease disease you can kind of wrap your brain around it's like okay well that makes sense but you know cancer seems to be a whole other emotionally charged bag altogether sure um you know so 1990

ornish you know uh proved that you could reverse our number one killer and so done with that he moved on to number two um with cancer and so he actually did a trial where he put men on a vegan diet for a year and was actually able to reverse the progression of prostate cancer. Now, you can only do this in a few certain arenas, basically at the end and at the beginning, because it's considered unethical to use alternative complementary treatments as opposed to chemo and radiation surgery, except in two circumstances. One, at the end of care and when someone's terminal and they just kind of gave up, then you can try stuff. Or at the early stages of certain slow-growing cancers. So, for example, prostate cancer, in its early stages, it's considered medically acceptable a watch and wait attitude.

And so you basically, you know the cancer is going to start spreading, going to start growing, but we have a kind of a biomarker called PSA levels. We can track the progression of the disease. And so we want to delay prostatectomy, pulling out the prostate surgically as long as possible, but so we can just watch the growth of cancer. And so it's a watch and wait attitude. So look, while you're watching and waiting, might as well try things so you can see if you actually do something about the disease. Because having your prostate removed has all sorts of side effects like impotence and incontinence and all sorts of things. You want to keep your prostate as long as possible.

And so they randomized men, you know, half eating plant-based diet, half, you know, eating their conventional diet. And after a year, it was actually able to show not just a slowdown of the PSA levels, which is kind of a marker of the volume, the tumor mass, but actually able to reverse, right? So, can tumor shrinkage actually not just slow down the cancer, stop it, but actually shrink the tumors compared to the regular group, which, of course, continued to get worse, and then they had to go to surgery, et cetera. None of the plant-based folks were forced into surgery because of rising levels.

And so that's, I mean, that is so exciting to be able to give someone that kind of hope. But again, it's only been tried in these very kind of unusual circumstances, but that's some really exciting stuff. Now, the Pritikin Foundation actually has continued along with this work, did this elegant series of experiments. I have about two weeks of videos on it. Basically, it's hard to put people on a diet for a year. In fact, how Ornish did is actually hand-delivered vegan meals every day for a

year. That's expensive, right? But look, if you want to find out what happens to put people on a vegan diet, you better cook for it. I mean, you better, you know, particularly for men who, you know, don't want to be, you know, but who, you know, may not be able to cook for themselves. So, but so those are very expensive studies to do. So what these researchers did was to, this elegant series of experiments, they took people, they drew their blood,

put them on different diets, drew their blood, and then dripped their blood on cancer cells growing in a petri dish just to see whose blood was better at suppressing cancer growth. And so they did this men in prostate cancer, did this with women and breast cancer. And so I showed just the extraordinary results. You take women in the standard American diet and you put on a plant-based diet, not for a year, but for two weeks, two weeks on a plant-based diet. And you can, and the cancer cell clearance, I mean, I actually show the petri dishes with these carpets of human breast cancer laid down, what their blood could do before just two weeks ago and then two weeks afterwards or as little as 11 days eating a plant-centered diet. the abilities of their bloodstream to suppress cancer growth and actually cancer clearance,

actually kind of inducing what's called apoptosis or killing off of cancer cells. And this was a combination of both diet and exercise. They had these women starting to walk 30 minutes a day, seven days a week. And since then, studies have kind of looked at trying to tease out the diet and exercise effects. But so it's that kind of data that has people really excited, raising the question, wait a second, what kind of blood do we want in our bodies? I mean, do we want blood to just kind of rolls over when new cancer cells pop up? Or do we want blood circulating to every nook and cranny in our body with the power to slow down or stop it? Right. I mean, what's so powerful is not just this preventative aspect of this regime, but the reversibility of these conditions. I mean,

the more I hear about this and the more, you know, that I understand that these congenital problems that people have can be reversed with these simple changes to their diet, it's just, it's so, it's just, it's so dramatic and so powerful that, you know, I just can't, I can't, you know, shout from the mountaintop enough about it. And it's quick. I mean, that's, I mean, so basically it's like, look, give it two weeks. Who couldn't give it two weeks, quick. I mean, that's, I mean, so basically it's like, look, give it two weeks. Who couldn't give it two weeks, right? I mean, 30 days would be better. But I mean, for some of these chronic pain conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and things, I mean, you can absolutely change people's lives in literally a matter of days. You know, I was just came back

from Florida where this, the Whole Foods Corporation does this thing for employees, where it does this kind of week-long immersion, where basically it Foods Corporation does this thing for employees where it does this kind of week-long immersion where basically it shows people how to cook. It's basically kind of a Pritikin-type spa program. It gives people good, healthy plant-based foods. The stories from, you know, they're all grumpy and caffeine withdrawing the first couple days, but by the end of literally one week, you have these stories where it's like this is the first time I've been without pain in so many years. Or we have to take people off their meds because otherwise their blood pressure is too low, the blood sugar is too low. I mean that's just extraordinary.

