The Rich Roll Podcast - Rodman Machado On Cooking As Nutritional Art

Episode Date: December 6, 2012

Today on the podcast we sit down with Rodman Machado– Executive Chef at the Garden Cafe at Common Ground in Kilauea, Hawaii — to talk food as medicine; cooking as nutritional art; plant-based superfoods; preventing & healing diabetes and other diseases with plants; and optimizing overall wellness. If you have been enjoying the show, we would greatly appreciate it if you could take a quick moment to leave a comment on the iTunes page for the podcast. Thanks for listening – we are beyond grateful for the early response. SHOW NOTES * 10 Uncommon “Superfoods” from the World of Ultra-Endurance * Papain Superfood: How Green Papaya Enzymes Help Digestion * MindBodyGreen: 25 Reasons Why Tumeric Can Heal You * Huffington Post: How To Massage Kale: Why a Rubdown Helps This Leafy Green * Natural News: Noni Fruit Superfood Thanks for stopping by. Thoughts? Let me know what you think in the comments section below. Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. support. We came out of the gate really strong. There's been such an amazing early response to the show and what we're doing. And we're really, really proud and grateful to have the audience that we have. And it really validates this message of health that we're trying to put out there, Julie and I together. So we're welcoming you back for another edition. We're in week two of the podcast and already episode five. We're loving it. It's been really, really fun. Again, we're out here at Common Ground, a 50-acre organic farm on the north shore of Kauai,

where Julie and I and our family are living in a yurt village and experimenting with modes of sustainable lifestyle and learning more about food and how food is grown in a sort of farm-to-plate model. And we thought that it would make a lot of sense and would be great to have the marvelous Rodman Machado on the show. Rodman is the executive chef here at Common Ground at the Garden Cafe. He is an artist with food. He knows a lot about not just food and nutrition, but

organic farming and harvesting the best plants to nourish our bodies. He's a really cool guy. He's a fascinating guy. He's a really cool guy. He's a fascinating guy. I began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care. Especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com, who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers

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I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. So I'm here today again with Julie.

Hi, everyone. She's back. Hello, everybody. The permanent co-host. And Rodman, man, how you doing, dude? I'm doing great, thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for taking time out of your hectic, crazy, busy schedule

to chill with us for a little bit. It's all fun. It's a creative process on a daily basis with the team and seeing what we're going to do and what values are we going to put into the specials. And it's just, it's every day something new here. Yeah. If you were to take a peek into the kitchen where Rodman's working, it's a pretty small kitchen that is churning out an unbelievable amount of food for the demand at this restaurant, which is growing by leaps and bounds because the word is out

that Rodman's cooking is the bomb. So I kind of wanted to get into a little bit about your kind of perspective on food and nutrition and get a little bit into your background and the path that you've taken that's led you to here. But first I want to talk about your perspective on food and nourishing the customers that pass through here. I think what I have adopted, coming from a corporate background, I've spent 20 years into corporate, and I've been blessed to land an awesome job here at Common Ground, first off, in a garden cafe. And my approach to this cuisine and Kauaians are quite savvy here

on the North Shore on their nutritional values, what they put in their bodies. We deal with a very a variety of uh individuals from with different forms of of diet uh dietary needs you know we have vegans we have vegetarians we do all facets of vegetarian cuisines we do a little bit of raw but yet we do wholesome we don't only do vegetarian cuisine because the market is we have a well diverse market and we like to uh keep on that path but as getting back to the nutritional value of what we do uh here at the garden cafe we approach it in a very serious way um first off i keep all my soups of the day all my soups all my sauces all my dressings are all geared up for gluten-free and vegan we don't use anything that we try and keep it simple in a way that it covers all clients that we come through our our family our extended family because we have people that eat here literally

four times a week so it's a it's a real family-oriented operation, but yet an intense operation to where the nutritional value is always in the forefront of what we do here in a cafe. And just so people know, I would say almost all of the produce that you're using in the dishes is coming from the garden here. that you're using in the dishes is coming from the garden here. Yeah, I mean, you have to get some stuff that we don't grow here, but everything that we grow here funnels right into the restaurant first. Absolutely. In fact, right now, everything that comes out of the garden, we use in every way that we can.

Right now, a lot of people, especially where the listeners are coming from in the middle of the United States, you guys are going through a winter right now. And Hawaii has a winter also. So a lot of people think because we're in Hawaii that we don't have seasons. But we do have seasons. And so we, fruit-wise, it's the end of the fruit season. It's getting into basically the only thing that's in our trees is papaya and citrus now is a big thing. Basically, the only thing that's in our trees is papaya and citrus now is a big thing.

So we use other farmers, other organic farms around too, and other great. There's a lot here on the North Shore. There's a tremendous amount of very savvy organic growers that are really passionate into what they do and are sincere about keeping to the label of organic. A lot of people take organic and just to use it as a front, but we live it here on Kauai here. Right. I mean, I think that if you go into the grocery store here or in the mainland, there's a lot of things that are labeled organic that actually aren't organic. There's certain rules about what you can and can't say that are set by the FDA on food packaging. And creative food companies always find a way to kind of sidestep those rules and

kind of slip the word organic in a different context that makes the consumer believe that the product is organic when it actually isn't because it doesn't have that sort of official organic label and and so uh i think it causes a lot of confusion with customers they think they're buying one product and they're getting something else and and then there's a whole different thing when we're talking about food that's literally pulled out of the ground that day and is on the plate, you know, coming through your restaurant and on the plate of the customer at the restaurant the very same day. It's something that I love it. I mean, like, again, I come from a whole different corporate approach to food, which is a whole different aspect as here. I mean, literally, if I pull out carrots, I'll have carrots that this morning, in fact, I have carrots that came

in from this morning that we're using already. And that is an awesome approach. And it's a, it makes me feel good. It makes my team feel good of what we're doing for people that actually rely on us for nutritional value in their food because there's really no other restaurant or no other venue on the entire island like what we have here at common ground not to in it that's a very humble i'm humbled by it and because it's it's just an awesome feeling to know that it's genuine. It's nothing fake about what we do here. We use a lot of organics come from the mainland, but it's legit companies that we get. We get our oils. We get our grains.

Because Hawaii, you cannot grow grains. all geared to ensure that the people that are in our family, extended family that's eating our food, they're solidified in what we're doing. It's not no joke. It's not fake. It's the real deal. Yeah, you're not trying to pull the wool over their eyes. And really what you're doing is you're closing the loop. I mean, and that's what sustainability is, right?

Yes. You know, 100 yards from here, the carrots are pulled out, you know, they're washed off, they're brought into the restaurant, you do what you do with them. And then they get eaten by the customers who pay for the food. And that money goes back into the, into the farm to grow more. And, you know, that's, that's permaculture, that's sustainability. It's a really cool thing that we have going on here on Common Ground or the Garden Cafe. We have the ability to also employ people, take care of people, their livelihoods, but yet also get their creative juices going and be passionate about what we do.

And that's the key. People always tell me, Rodman, we taste it in your food. People always tell me, Rodman, we taste it in your food. And that's a big part of what we do is to ensure that we're even grounded. Yeah, it gets hectic in a restaurant. Don't get me wrong. But where the creative side and where our thought process is, it's important that everybody's on the same page so that the energy is transferred into the food and it's it's very important it's important part for me and it's important to my team to always keep that in the

forefront because people can tell the difference of when and how the food is made and whether you want to believe it or not it's true yeah so this is something that we talked about actually last episode we were talking about the importance of the frequency of the food and who prepares your food and how in ancient traditions, you know, it was always very important who was handling the food, who was putting their vibration into it. And, you know, everything that I've tasted here from you is just from such a pure creative space. And one of the beauties about the way that everything's set up is that, you know, you have the freedom to kind of move and flow within that, you know, by creating the menu as it's, as the moment arises, as the, the land provides you with

the nutrients. And that I think is so extraordinary. And I know, um, you made an extraordinary meal, And I know you made an extraordinary meal, crazy delicious meal for our event a few, actually last week, where Rich gave a talk about his book, Finding Ultra. And we had a vegan meal. And it was funny because you and I met kind of ahead of time and sort of laid out a template of what you were going to make. And we kind of got together and we got really excited and came up with a menu. And then a lot of things just shifted in the moment. And I was so delighted to see you because I'm not a professional chef. I'm an artist. I use food as art. And part of what I was looking at is that maybe my creativity was a little chaotic or a little crazy, especially when we're doing the cookbooks.

And I never measure. I'm always just doing it as I go. But I totally saw that in you when I got to see you get in your space, connect in, and then do your magic and what you do. And it was extraordinary. It was absolutely perfect. And it was beautiful to see.

Thank you. A lot of his people ask vegetarian cuisine is an art in its own because there's a lot of things going on um there's a lot of balancing of nutrition there's there's things that you got to ensure that people are when they eat your food your cuisine the cuisine is balanced that's the name of the game with uh with vegan cuisine so what do you can you like i should say plant-based diets right okay so yeah now extrapolate on that like what do you mean so how do you what do you mean balanced and and how do you what are the things that you do to create that balance i'm making ensuring that the protein content uh what we're driving on beans and rice grains different facets of of where to draw and how

to balance the protein because every plant-based diet everybody that's on a plant-based diet needs to ensure that they're getting their their protein through food through plants and it's just that is a basic part of being a vegan now as being on a plant-based diet now how you establish core flavors out of plants is a whole different thing because you're dealing with a plant that has beautiful flavors and how to extract the flavors and how to get the most flavors out of these vegetables that's where my training in in french cuisine has come that's where my training in French cuisine has come. That's where my training comes into play because that's what I carry with me. It's just adapting to how to get core, true flavors out of the products that I have.

