(calm music) - I want to open with a
quote from Thomas Edison. He said the doctor of the
future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs,
but rather it will cure and present prevent
disease with nutrition. Are we there yet? - We're on route. - So tell us about what you do at the Center for Integrative Health and Center for Integrative Nutrition. - So at the centers we have a broad based set of integrative
approaches to healthcare. The one that I'm
particularly passionate about among all of these, well I'm
passionate about all of them, but particularly about
nutrition and food as medicine. And we've been developing programs, clinical programs, research
programs, educational programs, community outreach on all
levels to try and really help create what we think is
the medicine of the future, which is actually the
medicine of the ancient past. - Yeah, Hippocrates said it best, right? - And Hippocrates probably learned it from ancient Chinese medicine
and Ayurvedic medicine. So this has very, very deep roots. - It's a perfect lead in. Tell
us about Ayurvedic medicine. I know you're a medical doctor, a Western medical certified doctor but you also have a big focus
on Ayurvedic medicine. And not necessarily everyone understands or knows what that means. - So yeah, I did my
medical training in the conventional Western medical model, and then got out into practice. I'm board certified in family medicine. So I practiced for many years, and realized I didn't
really have all the tools that I needed to help people. And my parents are from India. And so I knew a little bit about Ayurveda. I thought it was kind of home
remedies and things like that. Somewhere when I decided to learn a different way of helping people heal, Ayurveda really resonated with me. It's a mind, body, spirit
approach to medicine. So it's a thousands of year
old health and healing system. So it's a very
comprehensive healing system that incorporates many,
many different modalities. But really the foundation
in Ayurveda is that food is your medicine,
and digesting your food. And so there are lots of
quotes and different sayings in Ayurveda about how important it is to eat properly and have good digestion. And that's the core of your health. And then everything else is complimentary. But it's a really rich
medical healing system, that's really based on
prevention as well as the root. And then there are lots of treatments for health conditions when they happen. But really the principles
are based on prevention, and empowering people
to be their own healers. That's The thing that I
think that interested me when you and I first chatted
is that Western medicine often deals with the
symptoms of the problem, you're treating the symptoms. Whereas Ayurveda would
say that's number six, and we go back and start at step one. And I think that's really fascinating, thinking about prevention,
or perhaps if you're on a certain trajectory it doesn't mean that you're predestined to end up there. You can take steps in your
diet, and your activity, and eliminating toxins
and so on to change that. And I think that's really fascinating. Now tell us a little bit about what you do at the Gerson Institute. - Okay, at the Gerson Institute
we're a local nonprofit. We have another anniversary
actually celebrating. We're 40 years old this year. And we were developed as an education and training and information
and referral agency for the work to support people that would like to follow Dr. Gerson's work. He was trained as an internist. He was a neurosurgeon. He was a soil scientist in his own right. And he even, for a period of time, served as the agricultural consultant to the Prussian government at that time, and also the Bavarian government before he came to the
United States in the '30s. And he originally developed
the Gerson therapy to treat his own migraine headaches. And he did that through a
diet elimination program. And then that progressed and
developed to his using it to treat skin tuberculosis at that time, and then developed into
pulmonary tuberculosis. And soon after that, he
was asked to also try it for cancer, which he refused at first, because he said I know nothing
about that, and this is so. But he was starting to realize that he had a systemic program here. He came from the attitude
and the concept of totality. So he looked at everything. He looked at the air quality
issues, the water issues, besides the nutrition, it
had to be fresh organic. He developed of course,
individual protocols for people. But there were similarities. And some of the basics were
just like salt restriction, potassium enhancement, some
natural supplementation, protein restriction
initially and developed, continued to develop the program to treat very seriously ill people. So that's, we're now training
doctors around the world in cyberspace and the
tele education program, and expanding our ability
to help more people. So it's very exciting to see the interest coming from everywhere. Not just that it's
necessary to eat healthy, but that it can really be
used as a treatment for very, very serious illnesses
to bring the body back into total balance, and to move to a vibrancy, and a vitality of life. - It's been said that a food can either be the best
medicine, or the slowest poison. And so we have a little yin and yang on this panel today to
talk about both sides of that coin, because it's important. As we talk about what you should choose, maybe sometimes we have to talk about what you should not choose, and
depending on the discipline, or the focus that that answer may vary. But I want to use it as a segue
to my friend, Zen over here to talk about the work that you do, Zen. - Oh, thank you so much. Well, I'm Zen Honeycutt
for Moms Across America. We're a national coalition
of unstoppable moms. And our motto is Empowered
Moms, Healthy Kids. And we raise awareness
about GMOs and toxins, all kinds of toxins from
all kinds of exposure. And we offer GMO-free
and organic solutions. And through supporting local leadership, we are creating healthy
communities together in collaboration with many
different organizations. And that means offering free materials, supplies, training, talking points to go to City Council, or
join into 4th of July parades, or to reach out to your food
director at your school. And so I'm very excited to
connect with people from all across the country,
and now around the world. We have Mothers Across the World as well. And to see the results that
children are getting better. Our children are the most
vulnerable to these toxins, and they are getting better
by changes through diet. In fact my three sons, who were in the back,
are examples of that. They had life threatening allergies. My son almost died from
pecans in a stuffing on Thanksgiving, and also autism symptoms, asthma and autoimmune issues. And all of them have recovered through using food in their diet, eating organic, taking care of the gut biome, which I'm sure we'll talk about. And so I know that we
can do this as a country. We can recover our
children and our families, and we can turn around the food industry, and the health in our country. - Thank you. I know, John you also have
some background in GMO. That's in generally your
scientific expertise, but you also have a laboratory. Tell me a little bit about what it is that the laboratory does. What is it testing for, and
how does it work, and why? How does it relate to what she's doing? - Oh, very good. What the Health Research
Institute is designed to do, is to create transparency
in the food system so that everybody can make better
choices about the food they eat. That has to do with the good things, the nutritional aspects,
and also the bad things, the pesticides, the GMOs,
all of those sorts of things, the have the metals that might be there. And so what we do is we carry out testing, which then is used by
organizations, such as Zen's, and many others around the US to inform the public about these issues. And our belief are, and
we're very confident of this, is that when moms and
dads have better knowledge about the quality of their food they can, and they will make better choices about what they feed to their families. And that is going to
have a cascading effect all the way through the food system. It creates demand for better food. And ultimately farmers are going
to need to figure out ways. They're very creative and innovative, and ingenious individuals. And they're gonna figure
out ways to produce food without these nasty chemicals
that harm our physiology, and produce food that is
actually higher in nutritional value, because both of those
can be really measured, and connected with the
practices of agriculture. So that's what we're working on. Healthy soil, healthy
food, healthy people. - So we're dealing both
with the soil microbiome, the gut microbiome, and
sort of all of the effects that can have positive and or negative, in terms of overall health. Now, since we're in the dirt, maybe we ought to go to
the farmer on the panel. Tell us a little bit about how you got into farming from your last career. - So my name is Stephanie Norton. I'm the founding farmer of Dickinson Farm. This is nothing that my husband
and I ever expected to do. Nowhere we expected to be. If I follow my original
life plan right now, I would be finishing up in
Kuwait and heading back. I went to a deployment. Just prior, in our predeployment workups, I was on Sycomine Island
and I got bit by a tick. Military medical system is amazing if you've been shot, or have a broken leg. But anything else, they really
don't know how to deal with. So the medical system
looked at me and said well, you have a plane to catch, and we have a deployment to go on. So 10 months in another country, I was at Guantanamo Bay dealing
with the detention centers. There were days that I couldn't walk. If I stayed standing
I could stay standing, but anytime I laid down to go to sleep, I couldn't really move my body. And it just kept on
getting worse and worse. I came home and the attitude then was now I could
figure out what was going on. So I got bounced around to
a whole bunch of doctors, and then finally landed
with a misdiagnosis, which landed me with an amazing doctor. So I'm very thankful I had a misdiagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis
and the attitude was, it's okay 'cause it'll stop hurting when your spine fuses together. So we ended up with an amazing
doctor here in San Diego, who was considered the best
for ankylosing spondylitis, and was gonna give me somewhat of a life. That day I could walk slightly. And I came in and he
said, you don't have it. Pretty sure I know what you do have. We're just gonna take some blood, and we'll talk in a month. And in that month I got married.