And you just have this feeling like if we did – I mean that should be the first thing when anyone walks in a doctor's office. All right, we're going to put you on a good diet until I see you next month, right? And then we'll see. And if you still have problems, then we'll deal with it. But, you know, that should be the default option. And unfortunately, we don't see enough of that. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I get a lot of emails from people that tell me these intimate stories of their health problems

and these dramatic turnarounds that happen in a very short period of time. And I'm inundated with these emails as a result of the book, so I can't imagine what you must, the sort of people that must be constantly trying to connect with you to relate this kind of stuff. And it's so dramatic, and it's emotional. it's emotional. You know, these are people's lives at stake, and they're finding the power within themselves to turn it around drastically and, like you said, quickly. And they're pissed, understandably. It's like, why didn't anyone tell

me this? Why didn't my doctor tell me this, right? Well, I want to get into that. I want, you know, being a doctor, you know, why is that? I mean, I think I understand why, but, like, to get into that. I want to get in. I want, you know, being a doctor, you know, why? Why is that? I mean, I think I understand why. But like, why is it that more doctors aren't, you know, well versed in this kind of thing? And what do you think it is about whether it's the medical school system or just the way, you know, our whole health care system is set up that is sort of clogging the information channels and preventing this from getting out in a better way. Well, yeah, it really does start in the medical school. So, according to the last national survey, only a quarter, one out of four medical schools have a single course in nutrition. On average, doctors graduate with four hours of nutrition training. That's out of thousands of hours of preclinical instruction. And those four hours are like the biochemistry of vitamins, not really using nutrition, using diet to actually help people. And so no wonder.

I mean the sorry state of nutrition education, that comes from a number of things. I mean, the sorry state of nutrition education, that comes from a number of things. The boards, the kind of medical equivalent of the bar exam where you have to pass to become a doctor. I mean, they don't – about 3% of the questions have anything to do with nutrition. So, look, if it's not on the exam and your medical school wants to look good and have really high pass rates on the board, you teach to the board. You teach to the test. And so you don't get any nutrition. Probably a bigger factor is the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. I mean,

as students, certainly as doctors, you get taken out on what are called drug lunches, where, you know, they pay for your lunch, or they pay for your Caribbean cruise, or they pay for whatever just to talk to you and to give you their, you know, their brand of propaganda. I mean, there's even literally schemes, like you write your – you get a trip, a Caribbean trip for every 40th prescription of this drug that you prescribe. It's like a little frequent flyer. And so it's like these kind of inducements and they pay for a lot of education. So if you type into Google continuing medical education, every doctor needs to get a certain number of hours to keep their license. I mean, nearly all the results are all from drug companies.

I mean, they're who's paying. They're paying for free medical education. Of course they're paying for free because they're going to get so much on the kind of back end. is as malignant as these companies, these pharmaceutical companies preventing medical schools from actually having robust nutrition programs where this information can come out? Or is it just the focus is not there? You know, it's interesting. In certain circumstances, there's a... So the reason we know about cholesterol, why do we even know about cholesterol?

The reason we know about cholesterol is because Lipitor, the statin anti-cholesterol drug, is the number one prescribed drug on the planet Earth, literally billions of prescriptions. And so drug companies – and look, these are drugs you take every single day for the rest of your life. It's like a pharmaceutical industry wet dream. And so they were – they needed to – they launched these educational campaigns, getting people worried, understandably, about their cholesterol. So the reason that we know that eggs are these little cholesterol bombs and the reason we know about saturated fat is because there was actually a financial incentive to get people to get their cholesterol tested because they knew a certain percentage of those are going to go on drugs and very, very lucrative. And so it's interesting how that's actually kind of complemented. And so now when I talk about cholesterol, people know what I'm talking about. They may not know a lot about some other kind of esoteric stuff about nutrition. I have to start

with the basics. But the reason they know is because there's actually a financial incentive to get people to learn about it. But of course, then they don't want people actually treated with diet. They want to get everyone on drugs. But even if they get 10% of people on drugs, they just made a huge amount of money. And so in some cases, it works against us. In very few cases, it works for us. But I think, yeah, if there was one illustration of kind of the power of or kind of, you know, where the medical industry is really stuck in is this Senate Bill 38 out of California. So this was two years ago now. So Dr. John McDougall is one of the great, you the great plant-powered heroes. Introduced, basically wrote this thing that's saying that all doctors need to get, for their continuing medical education, to keep their licenses, they should get a few hours of nutrition training.

And so it came out to like seven hours every two years or something. I mean, just some pittance, but at least something's better than nothing. And so I actually have videos where I show the medical organizations testifying against the bill. So the California Medical Association came out against it, the Orthopedic Association, the family medicine docs came out opposed to doctors getting a few hours of nutrition training every two years. That's insane. I mean, it just shows that they're not even just kind of complacent. I mean, they're kind of going out of their way.

So it is malignant. I mean, it really is. It is a malignancy. Well, I mean, there certainly are. I mean, there's a multi-billion dollar processed food industry. I mean, there's a lot of money at stake. You mentioned advertisers. To keep people confused about nutrition, right? So I would encourage anyone who's interested in this kind of work to read Marion Nestle's great book, Food Politics. It talks about how the dietary guidelines get hammered out.