Right. And I want to get into your background in a couple minutes, but just kind of sticking to this point, and I want to get into your background in a couple minutes, but just kind of sticking to this point, you know, there is this attitude out there or belief, false belief, that if you're eating a plant-based diet, that it's just, you're just destined to a life of bland food and kind of eating the same thing day in and day out. And I can assure you that that's not true. And, you know, part of that is because Julie's my wife and she makes amazing food for me. Left to my own devices, I just very well may eat the same thing every day. But Rodman really takes it to the next level. And I can tell you that his dishes are,

whether you're vegan or not, or even if you love meat, there's no denying that if you were to eat one of his vegan entrees or the blends that he makes, et cetera, they're beyond awesome. Thank you. They're incredible. that eating a plant-based diet is bland and maybe give some tips to some people out there who would, you know, they'd like to take that leap or experiment with this, but they're afraid and they have that belief system and they're wanting to know, you know, what could I do that's easy at home

that I could, you know, that would be something I could take with me that would be helpful in preparing my meals at home? Absolutely. I think the first thing that I want to address when you go and leap into this lifestyle and learning how to cook a plant-based diet is ensuring that your product is fresh first off.

Do your research in your grains. That's important. We use a lot of balanced grains like forbidden rice, lentils. We use brown, long green rice. I'll mix it with different types of legumes. If that's first off is one-on-one is knowing how to balance your meal. As for flavors, we extract flavors through juicing. We extract flavors through reduction.

And a lot of people will go well you're just killing all the vitamins no because then we take that concentrate like for instance i'll make a veggie stock a vegetable stock we don't use water here we use water to cook rice and we use water to boil pasta and wash our hands and wash our dishes other than that we do not use water to cook anything, especially soups. So we take extract flavors out of the products. Then we reinforce it with fresh products to reestablish. Like I'll do a soup.

Yeah, we're going to cook the vegetables out. And then I'll add fresh kale, a balance of kale inside of there with flaxseed oil to ensure, or drizzle flaxseed oil, to ensure that there's a overlapping of nutritional value involved in it that's great the way that you get flavors is through concentration and that is through spices frontier is a great not to mention any brands but we use you can mention whatever we use frontier frontier is a good organic based company that their focus is quality and they are everything what they put there they say they do we use frontier based spices and it's just simple nowadays there's there's infamous information on on the web that you can look on cooking techniques is making sure you know you don't turn things on high i I mean, first off, it's the basics. Then it's knowing, keeping it simple.

If you want to keep it simple, keep it simple. But if you want flavor, you got to apply yourself and go get things that's going to help you, like spices and good products. And then the rest is up to your imagination. How are you going to do it? Right. I mean, I think that there is, yeah, again, there's this idea that it's really complicated too. And it doesn't have to be. If you're doing it your way, it probably gets pretty complicated when you're doing reductions

and you're using your kind of background in French cuisine and applying it to plant-based dishes where you're creating these amazing pieces of art. But I still think that the average Joe can whip something up pretty quick that's pretty simple that's still delicious. And when you're eating the plants close to their natural state and you start doing that, your taste buds kind of come alive. When you get rid of eating the McDonald's and all that other kind of stuff, your palate shifts, your palate changes. And some of those foods that you would think might be bland, like a kale shake or whatever, start to taste delicious. Absolutely. That's what we do here, too. We've got that area.

And we always say that if you want to experiment with kind of upping your life force in your diet and in your body to just start adding a couple plant blends a day or even one a day, and your taste buds will shift and everything will start to change and your body will start to speak to you in a different way. And also, I mean, our whole approach with Jai Seed,

with our cookbook, is the whole point was to give people the permission or the space or the care, I guess, to create their own. So it really is all about creativity and being in the moment because, you know, you don't know what someone in Iowa is going to have available based on what you have in Kauai or we have in Malibu. So it's like we can all share recipes and kind of look and like you were saying the other day with me, like we create a template, right? but then we see what happens in the day and what's available and what's fresh and then from there you're gonna you're gonna take a leap and you're gonna create something totally unique and

uh and it's gonna be beautiful yeah absolutely i mean um you know for the the folks that are listening you know you need to stay tuned because i'm sure you're going to see some action coming from me and Julie in the future. I'm excited about that. What kind of action are we talking about here? You never know. You might see it on the web on some cooking deal or something. It might come out. At least cooking.

You can see what's up and see our faces know get to know us a little bit better but actually getting back to to um keeping it simple you know a liquid-based diet is also a good approach to get your nutritional value also um just because it's in a blender doesn't mean that's gross um i wasn't a big believer on kale until I started working here and realized real fast how kale is a superfood in its own. We try and base our food off of a lot of superfoods, basic superfoods like avocado, kale. We get yacon that is planted. Turmeric, olena or turmeric is something that is phenomenal. We use a tremendous amount of ni'oi peppers. We use noni.

For those that don't know what noni is, look it up on the web. It is a superfood and beyond. It's something that is only now in the mainland and it's becoming a big thing because it is known in Hawaii to cure. It has more than 25 curing abilities that people can explain.

Doctors can even explain why. It's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just to extrapolate on that. I mean, noni is a fruit, right? It's a fruit. And it literally just falls off the trees here

and it's everywhere. And it looks like when it falls on the ground, I put a picture up of one the other day on Instagram, but it kind of looks like a peeled potato. It's real soft and squishy, and it has the most acrid, pungent odor of all time. It smells like a very, very strong blue cheese. Yes, and it is, I mean, it is not for the faint of heart.

No. I'm going to forewarn you right now. But for those that are suffering, and this is proven things that this fruit has done, curing my father-in-law, for instance, and not to get off subject, but this has to do with Noni. No, this is the subject. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

He was taking medication for high blood pressure for years. And someone, a homeopathic person uh not a doctor but an individual that studies homeopathic and herbalists uh shifted him towards um an elder and kupuna as we call in hawaii shifted him towards noni and to take a shot we take the fruit put it in a jar cover it up put it in a roof let the sun ferment it let it break it down let all the natural juices come out and you take a turkey baser take the juice out of the jar and you take a shot of that every day in three months how long do you let it ferment it's about a month it is wicked now i'm not gonna joke it's it's not for you fainthearted it is it is i actually i found a couple the other

day and i brought them home for for Julie because she loves them. And they smell, I mean, they're pretty gnarly people. Like he said, it's not for the faint of heart at all. But hold on. Don't mean to laugh. Don't mean to laugh. Y'all want to talk about Noni. I know.

But Julie loves it. And so I was like, oh, she's going to be psyched. So I brought this Noni back. She's like, oh, I can't believe it. Immediately put it in the mason jars. I was like, I i'm gonna ferment this and what we did last year when we were uh we spent some time in hawaii and we were up in havi living on the that farm up there for about a month um after it had fermented it wasn't a full month but i think you let it for a couple weeks yeah she started using

it as a skin oil like rubbing it on her skin and's like, this is the best skin oil I've ever experienced. No, what I love is the meat, actually. I actually drink the juice, but then I took the meat and it has this velvety kind of consistency. And it's not so smelly. Like most of the smell has gone once the oil, once the fluid has dropped, the liquid has dropped. And I hope I'm not like, I don't know, I don't have experience with it. Like I just tried it that one time, but my skin felt amazing. And I've been literally dreaming about it since we were on the big island last year. So I even sent Chris an email before I came, because he was like, send me a list of the superfoods you want. He was trying to hook me up with you. And he said, you know, let me know know is there anything else you need and i said yeah could you have somebody throw some noni in a jar and put it in the sun for me and and i have a

big jar you can have in the back of the restaurant it's ready to go it's ready to go yeah and then just add uh and just let it keep decomposing but it's good for you take the skin like you're saying and uh put it on top of ailments uh It helps arthritis. It helps torn ligaments heal. It's amazing. It's amazing. And you were talking, was it your father? Who were you mentioning? Your father-in-law.

Yeah, I know. He doesn't have to take medication for high blood pressure no more. So he was, and how often was he taking the noni? He still takes shots every now and then, but to help cure the high blood pressure he was taking a shot every day for like three months and uh just a shot a day two ounce jigger and we sell it here as a wellness shots uh here we do three different types of wellness shots that we do that that is geared for different uh nutritional uh values for for certain individuals.

Yeah, Rich and I had some yesterday. We felt just someone in our yurt village has been a little sick, and so we're all in close quarters. And so in our meeting yesterday in the restaurant, we had a ginger shot with a chaser. A ginger shot with a ginger chaser. The Olena, yes. Olena, okay. And a lot of turmeric in that too, right?

Yeah, Olena is turmeric, and turmeric is the other awesome. Incredible. Amazing. I think if it's not the, it's one of the most powerful antioxidants ever. And it's so easy to get and access. Like we have some really pure turmeric at home. We just put it in water, hot water, and make like a tea out of it. Yeah, but I love the fresh that you got growing here.

Yeah, it's amazing. I made some mung bean with some fresh kale sauteed in coconut and we added the fresh turmeric and it's just beautiful, amazing. We use it in everything here. My beans, my rice. I blend it in water.

