Intro
Welcome to this WHOLE Life Action Hour. I’m Ocean Robbins, your host. And today our focus is the power of a plant-based lifestyle.
We are going to look at the enormous benefits of a whole foods plant-based lifestyle to help prevent disease and thrive.
And we’re gonna look at how you can make sure your critical nutrient needs are getting met so you can do it right.
And we are joined today by the brilliant dietician and my dear friend, Brenda Davis.
Brenda is one of the world’s most beloved and trusted plant-based eating advocates.
She’s co-authored 12 books with nearly a million copies in print in 15 languages.
And news flash, she’s working on a new one that will come out this fall which is called “Plant Powered Protein.”
Her most recent works include, “Nourish: The Definitive Plant-Based Nutrition Guide for Families,” “Kick Diabetes Essentials”
and “Becoming Vegan.” Brenda, welcome. – Thank you so much Ocean.
I’m so excited to be here today. – Well, I’m just thrilled you’re here. I mean, I’ve been a fan of your work for so long
and so grateful to consider you a friend as well as a trusted colleague and ally in some of the most important work of our times
which we get to do together. – Oh, thank you. – Now before we go any further I wanna be very clear about
one thing, sort of a medical disclaimer here, nothing new here today is medical advice. This is coaching, we’re sharing our best insights.
And of course you should always consult a qualified healthcare professional for your specific medical issues and needs.
That said you’re gonna learn a lot today. This event is a project of WHOLE Life Club which is Food Revolution Network’s
ongoing membership community. This week, we’re hosting action hours with Brenda Davis today,
Monday with Dr. William Li and Wednesday with Rich Roll. And WHOLE Life Club paid members
get access to all of our action hours including transcripts and the chance to submit questions in advance.
They also get weekly recipes, action of the week videos, monthly live cooking demo events on Zoom,
a community of support and lots and lots more. If you stay to the end, I will tell you more about how you can join in
with a special opportunity just available this week. But now let’s dive right in with Brenda Davis
for some of the key questions that have been coming up. So Brenda, there’s a lot of interest in going plant-based
or just eating more plant foods. But a lot of people don’t know where to start. And oftentimes when meat and dairy and eggs
are removed from the plate, it can be challenging know what to add in their place
that’s gonna be satisfying and nourishing and also taste delicious. What would be your recommendation to someone who’s
just getting their feet wet with plant-based eating? What types of plant-based foods can offer a similar experience to meat or dairy or eggs
while offering better health outcomes? – Well, first of all I think it’s important to recognize.
Transitioning to a Plant-Based Diet
That there’s no one-size-fits-all. Some people have an aha moment and they’re, you know, they switch to a plant-based diet overnight,
but I think for most people, a gradual shift is less daunting, it’s more doable.
It allows just a little more time for your pallet to adjust to all of these new flavors and textures.
And what I usually tell people is, is to start with one food at a time or one meal at a time,
don’t feel like you have to do it all at once. And my preferred method is to start with breakfast
’cause it seems like the easiest meal to do. It’s really simple. If your usual breakfast is a bowl of raisin bran
with bananas and 2% milk, you might just begin by swapping the milk out for an unsweetened fortified non-dairy milk.
And then you might think about fortifying your cereal bowl with berries and ground flax seeds or hemp seeds or walnuts
or some such thing. And then you may finally take a step further
and do overnight oats or cooked steel cut oats instead of a packaged cereal.
And then after you master breakfast, move on to lunch and dinner and,
you know, for me making plant-based versions of traditional favorites and doing more ethnic foods
just makes the shift easier. But you also have to remember, it’s not just about removing animal products.
It’s about adding in nutritious plant-based foods and improving the overall quality of your diet.
It’s really about making choices that support and promote health long term.
And so now getting to the question about, you know, what are the best replacements for meat, dairy and eggs?
For me the best meat replacement is tofu. I love it. I love to marinate it, I love to bake it or barbecue it.
If you get an extra firm, it’s got a very meaty texture. I mean, of course you can use beans and lentils
and they work beautifully in things like tacos and stews and curries and so forth.
And I actually make a really fun replacement for ground beef using lentils, mushrooms, onions and walnuts.
And you can use that for loaves and meatless balls and for, you know, shepherd’s pie and all of that kind of thing.
And, you know, mushroom, speaking of mushrooms, mushrooms have an amazing meat like quality,
especially if you get some of those great big, you know, the king mushrooms
and all of these different varieties, they really have that umami flavor
and that meat-like texture. They’re earthy, they’re chewy. And so we can use those as well.
And I think chickpeas make a great replacement for tuna salad and sandwiches,
but then of course there are all these, you know, I can remember 35 years ago when I first started switching to a plant-based diet,
we didn’t have a lot of options back then. Today, you can buy a meat replacement for beef and shrimp
and chicken and fish and whatever you want, but we have to remember
they’re not quite as healthy as beans, lentils and tofu. They’re more processed.
And certainly, however, I still think they’re healthier, more ecologically sustainable and kinder than meat.
So they can have a place in a healthy diet and we can be selective, we can choose organic,
we can read labels and make choices that work for us. I use them sometimes when we have company that is not,
they’re just not tofu eaters and they’re not into plant-based foods. And they barely even know the difference.
So they do have a place and they can make the transition easier for people as well.
Dairy, it’s never been easier. I mean, we have delicious fortified non-dairy beverages.
We have, you know, non-dairy yogurts and cheeses and all of that. And again, 35 years ago when I started,
non-dairy cheeses were like plastic. They were horrible. You would just sooner not have anything.
But today we actually make cheeses by culturing nut milks.
And they are really similar to dairy cheeses in taste
and they’re better of course, nutritionally and otherwise. So I would say dairy is easy.
I mean ice cream, you know, this is something your family knows a lot about, but for ice cream,
most of the non-dairy ice creams are full of sugar. They’re very sweet. So my favorite replacement and probably yours is too Ocean
is using frozen fruit, putting it through the Yonana machine or a blender or whatever.
Frozen bananas and mangoes and pineapple even is fantastic ice cream.
– Yeah. Add a little soy milk or other nut milk, some kind to like add a little creaminess to it.
– Yes, exactly. – And also to make it blend ’cause you can’t just blend something totally frozen. – That’s right, not in a blender.
– We have it in cones in our house regularly. Like almost every other night. It’s our favorite go-to dessert.
– That’s great. Mine too. I actually had it last night. So it’s a great choice.
And then for eggs, I would say medium tofu works really well as a scramble,
but you can also use one of the newer plant-based egg replacements. I have full disclosure.
I’ve never tried these. But they are now made of mung beans of soy, of peas, of chickpeas.
There’s all kinds of replacements now. And my son just told me that he made scrambled eggs at a pumpkin seat.
And I have a hard time picturing it, but he said, trust me mom, they were delicious.
And so I guess you soak them and blend. I don’t know what all you do but there are definitely some really good options.
