The Rich Roll Podcast - Rip Esselstyn Is PLANTSTRONG! (And Why You Should Be Too)

Episode Date: December 22, 2017

Friend, mentor and original Plantstrong pioneer Rip Esselstyn and I go way back. Both swimmers, we crossed paths at many a meet — as young teens and later as collegiate rivals (Rip was always far more accomplished than I). During the early stages of my transition to a plant-based diet, I vividly recall perusing Facebook when I stumbled upon Rip, who just happened to be on the precipice of publishing his first book on the very subject I was attempting to master. From that moment forward, Rip became a lighthouse — illuminating my path as a generous friend and cheerleader always available to share his knowledge, experience and inspiration. Today, Rip (finally) joins the podcast to share that knowledge, experience and inspiration with you — a hotly anticipated master course on the incredible power of a whole-food, plant-based diet to prevent and reverse disease, promote optimal health, and fuel your athletic dreams. Educated at the University of Texas at Austin, Rip was a three-time All-American swimmer before spending a decade as one of the premier professional triathletes in the world. He then joined the Austin Fire Department where he introduced his passion for a whole-food, plant-based diet to Austin’s Engine 2 Firehouse in order to rescue a firefighting brother’s health. To document his success he wrote the New York Times' bestselling book, The Engine 2 Diet, which demonstrates the irrefutable connection between a plant-based diet and good health. Rip left his job as a firefighter in 2009 to team up with Whole Foods Market as one of their Healthy Eating Partners to raise awareness for Whole Foods employees, customers and communities about the benefits of eating a plant-strong diet. As the founder of Engine 2, Rip develops and implements a range of programs and events geared toward education, inspiring and nurturing plant-strong living for individuals, families and organizations across the globe. A New York Times bestselling author of four books, Rip has appeared on hundreds of radio and national television shows, including the Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America and The Dr. Oz Show. Each year his family produces a series of all-inclusive, immersive events, culminating in Camp Plantstock — an extraordinary experience I highly recommend to anyone looking to reboot their lifestyle. Finally, Rip's newest book, The Engine 2 Cookbook hits bookstores everywhere on December 26, 2017. This is a conversation I’ve been anticipating since the first episode of this podcast Enjoy! Rich

One of the things that I don't think people understand is that all protein, all the essential amino acids that are the building blocks for protein, originate in plants. That's where it all originates. That's where, like, the true nutritional engine for all and anything that's beneficial and good in nutrition lives in plants. That's where it all originates from. So your proteins, right? If an animal has protein, it either directly or indirectly got it from plants, right? If it's got vitamins,

it either directly or indirectly got it from plants. If it's got minerals, same thing, right? That's where it all starts. That's Rip Esselstyn, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, how's it going? Greetings.

What is the latest? How are you feeling? Are you good? Are you grateful? Are you ready for the holidays? Are you ready to celebrate Christmas? Are you enjoying Hanukkah? Are you prepared for Are you good? Are you grateful? Are you ready for the holidays? Are you ready to celebrate Christmas? Are you enjoying Hanukkah? Are you prepared for the new year?

I hope so. I'm trying to get there myself. My name is Rich Roll. I'm your host. Welcome or welcome back to my podcast, the show where each week I go deep, I go long form with some of the most compelling, interesting, paradigm-breaking minds and personalities across all categories of health, wellness, fitness, diet, nutrition, athletics, what else, creativity, spirituality, mindfulness, social advocacy, and so much more. Great show for you guys today. My buddy Rip Esselstyn, finally, finally on the podcast. Rip is a guy I've wanted to have on the show since day one. And I think timing is perfect because his message is such a great and powerful way to

end 2017. This is my last long form interview episode of the year. I have two more shows before 2018. That's a two-part best of anthology series that I'm going to be releasing part one on Christmas day, part two on New Year's day, where I excerpt some of the best conversations of the year. But this conversation with Rip, last long form interview of the year. For those that don't know who Rip is, Rip is a former three-time All-American swimmer from the University of Texas, an extraordinary talent.

We're around the same age, and Rip and I would be at the same swim meets when we were kids growing up. And when I was swimming at Stanford, we swam against Texas. We kind of knew each other a little bit. Rip was always a much better swimmer than I. And then when Rip graduated from Texas, he became a pro triathlete, a very successful pro triathlete, something he pursued for about a decade before becoming

a firefighter in Austin, Texas. And his tenure in the Engine 2 firehouse in Austin presented his real first opportunity to introduce his passion for a whole food plant-based diet to other people, to his fellow firefighters in the firehouse. It's a long story that we get into in the podcast. It's fascinating. But essentially, he ended up really restoring the health and vitality of a variety of his colleagues. And this was something that got picked up in the press and got a lot of attention.

And he ended up documenting this experience, this success that he had in this extraordinary national bestselling book called The Engine 2 Diet, which just exploded. It really catalyzed this plant-strong revolution that Rip is behind and demonstrated the irrefutable connection between eating a plant-based diet and good health. So Rip is this plant-strong pioneer, a guy who has been advocating the benefits of a whole food plant-based diet to prevent and reverse disease and also power even the craziest athletic feats. He's been doing this for a very long time.

And he's really not only a good friend of mine, but somebody who was a source of inspiration and has been a mentor to me for many, many years, like a big brother, the big brother that I never, ever had. many, many years, like a big brother, the big brother that I never, ever had. And this Engine 2 diet book was instrumental in my transition, my evolution. And it was succeeded by a whole series of books that Rip has written over the years, including a book called My Beef with Meat, which is fantastic, and two new books over the last year, the first of which is an accelerated take-no-prisoner seven-day detox called The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet that came out last January, and Rip's most recent book, The Engine 2 Cookbook, which is a true cookbook with over 130 super delicious plant-strong recipes with gorgeous photography, and that hits bookstores everywhere the day

after Christmas, December 26th. You should definitely pick that up. It's an amazing book. And I got a couple more things I wanna say about Rip and our conversation to come, including a fan email that I'm very excited to read. But first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com.

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starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. All right. Can I read a fan mail? I'll read a fan mail. Read an email from a fan. Can I do that? It's been a couple weeks. Let me do that. I'm going to keep this one anonymous, though, just for safety. It goes like this. Hey, Rich and Julie. I'm a mom, and I'm also a clinical neuropsychologist in a neurology practice about one hour south of Chicago. I have always thought that I have been a healthy eater, as I have avoided beef and pork but

ate fowl and fish. My brother-in-law is a vegan and follows you and sent me a link to your podcast with the neurologists who discuss diet and Alzheimer's. This is my practice specialty, as I see patients with suspected dementia to assess. I also have three generations of Alzheimer's looking me square in the face in my family history. three generations of Alzheimer's looking me square in the face in my family history. I'm about two weeks in and I'm holding out on fish, specifically wild-caught salmon. The chicken and turkey that I've been eating were easy to let go, as was the dairy, surprisingly. I cannot tell you how much

better I feel and cannot thank you enough for your message, energy, and spirit. Your story is truly inspiring. I have your wife's cheese book and it is fantastic. Watching my dad and aunt race to the finish line with the disease has been devastating. I have found new strength in dealing with it and eating clean and have been incorporating much of this advice to my patients. In just two weeks, I've talked our hospital cafeteria into almond milk, parenthetical soy sucks and can't be drank by many cancer patients, and have shared Julie's book with two medical residents, one of whom is going into GI.

This is huge given her potential influence on the dietary habits of her patients in the future. Any advice that you have for me in taking the final step of stopping fish would be appreciated. I'm really proud of what I've already accomplished. I feel a shift in my perspective, not just in the nutrition aspect,

but in the energy of my plate now. I begin yoga teacher training in January as well. I take great comfort and strength in listening to your podcast and feel like that I am really included in conversations with like-minded people, which is scary considering that I work in a hospital that more people don't think this way.

Thanks for being such great human beings. Okay, that's an amazing email to receive. I really appreciate it. It's just amazing to get something like that and to understand that this podcast that's going out into the world is impacting people and that there's a cascade effect, like the fact that this person is now incorporating this into their neurology practice is changing the way that patients are being treated, sharing the information and not having a ripple effect on other doctors and how they practice medicine.

I mean, it's just inspiring. And it's a tribute to the amazing work of Dr. Shirzai, who I had on the podcast. But also just thank you for sharing that with me. And as far as the fish thing goes, the only advice I can give you, well, the first thing I guess I would ask you is, why are you holding onto it? Is it because of the taste? Is it because you think it has nutrition that you think you can't get elsewhere that you need? In either aspect of it, just let it go. Don't overthink it. Look, did you have it today? Can you go a day without it? Do it one day at a time. That's one day you did that. Maybe do another day.

You know, take the time to pay attention to how you feel, chronicle it, and go from there. But I would say overall, you've made an amazing shift, and I just want to validate and applaud that. That's an incredible shift in behavior and perspective in a very short period of time. And it just warms my heart that you would share that with me. So thank you. Okay. Rip Esselstyn. One of the amazing things about Rip is beyond the fact that we have a bunch of history and we kind of go way back. What I love about Rip is that his advocacy, the books that he writes, what he stands for, everything that he does, isn't just him. It's a family affair. It is carrying on the legacy of

his amazing father, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, and the incredible work that he has been doing his whole life. It's work that also involves Rip's sister, his mom, these incredible retreats that they host all over America, the annual plant stock event at the family farm. It's really an extraordinary expression of love and a true gift to humanity, the expression of this incredible family. And I'm just pleased beyond to be able to sit down with Rip and to share his powerful message with you guys today. And this is a great conversation.