We went on our honeymoon. And, I'm gonna tear up, about a week after we get the diagnosis,
and that day I was told for the next two years, you're
gonna be in an I.V. chair. And we're gonna start today. And I said no no, no no.
I'm on active duty military. I have to run up, I have to
tell my unit. I can't do this. And the attitude was
you'll be here Monday, or you'll be in a hospital. I had, my bacterial load was active. Typically in remission for lyme, your bacteria load is about less than 200. And mine was 27,000.
So I was a Petri dish. Undiagnosed in my tissues, my bone marrow. And we started I.V. therapy. And his thing, he's an amazing doctor, but he said you're gonna be mad. You're gonna go home and
do whatever sailors do. You're gonna drink, you're gonna smoke, whatever you gonna do,
but I'm gonna tell you if you watch what you're doing, and you don't inflame
your body anything more than what lyme is already doing, the medicine will work
better, it'll work quicker, and you won't destroy yourself anymore. Because I'm gonna kill your immune system. I'm gonna kill everything in you to get rid of this bacteria. So if you do this, it'll help you. And he's like, take a week,
be angry. I'll see you Monday. And we spent about three
months dealing with other, we did CSAs, we tried a personal chef, we tried all these things. And as a military family, we
were like we're gonna go broke. There's no way. My husband was on duty at nights, and taking me to treatment during the day. And out of desperation I was finally like, I said to my doctor, if I go vegetarian and just grow my own food, can I do that? Will you tell me? I don't
know how to be a vegetarian. Can you tell me what I have
to eat to get through this? And his answer was, you think you want to spend your time not
here, growing your own food. And I was like yeah, that's
personal, completely rational. He was like, don't let her kill herself. Do whatever you're gonna do. And my husband, and my cousins, and my dad built me some raised beds that
I could sit on the edge of. And in the evenings and weekends, I grew my own food with no experience. I'm from Orange County, my husband's LA. And we, it turned out very well. - You started a new program this year. - We did. - Tell us about pharmacy. I love this. - So with this we've been, we started farming in '14,
we went to market in '16. And then last year we were,
I was talking with nurse. And just how are you? How's the community? That type of thing. And when we were talking, I was like yeah, we're selling to our
community, our neighbors. And she reminded me, in the
way that best nurses do, that your community is the people that sat next to you for
two years in an I.V. chair. Your community is the people that, that had the same struggles. And don't forget that those people still sit there every day. And new people still fill their chairs. And they're who need your food. And we grow 100% heirloom. We don't take anything
that's past World War II. We only use very, very
little organic pesticides. And that's when it's just,
the load is too high, and we're gonna lose the whole farm. And in four years, the only thing that we've sprayed is organic copper. And we're really considerate of that, for my health and our customers' health. So after thinking about it,
and I reached out to Christina. We had worked together before,
and she does amazing work with heirloom greens
and heirloom vegetables, and they do cook differently,
and she can work with them. And I was like hey, I
want to do this thing. I want to get our food
in front of patients. And everything from the,
I just got my diagnosis and I can't even stand
up to cook for myself, to the hey, I'm doing well
and I want to get back to cooking for my family,
and everything in between. So we launched it, and it's been amazing. - Thank you. Let me ask you something, Gordon. It's been my understanding for a long time that nutrition wasn't sort of part of the required curriculum
for medical doctors. Is that still the case? - It's changing, although gradually. - Seems a little counterintuitive. I'm just a lay person, but. (laughing) - We got training in
biochemical nutrition. We all had to learn how to recite the Krebs cycle forwards
and backwards 16 times. But that has no clinical
practical application. It's found its way a little bit. They're teaching maybe a little more about the epidemiology, the
nutritional epidemiology of heart disease, diabetes,
some of the chronic diseases. - So how food relates to
those specific conditions. Don't eat this, eat that. - In some quarters it's just lip service. In others there is an effort to try and ingrain it into what
people do in practice. - [Michelle] How does that
differ from what you do? - We are fully focused on using food, either as an adjunct or as the
sole therapy for any patient, for any health condition
that comes in the door. - You have something
that I've seen, a pyramid of what's called, or what you
call, the therapeutic order. Most of us who've been to
the doctor, had a condition, we know that typically we're
told to take this medicine, and/or potentially have
this invasive procedure. That's not where you
start. Where do you start? - So years ago when my dad was sick, when he had developed cancer, trying to find a way to help him. And his doctors at Johns
Hopkins told my family that he would likely
die in less than a year. I realized Western medicine
didn't have the answer. And I just started searching, reading on the old microfilm machines in the bowels of Johns
Hopkins medical library. And I came across- - They still have those.
They do don't they? - I'm dating myself here. - Me too, it's okay. - My eyes bugged out when I
read the story of a physician who had healed himself of
advanced prostate cancer through a major change in his diet. And he was as skeptical as anybody, but he had this experience. And I found out him, met him, and met a community of folks
who are doing similar things. Part of me thought that
this is some kind of a strange cult that I'm slipping into, people who claim to be able to use food to treat all these diseases. And yet, when I started
to change my own diet to have a support for
my dad, I realized wow, I'm feeling better than ever in my life. And I then learned that all of
the chronic health conditions that we're facing, the epidemic diseases as well as the chronic
ones like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer all have
strong nutritional links, strong dietary factors. - It seems that food is
somehow involved with the top two to three killers
that we know of, diseases. How's that differ, or is
that similar to your work? - Yeah, absolutely. Again, it starts with the
digestion and the food. - What about digestion? 'Cause that's a specific
focus in Ayurveda. Tell us about that. - Yeah, it's very interesting because although food is the
most important factor. And in fact, I think I
had sent you the quote. There's an ancient proverb, and this is thousands of years old. When the diet is wrong,
then medicine is of no use. When diet is correct, then
medicine is of no need. So there is this philosophy
that you have to eat properly. However, and we see this quite a bit, there are a lot of people who are eating what's considered the right foods. And in Ayurveda we all have
different mind, body types. So I think that's where
people struggle a bit- - No one size fits all. - Exactly, yeah. And you really have to look
at everyone as an individual. The food should be organic, and non GMO, and from nature, and all of those things. And then how you prepare
it is very important as to how you're gonna digest it. - [Michelle] Whether it's raw or cooked? - Raw or cooked, and also
there's this principle of the six tastes in Ayurveda. In Western medicine,
it's very reductionist. We look at this one food and we say oh, that's carbohydrate, that's bad. But if you eat it with the
micronutrients that you need, and spices, and they don't
have to be hot spices, but just savory spices, that's what helps you digest that food. So there's this concept of how you're going to digest the food. Are you optimizing your digestion? And a lot of the foods are all about, now we know with science, which has been really
fun to do the science, that a lot of these healthy foods are shifting the microbiome. And they do most of the digesting for us. But in Ayurveda again,
it's the six tastes. So we focus on macronutrients, which is what we learned
in medical school, carbohydrates, fats, proteins,
how much do you need of that? Those are the energy foods,
and they're important. But that's one taste in Ayurveda. And the other five are all
about the micronutrients, and what you're putting
in your food to support your own digestive process,
so that you don't have to take other things to
help you digest your food. You're optimizing your internal
mechanisms for healing. And so when you combine
a little bit of sour, and a little bit of salt, and the pungent, and then the bitter and astringent, those are all the micronutrients,
then your body will- - This is all to improve digestion. - It helps you to improve the digestion so that you can extract the
nutrients from the food. And also there's this concept of synergy even in food science now where when you, one plus one doesn't just equal two. One plus one can equal 10, if you're combining
foods in the right way. There's this concept of food synergy. So I think that's what
these and a lot of other traditional healing systems recognize when a lot of ethnic cooking naturally has a lot of these flavors all mixed together. And that's what my mom did. She just knew what to put in the food. She didn't necessarily
know it as a scientist, but she was a food scientist,
right in the kitchen. And so any food you made,
