Off stage Interview 2020 – Author: Brenda Davis – Kick Diabetes Essentials… Designing A Diet To

how many people do you know who ate a whole food plant-based diet and ended up with a protein deficiency how often have you heard of this happening well I you know when it comes to protein one of the things that a lot of people in the plant-based world say is you know if you’re looking at protein deficiencies the hospital wards would be empty there aren’t any and I think that’s an overstatement to be honest so so we don’t see overt protein deficiency like we see in starving children in Africa where they would have kwashiorkor with the distended you know stomachs and and very emaciated limbs we are a nation where we generally have an undefeated let me just give you an example so generally people get enough protein from plant foods under a couple of conditions one is that they’re eating enough calories so if you’re eating enough calories chances are you’ll get enough protein if you’re eating mostly Whole Foods now what happens sometimes and I’ve seen this on a number of occasions is they’ll see a teenager who gets excited about the environment animal rights and they don’t have the knowledge about nutrition and they shift from eating a kind of a you know a fast-food teenager diet with lots of soda pop and they were eating burgers and fries and chips and all of that and all they do is remove the meat and remove the milk so they’re not eating ice cream and they’re not drinking milk anymore and they’re not consuming burgers so instead of the burger they do a double order of fries and a pop and they’re having their granola bars and they’re eating all their junk foods and in fact they may not get enough protein and they need a fair bit of protein as they’re still growing and then the other people we see sometimes not getting an protein are people that are eating very high fruit diet and not putting them together very well and because fruit tends to have fairly low amounts of protein they may not get enough either now we also see sometimes in seniors seniors don’t digest and absorb amino acids as well as younger adults and in fact in some countries for example in Australia people actually have a separate recommendation for people over 70 they need about 25% more protein than a younger adult to meet their needs and the reason is just because of the a lower ability to break down and absorb the amino acids and so it gets tricky because you’ve got an older say an older gentleman who may have needed 60 grams as an adult male now all of a sudden he needs 80 grams but he’s not eating 2800 calories anymore because he doesn’t move as quickly he doesn’t need as many calories all of a sudden he’s only eating 2,000 calories but he needs 20 grams more protein and in these cases we can actually see what we call sarcopenia or muscle wasting in older people that aren’t getting enough protein we also I have also seen a number of people who are into raw food diets but they’re eating you know a diet that is fairly high in fact lots of coconut products and so forth where they may not be getting enough protein and they start to they lose hair and and and their their skin becomes sort of almost thin looking they they just their bones start to get weaker there are a number of things that happen because protein is a building block for the tissues that we build everything with including our bones and so they may not get enough protein and and so in in all of these cases as the trick is not to all of a sudden start taking protein powders but to recognize that in a whole food plant-based diet you do want to be including legumes you want to be including some of the higher protein choices in the various groups so for example things like hemp seeds or pumpkin seeds are very valuable and so the point is most people eating a whole food plant-based diet do absolutely fine but there are cases and young children as well where they need more protein per pound of body weight and so we need because they consume smaller amounts of calories we need to be a little more conscious of where their protein is coming from and so really including the legumes and the seeds and some nuts and so forth in the diet so not that it’s difficult to do but it’s not impossible to not get enough protein

how do we get enough vitamins minerals and trace minerals how do we prevent shortages of specific vitamins and minerals healthy fats and other essential nutrients so you know the the question of how do we get enough vitamins and minerals and the essential fatty acids and all of these things you know I can remember thirty years ago when I started in this field and my my my goal was at that time to help people get this right because of failed vegan especially a child they don’t get enough b12 they don’t get enough iodine they don’t get enough calcium whatever it is sets us back 20 years because I’ll tell you it hits the headlines vegan child dies of b12 deficiency or has irreversible brain damage or whatever and and I’ve received calls from you know from lawyers who are representing vegan parents who are you know going to go to jail because their child died of malnutrition and my goal in life one of my my major goal especially early on in my career was to create resources that would make this almost impossible for this to happen I wanted to create guidelines that were pretty much foolproof you couldn’t blow it if you follow this guide and that’s why I’ve written so many books like becoming vegan me you know we started with becoming vegetarian and then becoming vegan and then the new becoming vegetarian and then becoming vegan comprehensive and Express editions the you know completely rewritten ten years later and so on and so on and and and I think it’s just so critical we get this right because when we get it wrong we become exhibit number one for why people are justified in eating meat so we really need to take the time most of our nutrition education materials are geared towards omnivores so as vegans or as plant-based eaters even if you’re not vegan you need to take it upon yourself to get educated about how to do this correctly especially if you’re raising small children and speaking of that that’s my next book I just teamed with a with a pediatrician from San Francisco her name is Reshma Shah and she is balanced she is science-based and she’s a brilliant writer and I’m really quite honored to be working with her but to provide a resource for families and so it this is um you know one of the things that my writing partner vesanto melina who I done most of my books with and I have done is to create these food guides like we have National Food Guide so we’ve created vegan or plant-based food guides where we tell you how many servings of fruits and vegetables and legumes and nuts and seeds and greens and and and then what are within each of these groups are your best calcium choices how do you get enough calcium and then there are some nutrients even if you do all that you may not get enough of and that those are vitamin D iodine essential fatty acids and and so how do n vitamin b12 and so how do we make sure that those are covered as well and and so just to you know summarize eating the range of a variety of plant foods in the in the reasonable amounts getting a source of b12 which the most reliable are supplements or b12 fortified foods so like like red star nutritional yeast or or you know fortified non-dairy beverages would be a reliable source and and then for you know for iodine people can use seaweed and in varying amounts they can use some iodized salt and i know people will cringe with that but but certainly it’s a reliable source and you can get iodized salt so that don’t contain the you know all of the things that people are trying to avoid you need to read the label um and and you want to keep sodium low so for me i would prefer to rely on a little sprinkle of kelp all you need is about a sixteenth of a teaspoon or you know a tenth of a teaspoon depending so it’s a very small amount you don’t even taste it you can sprinkle that for people that love seaweeds things like nori and dolls and and what comi those can be very reasonable choices as well now with iodine the amounts we get vary depending on the on on this soil the amount in the soil in many places in europe like italy and in the UK and and finland the amounts in the soil are very low and so those people need to be really really ultra vigilant because they’re not going to bill to rely on fruits and vegetables and and other plant foods much for their iodine we can a little bit more in north america but still the numbers it they’re not concentrated sources so and then vitamin d well of course sunshine is the ultimate source but but you know the sunshine is I think provides us with so much more than vitamin D it’s just so critical to our our health but many of us live in places where we don’t have access to warm sunshine in the winter months and we don’t all have the money to be going to Hawaii every second month so we need to rely on some supplements or fortified foods in that case as well and then with essential fatty acids again we have some you know some plant foods that really offer more concentrated sources and and in you know the omega-3 family it’s it’s seeds like Chia and hemp and flax and and what and then nuts like walnuts and so just you know learning specifically how to do this you can put it together fairly easily