Again, it's one that I've been wanting to have ever since I started the podcast. And it's a conversation that covers a ton of ground. We talk about Rip's origin story, what it's like to be the son of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. We talk about his career as a swimmer, as a triathlete, as an athlete, even to this day. We discuss a variety of other diets, paleo, Atkins, and ketogenic. We talk about Rip's post-athletic career as a firefighter, the origin of the Engine 2 program. We talk about his relationship with Whole Foods.

What else do we talk about? Basically, we talk about, in essence, the power of plants to heal and empower you. That's it. That's all you need to know. So without further ado, I love this guy. I love this conversation. And let's just do it. Let's get into it. Here is my conversation with Rip Esselstyn.

So finally, after five years of doing the i'm i'm finally getting the opportunity to sit down and talk to you from the moment i started this podcast you were you know number one top of the list guy that i wanted to get with and and uh it's taken this long to make it happen but i'm super stoked to be sitting here to unpack your story right me too me too here we are i know it's amazing we had a great swim this morning you have to kick my butt up and down the pool show me what's what that felt good uh you were doing awesome considering listen you've been you've been traveling a lot you haven't been swimming much it was it was travel like you it was fun to get in the water and just shake it up a little bit yeah it, it was fun. It was cool. Yeah. So I should say at the outset that,

just to kind of create a little bit of context, when I began my plant-based journey, I stumbled across your Facebook page. This must have been 2000, sometime in 2006. When did Engine 2 come out? Engine 2 officially came out in Februarybruary 25th 2009 2009 okay so when i so maybe it was a little bit later maybe 2007 but i know that you were like working on it yeah i believe at the time and it hadn't come out yeah and we didn't really know each other but i knew

your name from swimming uh and we had been at the same meets growing up as kids you went to mercer's burg where my sister swam you know and i had followed your career at texas and we had had dual meets against each other and the like and i just remember i very vividly recall looking at your facebook at some point i must have sought you out to be a friend and you accepted it even though we didn was like, you know, following old swimmers or whatever. And I can't remember exactly what you were posting about, but it had to do with the book and kind of this movement that you're in and what you were working on. And it was right at the time when I was stepping into this, and I was like, wow, this guy,

he swam, and he's doing this. And I think out of the blue, I sent you a message on Facebook, and you responded, and we started a little bit of a dialogue at that point. And here we are. It's so crazy to sit back and look at what you've built and the number of lives that you have impacted with your work and your books and your advocacy. And what your family as a collective unit has been able to accomplish is really nothing short of extraordinary. Well, thanks a lot, Rich. I mean, yeah, it's been an amazing journey.

It's been an amazing path. And, you know, I think we've both been on our own amazing journey being advocates for plant-based nutrition. being advocates for plant-based nutrition. And, yeah, I mean, you know, my journey started in 19 – really 1987 is when I kind of plunged into this, and in large part because of my – I shouldn't say in large part, but really because of my father's research at the Cleveland Clinic. Right, so explain that a little bit for people that don't know.

Yeah, so for any listener that doesn't know who my father is, he wrote a book called Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, and really it's based upon his work at the Cleveland Clinic going back to 1984. And he got really just sick and tired of surgery as a means of trying to address a lot of breast cancer. And so he was like, you know what? In my lifetime, it will be probably pretty hard to show that we can prevent and reverse breast cancer by eating this way. But I know that you can do it. I'm betting that you can do it with heart

disease. And so by eating to save your heart, you're also saving your breasts and your prostate and all these other things. But what gave him that idea to begin with? When did he begin his own journey with this way of eating and living? Yeah. Well, you know what? So I think he started looking at a lot of the epidemiological studies that were out there. He saw this research that had been done on green monkeys, where they were able to reverse the heart disease in green monkeys. So they basically fed them food that gave them these atherosclerotic plaques. And then they would give them primarily a whole food plant-based diet. And then they were able to reverse it. So he's like, wow, if it can be done in green monkeys,

and we have cultures on the planet that, for the most part, have no heart disease, very little cancer, obesity, I bet you we can do it. So he asked the cardiology department at the Cleveland Clinic to send him the bottom-of-the-barrel patients that had been turned down for another bypass or angioplasty stent, all those things. And over the course of like a year and a half, he got 22 patients. And five years later, they're still alive. Ten years later, they're still alive.

Fifteen years later, they're still alive. Twenty years later, they're still alive. And years later, they're still alive. Fifteen years later, they're still alive. Twenty years later, they're still alive. And remember, these are the walking dead. Right. And now all of a sudden, they're the walking alive. They're having very amazing, fruitful lives again. And this was back in the late 70s? No.

This all started in 1984. Oh, 84. 1984 at the cleveland clinic and so i got to see what he was doing from 1984 to 1980s yeah to 1987 i graduated from ut in december of 1986 and that's when i was off the athletic training table fair of steaks and burgers and chicken and pizzas and all that crazy stuff. And I immediately started eating this way. And one of my heroes in the sport of triathlon, Dave Scott, six-time winner of the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon, had been following this particular way

of eating. And so to me, it was like a slam dunk. I'm in. I'm sold. Health, performance, to me it was like a slam dunk right i mean i'm in i'm sold health performance i don't i don't need any more any more uh you know data or convincing i'm sold and when your dad began doing this correct me if i'm wrong but i think i read somewhere that this wasn't exactly a popular protocol at the cleveland clinic because they make their money on surgery right and suddenly he's helping all these people and they don't have to go under the knife anymore. Right. No, you bring up a very good point there. So 60%, roughly 60% of the Cleveland Clinic's revenue comes from the cardiology department, right?

Wow. From doing all these surgeries, stents, angioplasties. It's crazy. all these, you know, surgeries, stents, angioplasties. It's crazy. And so he was not looked upon very favorably at the Cleveland Clinic. But, you know, luckily, he's pretty self-confident when he's found the truth, and he's going to, like, you going to have that be his guiding light.

And he didn't care. I mean, people were calling him Dr. Sprouts. In the mail, he would get envelopes that had tree bark in it with no return address. I mean, it's crazy what people were doing. But he held fast to his guns. He knew he was barking up the right tree. And lo and behold, I think it was within three, four years, he had proof of concept that, yes, this disease is reversible. And then he's been doing this now. This is the longest-running study of its kind. I mean, it's still ongoing, and it's now 35 years later. And he's been written up in probably close to eight or nine different medical journals. His latest that came out in 2014 was in the American Journal of, I think it was family practice, where he went back and he looked at 200 patients that he had counseled to find

out what the compliance rate was like. Four years later, guess what? Guess what? Guess what it was? I don't know. Four years later. High, right? It was 90%.

Wow, that's amazing. 90%. 90% of the people still maintaining this program. Still maintaining that program, like hitting it out of the park. And of the remaining 10% that didn't follow the program, what's interesting is 67% of those 10%, roughly 22, 23 people, had either passed away, had another heart attack, stroke, surgery. And of the 167 that stayed with the protocol, one male had a small stroke. So pretty incredible. Yeah, I mean, that high rate does not surprise me.

You know, I've met so many of these people by participating in some of your events, and I've met a lot of these people who have literally been brought back from the brink, and they're so evangelical because their health has turned around so dramatically and unexpectedly, and they're just all about it. There's no way they're going back. Yeah. I mean, some of these people were so bad off. Imagine that you're in a wheelchair.

You're getting cardiac disability because you can't go to work, because you're so far gone that you're now in a wheelchair because your angina is so bad that you can't even stand up. Some of these men, their angina was so bad, just to shave in the morning, just this motion right here, right, was so severe that they had to put basically nitric oxide paste, nitroglycerin paste on their right around here, right, just so they could shave in the morning. I mean, I don't think anybody realizes how far gone and how bad off these patients were. Half of them, almost half of them were given what's called a diagnosis of end-stage heart disease,

which means you have less than a year to live. Wow. You know, and the doctor's marching orders were, go home and get all your affairs in order. And it's one thing to talk about prevention, and it's another thing entirely to talk about reversal. But when you see the before and after angiograms in your dad's book, it's shocking to see that reversal of what happens when you go on this protocol and you can actually open up those arteries again and the plaque clears up and suddenly the blood is flowing in a way that it hasn't in many years. Yeah.

It's just unbelievable. It's flowing, perfusing the heart. And that's why people are like, 90%, how could he have that kind of compliance? Imagine if your life has been basically whittled down to the point to where you're in a wheelchair, you have no life whatsoever, you can't even walk without pain, discomfort. And now you also have erectile dysfunction. And now, a year, six months into the program, you're like, you have no more chest pain. You're walking. You're playing tennis.

You're dancing with your wife. You're having sex with your wife. You're going to be intimate again. I mean, wow. I mean, you can't put a price tag on that stuff. Yeah, it's unbelievable. So he's doing this back in 1984. It was a very different time. The receptivity certainly wasn't what it was, you know, what it is today. And it's got to be so gratifying, you know, for him and for all of you and your family to see kind of culture catch up and embrace this. Oh, it's amazing because I know when he started this in 1984, it was a completely different world as far as like embracing this.

