041: Answering the Age-Old Question… “Where Do You Get Your Protein?” with Brenda Davis

welcome to the health science podcast sponsored by the National Health Association I’m your host Dr Frank Sabatino and today I’m absolutely delighted truthfully to have Brenda Davis with us Brenda is a registered dietitian of really International Acclaim she’s been sought by a number of governments and cultures for her you know nutritional consultation work she’s been a lead investigator on a diabetic Intervention Program in the Marshall Islands she’s uh been involved with setting up a lifestyle intervention in Lithuania she’s a an incredible author of over at least a dozen books that I know of becoming vegan kick diabetic cookbook and of course one we’re going to talk about today her most recent book uh plant powered protein and Brenda I’m just excited to have you thank you for being here welcome to the health science podcast

brought to you by the National Health Association the oldest organization in the world championing the extraordinary benefits of a whole plant food diet and healthy lifestyle as well as water only fasting we believe that health results from healthful living and focus on evidence-based science that promotes the health of you and your loved ones as well as the health of all animals and the environment we feature experts from a cross-section of disciplines within the Plant Nutrition vegan psychological environmental and Animal Compassion sectors I’m your host Dr Frank Sabatino the nha’s director of health education

yeah you know uh when I look at you know your prolific writing is you’ve sold them several million books and they’ve been translated in 13 languages it must be really rewarding to know the lives that you’ve been able to touch with your work I know that’s nothing anybody can ever anticipate so when that happens it must be must fill you with a certain kind of awe and gratitude

truthfully I am just feel so privileged I I’m so grateful for every life I have a chance to touch in a positive way and I just feel so privileged it’s uh it really is such an honor to be able to have have had done um those things in my life and and to been able to travel and help people in far away countries as well uh what what an honor and privilege

so when I look at your magical journey really truthfully and and the background that you have uh going back to an interview I read a few years back about you I want to get an idea and I get the audience will find it interesting how the little girl growing up in Germany with the love for Venus schnitzel found her way into the path that you are and really when did your interest in you know nutrition start and I know you already had a bit of a professional life before you embrace the vegan lifestyle so talk about that Journey just a little bit if you can

well you know I think like a lot of children I I was born with passion for animals and and I think as a lot of us are as small children and I can remember when I was about I think three years old I was at a bull fight in Spain and I can still remember being so horrified by what they were doing and and and I remember my parents being very concerned when I started cheering for the bull people around us were not impressed so I think it was just always there and then somehow as we grow up we get desensitized to all of this as we’re eating Mead and so forth and then in high school it’s when it it’s really when it all came back I can remember being about 16 years old and sitting on a rock by a lake thinking what do I want my life to be about and by that age I was already drinking alcohol every weekend with my friends and doing all those things and and I I thought to myself you know I I don’t know what my life is to be all about but I know this I want to live a meaningful life and I want to make a difference in the world I want to make the world a more compassionate place and I started thinking about that and thinking that why am I doing what I’m doing with drinking alcohol and so forth I thought you know I can’t afford to be addicted to anything uh and and I remember stopping cold I I just I thought I will never do drugs I will not I I’ve never even had a cup of coffee I just I just thought I don’t want to be addicted to anything that could get in the way of doing what I’m meant to do in this world and so that was sort of the beginning of it and it was very uh shortly after that I started getting really interested in all things vegetarian and just because of the compassion piece and I can remember when I went to University I decided nutrition was what I wanted to do I was really interested in human nutrition and I thought um I’ll go to university I’ll learn everything I can and I had this passion for vegetarian but it got it got really challenged in University because what we learned in University was that plant-based diets are vegetarian diets are risky and vegan diets are just downright dangerous and that’s pretty much all we learned in University about plant-based nutrition and then I went on and became a public health nutritionist and all of my nutrition education tools were literally uh you know steeped in in animal products so Canada’s food guide at that time was half you know it was a plate that was half animal foods and half plant foods and and that was you know the basis for for nutrition education for public health