I blend it in coconut milk when I do my soups. Here we go, getting back to the techniques. I'll take coconut milk, put about, I don't know, two ounces of, take a blender, a quart, just about two ounces of turmeric, blend it up, and that's a great base for vegan soups. That's how I fortify, again, getting back into flavors in the cuisine. But turmeric, staying on track, turmeric is incredible antioxidant. It's good for your body.

It's good cooked. It's good as raw form. It's just a superfood in its own element. It's a big Ayurvedic herb. It's in everything. Yeah, and if you like Indian food, I mean, it kind of gives it that kind of spicy flavor. So what are some of the other superfoods that you cook with and like and have had experience with? I want to talk, you know, if you have stories about the healing stories, I love those too.

It'll come to me on the healing stories as we go because it's like one of those moments where you're sitting down. And then all of a blue, it'll come to you. Tomorrow. Absolutely. And then all of the blue, it'll come to you. Tomorrow. Absolutely. The other nut we use a lot here is green papaya, which is papin, the enzyme. And why we use papin, green papaya, and the enzyme is called papin.

And we use it in our food a lot because it helps to break down. Kale is a very, very rough and rough and hard sturdy green it passes through your system like a brillo pad so we use pap and it's designed to help break that it's an enzyme that has no it will break down anything proteins vegetable it's like a digestive enzyme in other words it helps break down the other foods that you're eating with it um what's that it helps so if you if you're taking this enzyme it will help break down the other foods that are're eating with it um what's that it helps so if you if you're taking this enzyme it will help break down the other foods that are in your gi tract absolutely and that's why it's geared that way we do a salad called the mighty green and it is a kale based salad and it has

shredded green papaya on it and it's designed it's there for, and it's there to help break down the kale so that your body has maximum nutritional, it absorbs the most nutrition out of the kale. That salad is insane. Thank you. It rocks. It's amazing. And it has mac nuts on it, macadamia nuts, and it is so simple and so dynamic, and it was one that was created by accident believe it or not

perfect perfect accident it was a good accident you know i love when things happen but i mean i we love that salad and we've been talking about it and it's one of my favorite things on your menu and i didn't know that you had that superfood and the papaya was in it so it's even better i have a and then again there's a story behind that salad i gotta tell the story please for your listeners so it's it's geared up with a ginger miso dressing and for those that don't know miso is fulfilled with vitamin k it's a balanced meal and then it has mac nuts in it for your protein base kale already has uh components inside to help in making it into a complete protein. It has a lot of micronutrients in kale. So the salad, you have your vitamin K from the miso, you have your iron, your zinc, your copper, your calcium,

you have your papen, which breaks down all of this. It's basically like a milkshake in your dietary track in your dietary track and you're good. It's an awesome salad. It's amazing. Yeah, people don't realize, I mean, in our culture there's this notion that if we want to get our calcium, we're going to have to drink milk.

We have to get calcium from dairy. And the truth is that, and I talk about this in my book too, that if you're eating a lot of dairy, yes, there is calcium in dairy for sure. But it's also a very acid-forming food. And so when you eat it, it alters the pH of your system and your body has to kind of go into hyperdrive to bring your pH back into balance. And when it goes into that hyperdrive, it has to leach minerals out of your bones to rebalance the pH. So it's actually

pulling calcium out of your bones to counteract the acidic nature of the dairy. And so in many instances, people that are eating a lot of dairy end up with osteoporosis. They think that they're getting all this calcium. And in fact, they're creating a calcium deficiency by doing so and kale is like the solution right it's incredibly high in all these micronutrients it's a great it's a great source of calcium and it's very alkaline forming so check it out people but kale and turmeric only for garnishing your salad bars now it's incredibly good for you we massage it with our dressing as raw you need to massage it to help break it down and it'll stay you can massage it with your favorite dressing that whatever you want and put it in your fridge

hours later it's still good it's a sturdy awesome green to to digest now for warning now it is on a gassier side so for those that get caught off guard beware that kill is like a cabbage it releases a lot of gas but you know it's one or the other so right you know just a forewarning you'll get used to it just to let you know be careful and put them in your blenders too. Put them in your blender, absolutely. So let's talk about some of the blends and how you came up with some of these magical, amazing juice blends that you have here at the cafe. I use a, well, we do i i don't like to call them

smoothies i rather call them you know a elixir it's basically a nutritional meal in a blender that is geared for people like me that are active that don't get want to get weighed down by eating a big meal well then you come here to the garden cafe and we use maca this is some things that are not indigenous to hawaii these are other superfoods that we bring in because let's face it hawaii is 3 000 miles away from any point of land and there's only so much that we can derive here and we can we can grow here but you know this is we have the ability to bring in things and i take advantage of it so we use maca i use uh msn powder we use spirulina what's msn powder msn powder is used to help your joints and ligaments it helps to keep your is those for uh that it basically lubricates your joints and helps your body to regulate water.

Basically, that's what it does. We use spirulina. We use maca. I use rice protein, vegetable proteins in my drink. Bee pollen I use. We just hooked up with this herbalist in Makawa, Maui called Malik. And he has a superfood blends that we're experimenting with. And it has goji berry, ginseng.

It's derived from for males and it'll light you up. It's awesome. It's such a good, a solid base of energy that is versus caffeine. It'll get you going for a day, for a good solid base of energy versus caffeine. It'll get you going for a good half day. So that's what it's geared for. We try and stick to it in a blending version. You're also using cacao and mesquite. Thank you.

Yes, cacao, mesquite. Sorry, I'm staring at this chalkboard going, huh. But yes, we use mesquite, cacao. We use different forms of raw cacao, cacao butter. We use cocoa oils. We use a lot of different, and flaxseed oil is one of them. Flaxseeds is what we put inside. Chia seed is what I use.

Basically, it goes on and on and on that we use it in different uh approaches for different things to help people regulate what they want to do whatever way you want to do for your body i mean we have whatever your choice whatever your diet choice these superfoods all have you know very specific purposes right so some boost your immune system some are will help you recover from a workout some will you know help you heal from your you know sore throat more quickly you know and some will energize you in the morning and they're all different uh there's a lot of overlap or whatever but can is there anything that you could say like if somebody just said what's the people ask me this all the time this is why i'm going to put it on you they're like what's your smoothie like what's the what's the smoothie you have in the morning or what's what's the, people ask me this all the time. This is why I'm going to put it on you. They're like, what's your smoothie?

Like what's the smoothie you have in the morning? Or what's the one you have before you work out or the one you have after you work out? And, you know, I don't really have a set answer. It's like you, I kind of flow with, I look and I see what we have. What's in our fridge? What's in our kitchen that's fresh? Let me make do with what I have. And, yeah, certainly like, like you know maca would be something

i would put into a blend before i work out not after i mean there's certain things with different purposes but i think the point is to kind of be flexible and just make sure that you're using fresh ingredients but if you could speak to kind of the different kind of intentions for your different blends we get the intentions are uh certain really there's not a direct like a poster on the wall saying okay this smoothie is for this and this and this it's more geared for flavor is for us is one and then a nutritional value comes in it um i give a Our Green Dream is a green-based, coconut-milk-based smoothie that we put in a blender. It has kale. It has yacon in it.

Yacon, not to get off the subject, yacon is an awesome root. I call it the root fruit because it's like mixed between a kohlrabi and a radish, but yet still really sweet. It helps to regulate how your body uses natural insulin in your body. It's geared for diabetics. And so we have the green. We have a thriller vanilla that we use that we put cinnamon inside. And cinnamon is also a great spice used for controlling insulin in your body it's used for diabetics a lot we use vanilla in there coconut

milk we use oat milk a little bit we add papaya inside of that right papaya banana is a good base we also have a blended chia chai excuse me a ginger chai that we base off of fresh ginger that is grown organically down the road um and we use olana inside of turmeric also inside of that to help um you know whoever basically we just make the menu and we'll let people decide how they're feeling and what they want to have that day and if they want to customize something or can you add this inside this inside they're more than welcome we're more than happy to take care of anybody that has an element that we can take care of for them or help them at least along the way yeah i mean there is there's a lot of hype about superfoods

and maybe in some instances overhype you you know, superfoods, whatever. But I have to say, like, I honestly believe in these foods. They're incredibly powerful. And if you start incorporating them into your diet through, you know, the recipes you're making or the blends that you're making in the morning or in the afternoon, you will feel different. You will feel better. Personally, I think your life will change, but I think the problem comes in when people start talking about superfoods is they think there's some kind of panacea that if they start eating superfoods that all their health ailments will go away when they're not looking at their overall diet. They're going to still go to

McDonald's and they're going to still eat like a lousy diet and then eat superfoods. It's like superfoods are like the tip of the iceberg, right? Like you got to clean house first and make sure that you're eating good, nutritious meals. And then the superfoods can like do their job. But you know, don't put the cart before the horse, I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I kind of think that if you get to superfoods, like, you're not going to be eating McDonald's anymore. They're going to take over. You eat french fries all day and then, like, drink turmeric tea

at night. Like, you know, that's not going to do very much. I think your body would let you do that maybe for, like, two weeks maximum and then the turmeric would just take over and you would start eating well. I think once you go that way, you can't go back. You can't go back you can't go back you feel sick i'm gonna tell you right now because i i've just out of being you know not thinking and got it slipped it like last week sometime i ate what did i eat i took a bite of one fry just to test it out i'm gonna i'm being honest and i regret i regret it and not joking

now this is for real like i've been living this way my wife and i have been living eating healthy watching our diet watching what we eat we don't drink soda we don't drink juices we don't drink refined sugars and um that has helped us tremendously because diabetes is a big thing and cancer i have two big ones in my family now there are they and be very aware of your grandparents and your your great-grandparents of what the ailments are is in your family you can help to shift your diet so that if you know that your grandma has cancer and her mom or dad has cancer, there's a good chance that the DNA has come along to you. And vice versa, diabetics, it's the same way.