And now 2017, you know, we've got everywhere I turn now, I see a book about eating, you know, plant-based. You've got all these documentaries that are out there. where I turn now. I see a book about eating plant-based. You've got all these documentaries that are out there. And he and Colin, Colin Campbell in Forks Over Knives, in their own

right, they now have been elevated to the status of almost celebrities in the plant-based world. And again, to me, it's a testament of these two, one know, one clinician, one kind of scientist that stuck to their guns. They knew that they were doing the right thing. And they've both made such an impact on people's health and this whole movement. So let's talk about the specifics of what the diet actually is for those who might be

new to the show or less familiar. We're talking about plant-based, but this is a very specific version of plant-based. Yeah. So, well, for the Engine 2, Engine 2 diet or prevent reverse? Well, yeah. So, those are even two gradations of even more, but we could start with Engine 2. even more. But we could start with Engine 2. Yeah. So Engine 2, so for the people that don't know, Engine 2 basically is called Engine 2 because

I was able to get a bunch of firefighters in Austin, Texas to drop the... Because you were a firefighter. We're going to track your story. You're getting ahead of me, but it's okay. So yeah, you were a firefighter and you're going to track your story. You're getting ahead of me, but it's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, you were a firefighter, and you were at Engine 2 here in Austin.

Firefighter, Engine 2. Helped save a fellow firefighter's basically destiny with a heart attack by eating plant-strong, following the Engine 2 program. But you had a contest, right? You made it fun for all of these guys that you were working with. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, yeah. I mean, we had a little bar bet? Like you made it fun for all of these guys that you were working with. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, we, yeah. I mean, we had a little bar bet sitting out on the porch that, hey, guys, let's, you know, who we thought was the healthiest. And we decided, you know what, to follow through on this bet, we're going to go down to the

lab and we're going to get our cholesterols checked and see who's got the lowest cholesterol. And that was when one of my firefighting brothers, his cholesterol came back at 344 at the age of 33. And most humans, or most Americans rather, have a cholesterol between 200 and 225. JR was 344. His father had triple bypass at 50. His grandfather died before the age of 50. His great-grandfather died before the age of 50. His great-grandfather died before the age of 51. And so he was just following down, right, that family path there.

And so JR and the crew there, they were like game to jump on board and try this. And so in 2003, we started eating a lot of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, limited amounts of nuts and seeds, you know, no extracted oils, you know, so we're not doing olive oil, canola oil, safflower, any of these oils. And within 28 days, JR's cholesterol came down 148 points. It's unbelievable. Yeah, 148 points, dropped about 14 pounds, increase in energy, all the things that happen, acid reflux, indigestion, bowel movement function, all that stuff.

And that caught the attention of the media, right? So suddenly there's newspaper articles being written about this what's this guy doing at the fire department like he's got these guys you know on this crazy diet and their cholesterol is dropping and people start paying attention to what you're doing yeah i mean uh people started paying attention the crowning blow was the new york times did a uh did a front page piece in like 2006. And then that's when it was like Katie barred the door. I mean, we got inundated with letters, emails, phone calls, postcards, just from people saying, wow, you guys are an inspiration, keep it up. And then that's when I got a lot of offers from literary agents and publishing houses

to write a book. And I decided at some point after, probably it was three months after getting a lot of these phone calls and letters that, you know what, maybe I can write a book. Because forever I was like, who am I to write a book? I got no business writing a book. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a health coach. I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not a dietician. I'm an ex-professional triathlete that's now a firefighter. But at some point I was like, you know what, maybe there's somebody out there that would benefit from hearing this from a firefighter. And I got a decent platform. And so, you know what, let's give this the old college try. So, yeah, I spent two years writing the book, decided to call it Engine 2

because that's where the whole thing originated from. That was the genesis of it. And did a pilot study to show the efficacy of eating this way with 62 guinea pigs. And, yeah, so then the book came out in February 2009. And that's how it all started. Yeah, that book blew up. It was a New York Times bestseller, yeah? Yep, it was a New York Times bestseller. And I was fortunate enough to be in a lot of the morning shows and stuff like that. And yeah, and then a couple months later, you know, John Mackey read it and became a fan. And he asked me if I would consider coming on board with Whole Foods to be a healthy eating advocate and partner.

And I said, you know, twist my rubber arm, right? Yeah. And here we are at the Whole Foods headquarters right now that's right and you just showed me your office i mean i obviously i know you have a product line with whole foods the engine two line um and i'm familiar with some of those products but i didn't realize that you have 50 skews yeah close to 50 i think it's 47 exactly right now we're coming out out with seven new SKUs here just in probably a month or two. But yeah, it's, you know, so, and for the listeners that don't know what a SKU is, because I didn't know, you know, when I got into this business, what's a SKU.

Basically, for example, I've got cereals, and I've got three different types of cereals, right? Got the Rips Big Bowl cereal, got the banana walnut, the triple berry, and the original that's got raisins in it. So each one of those is a SKU. Each one of those is a SKU within the cold cereal category. And so we've got hot cereals, we've got granolas, we've got hummuses, we've got crispbread crackers, We've got granolas. We've got hummuses. We've got crispbread crackers. We've got soups, pasta sauces, pizza crusts, veggie broth.

We've got two different types of soup. We've got a firehouse chili. We have a Moroccan stew. And soon we're coming out with some insane, insane raviolis and some amazing burritos. It's great. And they're all no oil, super low fat, right? And they all follow all the criteria of NGIN2, which is basically you got to be 100% plant strong, right? You're not going to find any animal products or any animal byproducts in there.

Everything's got to be low fat. So 25% of the calories or less coming from fat. And it's got to be low fat so 25 of the calories or less coming from fat and it's got to be all naturally occurring fat that's in the food right and then everything's got to be low salt and and what that means is if you look at the number of calories per serving let's say it's 220 like for the soup the ideally the milligrams of sodium have to be equal to that or less. So, for example, most soups that are out there, you'll see that there's 220 calories per serving and the milligrams of sodium are like 600, almost three times the amount.

And by following that one-to-one ratio or less, you're pretty much going to guarantee that your daily sodium intake is less than 2,200, which is kind of the upper limit according to the Institute of Medicine. So we want to pay attention to that, especially considering that, you know, what is it, close to a quarter of the American adults are now on some sort of hypertension medication. I just read an article this morning. attention medication. I just read an article this morning. It was in CNN talking about how now we have more obese Americans than ever before, 40%. 40% of adults, 19% of children. It's insane. It's insane. Yeah, it's insane. Heart disease, number one killer. Is it still one out of every three Americans will die. One out of every two will contract some form of heart disease.

Diabetes, 50% of Americans by 2030, they're predicting, will be diabetic or pre-diabetic. Yep. I say it all the time. These are the epidemics of our era. Sit and ponder those statistics. It's insane. Well, what's the most insane thing about it to me is that i think you know and i know that we could abolish all this literally in a matter of a year

and a half two years if everybody kind of had this knowledge knew the power of a whole food plant-based diet to not only to prevent but also to reverse these diseases. But instead, we're looking for procedures. We're looking for diets that don't work. We're barking up the wrong tree everywhere we go. And it's just making it worse. People are more confused than ever. And it's an absolute crying shame.

Well, on the confusion piece, it's a weird time because we've never had more immediate access to information than ever. Yeah. And part of that is amazing. And another part of that is, you know, creates that confusion, especially in the health and nutrition space where there's so much conflicting information. And people don't have time to read all this stuff. And they're going to look at the headline. They're going to move on.

Nobody's reading these studies. Nobody's taking the time to see how the studies were performed or paid for them. And they're just trying to get through the day, right? And so how do you cut through that morass and get the truth out? It's not as easy as it sounds. No. Or they're going to look at the headlines, maybe skim it, and then just look for some takeaways that allow them to have their butter, to have their bacon or whatever it is. I mean, the latest cousin to the paleo that's just tearing it up right now is the ketogenic diet. Darrell Bock Yeah, so tell me I'm interested in your perspective

on that because that is on center stage right now. Dr. Darrell Bock Oh, it is. Well, I mean, basically what they're saying is you can have your bacon, you can have your eggs, you can have your sausage, you can have your butter. And as long as you kind of get your body to go into this state where you're burning fat, you're doing minimal to no carbohydrates, you put your body basically into this starvation state, you can lose weight and you can fight cancer. And I think it's one of the most dangerous things that's out there. And I had a woman at one of our immersions that we just did in Sedona, Arizona. She hadn't had a piece of fruit in a

year because her personal trainer basically told her that it's just going to add pounds like nobody's business. So here's somebody that's eating bacon and eggs and butter and cream cheese and all this stuff, but she's not even touching a fruit because she's under the mistaken belief that it's going to go right to her thighs. She's 90 pounds overweight, and it's crazy. But the whole keto thing, it's amazing how the whole Atkins thing just won't go away, right? As McDougall always says, right, you love to hear good things about your bad habits. But it was Atkins, and then it was South Beach, and then it was paleo, and now it's keto.