and and it wasn’t until about 1989 that I was just really challenged by a very good friend who was on his way deer hunting he was actually the best man at our wedding we grew up my husband and I in Northern Ontario and it was you know beer and Bingo and hunting and fishing that was what was done there and and I just I really wanted to make him feel guilty about killing another deer and so I challenged him about you know shooting and going with this big gun and shooting this innocent beautiful creature and it was what he replied to me that actually really changed the course of my life because he said you know just because you don’t have the guts to pull the trigger does not mean you are not responsible for the trigger being pulled every time you buy a piece of meat camouflaged in Cellophane in the grocery store and then he said at least the animals I eat have had a life he said I doubt very much you can say the same for the ones that are sitting on your plate because it was the first time anybody said you’re responsible for what you’re eating and and and your choices you’re the one paying the dollar to have somebody do this for you and I at that point I just I I just thought to myself I need to learn about where my food is coming from

and I it was at that point I just started to order journals and articles and read books and and it took me about two weeks to decide that I couldn’t be part of this system of Cruelty any longer I just thought I can’t I cannot in good conscious in good conscience do you know be part of a system that you know literally puts animals in concentration camps tortures them for their whole lives and then we you know send them to a slaughterhouse and we eat them and I thought not only is this unnecessary but we’re actually harming ourselves we’re harming the planet uh it’s it’s it just is all bad you know and I thought you know in this Web of Life uh our our choices matter and I thought I I’ve gotta I’ve got to make different choices and so at that time my kids were four and one this is 1989. and I I had to ask my husband if he would be willing to do this with me if we could do it as a family and and I remember going to him and saying um I really want to be completely vegetarian which was vegan which we barely knew that word at that time and I said I I’m wondering if you’d be willing to do this with me and he responded saying something that I didn’t expect to hear he said I thought you’d never ask he said I’d love to be a vegetarian

you found the right guy you found the right you found the right guy I sure did because because in that you know Community where we were uh we neither one of us had ever really met real live vegetarians I think I meant one in grade eight that was it it just wasn’t a thing and and so I was actually really afraid I thought I was going to be ousted from my profession

well that was the next question I wanted to ask you because your mindset took a very quick turn your learning curve of a couple of weeks is very short but I’m very curious because you were working in public health how the professional transition went for you

so I’ll speak to that just a little bit exactly I was terrified because I was a public health nutritionist I you know I taught Canada’s food guide I did all of that and I and I even I I went through this sort of personal uh questioning of can I stay in this profession as a as a person who’s eating an entirely plant-based diet and and I went through a lot I thought well what what else would I do would I get re-educated and then I thought you know if everybody who sees the bigger picture just decides to leave what will ever change I I have to have the courage to stand up for what I know is right and and I could be a leader in in in this way to help people to who want to do this get it right and and so I thought you know I need to have all my eyes dotted my T’s crossed I need to know my stuff and so I just started reading everything I could read on plant-based diets uh I I read you know I can remember the 1990 um diet nutrition and the prevention of chronic disease by the World Health Organization what a powerful document that was and reading all of these sort of more big picture documents really helped to give me the confidence I needed to move forward and then it was within a year of of us becoming plant-based we actually moved to Vancouver and we met other real life vegetarians and so it was it was fun and I actually met a vegetarian two vegetarian dietitians and I just thought that was the coolest thing in the world it was it was just so wonderful to know that there were others out there and of course I started reading vegetarian times and I learned about John Robbins and Michael Clapper and George Eisman and Jenny Messina and you know all of these people who were there before me and had started before me and and I was so grateful for them and they made me a feel like yes this is something you can do and and it wasn’t always easy I mean the first book I wrote I wrote with vasanto Molina and Victoria Harrison and and three registered dietitian wrote a book called becoming vegetarian and of course the dairy industry thought it would be all good we’d be promoting a lot of dairy products but it was actually a vegan book in Disguise so we we had chapters called without meat and without dairy so how do you meet your nutritional requirements when you eliminate these things and the dairy industry took quite a exception to us uh writing about that it’s possible to survive without dairy when it was one of the central food groups without which you would die and and so so they actually wrote a 45-page rebuttal to our book and they took out a full page ad in our professional journal to try to discredit our work so we definitely had some some battles but generally I was surprised at how fellow dietitians came to our rescue and and they were very much on our side and felt that we had done an exceptional job they were grateful for the book book they were grateful for a resource that they could rely on and we started getting invited to speak at you know the American dietetic Association community and dietetic Association I think I’ve spoken at dietetic associations in in close to 20 countries so uh it’s it we it really was uh better received than what I expected to be quite honest