So if your mom is dying of diabetes or your grandma is dying of diabetes, don't be eating a handful of candy. Exactly. I mean, you've got to help yourself survive and live, and living is great. So that's what we do here at Common Ground and the Garden Cafe is to offer offerings that people, we can get their sweet tooth out in a nutritional way by making healthy truffles with raw cacao

and all these different spices in it to quench your appetite for sugar or whatever you're craving, but in a healthier way. And I want to address that to the listeners is that help yourself. It begins with you first. And we're not just sitting here making all of this stuff up. It is the way of life. And it starts with the individual, just like how Rich started his deal and creating and realizing that he needed to make a change in his life. It's the same way. I'm not a 250-pound big boy chef.

I'm a lean chef. That's right. And very proud of it because I eat the way I believe in what I do and I eat the way that I cook. And it starts with me first. I cannot be a 300-pound chef that's overweight and trying to feed people healthy. It's ironic at that point. That's amazing. And you are extremely healthy and extremely vibrating in a really pure way and really great way.

And it's funny that you brought up, I actually just shared in our last podcast that I tasted, I ate some fried French fries. You know, I took a bite and I had a headache immediately after doing that. So yeah, you get to a point where your body gets cleaner and gets used to these things. And then when you eat something toxic, you're gonna notice it right away. So it's true.

It's true. So I know that diabetes is an issue with your family and that's something that you care a lot about. And it's a problem in Hawaii. I mean, it's a problem nationwide, but it's a big problem in Hawaii. It's really, really diabetes, even though it's DNA-related, and it really is, it's passed down to your bloodline. You can help yourself by controlling what you eat. I mean, don't go to

7-Eleven and drink a big gulp every day. You're asking for it. You're pushing it. Because your body does not know the difference between fructose and sucrose. Sugar is sugar, regardless of how people want to look at it. Even monitoring how much natural sugars you put in your body is something that you want to do. But refined sugars is what we do not use here at Common Ground. We do not use a refined sugar. We use honey. We use agave. We use stevia. We use natural fructose, natural sugars, but in a controlled way. But we do not use white sugar in any of our foods. And so my bake side, what we do, we gear it specifically for celiacs and diabetics to help. Like I said, people want

a cookie. I mean, regardless of what, I don't care how healthy you are, a cookie is a cookie. But if I can help the individual eat a healthier version of a cookie, if that makes sense, then I think our message is getting across. Well, absolutely. And I mean, when you make, this is the one thing like our Mayan thunder shake that's in our cookbook. It's like, I used to like to have ice cream after dinner, like a little bit, you know, and after becoming vegan, I started making up these shakes. But the difference is you can have this amazing, delicious shake that's made with, you know, mesquite and cacao and a banana and, you know, even,

I always throw kale in. I throw kale in everything because you oftentimes can't even taste it if you do a cacao blend or something like that. But it's like to eat that chocolate and that sweet taste or, you know, I love, I'm a big advocate of raw honey and I know that that's not or, you know, I love, I'm a big advocate of raw honey and I know that that's not like, you know, hardcore vegan. But again, we're talking about a plant

power message and honey is a major superfood and we have so much to learn from the bees and bee pollen. And so, you know, I'll always take honey as my number one sweetener in anything. But I do, I have a really, really strong sweet tooth. I'm not really more of a salty person. I'm more of a sweet person, but you can drink one of those shakes and your body just loves it. I mean, you feel amazing. You don't wake up feeling hungover. You don't put on weight. It's, it's extraordinary. So that's an amazing, you know, uh, value that you bring in the restaurant. Thank you. Great job. So now what are we going to talk about? No, you know what? I wanted to just go more into the diabetes,

into the island. That's what I want to talk about. Yeah, let's talk about what's going on on the island, and especially with the indigenous culture here and all these beautiful Hawaiians that have been here long before we showed up and what can we learn from them? Where are the imbalances

and how can we respectfully support and maybe give back in a way that's honoring to them and aware? I want to do... It's a topic that is close to my heart because I'm Hawaiian in background. And my grandparents, my uncles, I've lost about five members to diabetes. And where a lot of it stems from is their diet.

And modern people tend to get lazy and the cheap way is economy in itself it's hard times people can look for the best deal around mcdonald's makes it incredibly challenging for someone to say no it's because it's the biggest problem i mean it is a socioeconomic problem and how do you argue um you know how can you resolve this issue when you know you can get 200 tacos at taco bell for 10 cents each or what you know the price is the same as it was in the 70s but the thing that is so cheap yes but i i tell people this also it doesn't mess you don't have to have a wicked spread on your table. Simplicity is good.

But you keep eating that way, you're going to die. Let's face it. Let's be real. So shifting around your diet, like white rice, for instance. We don't eat white rice. We don't even serve white rice in our restaurant. Why? Because white rice turns straight carbohydrates, straight sugar, too much of it.

Local people eat cups and loads of white rice. It doesn't help your diet at all. Spam is another one. You know, processed foods is a big thing with local people. Soda is another thing. Soda pop is a chronic. If you keep drinking tons of soda, there's a good chance, and you got DNA of diabetes in your body, in your family. there's a good chance and you got dna of diabetes in your body in your family there's a good chance that along the line you will be stricken with diabetes because you're eating everything that

your body got to go and overload because you're eating all this white rice and then you drink a big soda and then you eat all this processed foods you're just it's a slow death and believe it or not you might not just die like a bullet in your head, but slowly but surely it'll creep up on you. And by that time, it's too late. Now what local people have to start, and I've been pondering my mind going, how do I tell a family, a full-blooded family, Hawaiian family, that you need to stop eating what you're eating and they've been eating that way for 20 years.

How do you do that? It's been a challenge for me to get the message across from Common Ground, from the Gardner Cafe, and trying to teach people that, first off, eating healthy, a lot of people have the complex that it doesn't taste good. That's so not true. It doesn't taste good. It's so not true. It doesn't taste good. It's expensive. It's too difficult.

I don't understand it. And where are you going to get your protein? And how am I going to eat in a restaurant? And what are my friends going to think? Well, all these questions, all you have to do is switch to brown rice. There's no difference in price between brown rice and white rice. Why brown rice is a complex carbo it's way different the way that your body absorbs complex carbons versus a simple carbohydrate is way different and it stands that's where a lot of the the uh the problem is and soda is the other one that's something that a lot of local people love to drink,

and across the United States is soda pop. And that is one thing that is so easily reversed. You can change your diet really dramatically by just stop drinking soda. Absolutely. Well, the brown rice is a great, I mean, that's an easy one. That's a really great idea. We should put that as number one on the list that we can do. But I'm interested to know, what about the ancient Hawaiian, like the way we used to eat, and that's been lost because of

modernization came in and altered everything. So what would be a normal Hawaiian diet of the ancients? The normal diet would consist of kalo, which is taro, something raw from the ocean. It always consists of different areas. In Hawaii, you had different people, different gatherers. You had the land gatherers, you had the ocean gatherers, and they would come together and share. And you would have your farmers that would bring in day eight like green banana we eat green banana all the time you put it right in the fire you treat it like a potato breadfruit is is i call breadfruit the gift from the gods

because this is this fruit can grow in the middle of an atoll in the pacific ocean with no fresh water but still it has it's almost a superfood in its own and a lot of people in in doctors and researchers don't know the value of breadfruit and breadfruit is packed with serious micronutrients it has calcium it has a lot of potassium that you need for your body. It has things that can keep you alive. Now, breadfruit is a major component used. Kalo, which is taro, is what would be eaten. Some raw fish, very little meat, a lot of vegetable-based diet, a lot of seafood, a lot of raw things. In Hawaii, we eat a lot of raw items because that's just how it is. That's our culture. And it was consisted of a heavy plant

based diet with a little bit of protein that that they got there was no cows here there was no goats no snakes no nothing so they ate everything from the ocean and things in in high iodine which is good things in high iron comes from the ocean there's a lot of things in the ocean that that is not due to overfishing a lot of people have stopped eating that way but again it is based towards economic times where people just they don't have the money to to eat that way now or have the time to eat that way right so it was predominantly plant-based with some fish basically pretty much in the ocean so mainlanders arrive it starts to get developed and that way of life starts to sort of weave its way into what's going on here and disrupting that that traditional

way of life and you know it becomes a more western westernized it's like every other native culture that has been stricken the eskimos have been str every other native culture that has been stricken. The Eskimos have been stricken. The Hawaiians have been stricken. All these native cultures, diabetes is your number one killer. It is your wall. And it's all diet-based, and it's easily controllable. It's up to the individual to make that decision whether or not what you choose.

