The Rich Roll Podcast - The Godmother of Wellness On Pioneering Healing and the Future Health of the Planet

Episode Date: October 29, 2013

After listening to this interview, you will never again rely on advancing age as an excuse for anything. Meet the unique force of nature known as Deborah Szekely — in so many ways, the Godmother of the Wellness Revolution, but also a tireless activist, philanthropist, writer, and friend of Presidents and Hollywood elite. At 91 years young, Deborah exudes the energy of someone 60 years her junior. In fact, I have met few people in my life that could match the drive, vision, commitment and boundless vitality she persistently demonstrates when it comes to improving the health and wellness of people across the globe. Let me paint the picture. Without Deborah, there is no Jack LaLanne. No 24-Hour Fitness, Gold's Gym, Equinox or Soul Cycle, let alone Canyon Ranch or Burke Williams day spas. In many ways, so much of what we take for granted as part of our daily health and fitness lifestyle experience can be specifically tracked back to the work Deborah and her husband Edmond started in the tiny village of Tecate, Mexico in 1940. Hailing from Brooklyn by way of Eastern Europe, Deborah's mother was a progressive raw foodist fruitarian and vice president of the New York Vegetarian Society. When the Great Depression hit, Deborah's garment business father moved the family to Tahiti, the land of abundant fruit, to live closer to nature — and persistently ahead of the curve. It's there that they met Edmond Szekely, a prophetic, highly educated and charismatic professor and author of Hungarian origin (then Transylvania) & Jewish heritage prone to long pontifications on the virtues of living in close connection with one's natural environment. In her late teens, Deborah became Edmond's secretary and ultimately his bride. They later settled in Los Angeles, but with World War II on the horizon and Edmond fearing deportation back to Eastern Europe due to citizenship issues, they decamped to Tecate, about an hour's drive from San Diego just over the Mexican border. Domiciled in a tiny cabin on a vast parcel of land at the base of a gorgeous mountain, in 1940 Edmond and Deborah opened their doors to the outside world — a summer camp they called Rancho La Puerta where visitors could convene for $17.50 per week, provided they brought their own tent. During the summer months, Edmond would lecture to groups on a number of topics, including the philosophy of The Essenes ; something he dubbed Biogenic Living; the ills of smoking (revolutionary at the time); and the virtues of a healthy diet, exercise and living close to nature. Bear in mind, this was decades before any of these subjects were in vogue. Not to beat a dead horse, but to say Edmond and Deborah were a step ahead is an understatement. Not enough? In his downtime, Edmond wrote books — over 80 titles all told — and printed them with his own printing press. Word got out about the interesting happenings of Rancho La Puerta. Hollywood took notice, and soon people like Burt Lancaster, Kim Novak, William Holden, and even Aldous Huxley could be found spending time at the Ranch. The Ranch quickly grew, and in later years, Rancho has hosted the likes of Madonna, Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Streisand, Martha Stewart and Arianna Huffington. The rest is history. In it's 73rd year, Rancho La Puerta set the stage for every wellness trend, spa and movement that would follow. Today the center boasts some of the best wellness programs, most beautiful facilities, finest food and appointed terrain in the world,

Welcome to episode 58 of the Rich Roll Podcast with the godmother of wellness, Debra Zayke. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. I am your host, I am Rich Roll, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast, where we sit down and talk at length with the pioneers, the leaders in wellness, health, fitness, entrepreneurialism, and all of those that are pushing the boundaries to help educate us about how to live our best, most authentic life. And today I have a very special guest on the show. Her name is Debra Zakey and she's 91 years old. And you might ask yourself, what are you doing with a 91 year old person on your show? I thought this was about forward thinking people. Well, I have to say that Debra Zakey, who joins us today, is probably one of the most progressive forward-thinking people I've ever met in my life. Fascinating, fascinating person who's lived quite an extraordinary life. How did this all come to be?

Well, Julie and I recently returned from a week at this wellness resort retreat center called Rancho La Puerta. It is a wellness-oriented spa just south of the border in Mexico, outside of this little town called Tecate, which is, I don't know, about an hour east maybe of Tijuana, not too far from San Diego. And we had the opportunity to go and spend a week there and present and speak in exchange for being able to hang out there, uh, for several days, which was amazing. I'd never been there before. I knew a lot of people that have spent a lot of time there and some friends that make a point of going every year. This is a, uh, sort of very well-known, um, wellness destination spa, I guess you could say and i'd heard a lot about deborah who is the founder and it's a fascinating story that we get into about how she founded rancho la puerta back in

1940 and essentially uh she grew up in brooklyn uh and her mother was a raw food vegan back in the 1920s, probably as far back as the 1910s, the teens. She was vice president of the New York Vegetarian Society. And when the depression hit, her mother and father moved their family to Tahiti where they lived sort of close to nature and hooked up with a guy who was sort of a professorial teacher with a little bit of a following down in Tahiti, a guy called

Edmund Zakey. And ultimately, Deborah became his secretary. And later they married. And through a set of circumstances that involved Edmund having to leave the United States, they'd settled in Los Angeles area. But the Second World War was on the rise, and being a Jewish person who had fled Eastern Europe, there was some sort of visa situation, and they had to get out of the country. situation and they had to get out of the country they went to the town of takata in mexico and sort of founded this little camp uh where they settled down and started having people come and visit them for 17 and 50 cents a week bring your own tent and edmund would sort of profess on wellness and living close to nature and over time they kind of built this little following uh on the heels of sort of some people in hollywood apparently edmund who is hungarian uh had a kind of following among uh some behind the camera people in hollywood who my understanding uh at the time there were a lot of hungarians

there and the word got out and before they knew it uh they had some notable people coming down to this place that they had dubbed rancho la puerta to spend time people like william holden and kim novak and burt lancaster and even aldous huxley so it developed quite an interesting uh sort of little universe down there that ultimately became the wellness retreat center known as Rancho La Puerta, which has been around since 1940. And in many ways, Edmund and Debra were professing wellness in a way that was kind of maverick and revolutionary at the time. I mean, this is long before Jack LaLanne and maybe Jack LaLanne wouldn't exist had it not been for Edmund and Debra and all the gyms and the spas and the resort centers and the massage sort of places, the sort of day

spas that you can go to, all kind of are, you could make the argument, an outgrowth of what was going down in Rancho La Puerta, which was essentially the first true wellness destination, It was essentially the first true wellness destination, spa-oriented kind of vacation spot in North America. Certainly, they didn't invent it. I mean, this goes back to the Greeks or maybe before that. But really, they kind of ushered in this sort of advent of wellness in the United States and have been doing it for 70-plus years. in the United States and have been doing it for 70 plus years. And Debra, who's now 91, is as lively and together and with it and present as I can imagine anybody at that age. I mean, incredibly sharp and vibrant and healthy looking. Her skin is amazing. She doesn't want any help. She's marching around all over Rancho La Puerta and greeting everybody and really still very, very committed to this path of wellness and to getting people healthy. She's far from retiring or quitting and is

onto her next venture, which is trying to create a lobbying group to butt heads with big ag and big pharma in Washington. She spent 17 years in Washington, D.C. running a federal agency. She's rubbed elbows with most of the past presidents and is very connected at a very high level with a lot of fascinating, interesting people. She's lived an incredibly robust dynamic life and has seen a lot and been through a lot and lived through a lot. And, you know, really all of us who are interested in wellness owe her a debt, a great debt of gratitude for all the hard work that she has committed her life to, um, to manifesting. And she's a powerful force of nature. What she's built at Rancho La Puerta is quite astounding. It sits on thousands of acres, incredible facilities, yoga rooms,