I’m here with Brenda Davis a registered dietitian of international Acclaim we’re going to take just the uh a short break to hear from our sponsor the National Health Association and we’ll be right back to the health science podcast you’re listening to the health science podcast show I want to remind you to visit the National Health Association website where you’ll find incredible resources to support your healthy lifestyle including plant exclusive eating without added salt oil and sugar simply go to healthscience.org or nationalhealthassociation.org be sure to check out membership which is only 35 dollars per year for those living within the United States and 55 dollars for those living outside the U.S you’ll be amazed at all the information and benefits you’ll receive as a member you’re kept up to date on the latest evidence-based tools for health promotion you’ll receive the incomparable quarterly magazine Health Science a beautiful 40-page advertising free publication mailed to your home or offices loaded with articles recipes inspirational stories and interviews with world leaders in the fields of personal health plant-based nutrition water only fasting animal rights and environmental support and you’ll receive details about life-changing events such as the extraordinary annual conference of the National Health Association and diverse opportunities for plant exclusive NHA cruises and travel vacations to Exotic destinations around the globe I’m your host Dr Frank Sabatino and now back to the show thank you

Brandy I want to get into a little bit of the nitty-gritty because what happens here as you know a lot of times nutrition is approached by many people and even so-called experts from what I like to call a very deceptive level of Simplicity meaning that you know we we look at nutrition we look at macronutrients and of course proteins the holy grail and fat is the villain of the story and so what happens is as we vilify nutrients that actually have tremendous value and as we beatify other components of nutrition that have their own problems in excess I think sometimes we lose sight of the balance that’s really required and how we view these components so with the new book you put out which is absolutely brilliant plant powered protein let’s let’s speak to that deceptive level of Simplicity and see if we can come to a way to balance the Viewpoint of the audience just a little bit

oh absolutely and you know it’s so funny because when we were asked to write a book on protein we were asked by our publisher and and basanto and I both said we don’t need a book on protein people that eat you know Whole Food plant-based diets they’ll get they’ll get enough protein and and our our Publishers said well it’s the number one question I get asked from everybody who comes to to buy a book is oh well you know where if I eat this it’s the number one question going back 45 years in my clinical experience for every talk we’ve ever done the hand goes up where do you get your protein so so in a way as much as you think it’s not necessary it is necessary so yeah yeah so go on yes sorry exactly so we we really thought about it and we thought you know what let’s let’s try to put this this question to rest and let’s let’s look at everything we look at and we actually learned a lot doing this book let let’s address all of the issues around protein including the environmental piece including some of the history of why protein sits on this health pedestal or has a bit of a health Halo if you will and we looked at all of that and it was really quite interesting and actually we brought in a a another person into into this authorship my son Corey Davis who did his undergraduate studies in in um in environmental sciences and then went on to do a couple of master’s degrees and became a professional agrologist but he he has some some very interesting insights into uh the whole area of of of sourcing uh protein from Plants versus animals and so forth and and I think it added an awful lot to the book so that’s there as well but yeah you know we all know that that it’s this beautiful Symphony of nutrients from Whole Foods that that really does the job in terms of of promoting and and ensuring long-term Health but it’s still interesting to look at some of the individual macro and micronutrients and and you know how this all works within the symphony

yeah and and it’s interesting because uh I like the fact that you also address the fact that there are certain stages of life where those needs actually change and need to be addressed sometimes with a little bit more in certain times of older age and you know growing children and pregnant women and lactating women and and I think getting into the nuances of that is a good insight for people because it’s not it’s not one taste for all you need to be able to I was looking at data that suggested uh when you have uh men and women consuming around 90 grams of protein there’s a remarkable drop in sarcopenia for people that are not even routinely doing a ton of exercise so that loss of muscle mass can be preserved by you know increasing some of that and then realizing the protein density of all the plants greens and vegetables which oftentimes goes unnoticed by people they just can’t fathom this idea that green plants can have you know substantial amounts of high quality protein and in fact they do so presenting all of that I thought was you know a brilliant thing that people need to be reminded of if they if they knew it and certainly educated in if they did not know it