It's like just, you know. It's interesting how the focal point and the conversation has pivoted. Like you don't hear so much about paleo anymore. It's all kind of moved towards keto and low carb. And it's fascinating. Certainly at the crux of that is the fact that people want to hear good news about their bad habits because who doesn't want to be told

that like they should be eating bacon for breakfast. It's like, I get it. But I think it's something more than that, too. I think there's something about the way that that silo, that camp, communicates to the public. And I think they understand. They're maybe a little bit more internet savvy and fluent in how we communicate in this modern age than perhaps our plant-based community is. And I think there's something to be learned from that about how we can improve. Because I feel like we're challenged in really connecting with people in a way that I think we're capable of.

And I don't know what the answer to that is. But we have some work to do, I think. Yeah. And like, for example, just last week, ABC Good Morning America did a segment on this new keto book that's out there. And this beautiful news anchor was saying how, yeah, I've lost weight. And I had breast cancer, and now I'm fighting my breast cancer, and look what I can eat. I can eat sausage and bacon and eggs. And they actually showed her putting butter into her coffee. And I can tell you right now, in the era that we're living in now, that thing has gotten basically forwarded on to that little five-minute segment to more people. That book was number one on Amazon. I mean, it's just like, it's crazy.

And all that IGF-1 and casein and animal protein, like what's going to happen? And carnitine and lecithin. The cancer. And insidiously destructive animal protein and cholesterol and trans fats and saturated fats. It's just, the list goes on and on and on. So what happens when someone comes up to you and says, yeah, but like saturated fat is not, like I read this, like that's been debunked. Like saturated fat does not lead to elevated serum cholesterol. It's not that bad for you.

We've been duped. That was, you know, that was propaganda by the sugar industry or whatever vested interest. What is your response to that? Because I'm sure you feel that all the time. Well, I would actually disagree. I'd say if you look at the preponderance of the scientific literature when it comes to saturated fat, you'll actually see that it actually does promote heart disease, that it promotes type 2 diabetic insulin resistance, that it actually

does fuel cancers. But really, to me, the bottom line is that you're not going to find saturated fat in any plants. I mean, it doesn't exist in plants, yet in some nuts and some seeds, right? Right, a little avocado, coconut. Coconut, right? Right. But fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, it doesn't exist. So to me, saturated fat, it's the lifeblood. It's really the lifeblood of the paleo-keto program. And so if we were to say scientifically definitively saturated fat contributes to all these things and it is a bad mad pajama they wouldn't have a program anymore

so they've got to you know stand up and scream and shout and say no there's nothing wrong with saturated fat but look at what but they're better at shouting you know because that ends up on the cover of time magazine or what have you and what you just said gets lost in the shuffle yeah yeah well and you're and then look at look at the look at the friends that saturated fat keeps, right? That whole laundry list that you and I just rattled off there, right? The IGF, right? The carnitine, the lecithin, the wrong kind of destructive animal protein, the cholesterol. I mean, it's just like, that's what you're also getting with saturated fat. So let's just give them the benefit of the doubt.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with saturated fat. But everything else that saturated fat lives with in the red meat, the chicken, the fish, the eggs, the milk, the cheese, the butter, the yogurt, you can't get away from it. All those things. But sugar. It's about sugar, Rep. Well, some people believe it's about sugar. I don't think it's – sugar's not the culprit. No.

People like to deflect a little bit. What about the idea that all sugar is the same, whether it's a fruit or a Coca-Cola? No, it's not. Yeah. It's not. No no because like the fruit so i mean um the sugar that you're getting for example in a banana or an apple or an orange right it comes attached to the fiber and that's the main difference when it's attached to the fiber it can act as a nice slow release of energy over an extended period of time

slow release of energy over an extended period of time. But when it's just like pure white sugar, brown sugar, molasses, or something like that, it leads to the sugar highs and then the lows, and then it leads to increasing triglycerides and potentially even you know elevating cholesterol levels so um but no eating eating sugar fructose sucrose when it's attached to fruit is like supremely healthy and you know i mean you and i is as athletes what's our body's main source of fuel it's it's carbohydrates it's not protein it's not It's carbohydrates. And yet everyone is so fixated on the protein thing, right? I've been doing this 10 years. You've been doing it much longer.

We swam together this morning. You kicked my butt. You were the fastest guy in the pool. You're 54 now? You're rocking it. Almost 55. 55. You're killing it.

So what about this? Let's just clarify things for people who are listening, this issue of protein, and maybe even get a little bit more detailed about this idea that, okay, well, you can get protein from plants, but it's not of the same caliber or quality as the protein that you would get from an animal source. No, you're right. I would say it's even better, animal source. No, you're right. I would say it's even better, right? It's a lot better. So when I'm talking to my kids, three, eight, and 10, I let them know that, you know, in this house, we eat strong food. So we're eating foods that are strong. They're going to basically make you bulletproof to chronic Western disease. They're going to give you an immune system like a Canadian

moose. So you basically very rarely, if ever, get sick. And in this house, we're just not going to give you an immune system like a Canadian moose. So you basically very rarely, if ever, get sick. And in this house, we're just not going to eat weak foods. And so that's why we're not going to do red meat, chicken, fish, or eggs. And I let them know that it's a weak source of protein. Everybody thinks it's funny because it's almost like a 180 from what we learned growing up. So traditionally, we thought that red meat and chicken and fish were strong, really healthy sources of protein. But the reality is that they're really insidiously destructive.

They have a proportion and composition of the essential amino acids, really eight or nine, depending upon what you think, that actually wreak havoc on our systems. They're very pro-inflammatory in nature. They actually raise cholesterol levels. You know, we talked a little bit earlier about IGF-1. Animal protein, especially the animal protein in dairy products, can actually turn on cancer, cancer cells, initiate and propagate cancer cells.

And then, you know, if you're a female, it also contributes to leaching calcium from the bones because it creates a state of metabolic acidosis. So I tell my kids, like, listen, so the strongest form of protein that you're going to get comes from, whether it comes from fruits, vegetables, whole grains, or beans, that it's very friendly in nature. It's not going to promote inflammation. It's not going to leach calcium from your bones. It's not going to bash your kidneys or your liver. You talk to somebody that's having kidney issues, your doctor will have you go on a low-protein diet

because that animal protein bashes the living shit out of your kidneys. And one of the things that I don't think people understand is that all protein, all the essential amino acids that are the building blocks for protein originate in plants. That's where it all originates. That's where the true nutritional engine for all and anything that's beneficial and good in nutrition lives in plants. That's where it all originates from. So your proteins, right? If an animal has protein, it either directly or indirectly got it from plants, right? If it's got vitamins, it either directly or indirectly got it from plants. If it's got vitamins it either directly or indirectly got it from plants if it's got minerals same thing right that's where it all starts one of the things that you hear

consistently from athletes on a plant-based diet or athletes that that transition to a plant-based diet is that suddenly their recovery is enhanced right you kind of touched on it a minute ago and i think it has to do and i'm minute ago. And I think it has to do, and I'm interested in your thoughts on this, it has to do with you're eating much more anti-inflammatory foods, right? So you're not eating all these inflammation-provoking foods. You're getting your protein, but you're doing it in anti-inflammatory way. And that allows the body to recover more rapidly, more quickly. You bounce back more quickly. You're less likely to get sick. You can go harder. You can go faster. You can go longer. It's like nature's EPO. And then protract that out over a course of a season or a number of years. And that translates

into you becoming a better athlete. It's not that eating plants makes you a better athlete, but it sets you up to pursue a better trajectory for success. No, brilliant. You just said it beautifully. And the other thing I don't think people realize, I mean, the cleanest burning fuel out there you're going to get is from plants. And as an athlete, one of the things that is crucially important for us as far as our athletic performance is being hydrated, right? I mean, you get a little dehydrated, your performance can drop, you know, 5% just like immediately. And it takes eight times more water to digest meat than it does plant-based products.

And plus, look at all the inherent water that's in plants. I mean, fruits and veggies are roughly, what, 70%, 80% water. In addition to that, just the energy it takes to break down all those foods versus plant foods. Like, you have to exert yourself. That's why you get these food comas and these lulls in energy, because your body has to metabolize all these foods, and they're difficult to break down. Yeah, yeah, totally.

No, I mean, yeah, as far as recovery, as far as stamina, as far as reaching your ideal weight. I mean, you look across all the pro sports that are out there these days, basketball, football, baseball. It's amazing to me how many of these athletes are overweight, right? They're overweight. Here they are. This is their overweight, right? They're overweight. Here they are. This is their profession, right? This is what they're getting paid, typically wonderful money to do, and they

can't get it right when it comes to their diet and what to eat. Have you worked with professional athletes directly? I mean, there's a lot of them. I mean, every day, my Twitter feed, somebody sends me, oh, so-and-so's going plant-based, this person and that. It's like it's interesting. It's an interesting moment in time where a lot of these athletes are testing it out and giving it a try. No, it's fascinating. I personally am not working with anyone. I mean, I did get –

But I know people reach out to you behind the scenes. You talk to people. Well, for a while, yeah. Yes. to you behind the scenes you talk to people well for a way like yeah i did yes uh for example not too long ago uh the uh the gm for the atlanta falcons right we've we've had several phone calls back and forth about me pop you know going in there and talking to the guys uh tony um wide receiver gonzalez tony gonzalez yeah yeah. He got kind of exposed to it with Tony Gonzalez back several years ago.

And for those of you that don't know, Tony Gonzalez is the all-time reception, has more receptions of any tight end. And I think it was like three years to go in his career, he read the China study and started going plant-based. But yeah, Griff Whalen, wide receiver, reached out to me a little bit. But yeah, here and there. That's cool.