I have a few videos on that as well. Who's on these dietary guidelines committees? And it turns out they're the same people that are on the Coca-Cola's Institute for Beverage Wellness or the McDonald's Sugar Association or the Salt Institute. I mean, these are the people writing our, you know, writing our guidelines. And so she talks about, having been on some of these committees, talks about the, you know, how they just want to confuse people. I mean, that that is in their best interest. Talking about, like, the tobacco people.

When they knew that there's this overwhelming sign showing tobacco is killing people, that there's this overwhelming sign showing tobacco is killing people. There's this famous memo that came out of all these lawsuits called Doubt is Our Product. These PR firms, Doubt is Our Product, that's all they needed to do. They didn't have to argue cigarettes are good for you. All they had to do is instill this doubt. Oh, well, some studies show smoking is bad for you. Some studies show it's not. Just throw my hands up in the air.

Same thing with nutrition. By keeping people in this kind of constant state of this is good for you, this is bad for you, I mean, people just say, ah, forget it and just kind of eat whatever they want. And unfortunately, you know, it plays into their favor. I mean, even if you're very well-intentioned and educated, it's still confusing. You know, even if you're reading the labels and you're trying and you're trying, there are so many conflicting messages out there that that's exactly what happens. You just kind of go, ah, forget it. You know, I'll just eat what I'm eating.

Right, right. And that's, right, plays into their favor. But, you know, look, we're putting this in our family's mouths. I mean so it really – we need to take a step back and really take it upon ourselves to do some critical thinking I'm doing my work and I try to point out funding sources. So the scientific literature has its own problems. Who's funding the studies? But it's the best we have, right? And so that's why I've kind of tried to do my best to distill out the best available data at the present time. And look, it could change, but all we can do is do our best.

Right. And if anybody out there is kind of doubting this, I mean, all you have to do is go to gotmilk.com and you'll see the latest Dairy Council offering that's intended to confuse people about nut milks and sort of position them in this imitation milk sort of context that makes it look like it's much more unhealthy than the quote-unquote real thing. Check that out. I tweeted it the other day.

Have you seen that yet? But it's almost a – it looks like a sign of desperation. I mean it's like almost so over the top, like some of the commercials that came out with, that it's almost like this is really, I think, an indication that they know things are, you know, that the truth is finally going to come out. They no longer have a monopoly on information, you know, so they're the ones that, you know, sends all the educational materials to all the classrooms in the country. And, you know And they used to have kind of the stranglehold on information. But now that people have ready access information, there's a lot of crap out there.

But eventually, the hope is the truth will eventually kind of settle to the top and they just can't compete against the science. Right. Absolutely. So I want to shift gears a little bit and get a little bit more specific and get down into the nitty gritty of some nutrition questions. I mean, I think that even within the plant-based nutrition movement, you have these subcamps of different people that are espousing different ways of doing it. You have like the kind of high carb fruitarian people, and then you have kind of the David Wolf superfood, avocado oil people and, you know, everything in between the 80, 10, 10. And and then even outside of that, you have the paleo movement, which I really want to hear your opinions on and slow carb and low carb and all this kind of stuff. So how do we, you know, how does a well-intentioned consumer who, you know, might be considering a plant-based nutrition diet, you know, sort of navigate this and make the right

decision? Like there's all this stuff out there. Oh, well, you know, people seem to be doing really well on paleo and paleo is great. And, you know, who wants to argue with bacon and all of that? So, you know, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. The advantage there is, you know, people like to hear good news about their bad habits. And so it doesn't take much. You're right. I mean, I have to, I have to, there's probably 50 videos on my site talking about the wonders of cruciferous vegetables, you know, dark green leafy vegetables, you know, like kale and collards.

It takes 50 videos to get people to eat collards. But, you know, it would not take that many. All of a sudden I said, donuts are good quick. Um, uh, right. But so, um, actually I did, uh, I, uh, I, my second book was actually about low carb diets. Um, uh, and actually was, uh, um, the Atkins foundation threatened a lawsuit. It's actually,'s actually funny. So the full text of the book is online. It's atkinsexposed.org. In fact, all my work, all my books, all my nutrition works, all up online for free. And actually – Is that all on nutritionfacts.org or do you have a different site for that?

So all the low-carb stuff is on atkinsexposed.org. So that's the full text of my book. And then the Atkins lawyers, the full text of their thing and my rebuttal. It's really kind of humorous. But the same kind of things come up over time. If you look back, look, Atkins came up in the 70s. He was doing debates with Pritikin back in the early 70s. And these cycles, they keep coming back. It's like people so want to hear that lard is good for you, that it's kind of this easy sell.