yes and I I think it’s so interesting you know we as we age our ability to really digest and absorb protein and and the individual amino acids declines and so what’s really challenging for seniors is that generally our energy requirements uh drop and and yet our protein requirements and requirements for some other nutrients as well because our ability to absorb them is reduced um it beca grows and so here we are trying to get all of these nutrients on few with fewer calories so yes we know athletes need uh higher amounts of protein but they eat so many calories it’s pretty easy to do whereas seniors eating fewer calories it can be a little more challenging they may have to focus a little more on some of the more concentrated protein plant sources like uh you know the legume family for example and when we think about uh the amount of protein in plants like you talked about greens but it’s so interesting what humans require is probably about 10 to 15 percent of calories from protein which is what people in the blue zones actually consume and those are very reasonable protein intakes and if people eat a mix or a variety of whole plant Foods that’s exactly where we fall in that 10 to 15 percent range and what a lot of people don’t realize is that you know the only foods that don’t have any protein are are you know oils and sugars already right um all whole plant foods contain protein now fruit is a little lower at somewhere one to ten percent of calories some of the starchy vegetables are a little lower maybe eight to twelve percent of calories uh and and but generally most of the other foods are above the 10 so if you look at legumes there are about 20 to 40 percent of calories from protein most of the non-starchy vegetables are in that range as well there are some that are a little lower than 20 percent but are a lot are between that 20 to 40 percent and then if we look at nuts and seeds well seeds are around 11 to 22 nuts are around you know some some are a little lower but generally around the 8 to 15 or so and and and and so if you’re eating a variety of these whole plant Foods you’re you’re really taking in a pretty pretty decent amount of protein

yeah and where people go wrong there are a couple of there are a couple of ins instances we see where people don’t get enough protein and that that can happen when people and especially we see this in in young people say teenagers who just all of a sudden get what we’re doing to animals and do not want to consume animal products anymore but they don’t know a lot about nutrition so they instead of ordering the burger and fries and coke they order the fries and coke and and just you know they’re eating a really highly processed junk food diet that that really doesn’t have a lot of good sources approaching most of us didn’t grow up learning to eat beans and lentils and so when you when you take out the meat they’re you know they’re not sure how to put together a a well-balanced plant-based diet and sometimes fruitarians can be a little bit low in in protein as well if they’re eating almost completely fruit not adding the seeds and greens and so forth and and then the other people we see fall short are the seniors that are kind of tea and toast seniors that just really aren’t eating a balanced diet either so those are some of the more common

that statement that statement about diversity is so important because even with kids and teenagers as you know they’ll get into like they’ll eat peanut butter they like it and they may just eat peanut butter all the time time so what will happen is they’ll focus on like almost a mono type diet and of course they’re going to create all kinds of breakdown and the bottom line is we always emphasize eating a diversity of all these whole plant foods and as you made the point that’s going to bring in the wide range of nutrients that we in fact need the other the other plate the other place where that got problematic is that you know when you see this polarization even in vegan circles that when uh you know people like ornish and esselstyn did these profound experiments you know reversing heart disease by lowering fat content it almost created a vilification of fat even in the vegan community so people started being afraid to even eat nuts and seeds and avocados and and foods with that have whole food fat that has tremendous value in the body and and I’m still seeing these arguments raging today and it’s a big mistake why don’t you speak to that just a little bit too because I know there’s such a misunderstanding about the benefits of eating good quality fat in Whole Foods