So during your swimming career, though, you were just eating the average whatever, like at the training table at UT. It was pitiful. Yeah. It was absolutely pitiful. But you know what? It's kind of one of those things. When you're 18, 19, 20, 21, you can almost get away with anything.

Yeah. You know what I mean? You're burning so hot. And when you're swimming four or five hours, there's nothing like swimming to create an appetite. Oh, it's crazy. It's nothing like running, cycling, forget it. Like swimming. Yeah.

But let's clear something up. Because you can't – it doesn't matter how hot the engine burns, You're not going to burn off those atherosclerotic plaques, the cholesterol, the fatty lesions, whatever you're doing to start some sort of cascade of cancer cells. You can't do that. It starts early. Yeah, I mean, I think we tend to believe like, oh, I'm young. I'll deal with this later. But you really start – heart disease starts when you're very young.

As soon as you start eating those foods, that's when it begins. Yep. Now, we know from studies, right, poor kids who have died in automobile accidents or whatever usually starts three, four, five, six years of age. That's crazy. So after your swimming career, so you swam at University of Texas. You were, I mean, you were All-American NCAA finalist, hunter back? No, no, you know, no.

I was an All-American, but it was on relays. So I was 400 freestyle relay. Yeah. Three years, three different years, and we were top three, three years. Do you win NCAAs? No, it's kind of painful. No, no. So the four years that I was there, we got two seconds and two-thirds.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, I think one of those years we lost to Stanford. I think that might be true. One was Florida. One was, I think, UCLA. Two were Cal Berkeley when Biondi was there. Yeah, and all of them are painful.

You look back and you're like, oh, my God, what happened? If this wouldn't have happened, we would have won by four points. It's just crazy. And so after the conclusion of that, you decide you're going to dip your toe into becoming a triathlete. You become a pro triathlete. And you had some good success. And that's right around the time when you switched your diet?

That's right when I switched my diet, right. Yeah, 1987. 1987 is when I started what would be a 10-year career as a full-time triathlete. what would be a 10-year career as a full-time triathlete. And, yeah, it was, I mean, it was, looking back, it was quite a time. You know, I was just really, I was training. I was sleeping. I was eating healthily.

I was looking for sponsorships. It's a tough life, man. It's a nomadic backpack kind of way of living. It was, yeah, no. It was, I was at the right age to do it, right, my early 20s. But looking back, I'm like, God, I can't believe, you know, what I put up with, what I went through, you know, sleeping on couches, lugging my bike carrying case everywhere. And what's Papa E thinking at this time? Well, that's interesting. I mean, Olympic gold medalist in rowing.

Right, right. It's a tough act to follow. Well, an impossible act to follow, right? So for the first, I would say, five years, my father was my biggest fan. Biggest fan, like, you know, would fly all over the world, basically, you know, watch me compete. It was incredible. And then at some point, I felt like, well, I shouldn't say I felt, he felt like it was time for me to move on, right? Move on with my life, get a real job, grow up, and kind of stop this child's play.

And he wrote me this really, from his heart, and looking back now that i have kids just very loving uh letter that uh where he basically thought that um i was chasing after something that was impossible for me to attain and it's like a fool's mistress and uh and that he could not support me any longer. Not financially, because he wasn't, but just could not support me emotionally and all that stuff. That's a rough one. Oh, it was intense. It was intense. And so from that point on, around him, I was a closet triathlete, right?

So you still continue to do it. You just had to, you're doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I did it for another almost five years. And man, it was perfect because at that, in 1997, I was like, I was almost 34 years old and it was a great transition. It was time, I was like, it was time for me to get out. I'd had enough. I'd had enough of that.

You had success along the way. Weren't you the first out of the water in Kona? Like led the race out one year? Yeah, no, listen. I was, you know, over the course of that 10 years, I became one of the premier swimmers in the sport, came out of the water, whether it was Alcatraz, whether it was Kona, you know.

Always first out of the water. Whether it was all these USTS races. Typically first, if not first, second. And I escaped from Alcatraz. I was out of the water six years in a row first, led the bike. We'd usually get passed on the run by, you know, guys like Mike Pig, Wes Hobson, Scott Tinley, some of those guys. I could throw down on a good day. I could throw down a 33 10K and some I could throw down a 33, 10K,

and some of these guys, you know, 31, 32. Yeah, so I had some good success. I mean, I was considered one of the top 10 triathletes at the short court distance, the international distance, 1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run. I was never an ultra-distance guy, right? I didn't do the Ironmans. I did them twice just to do it. I went to Kona. And my first year there in 1994, I came out of the water first. I led the bike for probably 40 miles. I had the helicopters overhead. I had the motorcycles. I had the cars.

I had ABC, Wide World of Sports. I wasn't pacing myself. I wasn't drinking. I wasn't fueling myself. You know, my longest, I think, ride run going into that might have been, you know, an 80-mile ride and a three-mile run. I'm just going to flame out, but I'm going to enjoy this until it leaves you. For the most part. For the most part.

And it's so funny because, you know, the first person to pass me was Dave Scott. And he passed me about probably mile 40, right before you climb, make the climb up to Javier. And he looked amazing. And the back of his hamstrings were just like a stallion's. I'm like, there he is, man. There's my man. And he ended up getting, I think he got second that year to Greg Welch. And I think he threw down like a 245 marathon there.

But incredible. But yeah, I just, I never really had the mentality to do that, the training that was necessary to be good at the Ironman. Yeah, to make the leap to the longer distance. I mean, it's a whole different beast. It's a different sport. It's a different sport. Yeah. Two hours versus eight and a half, nine.

Yeah, yeah. So you do that. You get the letter. You're underground for a while. And then you're like, all right, what's next? Yeah, yeah. So I continue doing my thing. I'm, you know, I'm living in, I'm living in Austin, and that I absolutely, you know, love and adore. And then at some point, I was like, you know, it's time for me to make the transition. And I'm like, well, what do I

want to do? You know, I know I don't want to do a nine to five desk job. And you know, what's my skill sets? And, and I had some age group triathlete buddies. They were like, you know what? You should consider being a firefighter. It's like an amazing profession. No two shifts are ever the same. Usually we go out and 10 or 15 times a shift we're doing these amazing deeds

and helping people and saving lives. And so i went to fire station one which is the animal house of the austin fire department and i went on a ride out just to kind of see what it was about and i was like oh this is this is like amazing amazing you know getting on the the fire engine code three lights and sirens, you know, go into an emergency, your adrenaline is pumping, your heart is racing, you know, you're helping people, and you're doing it with a bunch, you know, three or four other guys that you become, that become your brothers and sisters so fast.

Darrell Bock The camaraderie that you experience swimming at UT, right? You get to, like to reconnect with that. Get to relive it, but in a completely different environment. And so that's the thing I miss most about firefighting, because I've been gone now eight years, is that camaraderie, that kind of fraternal bond that happens. I remember one time you said to me it was on the cusp of you know you really like

breaking out with all the things that you're doing now um all these opportunities and you're like it's great it's amazing but you know i'm gonna have to like walk away from being a firefighter like you were torn up about it like that's an embarrassment of riches like that's a quality decision problem to have but you know i just remember the consternation, the emotion that you had around that, that you were going to have to let that go in order to grow. Well, it's funny you say that, because what happened is John Mackey, after I wrote the book, kind of pulled me into his office and said, hey, we'd like for you to consider being a health-eating partner.

And I said, let me think about it. And I went home and I talked to my wife, Jill, and decided, you know what, this is really probably a once in a lifetime opportunity. And I was having dinner at John's house and we walked out onto the porch and I told him, you know, that I was just kind of wrestling with this decision because it would mean me having to retire from firefighting that I've been doing now for almost eight years. No, I'm sorry, 12 years.

And I remember saying, you know, Rip, sometimes in life, you know, you just got to burn the ships to really fully commit. you got to burn the ships to really fully commit. And yeah, so I went home and decided, you know what? I'm going to retire. I'm going to retire from firefighting after 12 years, and I'm going to commit to do this thing with Whole Foods. And yeah, I mean, it's been. Do you go back to the firehouse all the time?

You know what? For a while, at least, Or in the wake of that? I go back to the fire. I mean, like for example, for UT football games, I'll go there and I'll use the parking lot and go in and say hi to the guys. It's a whole new stable of guys now than when I was there. And it's fun going to different firehouses and visiting and stepping into that environment again.

But probably six to 12 times a year I go back and visit. I would imagine that. I mean, I think people have this idea that firefighting involves fighting fires all the time, but a lot of it is making these house calls on people who are having heart attacks and stuff, right? So is that true? Like you're dealing with a lot of people that you're kind of dealing with now in a different way. So it's sort of an extension of that same kind of work.

It is. It is. Yeah. So I always tell people typically in my talks that, you know, when I joined the fire department, I mistakenly thought that the majority of our calls would be these big old, you know, house fires. And we'd be going in and I'd be fighting the dragon or slaying the dragon and, you know, rescuing, you know, kids and grandmas, you know, out of the house. And that's not the case at all.