– Awesome. What a treasure trove of insights right there. So, Brenda you wrote a book called “Becoming Vegan.”.
Top Takeaways From “Becoming Vegan”
Recently we asked our staff at Food Revolution Network for their favorite go-to plant-based eating resources.
And it actually was considered one of the top ones that the people have gotten the most value from out of everyone who works in our team.
And a lot of online reviews say similarly, it’s the most comprehensive resource on plant-based eating.
So Brenda, what are some of the top takeaways from the book that people can implement today to successfully…
– Well, I’m really honored. Thank you so much for that Ocean. We did actually two versions.
We did this comprehensive 600-page version in this little and Vesanto Melina who was actually the
senior author of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics position statement on vegetarian diets.
You know, we did these together and it was really, the whole project was about moving the world including
the nutrition and medical communities in a plant-based direction. And our big goal is just to provide guidance to anyone
who wants to eat mostly or exclusively plant-based. So in terms of key take, you know, take home points,
I would say, I had to think about this. I would say the three biggies.
Our number, one being vegan or being exclusively plant-based is really about recognizing that our food choices
have consequences, not just for ourselves, but beyond ourselves.
They have consequences for other people, the people growing our food. They have consequences for animals and for the planet.
Being vegan or exclusively plant-based is not about personal purity.
It’s about making more conscious and compassionate choices. And so we really tried to hammer that home.
The second thing is plant exclusive diets can be safe and adequate at every stage of the life cycle
including for athletes, but they are not automatically so. You know, there are adequate and inadequate diets
of every stripe including vegan. Switching from a meat and potato diet to a pasta
and bagel diet or worse yet to a diet, you know, of junk foods like french fries and soda pop
is not a good plan. So, you know, the diet has to meet nutritional requirements
and it’s gotta protect us from chronic diseases that are essentially responsible for,
you know, killing about 70% of us. And that’s globally. And so what I’m saying here is that,
you know, the diet just needs to be appropriately planned. And that means it needs to provide sufficient calories,
which isn’t a huge issue for most people, but it is for some. It means meeting needs for macro and micronutrients
at every stage of the life cycle. Protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, fiber,
all of those things. And recognizing that some of those nutrients are more likely to fall short for plant-based eaters.
Other nutrients are more likely to fall short for omnivorous eaters. But we need to recognize those that may fall short like B12
and vitamin D and iodine and perhaps even omega three fatty acids. And then we also need to recognize that putting together
an appropriately planned diet means making the foundation of the diet whole plant foods.
I mean, certainly we can have some convenient foods, but we want most of the diet to be fruits and vegetables
and whole grains and legumes and nuts and seeds. These are the foods that’ll provide protection.
And then I think the third big takeaway is that we know enough about the strength of the link
between diet and disease to say that plant-based diets reduce the risk of chronic disease
and conserve as very highly effective treatment options. So I think that’s the third takeaway and,
you know, how to do that is what we talked about with whole food plant-based eating.
– Yeah. Thank you. That last point is worth going a little bit deeper with.
Diet & Lifestyle In Disease Prevention
And then I wanna circle back and talk about the nutrient deficiency issues. But, when you say that the plant-based foods
can be an effective treatment option. I mean, Dr. Ornish is the one who first showed the world through his research
that the Ornish program which is essentially a whole foods plant-based diet along with stress reduction and exercise
and social connection could be a more effective strategy than conventional drugs and surgeries
for heart disease treatment. Not just prevention, but reversal of certain conditions.
And now you’ve shown that that’s true with type two diabetes. We’ve seen that with other conditions as well.
I think that’s worth just emphasizing that while of course, anybody dealing with a medical condition
needs to work with their healthcare provider on solving it, when you eat the right diet, you really do create the foundations out of which
your body can most effectively resolve symptoms and return to the state of wellness. That is your natural state of being.
– Absolutely. And I love that Ocean because essentially what we have to remember
is these are diet and lifestyle-induced diseases.
We can’t cure them by putting a bandage on them, with medication or surgery.
The only thing that has ever or will ever really and truly reverse these conditions
is diet and lifestyle changes. And what shocked me when I started working with people
using these kinds of diets to reverse disease was how rapidly healing begins.
It’s within days, within weeks, that we see dramatic changes.
Every single cell of your body is a product of what you eat. You know, so it makes sense.
It’s what you build your brain cells out of. It’s what we build all our cells out of.
So it makes sense that they will profoundly impact, you know, what our bodies do and our bodies want to heal.
Our bodies want to be healthy. And so as soon as you put in those raw materials
that can help you accomplish that task, it happens rapidly.
It’s really quite astonishing. – Yes. Thank you. You know, any dietary pattern
has its sort of pluses and minuses, if you will. Things that it excels at and the things that are like,
okay, and these are the potential challenges you get there. So for example, diets that are high in iron can,
well, you’re not gonna have an iron deficiency, but you may have other problems because actually more people die from too much iron than too little.
Same with protein, actually. Like a high protein diet is linked in some studies to lower life expectancy
and a higher incidence of chronic disease. But at the same time obviously you need enough. So there’s all these pros and cons.
Healthy Carbohydrates
I wanna talk about carbs for a minute Brenda. You know, carbs has almost become a dirty word for some people, but carbohydrates, of course,
they’re not all the same, right? Like any macronutrient, there’s all different kinds like fats, right? So, let’s talk about carbohydrates for a second
and particularly, you know, you’ve talked at some length in your work about the real value and importance
of having healthy carbohydrate rich foods in our diet. Can you talk a little bit about that and any of your favorite…
– I’m really passionate about this subject because, you know, most of the so-called carbs
people eat in America are refined which basically means before they eat the foods,
most of the beneficial components have been removed and several harmful components have been added.
Like processed oils and sugar and salt and colors and flavors and additives and all of that.
And so it’s understandable that people think carbohydrates are unhealthy because most of the carbohydrates, they are unhealthy.
But what most people don’t realize is that carbohydrates that are intrinsic to whole plant foods
are very healthy, including those that are present in, you know, starchy vegetables and whole grains.
When we eat these foods, the carbohydrates are packaged with fiber phytochemicals and antioxidants and plant sterols and stanols
and all sorts of protective components. So the key to carbohydrate and,
you know, it’s so interesting, there have been a number of studies
looking at the carbohydrate intake people have and their risk of mortality and disease and generally
what we see is people who have the lowest intakes of carbohydrates do the worst.
Carbohydrate intakes around 50, 60% of calories do really well. Higher carbohydrate diets do
not as well as the moderate carbohydrate diets if the carbohydrates come from processed foods.
But if they come from whole foods, people do extraordinarily well. If you look at people in the blue zones,
they average 62% of calories from carbohydrates. They should tell us something.
There’s a population in Brazil. The tsunami I think,
I can’t remember how you pronounce it. But they average I think 72% of calories from carbohydrates
and they have the lowest rates of heart disease on the planet. So, you know, they should tell us something.