all kinds of fitness and exercise rooms, all kinds of programs for people that visit there to engage in. The food is amazing. The staff is insane. And it was really a treat to be able to spend time down there. And Deborah also is the person who founded the Golden Door, which was kind of the first sort of one of those celebrity, you know, sort of celebrity-oriented wellness spas where the stars would go to, you know, trim down and

get healthy before a big role. And she's never quit. You know, she's still at it as vigorous as ever. And so it was a treat to get her to sit down and talk to us. I wasn't sure it was going to be able to happen. She's very busy and doesn't live down in Rancho La Puerta. She lives in San Diego. She comes down once a week. And she made a special trip to come down later in the week just to sit down with Julie and I and have a chat chat so i feel very honored that we got to spend this time with deborah and i truly and hope hope that you uh enjoy this interview um i found her to be

incredibly inspiring and i think that she has strong powerful words of wisdom for all of us and even if you already know it it's nice to be reminded. And just heartwarming that somebody who has committed their life for so many years to this movement is still at it with as much vigor as ever. So anyway, that's it. Before we get into the interview, a couple quick show notes. Want to support the show? Many of you have. I really appreciate it. The show continues to grow.

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We have Plant Power t-shirts coming out soon. It's taking a little bit longer to build out the store on the website and get all of that functioning, and I didn't want to put the shirts up until we know that we have that completely sorted out. So it should be done, I don't know, next couple weeks, something like that. We're going to offer a bunch of different kinds of t-shirts.

Very exciting, and new products on the horizon. So stay tuned for that. If you want to learn more about plant-based nutrition, go to mindbodygreen.com and check out my ultimate guide to plant-based nutrition. Julie and I take you through everything you need to know to get more plants in your life, whether you're a longtime vegan

or new to the idea of eating a plant-based diet or maybe just want to educate yourself a little bit more about how to dial in your nutrition. It's three and a half hours of online video broken down into five to ten minute little chunks. Watch it your own time. Figure out the parts you want to learn about. Go in the order that you like. And there's an online community there where you can ask your questions and we interact with you. I'm really proud of it. So check that out. Go in the order that you like. And there's an online community there where you can ask your questions and we interact with you. I'm really proud of it. So check that out. Final, final note, there's a little bit of audio buzzing during this interview. I have all the audio engineering stuff sorted out when we're in the studio, but sometimes when we go on the road, we run into a little bit

of technical difficulty. Hopefully it's not too distracting for you. little bit of technical difficulty. Hopefully it's not too distracting for you. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care. Especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem.

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Thanks so much, Debra, for taking the time to sit down with us. I really appreciate it. And it means a lot to us that you would carve out time out of your busy schedule to chat with us. Well, I read your bio and I'm blown away. I read your bio and I'm blown away. You've done quite a few amazing things in your lifetime. I can't wait to delve into it. I've had a lot of fun.

You have. We were talking about, before we were recording, we were talking about this book that you wrote called Setting Course, which is essentially a roadmap for new members of Congress to set up their office. And it's become, how long ago? When did you first write this? I ran for Congress in 1982.

In 1982, right. You didn't end up winning, correct, but you learned a lot about the process? In the long run, I won a lot by not winning. You were better off not winning, I think. We're all better off that you didn't win. But in the process, as a businesswoman, I wanted a manual. I wanted something to read. You know, there was absolutely nothing.

It was not prehistory of man. Books had been around a long time. There was nothing about running an office. And I was amazed. And so the first thing I did when I lost, I told my kids I'm going to Washington anyhow. And incidentally, my promo materials when I was running said I wanted to bring management to Congress because I had so many friends in Congress,

and they would ask me questions and say, Deborah, what do you think about this, or do you have some advice on this or that over the years because I had helped them get to Congress. this or do you have some advice on this or that over the years because I had helped them get to Congress. Anyhow, I told my kids, I'm going to go to Washington. And in my race, we'd spent $100,000, which was a lot of money at that time. My guests were very generous and everybody was supporting me. And I said, I'm going to take, and we have a small foundation and a hundred thousand was almost all it was in it. But since I had put the money in the foundation, I thought I could use it. And I said, I'm going to Washington.

I'm going to take a certified check of a hundred thousand dollars. I'm going to find a university who will take my money and give me a political science department and a professor and a bunch of graduate students and we're going to do a management manual for congress and so when i got to washington i looked at the telephone book the first one was au american university I met with the president. I said I would check for $100,000. Far be it from them to not accept this money, right? And for the first four editions, they published the editions as well. Right, and so they continue to update it?

It's updated all the time. We have staff working full time because every new Congress that is going to have turnover, we have a new addition. Right. And so essentially every new member of Congress reads this book or has their staff at least read this book to figure out how to establish their office and run it effectively. They read it. It reaches them the day after election. And there's always a 10-day or something gap, and most of them read it at that time.

And I have a cute anecdote. The woman, this goes back 20 years, but my age, 20 years is not a long time, but the lady whose husband was killed on the Long Island Railroad, I can't think of her name. She campaigned in tennis shoes. She was quite a character. Anyhow, I met her. I'm always invited to meet the freshman class,

and if I'm convenient, I do that. And she said, and she told me, and then her chief of staff told me the same story. They went to take a few days off in Puerto Rico, and they brought it with them to read while they were laying in the sun or something. And she woke up at night and wrote a letter of resignation because she said it was too complicated. Too complicated?

Yeah. Wasn't going to be able to do it. The chief of staff talked her out of it. Oh, no. Because usually the campaign manager becomes cheapest app, and they don't know much more either. That's funny. And it's supposed to make it sound easier, right?

Well, no. It's supposed to explain how complicated it is. Right, but to provide a roadmap for actually achieving that. Well, just one of the many, many amazing things that you've done in your lifetime. I mean, I want to talk about your time in Washington, but let's go back to the beginning a little bit. I mean, you know, you are the godmother of the wellness revolution

and the original wellness pioneer in so many ways. And so far ahead of your time, you know, here we are sitting at Rancho La Puerta. It's Julie and I, it's our first visit here. We certainly knew about it. My parents have been here many times and so many people that we know have spent time here. It's our first, uh, it's our first time actually visiting. And we're really just, you know, enjoying it and I'm really enjoying learning about the history of the place and how it was founded back with your husband back in 1940.

And what that must have been like back then to be a wellness pioneer when, I mean, now wellness is very hip and everybody's into wellness. But what was it like back then? but what was it like back then? Well, the ranch was, you know, you hear necessity is the mother of invention. We started a health camp. My husband was, in a small circle, a very well-known philosopher.

And we were living in Hollywood and he was teaching and lecturing and had a number of students and we got a letter from the Romanian Embassy telling him that if he were to report back to his regiment. Because when you went to the university, you marched for two summers for two weeks. And you were in the reserves. Voila, there you are. Anyhow, there were only two Jews in his graduating class,

so that was not much of a problem for most people. But he, they didn't pay any attention that he was Jewish or this or that. They was ordered him to report to his regiment in Romania. At the same time, they were marching Jews off to concentration camps. So he ignored the letter, and we really weren't too uptight. He was married to an American living in the States, and then we had two, three more letters, and a little unhappy, but not that much.

Then came one saying his passport has been canceled and an order for his arrest has been issued. He's a deserter. And we were pretty unhappy, but we didn't fall apart. And then we got a letter from U.S. Immigration and Naturalization saying if he was found in the United States June 1st, 1940, he would be arrested and deported back to his country.