absolutely and I think one of the points that a lot of people you know a lot of people say well these are the studies that showed us we could reverse a coronary artery disease and it’s the number one killer so of course these have to be the gold standard for everyone but the reality is though you know we don’t have a study that has compared a sort of a under 10 percent of calories from fat no added nuts and seeds no avocados Etc to a similar diet that includes those foods and in my view we may be surprised at the results because when you think about the higher fat whole plant foods like nuts and seeds and avocados these foods are are very nutrient dense foods they provide a lot of especially trace minerals and vitamins that that you know are are more concentrated in them than they are in many other foods like the selenium and Brazil nuts and that you know some of these minerals that aren’t so easy to get enough of but they also they also help us to absorb fat soluble uh nutrients so there are many nutrients that are fat soluble there are many phytochemicals and antioxidants that are fat soluble and so consuming some higher levels of fat with our meal will help us to maximize the absorption of the very components in the diet that are most protective and when we eliminate those Foods we can actually compromise absorption of nutrients that are critical to health and so to me for for healthy individuals and even for individuals with chronic diseases we want to include at least a reasonable level of higher fat plant Foods so that we maximize the absorption of these very protective nutrients and our intake of a wide variety of nutrients and fats are so critical to health fats are are you know critical to hormone production they they are responsible for the production of many different compounds different icosanoids and resolvins and protectants that help to really boost immunity control pretty much every body system that we have they’re they’re a part of our cell membranes they affect the the shape the the permeability the cell to cell communication they affect all of that and and so it makes sense that they’re really a critical part of the diet and so I think you know an argument can be made about you know minimizing concentrated fats and oils but I really think there’s a very good argument to be made for including these wonderful higher fat whole plant Foods

yeah no question Brenda where can people follow you where can they find you online to get more information about you and from you

yes so I have a website brendadavisrd.com my email address is Brenda Davis at telus.net t-e-l-u-s we have a a website for our latest book plant powered protein and that’s plant Dash poweredprotein.com and so I love to hear from people and yeah welcome to to be in touch

Brenda we always talk about and you’ve thought you’ve mentioned it already and most of us have been teaching this for a long time about nutrients from Whole Foods and we know the benefit of that Colin Campbell wrote a beautiful book called whole where he emphasizes the fact that when we’re eating Whole Foods not only are we taking so many nutrients we know of and many things we haven’t even discovered yet and and they work in synergies and orchestrations that we can’t even fathom at at the level of intelligence that we have but we do know that there are things that can at time times be isolated nutrient changes and deficiencies and I know those have been talked about and banted about and one that you have spoken about that I’d like to touch on because it comes up a lot is the really Global deficiency of iodine let’s just touch on that a little bit because that is one of those unheralded minerals and and things that people kind of kind of dance around and yet we know how important it is for the growth of the nervous system and skeletal structures of infants and children we know how important it is for thyroid hormone production so when we’re looking at this whole vegan diet this whole food plant food diet we know that it’s present in seaweeds we know that it can be present in things like iodized salt but you know we’re also teaching a diet that is pretty salt free so how do you recommend how do you interact with people to address that very profound mineral in their diets

yes and I think that it’s just really important that people understand that iodine deficiency is the number one cause of cognitive impairment in infants globally even a minor deficiency or a what I would say insufficient intakes can cause a loss of 10 to 15 IQ points in a baby so people really do need to recognize that this is an essential nutrient we must have it in our diet and if if you look around the world the amount of iodine in the soil in different areas varies tremendously and there are some parts of the world where where iodine deficiency is very common because iodine in soil is so low and so your risk of deficiency will depend on where you live but generally what we did globally to try to prevent these sort of tragic Tales of severe cognitive impairment in babies was to add iodine to salt and so for people that are trying to hear a really Whole Foods diet and minimize their intake of salt and even people who are just trying to eat a cleaner diet and use some of these you know these sea salts or him lay in sea salt or whatever the case may be these salts are not iodized and and so for both of those groups those using non-iodized salts and those using diets that are really SOS or free of salt or added salt they need to think about where their iodine is coming from

and so yeah in your professional opinion if someone was eating a diversity of plants from many different soil conditions let’s suppose in a country like the United States or Canada do you believe they could satisfy that iodine without any supplementation

I think it’s possible but I think it is also something that I would consider supplementing to be on the safe side especially if you’re in at childbearing age and thinking of having children you just want to make sure that your iodine status is taken care of so what I would add is you can easily add a little bit of seaweed now seaweed is tricky because again uh seaweed can contain contaminants seaweed can be extremely concentrated in iodine so for example about a sixteenth of a teaspoon of kelp will will satisfy you know your daily need for iodine about 150 micrograms a day for an a non-pregnant non-lactating adult during pregnancy and lactation you need more uh and and so you know it’s a very small amount so a young child who needs 90 micrograms a day their upper limit is 200 micrograms so you know consuming a quarter of a teaspoon or an eighth of a teaspoon would exceed their upper limit so we just need to be aware of the concentration of iodine in these Foods Nori is not a concern because the amount of of iodine in a big sheet of nori may be close to a 70 to 100 micrograms so it’s it’s not generally going to exceed the upper limit but but other seaweeds such as kelp and and even dose and some of those seaweeds are definitely more concentrated so it’s just good to know how much is there and and how to add it safely to the diet there are some little you know containers of sprinkles and using it that way is is a really good idea because it’s just a sprinkle on food and generally that’ll boost your iodine status enough some people may want to just use an iodine supplement or if you’re using a high quality multi that is a whole food multi that has some iodine that that could solve the problem as well but I do think it’s something that we do need to be aware of and just to think about where it’s