what’s wrong with eating fish assuming it came from healthy waters you know that’s that’s a it’s a it’s an interesting question and and if you look around the world at some of the healthiest people the Okinawans ate fish the sardine Ian’s the people in Korea a lot of healthy people do include fish and and so then why wouldn’t we want to eat it when there are some of the healthiest people in the world a couple of things that people need to be aware of for example the Okinawans averaged a half an ounce of fish a day that’s about 15 grams for people who are on the metric scale and and so this is a very tiny amount of fish it’s not a lot they might have eaten it twice a week and very small servings and and so I think people can be healthy eating small amounts of clean fish the issues for me are several number one that fish is only as clean as the water it’s swimming in and our oceans are becoming more and more contaminated fish is one of our main dietary sore it is the main dietary source of mercury and it’s one of the main sources of persistent organic pollutants in our environment dioxins and PCBs and all of these things that we know are neurotoxins and so that’s an issue for sure and and then the other issue is we are raping the oceans there were a group of scientists that that predicted by 2048 there wouldn’t be any fish stocks left a fishery it would all be fish farming because we are cleaning out the oceans I remember a program about life in the ocean the last five minutes of the program showed a you know one of these huge nets that that are dragged along the bottom of the ocean everything in the net brought back up to the surface and they picked off the prawns about 20% of the weight of what was there was prawns the other 80% fell you know they let die and and turtles and sharks and you name it dead back to the bottom of the ocean it’s of no value to the to the shrimp industry so we also need to think about how these fish are being caught and and what we’re doing in the process to our our ocean ecosystems which to me is a big issue and then for people who are who are interested in the compassion piece fish you know we used to think they didn’t feel or think or any of that stuff and that’s just not true there’s a there’s a man by the name of Jonathan bulk home that has is a researcher in this area and he’s written several books and we are learning a lot about this the sort of sensibilities if you will of these creatures that are living in the ocean and I think that needs to be weighed in as well so my personal preference is not to consume fish

according to the best unbiased science is there a clear relation between consuming eggs and heart disease cancer and diabetes well with eggs is actually a fair bit of evidence on both sides I think a fair bit of the evidence on the on the favorable side that they’re healthy comes from the egg industry which isn’t surprising some not so much but I think the studies are fairly clear that that that eggs do increase certainly diabetes risk and they can increase blood cholesterol levels because they’re little cholesterol bombs now we know cholesterol from food doesn’t impact blood cholesterol levels as much as we once thought but it still does increase it to some degree and and so I think we need to be aware of that and and so of course if it’s increasing blood cholesterol levels it can be a contributing factor to cardiovascular disease now there was an interesting study that came out I think it was 2018 but this was a Harvard study 130 thousand individuals followed for about three decades so this is a big cohort followed for a long period of time and what these researchers looked at was if we replace just 3% of calories coming from animal protein and replace it with plant protein what will that mean for mortality rates and just take it to to set the stage here 60 ere to give you some framework that’s a more practical three percent of calories in a 2,000 calorie diet which is kind of standard for a lot of people would be about 60 calories worth of animal protein this is not a lot if we take three percent of calories from animal protein replace it with plant protein what happens in terms of mortality well if we if that animal protein comes from processed meat we decrease mortality 34 percent if that processed meat is replaced with plant protein that’s a lot if we take the the animal protein and it’s coming from eggs and replace it with with plant protein we reduce mortality by 19% that’s significant so if it’s unprocessed meat it’s 12% if it’s dairy it’s 8% and if it’s poultry or fish its 6% so I think this is a pretty significant finding of all of the animal products that were assessed in that study eggs came out a number two right after processed meat in terms of how much mortality is increased by replacing that food with plant protein I will pick scrambled tofu over scrambled eggs any day