The key with carbohydrates is getting your carbohydrates from whole plant foods rather than processed refined foods.
– Yeah. And it’s pretty much as simple as that, isn’t it? But speaking of those whole plant foods, one of the big ones, there’s legumes and grains
are great sources of carbohydrates. Tell us a little bit about some of your favorite grains.
– Yeah, so grains, I would say with grains that they’re kind of divided into two categories,
there’s the true grains and then there’s the pseudograins. They’re all used like grains, but pseudograins tend to be a little more nutrient dense
than true grains. And so I like them a lot. And pseudograins of course don’t have any gluten
for people that are sensitive to gluten. And so pseudograins are things like quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat and wild rice.
So all of these foods, this is really quite interesting. The grain group including pseudograins
provides about half the world’s protein and probably close to that for fiber as well.
So they’re really, really, you know, good sources of a lot of nutrients
including a lot of B vitamins and vitamin E and so forth. But I think one of the things that is important
when you’re selecting grains is to include a variety because, you know, every grain sort of features
a little bit of a different nutrient profile and a little different phytochemical profile.
And even the fibers are a little different with different grains. Like oats are richer in,
you know, soluble fibers and wheat in insoluble fibers. And so this is,
you know, this is helpful when you include a variety. Then the other thing I would say is to include color.
So when you’re searching for grains, one of my favorite grains is actually black barley.
Barley has the lowest GI of any grain and the black in the barley or the purple really
is what it looks like. It provides, you know, anthocyanins, it provides these phytochemicals that are
powerful antioxidants. And so when you’re choosing rice and quinoa, you can choose black or red instead of brown.
But I think in terms of whole grain sort of stars, if you will, amaranth, quinoa are really wonderful,
barley as I mentioned. And then of course, okra. And one of my favorite brains is comet.
I love cooking comet berries and eating them as a breakfast cereal, adding them to salads.
They’re just yummy. They’re big and chewy and fun to eat. – Nice. And then one most people don’t know about is teff.
Which is often used in to make injera which is this fermented Ethiopian bread.
But teff can be really fun too. – Yes. You know, it’s one I haven’t used very much
and I’ve been thinking about it because there are several new grains out there.
You know, farro, and there’s just all kinds of them. There’s a new one. What’s it called?
Can wheat or something. Anyway, it’s like quinoa. It’s red and it’s this new pseudograin.
So there’s always new ones that are coming out that are interesting. – Cool. Yeah. I wanna talk a little bit about fiber.
Vegan Nutrition, Supplements, & Nutrient Testing
Brenda, for somebody who goes on a whole foods plant-based diet, they’re generally going to have
lower consumption of protein which may actually be a good thing as long as they’re getting enough. Lower consumption of iron especially heme iron
which may also be a good thing as long as they’re getting enough.
What are the things that maybe people should test for if they’re on a whole foods plant-based diet to make sure they’re getting enough
and what are the things that maybe they should just supplement for most regardless, just because it makes sense
to get a certain baseline amount. – Yeah, for sure. So I would say in terms of what we need to be worried about,
B12, vitamin D, iodine, especially those are three and essential fatty acids could be one as well but testing,
we need to have our B12 tested. Vitamin D, it’s controversial,
whether or not we need to be tested because almost everyone’s deficient, we just need to supplement.
– Unless you get 20 minutes or more a day of sunshine on most of your body. – Yeah, exactly. And even then Ocean,
there was a study in Hawaii that just shocked me. They were looking at people with, I think it was 11 plus hours of full sun exposure
in a bikini and they were still coming up deficient. So there are a lot of things that
even if we get sufficient sun exposure, overweight reduces conversion to vitamin D.
You know, darker skin reduces conversion. There are lots of things that can,
you know, age, as we get older, we don’t convert as well. And so even with sufficient sun exposure,
if you think you have sufficient sun exposure, you may wanna get your vitamin D levels tested
and know for sure that you’re getting adequate. And then if you are, you don’t need to supplement necessarily.
But for people like me who, I live in Canada or who live in the Northern states,
we definitely need supplementation during the winter months. And so I think most people need a vitamin D supplement.
Iodine is a big one too because a lot of people, especially in Europe where the soil isn’t so rich
in some places in iodine, but traditionally iodine comes from iodine salt,
fish, dairy products. And not because they’re naturally rich in iodine,
we use iodine to clean the teeth of the cows. So, you know, these are not plant-based products.
And so in the plant-based world, it’s seaweed. And not many of us include a lot of seaweed.
And a lot of plant-based eaters tend not to use iodine salt. They want their natural sea salts and so forth.
So we need to worry about iodine and we need to make sure there’s a source. Whether it’s a 16th of a teaspoon of Kelp Powder
or a little bit of a nori sheets or something like that, or a multivitamin with 150 micrograms of iodine.
So for me, those are the biggies. I would also say it’s reasonable to have iron levels tested.
You can assume that zinc may be an issue and you just wanna be eating a lot of foods
that include iron and zinc. So we’re talking about legumes, nuts and seeds.
They should be regular parts of the diet. And that’s really important. Pumpkin seeds are quite high in zinc.
So they’re a wonderful addition. Cashews are as well. But generally, people who are transitioning.
We didn’t grow up eating lentils and beans. So incorporating those foods is not necessarily easy
and natural for people. So I would say, you know, learning to use them, borrowing from the cultures that are experts at using them
is really, really valuable. – Yes. – And B12. I mean, we just can’t ignore it.
It’s not negotiable. It’s an imperative. We have to have vitamin B12.
A lack of B12 in an infant can mean irreversible brain damage in short order.
B12 is necessary for our nervous system, for our blood, you know, red blood cell formation
for all kinds of things in the body. And so we need a source and plants are generally not a source
unless they’re fortified. So fortified foods in supplements are just essential.
– Nevada, about 25% of omnivores are also deficient in B12 because they’re not able to absorb it adequately which
supplement to be effective in helping them as well. – Yes. In fact the Institute of Medicine
recommends that anyone over the age of 50 get B12 from the same places that plant-based eaters do.
From supplements and fortified foods because as we age, our ability to make the enzymes
and have the acid in our stomachs that are required to cleave the B12 off its bound to an animal products starts to diminish.
So that can be a big issue. – One resource I wanna share with our audience right now is
Compliment. It’s a product that was created by some friends of mine. I think probably yours as well Brenda who are,
they’re plant-based eaters. And they wanted to create a one stop shop for all of the critical nutrients that tend to be more challenging on a plant-based diet.
So Compliment Plus provides B12, vitamin K2 which we haven’t mentioned, but I also think is worth taking a look at.
Zinc, selenium, magnesium, DHA, EPA and D3, all in one.
And if you go to foodrevolution.org/compliment, you can find out more about that.
There are lots of ways to meet these needs, but that’s just one ’cause I kind of like for my family just having one thing I can take every day
and then my kids can take every day. And then we kind of like, okay, these bases are essentially covered. – I agree. – And then
there isn’t to get a mega dose. The goal here is to get a baseline so that you’re not gonna be deficient. – I completely agree.