That got us moving. Right, time to get out. Yeah, we had no choice. So he was a Jewish immigrant from Romania. Actually of Hungarian descent. He was totally Hungarian. He came from a country called Transylvania. Yes.

And that is a very controversial thing. It was Hungarian for hundreds of years, and his spoils of war during World War I was given to Romania. And you had met him originally when your family had spent time in Tahiti, right? Five years. Right. So you lived in Tahiti as a youngster, although your parents were immigrants living in Brooklyn at the time, right, as a child. Five years. Right, so you lived in Tahiti as a youngster, although your parents were immigrants

living in Brooklyn at the time, right? And you were like 15 or 16 when you originally met him? No, I was 12. Oh, you were 12, okay. There was no connection. I'm a friend of my family. And just to kind of paint the picture a little more broadly,

your mother was vice president of the vegetarian society of new york new york vegetarian society and she from what i understand was essentially eating a raw fruit diet back in the 1920s 19 what we we were health nuts real health nuts we had nothing but but essentially raw things. Things like corn she'd dip in hot water and that was cooked. But I mean, or a potato. Right. I mean, that must have been outrageous at the time. But in Germany, my mother was Austrian.

But in Germany, there was a very strong raw food movement. Really interesting. movement. And she had friends. And a Dr. Welch who wrote the Seven Essentials of Health that she believed in firmly and he had recommended this diet. And my mom was a woman of action. And he told her all about it. He was her dentist. The first time she met him. She went home and threw out everything in the kitchen. I mean, actually gave everything in the kitchen away,

and we started from scratch. And you'd have liked my mother. Yeah, I think so. There's something in common. And they became health nuts. They started exercising and walking, and they were both plump, happy Jewish couples with kids

and suddenly the whole thing changed. Well, in any case, we were middle class, fairly wealthy, and we had a couple and I remember, and I went to school in the Bronx. We lived in Brooklyn, but there was a very special Montessori school in the Bronx because I'd learned to read when I

was four, so it threw me out of kilter because I was a bookworm and didn't do anything but read. But in any case, so I went to this school, and on our way back, sometimes the chauffeur would stop and we'd go to the docks and buy bunches of bananas and load the back of the car with green, you know, stems, you know, the whole thing of bananas, which we'd then hang in the furnace room to ripen because, you know, houses in Brooklyn had furnace rooms and coal, you know, coal bins and everything.

But in any case, so got to the stage, of the depression that the only thing available was bananas. And my dad had sold his business just before the stock market crash and invested in stock. And he had a woman's, what they called, cloaks and suits. And he was very depressed. Obviously, I wasn't aware of any of this happening. My brother, this wasn't

part of our conversation. But mom decided that my dad was really depressed and one of his friends had committed and jumped under a train. That was a tradition at that time, a way of committing suicide. And so she came home one day and said,

we're leaving in 16 days. And my dad said, where to? And she said, Tahiti. And he said, where's that? And she said, I don't really know, but here are the tickets. My brother and I both remember the story identically. Here are the tickets. So really the decision to go to Tahiti was really a response to the Depression

and it was an economic, financial decision. Yeah, and I do remember the Depression. I do remember the men standing in line for food. Right. And gray faces and gray men. Uh-huh. And then we got to Tahiti. And there was like a health camp there?

No. Or what was the plan? There was nothing. No, in Tahiti, there was nothing. I mean, did your parents know somebody that was there or why tahiti nothing mother had read something that the fruit was abundant that the trees were loaded with fruit and it was there for the picking i had no idea what she read because i wasn't you know i was seven years old i wasn't this appeal to her her raw fruit diet pensions.

Exactly. It was more than a pension. It was our diet. I mean, I'm trying to imagine what it must have been like living in Brooklyn during the Depression and literally saying, I'm on this raw fruit diet. I mean, now it's sort of hip and cool, especially Los Angeles or Hollywood, to sort of experiment with cool especially you know los angeles or hollywood to to sort of experiment with these kinds of things but i would imagine that would almost make you somewhat of a social

pariah we were uh we were i had some cousins who remembered coming to dinner and uh some of the comments i don't think they're repeatable in public. All right, so you ship off to Tahiti. Was the idea that you really were relocating there to live there, or was this going to be a visit? No. You left New York. My mother gave away everything in the house,

and people lined up a block and a half, and everybody first come, first serve. They took one piece home. And so we had no thing to go back to. She said, we are leaving, and had no intention of ever returning. And we took lots of steamer trunks with us. We weren't totally broke at that time.

No, we were never personally totally broke. And so Tahiti was, you know, and my dad was sort of, he worshipped my mom, and that's what she wanted to do. At that stage, he wasn't, you know, he was happy to have it North Star. And I think I heard or read somewhere that when you arrived in Tahiti, how old were you, 12 at the time?

No, I left when I was 12. No, I was eight. You were eight, okay. Seven or eight, seven or eight. But the world went suddenly from black and white to color for you. Technicolor. Technicolor. how why was that i mean what was it about being in this i mean just the pure exotic nature of being on a tropical island after living in new york the people as well

the old it gravitated to the old Haitian women and the legends and the tales and the stories. And they sort of, my brother and I became, we were the only sort of Anglo kids on the island other than the governor who had two boys and they disliked the governor so they disliked the two French boys. They didn't have too much chance.

And eventually one of the missionaries came and bought a daughter. But essentially, we were fussed over and they let me sit in and listen to their tales. I picked up Tahitian and French very, very fast. some people, and kids in particular,

have a knack for it. I would sort of trail around listening to their stories and so the first year I wasn't in school and it was unstructured and as a bookworm I had wonderful friends. I went to everybody's

library. I went through Zane Gray's library. I went through the people who wrote Mutiny on the Bounty. Both of their libraries. I mean, I had a ball just reading. And, you know, it was for a small child. And then because I would play a little bit with

the Haitian girls, but then the conversation wasn't interesting to me and I didn't know what they were talking about. Anyhow, and so it was a sort of paradise for it. And years later, many years later, Aldous Huxley lived much of a year on the ranch when he was riding Island, and the children in Island are my brother and myself. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And yet, we'd have this whole kind of... These are you. Uh-huh. And so, Edmund, when does he come into the picture? I'm fascinated by this guy. I can't wait to learn a little bit more about him. Well, if he walked into a room and there are 100 people in the room,

you know how sometimes some people have that magnetic thing? Yeah. You would turn to the door. And he had, he was, you know, I don't like the term bigger than life, but he had a presence. And a wonderful booming laugh that attracted people. You know, you turned to see who laughed, and he laughed, you know, smiling and happy.

And anyhow, but in Tahiti, to me, he was just a nuisance because he had taken, we had a particular swimming hole that we used to, some camp weekends are, and he had taken over our swimming hole to live on and build a house. So I really wasn't very fond of him. What drove him to come to Tahiti, though? My husband had an incredible background.

And he came, he was part of a French scientific mission, and they were studying migration routes through the Pacific. And they were with a routes through the Pacific and they were with the yacht called the White Heather and he stayed in Tahiti and he was interested in what they were doing at the leopard camp. He had done some studies and things. And he got involved in spreading the message of HealthNut.

my mother, so we first there was this man who took over our camp so we weren't too particularly pleased with him or anything. But my mom who had, used to go on 21 day fast, I don't recommend because then you begin to hallucinate and it takes quite a

while to get settled down again. But she believed in that when they talk periodic fasting and all that stuff, but 21 days really, it took three months to recover from each of them or four months. Wow. Anyhow, but that was her belief. You don't have too much influence on that. So don't go on 21-day fast.