yeah and and as you mentioned some of those seaweeds can have contaminants like hijika usually has some arsenic contamination and things of this nature so your point is well made

you know what I want yes and I want to add Frank that that that basically there are a number of countries including Canada and I think Hong Kong and there are a number of countries that advise against the use of hajiki because of the levels of contaminants um so if you use hajiki at all it should just be on occasion in moderation uh that’s definitely not one seaweed to rely on as your source of iodine

well the nice thing is you do have dulse Flakes and shakers that can provide just little sprinkles which will work beautifully if people put it on salads you can put it on steamed vegetables you can put it on casseroles so that’s a kind of a nice uh methodology for people on a more routine basis if they don’t want to eat the iodized salt so to speak

you know what I wanted to touch base on your work culturally what what came out and what is some of the significant things that came out of your work let’s say in the Marshall Islands I know you were in that diabetic Intervention Program could you speak to that just a little bit Yeah the ups and downs of that experience for you

yes well the Marshall Islands for people that aren’t aware are sort of halfway between Hawaii and Australia and it’s a population of about 60 000 people they’re about you know 1200 islands that are partial part of the Marshall Islands but the vast majority of the population probably about 45 000 are on two of those islands and it’s it’s a very tropical climate and and you know 100 years ago diabetes was pretty much unheard of there people lived off the land they you know ate fish and plants and that was pretty close to it uh today the population has grown so much on the these islands that the islands don’t produce enough food to sustain the population so they import food and they don’t have a lot of money there’s not a lot of work so they import the cheapest highly processed foods that they can import and and that’s you know really what people eat and and so you know a typical meal will be white sticky rice with a very high glycemic index and the spam or or barbecued chicken or grilled chicken or turkey tails or some sort of inexpensive meat uh you know or or fish but fish they you know often don’t eat as much of as these other um animal products and and the you know they drink a lot of sweet drinks and the children love ramen noodles and their favorite way of having them is with Kool-Aid powder sprinkled on top so it’s really the diet um is is so process today that the people of the Marshall Islands have among the highest rates of diabetes in the world type 2 diabetes of course

and and so we went into the Marshall Islands with this lifestyle intervention trial which was a clinical trial with five overlapping uh cohorts and and we put people we had control groups receiving usual care and intervention groups receiving really quite an intensive lifestyle medicine Intervention which included a plant-based diet exercise Stress Management you know all of the pillars of Lifestyle medicine and and I have to tell you that I I developed the you know the sort of design the program created the the materials for educating the people and and which I learned very quickly were way too high level for a lot of the people and had to be toned down and we we you know developed the recipes and and I learned very quickly people you know really don’t do recipes per se they don’t know what a tablespoon or a cup is in terms of you know measuring utensils so it was all quite challenging it was very interesting and it was a beautiful group of people I’ve never experienced I I I’ll just tell you a story to give you a flavor of of these people we had a doctor come to to assist with some of our our interventions and there are two roads to walk back to our our hotel well there are only two roads on the island and one is going uh right by the Water by a bunch of homes and they get they come alive at night because during the day it’s quite hot and he came from New York and he was walking back to the um to the hotel and it was close to midnight and a group of teenage boys was coming towards him and he got very nervous because in New York at midnight if a group of teenage boys is coming towards you you might get a little concerned and he said as they were getting closer he saw that they had their arms around one another and then he heard that they were all singing and as they approached him uh they they became very friendly with them and and said yuck way which is love and high and all of those wonderful things and they just continued singing and and he said I immediately realized I was in a very different place and and that the thing that I loved about the people is they laughed and sang and never even gave a second thought of singing in public it was just what they did it was absolutely beautiful and I fell in love with the Marshallese people