I think it’s an absolutely spectacular product. And I think it’s one thing that people can do
even if they can’t get that particular product to take a good quality as multi vitamin mineral supplement.
And, you know, I think it’s worth saying Ocean that there are some really good studies
that have come out that have looked at nutritional adequacy of reasonably well planned plant-based diets.
And they are overwhelmingly positive. So I think we have eight studies in the past decade
that have looked at large populations. There was one in France that’s almost a 100,000 people.
Then of course we have the Adventist Health Study-2, EPIC-Oxford. And what we see is that, couple of things.
One is that people eating plant-based actually tend to have higher quality diets.
They have diets that are closer to their national dietary guidelines than people who are eating omnivorous diets.
They tend to have good nutrition intake. As a matter of fact, in Adventist Health Study-2,
the only nutrient any of the groups, vegetarian, vegan or omnivore was lacking was vitamin D.
Even the vegans had ample B12 and so on because they’re conscious of that nutrient.
Now I can’t say the same for EPIC-Oxford. The vegans were definitely short on B12 and iodine,
but those are really easily taken care of. – Yeah, absolutely they are.
These are easy problems to solve, like super easy. And then you get so many benefits from basing your diet around whole plant foods.
Fiber & Tips for Vegan Gas
And about its cousin, I guess you could say gas.
So 95% of Americans aren’t getting enough fiber. And when you eat more whole plant foods,
you’re gonna get a lot more fiber, ’cause there’s no fiber in any animal products. There’s no fiber in bottled oils.
There’s very little fiber in white flour and there’s very little fiber in added sugars. But there’s lots of fiber in pretty much all that’s left
when you eat whole plant foods in your diet. But sometimes when people are eating more plant foods,
especially legumes, all that fiber can create activity in the gut, bacteria reproduce.
And some of them can create some disturbances. And sometimes that shows up as gas and physical discomfort. So Brenda, what’s your thought on the
sort of common dynamic people have when they eat more fiber of gas and especially how to quiet down the musical fruit?
– Well, you know, I have to tell you the story in the Marshall Islands. When we went to the Marshall Islands,
I was shocked that people were having a bowel movement probably once a week.
Some of them once every two weeks, because they were only eating about four or five grams of fiber a day.
And of course, when they started eating a plant-based diet, you know, their fiber intake went up to 60 or 70 grams a day
and they could not believe what happened. It was just so shocking to them.
They were going to the bathroom every day, but some of them weren’t so happy about the gas production
as well when your body’s not used to it. So I have a number of tips that I suggest
for making beans more digestible. The first is to start small. Don’t start by adding two cups of beans
to your diet every day, add a quarter cup. Gradually increased to a half cup.
And, you know, it takes two or three weeks for your gut flora to adjust. And then, you know, by a month or two,
you’re probably able to manage a full cup or even more. And then the second thing is to use preparation techniques
that reduce the compound in beans that’s problematic, it’s called oligosaccharides.
And it’s really just an indigestible starch that goes into your large intestine, your gut flora, use it for food and the byproduct is gas.
And so there are a number of ways you can reduce oligosaccharides and one that may come as a surprise
is by using beans that aren’t too old. The older the legumes get,
the more oligosaccharides they use. So if you’ve ever purchased at a farmer’s market fresh beans and cooked to them,
you will notice you don’t have a problem at all the older the beans get. So try not to keep your beans for longer than about a year.
Then when you get dried beans, soak them. And one of the ways of doing this
is to actually bring your beans to a boil and then letting them soak for at least 24 hours.
And until you can do that and that tends to reduce oligosaccharides
more than just soaking for a day, or you can actually sprout them.
So you soak them for, you know, a couple of days and let them, you know, be three, four days
and let them grow a tiny little sprout. And as they sprout, the oligosaccharides are turning into
more digestible sugars. So that helps a lot. And then the other thing you can do to deal with it
is to use seasonings that counteract the production of gas. Like black pepper and cinnamon and cloves and garlic
and ginger and turmeric and Japanese seaweed, combo and, you know, all of these things can help as well.
And then another trick is to start with smaller beans. They tend to be less gassy than larger beans
with the really hard skins. The thicker harder skins are more indigestible.
And so the least problematic are skinless legumes that are
lentils, split peas and cooking them into soups and so forth can really help.
And tofu and bean products, tofu and then bean products that are fermented like tempeh
can also be less problematic because there’s less fiber there in the tofu and the fermentation can help as well.
And then two other really small things. You can fortify your gut flora by taking,
you know, eating cultured foods, taking probiotics, that kind of thing.
You can even take a digestive enzyme if you really need one. And then the other last bit is just avoid overeating.
When you eat too much, it’s always more of a problem than when you eat till you’re kind of 80% full.
I think those are the big things for me. – That’s a lot of great resources. Thank you.
One quick note I just wanna say. If you soak beans for more than 12 hours, change the water every 12 hours. – Yes, yes, yes.
Thank you for that. I usually do it twice a day. – Yeah. – But that’s important. – Absolutely.
Is Soy Healthy?
Let’s talk about the world’s most popular and protein-rich bean, soybeans. There’s still a polarizing food.
There’s a lot of plant-based eaters that swear by them. You mentioned earlier that tofu is one of your favorite meat substitutes
or meat alternatives for people who are making that transition. You’ve talked about tempeh, soybeans,
edamame themselves are super healthy it seems, but then some people find them really controversial.
There’s all kinds of people who are terrified. They’re gonna give man boobs, they’re gonna mess up. They’re gonna cause cancer for women.
They mess up the estrogen cycle. What’s your take on soybeans? Are they healthy? Are they not?
Is there anybody who should be concerned about them? – Well, I think most of the concern about soybeans
is there because there’s a misunderstanding around isoflavones that soy contains.
And these are really just polyphenolic compounds that are, that act as phyto or plant estrogens.
And because they attach to human receptor sites, people believe that they mimic estrogen in their effects
on the body and that they can cause hormone related cancer. And like you said, feminization in men or the man boobs.
What we know is that these concerns have been completely dispelled,
but they continue to be out there especially on the internet.
And so I think just a simple explanation of isoflavones, they’re essentially serums
or selective estrogen receptor modulator which means that they exert weak estrogen like effects in some tissues
like bones for example. And no effects or even anti-estrogen effects
in other tissues like breast tissue. And the research on soy is overwhelmingly positive.
You know, soy has a little bit of a cholesterol lowering impact. It reduces inflammation. It improves the elasticity of blood vessels.
It lowers blood pressure, improves kidney function, it stabilizes blood sugars. And now that we have really solid evidence
that it reduces risk of breast cancer including the risk of recurrence of breast cancer
for people who already have breast cancer. And it doesn’t matter if you’re estrogen positive or negative.