And so there's just this like – you just have to wait a few years until people forget the past failures. And then, oh, a new low-carb revolution. And so I see a lot of that in kind of the latest kind of paleo um spin on it but uh yeah so encourage people if they're interested uh to uh you can actually download the whole book as a pdf or just curl up in bed with their laptop or whatever um and you know the same tired arguments come up over and over again really right but just to be clear like the the paleo people will tell you that they're different from the atkins people right so? So how are they different? And, you know, what is it? There's a couple of good things about paleo and they eschew dairy and certain things like that. But what is

it about paleo specifically? Because it is so popular right now that people should be more aware of. Yeah, yeah. No. So, you know, it's like the Atkins thing. Atkins said, look, we've got to get rid of the refined carbs, white flour, white sugar, soda, milk, et cetera. And so you see a lot of the great stuff along paleo people, too. And in fact, any, you know, I mean, so look, people go paleo and they stop eating donuts and all of a sudden feel better. Well, duh.

I mean, you know, eating all that refined processed crap. Well, that's great. feel better. Well, duh. I mean, you know, all the eating, all that refined process crap. Well, that's great. Um, but unfortunately then they kind of, uh, uh, too often kind of step in the realm of pseudoscience. Um, and so I, I'm, yeah, I really got to do, I have a few videos up on paleo. Um, there's a, there's some person, I don't know if you're familiar with the, um, it's a YouTube channel, primitive nutrition. So that it 100 videos really kind of debunking the paleo issue. I felt like they've done such a good job that I don't feel the need to have to do too many. But basically, if you look back at the true paleo, the true lessons from the Paleolithic,

200,000 years ago, it's estimated we consumed about 600 milligrams of vitamin C a day. That's the vitamin C found in like 10 oranges. The amount of vitamin E found in two cups of nuts, the amount of calcium in five cups of collard greens. Look, they weren't milking mammoths or anything. This was all from wild greens, 100-plus grams of fiber. We're lucky if we get 20 a day. In fact, we ate such a day right in fact we got so we ate such a quantity of healthy whole plant foods we as a species actually lost our ability to make vitamin

c uh we actually have vitamin c genes on our dna but we just basically jumped it because why bother like why waste the energy most other animals actually just make their own but we're getting such massive doses every day um that you know every day that our body didn't need to make it anymore. But then you take our evolutionary heritage, fine-tuned over the millennia and plop it down into meat and potato chip country and you got a problem. So look, paleo diet folks are right against railing against the refined and processed junk and they're doing everybody a favor by continuing down that. But the paleo diet patients I saw in my practice, they weren't eating weeds and 100 grams of fiber a day. They're eating burgers, not bugs. I mean, it's just, there's, it's, you know, people too often, in my experience, are using that as an excuse to eat unhealthy foods. overemphasis on the hunting part and and because that's sexy and not enough attention paid to the

gathering part which i from what i understand and maybe i'm wrong i'm certainly no expert on this but uh that seems to get sort of overlooked in the the whole paleo ethos yeah maybe maybe a little sexism thrown in for that then was possibly so um if somebody's interested in kind of taking this leap into the the world of eating plants you know people are scared or they're nervous or you know they don't know they don't know how to do it right and you know the biggest question that obviously always comes up is you know where am i going to get my protein and you know i'm always talking about this, I'm sure you are as well, the sort of myths surrounding how much protein you need and the best sources of protein and sort of unfolding this notion that actually plants have quite a bit of protein and that our protein needs are really not

as high as all these sort of marketing interests would have you believe. Yeah. No, the official Institute of Medicine recommendation is 0.8 grams per healthy kilogram body weight, which is nothing. In fact, I mean, and even if you, you know, maybe an endurance athlete pushes that up to 1.1, 1.2, easy to do on plant foods. And the reason plant food – plant sources of protein are superior mostly comes down to food. In my mind, food is a package deal, right? There are nutrients in beef, for example. But even though they claim you can have it your way, you can't go into Burger King, order a Whopper and say, yeah, can I get that without the cholesterol, no artery-clogging fat, hold the hormones, right? I mean it doesn't it your way. You can't go into Burger King, order a Whopper and say, yeah, can I get that without the cholesterol, no artery clogging fat, hold the hormones, right? I mean,

it doesn't work that way. Food is a package deal, right? Dairy has calcium, but it also is the number one source of saturated fat in this country, right? Which increases our number one risk factor for our number one killer, heart disease. I mean, so wait a second. By getting your calcium instead from dark green leafy vegetables, what's the baggage that comes along with the calcium there? Then instead of the saturated fat and the hormones, all that stuff, the baggage you get is the fiber and the folate and the phytonutrients and the iron and all the other wonderful things and greens that you're not getting elsewhere. And so yes, there's protein in pork. But there's all the stuff you don't want in pork. And so you can – I mean so that's really – I mean that's the – that's kind of – so you go to like the Harvard nutrition website.

They'll say plant sources are the preferred sources of protein. Why? And it's because this sense. Well, it's because you can't get one without the other. It comes all together. It comes all together. And, you know, if you sit down, people underestimate how much, you know, how much protein is in, you know, in legumes and quinoa and other good healthy sources. And, again, you're just getting this mountain of nutrition along with the protein that comes from the dairy and the meat is a better quality protein?