For the most part, 80 to 90% of our call volume as firefighters across the country are medical emergencies. So we're going in and we're helping somebody with a diabetic emergency because their fasting glucose or their glucose has gotten too low. Somebody that's got having difficulty breathing, somebody that's got chest pain, somebody that's had a heart attack, and they are actually not breathing. They're pulseless, breathless, and we have to, you know, start bumping on their chest and try and bring them back to life. Lifting assistance calls where we're helping people that are morbidly obese get out to the ambulance, typically eight or nine of us, putting them on

some sort of a... Well, they have this device now called a mega mover, right? Oh, my God. And a mega mover where you... And it can hold up to a thousand pounds wow that's a device we didn't need 20 30 years ago no no the stretchers the stretchers themselves now they're these hydraulic stretchers that hold up to i think it's 1200 pounds uh because so many firefighters and ems personnel were throwing out their backs, getting these patients up onto the stretchers. So yes, we see up close and personal.

Darrell Bock You get to go, yeah, the acute version of the preventative side that you now focus on. John Dickerson See the devastation that's caused by the fork, the spoon, and the knife. Darrell Bock Yeah, it's amazing. Now, one of the main things that you do with Whole Foods is you spend half the year traveling around doing these immersion programs with the employees of all these stores

all over the country, right? Like, how many of these stores have you visited? Well, that's not quite right. So what it is, so... The immersions versus over the country, right? Like how many of these stores have you visited? Well, that's not quite right. So what it is, so- The immersions versus just the events, right? Right, so the seven-day immersion program, we usually do two of those a year, and one of those is designated for Whole Food team members

that are really, you know, that are sick and have to medically qualify to go. The other, and so that's one week out of the year, and then another week is for the public. But I'd say six to seven months out of the year, probably close to 100 to 120 days a year, I'm on the road, I'm going to Whole Foods stores, I'm doing customer-facing events,

basically shouting from the rooftops, you know, get plant strong, right? You know, stop the red meat, the chicken, the fish, the eggs, the dairy products, and instead start substituting all these healthy plant-based foods, plant-strong foods. And then I'm also in the back of the house with the team members. I'm also giving them a little like, you know, hey, guys, this is one of our core values as a company, right, is to promote healthy eating to all Whole Foods shareholders. And I was brought on board in 2009. Here's my story.

If any of you are hurting, if anybody in your lives are hurting, think about it. And we also have this product line that basically is a Whole Food Market exclusive brand, and this is what it stands for, you know, XYZ, right? Low-fat, plant-strong. And then I show them, I compare, like, you know, a can of the Engine 2 pasta sauce versus a typical can of pasta sauce and the difference in sugars and sodium and cheeses and animal products and all that stuff. So it's me educating. And now there's almost 100,000 Whole Food team members across the country. Yeah, it's amazing. Wow. So it's a never-ending stream of trying to educate people. It really is. So, yeah, so what, you know, and I am forever thankful because of

John Mackey, I now have this bully pulpit and this platform to basically take the message from my original book, the Institute Diet book, and I'm sharing it with people, it seems like almost every single day of my life. Nothing. I could not have imagined a more kind of purpose-driven, fulfilling life. Right. So Papa E's all good now. Right? That's actually very brilliant.

You know what? So things with my dad are fantastic. One of the beautiful things is that my dad and I now, you know, you've attended and you've been a guest speaker at a lot of our events. I asked my dad and my mom and my sister to be speakers at a lot of the Engine 2 events. I should say all the Engine 2 events, the immersion programs, our weekend events, Plantstock. And so it's like, it's really, it's a family affair now. It really is. Yeah, It really is. And, you know, for the listener, every year you do this event called Plant Stock. It's at your family farm.

And this is – this farm is insane. It dates back generations and generations. 1675. Was it the largest single-family-owned farm in the eastern seaboard or something like that at some point? Close, close. It's one of two family farms in the state of New York that have been owned and operated by the same family for over 300 years yeah it's unbelievable it's beautiful and you invite all these people to come and you have this amazing speaker lineup but the point i'm trying to make is that this is a family affair

and it's like every single person in your family is involved and participates and contributes yeah not just to this event, but to this message. And to see that cohesion, it's really a powerful thing. It's unbelievable. I can't imagine when you were a 19-year-old swimmer at University of Texas, this is what you thought you were going to be doing, right? But it's really beautiful. Yeah, thanks, Rich.

No, it is really beautiful. And I know you didn't come to this year's Planstock, but it was – they're all amazing and wonderful and special. Everyone's talking about how this past year's was the best. It was really magical. I mean, the weather was idyllic. We had two of the Jumbotron screens instead of one because we had almost 600 people. And there wasn't one bad seat in the house. We arranged it big, wide aisles. Didn't matter where you were. You didn't have a bad seat. The meals, the food was off the charts. We had really good gender parity when it came to men and women speakers this year. It was almost half and half,

which was really important for me this year. And nothing like having two and a half days. We did a big Friday night event this year. Oh, you did? So we had an ice cream social, and my dad told the story of winning his Olympic gold medal. Oh, wow. That's a story I would like to hear.

And we actually showed footage of it. So if you ever get my dad on the podcast, ask him to share that story with you. Darrell Bock Yeah, I will. Darrell Bock And then here you are for almost two and a half days, and what do you have underneath your feet? Grass. Amazing, lush. So you're firmly planted on earth, right?

And everything's – it's such a tight, contained environment there. And one of the things that's always made it special to me is that the speakers, for the most part, they always hang out. They hang out. And so everybody – Yeah, a lot of these conferences, you buzz in, you do your thing, you blow out. You're not really participating in the event. No. But we're all hanging out in your kitchen, you know, staying up till two in the morning

talking or whatever. Yeah. But the participants also have access to you, to John, to, you know, Eric Adams, whoever it is, because they're there and they're accessible. And it's like, wow, you know, this is really cool. Interestingly enough, we're not having Plant Stock 2018 at the family farm. Oh, why? Why not?

Yeah. You know what? We just decided it was time to kind of shake things up a little bit. You know, we've been there six years in a row now. And so for the seventh one, we're moving to this. It's going to be just as magical in a different way. It's the Blue Ridge Assembly. different way. It's the Blue Ridge Assembly. It's this 1,500-acre campus in the Black Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. And everybody can stay on site. And there's different levels if you want

deluxe accommodations, economy, or dormitory style. And so, you know, plan stock, it was like $5.95, you know, just to come. And you had to also do your, find a B&B and drive and rental car and all that. You fly into Asheville, take your Uber there, and then you stay on site. And it's like, you know, you can do economy, $4.25 all in. It includes everything, right? I mean, food, talks, every session, and room and board. I mean, it's like crazy. I think the economy piece is really important. And when we talk about, you know, oh, you should go plant-based, and we're talking about whole foods, you know, it's easy to start getting lulled into this idea that this is a lifestyle for the well-heeled only, that this is an unaffordable thing for most people. I can't afford to shop at Whole Foods.

I can't afford to go to plant stock. How am I going to be able to do this? So how do you think about and communicate around that issue? Well, it's funny. I was in Boston not too long ago, and I had an Uber driver that was 300 plus pounds, was telling me how he's got young kids, he's got type 2 diabetes, and how he wished he had the energy to play with his kids. And so I told him, he said, what do you do? And I said, well, actually, I'm a healthy eating advocate, and I teach people how to reverse their diabetes and

how to find their ideal weight and all these things. And he's like, oh, tell me, how do I do it? And I said, well, this is what you want to do. You want to avoid animal products, dairy. You want to start focusing in on plant-strong foods. And he immediately, well, one of his objections, he had many, but was, you know, I can't. You hit him hard. He's like, I can't afford to eat healthy.

And I said, well, let me stop you right there. I go, what you need to understand is this is peasant food, right? As soon as you understand this is peasant food, we're talking about rice and beans and potatoes and bananas. And you can do frozen that is like just as nutritiously sound, you know, buck 99 a pound, never goes bad. You just take what you need out of the freezer and you're good to go. But you kind of saying that it's too expensive to eat healthy would be like you saying, well, I can't, I can't afford, I can't, I can't drive because I can't afford a Porsche, right?

I can't eat healthy because, you know, a yellow bell pepper is $4.99 a pound, an organic, you know. And so, you know, you take that out of the equation. I say, listen, oatmeal, how much is oatmeal? Oatmeal is like drop-dead cheap. Sweet potatoes, you know, pasta with a niceasta with a nice little marinara sauce on top. If I had to, I could live on probably about 11 bucks a day eating this way easily, easily. And that's not even buying in bulk. And I bet you I could probably make it for under four bucks a day if I really was trying. Yeah, the conversation about wellness gets conflated with superfoods and all these sort of essential oils,

whatever it is, like all of these expensive top-of-the-pyramid items. And the truth is wellness is being hydrated, getting a good night's sleep, and eating the foods that fuel you best and heal your body. And it doesn't have to be – it's not exotic. It's simple. But as human beings, we want to overcomplicate it. We want to know, okay, you're telling me that, but take me beyond the velvet rope.

Where's the VIP room? You know, like we want to make it harder than it is. And when you say, I mean, I could eat rice and beans with like hot sauce like every day. And there are plenty of times I do, that's exactly what I do, you know, on a salad or whatever like i i'm fine with that you know but a lot of people want to make it harder and they're there there's like this weird psychological resistance to just accepting like it can be this easy yeah no it can be cheap and that's and that's why in in the new

book that i wrote the seven day rescue diet it's all about building these really economical, really quick bowls. The whole concept is about bowls, the whole recipe section. And when I was writing the recipe section with my sister Jane, and we were doing our pilot studies, we did one in Mesquite, Texas, and two in Cleveland with 180 people. We gave them down to the like letter, like, okay, this is what you should have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We gave them accompanying grocery lists for everything, and nobody was following it. And it's because, you know what, people, they're super busy.