why are so many authors claiming animal products should be included in a healthy diet have you read the books promoting keto Paleo low carb diets do they have science to support their claims so when it comes to things like paleo keto low-carb diets I I get it actually that I think the thinking is that refined carbohydrates are really unhealthy choices for people and so in in these diets they’re getting out a lot of the processed foods and they’re thinking you know what did we eat you know that sort of back in paleo times when we were strong and running miles and miles and and we were living on you know these wild animals and wild plants and if we could just get back to that that that would be beneficial now that’s the Paleo diet the keto diet is more if you can get your body to run on this different fuel called ketones which is we produce when we don’t get hardly any carbohydrates in our diets that that that somehow preferable and and so these diets are have become popular because people really like to eat meat you see plant foods are all high car will hydrate foods with the single exception of nuts and seeds so fruits are you know what 90 92 percent of calories from carbohydrates legumes and greens are 7075 percent non even non starchy vegetables are 58 60 % of calories from carbohydrates so they’re all you know predominantly the Mac the predominant macronutrient is carbohydrates with the exception of nuts and seeds that might be in the range of 12 14 percent of calories from carbohydrates they’re mostly fat but it’s really impossible to have a plant centred diet that’s that’s you know no carbohydrates because plants are carb are carbohydrates the only foods that are carbohydrate free of course are meat poultry fish eggs though and pure oil is carbohydrate free dairy is is some Daria’s is very low in carbohydrates like cream and butter of course is carbohydrate free it’s pure fat and and things like cheese which are very high fat they’re much lower in carbohydrate then fluid milk but even fluid milk is is you know it’s about 30 32 or 34 percent of calories from carbohydrates 2% milk the higher fat milks would would be lower in carbohydrates but so you get the picture you’re not if you’re eating plant foods you’re not gonna be getting a low carbohydrate diet because plants aren’t low in carbohydrates so so a lot of these diets are very animal strong meat heavy diets and I have a lot of concern about these kinds of diets and and and certainly in some of the books you know Loren Cordain and others who are paleo promoters are our legitimate scientists and they’ve looked and and much of what they’re saying is we need to get rid of the processed foods and they’re absolutely right is that refined carbohydrates are a problem that highly processed foods are problem to me what they get wrong is thinking that animal products are not an issue at all and and and I again if you look back at Paleolithic anthropology a nutritional anthropology and and the estimates of what people actually consumed in Paleolithic times one of the things that’s really interesting is that is that these these estimates uh certainly indicated that these diets were fairly high in protein so around twenty five thirty percent of calories from protein which is what these new paleo folks do as well however the predictions around fat we’re a lot lower in fat well a lot of the lower carb diets today so they were estimating some 22 you know as high as 35% fat but probably at the lower end for most of humanity for most of the Paleolithic period in fact the first 80% of the Paleolithic people humans were of the Paleolithic period humans were essentially vegetarian we didn’t know how to hunt if there was something dead we might try to you know take a bite out of it but but we didn’t we didn’t have the real capacity to kill anything of any size and it was only in the last 20% of the Paleolithic period that we learned how to hunt and even then these folks that have done this research said that that even then we were predominantly plant-based and and certainly people near the equator ate mostly plants as you moved further north is so you increase the amount of hunting to provide enough food but even the biggest hunters on the planet were averaging 70 grams of fiber a day that’s more than the average vegan eats so they were eating a fair bit of fibrous plant matter the averages you know that they the estimates were were a hundred than 50 plus grams of fiber for people at the other end of the scale eating more plants so I don’t know of anybody eating a paleo diet today that comes anywhere close and if you look at the estimates for things like like vitamin C 5 or 600 milligrams a day that that’s probably more than the average vegan it’s way more than the average omnivore and it’s certainly far above what any Paleo you know inclined person would consume potassium seven thousand ten thousand the the numbers vary a bit but again vegans don’t even get that where does potassium come from fruits and vegetables so-so over and over and over again we have indications that the diet had a lot of plant the other thing to know is animals consumed by Paleolithic men were certainly much lower in environmental contaminants if not free of environmental contaminants and and they were extremely lean so you’re looking at an estimated percentage of calories from fat ranging from 6 to 16 percent of calories today as domestic animals are closer to 40 even 50 percent of calories from fat and the very high fat products even higher and and so if they’re very different these are not the same things and if you look at domestic animals well we know these persistent organic pollutants move up the food chain us and they’re often pumped full of hormones and antibiotics there’s all there are all kinds of factors that affect you know the the healthfulness of meat today now we’ve got a number of studies that have looked at and compared people eating you know various amounts of carbohydrates and consistently the people eating the least carbohydrates have about somewhere in the range of 26 to 32 percent higher mortality rates the most interesting I think of these studies was a recent study that came out Seidelman x’ group and and in fact what they found was that the highest rates of mortality occurred in people consuming the least carbohydrates they had a 32% increase in mortality now the lowest mortality was associated with people consuming about fifty to fifty five percent of calories from carbohydrate and then in the high carbohydrate range it was just fascinating because on average they had a 23% higher risk than people at the lowest and but the range within that category was absolutely huge so the bulk of the people that had an increased mortality that you could see on this chart was was significantly increased the the researchers explained that these people were getting most of their carbohydrates from refined foods these were people in poor countries that were relying on white flour white rice products as their primary source of calories now within that same category we saw the very lowest mortality rates and we would expect that that category of high carbohydrate eaters we’re getting their carbohydrates from whole plant foods now the other thing that Seidelman study showed is if you replace carbohydrate with animal fat or protein you increase and you will actually increase mortality by 18 percent but if you replace carbohydrate with plant fat or protein you reduce mortality by 18 percent and so this is very consistent in the literature we’ve seen multiple studies showing that plant predominant diets are protective for the human species

why do you say the optimal level of alcohol is zero aren’t there studies saying red wine is good for you uh when it comes to alcohol the research that shows that red wine is good for you I’m a little suspicious of my guess is they’re comparing people who drink lots of red wine with people who don’t drink who are former alcoholics who were former alcoholics and so they have a lot of health issues so they’re not necessarily comparing them to healthy individuals who are you know non-drinkers and so I’m suspecting that I’m not positive of it but I think we have to be very careful of that research because we know without beyond any shadow of a doubt that any amount of alcohol increases cancer risk and it’s really simple alcohol is helping carcinogens get into cells it eases the entrance if you will of carcinogens into cells it also speeds the oxidative stress it creates free radical reactions and it so so we know that that there is no amount of alcohol intake that is helpful in terms of cancer and any amount is harmful we know that alcohol can also increase risk of you know liver disease and there are other adverse health effects associated with excess alcohol consumption so in my view the optimal intake of alcohol is zero if you drink you definitely want to keep it moderate and that means on occasion and in moderation I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with having a you know a small glass of wine once in a while but I’m not sure it’s a good idea to make it something you do every evening and and something you do I can remember so when I was a young person so many of the adults I knew it was a dinner be a drink before dinner like a Ryan ginger or something it was a glass of wine with supper and it was an after-dinner little liqueur or something after supper and that was standard and this is just not a good plan so I think for you know just for most people the less the better

Brian Clement says all sugar including fruit feeds yeast mold and fungus and that we should eat only around a piece a day do you agree with this what have you observed in people’s blood sugar levels when they ate or did not eat fruit well I I have a different experience and I know Brian’s basing

his recommendations on his experience at Hippocrates and and working with cancer patients and and I appreciate that but based on science we come up with something quite different and even my experience working with I work more with diabetes than with cancer I just don’t see that but if you go on PubMed this is where the research is available to everyone and you do a search fruit and health or fruit and heart disease or fruit and cancer or fruit and diabetes whatever you search you can’t find negative studies they are non-existent as a matter of fact 2018 they did there was a research team that that published a meta-analysis of 356 studies on the relationship between fruit and and disease and basically what they said is that fruit consistently reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease hypertension diabetes various types of cancer depression osteoporosis skin disorders GI disorders the law just a laundry list of diseases it was quite amazing and then their conclusion was is that they’re recognizing that fruit is contributing the lack of fruit that low fruit intake is a very significant contributor to global morbidity and mortality and that we need to be putting more emphasis on it based on 356 research studies in terms of looking at what it does to blood glucose there was a study from Denmark not so long ago that compared very low fruit intake with higher fruit intake and they saw no differences in terms of glycemic you know response in the individuals that fruit didn’t have an adverse effect and they said that fruit absolutely should not be restricted there were two studies that I know of that looked at giving people 20 servings of fruit a day and even then they saw improvements in cholesterol and triglycerides and all of these things that that was a that were fairly surprising to the researchers there there are a couple of of folks that run this serous and and Robbie that run them mastering diabetes a site and they promote a very fruit heavy diet for people with diabetes and their results have just been stellar so a lot of us who have been hesitant to include too much fruit in the diet are recognizing that it’s probably not such a big issue and I have to say from a personal perspective I’ve always been a heavy fruit eater even as a child my mum would buy a basket of peaches and they would be gone in a day and a half I would eat three or four at the time I would eat you know blueberries just bowls bowls full and and so I’m a little bit partial to fruit I love fruit at but I think it’s a wonderful source of potassium I can remember when we were analyzing our menus for for our becoming vegan books we actually had a hard time getting potassium up to where it needed to be without including a significant amount of fruit I think for most people eating 2 or 3 or 4 or even more servings of fruit a day is not a problem