you knew what to put in it. And then in my analytical mind, now I look at all these recipes, and I'm like oh yeah, it's got all- - There's a reason for it. - Yeah, and it's interesting
too that each of those tastes has a very specific
purpose of what it's doing in your body to help you digest. Because again, otherwise
you can eat healthy food and still not digest it, absorb it, use the micronutrients the
way they're meant to be used. And so it's very, it
can be very complicated. It's a very sophisticated
sort of science, but honestly it's the easiest way I ever
found to figure out how to eat. And it's fun. I taught my kids, these
are all the six tastes. And then we would look
at our food and say, did we miss one of the tastes? And sometimes you just have
to add one little thing, and it makes it a complete meal. And that's, again, optimizing
your internal healing. Because Ayurveda's all about using what your body already knows what to do, but things have just
gotten in the way of it. Maybe you're not giving your body what it needs to do the healing process. And again, food is key in that process. But also optimizing the internal mechanisms that we have for healing. So we, Gordon and I talked
a minute before the show. I brought a couple of kale salads. and I forgot that he had told me that it would be best to
cook some of the kale. I could have one raw kale salad, and one partially cooked kale salad. Because a lot of people
can't digest raw kale. I'm a big kale fan. I know
no one likes to admit that. But then you had a very
specific answer as to why it is. And so I was thinking
about, as you were talking, that people think I can't
eat that good ingredient. But it might be they can eat it raw, or they can't eat it cooked. Tell us a little bit about that, because you were just
talking about that earlier. - This really gets to what
Sheila was talking about, what Dr. Patel was talking
about, about the digestion. There's a concept in Chinese medicine referred to as the digestive fire. And they call it agni
in Ayurvedic medicine. And it really is talking
about the ability of the body to extract the good things from food, the nutritional components,
the healing properties, and to expel the waste product, and to do that smoothly and easily. And when we get sick, that
ability starts to weaken. And we end up not fully nourished, and not able to easily eliminate, and holding onto toxin and waste. And so the most foundational
thing you can do is to strengthen the agni, it's to build up the digestive fire. And sometimes when people's
digestion is very weak, you have to cook your food in
a vessel outside of the body. You put the digestive fire into it, in essence predigesting it a little bit, so that then your weakened
power of digestion can be aided by your cooking method. - That's also true of fermenting
and sprouting, as well. Those are sort of predigested foods, are easier to for the
body to assimilate, right? - Correct. - A little bit of breaking the food down before you ingest it
can help then the body, so it doesn't have to do as much. And then as that agni gets stronger, then you may find you can eat things that you couldn't eat when
it was not so strong. Although there are some
people, again in Ayurveda that just naturally don't
digest raw foods very well. And there are these kind of
different mind body types. And that might not be so good for them if they try to do that,
so it's very interesting. - I thought you raised something
very interesting earlier, Anita, when you were talking
about one of the things you do at Gerson is
reduced protein intake. And I know from my own research that Americans on average eat
about five times more protein than the World Health
Organization recommends, and still twice as much as
our own USDA recommends, nevermind that we also waste 40%. But importantly, I'm curious about that. Because protein is one of those things that for some people is harder to digest. So tell me why that's part
of what you do at Gerson. - Yeah, let me put it in the
context first of the fact that the majority of our patients
are very seriously ill. And I just want to comment
first about food, too. On the Gerson therapy, cooking methods are a very big part of it. And the food is cooked very
slow and low, and waterless. And a lot of people
experience it as being mushy, but that's that purpose of,
it's not only what you eat it's what's important,
is what you assimilate. And therefore, for a body that is stressed and already compromised to have that, like you say, predigestion done by that. So the protein is a temporary restriction during at least the first
six weeks of the therapy. Because we're trying to
mount in that patient, some healing reactions
and some strong detoxing. And then by protein, we mean
after six weeks there could be, for some people it could be
shorter, it could be longer introducing organic low fat yogurt, or some lentils, that type
of thing, so it's still- - That's an important
point, when we say protein we always tend to think
of animal products. But there are lots of vegetables
that have protein as well. - That's right. Yeah, and then also on the therapy, it's a tremendous amount of food. If a person's able to
tolerate the full regime, we were talking about this last night, it's 20 pounds a day of
fresh organic produce, but about 15 to 16 pounds of that is because there's such
an intense juicing regime. And so four carrot juices a day, four carrot apple juices a
day, and four green juices. The remainder of that is
still for three meals. - This is very different when, from you and I we talked a
little bit about official medical food, as used in Western medicine. And what that is versus
what she's talking about. Tell us what medical food is, not within your practice, but in general. - Well generally it's very precise, chemically defined
compositions, supplemental foods that are given to people
with a very precise, usually FDA approved definition in mind. - [Michelle] But bot real food, then, powders, supplements, liquids. - They're almost the diametric
opposite of real food. - It's sort of one of
those ironies, isn't it, that medical food in the
medical profession is not food? It's sort of like how vegetables, under the farm bill,
are specialty products. It's one of these things
that sort of boggles my mind. So yeah. - Honestly, the most healing
foods are the plants. The other foods that, and it's not that you have to be 100%
vegetarian, although there's a huge amount of data that shows that a whole food plant based
diet is the healthiest diet, as far as prevention of
chronic illness, et cetera. But if you do have some
sort of animal proteins, that should be a small part of
your diet, it's energy food. But all of the healing
foods are plant based. It's nuts, seeds, vegetables, fruits, a lot of the things that people think they have to cut out for reasons
that really are just myths. That's where the healing foods are. And we need energy foods of course, which can be from plants as well. But it's very interesting, the balance in the typical American diet
is swayed way over to meat. - This seems, I think a lot of people feel sometimes overwhelmed by the information, and the sources of information. How do I know what choices to make? What's right for me or my family? Is there an easy fix, or an easy source? Where does, and anybody please. Where does one go if they say
I want to do the right thing? And we're not talking about diets, and short term restrictions, except maybe in the case of fasting. But how do I know whether I'm eating the things that are good
for me, or bad for me? - It is so individual. Because, for instance, I was
directed to the GAPS diet when my son's had severe allergies, but one son was allergic to eggs. The other son was allergic to nuts. And the gaps diet has a
lot of almonds and eggs, and so that just wasn't gonna work for us. So I first looked at
eliminating the processed foods, taking things away, the
processed foods, the sodas, and the chips, and all of
the processed junk foods. And adding in fermented foods, because that's something
I could easily do. And with the fermented foods,
I had to give some gold stars for a little bit with my son
to get sauerkraut into him. But after a while it became
a habit at dinner, yes. So they are used to now eating sauerkraut with dinner almost every day. And one tablespoon of sauerkraut has a trillion good bacteria in it. And that's something that's a shift for a lot of Americans to think about. We think of bacteria as a negative thing. And we really do need
to reintroduce this idea of the bacteria and the
microbiome being our friend, and something that's
necessary to take care of. So I like to think of, okay first the easy step is to get
the junk out of the house. And if there's a parent
out there that says well, but my kid will only eat these foods. Well, that's because you're buying them. We are in charge of what we buy. We are in charge of what's in our house. We can put healthy food in our house. We can experiment with,
you can make healthy chicken nuggets, if it's organic, free range, pasture raised, all that. And you can also substitute
with other types of foods. So I like to start with
replacing their favorite foods with something that's
healthy, and adding in the fermented foods to help the gut. - Then you can also add them in in small doses to a meal or a dish- - Yes, and you can sneak
them in a sandwich. You can do all kinds of
things that are fermented- - [Michelle] Sneaky tips on your fight. (laughing) Kefir cheese, and yogurt, organic yogurt, things like that that they
do like, that they will have. You can sneak some good
fermented food in there. - There's an organization
locally, Olive Wood Garden. And they bring students in to plant, and then harvest produce. And then there were a
group of volunteer chefs, and I helped on many occasions. And we would teach them, prepare a food using that vegetable they had