Don't let it happen. Who was it we were talking to that was doing like 40-day fast? I don't know. No, well, juice fast. She would just do water, right? Just water. Nothing else. Wow, that's a long time. No, juice fast. She would just do water, right? Just water. Nothing else.

Yeah. Wow, that's a long time. Juice fast, forget it. Right. Because you're building bad cells every day. You don't have any building blocks.

The cells that you're putting in your body that are going to stay weeks, months, many months, are deficient. So it's not a good thing. Anyhow, we won't go into fasting, but we recommend

we could sit here and talk for a week, Debra, if you want. So we won't go into fasting. But in any case, so she had a rectal digestion. Everything she ate disagreed with her. Just everything from one

of the fats. And so people were talking about that he was healing people and doing all these things. So mom went to talk to him officially. And he had her go home to have something that she felt was sacrilegious. Oats and tomatoes. Rolled oats and tomatoes together. Acid and starch. I mean, it was just like, I don't know. You know, we were just kids and the thing. But in any case, she digested it and turned her digestion around. And she had gotten so alkaline that she couldn't handle anything.

You know, by this time, everything wasn't working. And it balanced her. And so she became, instead of Dr. Philip Welch, who she'd followed in New York City and Brooklyn, here we had now a new one to follow. Right. So Edmund's a new guy. Yeah right so edmund's a new guy yeah yeah he was a new guy and you know i i can just picture him i mean when you say he was a presence bigger than life i mean i

can just imagine that and julie and i went to the little uh museum here yesterday and which is essentially the little hut where you live for 10 years with edmund in the early years of rancho and on the wall are uh uh the covers of all the books that he wrote and the printing press he created in the little room where you lived with the wood burning stove and out back the sumerian baths that he experimented with. And I just imagine somebody who is constantly trying new things and experimenting and fascinated with health and how can we have a better human experience. But thinking way outside the box and so far ahead of his time, even today, many of the ideas that are put forth in his many books would seem almost beyond the pale or radical by today's standards.

So I can't imagine what it was like in the 30s with him trying to pontificate upon such radical nonsense. Well, don't say nonsense. Well, I mean from a mainstream point of view. Because I actually am very, very interested in... Apologies, except... Yeah, I'm not saying that I think it's nonsense. I'm saying what a mainstream society might perceive what he's trying to put out and misinterpret these ideas.

No, and some of them were cookies. But essentially, the respect for nature runs throughout everything. And the respect for things that you don't see or feel. There's more to the earth than to the world. And there's different levels of consciousness. It's being accepting, not necessarily saying it's so, but accept the possibility.

And he interpreted the teachings of Jesus differently and Moses. He reinterpreted Buddha and the thinking thought he spent a lot of time thinking and gave his own understanding, his own version and some of it today really sounds kooky because we know so much more

now through but some of the things were prescient I think it's quite prescient and I'm really interested in how he became interested in the Essenes. And I know Julie wants to ask a couple questions about that. And if you could explain a little bit about who the Essenes were, what their sort of fundamental perspective was. Yeah, I mean, I'm very interested to know

what your experience was and how you came to, you founded, it was a school for, a school of the Essenes at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah, so why don't you go ahead

and explain what the Essenes are. When we opened the first 10 years, it was the Essene School of Life. And the idea was the simple life, the basic life. In other words, he took advantage of the fact that we had no running water, that we had outhouses, that we had kerosene lamps. And it was interesting because it sort of dovetailed. In other words, it was then a choice.

It was not the fact we had a lot of business and we couldn't afford it. It's perspective, right? And so we were living like the Essenes with very basics. And we had goats that we milked in the morning, including the guests, and we had our own vegetable garden. And so in the morning, the guests at dawn would go, not very far up the mountain, there's a big, big rock, and they would stand over there and welcome the dawn

and had some ceremonies. So in some ways, it was his reconstruction, not a replication or something, but his reinterpretation of what it would be like in an Essene colony and so people had to read and study

that was part of it and so lecturing on philosophy which was his forte and the great wisdom of the ancients all sort of fitted into his concept of what an Essene colony was like. Now, the Essenes were one of three Jewish sects,

and they were the teachers, the healers. And theoretically, according to the Essene literature and those who read things, and beginning more and more from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jesus was probably an Essene, and John the Baptist was in a scene and David was in a scene, that that whole movement came. But, I mean, who knows? But the Dead Sea Scrolls corroborate a lot of these things.

And it was very exciting. And I read everything on them. If I didn't have the ranch and kids and this and that, I would have wanted to learn Aramaic and learn more about the scenes. It's fascinating. And I know that a big kind of sort of recurring theme in your life is this idea of synchronicity

and how things sort of come into your life at the right time. And we're sort of experiencing a little bit of micro-synchronicity right now, just being here. I mean, we feel like there was a sort of force or tractor beam that pulled us to Rancho. It's been trying to pull us for a long time, and now we're here. And I hope it continues to pull you. Oh, I think it will. I think it will. I mean, it's such a blessing to sit here with you.

But on a little kind of fun, interesting little story of synchronicity, Julie, why don't you tell that story? No, well, I have great interest in the Essenes and studied them years, years, years, years, years back and have had a very sort of visceral connection with them. And I've often said to Rich that I really felt that he is of that lineage. And if you read like a 12-step program, for instance, it's very similar in some ways in the service. Another thing that I read about these scenes is that they went barefoot. And Rich is meant to be barefoot. He should never have shoes on his feet ever. He's just not designed that way.

And what's really interesting is we have a new friend who actually read Rich's book, and she's a master gardener. Her name's June. She lives in Malibu. We've spoken about her on the podcast before. But when I met her, I gave her my entire spiritual library, which wasn't that much because I had already purged it some years ago, but I gave her some really beautiful books that I had and she gave me one book back. And I've done a couple of liver cleanses with her and we sit in her garden and she gives me fruit from the trees and she reads to me out of this book that is one of your husband's books but I didn't know it until I walked into the museum and it was just really quite beautiful and again the reason she resonates to it and the Essenes and the way of the Essenes is the

connection to nature and so that's where we're, you know. And that's still, that's what the ranch was all about. Right. So the ranch sort of emanates out of this idea of connecting with nature and the Essenes and developing a deeper sense of personal health, but when does it sort of open up to the public? I mean, Edmund is lecturing three hours a day to groups of people that are coming down here.

I mean, how does the kind of following start to develop? Well, when we came here, we had had a final check from his publishers in England of a thousand pounds, which at that time was a couple thousand dollars. And they said, this is all, we can't send any money. We were living from his money from his publishers. And so we arrived here and we started literally a health camp. We had scheduled already, talking about synchronicity, we had a summer school scheduled already with 23 people

that were due to come to be with us for two sessions, three weeks and three weeks. But we were going to be in Elsinore, California. And we had leased a place called the Lord's Retreat owned by Victor and Manon C. Lord on the shores of Lake Elsinore. And we were, the professor was going to, and we called him the professor.

And I called him the professor as a child and I continued always throughout our life because everybody else called him the professor. And he him a professor as a child, and I continued always throughout our life because everybody else called him a professor. And he was a professor. I mean, you know, just wasn't. How did you say Edmund? Because that was the way he lived and thought. Anyhow, so when we arrived here,

we knew we had this possible income coming. And we wrote everyone and said, it'll be $17.50 a week, bring your own tent. And they all came. And the first year, everybody brought their own tent. And the second year, I bought airplane wing covers from World War I surplus wing covers because planes then were partly wood.