how do you reverse type 2 diabetes can everyone do it or does it only work for some people so the whole question of the reversal of diabetes is such an interesting one because most people who have been through Medical School been through nursing school been through Dietetic school learned that diabetes is not a reversible disease and it’s probably only been in the last maybe 15 years that that’s been on our radar maybe 20 I think James Anderson does work and in the 70s and 80s gave us some hints that it was a reversible disease but but certainly many health professionals still believe that that it’s a progressive irreversible disease but what there are a couple of things they need to know number one is in 2009 the American Diabetes Association released a paper defining diabetes reversal and they defined it as number one people would be on no medications number two they would have normal glycemic measures normally one sees normal fasting glucose and number three they would maintain this for at least a year now that’s the part that’s controversial the controversial at least a year some folks will say if they three months is enough six months is enough but what we know is they need to be off medications and have normal glycemic measures and if they have that they if they don’t have a fasting blood sugar of 126 milligrams per deciliter they’re not diabetic if they don’t have you know a one sees in the diabetic range they’re not diabetic and yes it’s true they could become diabetic again quite easily if they revert to their old ways and regain the weight and so forth but diabetes is a reversible disease I have seen many people reverse this disease and and so how do we reverse it well number one we need to understand diabetes type two diabetes is a disease of insulin resistance so in most people the pancreas is still functioning which is not true in type one diabetes where the beta cells have been mainly destroyed or completely destroyed and and in type 2 diabetes the beta cells are often still functioning now they can become less well functioning and we can lose some over time because of this you know constant overuse and trying to put out so much insulin to compensate for high blood sugars that the pancreas can literally conk out eventually but for most people there is function in that pancreas of what we need to do is we need to reverse insulin resistance so what causes insulin resistance well insulin resistance I think is a function of several things so one of which is overweight and obesity overweight and obesity cause inflammation because you get this production of a depe kinds or cytokines that are these inflammatory compounds especially from your visceral fat stores that that that contribute to insulin resistance you get oxidative stress which you know again contributes to inflammation and insulin resistance and then the other two really key players are dysbiosis dysbiosis in of itself is an unhealthy gut flora and and you can get production of these inflammatory compounds that leak into the bloodstream your your gut becomes leaky and these things get into the bloodstream and again can can contribute to insulin resistance and endotoxin and all of these things and then the biggie which many people are completely unaware of is called lipo toxicity and this is the kingpin so lipo toxicity is a situation where you begin to store fat in places where should not be so fat we have this unlimited ability to store fact and and it is normally stored in our adipose tissue and adipose tissue can just keep storing and storing and storing and storing however when excess calories are coming in at such a high rate that the body can shuttle it off to the fat stores fast enough it sometimes ends up worming its way into places it shouldn’t be your liver your pancreas your heart tissue and your muscle tissue and that is lipo toxicity when you store fat in your pancreas it kills your beta cells when you store fat in your liver it makes your body highly insulin resistant when you store fat in your muscle tissue and of course we all store some fat in our muscle tissue in something called intra Mayo cellular lipids and and and if you’re an athlete you actually even have more of these because you need that fast burning fuel to be readily available to your muscles but in people who are overweight and diabetic they get so much fat shoved into their muscle tissue that their muscle tissue becomes very insulin resistant and so the intra Myo cellular lipids can actually block insulin signaling and this is a huge issue and so what we see is is that as people begin to lose weight get start eating more healthfully and their body fat comes down the lipo toxicity starts to decline and in fact one of the first Clues we had that insulin resistance could be uh you know could be reversed was in people undergoing bariatric surgery so they would undergo bariatric surgery and the weight loss would happen very very rapidly and within a week or two their insulin resistance was gone because one of the first places that they would burn the fat off was from their liver and once you get liver fat you restore insulin sensitivity so that was clue number one and then these groups started to say well I wonder if we could get the same thing if we just put people on a really strict like super low-calorie six to eight hundred calorie diet giving them these liquid beverages and that’s it and sure enough lipo toxicity came down and insulin resistance went away and and then the third sort of level of evidence we now have is people consuming these whole food plant-based diets and it’s a more gradual reduction of lipo toxicity but we see it dr. joel Fuhrman did a study was a very small study of you know but but these individuals in his study I believe it was sixty two percent or or there abouts completely went off medications and reversed their disease and we it was you know we have a group that’s working on a diabetes program on online it’s called the e4 live diabetes solutions they’re seeing numbers about the same in the 60-some percent of their folks who are really adherent are seeing complete reversal of the disease and so this is this is exciting news and so we know that by following a diet that doesn’t include a lot of processed foods or animal products that we can see tremendous improvements and restore our insulin sensitivity