just pulled out of the ground. And a lot of the kids
didn't know the vegetables, and didn't really want to try it. And I remember one of the chefs. Julie Darling would always
say there was a one bite rule. You had to take one big bite before you were allowed to say no. And I always think of that when I try to, usually it's my husband, try to ask him to try something that might
be green, or has kale in it. So there's the one bite rule. And then usually if
you've done your job well, then they'll actually like
it, much to their surprise. I wanted to ask you
something too, as a followup. Because some of your work
has been really focused on gene expression and how
that's altered by food, by toxicity, as well as obviously more recently also meditation. But as we're talking about
the way food affects us, most of us think calorie in calorie out, fat, carbohydrate, protein. We're talking a little bit
about within the family of carbohydrates there
are better and worser. So but tell us about, but
that's just for this moment, I think oh my goodness, should I eat the Cinnabon or the oatmeal? But more specifically, you talk about how, yeah well, okay sorry, oh we failed, dang. You talk about how it's
not just affecting you at this moment, but in fact
how genes express themselves, and this creates a trajectory. Explain that a little bit for people like myself, who are not science people. - So think about food as being, not just those
macronutrients, the protein, the carbohydrates, the fats. Think of them as intelligence, as information that
influences your physiology. And what we're, so food has that energy, and protein building is a value to it. But it also has this ability to give your physiology signals, move the physiology's functioning
in a better direction. And that's really what
happens with gene expression, is that you're altering things so that, and those gene expression effects, the effects on the way that our genes are being expressed can happen in seconds, and then go away in the next few seconds. If you eat that Cinnabon, there
are enzymes, there are genes in your liver that will
be turned on immediately. You will produce enzymes
that will allow you to deal with that Cinnabon, okay. For better or for worse. And it will have to do with accumulation of glycogen, and fat, and
all that sort of stuff - So not just affecting
you at that moment, though. You're creating a future path. - That's the point that
comes next, is that when you are eating a
certain kind of diet, it affects your functioning, your gene functioning longer term. Has anybody heard the term
epigenetics? Epigenetics? What happens with epigenetics is that when there's a certain
impact on your physiology, the effect of that can actually change the way that your genes
are chemically functioning. It doesn't change the sequence
of the genetic alphabet, but it changes the actual
ability of that DNA to be turned on, or expressed or not. And this effect can be longterm. In fact, these effects can be inherited, so that if there's an epigenetic change that occurs as a result of your diet, that can influence your son
or your daughter's diet. And when they continue, it
can go on to their children. So these effects can be longterm. And of course, they sort of you might, if you don't continue
the, what would you say? The stimulus that's giving rise to it, then it falls off in a few generations. But this is something that strongly affects the physiology longterm. And there's now evidence that this occurs with the
pesticides that you eat. Anybody heard of atrazine? Atrazine is one of the most
commonly used herbicides. It's used in corn, it's
used in many crops. There's now research that's
been done showing that the effects of atrazine
on, this was done in mice. If you feed a mouse
atrazine in their diet, and then you look, you will
see changes in their genome. You'll look at, and behavioral changes. You'll look at the next
generation, those will be there. And you look at the third
generation, and they'll be there. So this happens both from
the good things in our diet, and from the bad things. - This is a little heavy and so- - Sorry.
- No no, but it's important. Because we're looking at our history of our own choices in life, our families, and looking back perhaps. What's really great about
food as medicine is that the choice to change that trajectory can happen as soon as the next meal. So that's a beautiful thing. And so that's what you really
focus on, and you as well, how to flip from, and
avoid some of the toxins, both in the food, on the food, or in the environment generally, and/or how to counteract that
by limiting those toxins, and choosing food for health. - And there's studies that
show that within one week, 90% of the pesticides
reduced in a family in Sweden that went organic, and
within two weeks 100% were out of their system and other body. So it is, it can be done very quickly. - That's very encouraging, I think. That's the beauty of it. Maybe you don't know exactly
which foods are right for your dosha, for your
body type, and you might want to do some research online
or go see a professional. But what you do know is,
if you can avoid the bad and shoot for the good, then
you're on the right direction. - What you were just describing, Zen, what that says to me is that we have a profound ability to change our health. And that's probably the most singularly most important thing is not
even worrying so much about pesticides or contaminants,
but just simply choosing healthy food, because
it will be restorative, not quite overnight, but almost so. Within a week, two weeks. We see changes in the pattern of the gut microbiome in a matter of days. And we can influence this- - They did eat organic though. They were purposely avoiding pesticides. - Sure, sure. Oh, I'm not advocating
that people continue eating even plant foods that are contaminated. - [Zen] Okay, great. - But I mean, but the
thing is that just simply stopping that, and replacing
it with healing foods that help to bind and take
toxins out of the body, and replace them with really good things, can have a profound,
almost overnight effect. And with regard to the gut microbiome, we talk a lot about the fermented foods, and I'm a big fan of them. But the singularly most
important thing we can do, again, is a whole food plant
based diet that provides the fiber, and the resistance starch that nourishes the microbes
that are already there. It feeds the good guys,
and it doesn't feed, it actually sort of starves, although I don't want to
use the negative term. but it doesn't feed the opportunistic ones that overgrow and cause so many problems. So just simply, the singularly
most important thing is change your diet in this healthy way. And the effects are profound. - That's certainly was your experience. This made me think, as we're talking here, this is your life, this is what you did, and what happened to you. It's interesting because not, I think a lot of us want to eat healthy. We hear all these things. We hear GMO, non-GMO. We hear organic better than organic. If you're in the farming
community, some people will tell you that organic
has lost its real meaning. All these different kinds of labels that get slapped on everything. We heard them all before
we started doing this. We shopped organically. When you're in Guantanamo
Bay, you shop with whatever's there, so
it's a little different. But when we even started growing- - [Michelle] No farmers market - Yeah, yeah. We just got our seeds
from the local seed store. I mean nothing, didn't
really pay attention to how they were grown,
and where they came from, and whether or not they
were manually hybridized or any of that, and we were growing. And I was having responses to corn. Which I'm a California kid. I mean three world tacos are
a part of every college here. And I was having this
severe reaction to corn. I would have a mini
seizure, my face would tic. And we're talking very quickly. And then the next handful of
days all my joints would be really sore, I'd have
trouble walking again. And it took us awhile to figure it out. And finally I did, just
a sensitivity test, not necessarily an allergy
test, and it was showing up as number one then, those, corn and plums. And my thought process was, you can't not eat corn
in the United States. It's in everything, it's in your medicine, it's in makeup, it's literally everywhere. We tried it, and we were getting, the medicine I had to take compounded, and it wasn't making a difference. And for me, when we talk
about making these changes, there's kind of the,
there's the perfect world. And then there's also the, I'm already overwhelmed,
I have a diagnosis, I'm just trying to keep my life in order. I just need to know
what I have to do today to make sure I get to tomorrow, and then I'll figure it out tomorrow. And for me, corn was the thing that I was like, this is absurd. I don't know how I'm gonna
do this the rest of my life, and not, and really just live. So I took some time and I
read a lot about heirloom, and heirloom varieties,
and how that people that were having
sensitivities, to even wheat, that they were able to
eat heirloom varieties and not have a reaction. So I convinced my husband to listen to me. And we planted a small
patch of heirloom corn. And when we were harvesting it, my dad and I standing
there and we peeled it. And Mike stopped me. When I
met him, he was a paramedic. And he's like, my job here
is to save. That's my job. I wear a cape. My job is to save you. If you have a reaction, I don't ever want to hear corn again. Suck it up, we're done. And dad and I sat there,
and pulled it off, and we're reading sweetcorn
just standing there. And no reaction. And literally, within the next two weeks, we pulled everything out, and
we converted 100% to heirloom. Because it took it from.