I don't know what a World War thing, but I assume because they had to cover the wings at night with these canvases. And so I made wooden frames and hung the thing. And I had them lined up. And when the guests arrived, we always had little Mexican boys wanting to learn English and getting tents and tips hanging around. And so they carried these.

People would go find a tree, and then they'd go, and the boys would follow and put their tent under whichever shrub or tree or view they wanted. And from that was so successful the summer camp, and that was an Essene life, as close as my husband could imagine a workable schedule, et cetera. And the river was clean then, and it was a real river. And so we had the essences of a spa.

We had water. We had the mountain to climb, and we had the sun. We have a fabulous climate. We literally have the finest climate in the United States in Southern California. And so when winter came, afterward, they wanted to come back. So we rented some, there were a few little adobe shacks around that had basically been resided,

residents of rats and mice for many years. But we cleaned them up and whitewashed them. And first we had two guests and four guests and six guests, and gradually, but there was never any intention of staying we were leaving we were going back to england this was still your your way of getting out of dodge right with because it's the idea that my husband was head of the british international health and education center in leatherhead surrey and he was on leave of absence when this all happened. And he was in Mexico writing books.

And then we, that's a long story, and I was his secretary, and then we got married, et cetera, et cetera. What happened, just briefly, when I was 16, I graduated from high school. And I was going to go to college, and Mom said it was too early. She wanted me to have, today they call it a gap year. Now it's a legitimate term. But at that term, she wanted me to wait a year. So when we went to visit the professor in Guadalajara,

his secretary was packing. And the professor was a true professor. He loved doing nothing useful. In other words, he couldn't type, he couldn't balance his checkbook, he couldn't get a railroad ticket. I mean, he enjoyed, he always had an entourage, he always had assistance. So his secretary was leaving because his father had died and he had to go back to India.

And so the idea was that we would wait two weeks, my mother and I, my dad, and we had come for Christmas to India. And so the idea was that we would wait two weeks, my mother and I, my dad, and we had come for Christmas to Guadalajara, Mexico. And my dad and brother went back. My brother had to get back to school. My mother and I waited two weeks until the secretary was going to arrive here and found somebody who was coming.

And there was a young man called Bela, blonde, Hungarian, looked around Guadalajara at that time and got on the same train that he got off. The train had a two-hour wait in Guadalajara on the way to Mexico City and disappeared. And so Mavic didn't have the heart to leave the prof alone. And she wondered to me, and she said, well, why doesn't Debra be his secretary?

So I stayed there for a year, and that's where the connection started. Right. And so when you're at the beginnings of Rancho and you're having these summer camps, I mean, there was no such thing as a spa. The idea of a spa. We didn't have the idea of a spa. and eating foods that are being harvested out of the ground and experimenting with Sumerian baths and doing all of these sort of health rituals that I think were kind of counterculture at the time, were they not?

Well, counterculture sounds like group two. We were just individuals. Right. But I mean, now we're very health-obsessed as a society, as a culture. But that was not kind of the tenor of the time, was it? I mean, the idea of sort of being healthy and... But the people we attracted were mainly Europeans. Mm-hmm.

And they had already, you know, they never did abandon health ideas. They had health camps. And when I was a child in New York, we used to belong to a hiking club, and they went hiking on weekends in the Catskills. They were mainly Germans, but they were already into fitness. And some people said out of those clubs and which were all over europe was how hitler got his strength was through the bond youth people who belong to the hiking club interesting

um so so mostly a european layer to the people that were coming down and they were all european all european but at some point you tap into this kind of Hollywood subculture. The European. They bought the European Hollywood. The Hungarians in Hollywood adopted us. And to them, it spread. So before you know it, And through them, it spread. So before you know it, you have people like Burt Lancaster.

It took a while. It took a while. Who was the first? Okay, now the first 10 years. I want to know how this worked. $17.50 a week became $25 a week, became $35 a week. After 10 years, and I have ads, we were $9 a week. So it was very slow the first 10 years. You're advertising in like the LA Times?

Yeah. Little bucks, which took a lot of money. It wasn't then very much money, but basically word of mouth. Because Hungarians are clannish. Here was this Hungarian stuck below the border trying to eke out a living. Why don't we go there for the weekend? And then, because there's so much need in Tikati and everything,

they would bring... People used to have rumble seats, you know, and they would load it with blankets and things for the poor people here. So they would come for a weekend and take things into Tikati, and it was a good experience. Right. So there's this idea of the other Hungarians saying,

let's support this Hungarian. This is an interesting thing that's happening. That was very important to us. That was very important to us. And so there was that connection. And so Bert heard about it through one of the set. Let me explain just briefly. You know, the film industry started in Hungary.

And it all came from there. There's where all these people came who started in Hollywood. And they all came from there. That's where all these people came who started in Hollywood. I didn't know that. And Hungary is the source. I feel like I should know that, but I didn't know that. They had the great theaters. And the theater was very, very strong in Hungary. And the early film industry started there. And so the background of the great names,

so many of them came from Hungary. Anyhow, so all the people, not the great actors, all the other people, some of the directors, a number of them were Hungarian, a number of them were Viennese, they all came from that circle. And so all the people who did the work, I don't want to say grunt work. Behind the camera.

Behind the camera. That's the better term. All the people behind the camera were Hungarian. And one would tell another. And so the stars would hear about it. And that's how Bert came. And that's how Bill Holden came. They all heard about it from listening.

Interesting. From the chatter. I just went down to Ducati or something or other. And that's how. So, and then at some point Vivian Leigh comes down, right? And this becomes, this begins the process, and correct me if I'm wrong, this idea of kind of being the place. You become sort of the go-to person and the go-to place for these starlets

who want to get in shape for their next movie. Well, people like Kim Novak was a regular, and she wasn't a starlet and everything. And Barbara Rush and various, you know. But it came from listening to their… The Hungarians. Yeaharians talking about that. And so we had our own publicity agent. Right.

And our guests. Viral marketing. This is early viral marketing. Our guests have always been our marketers. They have always. They come home from the branch and someone says to them wow you've had a facelift and she'll say no i've been to rancho la pracha that's a common joke at the ranch right and uh i mean could you have imagined that i mean looking around to see the beautiful grounds and

all the buildings and and just you know what you you've built here. I mean, was that, you know, the just natural unfoldment of expressing this authentic lifestyle that you were leading or was this always the plan? I mean, how did this come to be? We were meant to be. We were meant to be at this spot. It had nothing to do with us. I really believe that the mountain, we have a sacred mountain. We didn't

know it was sacred when we came here. I always thought we paid $50 a month rent, but I came across some papers, we paid $50 per year rent. For some reason or another, I wasn't aware of that. And we heard the gossip about Mount Kuchuma, Sacred Mountain. And my husband said, you know, folklore. He had another term for that. And we'd been here about two years. And there was a major North American Indian powwow on our mountain celebrating the death of one of their spiritual leaders.

And we heard about it, you know, by the grapevine. And then we met someone who was studying the mountain. And people who believe in a series of sacred mountains throughout our earth, we happen to have one in our backyard. And sometimes I feel our success, sometimes I'm being facetious that the mountain was born and wanted to have something to watch over. And here came along these people. I have no idea why we succeeded,

except that we were needed. We filled a need. And that's the most important thing in life, is to be able to fill a need. And there's a gap and an opening, and we just happen to be in the right place, right time, right place. And it's not me, It's many, many people.