what can someone do to prevent osteoporosis and bone fractures do you recommend we take calcium tablets so osteoporosis is first of all it’s not a dairy deficiency disease as so many people think it is it’s not even a calcium deficiency disease it is a multifactorial disease that you know there are so many factors that affect our risk and if you look around the world you see people in Africa who are eating four hundred milligrams of calcium a day who have some of the strong bones in the world but they are doing tons of weight-bearing exercise they’re super conditioned to absorb the calcium they eat very efficiently the rest of their diet is designed to really maximize bone health so calcium is important not to get the wrong idea calcium is very important but so are other minerals you know potassium magnesium boron zinc they’re all important to bone health vitamin D is critical for the absorption of calcium but it’s not just vitamin D it’s vitamin b12 it’s it’s vitamin K it’s it’s it’s a you know of vitamin E they’re all important to bone health and and so there are many factors that come into play essential fatty acids protein the intake of fruits and vegetables there are just so many factors that come into play if we look at people who eat a vegan diet and not necessarily an optimal vegan diet just a vegan diet and look at their bone health we see about half the studies showing not much difference with people eating an omnivorous diet the other half showing that vegans have less bone density which is not a good thing now one of the key studies was epic Oxford that showed that vegans in this particular study had about 30% more fractures than omnivores and this was very concerning but they went on and looked a little further and they looked only at the vegans that were eating at least five hundred and twenty-five milligrams of calcium a day they had no differences in their in their bone mineral or in their fracture risk compared to omnivores lacto-ovo vegetarians fish eaters they were all about the same so for vegans it seems that it makes sense to make sure you’re getting at least five hundred and twenty-five milligrams a day now it matters a lot of things you do matter so the amount of salt you eat the amount of protein you eat all of these how much you exercise will all factor in so people eating a whole old food a sort of SOS if you will type of diet where they’re not adding a lot of salt or not adding any salt they may be able to get by with slightly lower calcium intakes than someone eating more sodium for example but I think it’s still not a bad idea to aim for the recommended intakes and the RDA for calcium is a thousand milligrams for people 19 to 50 years of age for women 50 to I think it’s 70 it would be or 51 to 70 it goes up to 1200 and for men’s 70 plus it goes up to 1200 and so people say how do you get that much calcium on a plant-based diet it seems like so much the you know for years people have thought you have to have dairy to get that much calcium but in fact if you look back at the Paleolithic diet the estimated calcium intakes were one to two thousand milligrams a day and so that they didn’t consume the milk of any other mammals can you imagine people didn’t have that capacity back then so where did they get it well they got it from leafy greens they got it from all of these plant foods they were eating some some of it may have can’t come from bones as well but most of it from plant foods and so we can do that too so greens are a really good source of calcium and in fact you absorb about maybe 34 percent of the calcium from cow’s milk it’s about the same for tofu a little bit less for soy milk a little bit less for things like sweet potatoes and beans somewhere in the 20 to 30 percent range but a lot more for low oxalate green leafies so you absorb about 40 to 70% of the calcium and leafy greens like kale and broccoli while broccoli Chinese greens of turnip greens all of these greens collard greens are sort of a little lower but reasonable amount there are three greens that are really high in calcium but you can’t get a lot of calcium out of them because they’re so high in oxalic acid and so that’s beet greens spinach and Swiss chard so those are healthy foods they’re great foods but they’re not big calcium sources just because of their oxalic acid content and and so so greens are a great source tofu made with calcium all of these fortified non-dairy milks contain very readily available calcium so they’re good calcium sources and then things like being so black turtle beans navy beans white are great northern beans white beans they all contain about a hundred milligrams of calcium per cup some a little bit more and then we have things like seeds there are many seeds that contain 250 milligrams of calcium per quarter cup chia seeds sesame seeds poppy seeds are really quite high in calcium and so we can you know at almonds are a reasonable source so and you get bits from all sorts of fruits and vegetables even an orange has 60 milligrams of calcium so if you’re eating that variety of foods and you’re you’re focused a little bit on some of these bigger calcium sources you you can get by pretty well and it’s pretty easy to get six or seven hundred doing that milligrams of calcium and then you add in one serving of fortified milk and you’re at the thousand you add two and you’re at you know your your you’re at at twelve thirteen hundred fairly easily so that’s you know that’s how you can do it and and I think we do need to be conscious of that for children we do need to be conscious of that for for especially I mean everybody but for for women who are at higher risk for osteoporosis and and so it’s totally doable it doesn’t to me it defies rationality to assume that the milk of you know a cow would be central for human health I I love what Michael clapper says he reminds people that you know the milk of a cow the milk of a moose the milk of a deer the milk of a dog the milk of a cat is you know beautifully designed to support the life and growth of their offspring so for a calf that weighs 60 pounds 60 5 pounds whatever at birth everything in that milk is there in order to help that little calf become a full-grown cow it wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t needed for that purpose and so to think that the human species requires that milk for their survival or their bone health or anything else is ridiculous we no more Mead need cow’s milk than moose milk moose milk is actually has twice as much calcium as cow’s milk per cup we don’t call it any central food so I’m not that cow’s milk is not a rich source of calcium of course it is it’s got to make some pretty big bones and little little calves it’s three hundred milligrams per cup it’s a it’s a rich source of calcium but it doesn’t make it any central source of calcium for people

what do you recommend for women who are perimenopausal or menopausal to help them deal with the side effects of menopause well for people who are going through menopause so interesting if you look around the world there are some places where the symptoms of menopause are very unusual or you know we just don’t see them much and one of the places I think of is Japan whereas in in the United States and Canada in Europe people experience more profound symptoms of menopause and and I think a lot has to do with body weight and hormones I think a lot has to do with our dietary choices and I think a lot has to do with our exercise habits and so for me to me I would say to two women be as healthy as you can be don’t be overweight get enough rest get enough exercise and eat an unprocessed whole food diet as much as possible lots of fruits and vegetables lots of legumes plenty of whole grains some nuts and seeds we need the essential fats in there as well and and I think that soy there are a several studies showing that it may help reduce symptoms of menopause for some women and and so I can just share from a personal perspective because I’m 61 years old I’m postmenopausal of course and I really barely noticed once in a while I felt a little bit of sort of warmth never what I would call a hot flash where I felt like I was sweating not even close that was it and I am a regular consumer of organic soy and and some people say oh so he’s poison don’t eat that my answer to that would be if soy was a poison it probably wouldn’t have been a dietary staple in two of the healthiest longest lives owns in the world Okinawa and the seventh-day adventists Okinawans average two servings of soy a day soy is a legume it’s a bean it’s it’s you know to me it’s it’s a wonderful contributor to you know very wonderful protein rich food and great for people who are vegetarian or vegan and so what I would say is that we need to be cautious about ultra-processed soy and how is the soy protein extracted and ask those questions if you just stick to organic you can avoid some of the issues we might be concerned with and and so organic soy tofu tempeh edamame soybeans used to make patties or whatever you’re doing with it and and those would be you know an even organic soy milk to me those are very reasonable additions to the diet I would go a little more lightly on the processed soy foods like the veggie meats but I still don’t think they need to be a necessarily eliminated because I feel like they make doing this easier for people isn’t it wonderful when you know your child is going to off to a scouting adventure and they can have a hot dog on the fire like everyone else so they have a tofu hot dog or they have a veggie burger when the troop is doing burgers it just makes life easier for people and so I think they can have a place in the diet and just I wouldn’t make them staples that’s all so so yeah so I think those are the the keys and for me and for many women I know who are plant-based we pretty much sailed through menopause