I'm not a scientist. I don't have that background. It took it from all
this stuff that we hear, and this group says this,
and this group says that. And it took it from this anecdotal, I don't know who to believe,
everybody's arguing, to the I can tell you if I eat this, my body literally physically reacts in a way people can
see, and it's negative. And if I eat this, it doesn't. And that's that change that even with organic, it's one step further. And the hard part with
organic is for a lot of years all of the genetic testing for GMO was too expensive for these
agencies to even be doing it. So you have grains that people
are saying they're organic, but depending on when you
kind of made that transition. California Organic
Cert, I've spoke to them just this past year and they
said the tests are cheap. They test every time green
comes into California, because that happens to
be a big thing that's genetically modified, that
they're actually testing it. But the problem is is that,
if you're eating a varietal that is either manually hybridized, and you're allergic to one part of that. Pluots is a a good example. I'm allergic to plums,
so I can't have plots. I also have some trouble
with some of the tree nuts, 'cause that's all in that family. So if it's hybridized
with something to give it a better shelf life, or to
give it a different flavor, and you don't know that,
you're gonna have a reaction. So for me, going completely
organic, or completely heirloom was the change that made
the huge difference. And trust me, like as any normal. We have people that say
oh, and let me guess. Amazon's never at your house. And you don't use toilet
paper, you use cloth, and just all this crazy stuff. And I was like no, Amazon's
at my house every day. It's the cheapest way to run a farm. And I still eat food that's
not heirloom, that's life. But I can tell you I can
walk, and I'm not twitching, and I'm not lifting my
legs at the end of the day when I eat the way that I
know my body needs me to eat. - This is some. Oh sorry, go ahead. - No no, I was just gonna say you bring up a really
interesting point also, that we're always trying to get people to. You can give people guidelines, because we have some information
about general principles. But it's about listening to your body. If you eat something, even if
your sister, or your whoever, spouse says this is really
good and you should eat it. And your body says no, and if
we're listening it'll tell us, then that's not right for you. And then you try something else. And you say oh my gosh, I
feel amazing when I eat this. And then you know that too. And you have to be honest with yourself, because minds can trick us and say, we're eating our Cinnabon
every day, feeling great. - The Girl Scout Cookie message
is incorrect. Okay, got it. - Yeah, and I do. I tell
people follow an 80, 20 rule. Because also we add a
lot of stress by saying I have to 100% of the time
eat this perfect food. And our body's pretty resilient when we're out of that really, really sick stage that we can sometimes have that food. But most of your diet should be, like what your body is healthiest with. - The important thing
though, is to not give up. She pursued it, and she went
after the heirloom corn. You could have just said,
that's it no corn ever again. Like we did with my son, it was no nuts. Once he almost died from nuts. We said no nuts, not ever again. And we were just resigned, and doubtful that anything could change. Until one day he said mom, I wish all my allergies would go away. And I said, me too, buddy. But in my head I was saying,
that's never gonna happen. And then I realized, wait a second, that's not empowering, that's
not what I'm committed to. What if something could be different? What if there is some other
Ayurveda, or some other way to have an opportunity happen
and something could happen? So I asked him, would
you like to maybe one day eat a slice of pizza at a birthday party, which he couldn't do at that time. Because we knew a cousin
who had gone gluten free, and eventually she could have it. Once she healed her gut,
she could have it later on. And he said, yes. And I said, well then
would you be my partner? Would you partner meet
with me in your health? Would you drink green drinks, and try alternative
medicines and all that? He said, yes. And I said, then I promise you,
you're going to get better. And that promise, whether
you do that for yourself, or your spouse, or your
child is very important. Because then that has you do things you normally would never do. Like when you go to a doctor, and you make that promise
to follow that protocol. You step up and you do things that you normally never would do. So the important thing is to not give up, and to keep trying new things, and to promise somebody else
that you're gonna do this. - Well, and the easy answer is not always. What we tend to do is
say I can't eat wheat, or I can't eat avocados,
but let's remember. What kind is being grown? And is it a very hybridized,
modernized version? Or is it a heritage or heirloom variety? Sometimes they call them biblical. On the other hand, and then
therefore how has it grown? Is it grown organically? Is it grown conventionally, and/or GMO, which means that it's likely to carry a significantly higher toxic load. And of course, then again on top of that, it depends on which kind of
vegetable you're talking about. I don't know if you guys are familiar, but Environmental Working Group puts out something called the dirty dozen. And they say look not everybody's perfect. None of us buys 100% organic all the time, or most of us don't. And so there are certain foods that are more likely
to carry a toxic load. And these are the ones
they say, buy organic. These other ones, they
might still have it, but they don't carry quite the toxic load. So again, it's not sort of a one size fits all on these things. I had a reaction to, an
allergic type reaction, white blood cell buildup. So my body constantly felt tired and sick, because it thought it was
fighting these foreign invaders. And once you go through
a process to eliminate, and clean, and detoxify, then your body is just sort of focused on itself again, and can move forward instead
of constantly in fight mode. Is that consistent with what
you experience in your work? - I wanted to just pick up on
Zen bringing up empowerment. Because we know from the
research that when people are engaged in their own
healthcare, even things like monitoring your blood
pressure, your glucose. So what's any more involvement than your daily preparation of food? And also, I've always heard that if you're trying to make
changes in your life, a lot of people kind of
go to all or nothing, instead of realizing that if
you'll make some small steps, that can make some big differences. If you just go home and get
rid of one or two things in your home that you feel
is the most destructive, or that you don't feel good about. The other thing too, is to have a plan. And on Gerson, do we ever have a plan? We tell people exactly every hour what you're doing, and what
juice, and what kind of, what meal, and what
things need to be involved in that meal, and then
what you're gonna do the next day and that kind of thing. But that same thing applies to us in our day to day lives too. Nothing's any more empowering
than to literally quote, excuse the pun, step up to the plate, and take care, take charge, take charge. - But for some people it is
100%, at least for awhile. Just make that commitment to go 100%. For instance, like gluten, getting gluten or dairy out of your diet. It takes months for that
to come out of your body. So it is important to go 100%
as much as you possibly can. And don't give up. And I do want to add that
my son did get better. His allergies went from
a 19 down to a .2 and so he no longer has life
threatening allergies to nuts, which typically get worse, not better. And he did that by healing himself. - And I think one of the disservices we do in really conventional
medicine is disempower people. And I think the worst thing
you can tell a patient is this is what's going to happen. And I, as an integrative
provider, I do primary care still. I send people to specialists
if they need certain tests. And then they'll come back and tell me oh, the GI doctor, they said diet
has nothing to do with this. And it's like oh my gosh. - The GI doctor who focuses on digestion. - The cancer ward that serves donuts. - And they'll say the
rheumatologist, or the whoever said that this is what's going
to happen with this disease. And so I need to do this,
medicine or whatever. And not to, I'm kind of on both sides in the sense that I do see what happens when people don't do anything. And yes, that is true. That would happen if you do nothing. However, if you do these
things, like change your diet, then you can shift that trajectory. And it doesn't have look like that. And just giving people that sense that our body is constantly changing, and that every choice we
make affects that change. It's a dynamic process. It's not necessarily just
you're headed down this course. That may be true if you don't
change what you're doing. 'Cause that's kind of
what, how you got here. And so I think just giving
people that little sense of empowerment and a
different perspective that this is really a dynamic
