The new year is about Hope January is the special time of year when we're allowed to press the reset button and start over. I know that 2020 wasn't what everyone was expecting. But now we can all choose to make 2021 a year of Endless Possibilities. I'd like to invite you to join me for my new year new habits five day program starting January 20th to register. Just go to Jay Shelly genius.
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You're come forward slash 2021 to register today. Thank you and get excited for January 20th. I really want you in 2021 to train your mind for peace and purpose every day. The world around us is not always going to be peaceful. People are not going to recognize our purpose and the best way I know you can do this is by grabbing a copy of think like a monk my first ever book. This book will guide you through
all of the skills and techniques needed to actually discover yourself focus on your purpose and build incredible relationships in your life. If you want to grab a copy or a copy for a friend because you already have one head over to think like a monk book.com. Thank you so much, and I can't wait for you to hear this episode.
Hey everyone, welcome back to on purpose. I'm so glad you come back every single week to listen, learn and grow and today. I'm super excited to be interviewing a guess that I actually had on Instagram live a few months ago and we weren't able to dive in even as deep as I wanted to in that Instagram life, which was amazing. So I thought why not bring him onto the podcast where I can really crazy mon the things that I'm interested about the things that I know insights that will
Help you and of course get to know each other better. So today's guest is none other than dr. Mark Hyman. He's a practicing family physician and an internationally recognized leader speaker educator and advocate in the field of functional medicine. He's the founder and director of the ultra Wellness Center the head of strategy and innovation of the Cleveland Clinic Center for functional medicine a 13-time New York Times bestselling author and former president for clinical affairs.
Fares The Institute for functional medicine now. He's the host of one of the leading Health podcast the doctors Pharmacy highly recommend listening to it and checking it out. Dr. Hyman is a regular medical contributor to several TV shows and networks including CBS This Morning today Good Morning America, The View and CNN. He's also an advisor and guest co-host on the dr. Oz show this is an episode. I'm so excited about what we will dive deep into how to save our health.
Economy our communities and our planet one bite at a time with the discussion about his latest book food fix. Welcome to the show im an thank you.
So sweet. Thank you Jay so fun to be with you.
It's so fun to be with you. I loved on Instagram like we were just sharing we did that just before lockdown and the pandemic and everything kind of shifted and I'm remembering back to doing it with you and I loved it so much and I'm so glad we're actually getting to spend this.
This quality time together now and really dive into this great book you've written.
Thank you. Thank you. It was a it was really the combination of life's work to connect the dots between everything we love and care about and how they're connected in ways that we don't imagine but that we actually solve the problem of food. We solve the problems of chronic disease of the stress in our economy of the disintegration of our communities of racism of environmental destruction climate change Nest security kids education.
All Miss connected to food and it's really such a joy to be able to share how those things are connected and actually what we can do about it because it's not called food apocalypse. It's called food fix
absolutely. Absolutely and I can't wait to dive into all areas of that with you because I think we don't realize how powerful and influential food is not just in our bodies not just in our minds but in the world and I know that inside this book, you've got into so many studies.
So much research to really show the impact of food in the world, but I actually want to start somewhere a bit more personal with you because I was discovering some fascinating things about you. And this was one that loves that I feel there's no better way to start this interview then letting the audience know that you were a yoga teacher before you're a
duct that is true. I
mean fascinating when I was like wow, that's cool.
Yeah. Actually I made I majored in Buddhism and Asian studies and Asian religions in college and
I wasn't going to be a doctor. I was going to be a monk. Yeah, and I actually decided Well, you know, I'm not sure I want to be a monk. Maybe I'll just try to be a doctor and be a service in that way and it was really driven out of the notion of compassion and service that was so embedded in Buddhism than I learned about in college Lee and I then became a yoga teacher and decided to become a doctor after that. So his own afterthought when I'm still working at it
love that. I love that but when we get onto that means you're thinking like a monk for sure so
So I love that but tell me a bit more about that compassion peace that you sharing that because I think it's really interesting that you know, people get involved in medicine for so many reasons people get involved in being authors for so many reasons, but it sounds like your kind of foundation was wanting to help people wanting to make a deal. Yeah. That
was good. Okay, I think you know what, I really studied Buddhism is an obviously looking for answers as a young man of 18 19 years old and what's the truth? And what's the meaning of life?