It's a quality protein, or it's more bioavailable, or it's complete in a way that plant-based proteins aren't. I mean, I see and hear that argument quite a bit as well. Right. I see and hear that argument quite a bit as well. Right. So protein quality is basically – so all plant – so there's no such thing essentially as an incomplete protein other than gelatin, which is an animal protein. All proteins are complete proteins and they have all essential amino acids, which is what the whole point of eating protein is. acids, which is what the whole point of eating protein is. But the so-called quality scoring of protein has to do with the ratio of the essential amino acids within the food compared to the ratio of amino acids within the human body. So the highest quality protein, cannibalism,

right? That would be the, because then we'd have the perfect, perfect match. Right. And then you get on the scale. So so um you know a banana has a very different amino acid score if we ate chimpanzees it'd be better um in terms of that that amino acid scoring but what does that actually mean in terms of uh but but that that's kind of the extent of the meaning it doesn't have the the kind of uh the when we think of quality i, it has other connotations beyond just that. And so one eats a combination of plant foods. So yes, legumes have higher lysine, whereas grains have less lysine. But people aren't living off single foods, or certainly shouldn't.

But eating a diversity of plant proteins, your own liver actually basically pools the amino acids you eat through the day. And so if you eat a protein, a plant protein with low lysine, for example, a grain protein, well, your liver has all the excess lysine, has some extra lysine that's saved up from the day before and just complements it. And so your body builds all the perfect human proteins it needs. And so as long as you're eating a variety of plant proteins, not only is it a perfectly adequate source according to, for example, the American Dietetic Association, the largest, oldest association of nutrition professionals in the world, not only do we not need to kind of combine proteins at every meal to get this

mythical complete protein, as long as we're eating a diversity of whole plant foods and not eating just junk food on one end or salad on the other, where we just may not be getting enough protein because we're not getting enough calories, then it's certainly not something to worry about. Right. I mean, it's a non-issue, essentially. I mean, I don't know, burn victims need particularly high sources. I mean, there's a few kind of rare conditions where you really need higher than average protein sources,

so you really do want to make sure you eat a lot more legumes than one might normally would. But legumes are the protein superstars of the plant kingdom encourage people to find ways to incorporate in their diet. And so that's beans, peas, lentils, soy. We all need to eat more beans. Yeah, absolutely. And when I kind of embarked on this journey and started eating plant-based and began training rigorously, sort of buying into this protein concept. And I ended up stacking my cupboards full of all sorts of plant-based protein powders and L-glutamine and all sorts of supplements and, you know, was putting just, you know, spoonfuls and spoonfuls

into, you know, smoothie blends and all that kind of stuff. And over the past couple of years, I've experimented with, you know, weaning those down and slowly removing them and then monitoring, you know, how my training is going, how I'm recovering, how I'm feeling, how I'm bouncing back and, you know, and tabulating performance gains. And I've realized that, you know, not only do I not need them, but I think I'm actually doing better the less of those that I eat. I'm actually doing better the less of those that I eat. And that's not to say that I don't use a scoop of plant-based protein powder in a smoothie after a hard workout occasionally when I'm training like 25 hours a week. And I don't have a five-pound bag of lentils in my cupboard that day. So I'll do it occasionally. But I've realized that I really don't need, even when I'm training that hard, literally almost a full-time job, that I'm meeting my protein needs,

I'm continuing to get stronger and faster and recovering quickly in between workouts. And I would have not have predicted that. Well, I'm so glad you're able to bring that to the world. So anyway, I want to talk also about oils and specifically omega-3. I think there's a lot of consumer confusion about that. Fish oil is all the rage and where are we getting our omega-3s?

And also talk about some of these other oils that people are using, hemp oil, Udo's oil, Udo's 363 oil. A lot of athletes use that. using hemp oil, Udo's oil, Udo's 363 oil. A lot of athletes use that. And there was a listener question about MCT oil, medium chain triglyceride oil. So I wondered if you could talk about that just in the general kind of consumer health context and also with respect to kind of athletes

and athletic performance, if you have any thoughts on that. Yeah, I mean, so in general, I mean, the problem with oils in general is that a lot of calories, not a lot of nutrition, right? So they're in general kind of empty calories. So oil, processed oils are kind of the white sugar equivalent of carbs, right? So it's carbohydrate without nutrition. Well, okay, with refined oils, you can get fat without nutrition.

And so look, like a tablespoon of oil can have like 100 calories, and you're not getting much back for that expenditure. Now, having said that, I mean my practice are on athletes, and so I'm always concerned about empty calories. You want to get a lot of nutrition in the diet but for people who are burning off you know thousands a day um uh you know then you know empty calories becomes less of an issue but i still like to see people eat nutrient dense diets uh you know like the you know like the 369 oil nine is just is monounsaturated fats you can get all the nines you want from eating you know healthy foods like avocados and nuts in which case you'll get all the other wonderful nutrients in addition to your omega-9s. Omega-6, we get too much of in general. There's been a big shift in the last century thanks to junk food where they use a lot of these really cheap omega-6 rich oils like safflower, sunflower, cottonseed oil, such that our omega-3 to 6 ratio

is way off. We're getting way too many omega-6s, so there's no reason we want to go out of our way to actually imbibe or add more omega-6s to the mix. What we should do is we should avoid those oils and go out of our way to make sure we're eating foods that contain omega-3s. And so that's flax seeds, walnuts, dark green leafy vegetables, hemp seeds. So these are healthy. I mean these are foods we should go out of our way to eat. And so a handful of walnuts every day, two tablespoons of ground flax seeds every day.