The impact is the same across the board. Even if you’re on Tamoxifen,
it seems to act as an anti-estrogen. And not only breast cancer,
but also for prostate cancer, for endometrial cancer,
soy appears to be protective. And there was a recent meta-analysis that showed that
diets rich in soy foods result in about a 12% lower risk
of dying of cancer. I mean, soy even reduces symptoms of menopause.
It may reduce male pattern baldness. It can help bones, it can help skin.
Even there’s a study showing it helps depression. And, you know, the feminization of men, it drives me crazy.
We had two case studies. The guys in these case studies who grew man boobs were eating 12 to 20 servings a day.
That’s like 10 times what most people would consume. And there are many studies showing normal intakes of,
you know, two to five servings a day. Don’t cause feminization, don’t change male fertility,
don’t change sperm counts or any of that. And I think it’s true that people with thyroid disease
may need to moderate soy intake somewhat, but that’s true for other goitrogens.
They need to make sure they get sufficient iodine, I think.
I don’t think soy foods are absolutely necessary in a plant-based diet,
but I do think they make plant-based eating easier, healthier, funner.
They’re so versatile. Soy can be meat, it can be dairy, it can be eggs,
it can be all of those things. And it provides exceptional high quality protein,
very similar to the quality of protein and meat or eggs. And so, I mean, it provides fiber and iron and calcium and potassium
and magnesium and all of these nutrients as well. So, you know, my recommendation would be to select
organic soy foods that are last processed like tofu, edamame, unsweetened soy milk, soybeans,
those kinds of foods most often. Veggie meats made out of soy,
you know, are okay, but should be less often because they’re higher in sodium and fat and all of that.
I would say reasonable intakes would be two to four servings a day for adults and maybe one or two servings a day for children.
– Thank you. – And you know Ocean, I wanna add one other thing. I think that for people that are convinced
that soy is dangerous, just remind those people that soy is actually a staple
in some of the healthiest longest lived populations on the planet.
In Okinawa and people in Loma Linda, two of the blue zones. And to me this is really the acid test.
If soy was so dangerous, it wouldn’t likely be a staple in some of the longest lived people on the planet.
– Yeah. Thank you Brenda. Brenda, at FRN, we’re working with you on a course called Tackling Type Two.
It’s about how to prevent and even reverse type two diabetes, and we’re planning to release it together in the fall. And I am so excited about it.
And the course grows out of your extensive research on the causes and cures for type two diabetes,
including some really powerful work you’ve been doing in the Marshall Islands. Can you tell us briefly
’cause we don’t have a lot of time left here about what you’ve seen happening to the health population
in the Marshall Islands as people’s diets have been westernized in recent decades
and also about your work to turn that around. – Yeah, well, I am super excited
to be doing the course with you to start it’s, you know, for personal and professional reasons.
And the work in the Marshall Islands was just such a privilege. These are people who,
you know, 70, 80 years ago didn’t, literally, they lived off the land. They didn’t have any diabetes.
It was pretty much unheard of.
And of course they were very physically active at the time as well and now they’re quite sedentary and they live on cheap imported food like
sticky rice and ramen noodles and luau which is high fructose corn syrup beverage and spam and other fatty meat.
And type two diabetes, they have among the highest rates of this disease on the planet.
Over 30% of the adults have type two diabetes and amputations are the number one surgery
on the island due to diabetes. So it’s just so sad.
One of the complications of diabetes is kidney failure. If their kidneys start to fail,
they either have to move to Hawaii or some other island ’cause they don’t have dialysis in the Marshall Islands
or they die. And most of them end up dying. In 2006, I went in and we actually did this lifestyle intervention
which I’ll share more about when we do the course. But basically what we found is
by feeding people a healthy diet, getting them to walk after meals and do exercise to,
you know, do a little stress management and make sure they get enough sleep and so forth,
we saw just dramatic changes. I mean, within the first two weeks, we saw blood glucose drops
on average 75 milligrams per deciliter, just shocking blood cholesterol levels
came down and people were telling us, you know, my head cleared, my pain is gone.
I can walk across the room without breathing heavily anymore. It is so remarkable how fast these changes occur.
And then I went back. You know, our research was just for a year. But I go back every couple of years
and just continued to help with the transformation of everything in the,
you know, health related in the country. Last time I went was 2017 and I actually wrote a curriculum
for the public schools for nutrition. So we just keep doing things to improve the health of the population and people now
are getting, you know, I think we’ve essentially provided some hope amid a very deep sense of hopelessness there
because everybody just thought I’m just gonna get diabetes and die. And now they’re seeing people actually get better.
You know, the unfortunate thing Ocean is that a lot of people are very poor and they don’t have a lot of money
for fruits and vegetables. So it’s hard for them. Of the people that seem to do the best are the ones that are a little more privileged,
that are able to afford these healthier foods. But we put a lot of focus on eating cheap beans and lentils
and whole grains and the less expensive vegetables like cabbage. And we have, you know, sprinkled the islands
with earth boxes so they can grow their own foods as well. – Oh, how wonderful. What a heartwarming story.
Thank you for that Brenda, truly. And, you know, we hear that so often
that of course one of the challenges is the cost of eating healthier food, vegetables and so forth.
But of course, we also see that at the end of the day, the cost of not making these changes are devastating
and tragically the people who can least afford the cost of sickness and chronic illness
end up being the ones who are most crippled by it when they’re unable to invest in their health with healthy food.
So that’s part of where I think we need to make systemic changes to make it more accessible and affordable to do the right thing. But for everybody who has any mobility or capacity
to make conscious choices with your food around what you buy and what you don’t buy absolutely important to make the wisest ones you can
because…. – And ocean. – Pay off manyfold in the long run. – Absolutely. And so often people have said, well, maybe it works.
You know, it can work in the Marshall Islands but, you know, can this kind of thing work at home?
And my answer is if it can work in the Marshall Islands, they have so many barriers.
It’s so hard for them to get food. They’re so poor. You know, it’s gotta be a breeze at home.
The formula is so simple, whole foods, high fiber plant based diet, appropriate supplements,
physical activity and healthy lifestyle. And so, yeah.
It’s not as difficult as what many people imagine. – We have a membership community, WHOLE Life Club.
WHOLE Life Club Q&A
It’s the sponsor of this event here. And a lot of our members in WHOLE Life Club have submitted some questions. So we’re gonna try to get to as a few of these
as quickly as we can. We’ll aim for like a minute really lightning round here answers. Genevieve from Quebec talked about
trying to make healthy vegan food taste good in the home. Her husband and kids are not as committed as she is.
And she’s asking for any tips around making it flavorful for them.
– Yeah. So first of all, I wanna say thank you for having this type of club.
To have a whole life member club where people can share and learn and just be together,
I think is just so, so hugely valuable. So thank you for that.
Genevieve thanks so much for your question. Basically I would say, try,
first of all, good food means good ingredients. So you wanna start with really high quality ingredients.