This is the work. I mean, you know, we're born on the arms of many happy guests, many happy workers, many, you know, I mean, it was just being part of the evolution of the ranch. It had nothing to do with thinking or planning. It just sort of happened. And the war made it possible because it isolated us. And we began, our first guests were people, refugees from, you know, British people, because my husband was known in England, and from South Africa, and from England, who were stuck in

the States by the war, and all kinds of stories connected with that. And so we were really an interesting enclave and from that that also added to our mystique and it became something uh exotic place to go and spend a week it became in a very small group of people it became special yeah i can i can see that i mean to to sort of harken back and think back on it and think well oh my gosh we have to leave the united states and go to mexico or this bad thing is going to happen and to there's no way that you could have predicted or foreseen that that was actually such an amazing thing like such a blessing that came into your life right i mean it's uh it's it's quite extraordinary i mean and now when when people say to you oh you're the you know you birthed the wellness movement or you're i mean how does

that sit with you and what do you what do you think more likely a midwife no no it was a lot of work a lot of dreams but that's what life's all about, work and dreams. Well, I mean, I think it takes a lot of vision and a lot of courage to live in alignment with your heart and what you feel is right or the signs that you get or the messages that you get. And I would say just being here for a week, your presence is felt very much throughout everything. And I know there's a lot of people involved, but you've really held space for an incredible gathering and healing and experience of all these people. How many acres do you have now? 3,000. 3,000 acres. We were discovering, we keep discovering more buildings and more extraordinary places as the week goes on. And your yoga rooms are unparalleled, the most beautiful rooms I've ever seen anywhere that I've been. And I had the great pleasure of going to the kitchen, La Cocina Que Canta. La Cocina Que Canta and it is extraordinary

the garden is on six acres and I met Salvador who is just a beautiful beautiful man and anyway it's really something so the kitchen and garden is totally credit to my daughter

I have a brilliant brilliant daughter and garden is totally credit to my daughter. I have a brilliant, brilliant daughter. You do. And she is a trained botanist and landscape designer and gardener, but she has a garden soul. It's very unusual. And she has, it's hard to put into words, but I'm very, very, very, very fortunate.

And what is your daughter's name full name her name her name is Sarah Sarah Olivia Olivia just Livia

Romanian Livia beautiful and she's also the art that you have art plays a very very

big role here and you it's very very beautiful very beautifully done. And tell us a little bit about that. It's hard to...

Well, for one thing, you have a series of sculptures that are all throughout the... All those are good fortune. The art that we have, one particular artist in particular, Piscina, who's wonderful. The art that we have, one particular artist in particular, Piscina, who's wonderful. I was in Mexico City, and I was staying at the Hilton many, many years ago,

30 years ago, 40 years ago. And the paintings were so cheap. And so I said, how many more do you have? And he went in the back room, and I said, I'll take them all. And then we established a relationship with the painter painter and he came regularly and would bring art and we'd sell it to our guests and we've sprinkled piscinas all over Hollywood and he's become very famous but but I mean but I like beauty so and uh and then the statues I was in Grand Rock at a hotel and they had a bunch of bronze statues in their garden. I thought, oh, how wonderful.

And I said, who's the artist? And they said, well, his atelier is just around the corner. And so go around the corner and meet a very wonderful man and establish a relationship. But I could only afford one statue a year. Because by this time, there was more. But every year, he would send us his portfolio, and we would pick a statue. And so...

His work is beautiful. Yeah. And so that's how that happened. But those things, you don't go looking. It just... Finds you. Yeah. Right.

I'm really very strongly... I believe there's angels that protect us and somewhere other they take us and guide us and do all that stuff i think you have to believe i mean when you look around here there's so many it's such an extraordinary place that it's impossible to not sort of ponder the idea that it's been divinely guided in some way to to be what it has i mean it's it's been here for it's been 73 74 years at this point yeah and really you know what we sort of understand and know of is the modern spa didn't exist this is the template from which all of that was born i mean this is the original that you you really are for you know whether you sort of accept the mantle or not you are the you are the mother energy of all of this that's

happening now and it's really quite extraordinary and beautiful and i think um you know i'm interested in in what you think about uh this sort of current explosion of wellness. I mean, people are very into wellness, and this sort of spa industry has never been bigger. And yet, as we were talking about at dinner the other night, we're the wealthiest country on the planet, and yet we've never been more sick. And when you look at the statistics, they're abysmal,

and they're heading in the wrong direction. Heart disease, you know, the incidence, they're abysmal. And they're heading in the wrong direction. Heart disease, you know, the incidence of heart disease is going up. Obesity, diabetes, cancer, all of these congenital Western diseases are getting worse. And so despite all of the efforts and all of the interest and all of the money being spent by people to get healthy or lose weight? What's going on? There was a book and a play called Cry, the Beloved Country. I remember that book. That's how I feel about our country. I can't begin to tell you because I read all the different new books coming out and all the different scientific things,

we not only are the sickest nation, we will be the sickest nation until the time comes that we start having natural food. I honestly believe that the fast food means fast death. And the poor people have no choice because of the farm bill that subsidizes everything that is bad. Subsidizes everything that is bad, makes it so cheap. And in relation, that which is good is expensive. And it is, you know, the educated people, most of them I know, you know, have a good diet. They're going to live longer. Their life is expanding.

The poor people's life. And the illness and the suffering. And we really, I mean, I don't believe that the body can recognize and assimilate properly food made in vats. I honestly believe that there is an aliveness factor in fresh food, very fresh food. And the people who are made and even born, some scientists are going to identify that aliveness.

that aliveness. The GMO, the modified wheat, when they fix it so it cannot germinate, or the germination isn't fertile, they're affecting the aliveness, the essence, the core, like the core people. So this is something, I don't know what we can do because it affects

the people who are not educated and the people you know the mother with four kids who can stop at mcdonald's and bring home dinner for 25 bucks yeah how do you how do you uh how do you combat that i mean it's a socioeconomic problem that becomes uh self-perpetuating i mean you cannot compete with taco bell and mcdonald's when they're farm subsidies and they can they can keep those prices as low as they were in 1976 1977 you know and you're telling somebody that they need to go to Whole Foods and shop, it's an impossibility. We're going to have to do community gardens, community greenhouses. We're going to have to start growing.

There's no reason. I always took my grandkids to Alaska. There was nothing fresh in any of the stores. Absolutely nothing. A few shriveled, shriveled carrots. I mean, you know, everything is boxes, bottles, and cans. We need to throw out all the boxes, bottles, and cans and go back to the original foods, the fresh foods.

And they'll say, well, you can't have as many seeds, you can't feed the world, all these stories. But everybody, every country could grow its own food. all these stories, but everybody, every country could grow its own food. We could help them send fertile seeds and plows and help them instead of sending sacks of things. Instead of being the breadbasket, every country can be the breadbasket, whatever it is. There is so much that can be done.

whatever it is, there is so much that can be done. And, but it would be, you know, the key is evolution is slow. And our body is burdened with too much new stuff that it, maybe in time it can develop the ability to assimilate, to get values out of the food. But instead, it goes straight to fat. And it's not the poor people's fault. It's all they can afford.

So the president is talking about the Farm Bill. They have to really scuttle all the different subsidies. How is that? They were created before the Depression and during the Depression. Yeah, they're a relic of a different era in many ways. But they've been around for so long, and so many lives are dependent upon that sort of staying in place. So how do we confront that and overcome that? But there's so many more lives that we have no choice, actually.

If we look at the decrease in health in Disha, we're now 40th according to some of the studies. We are the sickest people. We write more prescriptions per year than the whole world combined than the whole i mean that's insane and the amounts you know the according to the institute of medicine the average 60 year old takes six prescriptions the average 80 year old takes eight i mean this is a fact all right and before i want right. But let me just interject. At 91, tell me what medications you take.