I think it would be a really healthy addition to anyone's diet. And you'll see these are the short-chain omega-3 fatty acids, which our bodies then elongate into these long chain so-called fish fats, the DHA and EPA. Now, the question is everybody's enzyme systems are different such that people have different abilities to elongate those short chain omega 3s and plant foods to the long chain so-called marine fats, particularly old men, we think, because women need to create little brains in their uteruses, which has a lot of DHA in it. Typically, women, evolutionarily, it seems, are better able at converting those short chains into long chains.

We're seeing some problems in long-term people who are eating plant-based diets in the long term, some older men who are not getting enough omega-3s. And so for two years now, I've recommended that people may want to take a supplement of a long-chain omega-3, so a DHA and or EPA supplement. These are algae-based, so DHA and or EPA supplement. These are algae-based, so the same place the fish get it from. These are essential fats. Fish don't make them.

We don't make them. They come from the bottom of the food chain. We can cut out the middle fish and not get all the pollutants that build up in fish by going straight to the source. And so they basically make them in these stainless steel tanks. And so we don't have to worry about contaminants. We don't have to worry about foodborne illness, et cetera. And so, for example, Udo's does have this, you know, algae-based, you know, DHA. I think that would be a good choice.

Again, we may be able to make all the long chains we need, but unfortunately there's no kind of lab test that can tell us that. So particularly plant-based pregnant and breastfeeding women, in fact, a few months before pregnancy, I would start supplementing with DHA. In fact, maybe a good idea for everyone to get maybe 250 to 300 milligrams of those long-change DHA EPA every day or a few days a week. It's unclear. We don't have good signs either way, but that's probably, that's where my recommendation based on kind of limited evidence kind of pans out. Right. And the argument against, well, the argument for this sort of algae-based DHA supplement versus a fish oil-based supplement would be toxicity. Is that correct? Is that the

main concern when it comes to fish oil? And so they have these so-called distilled fish oils on the market, very expensive, but it turns out that the fish oil, I have a few videos on the site, the fish oil distillation process actually, while it does get some of the heavier elements out like the mercury, it does not eliminate like the flame retardant chemicals. And so even so-called distilled fish oil still has a plethora of these toxins. Unfortunately, our oceans are kind of humanity's sewer. Everything kind of eventually flows down to the sea. And so actually fish oil has the high of any kind of thing we could consume, fish are number two. But fish oil, because many of these are fat soluble, is the most concentrated source of dioxins and PCB and some of these so-called organochlorine pesticides like DDT,

which is still around. So really, I mean, unfortunately, unless you have a time machine and can go back before the Industrial Revolution and find some fissure oil made back then, really, the only way that you can get contamin you know, contaminant-free long-chain omega-3s is through algae-based supplements. Right. And I watched those videos, and it's fascinating because basically, even though these fish oil supplements are labeled as being, you know, toxin-free or, you know, whatever sort of process they've used to remove the toxins from them, these studies and these tests on these oils have established that there's still a fair amount of toxins in them. So just be

cautious, people. Is that correct? I agree. Yeah, right on. All right. I wanted to ask another, well, we've got an hour and 15 here. I don't want to take up too much more of your time, but something that's really kind of interesting to me that I'd love to hear your thoughts on is has to do with training and athletic performance and recovering in between workouts. You know, these are foods that are very predominantly anti-inflammatory and alkaline forming, and that allows my body to expedite the recovery process induced by exercise stress. And so, in other words, I'm able to repair my body more quickly. I'm able to kind of avoid getting sick and protracted over the course of a training season. You know, this culminates in performance gains. And, you know, there's a lot of talk about these high antioxidant foods and berries like blackberries that I know you're a big fan of that really kind of help combat this

oxidative stress. But there's been this recent sort of trend in sports physiology or, you know, what people are talking about, which is, well, be careful with, you know, too much antioxidants because if you overdo it, then you're going to prevent your body from experiencing that sort of adaptation that it needs to get stronger. In other words, by repairing yourself too quickly, you are basically undermining the whole point of that training session that preceded what you've sort of imbibed to repair yourself. And that, yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up because that's something I actually went out of my way to do some videos on. They're going to be coming up in the 2013 batch. So basically, so for example, ultramarathon runners may generate so many free radicals during a race,

they can actually damage DNA of about 10% of their white blood cells. You can pick it up. But now, you know, so some people look at, you know, exercise-induced increase in free radical production as kind of a paradox, right? Why would this apparently healthy act lead to detrimental effects and damage our tissues? Well, it's kind of somewhat of a misunderstanding. Exercise in and of itself is not necessarily the healthy act. It's the recovery after exercise that's so healthy. It's kind of that which doesn't kill us make us stronger kind of thing. so healthy. It's the, you know, kind of that which doesn't kill us make us stronger kind of thing.