process going on right now. Like we were talking about, the microbiome can shift
in a couple of days. One bite of food you take can
shift your gene expression. And then you start to realize wow, I can really affect what's happening. - I think that sometimes that empowerment is also daunting, because then it means that I have a responsibility as well. And I think these things
are sometimes in turmoil. Obviously, no one here is saying that anything and everything can
be 100% cured with diet. On the other hand, can
you alter the trajectory that one says that you
are on dramatically? I think the answer is clearly yes. You like you want to jump in. - There's really a
continuum of possibilities. There are some things where
diet, some diseases where diet probably will have a
marginal if little effect. It might help your health in other ways, but not necessarily address the disease. On the other hand, there are some diseases on the other end that are diet driven. And some of the most
common and important ones are very much on that
end of the continuum. - The top two or three, right? - Yes. You were asking before about the concept that I was gonna mention
about this therapeutic order. - Oh sure, your pyramid. No no, this is good because
most of us are used to the sort of Western paradigm, which is what drug do I get, or
what procedure do I need? Let me keep eating my honey
bun or Cinnabon. But no. So how is yours? Yours is very different. You're very different. - Well, years ago when I studied some of the more ancient healing systems, Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic,
it was intuitive to me that you started with
food, food and lifestyle. And you change, you create the conditions for health with these. And then only when
those aren't sufficient, do you then go up sort of
the ladder or the pyramid toward increasingly
invasive kinds of things. If you're in a car accident, you go straight to the trauma center. You don't waste your time with diet, and herbs, and all that. (laughing) - Write that down, folks. - If you're unconscious, that's not the time to do psychotherapy. (laughing) Well, actually a calming
influence is always a good thing. And healthy food, when a person recovers is the first thing after the
crisis has been resolved. So we have to use really good judgment. But in naturopathic
medicine, they came up with this concept called the therapeutic order. And it really holds that diet and lifestyle is the foundation. Most things, before we
ever even medicalized them, and give them a label, and scare people with all this workup and evaluation, they'll simply resolve if we change the health conditions
through diet and lifestyle. And then if that's not sufficient, we use targeted natural
therapeutics, herbs, acupuncture. Allopathic medicine, when
that's not sufficient. And then of course- - [Michelle] What's allopathic medicine? - Allopathic is Western medicine, the way the common
understanding of disease or symptom focused, and pharmaceutically or surgically based
interventions at the forefront. - Well, I think this is really important. We've been talking a lot
about how we might use food to deal with a particular problem. But again, if we go back to sort of body fundamentals, and immune system, and gut as the origin
of the good or the bad. Maybe what we're doing is we're creating a lean mean fighting machine, so that when the incoming comes, we're better able to ward it off. Is that true? It sounds really good. Star Warsy like, but I like it. I mean, that's so, right? - Children used to play outside
barefooted on the Earth. They weren't slathered with
the antibacterial soap. As a kid, I ate dirt. I tasted everything on the farm. My mother would wait, she'd
see me coming down the lane, and she'd wait with a
garden hose to hose me down so that I could go in the house, because I would step on anything. I tried to drink water
out of the dog's bowl. Those kinds of exposure to just those what we're talking about. And as we know now, it says
in the soil, so in the gut. And so she was very wise in a lot of ways to have given me that freedom. - So your immune system is
stronger because of that? - I have a very sturdy immune system, yes. Charlotte, Charlotte Gerson tells me that if she had done
to her body what I did, that she'd been gone a long time ago. And she's 96 years old, but she's lived very
clean, eaten very clean. - And if there is a
crisis, by living this way we've created resilience within ourselves that will help us enormously
during that crisis. - That's what I wanted to
hear a little bit more about, because I think that's,
we're not just talking about. Again, if we think about
disease or symptom focus, now we're backtracking
to young, healthy people. How do we keep them that way and strong? I mean, and how does it do
that? And why does that matter? - We really need to start with
how we educate our children, start with what we are feeding our kids. Maybe that's the most,
singularly most important thing, or place to focus if we want to build a healthy population, healthy society. - So they have had healthy
habits of their own. - And so that for them it's,
they know what a vegetable is. They know where it grows. And then that helps them
develop their intuition about how to heal themselves,
or what they need to do. - And I think that ties into
just lifestyle in general. Are you taking your kids outside, or are they inside all the time? Is there just overstimulation? And stress is a huge
factor with digestion, and how you digest your food, and your immune system, and everything. So when, 'cause we teach meditation and lifestyle in addition to food. Food is a big component. And again, when you're
doing all of these things, and you're reducing the stress response, and you're connecting to
nature, and all of these things, and teaching your kids how to do that. Again, sometimes things do happen, and we do need medications
for things and certain people. But your body's going to be able to use anything you give it in a much better way when the foundations are there. - It's important to
trust your children too, that they can do much more than a lot of us think that they can do. For instance, my middle
son had autism symptoms when he was about eight
and a half, a sudden onset of autism symptoms, hitting and yelling, and grades dropped from As down to Ds. And it was not like him. And so I took him to the doctor, and he tested him for fungus
and bacteria in his urine. I said, why are you testing
for fungus and bacteria? He said, because oftentimes
the bad gut bacteria can lead to inflammation in the brain, which can lead to behavioral issues. And I thought wow, that's
what glyphosate does. That's what's in Roundup,
that's sprayed in our food. And it occurred to me that
that son was eating wheat, which is sprayed with glyphosate, or Roundup as a drying agent. It does not wash off. - [Michelle] And not even
GMO, just conventional. - Yeah, it's not GMO. It's just, so wheat, wheat,
legumes, beans, peas, tea, sugar, oats are highly
sprayed with glyphosate as a drying agent, if it's not organic. And so he was eating this
gluten food, because my other two sons were gluten
intolerant but he was not. So he was the only one
that was eating gluten. And at that time we tested,
again very important. We tested his urine, and his
urine was eight times higher of glyphosate levels than
was ever found in Europe. And so there was Roundup in my son. And we realized that we
needed to go strictly organic, and he needed to not eat sugar. And this was between
Thanksgiving and New Year's. And he promised to do
that. And he did that. And we went strictly organic, 100%. Even the canned chicken,
we had to get that out, 'cause that's not organic. And we did put in probiotics,
and colloidal silver. We did have to do a compound
antifungal medicine. But that was $650 a month. So when people tell me
they can't afford organic, I remind them the cost of medicine. It is much more expensive. And then within six weeks we
retested him for glyphosate. His levels were no longer detectable, and his autism symptoms were
gone, and have never come back. But he did that also by not eating sugar. He made that choice and we trusted that he would do that
in partnership with him. And so I think we need
to trust our children and our family members, even
if you have a mom or a dad that you're like oh, they're
never gonna change their diet. Don't do that to them. Show them the movies like, "GMO OMG," or, "Genetic Roulette," or there's a great movie out now called, "Modified." There's a new movie called,
"Secret Ingredients." It's all about people
healing through food. There's a movie that's coming out pretty soon called, "Food Cure," right? So there's great educational tools that you can use out there. Just have faith that they will
be inspired by one of them. - I'm glad that you mentioned
some of the desiccation, and the use of glyphosate in that process. 'Cause I think a lot of
people assume that Roundup is only associated with GMO crops, and not conventional crops that aren't, haven't been modified to
withstand the spraying. But all of these grain crops get sprayed at the end for desiccation. And interestingly, if you're
not aware, you can look at. Food Democracy Now did some testing of basic breakfast cereals. And one of the things that
for me was most horrific, was to see that of all of