but I have to tell you that I was stunned at how quickly their bodies started to heal once they started the program I couldn’t believe people who said they they had been in pain for 20 years and the pain disappeared in a week people said their brain had felt fuzzy for years and all of a sudden it was they were thinking clearly um you know they they complained that they only you know some of them were going to the bathroom once a week we had one person that it was 13 days since his last bowel movement and all of a sudden they’re going to the bathroom every day and their blood glucose levels dropped you know on average in the first two weeks 75 milligrams per deciliter it was just remarkable to see these changes and most of the people in the Marshall Islands didn’t believe that diet would do anything they just thought diabetes was just the luck of the draw and they were shocked to see the changes in their health and the weight loss and how much better they felt and how much easier they could move and the other thing that we found so valuable beside the plant-based diet besides the you know a healthy Whole Food plant-based diet was we got them moving after every meal so after every meal they were out walking we had them doing an exercise class every day mostly dancing and they loved to dance and it was just incredible what moving after eating did for their after meal blood glucose levels so it was really quite an experience

I was there for eight months the first time and then I I came back regularly afterwards I it was coming every you know every couple of years and one of the things that I was asked to do uh I think it was 2017 was to create a nutrition education program for the schools and to train all the teachers in the schools how to implement this program and so I had some just beautiful opportunities there and I saw a change in what the restaurants were offering what the grocery stores were offering what people were cooking in their homes and one of the highlights for me was teaching uh you know doing the teaching the teachers and making beans and many of them had never even tasted beans beans weren’t part of what they did and being such an expense inexpensive source of protein I just thought it would be perfect for them and so teaching them and preparing a bean dish you know using the fresh coconut that we you know squeezed into coconut okay and and with the beans I can remember one lady and they loved it they were just eating it up and one lady said these beans are just as good as ice cream and I thought that’s what that really made an impact if they think the beans are as good as ice cream and and so it was it was just such a positive experience I I really loved being there

well you know you that that message that can’t be said enough this idea that you know we always talk about these healthy choices being able to prevent problems people lose sight of the power of reversibility how incredibly profound it is to see things that have been generating over so many years by applying some very powerful tools of support in even a very short time you reverse these incredible changes I’ve always likened it almost to this idea that there’s almost like a biological process of forgiveness etched into the genetic Machinery of the living system this ability to have this kind of autonomy and expression of health and all we need to do is provide some very simple requirements on a routine basis and it’s all about the food to a great extent and we know that so I absolutely love that sentiment

and I agree I think the body just wants to heal it won’t wants to be healthy and all we need to do is provide the raw materials so it can rebuild itself because that’s exactly what it does when you think every single cell of the body is a product of what you put in your mouth it is remarkable how rapidly your body begins to heal and rebuild and that is I think was the biggest shocker for me when I started working in the Marshall Islands I just was so impressed by how quickly and how profoundly that transition occurs

right Brenda as we wind this down do you have any final sentiments or words or ideas you’d like to share with the people out here

oh absolutely well for I have to say thank you to to the National Health Association for everything they do the conferences this podcast just all of the wonderful work their their magazine or Journal it’s just tremendous work and they’re making such a difference in the world so I’m very grateful for that and very grateful for you uh Dr Sabatino for what you’re doing and for uh the eloquent way that you frame these things in health and I just wish everybody a wonderful uh healthy long life and thank you for making better choices for yourself for the animals and for the planet you’re making a real difference in this world

well I really want to thank my guest Brenda Davis today for sharing her information or her heart her experience and with all that knowledge and wisdom she’s just one of the nicest people I’ve ever met I really want to thank you Brenda for being part of this and I really want to thank our audience out there because without you we couldn’t do what we do and I want to really thank you for being part of this very healthy community and on behalf of the National Health Association I’m your host Dr Frank Sabatino and I look forward to being with you on the next episode of the health science podcast thank you

you’ve been listening to the health science podcast brought to you by the National Health Association thank you for joining us today and for your commitment to evidence-based health science that backs a whole food plant exclusive lifestyle and contributes to the well-being of all people animals and our environment I’m your host Dr Frank Sabatino be sure to leave a rating and a review and we’ll see you on the next show