You choose what loaded gun you want to play with. If you want to choose life loaded gun, then you choose that life. If you want to slow death, then you choose that way. If you're listening now and you have a problem with it, try your hardest and you'll see a big difference in your energy levels, the way you think, the way you go about by your day. I like to challenge some of you to try it. If you're out there listening, go for it. There's no question about it. Diabetes is a food-borne illness. Yes, some people are genetically predisposed to it, but it is a food and lifestyle-borne illness. And it can be prevented if you make these simple changes. It's really just as simple as that. I think Dr. Neil Barnard from PCRM,

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, has a book coming out on this. And I believe, I haven't read the book yet. I've just read some articles that he has this book in the works that I think is coming out pretty soon. And it's essentially not just treating diabetes with a plant-based diet, but reversing it. I believe you can reverse it. You know, I am getting close to my 40s now, and I'm good because I watch what I eat. You know, my blood count is good. I'm active. For instance, getting back to my family and not only me.

My son, we don't give my son that junk. I don't give my son candy. He doesn't drink soda. He drinks basically milk, organic milk, and that's the other thing. Stick with organic as best as you can. I know it's expensive, but let me tell you, it's worth, trust the companies do your research do your homework before not all companies are

genuine just remember that or just check out plant-based milks you know exactly exactly so we i'm sorry go ahead no no i just wanted to point that It starts from the beginning It starts with helping I got to help my baby To stick in his mind That not always wanting juice So we don't have it I help him by not having it in my house Absolutely

You set an example And then he sees you Your dietary actions Have to be in alignment with your words because if you can't tell your kid you can't drink Coke, well, you're throwing it back. And the kids see that a mile away. They know that immediately.

So growing up in Hawaii, do you have brothers and sisters? I do. And are you in the middle, oldest, youngest? I'm the baby. Oh, you're the baby. Okay, right. And so I take it that sort of seeing this proliferation of diabetes or health issues amongst family members and friends, et cetera,

kind of planted that seed for you being so passionate about health and nutrition and food. I mean, where did this interest in cooking and your desire to go to culinary school and all that, where did that come from? In my family, we've been blessed with, there's several chefs in my family. I knew at a young age that I was geared for it. I was headed that direction. I knew by ninth grade in high school, I knew that was the direction. This is well before Food Network was even around. I had that passion. It was a part of me because food is a big thing in my family.

It's always been around. My grandfather was an incredible cook. My dad was a great cook um i was always around everybody in my family can cook my aunties can cook there's i'm a chef my cousin's a chef there's like four or five chefs in my family legit chefs not not you know not people not the home cook this is in industry chefs and um so it's kind of it's embedded it's kind of ingrained i should say in me it was a passion that i gravitated to and um i went to culinary school in 92 um graduated in 93 almost 94 right you went back to the mainland i went to oregon i went to school in western culinary uh in portland oregon uh coming from a small town in haleiwa in oahu

it was kind of hard for me to to just bail uh it's it's interesting uh growing up in hawaii you get so used to to your surroundings and uh you don't want to leave and I it was the best decision that I've made it was going to the mainland getting educated learning the basics after that I put myself in the forefront of many great chefs I sought good chefs the best chefs in Hawaii's industry and I've worked for them and I purposely put myself in in their midst so that I can absorb their greatness and I'll take their technique and take their technique and take this that chef's technique you meet great chefs it's a it's an incredible industry and uh you know after this year is 22 years now, and I've been fortunate, like, again, to be solidified here at the cafe and bring this wealth of knowledge and techniques and train my staff and be passionate about it. And that's where it all really began years and years ago by watching my family cook right and it's beautiful the rest is history so you go you go to uh you go to culinary school i

mean was there a temptation to stay on the mainland or do you always know like you're gonna you're bringing it back to i got lost in love and i want to keep myself now you know honestly i should have stayed i wanted to go and be a gypsy. I call them and go put a year here, a year there, a year there. But again, I got lost in love, came back into Hawaii. And Hawaii has a tremendous amount of chefs also. And the European chefs had a great influence here in Hawaii at that time. And that's basically what happened.

I stayed locally. I worked on every indigenous island you can possibly work on. All six islands I've done things on. That's great. Not eight now. There's eight islands, but there's two islands that you can't go on. So there's six islands. I'll take all six.

That's great. And the big resorts, I mean, they pay big money for big chefs, right? I mean, their restaurants are important important and it's a priority and so yeah you know we're out here in the middle of the pacific but i'm sure there's some extraordinary talent at some of the bigger places and and i want you to talk about that i mean what was that like you know working in these huge resorts and being part of that kitchen and because i think it's interesting that you know you could have stayed in that environment and and grown I think it's interesting that, you know, you could have stayed in that environment and grown within that or whatever and had that, you know, massive

infrastructure and be serving tons of people. And instead, you know, at some point in your life, and I'd like to hear why and how that went down, you decided to really kind of scale it back and come to common ground and work in this you know you know relatively small cafe compared to some of the other places you were working um i that is a great oh good lord that's a good story uh in its own and i started my first big hotel that i landed was uh at four seasons in walea it was a five diamond back then it was five diamond properties is where i shot for because that was the best of the best. To even get into these properties, you needed to be good.

You needed to pass an exam, a written exam to get into these properties. These properties is what ingrained my quality and my passion for making sure that our quality is in the forefront of what you do. the quality is in the forefront of what you do. My becoming pedigree, it was my goal because I went to school. So I went to Four Seasons. I trained with, and Four Seasons is no joke. They are one of the elites in the industry at that time. They're all five diamond. Then I went to the Grand Wailea. For those that know, that hotel was number one in the world at one point. It was five diamond also. And I put myself and learned from a tremendous amount of chefs. Then I worked for Roy Yamaguchi at that time.

I came back and worked for Roy. And I helped, I worked in the flagship in Hawaii Kai. Who is Roy Yamaguchi? Roy Yamaguchi probably is going down in Hawaii as one of Hawaii's most... He's the first millionaire chef from his restaurants in Hawaii.

He has a chain of restaurants called Roy's. There's one in Woodland Hills. There's one in Woodland Hills. Before he got big, he only had two restaurants. He was intense. It was an intense operation. And then I went to work for this little cafe, just a quick bio, for a Japanese chef that was trained in Japan, trained in France for 10 years.

And here comes the fortifying of the European techniques. And then I ended up, I bounced around and ended up at Princeville, now it's St. Regis, and I played the game really well, and I put myself in good situations. Then I come here, I pull out of the industry because I did not like the direction of corporate. I did not like the values because it becomes, in a hotel, everything is room-driven, not to get off the subject.

No, that's the stuff I want to hear about. Culinary is a secondary base. And a passionate guy like me, I do not like being second to rooms. It's a whole division where I felt that in the corporate world, the culinary has kind of lost its direction in a little bit in in a sense of quality everything has become convenience products convenience products to cut down on labor right and that is what i was like that's not how i was trained so i come to i've been blessed and ironically put in for this job here at the cafe came here looked at this place and say man i i love this place it is non-corporate the create is an open field of creativity i can do whatever i want to do and also make sure that the quality is in the forefront of what we do and it's been our message and our our model here is is nutritional

value quality is in the forefront of what we do and we'll always do that because quality speaks miles versus something that's slapped on a plate and that's the that's what i bring to the common ground there's so much opportunity here too and it's like you know you see the you saw the canvas and you came in and you it's almost like it's almost like instead of saying what is Common Ground going to give me you came and said this is what I have to offer

at Common Ground I told Chris you're going to blow it up and I told him I did I told Chris Chris Jabe is the owner and he's an awesome individual and I love the James dearly and they have been nothing but good,

good, solid people, great boss to work for, great owner and much support he has given me and it's taken about four months

to prove to him that I knew what the hell I was doing and the rest is history and we have taken this place and have got a tremendous

amount of attention by cheese in such a short amount of time and is very humbled by it. I mean, I have magazines that come here at least once a month wanting to do an article and we didn't even stick it out there yet. A lot of people don't even

know where we're at still yet no i mean you're driving on the main highway i mean there's a little sign saying common ground you know garden cafe open these times or whatever but i mean you could easily just drive right by it and not see it and and it's interesting because the restaurant's packed every day it's not you know you guys haven't grown to the point where you're open for dinner yet so it's it's essentially breakfast and lunch and't grown to the point where you're open for dinner yet. So it's essentially breakfast and lunch and brunch on the weekends. And you're maxed out with that kitchen. I told Chris the other day, I was like,

man, you gotta double the size of that kitchen. Yeah, we're headed in that direction. And it's a beautiful thing of growth. We're headed that direction to expand the kitchen because I have one six burner and a two foot grill in one pantry. And we rock over two weekends just 300 covers and you know we're gilded it's about 225 and and um you know we were when

it first took over we were doing like 50 covers and we got excited when it got to 60 then we got excited went to 80 and then we got excited went to 100 now we're doing 200 covers and 300 a cut just for people that are listening to a cover as a person. Yeah, as a cover. What I mean, sorry, it's per head. We did 50 people, then 180, and it just kept going and going and going. And now it's to the point where we're maxed out for now until we go for further growth. So if you come here, you're listening, and you've got to wait a little bit,

I'm sorry, but it is what it is, man. We're a small little cafe. And if you live here, you know, though. I mean, the place is packed with the locals because they know because it's the best restaurant on the North Shore. It's an amazing place to eat. And, yeah, I know I was starting to whine a little bit about my electric stove in the yurt and then i came and met you and saw what you're creating with you know

magic out of thin air i was like okay shut up go back to the electric stand don't say anything no so anyway that's so that's so amazing so so inspiring to hear your journey and where you've been and and uh yeah i mean it's exciting times here in an amazing place and if you guys uh haven't listened to the second podcast uh chris jabe is on that you should check it out he's just extraordinary and he sets his wife and family explaining to you you know everything about common ground and what his vision for this place is. He's the sort of beacon that attracts people like Rodman to come here and do their thing, spread their wings. Absolutely.