They don't have time to go grocery shopping. They don't have time to make these meals. And a lot of them were pretty darn simple. And so I said, Jayme, we just have to, let's meet people where they are. And so we've now got four different bowl concepts, and for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and then kind of salads. And then you pick your foundational ingredients that you like. You pick, you know, your different, like, legumes that you like, your different toppings that you like, different sparks that you like.

And then you're set. And so you do that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Find, you know, a core assortment of ingredients. And now these are no recipe buildables. You don't have to follow one single recipe. Right. And people are loving it. That's great.

Loving it. That's great. Yeah. So in the hundreds and thousands of people that you encounter during your travels and these events that you do, I would imagine you have a pretty good sense. I'm interested in some of the success stories, but I'm also interested in what you've learned about the psychology and the kind of emotional component that circulates around healthy eating habits, what works, what doesn't.

What is it that is tripping people up the most or creates the most challenge for people trying to live better and embrace this way of living? Well, the biggest challenge is always yourself, right? You're always your biggest hurdle. And once you can get past that, that's huge. Yeah, if you've had a hard time, if you're in pain and you're up against the wall, that choice is easier.

But what if you're just, you know what, I don't feel good. I'm heavy. I'm lethargic. But you're not quite at that pain point. Yeah, yeah. So I just did an immersion with 82 people in Sedona, Arizona. And most of these people, they're overweight, they're sick, they're not doing well,

and they've seen either Forks Over Knives or What the Health or one of these documentaries, and I think they realize that something about these documentaries or they've read Prevent and Reverse or one of my books, they're like like something about this resonates with me but I've got to just figure out how to do it and

so that's what we try and do at these immersions we try and basically show people not only why they want to do it but also how to do it and but I'm just trying to figure out, because I want to answer your question. Yeah, but I think what I'm really getting at is just you're meeting all of these people.

There's a lot of success stories, but I'm sure you meet people that, like, are sort of in that cycle of, like, they do it for a while. They fall off. They do it, you know know they're getting back it's kind of like that human thing of like yeah how can we just like how can you just get it to click in with people and like what works what doesn't um i don't know that there's a magic bullet answer to that no i mean if you talk to dan butener he'll say well you got to make the healthy choice the convenient choice right you know you can't try to get them to shift their mindset you just got to make sure it's within their reach at all times throughout during the day and make it that convenient and easy and accessible. Yeah. Well, that's all stuff that we talk about as well. It's like,

yeah, you got to get rid of all the barriers, all the excuses, all the things that are going to all the things that are going to wreak havoc on you. So we don't want this to be about willpower, right? And so we've got to create an environment, obviously, in our lives, in our houses, at work, in the car, that's not going to have you reaching for that pile of pistachios or reaching for the cashews. I'd say one of the most important principles that we teach people at these immersion programs is calorie density. So within the actual plant-based world, what foods is it that you can learn to eat until you're comfortably full at breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

And the disconnect a lot of times is people think that they can have a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter, that they can have, you know, an avocado, that they can have a little bit of oil. And these things add up in a hurry. And you do them repeatedly again and again and again, and if you have a genetic predisposition to heart disease, forget about it. You're not going to extinguish those little hot spots, right? It's going to continue on. And as my dad likes to say, he doesn't want his patients having one thimble full of anything that's going to ignite their heart disease.

So he plays hardball. And with the new book, the Angiote Seven-Day Rescue Program, we're playing hardball too because this is really for people that are trying to rescue their health. You've got one of the big four chronic Western diseases, and you're trying to address it. And we know that if you follow this protocol, you can not only stop it, but you can reverse it. So you've got to create an environment in your life that's conducive to it. Ideally, you have people around you that are supportive to it.

And if not, you've got to figure out a way to enlist them so that they're not going to sabotage your best efforts with this. The whole human psychology. Ultimately, you've got to want it. It's like you can't will somebody into wanting it for themselves. It's like you can lead them to water, but you can't make them drink. It's amazing how – You can drop an alcoholic off in rehab, but if he doesn't want to quit drinking, he ain't going to quit drinking. Yeah.

Yeah. And so it's amazing how some people, they're self-starters, right? They get the information and they get it. It's no big problem. Other people, they fight tooth and nail and they're just, for whatever reason, they know that this is the way the path to go down but they just um for whatever reason they have a hard time making it stick you know i mean it's it probably goes back to the whole pleasure trap right doug lyle and you know uh you know we're we're looking you know for we want to conserve energy we're looking, you know, for, we want to conserve energy. We're looking for the greatest amount of pleasure. We're trying to avoid pain. And everything about the environment we live in now in 2017 is, you know, I mean, look at, we sit in our self-driving cars practically now.

And we go to the drive-thru. We're not exercising one iota. All the food is super, super, you know, highly processed. No water, no fiber. A fraction of the vitamins and minerals. And it lights up our brains like a pinball machine, right? All that salt, all that sugar, all that fat. And so, you know. You're asking people to walk away from that.

We're asking people, well, we've got to down downregulate all those receptors in our brain to those things. And now we have to develop new cravings and new likes to, you know, steamed kale, broccoli with a, you know, a little smidgen of no salt added, Benson's, you know, seasoning to it. A nice piece of marinated cauliflower steak, a tofu steak, a whole grain crust pizza with sun-dried tomatoes and spinach and black beans and pineapples. I mean, this food can be so insanely delicious that it's just crazy. I think that's one of the things that, for people that don't know anything about this, is that ultimately you don't have to give up anything. You just have to develop a whole new set of taste buds, cravings,

and then what opens up before you is a whole new world of health that you never dreamed was available to you. One of the things that I hear fairly regularly, if you bring up Forks Over Knives or the China study, is this knee-jerk reaction like, oh, that was debunked. I read that that was debunked, and it's dismissed. It's just out of hand dismissed. I read that that was debunked, and it's dismissed. It's just out of hand dismissed. And to even further discuss it is to be somebody who doesn't understand what's going on. So do you hear that? How do you respond to that?

You know what? I don't. You don't? I hear that all the time. With forks over knives, I don't. And maybe it's because my dad was one of the right the uh the main threads going through it right he and colin you know i had a little cameo in it but i don't have i don't have people come up to me saying well they may not be saying it to you

they're not going to say to your face but there's sort of this meme on the internet like oh that was it probably began with denise minger's blog post which i don't know if you're familiar with that or whatever, which I think she recanted. I think she did recant that whole thing. Yeah, the recanting didn't get as much attention. No, it didn't. Of course it didn't.

But that's sort of a mindset that's sort of percolating out there, like, oh, yeah, I like that. No, that wasn't true or whatever. Yeah. You know, it's funny. yeah I mean you know it's funny I I don't I don't spend too much time like um with all the naysayers and all the people that are trying to debunk whatever it is I'm just I find I'm too busy I'm too busy I'm just plowing forward you know um doing my thing. And I mean, in my heart of hearts, it's like, this is it. Like, this is it.

I mean, it's whole food, plant-based. It is, or at least plant-based. It's the answer to so many things that are like taking us down right now, right? It checks every box. It checks – exactly. You know. It does. And I guess it's just amazing to me that other people don't see it as clearly as we do.

Maybe it's almost like a Republican, you know, Democratic thing. It's like – Well, I don't know that it's – it's not a per se Democratic, Republican thing, but in the way that our brains operate, like how we just – we silo ourselves into some idea of the world or worldview that becomes very difficult to unshackle us from, you know, whether it's religion or politics. I mean, food's right up there. It really is. It's difficult not to crack. But with you being, you know, on the front lines and – I mean, you doing one on one, like you're face to face with these people all the time. And I can't imagine.

Well, I can imagine because I have experienced it on some level. But that that that when you see these people and you know, some time has gone by and you see the change or they give you a hug and they're crying and they're like, you know, you changed my life. Like this is, they have a new lease on life as a result of like this work that you're doing. There's, there's nothing more gratifying or more worthy. And for me, when I get those emails or I meet those people, it's like, I just want to shout it from the mountaintops, you know? And it's like, I want everyone, I want everyone to experience what that person just expressed to me. Yeah. Yeah. No, I sometimes wish that I had somebody filming, right, when I'm doing an event or book signing or whatever.

That can be arranged, right? Yeah. I know. But then the person that's sharing it probably wouldn't, you know probably might feel a little self-conscious. But just saying, gosh, I just want to thank you. You and your father, your family saved my life. And then they tell me their story. And it's like, oh, you must get sick of hearing this.