Go to the farmer’s markets, source your food, get it as fresh as possible. Get your family involved in selection, planning meals,
preparation, all of those things. You know, think about what were the favorite foods,
if you’re family and try to see if you can make plant-based versions of those foods,
whether it’s spaghetti, meatballs or pizza or whatever, tacos or whatever your family enjoy,
try doing veggie versions. Take some vegetarian cooking classes.
There are fantastic classes online. And then, you know, just try to make it as fun as possible.
You know, don’t be afraid to use a little bit of some of the more convenient flavorful vegan options
on the market, you know, have your kids pick recipes. And one of the things that I find really helpful too
is to make gravies and sauces to enhance flavors. Mushroom gravy and white wine cashew sauce and cheesy sauces
with cashews and red peppers and so forth. – Beautiful. And one other tip I’ll say is you’re a member of WHOLE Life Club Genevieve.
So, take advantage of the recipes. I mean, there are over 500 amazing whole foods plant-based recipes.
You can search by ingredient, by, you know, type of recipe,
all sorts of different ways and try them out. These are delicious, they’re super, super healthy
and you can also show them to your kids and be like, hey, which of these 10 do you want me to make, you know? And then you can, if they get some urgency
and sometimes they have more fun with that. Obviously kids that are involved depending on their age and actually helping prepare meals,
that can be a really wonderful thing for a family to get. – Absolutely – To get kids involved in making food. Yeah.
Beth said, I heard from doctors and also week program that kids need dairy products daily.
I also heard from some functional medicine doctors that dairy products should be eliminated. I give my kids organical milk
with the assumption that it’s healthier than conventional milk. What’s your thoughts on this? – Well, I think it is healthier than conventional milk.
It has lower levels of drug residues, it has fewer antibiotics and pesticides and growth hormones than conventional milk.
There are not that many differences in nutritional value but there are slight differences.
But all that having been said, I still prefer fortified non-dairy milk such as soy milk rather than dairy milk.
And the reason being Beth is that just soy milk that’s fortified provides very similar nutritional value
to cows milk, but it’s lower in calories. It’s lower in saturated fat. It’s free of lactose which is a problem
for about 70% of the world’s population. Cows milk is associated with an increased risk
of prostate cancer, endometrial cancer, breast cancer. And I’m sorry,
I should just say prostate and endometrial cancer. And it can increase the risk of acne as well.
Whereas soy is associated with reduced risk of those cancers and breast cancer and it improves skin
and elasticity and tone. So I just think it’s a better choice to be honest. Of course, it’s a better choice in terms of
the environment and the animals as well. And I really encourage you to explore that piece,
how dairy milk comes to us because it really isn’t a pretty picture.
So I would say just explore the other options a little more. – Thank you.
Janet ask for any advice on dealing with osteoarthritis and specific foods to eat or not eat?
– Yeah, so osteoarthritis I think, you know, you just want a whole food plant based diet.
You really want to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress.
And so it’s, you know, the keys are really keep it unprocessed.
So whole foods, colorful foods, colorful vegetables, lots of green leafy vegetables.
These are among our most powerful antioxidants. And then plenty of fruits and nuts and seeds and beans
and whole grains and all of that. You wanna eat cruciferous vegetables every day
if you can or more than once a day because they contain a compound that gets converted to sulforaphane.
And sulforaphane actually inhibits the expression of certain metalloproteins linked with osteoarthritis.
So the most potent source of sulforaphane is broccoli sprouts.
Grow them and eat them daily. And the other thing about crucifers vegetables
is you get more sulforaphane if they’re raw. If you’re going to cook them,
you can cut them up and let them sit. Best would be about an hour and a half. But even for 30 to 60 minutes is okay
because during the time they’re sitting, after they’ve been chopped,
some of the compounds, the isothiocyanates that get converted to sulforaphane,
you know, it’ll get converted before you cook them. So that’s all good. And then eat as many anti-inflammatory
antioxidant rich foods as you can. And herbs and spices come in here.
They have more antioxidants per gram than pretty much any other food.
Things like turmeric and ginger and garlic and all of those things are wonderful.
And then I would add in, take a good quality multivitamin mineral supplement,
like compliment, take at least one to 2,000 IUs of vitamin D every day
and make sure you get enough essential fatty acids, at least three or four grams of alpha-linolenic acid
and possibly some EPA and DHA at maybe two to 300 milligrams a day.
– Fabulous. Thank you. Try to get to a couple more here before we run outta time
for this portion of our time together. Sheila said, how well can a plant-based diet
support high risk for fracture osteoporosis? – Yeah, so, you know, plant-based diets,
we have a lower risk for almost every chronic disease you can think of but not for osteoporosis.
And the reason is simple. Plant-based eaters are leaner. And leaner people have less bone mass.
And so we have slightly increased risk. Now so there’s several things you can do to overcome or to,
you know, to reduce your risk. Number one is to do weight bearing exercise
every single day, seriously every single day. So it’s, you know, walking and running and doing weights and,
you know, just, I find when I’m sitting at the computer and somebody phones me on the phone,
I’ve got a set of weights near my phone. I’m doing my weights as I’m talking because I need to use my time well.
And most of us do. And so those kinds of things can really help. Try to avoid being underweight.
Underweight is not good where bone density is concerned. So, you know, weights of under,
you know, a BMI of under 22 for guys and probably under 20 for females
is probably not great in terms of osteoporosis. Then I would say, make sure you eat enough protein.
Protein is needed because bones actually form this collagen-rich protein matrix.
If you don’t get enough protein, your risk for osteoporosis increases.
And then the other things. Get enough calcium. Meet the RDA for calcium. Ensure reliable source of vitamin D.
Consider adding vitamin K2. Because even though we can convert K one to K2
in our bodies, not everybody does it well. You know, sometimes your gut flora is,
you know, not producing as much as it should. If you are at risk for osteoporosis or have osteoporosis,
I would add in K2 and probably about double the RDA. The RDA is 90 micrograms for women
and 120 micrograms for men. And then ensure reliable source of vitamin B12,
keep your alcohol intake down and include a lot of veggies and fruits in your diet.
They actually help to protect bones. And maybe it’s, you know, because they’re rich and vitamin C, potassium, magnesium or,
you know, we’re not really sure. All the antioxidants can help to reduce oxidative stress which is linked to bone loss.
There’s just so many things but, you know, just do them all, do them all.
– Yeah. Thank you so much Brenda. Last question we’ll get to you from our members. Here are some Laurie who asked,
actually it’s a couple things. She’s asking, how long can smoothies made rich in antioxidants keep their nutritional value?
Do they start to degrade immediately when they’re exposed to lighter oxygen?
And also what about steam leafy greens and defrosting berries? Is it important to eat things right away
or do they degrade and how quickly? – Yeah, so a smoothie will last a day or two in the refrigerator without degrading appreciably.
So I think keep it in a glass bottle, not plastic with a tight fitting lid.