I take a half a pill of Synthroid because about 10 years ago, my doctor said, your thyroid's getting a little bit lazy. He wanted me to take one. And I said, what if I only took half? He said, I guess that's okay. That's it. I don't take

aspirin. I don't take Tylenol. Multi-vitamin. Any vitamin. B12 shot, right? I take a B12 shot every month. Do you get a flea shot? No. No way. I happen to have a great deal of faith in the body's ability to heal itself.

And I've seen it proven over and over again in so many kinds. And the body wants to survive. It wants to live. It enjoys living. It doesn't really want to die. And it will do everything to support you, but you have to support it. You have to take responsibility for your body. It's, you know, and recognizing the importance of your body and your life.

It's so important. And then taking care of it. And you need proper kind of food and water and oxygen, which I use for exercise. Because to make the fire or the furnace burn, you have to have air, oxygen. We're doing everything wrong. But the biggest diabolical thing is what has happened to, indirectly, this worship of money.

And so they find the snack industry doesn't exist to this degree in any other country on earth. And they're busy expanding as fast as they can. And we're spreading this and everything. But the stomach is never given a chance to rest i believe in meals three meals and you know and pause in between so the stomach can complete its job and and clean up its mess and be ready for the next time it gets food we're just doing everything that when you think about it doesn't make much sense right and and I think change has to happen at different levels.

We have the individual's personal choices, so change at the very personal level. Then you have the change at the community level. You're talking about community gardens or greenhouses. And then there's change at the highest level, at the government level. And you've spent 17 years in Washington. You have a very attuned sense as to how it works inside the Beltway. How it used to work. Or maybe how it used to be. Things are getting out of control right now. Maybe how it used to work. I mean, you've rubbed elbows with all of our most recent presidents from Reagan, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton.

So if you were on Capitol Hill right now and were confronting this issue of the farm subsidies, or what kind of policy changes would you like to see happen that you think are doable? Now, for every member of Congress and Senate Senate there are a handful of lobbyists. The congressmen and the senators are so busy and their staff quite often aren't terribly knowledgeable and so they depend on the lobbyists and so it's so complicated the whole system that I don't know what And so it's so complicated, the whole system,

that I don't know what, but somewhere or other, someone has got to say enough. The food subsidies, the farm bill coming up, it started out very good until the lobbyists attacked it. The bill that we heard about a year and a half ago had a lot of good in it. And so the number one is the subsidies. And that would throw, if we just did that one thing, that would throw a monkey wrench into all kinds of things. People would stop growing all that corn and all that sucrose and all that, and the ethanol that is so expensive to produce and the soil that is being depleted.

We're going to have a dust farm like you can't believe the soil. You can only amend it with chemicals so much. It needs to have nature. It needs to have grasses plowed under. The Bible had us leave the fields fallow for every seventh year. And that was done in all traditions, not just in the Christian tradition. And there's so much sense. And what has happened, we're abusing the soil,

and we're abusing our people. And some way or other, in our educational system, we have to be teaching. That's why I say cry. Because I don't, I wish I could say I'm optimistic. I was optimistic. And youth are optimistic. And have to be optimistic. But when you've been around

in my age, what I've been trying to do is establish something called Wellness Warrior. I want to be able to bring together all what I call health nuts. I'm a health nut, so that's not a pejorative term. It's a positive term. There are literally millions of people who do take care of their health and do take responsibility. And I want to be able, my total fantasy is that there will be, and I may not be a lie, but I want to set the seeds for it,

that there will be a wellness march on Washington. I was at the Million Mom March. I was at these marches because I was living in Washington, and we could only march like one inch and one inch. It was wonderful, a crowd of humanity. I want to have it for wellness so that they know in Washington, that Congress knows that people, we have to go back more. We went too far.

We are living a culture that is not sustainable. I think it's how, I mean, I have, you know, I'm more optimistic about something like that happening, I think. I mean, I think that there's a huge groundswell. I'm not that young. Younger. The groundswell, I'm not that young. Younger.

There's a huge groundswell of interest in change. You know, I think people are fed up right now and they can see get obscured in the press, it's now a lot easier to kind of discover the truth about how things work and how big agricultural companies are lying to us or how we've been misled about health and nutrition. And I think people really want sustainable change. And I think people really want sustainable change. And I think, you know, this wellness warrior idea, what's interesting about it is you look at, we're talking about inside the beltway and how the government works and how sort of the house is beholden to K Street lobbyists and these, you know, private interest groups that fund these campaigns. And, you know, all of that is completely out of control. Well, are we going to overhaul that whole system? Well, unlikely. Maybe hopefully some legislation will get passed that will rein some of that in. But in the meantime, well, what can we do?

Well, you're going to have to play their own game. own game. Like if you want to, you have to create your own lobby that is equally as powerful and on equal footing with the powerful lobbying groups that are pulling these congressmen in the opposite direction. That's the idea. So your idea, yeah, your idea is brilliant, which is let's get all the best and the brightest together and let's get unified. I mean, right now, we were talking about this at dinner the other day too, that wellness can be so bifurcated. There's people that are only interested in the environmental aspects of it. And then you have the sort of ethical vegans who are interested in animal welfare or you have the people that are interested in organic farming.

It's very um it's very diverse right and i think you have to sort of look at the bigger picture and say well we all share this one common idea which is that there has to be a better way of harvesting and producing our food to create healthier healthier a healthier america and if we can just get unified on that, we could actually pool our resources and get something done in Washington. And you get people like Bill Gates or people that have real power and money

who are willing to support this effort on a global level. And I think you actually have the possibility for ushering forth real change. And you did, just briefly, you did mention animals. As long as those animals suffer, it's a blood on earth sketch. It is. You know, because they have feelings just like people do. They have endorphins and joy, and they're required to be a healthy animal.

And eating sick animals makes sick people. And I'm not saying everyone should be vegetarian, and I'm not saying don't eat meat, but they have to be out roaming. You see cows out in the field. When it's sunny, they go lie under the trees. They have their instincts and their nature and everything, and what's happening is they suffer from the instant they're born,

and I believe the meat is tainted by the suffering of the animals and one of the things that is getting us sick sort of like the revenge of the animals well they're suffering people are paying with their health yeah there's no there's no question about that in my mind and and you know essentially what you're saying is that that uh you know the food that you take into your body carries a certain energy. It has a vibration to it. And when it's fresh produce out of the land, that has a certain vibration. It's an elevating vibration. It's a positive vibration. of decaying, pesticide-ridden, hormone-infused,

terrified, suffering animal vibration that is having a negative... And it sounds, you know, you can... Without getting too new age about it, I mean, I truly believe that if you're taking in that vibration, that is having an impact on your health, the way you think, the way your body functions, the way you feel, the way you interact with the people around you everything i believe 100 what you just said that should be engraved

yeah and it's it's we've gotten so far away from that you know vegan vegetarian or omnivore or what have you um we live in a society in which our food is produced in an abhorrent way and animals are tortured on a mass scale and harvested in extremely unhealthy conditions and even when somebody says well i have my grass-fed beef or my this i think there's a misapprehension that those animals are living you know these lovely lives where in truth i think think for the most part, not in every case, but for the most part, even the grass fed, you know, animals are still just given a little bit more room to walk around and it, it really isn't qualitatively that much different. And that's just the way it works economically to be able to produce food at a