Again, this place is phenomenal, not because of me. It's because of people that have been blessed with a good team, and everything starts with a good team and everything starts with a good team and um i ensure that my my team is well equipped to take care of all facets of dietary needs here especially celiac is whether it's a fad whether it's real um it's all of a sudden it seems that everybody's celiac nowadays sometimes i think it's a fad if you really want to talk right well there's a lot of yeah well i mean look on the, you're dealing, for people who don't know, the North Shore of Kauai is,

you know, there's some affluent pockets here. And so when you have that, you have some very well-heeled people that, you know, have their peccadillos and, you know, what they want to eat or not eat. And, you know, gluten and gluten sensitivity is sort of all the rage right now it is and and you know i have a gluten sensitivity you know i don't i'm not perfect in avoiding gluten and

everything that i do but i know that i feel better when i'm not eating gluten yeah you definitely for people that have celiac you know their celiac is a serious thing that's that's different from gluten sensitivity just to be clear about that So yeah, just to be clear, I'm not saying that celiac is imagined. That's a very real thing. But I think gluten sensitivity is worth talking about. And it kind of goes to uh you know what you were talking about with with white rice and refined grains and all of that and you know a lot of the wheat that finds its way into all the foods that we eat all the processed foods and the snacks and all that kind of stuff is so stripped of any nutritional value and so processed that i think that that has you know something to

do with you know the way that people feel when they eat that. And so, you know, I don't know. I just, I know that I feel better when I don't eat. Yeah, I mean, I've been experimenting with different kinds of flours and just, you know, looking for different options, you know, instead of just going, oh, well, that's a default. So, like, I'm trying, you know, some rice flours and sorghum flour and stuff like that. Yeah, baking gluten-free is tricky. Living in Los Angeles, you can get gluten-free everywhere and you go to Whole Foods and they have a million gluten-free products

and they make it easy. But not everyone has that kind of stuff at their fingertips. So if someone wants to see what it would feel like to cut the gluten out of their diet and try to experiment with baking or making dishes that are gluten-free? What are some of the tips that you could give people? The tips is in the flours. Obviously, the rice flours, we use almond flour. We have every facet of flours here at Common Ground

because we gear strictly, Celiac is in the forefront of what we do. We do not do, everything is gluten-free that we do here. Nothing that we do has, well, there's a forefront of what we do. We do not do, everything is gluten-free that we do here. Nothing that we do has, well, there's a few things that we do. I take it back. Certain things we have, but we have options. Like, for instance, our tortillas cut with wheat and corn. But we have rice tortillas that we have. But as for my dressings, the sauces, the soups, baked goods,

majority of the menu, I would have have to say is 90 percent gluten-free and why because people that are not celiac can enjoy the same meal it just saves me a big headache of going well do you have two different everything that we do is geared for it and it makes it easy for us to take care of people that are or aren't celiac. Well, the thing is, too, I mean, celiac is like one, it's one gradation that you're at a pretty developed level. But, I mean, I wonder how many of us have gluten allergies, even if it's minor, because I'm not sensitive to gluten. But, you know, I've had like a sort of life condition

with migraine-type headaches. You know, I call them that. And, you know, sometimes they do better or worse. But I'm experimenting with actually removing wheat from my diet and seeing if that inflammation goes down which for rich i mean it's very apparent when he eats wheat it's just you know he immediately immediately is puffy and also you know certain friends of mine that i've met you know that have like this pockets of like a swollenness under their eyes. And a client friend of mine and he stopped eating wheat and they just went away. You know,

you can either do that or you can go get your eyes cut and have surgery, which I don't recommend. Well, probably most people would prefer that. Well, it's that thing. Well, it's the same thing.

It's like, you know, you could take Viagra or you can change your diet. That's right. Exactly. It's a choice. You choose your poison. That's right.

We're not talking poison. It's treating symptoms versus addressing the causes of these issues. Absolutely. That's true. That's what it's really about. And preventive medicine. And whether it's diabetes or some other kind of congenital condition that you're dealing with, you know, our health system is set up that you go to the doctor, they look at

it and they prescribe a medication. And, you know, in, you know, a huge percentage of those cases, that medication treats the symptom of that condition. It doesn't get to the cause. And there isn't enough, if any, discussion about how to address that cause. Get to the underlying reason why you are suffering from this malady. Address that at its core so that you can overcome it. I have a juicer on that note. I have a juicer. Her name is Cass, and I love her dearly, and she is very talented. You named your juicing machine, very talented. And we were- You named your juicing machine, Cass?

No, we have a juicing machine. And also I have, yeah, that's right. We do our juices also. We offer- You have an amazing juicer in the kitchen. Yes, we have an amazing juicer. And we do the juice. We offer the juicing, our fresh juices that we do.

But also for those people on an upper level of, because let's face it, I cannot keep up in my day with the demand on juicing. So I have a friend that does my juicing also that brings the juices. She's working on, we're going to start it probably in a month or so. She is very talented and very skilled and we're working she has a tea that is based off of to help cancer patients to help them with eliminating free radicals out of their bodies and she is very very skilled and so that is as we move and we grow in a cafe that those kind of issues are are the issues that I want to grab and hang on to because those are the ones that helps direct where we're going with the cuisine. Not saying that we're the proven or the heroes for cancer, but if I can help people to help with either their problems or helping people to stay cancer-free, I'm going to try my best to do that and get that point across. So it's not just a joke. It's a lifestyle that we practice here.

Absolutely. And that's so beautifully supporting a perfect expression of food as medicine. I mean, really, what you've created at the Cafe at Common Ground is food as medicine. Thank you. And it's incredible. It's hidden. It's hidden. And that's why we do vegan desserts that I give to people I don't say. They don't know.

No idea. We do a lot of nut cheeses here. And we'd have nut cheeses on a regular basis. You know, we spike it with whatever is coming out of the garden. We do a pesto. We do a garlic one. We'll do a pesto. We do a garlic one. We'll do a turmeric one.

We'll do all kinds of nut cheeses flavor-wise for those that are on a plant-based diet. But it's always going to be geared for a purpose, for some kind of dietary need for whoever walks in our door we try and cover as much as we can to again help people with their lifestyle or even with people that wants to get involved or try it out for a little bit you know so it doesn't really matter who you are what your diet is if you come to common ground you're going to get some meal that feeds your your body and uplifts you absolutely absolutely and especially the big good side is geared for diabetics and celiacs. I've got to throw that out there because it's important. It's important for us to keep that, especially keep my baker on that path.

And I think we're headed in a good direction to help people with their sweet tooths not digest tons of sugar refined sugars i should say where do you where would you like to see this go like if you fast forwarded five years from now with the cafe and what you're doing here i would like to see our products i would like to see our products get out into the nation our after products, whether we're going through beverage, whether we're going through beverage. I would like to see this cafe expand. I would like to take the show on the road a little bit, honestly, and to help people educate,

help educate people on all the topics that we just talked about now. I know this place is going to be solidified. I know the cafes, it's not going to be an issue of whether a lot of people go, are you guys going to be around in two years or three years? Yes. Why? Because if we stick to the mission statement of what we're about, and we're genuine about it it and we're producing good quality nutritional products, you have no, because a lot of people are shifting their diets nowadays, not fast enough, but a lot of people are realizing that, huh, maybe I should start to eat healthier

so I can live a few more years or live another 10 years. And that's where I want to see the cafe. I want to see the cafe rocking, but also I want to take the message out with the different topics that we talked about. The diabetes and the cancer and how I can help people shift their mindset into good eating. That's where I want to see it in five

years. Yeah, that's beautiful. And that's a fantastic mission. That's our mission too. And we share that, which is why we're here. Absolutely. You know? Absolutely. And we really hope to, sooner than later, is to have some fun together.

And I'd love to be able to cook with you and create some new exciting things together. That's why I say stay tuned. You'll see. That's right. And I want to learn from you, definitely. It would be an honor and a blessing to do that. And then also, you know, we share this focus and this awareness of the children, you know, just children's health and wellness.

Yes. And, you know, I think what we were talking about, about something to bring to the island, just in respect and honoring of the island and the indigenous people and the people that, know originated here you know to do some maybe ancient menu maybe ancient and ancient uh you know spread traditional that is really easy to do but also if your kids want something make them a good smoothie as simple as that yeah what you were saying just

do do a good healthy smoothie versus uh soda it it takes a little bit effort but let me tell you it's so worth it it's so worth my son eat drinks a smoothie every single day because he doesn't ask for soda because it's not in his brain it's not in his memory to go oh dad can i get a soda no i want to says, moody. I want a moody. He's two years old. So that's something that my wife and I are proud of, that he's not asking for candy. He wants some fruit, or we give him nuts. Just change around the diet a little bit.

Shift up. It all starts with the parents, and it trickles down to the children. Simple. That's amazing. No question about it. And just to put everything in perspective here, this guy, Rodman, he is literally, I think you're feeding Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reese like almost every day.