Exercise straining has been shown to enhance antioxidant defenses by increasing activities of a number of antioxidant enzymes. So yeah, during the race, ultramarathoners are taking hits to their DNA, but then you look at them a week later. This is very interesting. So they look six days after the race. They did not go back to their baseline level of DNA damage. Every day we get hits to our DNA, but they had significantly less than when they started out with. And that's because they so revved up their antioxidant defenses. And so if exudase-induced oxidative damage is beneficial, kind of like, you know, vaccination, right, by freaking our body out a little, maybe we're inducing a response that's favorable in the long run. This kind of concept that low levels of a damaging entity may upregulate

protective mechanisms is something in biology we call hormesis. So, for example, you know, mechanisms is something in biology we call hormesis. So, for example, herbicides kill plants, but tiny doses of herbicides actually boost plant growth, presumably by stressing the plant into rallying its resources to kind of successfully fight back. Okay, but wait a second, though. Then might then eating anti-inflammatory, antioxidant-rich plant foods undermine this adaptation response. And so I have a whole bunch of videos coming up, very cool, showing that berries can reduce inflammatory muscle damage, greens can reduce the free radical DNA damage, just a fascinating whole lot in terms of improving recovery and immunity, all sorts of other things, etc. But might that, again, you know, might this undermine adaptation? And so that was actually first raised, the theoretical concern raised in actually 99, so this is going back a while now,

you know, since, you know, maybe all this free radical stress from exercise is a good thing and that so, you know, eating antioxidants might undermine the adaptation process. Well, so, you know, maybe if you decrease that free radical tissue damage, maybe you won't get that increase in the antioxidant enzymes that you see six days after a race. All right. So there's theories on both sides. The other camp, all the fruit and vegetable researchers say, look, yes, it's likely that muscle damage, inflammation, oxidative stress are important factors in the adaptation process, but maybe minimizing these factors may improve recovery so you can train more and perform better. minimizing these factors may improve recovery so you can train more and perform better. Okay, so theories on both sides for over a decade now.

What happens when you put it to the test? And that's why I had to make a video because we actually have data now. Okay, so, and it turns out, kind of long story short, while antioxidant supplements, pills, may prevent these adaptive events. Researchers found that berries, they use black currants in the study, although packed with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory properties, actually augmented, improved the adaptation response, vitamin C, vitamin E supplements. They reduce the stress levels induced by exercise. But in doing so, they block the boost in antioxidant activity, enzyme activity caused by exercise. Inherent in the body sort of response. So indeed, taking the vitamin C and vitamin E supplements were able to block the adaptation response. Now, maybe they're not boosted as much because they don't have so much damage.

But, see, with whole plant foods, you appear to get the best of both worlds. So, they did a study with lemon verbena tea. It's basically this antioxidant-rich herbal tea. Protects against oxidative damage, decreases the sign of muscular damage and inflammation. They actually do muscle biopsies of athletes all without blocking the cellular adaptation to exercise. They showed that lemon verbena did not affect the increase in the antioxidant enzyme response promoted by exercise. effect the increase in the antioxidant enzyme response promoted by exercise. And in fact, this enzyme, antioxidant enzyme called glutathione reductase, the activity was even higher in the limb-verbena group. Not only did it not undermine the adaptation response, it actually not only

decreased the free radicals, but then helped boost your antioxidant defenses even better. but then helped boost your antioxidant defenses even better. And this was after 21 days of intense running exercises in these endurance athletes. And so, again, not only can you kind of put a kibosh on all the damage, but then you still get the boost in defenses, in fact, an even better boost. And looking forward to getting up that video so you can share it with everybody. Yeah, that's very cool. That's fascinating.

So really the thumbnail is, continue to eat the high antioxidant foods, these berries, blackberries, blueberries, things of that nature, and stay away from the antioxidants in pill form, supplements, powders, and things like that. Correct. Right. Fascinating stuff. That's really cool. antioxidants, you know, in pill form supplements, powders, and things like that.

Correct. Right. Fascinating stuff. That's really cool. So, all right, I want to wrap it up because I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours. I'm going to have to have you back on if you'll come back. But I wanted to ask one more question, which is about spirulina, chlorophyll, and marine about spirulina, chlorophyll, and marine phytoplankton, and kind of the benefits, the dangers, what your thoughts are on kind of incorporating these foods into your diet. Yeah, I'm a big chlorella fan. Sprinkle it on my popcorn with the nutritional yeast. The concern has been raised about spirulina, which has been found, the supplement on shelves has been found contaminated with a number of these microcystin toxins.