certain price point for the consumer. And we keep on talking about plant-based diets and you don't need all that stuff. You don't. I mean, you know, a plant-based diet is an easy way of sort of, you know, getting to the solution of all of these problems. And I think that we're at a crossroads right now where if we really do want to take a firm stand and try to reverse these trends, that adopting a plant-based diet is a pretty good way

of doing it because it puts a stop to a lot of these practices and starts to move us in a different direction. And it may sound radical, but I think that we don't really need to eat meat anymore. We choose to. But if my life has been about anything, it's about showing that it's just a choice that we make, that we can be perfectly healthy without it, but we just choose to continue to eat it for whatever reason. But for thousands of years, know the persians the indians well vegetarians whole nations they seem to survive very well yeah they're doing okay they're still persist yes

so i mean what do you think about that idea like if you could get like a lot of these sort of industry pioneers that i mean right now you have a lot of titans of industry pioneers that, I mean, right now, you have a lot of titans of industry who are very interested in this, from Bill Gates to James Cameron, the director of Titanic and Avatar to Biz Stone, the founder of Twitter, and these technology

industry people who are putting their money where their mouth is and are really rolling up their sleeves and getting active in wellness in a new and really fascinating way. But what if you could get all those people together to create your own super PAC, to go head-to-head with the dairy lobby or the meat industry or whatever

and bend the ears in Congress to start to pass some laws that could actually do some good for all of us that would be a dream come true but it will take something like that yeah we'll take the power of the people enough people who care enough that they don't know what to do with those extra billions we have good ideas of how they can use them rather than you know because they could come together and they could do exactly that the thing is to reach them in every way you can and you're doing that oh you're doing you're doing that you're doing that what i love about you is that i mean you're as active and as energetic and and as committed as as you ever have been and you're just you're constantly reinventing yourself, whether it's this project or that project.

And now it's Wellness Warrior. And you never relent. How can you? What's the secret? I've always said work is play. And I can't imagine doing anything else but working in something i believe in and my faith has given me great health and i'm so lucky and i appreciate it but i plan on being well for years to come the body is very acknowledges any good treatment

like acknowledges bad treatment. And so I expect it to continue renewing itself as it should do, as it wants to do. And you just have to take your body into your life. And I usually suggest first thing in the morning, people be aware of what's getting out of bed. It's their whole being. It's not just the job that's awaiting and this and that, but that acceptance of the body as their partner.

And they know that they have to walk, and they know they have to drink water, and they know they have to exercise, and they know they have to eat what the food body needs. Provide the body what it needs. Don't burden it down with all the trash. And I think there's no reason why people can't be healthy because the body has the ability to maintain that. But after a while, if you wear it down,

the wrong things year after year, disease does get the upper hand, and it's not necessary. Have you ever suffered from any kind of disease? Yeah, I had the traditional breast cancer at 60. Oh, you did, uh-huh. And I did have mastectomy. I just removed it. I felt my breast had betrayed me. I had no use of it. I was 60. I didn't mastectomy. I just removed it. I felt my breast had betrayed me.

I had no use of it. I was 60. I didn't really need it. My kids, you know, necessary. I didn't do reconstruction or anything because I don't believe in unnecessary surgery. So I just had it off. And because it's me and I had confidence in my body, I chose not, and it was not a very severe cancer.

I may have thought about it differently, but it was a sort of common everyday breast cancer variety and I did not do any chemotherapy or radiation and my doctor, who is now dead, begged me and pleaded and cried. And I said, no, my body, I'm going to be very careful of what I eat. I'm going to see that I do everything right and my body will heal itself. But that didn't mean that I just went back to eating casually or I paid more attention. And that was 30 years ago ago it seems to have worked yeah i think well i mean

you you uh you know for the listener out there you look amazing your skin looks amazing you're incredibly vibrant and present and uh you know i've never met anyone in there i mean i've met other people in their 90s of course but i've never met anyone who was so vibrant as you. So you're doing something right. Anyway, I care a lot. And I think the need to try to get something done is a very important passion. Everyone who talks about longevity or done any study,

you have to have a passion, you have to have a reason. I really have a lot to be done. I don't have time to get sick and I don't have time to get old. That's a luxury. And you don't have to buy that luxury. Right. So the one million wellness march on Washington is one goal. What are the other goals? It really is to get more, I want to connect all the wonderful organizations who are doing great things. They're working individually, they're all sort of siloed. And I would like

to bring together, I'm hoping through Wellness Warrior, to do like a USA News Today on our website. And we're redoing our website so this can happen, because it's wellnesswarrior.org. That we are redoing the website so that I can talk about watching the 27 or so really fine groups that deal with environment and with air and water and food, the agencies that work to protect us, to provide safe air, water, and food, and all these things. I want to connect them. I want to be able to bring them together, but to bring that knowledge.

When I meet people, I say, which of these organizations do you follow? And I find very few do. I want to be able to follow so that people know how much wonderful thing is happening. Environmental Working Group, Food and Water Resource, Food and Water Watch, and Food and Water Resource, but all these different organizations. I want people to know that there's a lot of good going on and to support them.

And so I would hope that in our thing we would be able to report on what's happening in what I call the health nut world so and it's a big world and to be able to talk about the positive things that are happening as well as the negative things and for people to know that you know we used to call do something called tithing in the church. Everyone was supposed to give 10% of their income to support these people. These organizations are doing wonderful things. And so if everyone would pick one or two or three

and begin just lots of people supporting them, then they can do more research, have more statistics, more information, and get it out. Because the knowledge is there. And there are wonderful books on the subject. And begin to look at it. And people look at this recent one called, that recent foodopoly, like Monopoly,

but the word food, which has charts and graphs that show that most of our foods are owned by a few companies. Most of the cattle slaughterhouses are a few companies. If everything is big business, we need to cultivate small business again. That small is beautiful line. That was so important in our culture in the 60s. We need to, on all, everyone has to become a warrior and decide that my health is worth fighting for.

Right. It's definitely an uphill battle, but I think that there are remnants of it that are starting. There is a real interest with young people in organic farming, for example, which is something that didn't exist when I was a kid. And now you're seeing young, educated people really pursuing that as something, as a trade, as a craft, as a life work. And I think part of it is fueled by a desire

and a search for something authentic, something tactile in our lives, because we've gotten so far away from that, and the young people are reacting to that. So the pendulum is swinging back in the right direction, I think. But when you're talking about confronting and taking on Monsanto and General Mills and Tyson and all of these companies, I mean, this is no small thing.

What we have to do is strengthen all that is good. The line of my husband, strengthen that which is good, and we were keeping a scale. And if we're keeping a scale, that which is bad will diminish the relationship. You can't fight them directly. And I'm not trying to do that, but we can strengthen all the people who are doing the good things and support them and help them. That's beautiful. I think that's a good place to stop it is there anything else you want

to add no just love your body i guess that's the best message be it is your responsibility your joy your pleasure or ignore it and it's your pain and we all have to remember that there are a lot of us that are with you. We are already wellness warriors. And Rich and I are with you definitely. And we look forward to our next step with you and to being a part of creating a new and better life for all of us. Thank you. Thanks so much for your time. It was really an honor and a pleasure. So I appreciate it. If people want to find out a little bit more about Debra and what she's doing and what's going on here in Tecate, they can go to rancholapuerta.com and the wellnesswarrior.org

is that up right now? Or that's under construction? No, it's up, but it's being redone. But it's still there and it's worth looking at. Yeah, and that's really the place we want to direct people to go, right? Alright, good. Let's make something happen.

Want to do that? Let's help all right all right thanks so much deborah you're welcome peace plants Thank you.