And if you freeze your smoothie, it can last two or three months. I mean, it’s ideal to drink it in the same day,
but it certainly can last a couple of days. Steamed greens will last about five days
in the refrigerator and defrosted berries will last, you know, a good two or three days for sure.
– Thank you. So Brenda, this is such a wealth of information and I just wanna thank you. You’ve been spending decades researching
and then learning how to articulate the latest learnings of science so that everyone can absorb them so we can help heal lives.
And, you know, your books, your speaking, all of your work is transforming people.
It’s giving people hope. It’s giving people grounded hope. It’s giving people life again. It’s helping reverse diseases.
You are one of the most precious humans I know
because I know where you’re coming from. You’re fundamentally here because you wanna help people, because you wanna heal lives.
And you’re combining your big heart with a brilliant intellect that scans the data,
scans the research and then helps translate it for all of us. So I just wanna thank you so much.
And for everybody who is watching, I wanna let you know this has been a lot to absorb. If you wanna own all of this for life,
if you wanna have the transcript, if you wanna have access to 50 more amazing interviews
we’ve done in WHOLE Life Action Hours and all the ones we’ll do in the future, if you want hundreds of recipes,
if you want weekly action step videos from me helping you apply all this,
if you want an ongoing membership community to support you and hold your hand, if you want access to our nutritionists
and dieticians and team of health coaches on the Food Revolution Network team to help answer your questions,
you can get all of that when you join WHOLE Life Club. So keep watching if you wanna learn more about it.
In a moment, I’m gonna let Brenda depart from us and we’re gonna keep talking. And I wanna tell you more about a very special opportunity
that’s only available for a very few days. But first I just wanna say, Brenda, it’s been an incredible privilege
to share this time with you and I just wanna thank you so much. – Well, Ocean, I just, back at you,
I am just in awe of what you and your dad are doing with the Food Revolution Network.
With the support you provide so many people and you are transforming
hundreds of thousands of lives all the times. I’m so grateful for that. And thank you so much for having me.
It was such fun to see you and to be with everyone today. – Absolutely. Thank you Brenda.
It’s been a joy. So now for everyone else who’s still with us, if you’re already a member of WHOLE Life Club,
there is no need to keep watching ’cause you already know how amazing it is, but if you’re not, then this is a great opportunity to find out more about
what it is and how it works and what it might do for you.
So we started WHOLE Life Club with a really simple reason, which is my dad and I founded Food Revolution Network
’cause we wanna change the way the world eats. And we wanna help people get results. You know, the truth is that cancer and heart disease,
type two diabetes, they don’t care a heck of a lot how many books you read, how many seminars you attend or how much you know, they care what you eat.
They care how you live. They care what you do. And for a lot of folks,
the challenge isn’t knowing what to do, it’s doing what they know. It’s putting it into action.
And a lot of folks are overwhelmed. They have so many different books to read and things to do.
And just getting through the day feels like a big accomplishment. So we wanted to make it simple and clear and easy.
And to help giving this wind at your back because, you know, we live in a toxic food culture all around us.
Eating junk food is normalized, it’s even subsidized. And we wanna make it easier for you to do the right thing
day in and day out on good days and bad to keep getting back up when you fall down, to keep getting back on the path
and to have that latest insights and that supportive community to hold you accountable
and to support you on the journey. So you can get the results you want and deserve in your life.
So we founded the WHOLE Life Club specifically to help bridge that gap
from knowledge to action and from day to day action to sustained continuous action
so that people can get results long term. So every month in WHOLE Life Club we’ve got a theme.
And that theme is kind of like a minicourse on that topic. And our past themes have been on topics like brain health,
heart health, anti-cancer living, blood sugar balance, how to boost your energy levels
and lots of other great topics. Every single month we have more themes and we actually pull our members on future themes
so we can make sure we’re addressing the topics that are most relevant and meaningful to you.
And within that theme, every month we have a guest action hour speaker like today’s that you’ve seen.
And we also have a weekly action of the week videos where I walk you through
a specific simple step you can take. It’s a three-minute video usually that walks you through a simple step
you can take to get results and make progress towards your goals. We have an action checklist with specific actions you can take
and we have six new amazing recipes, whole foods, plant-based recipes.
And when you join, you get new recipes every single week and you also get access to our entire library
which is now over 500 recipes ’cause we’ve been doing this for a little while. You get all of that. So you have incredible resources for breakfast,
lunch, dinner, snacks, desserts, beverages and for specific, how to use specific foods? You got too much broccoli? No problem.
Take a look at the recipes and find ones that use broccoli. It’s like having a wind at your back
so you can keep making progress day in and day out. It just keeps going. You don’t have to watch every video.
You don’t have to make every recipe. You just keep getting resources and support, steady and consistent to help you
make progress and engage and move forward. We conducted a survey a little while back. We asked our members what results they’d experienced.
And we heard person after person who were, people were losing weight, they were gaining more energy, they were getting off meds they no longer needed.
They were feeling less lonely and more supported in their healthy eating journey. They were feeling more steady and solid.
They were feeling more confident about their ability to make consistently wise and healthy choices for themselves and their families.
Now, of course, just because that happens for a lot of people, there’s no guarantees about what’ll happen for each individual or for you specifically.
But what I can say is that the potential here is tremendous. And so, if you can relate to wanting more support,
if you can relate to wanting to take action here, if you want the latest science regularly and consistently delivered to you in a clear
and simple and easy to absorb way, then now is really the time because here’s the thing.
Right now this week in celebration of the fact that we recently held a Food Revolution Summit
and they were having a series of action hours this week with Dr. William Li coming up on Monday and Rich Roll on Wednesday as well as today’s,
we’re opening WHOLE Life Club to a whole new raft of people joining as cohorts.
This is one of only two times per year that we opened the doors wide for everybody to jump in.
And we’re offering it in a way we’ve never done it before. Which is $1 for your first month.
So you can try for just a dollar. And if you like it, you can stay on and you’ll be locked in with a price
of just $99 a year with a price that will not go up even when we raise the price again
for everyone else in the future as long as you keep your membership active. And if you don’t love it,
you can ask for a refund anytime with a 60-day total money back guarantee. So even your dollar is completely risk free.
But I think you are gonna love it and I think you’re gonna stay with it and it’s gonna change your life.
Recently I got to chat with one of our members, she’s Kathy from Iowa. And she said she’d like to share
how WHOLE Life Club had impacted her life. And let’s be clear here. This is just an individual sharing her story.
What happens for you might be different. But when you treat your body right, and when you feed up the right fuel,
amazing things can happen. So now let’s go ahead and roll the video so you can see what it means to Kathy.
Here we go. If you could tell us your name and where you’re from. – Well, I am Kathy and I’m from Burlington, Iowa now.
WHOLE Life Club Testimonial
I’m a kind of a recent transplant. I’ve just been here three years. – And when you came into this way of eating
and WHOLE Life Club in particular, what were some of the biggest health or lifestyle challenges that you were facing and how did those impact your life?