the cereals they tested, the one that had the single
highest residual rate of glyphosate was ordinary Cheerios. And I think to myself,
what is the one food that every parent in
America carries around in a small Ziploc, or Tupperware
to feed to their child? It's Cheerios. And that has
a really high toxic load. And so there are some foods,
and that that's one of them, that you really may want to pay
attention to eating organic, if you want to reduce that toxic load, and how it might affect you. - And it's very important also that vegans and vegetarians understand
that hummus and chickpeas, garbanzo beans had the highest
levels, along with wheat. So if you're feeding your
child a plate of chickpeas and hummus, and they have
oatmeal for breakfast, and then they have buckwheat
noodles for dinner, they are eating the highest
levels of glyphosate exposure that you can possibly expose them to. - [Michelle] Unless you buy organic. - Unless you buy organic. So it's very important to not
just be vegan and vegetarian, if that's what you're
doing, but to also purchase organic food in order to avoid glyphosate. - I think it's also important to not put the focus just on glyphosate. I'm not saying it's a
healthy thing at all. But the same kinds of
dietary changes that will reduce glyphosate, also change
the food in many other ways. When you're eating refined products, they have a thousand things,
including glyphosate perhaps, but also many other negative attributes. And so we can't just pin
it on the glyphosate, and say that's the evil thing. 'Cause we're like the seven
blind men with the elephant, and saying it's just the
trunk, or it's just the tail. We really need to think about, and not even focusing
on villainizing things, but on focusing in a
positive way on what we want, what we want to move toward. And I come back again,
like a broken record, to a whole food plant based diet. Not a refined diet but one that is, that has intact colonel whole
grains, not villainizing them because oh, they may contain gluten, or they may contain
glyphosate or whatever, but because they are rich
in healing properties that nourish the
microbiome from underneath. Create that balance. Create good gut brain connections. Activate genes in the brain. Change the expression in the brain. The code for neurotransmitters
that make us happy, reduce our stress, reduce our anxiety. So changing the dietary
pattern in this way, I think, is really that. I want people to focus in a positive way on what they can do to
help themselves and not- - [Michelle] Stay on the
edges of the grocery store. - Yeah. - Can I just have time?
Can I just have time? - I agree with you. That
really is the foundation. But in this day and age, we need to look to these
indicators of impurity in our food. And we look at glyphosate as being an indicator of other things. In meat products, there
are also indicators, a few things that you can measure easily that are indicators that you
don't want to eat that chicken. You want to eat another one. And it's critical that people be given the ability to make those choices. And Zen talks about
glyphosate because that's been an indicator that's made a big deal, big difference for her family. But we need to go deeper than that. And we need, in a way what
we're finding in our work, because we've tested hundreds
of products at this point. And what we find is that the difference between conventional
and organic is striking. And so by making the
choice of going organic, or growing your own, and
especially even going to the ancient varieties,
this making that choice, however you can personally
make it, has a huge effect. And so we can then, from that foundation, begin to make good choices
about what we eat in there. It's very important to avoid these things. - I hear, and I agree with
what you're saying, John. My concern is that if we focus
just on the negative thing, like ooh stay away from that,
in a kind of phobic way. And we don't put equal or greater emphasis on moving toward healing foods, and thinking about the richness, and focusing on the diversity of taste, and the balance of the
foods and understanding how the healing properties within us, we're gonna compromise our
ability for self healing. So yes, you definitely want to understand the toxic load of foods. And I'm not advocating them in the least. If anything I would, that's one of the first things
I warned people against. But I think the emphasis
needs to be a positive one, an affirming one toward life, and foods that are rich and life energy. - This is always an eat this,
not that kind of dialogue. And this is a bit of a yin
and yang kind of conversation. But of course, we're
talking about all the things that you should eat, and
what they do to the body, and how they can create
a stronger immune system, and how they can deal with even
specific ailments and so on. You can get down into the weeds, like here's a food that's
good for the brain, or the liver, or in has great
numbers of lysine, great. Or you can sort of focus on Michael Pollan, eat food,
mostly greens, not so much. I mean sometimes, I always
come back to that again and say that that's sort of the fundamentals. On the one hand, you don't want to get, these are important issues,
extremely important issues. But you also don't want
to become fearful of food. I had someone come over
the other day, and said I don't want to eat your romaine
lettuce out of your garden. I hear it has E. Coli, and I said well, not this one, I think, I hope. But that's an important
point because we can all focus and agree on eat
real food, not processed food. Okay, step one. And then we can talk about
whole, nutritionally dense foods. Great, we all agree. Now, as we get down and we say okay, so then we have organic,
conventional, GMO. We probably all agree on which
of those is the best as well. But I think it is sometimes
good to stay here. We don't want to make people
fearful of romaine lettuce. I think about that. - But then there is a study. There was a study out recently
that showed that women who are doing IVF to get pregnant, they were eating fruits and veggies. The ones who ate the fruits and veggies with pesticides on it, had
lower levels of success. So it's not factual to just say
eat your fruits and veggies. If you really want to be healthy, and to get pregnant, and
to have healthy children, it does need to be organic fruits and veggies for the best outcome. - Well actually, Zen, I would
totally turn that around and I would put veggies way before fruit, and I would put whole grains
and veggies at the top, because people have a misconception about what is even healthy
within a plant based diet. Fruits are important, especially when it's the
right season for them, but we want to have greater diversity. And when we're encouraging people to have clean versions of these, and life energy filled versions
of these, we don't I think. I also wonder when you
mentioned people who, women who are undergoing IVF, and didn't have as good a result. It may have been a function of what was in the fruits and veggies they were eating, or maybe they were missing other things in their diet that were healing. It may have also been that
their awareness of that was a reflection of other,
or lack of awareness of that, was a reflection of other things. Were they more likely to be smoking, to be drinking alcohol, to not exercise? So I think we have to
be careful to say oh, it was their non-organic
fruits and veggies that was the cause, when it
was part of a larger pattern. - Well, but when we know
that there's pesticides that cause endocrine disruption,
and impact fertility. We know that now,
especially with glyphosate. So it's just not factual, I'm just saying, to tell people to eat
whole fruits and vegetables without addressing the issue
of pesticides that can. I mean, we have 100 endocrine disruptors in the United States, Sweden allows three. These endocrine disruptors
impact fertility, sterility. We have, sperm quality level of men now is 50% of what their grandfathers were. We have an issue in the United States. And it is primarily
stemming from, I believe, and many doctors believe
now, the toxic burden. And that toxic burden
is primarily introduced to our population through
the food and the water. And that's coming from
GMO chemical farming. - And other sources, I mean. - That's the primary. - The point is, the
point that he's making. And you guys actually are agreeing, but it's just that as a legal matter, you can't point to a single
cause in most instances because our toxic load comes from
a variety of sources. Those are two big ones,
but there are others. And it's one of the
reasons why, in the law, it's often hard to prove
these kind of cases. - And as a scientist matter,
as an epidemiologist, I know that we have to
be careful when we assert this is the cause, that's the effect, when there are multiple potential causes that are associated with one
another, that go together. And so we really don't know. I'm not at all arguing for GMOs, or for toxins in food, quite the contrary. But to say that's the
cause, that's the effect. I get a little concerned. And I think we may weaken our argument, or the force of what we're arguing for, because people can find the
potential flaw in the reasoning, and then dismiss everything