I see them down in the cafe with their family eating. Every time I turn around, they're sitting there eating. And if it's good enough for Laird and Gabby, it's good enough for you, right? Laird and Gabby is good friends of mine. And Laird is going to be, if not one of the most legendary big wave surfers on the planet. He is directed.

He's a guy that I grew up admiring as a surfer growing up on the north shore of Oahu. Surfing is in my blood, but watching Laird, to speak of his popularity, he's a genuine guy that believes in health. He works out like an animal. So does Gabriela, who is probably the greatest beach volleyball player of her time, or even the greatest volleyball player to come out of the beach circuit. But, yes, they do. And we take care of a tremendous amount of athletes here.

And, you know, it's awesome. It's an awesome feeling to know that they trust me and trust my team to eat a balanced meal that they can come here as simple as huevos rancheros, but it's a tweak huevos rancheros. It's not your average huevos rancheros but it's the tweak huevos rancheros it's not your average huevos rancheros and so that you know like what rich was saying it's it's a it's an honor for me to make friends um and like i said it's a big extended family i feed billionaire millionaires athletes common people as myself as everybody else and else. And the beautiful part about this cafe is it doesn't

matter what you do for a living or what your status is. When you come into my cafe, you're just Laird or you're just Rodman because we don't look at what you do for a living. You're here to eat a good meal and you have a good day and I'll see you again. And that's the theory that we have. We've had actresses and famous actors to come in our door. And I'm not going to mention names, but we've had our fair share of them. And we get our fair share, and everybody's treated the same. Because everybody's body is a temple, regardless of what you do for a living. I don't care what.

And that's the approach. That's where corporate has driven me. I've cooked for Michael Jordan, Mark McGuire. I've cooked for the most richest family from Saudi Arabia. I've done it in these hotels. I've cooked for in every, and what that has taught me and many actors in my time and very humbly speaking, it doesn't matter what you do, again, for a living. You can be the most famous person on earth, but always, always these people know they want to live. And so they make the decision to eat healthy.

That's right. And health is a common denominator, right? It is. So it's the same. It doesn't matter if you don't have your health. Exactly. So we all need to be healthy. Yeah, exactly.

Try your best, and like I said, it doesn't matter who you are, but you come to the cafe, you're just what you are, and put aside your wealth and put aside what you do and come in here and have a great meal. And we're not going to look at you any differently because you're just part of the family. That's how it is here. That's right. Because it's common ground. Because it's common ground.

Uncommon ground. Uncommon ground except for you. I know. So I think that that's a great place to end for today. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much, man. It was an honor to have you.

Appreciate your time, man. It's great to spend the time with you. And thanks for welcoming us so graciously into the family. You're very welcome. We're really excited about what we're going to create together. Yay. Yeah, very cool. We're working on some cool projects, some video projects.

Julie and Rodman are going to mix it up in the kitchen a little bit and have some fun, and we'll go from there. We'll keep you posted on what that's going to look like. So Rodman, again, thank you so much for being here. I'll let you go now. And as we say in Hawaii, aloha. Aloha. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Mahalo. All right. Later, dude. Later. All right. that was awesome he's a cool dude right he's awesome

yeah he's lovely he is the kind he's the goods he is so we're lucky we're lucky to be eating his cuisine here at Common Ground

so anyway let's wrap it up for today thank you so much for your support we're over the moon with the early response on the podcast. We're really thrilled about it. If you're enjoying the podcast,

it would mean the world to us if you could stop by the iTunes page for the podcast and leave a nice comment. If you don't like the show, then maybe you don't want to do that. I'm not trolling for positive reviews, but if you don't want to do that. I'm not trolling for positive reviews, but

if you happen to be there and you've got five seconds to spare. We have a lot of really nice reviews. I wouldn't mind it. We haven't asked for any and we've got a bunch. I appreciate that. Anybody who put a review up on iTunes already, thank you. You guys rock.

Let's take it out. We've been doing this for like an hour and a half, right? About that. Come on. Give them the links. You can check us out at Jai Lifestyle. I think I'm just feeling I'm in a flow with it. You've been doing it? You go for it.

It's going. Anyway, this podcast was sponsored by Jai Lifestyle. We sponsor ourselves. We do. That's how in demand we are. That's right. It's awesome.

It's great. I feel so good to be sponsoring ourselves. So it's Jai Lifestyle, J-A-I-L-I-F-E-S-T-Y-L-E.com. Jai Lifestyle.com. I think they got it. I think they got it. Anyway, Jai means victory or hail or praise in sanskrit loosely translated um and uh anyway we wish that wish you that in your life and in your

pursuit of plants um so anyway so let's give them the links what are the links well just go to jai lifestyle.com why don't you talk about what they might find when they go there? You might find Rich's Gye Repair Recovery Powder there, which is this. And what is that all about, Julie? It's this amazing superfood blend of nutrients. We talked a lot about superfoods today. Yeah, so it's got cordyceps. It's got hemp, a few different kinds of protein, hemp, pea, and what else is in there? Sprouted brown rice.

Sprouted brown rice. You always want brown rice. Sprouted brown rice. Sprouted. You always want the sprout, the sprouted version of the grain. It's much better that way. But what else is in there? Some really good stuff. Maybe I should handle this part. You should handle that.

Chai repair is a combination of three plant-based proteins, sprouted brown rice, pea, and hemp. It's very tasty and delicious. It's very digestible. The proteins are very bioavailable. It is the highest grade of hemp protein available. And sprouted brown rice is the highest caliber of brown rice protein. So it's top end it also contains some primo antioxidants like a very pure resveratrol and grape skin extracts and cordyceps mushroom extracts so these are all superfoods resveratrol cordyceps very very powerful superfoods which was kind of the theme and the subject of today the resveratrol and the grape skin extracts are extremely potent antioxidants,

just like turmeric we were talking about earlier. The cordyceps is actually a very interesting superfood. It was first discovered eons ago in very high altitude areas of remote China. And it is this bizarre, they call mushrooms, but it's not really a mushroom. It's a fungus. And it's a fungus that grows on the back of these caterpillars that are up at like super high altitude in China. And so these Chinese herbalists and in Chinese medicine, they've been using these for years, which begs the question of how did this first come into being? Like, who is the first, who is the first guy to like, look at this, some fungus on the back of this caterpillar and say, I'm going to eat that. No, but I'm telling you like, I, that, that just blows

me away. And it's also, it's not a mushroom that grows out of the ground in the traditional sense of what you might think. It's crazy though. And so, and so if you look at it as a metaphor of like the whole planet shifting, right. And we're caterpillars becoming though. And so if you look at it as a metaphor of the whole planet shifting, right, and we're caterpillars becoming butterflies, then that would mean we all should be eating this right now. Well, that's a whole other take on this. That's crazy. Caterpillars, like of everything in the world that grows in caterpillars?

It's a fungus that has a symbiotic relationship with a caterpillar, as I understand it. I'm on it. I mean, I take it anyway, but I'm up in my dose now. Yeah. It's interesting. I didn't know that. I didn't know it was on a caterpillar.

But what you shouldn't do is Google images of cordyceps because you will be disgusted at what you might find. Well, it's all broken down. So this is a very potent superfood, right? It's been used in Chinese medicine for quite a long time. It kind of came into the forefront when some Chinese athletes started using it. Actually, I think it was the female Chinese track and field team started exhibiting tremendous results, and it was attributed to the incorporation of using cordyceps mushroom extracts in their diet. Now, maybe they were doing something else. Maybe they were on steroids. I don't know.

But the point being that this is how they were first noticed. And they've kind of become popular in the United States really only in the last year. There's only a few other companies that are using them in supplements. Onnit uses, they have a product called Shrimp Tech. And it's the same, it's basically the same thing that's in my product. And studies have demonstrated that cordyceps mushroom extracts, it's called cordyceps sinensis, mushroom extracts this it's called cordyceps sinensis uh has been linked to an increase in oxygen uptake and lung capacity in endurance athletes so when i read about that that's when i first started checking it out and i actually did notice a difference and so i've been taking

them ever since so when it came time to sort of formulate this athletic recovery product was like, well, what do I want on it? Like, what do you need when you're done training? Well, you need to repair your muscles with protein. You need to combat the free radical damage that is the result of the exercise-induced oxidative stress. And you want to sort of increase the blood flow to get the oxygen to where it needs to go to expedite the repair. So cordyceps actually work as a recovery superfood. They also work for a pre-workout too. You can use that as pre-and post. That's extraordinary.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, Jai Repair is a very high-end product. It's not your typical GNC protein powder that you're going to grab off the shelf. Oh, no. Not that. Which is why it's a little bit more expensive. It's available exclusively at Chi Lifestyle right now. We are looking into retail outlets.

But with our price point, it's a little bit tricky because we don't want to... If we go to a Whole Foods, for example, they're going to want a huge discount. You know, they demand these discounts because they say, well, we can sell a lot of volume. And although the Jai Repair is expensive, it retails for $75, the margins are incredibly low. So, you know, we're not getting rich off this. Like, we're barely making any money, but it's just a product that I wanted to put out there. So that's why it's not in retail stores because, for example, if Whole Foods wanted to carry it,

I think that I would actually lose money if I offered them the price that they would demand to do it or I would have to charge such an exorbitant rate that it would be ridiculous. So that's why it's like, hey, you know what? Let's just have it on the website and people who want to buy it can buy it there.