I'm like, no, no, never. Never get sick of hearing this. And then I let them know. I said, listen, I appreciate you thanking me. But you know what? You did this. You hearing this. I'm like, no, no, never, never get sick of hearing this. And then I let them know. I said, listen, you know, I appreciate you thanking me, but you know what? You did this. You did this. You took this information. You like, you owned it. And now look where you are. And it's, you know, congratulations. Big high five to you. So we got to wrap this up in a minute, but I would love to be able to leave people with, you know know some takeaways if somebody's listening and they're stuck maybe they've tried to go plant-based but they lapsed or they're interested they just don't know how to begin like how do you suggest that people

embark on this journey um well i would start by reading some books reading you know watching some documentaries if you specifically want to to learn more about Engine 2, go to engine2.com. We have an amazing, amazing community and support group. There's a ton of resources on that site, too. A lot. And around the launch of the new book, The 7-Day Rescue, we created a private Facebook group,

and we've now got over 22,000 members on there. It's the most supportive, loving, nourishing. I did a little thing there. Yeah, you sure did. Yeah, I don't know. It was last year or something like that. The engagement was crazy. People are so into it.

Yeah, yeah. It's a really beautiful community. But, you know, so as far as somebody that wants to, like, get involved with this, I would tell somebody, like, jump into my new book, The Seven-Day Rescue, because to me it's – I've taken, you know, all the data that I didn't have that is in this book since I wrote, you know, Engine 2. So since 2009, it's all these new studies, all this new data. I mean, it's just, it's incredible. I basically break it down into seven super simple pillars that I ask you to follow for seven days, and then you be the judge on day eight what you want to do going forward. And then do it.

If you sign up to do it, you get an email from me every day for seven days with an encouraging word of advice and then also a recipe, a simple buildable. And then if you go in and then join the private Facebook group, you've got the book, you've got the emails, you know, if you go in and then join the private Facebook group, you've got, I mean, so you got the book, you got the emails, you got the recipes, you got the community. I mean, and, you know. The community piece and the support is huge, especially for people that are trying to do this without that, you know, support in their own home. Yep, yep, yep. That's crucial.

Yep, yep, huge. in their own home. Yep, yep, yep. That's crucial. Yep, yep, huge. So, yeah, and there's so much cool stuff that's coming down the pike, not only with me, but with just this movement.

I know you know about this flick coming out called the Game Changers in 2018. I think that'll move the needle in a big, wonderful, amazing way, much like forks over knives do. But hopefully this will really speak to the men

that are out there. I think it's going to have a huge impact on people. It's exciting. Yeah, man. It's good, man. And when are you going to... what's your next athletic challenge? You going to get back in the pool? Come on, man.

Yeah, I know. So we'll see about 2018. So I miss getting the world record for 50- to 54-year-olds in the 200-meter backstroke by just a few seconds. four-year-olds in the 200-meter backstroke by just a few seconds. But if I would have done it for 55 to 59-year-olds, I would have gotten the world record. So I just have to hang in there basically for – You've got to hang in there. Until January. Until January.

And then you've got to get it because when that movie comes out, you want to be able to get up on stage and say you're a world record holder. Wouldn't you? Yeah, maybe. Maybe, maybe. Come on. Maybe. I know, I know.

It's so funny how we – I know. I feel like I put so much pressure on myself or a fair amount in life with everything. It's like, do I really want to add this to the list of things? Yeah, but I think it can energize you, and I think it gives you a a little structure and then it makes going to the pool easier because there's a purpose to it you know and it it fundamentally it serves the mission and the message that you're trying to get out there because those kind of actions speak louder than words you can get up and say whatever but like when you demonstrate that athletically and you're more than capable of doing that it's powerful man and people pay attention to that.

Like, I think it's important and I think it's, you know, it's a worthy thing. It's not like a silly whatever. And it's what you do, dude. I was in the pool with you this morning. You're tearing it up, you know. Let people know what that's all about. Yeah, yeah. But I also know the pain that's involved.

Yeah, come on. Yeah, but you've known that pain that's involved. Yeah, come on. Yeah, but you've known that pain your whole life. It's funny. I have known it my whole life, but it's – Ready to let it go? Ready to let it go? I had been removed from it. I mean, like tearing it up in a workout is one thing,

but like putting the gas to the metal for a race that's almost two minutes and 20 seconds, where halfway through you feel like you're breathing out of your eyeballs and your legs are stuck in cement. It's like, wow, I'm 55, and do I still really want to do this? Yeah, I guess maybe I do. do I still really want to like do this? And yeah, I guess maybe I do. But the pain, it was a lot worse than I remember it when I was in my 20s and 30s.

Two minutes of pain for the PlantStrong universe. Come on, man. You got to take it for the team. I know. I know I do. I think I need to give you a call maybe once a week and have you pump me up. I'm happy to do it.

If I lived here, I'd be at the pool with you every morning. Yeah, it's fun. Awesome. Well, great talking to you. As I iterated at the outset of the show, you've been not only like a personal inspiration to me, you've been an amazing mentor to me. And thank you for all the guidance that you have

thanklessly given me over the years. My life is indelibly impacted by your example and your work and your friendship. And I really appreciate it. And again, it's like the service that you're doing to the world and that your family is actively engaged in is really quite remarkable. And I just wish you only win in your sales and great success with trying to impact as many people as possible on this this mission that we share awesome and before we go let me just say too that when I first met you at the vegan world that's right health uh it's like some tiny little thing in LA yeah it was it was in LA it was it was. It was billed as something huge. Right.

You flew out. It wasn't all that great. You had a little table. But no. And I met you, and I met Julie there, and you had just gotten into this bike accident in your lip. Right. Remember your lip?

But I brought you up on stage, and we had a little calf off to see who had the biggest calves. And I remember talking to you, and I remember saying little calf off to see who had the biggest calves. And I remember talking to you and I remember like saying, you know what? You got a book in you, dude. You got a book in you. You were the first person to sort of give me that confidence. And I remember you introduced me to your book agent and I had a call.

I just wasn't ready. Like I had no – I didn't know what to say to the guy. And he was like, yeah, I don't know. You know, like rightfully he was like, yeah, I don't think this guy is ready to write a call. I just wasn't ready. I didn't know what to say to the guy. And he was like, yeah, rightfully, he was like, yeah, I don't think this guy's ready to write a book, which was a good lesson for me. I needed to spend time and really think about what I wanted to write. But when I finally did, you were the first person that I sent the manuscript to. And you called me back within days. And what you said to me, I'll never forget. I read that thing in a matter of hours, and I was like, oh, my God, this thing is, like, I loved how you just, you bared it all.

And I didn't know. I didn't know all that about, you know, about your personal story and your personal journey. And I was like, this is crazy, man. This is beautiful. It was was like, this is crazy, man. This is beautiful. It was a beautiful, beautiful book. And look, I mean, and so right back at you, man, like, look what you have done since I met you then, right? And that was, I think it was 2009.

I think that's right, yeah. I think it was summer of 2009. Yeah. And, you know, it's so beautiful to me to see what you have done in this movement with your podcast, with you and Julie, you know, with your events, your books. And it's one of those things where we can both look at each other and say, hey, you know, we knew each other when. I know. It's cool. And yet millions of people are suffering out there, man, and there's a lot of work to be done.

And that's what it's about. And we're, yeah. Yep. I mean, it'll be interesting to see where we are in a decade. Well, come back and we'll reprise this conversation in five years. Since it's been five years since I've been chasing you, maybe we can do it in five years from now. But yeah, anyway, awesome, man.

If you want to connect with Rip, Engine 2, is it Engine2Diet.com or Engine2.com? You shortened it. Just Engine 2. Engine 2. Engine2.com. At Engine 2 on all the social networks and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah. And check out one of his – check out Plantstock, man. Plantstock 2018. We already have 200 people signed up. Are you? How many can you – We're going to cap it at probably 700. Uh-huh.

All right. So get on that, people. Yeah. All right, man. Thanks, brother. Thanks. Peace. Engine 2.

Plants. Plants strong. Yeah. Awesome. All right, man. Thanks, brother. Thanks. Peace. Engine two. Plants. Plants strong. Awesome. All right, we did it. Super awesome. I hope it doesn't take another five years to get RIP back on the podcast. In any event, I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.

Don't forget, pick up RIP's brand new book, The Engine Two Cookbook, More Than 130 Lip-Smacking, rib-sticking, body-slimming recipes to live plant-strong. The book comes out the day after Christmas, December 26th, available everywhere, but you can pick it up now on pre-order. It makes a great gift. Check out the show notes for this week's show on the episode page at richroll.com. Lots of links, including links to the new book to take your edification beyond the earbuds. Also, we've got a full video version of the podcast available on my YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash richroll. Please subscribe if you're enjoying the video

there. And if you would like to support this show and my work, share it with your friends on social media, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, leave a review there as well. And we have a Patreon set up for those of you who would like to support my work financially. Thank you so much to everybody who has done that. I do a monthly AMA Ask Me Anything video conference with my Patreon supporters. I just did that like 20 minutes ago. It went really well. I'll be making an announcement about next month's AMA soon. But if you contribute on Patreon,

then you are then available for exclusive content such as the video AMA. And I'm thinking about new ways of rewarding the Patreon community. We talked about perhaps doing some fun runs in various cities when I travel, or even perhaps one here in Los Angeles if there's enough interest,

and other creative ideas to kind of create community around my Patreon supporters. So thank you so much. That's it. Next up, we have a two-part best of anthology series, some of the best conversations over the course of 2017. So you can look out for that in the following consecutive Mondays.

And until then, be well, enjoy the holidays, ground yourself, be grateful, give freely of yourself and be joyful. And I'll see you back here soon. Peace, plants, namaste. Thank you.