else we're saying. So I want us to be really strong in our arguments, and really grounded. - Can I put out a unifying concept? That we should be going for nutrient dense foods that are toxin, lacking the toxins that you put- - Lowest toxic load. - And then you're in good shape. And if you look at, and the key thing. It's easy to say yes, fruits that are infused with nutrients,
and we want all of that. But for the mom or the dad,
it's well, where do I get those? How do I tell if this zucchini
is better than that zucchini? No, no no. Let me finish. The key thing there, is that
we do have some indicators. There is quite a lot of
research out there indicating that organic is more nutrient
dense than conventional. And also that organic is lower in these toxins than conventional. And so it's pretty illogical
to use that as a big guide. It's not enough. It really isn't. And this is what you experienced. - Well no, just wait. I just want to go back to
wat I said a minute ago, about the Environmental
Working Group study, and what they have on their website. Which is, look I think
we have to be honest. I think in a perfect world
eating organic 100% of the time, and some people are, but not everyone is. And maybe not everyone has access to that. So for the majority of people,
and certainly in some areas, let's talk about those things,
which we should most avoid. And that includes certain foods
over others certain foods. But most importantly,
it's processed foods. So let's go back to whole foods, and talk about how whole
foods, nutrient dense is the way to sort of create this. - I want to add another attribute, though. And that's what's in season, what's growing in our own backyard. Because if we understand that we're eating with the seasons,
'cause if we eat locally, we're gonna be doing that more or less. And we understand that plants have life energy and intelligence. We also understand that that changes over the course of time,
over the course of the year. The life energy of plants,
where is it in the winter? It's down in the roots. The leaves have come off,
the sap has gone down. The life energy is the chi of the plant, and the nutrients follow that. So if we, in the winter are eating the more rooty kinds of things, the more, the stored nuts and grains. And we cook them with fire
to make them more digestible. And in the summer we're
eating more leafy things, and fruits at the right time,
we're gonna be naturally going where the nutrients are the most dense. - Ayurveda really focuses
on seasonal eating as well. What you eat in the summer, versus the cold or the hot weather. - Absolutely, it can get very, very sophisticated in even what
the phases of the moon were when you harvest the fruits
and things like that. - That's sounds like biodynamic now. - Yeah yeah, I mean, and
I've fully believe it. Again, just to speak to
the whole conversation, the thing I love about Ayurveda is that you're always going back
to the basic principles. And the basic principles, like when we do detoxes and cleanses, because even despite our
best efforts, we are exposed. We live in a world that in Ayurveda, whatever's out there is in us as well. Like you were saying your son he, we all have these chemicals in us. And there have been
studies where we could draw the blood of everyone in
the room, and you're exposed to things you didn't
even know were in you. Because anything that's
happening out there is our body. In Ayurveda that is our extended body. And when you start talking about that, I think it brings a little
bit of social consciousness and social awareness
to supporting organic, and supporting how we're
treating the environment. Not necessarily for a selfish purpose, but kind of in a way,
because that is our body. And so that's going to affect us. When we're cleansing, we
say we're doing two things. We're taking out what
isn't serving the body, and we're bringing in
what it needs to heal. And so those are two
really basic principles. And that's, again,
speaking to all of this, is we want to remove
what's not serving us, and what's creating disease, and blocking our natural pathways. And we want to bring in nutrient
rich food that's natural. So we always go back to nature. So again, whether it's the
cycles and the seasons, or whether it's producing
food as naturally as you can, meaning not putting things on there, these are like the core principles. And if you can just have
that in your awareness, and just be aware every
time you're choosing food, chances are you're going to be much more on that side of making the
best choices for your health. - I think as a culture, we tend to be. San Diego is great. We
have a lot of farms here. You can- - The more farms per capita
than anywhere in America, folks. - You can go to a farmer's
market, I think, every day of the week except Monday,
is how, last time, I read it? I think Monday is the, or
the one that has the least- - There's even a farmer's
market here on campus, just down that grassy area. - So we have that, but
we're also culturally really disconnected from our food. We don't know our farmer. We think local means California. So if I'm gonna get carrots
from central California, and that's local, but I
can't get grapes from Baja, because that's out of
country, and that's not local. We're disconnected. We're
missing something major. When I have people ask me, when we have figs ready and they say, how many days do I have
to wait to eat these? And the first time I was asked, I was like what are you talking about? You eat them whenever you want. And the answer was no, I always
get them when they're hard, and I have to wait till they get soft. And I'm like, oh by the way,
figs don't ripen off the tree. They're going rotten, eat them. (laughing) We're disconnected from that. - [Michelle] Well, that's similar. - Yeah. Texture's kind of different, but. We're disconnected from that part of it. And then there's also some information that's been out there that says millennial generation is
the generation that has, it's something like less than
30% actually know how to cook. And there's no desire to. So it's not like they're refusing. It's just that there's no desire to. It's a different kind of generation. And they're not doing that. All of those things mean
that like it or not, we're falling on processed
foods in some fashion. They may be better processed
foods because they organic. But that part of it,
if all people could do, and when we have, I still
go to treatment every day. I'm back in treatment. I was
in remission for 18 months. I started back in treatment, actually the day Christina
and I launched Pharmacy, which just was the most
ironic thing in the world. But I was there. So I sit, and get significantly less medicines than I did
the first time around, actually very, very little. But that means everyday
since we launched it, I'm talking to the other patients, and talking to people in a
real world life scenario. How we all eat, and how we want to eat is probably the best of the best. And then there's life. And their answer is I don't
know how to cook that. I don't know how to break down garlic. I don't know how to make yogurt. I don't how to do all of these things. So if I could make that one change. So if I could get rid of the 12 items that I should never buy conventional, and only buy organic, what are those? And so I agree with that,
I agree that there's these baby steps that have to get there. And then you realize things,
like you eat a tomato that's from your local farmer, and that's the best tomato
that you'll ever have. - The ugly one that's got appendages. - And to me those are the
instant gratifications. So you have somebody that goes, well I get this, and I'm
used to getting that. Or, I always just get whatever yogurt, and it says organic and it's okay. And then they start to kind of
go more to those whole foods. And they're like oh, I
can actually make yogurt, or I can make my own pasta sauce, and get closer towards that. - I think part of what's needed here, is to draw on both sides of the brain. The scientific reductionist
side is very important for making sure we're
doing things carefully. But we also want to unleash
the artist, our intuition. We want to get in tune with
the natural rhythms of nature, because that's telling us
where the nutrients are. It's not one juxtaposed against the other. It helps us to understand,
and to deepen our healing. - Well, we're about out of time. And I just sort of want to
close with a final thought. It's something my husband often says. There's a lot of information
that's been imparted today from the sort of 30,000 view perspective, and down into the weeds on the positive, and on the potential negatives. And I guess he likes to say
that you should never let the perfect be the enemy
of the good enough. And we all have to make the steps, and take the steps that
we're ready and able to make at this point in our life. And hopefully heading toward perfection, and on a right trajectory. But we all do the best we can. Listen, keep this conversation alive. We will continue to engage.
We'll bring in the panelists. Just hashtag FoodAsMedicine
on Twitter, and/or Facebook. And we'll, we want to keep this going, because I think this is fundamentally the most fundamental building
block of our own health. And as it turns out, the health of our communities,
and the environment. Thank you for coming. Bye, bye folks on Facebook. (audience applauding) (calm music)