These toxins, however, are not made by spirulina. So you go – these various consumer groups test various supplements on the shelf. So they test spirulina. They find these liver toxins, in some cases even these neurot So they test spirulina, they find these liver toxins, in some cases even these neurotoxins in spirulina supplements. And so what do the spirulina manufacturers have to say? They say that these toxins are not made by spirulina. In fact, I mean, it's kind of well-known biological fact and it's true. So how could both sides be right? How could there be toxins in spirulina supplements at the same time spirulina doesn't make those toxins?

Well, the problem is with their contaminants. So there are algae. There are these various species of algae that do produce these toxins. these nice big lakes outside, whether you're in the Big Island or whether up here in Oregon, unfortunately, the spirulina isn't a pure growth of spirulina. It gets contaminated by other algae which do produce these toxins. And because this has been found over and over again, unfortunately, we cannot seem to be able to get kind of pure toxin. We can't be guaranteed we're getting pure kind of toxin-free spirulina. Unfortunately, because they do kind of random testing, they don't test every batch because it's expensive.

So I have encouraged people controversially in the past to prefer chlorella supplements, which haven't ever been found to contain toxins, and not get spirulina supplements just because of the contaminating toxin issue. It's unfortunate because spirulina has all sorts of wonderful things in it. But, you know, and having said that, there's nothing – I mean, you know, kale is cheaper, right? I can get a whole pound of kale. I don't know how much a pound of chlorella is these days, but I can get a whole pound of kale, some nice, local, fresh-grown, organic kale a lot cheaper. And so whether you're eating your microgreens or your microscopic greens or your sea greens and sea vegetables, the important thing is reading dark green leafy vegetables every day ideally for all sorts of reasons, for athletic reasons, for non-athletic reasons.

day ideally for all sorts of reasons, for athletic reasons, for non-athletic reasons. And if I was going to choose a microscopic green, it would be chlorella over spirulina. Right. And what about marine phytoplankton? Unfortunately, it's kind of a large ill-defined group such that there are actually some that appear beneficial. But unfortunately, you still get this contaminant issue because they are kind of wild crafted outdoors as opposed to kind of growing them in pure cultures. And so I would have kind of similar concerns with the spirulina, although we don't have that same, but more of a theoretical concern because we don't have studies showing that you can pull supplements off the shelves and show that there's toxins in them. Gotcha. So it always comes back to kale.

It comes back to kale. It always does. Eat your dark leafy greens people that's right bottom line right exactly all right well i think that's a great place to uh to end it um thank you so much for uh taking the time you are a wealth of information you're doing amazing work uh i i can't say enough about this guy and I can't do enough to kind of support what you're doing and the message that you're putting out there. It's great work. So everybody, absolutely stop what you're doing right now. Go to nutritionfacts.org and start watching videos and you'll be up all night as I have on many times and know that Dr. Greger is probably up all night too, putting the

newest one up, right? Exactly. Exactly. So I feel your pain. All right. And if you want to check out his book and all this stuff about Atkins that we were talking about, go to atkinsexposed.org. And is there any other place on, well, on Twitter, you're nutrition facts, nutrition underscore facts. Well, on Twitter, you're Nutrition Facts, Nutrition underscore Facts. Where else can people hook up with you and connect? Facebook as well, Nutrition Facts. And I post a lot of the new stuff. So if I'm doing a video in a few months on a subject, but the article came out that day, I'll post something on Facebook.

And so eventually I'll show up on Nutrition Facts. But if you really want the latest of the latest, yeah, Facebook's a good place to go. All right. And you got any speaking gigs coming up? Not until next month, thankfully. I'm still scurrying to get the 2013 batch up. I only have videos queued up until January 6th, so I got to get busy. All right.

Well, I hope to see you out on the road again this upcoming year. Great. All right, man. Happy 12-12-12. Indeed. Twice the number of the priest. That's right. All right.

Thanks a lot for your time. I'll talk to you soon, man. I really, really appreciate it. Have the great work. All right, everybody. That's it for the podcast, episode seven. Hope you enjoyed it. If you're digging what we're doing,

tell a friend or maybe throw a comment up on the iTunes page for the podcast. We need all the support we can get. Every little bit helps. If you want to find out a little bit more about what Julie and I are doing, you can go to Jailifestyle.com, J-A-I-Lifestyle.com. We have some interesting products, nutrition products, and we're going to be putting some services up there. We're getting the B12 supplement up next week, very important supplement if you're on a plant-based diet. I'll be talking a little bit about that more later. You can find me on Twitter, at Rich Roll, or go to richroll.com. That's my blog.

That's where I'm hosting the podcast and find out a little bit more about who I am and what I'm up to. If you're digging Julie, my wife, on the podcast, you can find her at SrimatiMusic, S-R-I-M-A-T-I music.com. You can preview her beautiful album there, download it, check it out, learn a little bit more about her trip.

And she needs followers on twitter she's got a lot of wisdom she's sharing it so if you're not following her you're missing out on twitter she's jai c j-a-i-s-e-e-d so that's it uh thanks a lot for stopping by we'll catch you on the flip side peace plants On the flip side, peace. Plants. Thank you. you you you you you you