according to the best unbiased science does replacing animal protein with plant protein reduced risk of death and disease yes so this question there are there are a couple of studies that I think are worth mentioning so the first study was a Harvard study that I mentioned earlier and this Harvard study compared and did exactly that replacing animal protein with plant protein and as I mentioned we saw a risk reduction in terms of mortality that was very very significant so so we know that with this particular study 130,000 individuals followed for 30 years replacing just 3% that’s about 60 calories in a 2,000 calorie diet with plant protein reduce risk of death by 34% if you were replacing processed meat 19% with with eggs 12% with unprocessed meat 8% with dairy 6% with fish and and poultry now there was a second study that just came out in 2019 from Japan and that the numbers were unbelievable so you’re looking at again replacing 3% of calories from animal protein with plant protein they saw a 34 percent reduction in mortality if it came from red meat and a 42% reduction in mortality if it came from processed meat they also looked at cancer 46% reduction in cancer with unprocessed red meat and a 50% reduction in cancer with processed red meat with processed red meat and we’re talking about three percent of calories that is phenomenal results and there are many other studies that have looked at this and consistently show for almost every disease you can think of for cancers for diabetes for heart disease that replacing animal protein with plant protein reduces risk

you mentioned the seventh-day adventists can you explain more about their Health Study and and what its conclusions were was this study an important one well first I’ll say this study is one of the most important studies for the plant-based world as far as I’m concerned and I and I should qualify that statement this is not one study this is dozens and dozens of studies so first of all we had the at the Adventist mortality study and this was a study many years ago that actually just compared Adventists with other people in California this was the Loma Linda Adventist with other you know people doing the standard thing in California and they found that the Adventists were at a tremendous advantage in terms of longevity and and various diseases and then they did the health the Adventist Health Study one and that looked at well why what is it that gives Adventists the advantage and so they found that you know it was exercise it was smoking less it was it was you know just all of these things but it was also diet and eating a more plant-strong diet that provided the protection in this case and then the biggie the Adventist Health Study – and this study began in 2002 and is still ongoing ninety six thousand individuals and what they did in this study is they compared just Adventists but the Adventists who eat meat with the Adventists who are semi vegetarian who are pesco vegetarian or or basically follow a vegetarian diet plus fish who are lack Deauville vegetarian so they eat eggs and milk versus the vegans and follow them for many years to see who within this cohort actually develops disease and so it’s such a fair comparison because they all tend to they control for you know how much coffee do you drink how much do you exercise how much alcohol do you drink how much do you smoke that’s all controlled for these are all health-conscious individuals and and so when you compare the meat-eaters with the vegans the differences you’re looking at are the differences in what their diet is like and the one thing I have to say is the Adventist meat eaters eat a lot less meat than the general population so we’re looking at smaller intakes of meat so it makes the findings even more impressive in my view and what did they find well they found that compared to the meat-eating Adventists the vegans had 62% less diabetes they they had 16% less cancer they they had 75% less hypertension the men had you know I think was 42% less heart disease they had about the vegetarians and vegans combined about half the rates of kidney disease and it just goes on they’re finding that people eating plant-based had a really significant advantage over the people eating animal products and so yes a very important study and we can expect to see more you know reports from this cohort as as time goes on

do you recommend people avoid whole grains that have gluten like wheat barley and oats I know I think that there are some people that do need to avoid gluten containing grains and those are people that are somewhere on the gluten sensitivity spectrum and and that may be 6% of the population it’s still debatable but certainly people with celiac disease who are very sensitive have to avoid all gluten but people on the spectrum some can have small amounts of these grains if they’re sprouted some can have you know a different just they can manage oats but not you know other I mean oats technically don’t contain gluten but they can cause sensitivity because they’re often processed on equipment that has had gluten containing grains on it and so they can be contaminated because of that but but generally what I would say is is if you are not sensitive to gluten there’s absolutely no reason to avoid those grains and in fact I think there’s some of the best screens we can eat they’re very high in fiber they’re very say da ting they’re very nutritious barley has tremendous amount of soluble fiber there’s all sorts of advantages to them now the one thing that I would say is we do need to be aware that for some people who you know I’ve met a number of people who who say for some reason I react to these grains when I’m in the States or Canada but I go off to Europe and I can eat bread it’s weird and I think in those cases it may be actually glyphosate they’re responding to and not gluten per se and so glyphosate is is a chemical in in roundup and and it’s sprayed on several crops to expediate the drying of those crops so that they can be harvested more quickly and and so it to me it makes no sense that we’re spoiling spraying poison on our food we it just doesn’t make sense but but we do that and and the amounts of glyphosate in a number of cereal products and other grain based products can actually be quite significant quite concerning and so how do you avoid that by eating by just eating organic grains so if you buy flour buy organic if you buy the intact grains it which is mostly what I buy i buy kamek berries organic i buy spell berries organic i i buy oat groats organic and so I get these foods organic and then you don’t have to worry so much about about this particular issue but generally I would say I mean I love kamek berries I love spelt berries I love barley I one of my favorite Barley’s is black barley which is it just a little higher in the phytochemicals and and it sprouts beautifully and I think these foods can be a wonderful addition to the diet

explain what the Taiwanese Health Study was and what its conclusions were was this study an important one well the Taiwanese health study also called the su chi health study is a very important study and again it’s not just one study it’s several studies and so this is a series of studies that compares about 6,000 people who are Taiwanese Buddhists some of whom are meat eaters and some of whom are vegetarian and so they’re comparing the vegetarians with the non vegetarians and looking at their rates of disease and the the lead person on a lot of these studies is a personal friend her name is Tina Chu and she went to school at Loma Linda – – her master’s went on to Thai she’s Taiwanese she went on back to Taiwan did her PhD has since become a professor and she is a very strong ethical vegan and a wonderful presenter she’ll actually be at the Plantation Project conference in September and and be speaking and sharing a lot more about these studies but these studies have shown that the vegetarians the men had 51 percent less diabetes the women 74 75 percent less lower rates of of gout lower rates of hypertension lower rates of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease I just received the brand new study 18 always sends me the studies just as they’re being released on urinary tract infections a significant reduction in that as well so very important study and and very interesting results as well

explain the results of the health professionals follow-up study and why do you like this study so the health professionals follow-up study I’m going to combine two studies in here because they’re so tightly related so Harvard has done two series of studies one is called the Nurses Health Study and one is called the health professionals follow-up study and and in these studies so the let’s start with the Nurses Health Study again it’s not one study I would guess I know for the health professionals it was over a thousand studies and it’s very similar for the Nurses Health Study and then they combined both for some studies looking at you know the the men and women combined so the Nurses Health Study is most is is women and the health professionals was was men and and so out of Harvard what they did was they’ve done a number of interviews with the the the these cohorts and actually the Nurses Health Study there’s there have been three cohorts one in 1976 one in 89 and one in 2010 so all total we’re talking about two hundred and eighty thousand people and for the health professionals follow-up study it’s about fifty thousand individuals so these are big numbers of people and what they do is they they find out what do you eat what do you drink what how much do you smoke what’s your lifestyle like and then they look at them over time to see who develops what disease and and these studies are extremely important because they have really a and this is no exaggeration they they have helped us tremendously create nutrition policy that will help reduce the risk of chronic disease in this country and and so they have informed nutrition policy essentially and so very very important studies and and what they’ve shown is that you know people should not be smoking people should not be drinking much alcohol people should be eating more fruits and vegetables more whole grains more legumes less red meat especially less refined carbohydrates so they’ve been giving they’ve been giving us these big picture kinds of answers to health and chronic disease and so yes very important studies and one of our speakers here at this conference is dr. Walter Willett who is you know at the helm of these studies so very important