And that's that. It's a great product. It's a very, very high quality product. And for that, we're very happy. Yeah, anyway, check it out. And people who have been using it have been loving it. They post on Facebook

and all that kind of stuff. So generally, almost everybody who gets it reorders it. If you have any questions about the product, you can leave a comment on richroll.com below this podcast episode, and I'd be happy to take a look at that. So what else do we have on Joy Lifestyle?

We have an e-cookbook. This is a very long ad. Well, you just went off into the depths of the superfoods. Because we were talking about superfoods today. So today was the day to kind of get into that a little bit more. And actually, you know what I'm also going to do in the show links? I wrote a blog post for Tim Ferriss' blog. He was nice enough to let me guest post on his website around the time that my book,

Finding Ultra, came out. And I wrote a post on 10 uncommon superfoods. And cordyceps was one of the ones that I listed, among some others. So you can check that out on Tim's blog, or I'll put a link on my site to that. That's great. That's a great post. So we have a cookbook. We have Jai Seed Cookbook. so we have a cookbook we have jai seed cookbook uh it's an e-cookbook it's a download it's under 10 bucks if you don't have it yet you can snag it and it's beautiful because it's a very sustainable way to uh get a cookbook and have it on your laptop or your ipad it's not meant to print please don't print it it has a bunch of my color photographs and tree photographs and family photographs, and it would be very expensive to print it in color.

So anyway, we have it available as a download. We've been doing really well with it. It's been a wonderful experience for us to share our family and share our recipes that transformed our way of eating. And also, it's a really easy thing to gift to people. It's a wonderful price point, and you can just email it to them, and it works out great. So anyway, I know the holidays are coming up, and we're all trying to figure out

how to be more sustainable, be more conscious. I always say give things that can be consumed. Right, and also, it's only $9 or $9.99 on the website, but if that's a little too steep for you, what you should do is go to Chi Lifestyle and just, if you put in your email address, or you might get a pop-up window the first time you go to the website asking you to enter your email address if you want to be on the newsletter,

and you'll get a free seven-recipe download. You can have that anyway. If you buy it or you don't, that's available for everybody download and you can have that anyway if you buy it or you don't that's available for everybody so you can have that check that out and then uh if you want to hear some awesome music and connect with me in that medium you can go to my website it's srimatimusic.com s-r-i-m-a-t-i music.com you can listen to my whole album and download via Bandcamp on that site, read all about my story, my extraordinary experience with my sons, I actually just

received a long email from a gentleman today, I don't know, requesting that we do an entire show on my music and so I hope Rich says okay Rich says okay and so hopefully we'll do that and play some more music for you and just really share that experience that came to me

as a result of the humming meditation. Oh, that also reminds me. So also the music's also available on iTunes, Srimati Music, if you check it out. And then we have a meditation program. For those of you who have never meditated before, or those of you who are looking for some new meditation juju. We have a program that's called Jai Release. It's approximately 30 minute guided meditation, which leads you through different

steps of accessing the deeper communication of your heart. Right, it's a series of MP3s and then also a PDF that kind of explains how it works and how to do it. All right, beautiful. But you do have to do it, right? Just like I said. Yeah, you have to do it. That's the thing.

You can put it on your iPod and walk around, or your iPhone, and walk around with it and not play it, but that's not going to really work. No, you can't do that. No, but the thing is you can do it any time of day. I mean, it's best to do it in the morning or sunset time or before you go to bed, but you can really do it any time,

and I really recommend that you just make a commitment to do it for 40 days. Just say, I'm going to do it for 40 days. It's 30 minutes a day, and at the end of 40 days, email me and tell me what shifted in your life. Please share. It's the holiday season.. And at the end of 40 days, email me and tell me what shifted in your life. Please share. It's the holiday season. You got the new year coming up. It's time to make those changes, make that list, those resolutions. I hate that word,

New Year's resolution though. Yeah, that's true. It's sort of like, oh, it's the new year. So I guess I got to make that list and blah, blah, blah. Because it goes to what we were talking about the other day. You change when you're ready. You change when that moment occurs. It's true. It's true. But in the cycle of life. But you do always have that.

You do always have the power to change at any moment. You don't have to wait until the new year. You can decide now. You could do it today if you wanted. But actually, the- You sound like an infomercial. Actually, the- Act now.

The planetary cycles, though, when you look at just the year and the seasons and the way things flow just naturally is, yeah, this is sort of a culmination. You know, everything sort of comes to a death at the winter solstice. And, you know, we have the Mayan calendar actually coming to completion on the 21st of December. There will be no end of the world. Everyone relax. But there is definitely a death of the old way of living and the birth of a new one, which is why we are so blessed and honored

to be sharing this kind of new paradigm and excited to connect with all of you who are experiencing the same thing and contributing your own version of rising up and shifting into a higher way of being. Yeah. And cool stuff on the horizon, too. We have the vitamin B12 supplement that's getting ready to rock, and then that should be out soon. And we're going to be putting together some pretty cool premium video content and free video content.

We're working on, I'm getting a lot of emails from people about the cleanse. They read Finding Ultra and in that I talk about the juice cleanse that I did and I put in the book and in the appendix, see this link on Jai Lifestyle for our detox cleansing program. Because at the time that I was writing the book, I was intent upon having a program and some products available for people who want to do, you know, have that experience that I had. What I underestimated is just how tricky and challenging it would be to get a product like that to market, particularly the way that we wanted to do it with some herbs and all these sort of stuff. And there's a lot of regulatory stuff that comes in. And it just became, I got so busy with traveling around with the book and the marketing before the book coming out that I couldn't devote my full attention to it. And it became this Byzantine thing thing and it just didn't happen. So for all the people that are emailing me, like,

what about the cleanse? You know, you said that you were going to have this cleanse or whatever, and it didn't come to fruition. Well, we are finally addressing that. And what we're going to do, what we're getting ready to do is to actually film a whole series of videos that will take you through one of these fruit and vegetable juice cleanse procedures over a six-day period. And they're going to be able to do the cleanse with us, right? Right, exactly. We're going to do it at the same time. So we're going to do it. So we're going to support and we're going to experience with you. So it's going to take you through and tell you everything you need, all the products you need, all the ingredients and what you do like basically each hour of every day

and what you can expect to feel and how to help navigate all that and all that kind of stuff. We're just putting it all together now, but it's pretty exciting. I think it's going to be really cool. And I think this is a better way of kind of addressing that need than just, hey, you know, buy this canister or whatever. No, we wanted to do something that was very conscious and, you know, very safe and very, you know, kind of like your, you know, go slow to go fast, basically. Okay. There's a lot of stuff that needs to be rebalanced and it doesn't matter which system you have. But the other thing is, is if you're, if you've already gone plant strong and you've been plant strong, you know, we all know that cleansing, you know, a few times a year is extremely healing. So, you know, you can do it

whether you're a first timer or whether you're already, you know, you're already living the lifestyle. So anyway, we're just, we're excited to do it with you. It'll be really supportive and I think really interactive. And, you know, we want to hear all your stories and how it is for you, and we can all support each other. I think the idea is that along with these video pieces, we want to create community around it and community that we can interact with and mutually support. We can support you, and then you guys who decide to do it can support each other in a safe and productive, positive way.

So we're getting ready to kind of move forward on getting all of that together. It's a big project. It's actually a bigger project than I thought. I was like, well, what's the big deal? Let's get the camera and start rocking it. But in order to do this right, yeah, I'm realizing there's some complicated things to this.

So I'm always impatient, and I'm always like, let's just get it done. But I'd rather do it right and deliver a really high caliber quality product than just rush something out. That's Jai, in the Jai way. That is Jai. That is the way Jai is.

All right, that's enough. Okay, so anything else? Is there anything else? Oh, let me think. Common Ground. Please go to the Common Ground website. Yeah, check out Common Ground. CGKawaii.net is the website for Common Ground. Please go to the Common Ground website. Yeah, check out Common Ground.

CGKawaii.net is the website for Common Ground. Rodman's got his little bio about him here. And if you happen to be in the islands, it's a must stop. You've got to come here. Yeah, you've got to come here and check it out. Okay, cool. Yeah, I think that's it. Subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy this show, tell a friend.

That's it, right? That's right. Subscribe on iTunes, you know. If you enjoy this show, tell a friend. That's it, right? That's right. Spread the word. We're enjoying this, and we're going to have another episode coming at you really soon. We're going to figure out about what. Yeah, well, I finally figured out

how to do the Skype thing. Oh, cool. So I woke up at like 3 a.m. So am I getting bumped for Sasha Gervasi, the director of Hitchcock? No. What I want to do is, I'm thinking of people that I could interview

that don't live in Los Angeles, because the people that live in LA, well, I'll just... Yeah, we're going to go back in January. We're going to get a bunch of episodes up. So I'll get those people down. But it's people that I'd probably have to Skype in anyway because they live in Washington, D.C.

or they live in New York or someplace that I don't anticipate being anytime soon. So that way I can start bringing you some dynamic, compelling people from wherever, whenever. That's exciting. And I just want to say thanks again to everyone who sent us an email or a message or gave us a great review or just checked

in and you know we're reading everything and it's been amazing and you know we feel you and we're with you and and uh we just we just appreciate it so thanks awesome awesome got so many great emails and messages on the social networks and all of that and if i didn't get back to you directly i apologize but i did read everything uh. Julie and I read everything together and it really touches us, so thanks. All right? Okay, it's getting loud in here. Yeah, peace.

Peace. Plants. Thank you. you