– Well, my challenges before joining the WHOLE Life Club
were not uncommon. I joined weight watchers umpteen times in the last few decades and,
you know, up and down with the weight but I was just addicted to fast food.
I loved fast food from the day McDonald’s came to Sacramento, California, when I was 15 years old.
You know, I just loved it. So I knew I was not eating well,
but I didn’t wanna know, you know, what the downside was of that kind of eating,
but then all of a sudden I wanted to know. – And so what happened when you wanted to know,
what did you discover and how did it change your life? – It just resonated more with me,
the whole foods plant-based eating. So at that point, this was back in November,
the end of November. I kind of became vegetarian and as much vegan as possible.
And so I just really started eating differently. So much fewer processed foods,
a lot more fruit vegetables, legumes, grains,
but it’s still a work in progress I have to tell you. I still, you know, one thing I love about your approach
and your tone is that you don’t have to be perfect right away. It’s just a journey, it’s toward whole food plant-based
and any steps are worthwhile. – Yeah. – And I love that it’s healthy for me
and that it’s healthy for the animals. I never wanted to kill animals. I never wanted to know about those factory farms.
And it’s good for the environment. And I’m like so many people feeling a little helpless
these days with the state of the world. And so it makes me feel really good that I’m contributing in these good ways
to things outside of myself. – Wonderful. What have you found in WHOLE Life Club specifically
that has been helpful to you in the journey? – Oh, just information.
I have to say we’ve replaced our cookware with ceramic. We’ve replaced our store food storage with glass
and I have a water purifier on the counter and I mean, all kinds of lifestyle things.
But just on a regular basis, I’m surprised that I love your emails on all different topics on avocados.
I love avocados. So I found out so much good information about that. It just seems, I’m just surprised.
Usually I don’t read long emails, but I’m really fascinated and interested in
all the information that just comes on a regular basis. And I have to say I think what I like the best about
WHOLE Life Club are the action hours, because I love just being repeatedly motivated by these
knowledgeable, reasonable, dedicated people in their fields
that do such a good job of bringing us that information that we need to know on all the related topics.
– Thank you. Have you found benefit to your health in these months
since you’ve been on this path so directly? And how is that showing up in terms of your weight,
your vitality, things you can do, et cetera. – I’ve definitely felt the benefits
since I’ve been with WHOLE Life Club.
I have just lost 30 pounds that really was so effortless compared to past weight loss experiences
because I don’t have to weigh and measure and write down anything. I just changed what I’m eating
and that kind of took care of that. And so since I lost the 30 pounds,
I just have more energy. And I can run, I can actually run with my heels up in the air
which I haven’t done in, you know, a few decades. I don’t think I would just, you know, jogging and lumbering along at the best.
But I just have added more exercise and movement because I wanna move.
That’s amazing. – Fantastic. Anything you would say to somebody who is considering
joining WHOLE Life Club? – I would say joining WHOLE Life Club is totally worth it.
It’s motivating. If this is a change you wanna make in your life, then it takes the place of a support group kind of
because you just get constant support and information and encouragement for adopting this new lifestyle
or heading in this new direction that you want for your life.
– Beautiful. How has if at all, your participation in this community affected others in your family or your friends or community?
– Well, my participation in WHOLE Life Club has affected
my husband whom I live with of course, and his father, who is why we moved here in the first place.
So those two are my closest eating partners and they will go wherever I want to go
and they will eat whatever I put in front of them. And my husband is obese and he’s pre-diabetic
and he’s not that worried about it. But he’s just, I guess by being around me,
I think he’s eating fewer processed foods, but he is eating more good foods because we have good foods in the house now
and that is what I fix in. So just by kind of association,
he’s adopted some better habits. Also last week we went on vacation with two morbidly obese friends
and just watching them eat, what they eat and drink, what they drink.
It made me feel good by comparison that I’m not doing that.
And by the end of the vacation, the man said, “Well, Kathy’s inspired me to eat this salad.”
So he got a big salad instead of, you know, his, what he usually would eat.
And then his wife also once had a big salad where that was the only time I’d seen her eat a salad.
And we went on a bike ride which I guess they haven’t been on bikes in years and years.
So, you know, I guess it does make a difference just being around people that,
you know, just raising awareness, you know, here, there are a lot of church meals
that we go to and I don’t wanna eat any of those foods. So, you know, people ask about it
and I try and be just as nice and accepting and non-judgmental about it.
But at least they know that I’m watching what I eat and, you know, and they can see that it’s made a difference.
– Thanks so much to Kathy for sharing those inspiring words. And now I wanna say this to you.
If you are feeling inspired and you wanna implement what you’re learning, then this is an opportunity right here
and right now to step forward. The doors are open for a very special opportunity
this week only to join WHOLE Life Club and make it happen in your life. The $1 you spend to join for your free month trial could be
the best dollar you will ever spend in your entire life. So if you are feeling intrigued or curious,
or if you’re feeling a yes inside you, then I wanna invite you to click the button to find out more and join in right now.
And I just wanna say I am so grateful to be part of this community which is now close to 10,000 strong
of people who are supporting each other, lifting each other up, learning together, and hopefully together we are changing the world.
So I wanna thank you for being a part of the food revolution because what we eat matters and you know that and that’s why you’re here.
I wanna thank you for all the steps you take to be activated and engaged. Every bite you take, every dollar you spend is a vote,
you’re voting for the health you want and you’re voting for the world you want. And together we are changing the way the world eats
and we are changing the course of food history. And if you wanna take that next step and join in our membership community, WHOLE Life Club,
then now is your chance for just a $1 trial for an entire month. And make sure you join us on Monday
for our next action hour in this series. We’re gonna be joined by Dr. William Li as we focus on his latest breakthrough research
on angiogenesis immune health and how you can eat to starve cancer and promote wellness in every cell.
And then on Wednesday, we’ll be joined by the world’s fittest vegan, the top 10 podcaster Rich Roll,
focusing on how to optimize your lifestyle for peak performance and maximal wellness.
It’s gonna be such an incredible series. And I am so thrilled to be here and sharing it all with you.
And if this interests you and you wanna take the next step and join WHOLE Life Club, then now is a great time to do that.
I hope you enjoy delicious, fabulous, healthy food. I hope you’ve gotten value from this action hour
and I look forward to working with you for healthy, ethical and sustainable food for all.
Let’s do this. – [Announcer] When it comes to cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic illness,
what really matters isn’t how many books you read, how many webinars you attend or how much you know,
what really matters at the end of the day is what you eat and how you live.
The science has given us what we need to know. Now it’s time for action.
It’s time to implement and optimize your healthy lifestyle. It’s time to get results.
It’s time to say goodbye to confusion and hello to clarity.
It’s time to say goodbye to bad habits and hello to good ones.
It’s time to fall in love with foods that love you back. It’s time to join a community that will support you
in achieving your goals. It’s time for WHOLE Life Club.
Click the link to find out more and to join in now. (soft music).