according to the best unbiased science is there a clear relation between consuming beef and heart disease cancer and diabetes oh absolutely so no question beef is associated with these diseases and particularly we see you know saturated fat and and heart disease of course and beef is a is a significant source of saturated fat so we see a link there we see a link with diabetes as well but probably the biggest connection is with colorectal cancer and so in fact if if that red meat is processed so beef being processed we actually have very convincing evidence that it is a Group one human carcinogen and a lot of people make the mistake thinking that because it’s in the same group one carcinogens include smoking or tobacco asbestos alcohol these are Group one human carcinogens and so is processed meat but it doesn’t mean that processed meat is as bad as smoking and I think that’s important for people to understand what this does is it says the evidence against processed meat is convincing it doesn’t give us sort of the level of carcinogenicity in you know comparing that to smoking it doesn’t do that so we don’t know if smoking is at ten where you know processed meat would lie we just know that it we have convincing evidence that it is a human carcinogen particularly where colorectal cancer is concerned now with red meat that’s unprocessed we have probable evidence which which puts it in what we call a group to a category so it’s not as strong evidence but it’s still you know fairly substantial evidence that it is a probable carcinogen

explain what the epic Oxford Health Study was and what its conclusions were and was this is an important study so epic Oxford was also a very important study so this was a study that that is from the UK where we had about 65,000 health-conscious individuals who were being followed they were actually recruited between 1993 and 1999 and have been being followed ever since and so there are multiple papers on this particular cohort and this cohort is interesting because I think it’s not quite as healthy of a cohort as the Adventist Health Study to where the Adventist Health Study 2 they have a little higher intake of fruits and vegetables and whole grains and they just they tend to make sure they get enough b12 and there they’re a little more conscious and more informed where diet is concerned then I think the folks in epic Oxford but nonetheless epic Oxford found you know that vegans have 40% fewer cataracts than similar health conscious non vegetarians that that that vegetarians and vegans have less you know well less diabetes less heart disease in they’ve had a number of different reports one report I think it was about 32 percent less they’re vegans had about 19 percent less cancer and they’ve looked at diverticular disease and i believe it was 72 percent less for vegans and 27% less for lacto-ovo vegetarians so they’ve looked at a number of diseases and generally not a hundred percent but generally the vegetarians and vegans are at an advantage so very important studying it still ongoing

is the phrase eat everything in moderation a good way for people to stay healthy I love this question it’s you know moderation is important in life I think we need to be moderate I love that the Okinawans are so moderate they they have this saying Harry Hachi boo which means eat only tell your 80% full eat moderately and but in our society moderation is is it’s tricky because if everything you do in moderation is bad for you it will still kill you and that’s the case from many North Americans so the moderation message you know if you think about if you think about corporations who are selling whatever processed food they’re making and they’re funding nutrition month or they’re funding you know our the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics associations nutrition education or whoever they’re funding the Medical Association whatever they will not be happy with messages that tell people to eat fewer of their products so that eat less message they’re not going to be willing to fund whatever it is that’s going on however the moderation message they’ll be willing to fund eat everything in moderation all foods can fit in a healthy diet there are no good foods no bad foods it just all fits and we need to be really cautious of that because when seventy percent of us die of chronic diseases that are induced by overconsumption and when 70 percent of the population is either overweight or obese and it’s rising the moderation said we need to be very careful of because what it says to people is oh it’s okay to eat your deep fried pork rinds just eat them in moderation no problem drink your coke just drink it in moderation that’s not what people in North America need to hear they need to hear eat less of this crap you know and eat more fruits and vegetables eat more beans eat more of the foods that will actually promote and sustain health eat more green leafy vegetables that’s what they need to hear so I think moderation is of to me be very cautious yes do things in moderation but don’t do all of these bad things in moderation because you’ll just die a little more slowly than you would otherwise

why does Finland have so much more heart disease than Japan well though that’s starting to change but it’s very interesting Finland has four we know when we look at there was a study done that kind of indicated saturated fat by Chowdhury in 2014 at least they claimed it vindicated saturated fat I don’t think it did at all because what it did was it compared people in in you know it compared people in Japan who were eating 5% saturated fat with people in Japan eating 6% saturated fat it compared people in Finland eating 12% saturated fat with people in Finland eating 14% saturated fat and what it found was well gosh there wasn’t that big of a difference in those Japanese that were eating that you know small but if they would have compared the people from Japan with the people in Finland bingo the people in Finland their rates of heart disease were through the roof whereas the people in in Japan didn’t have much heart disease and I think the big issue is people in Japan tend to eat fairly plant-based their diet is carbohydrate heavy they tend to eat a lot of rice and a lot of vegetables and they tend to not overeat there’s not a lot of dairy there so there’s not cheese and and ice cream and all of these things as much as what you would find in a place like Finland where they eat a lot of processed meat a lot of dairy and a lot of meat period so I think that’s really the clue

should we eat oils such as flax hemp olive oil are they helpful or hurtful you know there’s so much controversy in the plant-based movement about about oils and whether they hurt or help help and my personal feeling is that all macronutrients it doesn’t matter if it’s fat carbohydrate or protein they are all best coming from Whole Foods so I would sooner see a person getting their their their fat from flax seeds rather than flax oil or from olives rather than olive oil or avocados rather than avocado oil just I would I guess make an analogy to rather see a person getting their their sugar from fruit rather than from a concentrated sweetener because making an oil involves processing which removes a lot of the food parts of the food that’s really beneficial the fiber and phytochemicals and so on now it again the quality of oil depends on how you process it so some fresh-pressed first pressing extra extra virgin olive oil or extra you know the cold-pressed flaxseed oil or oh these kinds of oils I would say if people use them they should be used like these concentrated sweeteners as a little flavoring in food and not as you know a component that has a lot of volume and also there are some cases where these foods may be valuable and so for example in a small child who’s having difficulty eating enough and growing adding a little bit of a more concentrated fat can can help the child gain weight or for an athlete who needs five or six thousand calorie a day and just can’t take in a big volume of food it’s a way to add calories without adding volume and and you know our our needs for for fats it’s not the same for every individual I think some people who have these long lanky bodies who just can’t gain weight they do better with a little more fat in their diet than people who you know walk by the bakery and gain five pounds so there are some people that are much better with a lot less fat people with heart disease will won’t want to consume less fat and so it’s very individual but I think we really want to get our macronutrients more from Whole Foods than from oils if we use oils we want them to be minimized to be used very carefully never to hit a smoke point if they’re being used in cooking better to use them not in cooking to be honest I would actually honestly I would say that I would sooner see a person and people are gonna just cringe when I say this who RSOs but I would sooner see a person put a little bit of high quality oil and balsamic vinegar on a salad then put a dead sugar dressing and a lot of these no fat dressings on the market are just sugar and sugar has no redeeming value there’s nothing there whereas oil may have some redeeming value flax oil has some Omega threes oils have some vitamin E if they’re fresh pressed they may actually still contain some phytochemicals and antioxidants they may contain a bit of vitamin K there’s some redeeming value they actually help the phytochemicals in our salads to be better absorbed the sugar does nothing so the way that I make dressings is using whole foods I might use an avocado or some tahini or some some walnuts or or some nuts or seeds to make my whole food dressing and that to me is ideal but if I had to choose between one or the other I would choose the the dressing that has a little bit of really high quality oil rather than the dead sugar dressing

what’s wrong with eating dairy products well you know eating dairy products again many of the Blue Zones include dairy products and have had these animals where they use the the dairy products and and maintain really good health over time to me the biggest problem with consuming dairy products in our culture is is for the cows and and I mean there are problems for people too don’t get me wrong but when you look at what we do to cows to steal their milk the rape racks the the taking their babies away from them it is beyond belief that we would do that to another sentient being I can think of nothing that could justify that kind of treatment and the way we enslave them and and you know put them through that you know pregnancy after pregnancy and and and and and at the end of their four years where their milk production starts to wane they go to the hamburger factory I just can’t justify that and and when we think about the environmental consequences of you know cattle and cows for milk and cattle for for for beef it makes no sense in this current environment and and in terms of health there are a lot of that seventy percent of the human population is lactose intolerant humans naturally their lactase enzyme diminishes as they hit about four years of age and so most of the human population can’t even tolerate it and and for those that consume it it can contribute to acne it can contribute to arthritis it can certainly contribute to prostate cancer and possibly ovarian cancer and so there are all kinds of it’s it’s one of our richest sources of saturated fat so it’s an you know potential contributor to to heart disease and and and so this goes on and so I think humans absolutely are better off getting the nutrients that you would get from cow’s milk from other places

what about plant foods makes them protective against disease so why are plant foods protective it there are so many factors in plants so so when you look when you look at research there are a number of compounds that that we see over and over again that are associated with health benefits one of them is fiber and and there are many different types of fibers and plants and fiber helps to protect against every disease it’s absolutely critical for our gut microbiome it’s their food and a healthy gut microbiome affects everything it affects our brain it affects everything and so we don’t give them their food we end up with dysbiosis with a very unhealthy gut microbiome so that’s critical fiber helps us to reduce our risk of various cancers it helps to reduce risk of diabetes heart disease it’s just so important to health and then we’ve got phytochemicals these are plant chemicals that that are there in plants to protect the plants against predators and to help the plants thrive and and when humans consume consume these these chemicals they are anti-inflammatory they’re they reduce oxidative stress they they kick our enzyme systems that get rid of toxins in our body into high gear they just they just do all kinds of things that protect us plants are high in antioxidants which reduce oxidative stress they’re high in sterols and stanols which which can be very protective and helped to reduce the absorption of cholesterol for example plant foods are you know rich in a number of trace minerals and vitamins they’re really the most nutrient-dense foods of all so the when you think about all the compounds in in plants that are protective it just goes on and on almost every component that that is most protective to human health the you know the prebiotics and so on and so forth are concentrated in plant foods so it’s no mystery that they protect human health it’s where all of the protective components are

what’s the best way to improve or heal the gut microbiome so the gut microbiome is really best healed and improved by a number of things so number one you need to feed the gut bacteria and and what do we feed at these prebiotics where did they come from there are a number of foods that are especially rich in prebiotics so Jerusalem artichokes which not very many of us eat but they’re very high in prebiotics bananas onions garlic even asparagus they’re beans all sorts of plant foods whole grains are all providers of prebiotics are these resistant starches that are food for our bacteria that’s number one number two to consider actually consuming some probiotics or the bacteria themselves to ingest some in the form of fermented foods number three is to get out of our diet the things that we know are add adversely affect the gut microbiome and so refined carbohydrates are not good news alcohol is not good news artificial sweeteners are not good news meat can shift the gut microbiome in a direction of more you know tme producing bacteria which produces a compound in a that gets shuttled to the liver and we get this production of TMAO which is quite atherogenic and and so that can contribute to a not so healthy gut microbiome and of course there’s no fiber and in in in meat either and so that’s not so good so so these are really key key players and re-establishing a healthy gut microbiome and for people that have an unhealthy gut microbiome sometimes it’s a slow gradual shift because they can end up if you if you just uh all of a sudden add all of this fiber and beans and all of these things you don’t have the gut microbiome to deal with it and so sometimes that shift has has to be somewhat gradual

can you summarize everything we’ve talked about here today in 15 seconds yes eat plants eat whole plants that are unprocessed make them your dietary staples eat fewer processed foods and get rid of animal products in your diet as much as possible and make sure you get the nutrients you need

what’s the one thing I need to do today the one thing you need to do today is educate yourself about the consequences of our choices for ourselves and beyond ourselves find out more about the consequences of our food choices for this planet and for the animals that we share this planet with there are so many resources that are available many of which you can get right here from the truth about health

what is it about the real truth about health conference that makes you want to come back and speak year after year you know one of the things that I love about this conference is is the diverse range of speakers but the thing that that gets me really coming back year after year is simply knowing that even if we have a substantial audience here that it is reaching so many people all over the world i I just I I don’t know how this organization does it making this amount of information free to the world but so many people are benefiting and are grateful and it’s changing lives because it’s so far-reaching and and not costing people anything so I’m very grateful for that

for people that want to learn more about your work where should they go well I do have a website it’s brenda davis rd calm i am i have a presence on facebook i’m i’m not very skilled at social media but I’m trying to learn and and so I do that and and we have a becoming vegan Facebook page as well and of course from my my books and and I have I’m I have 11 books right now working on the twelfth and I try to get as much of the evidence-based research I can into these books so that people have reliable resources