And in and I realized it was a description of how to heal suffering and the focus of Buddhism is not a religion. It's a methodology for healing and relieving suffering and understanding the the way our minds work that caused us to suffer so much and I began to really focus on this notion of how we don't have to suffer and why we suffer and and it was really bad that led me to understanding that I could actually be in that space of service and working on healing through.
Through not just being a monk but actually being a doctor and actually helping patients and people understand how to heal chronic disease, which is what I do. And so I think you know, there's so much suffering in the world. There's so much burden that everybody suffers from both psychologically physically and so many different ways and I was really drawn to doing something to help deal with that and that's really what led me to becoming a
doctor. Yeah. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that I think it's it's a really unique way of looking at it.
Is I think for so many of us, sometimes we can be dealing with physical or emotional pain or issues for such a long time before we even think that there's something we need to do about it. Yeah, sometimes people are living with chronic issues for such a long time and we don't really listen or hear from the body or from the mind what we need to change. So when you look at it that way that you can change what suffering you choose and what you allow in it's huge. Tell me what
more thing on. Oh, sorry gone you're
going to say so now you say, you know, like what's your mission in life? You know, it's like it's really the end needless suffering. There's some suffering you can't avoid but there is there is a lot of needless suffering and and place where I feel most effective is really helping people understand that they can't heal from chronic disease using a new strategy which is functional medicine. It's really an approach of using food as medicine, but it's understanding the root causes is understanding the body of the system. It's really helping restore and regenerate health.
As opposed to treat disease and and people suffer necessarily and I think this goal of for my life has really been to sort of bring this way of thinking and helping people into into a broader perspective and that's really what I do at Cleveland Clinic is we're publishing research on this. It's really gratifying to see that actually that it's catching on that people Now understand what this is that they understand that our current medical Paradigm isn't really solving a lot of their problems and you know, I got there because I was sick. I got very very ill and I was
From chronic fatigue living in China got mercury poisoning and ended up having is you know, my body just collapse and I had to literally reverse-engineer my way to health using principles of functional medicine if how to restore my health and I realized it was applicable to so many patients, you know people with autoimmune diseases and digesters orders and mood disorders and Alzheimer's and autism so diabetes and metabolic issues all the things that people suffer from that we don't really deal. Well with traditional medicine is what I really
Gaston
Yeah, that's that's incredible. And I love how so much of the good we do always comes from some sort of pain in our own. Yeah, it's you know, it's amazing that you've been able to go and take it so far and not just take you far but you're really challenging the status quo. Let's start the Reggie Whitten food fix, you know, I doubt people take the time to actually think that the food industry has an agenda of their own but can you just some ways in which the industry is strategic in how it advances it?
Sewn goals and Mission that's what like most
a boy. That's a can of worms. So there are a lot of unintended consequences that have led to our current food system that were born out of Good Intentions, right? We wanted to feed the world. We wanted to have the ability to grow a lots of food for a lot of people and quite a lot of calories at scale and modernize Agriculture and and that was happening in the 50s and 60s which led to this commercialization of industrial agriculture which led to enormous amounts of starch.
The industrial food being produced right? So it was we were all enamored with no astronaut food and processed food and Tang is that orange juice and unfortunately, that's led to a method of growing food that's produced the worst Food on the planet. It's mostly ultra-processed foods, which is made from soy corn and wheat and different extruded colors sizes shapes and forms. It's all deadly but 60 percent of our calories and it's also led to destruction the environment through destruction of the soil and biodiversity of plants and animals.
And insects and also stresses on our water and increasing climate change and all the pollution from the incredible amount of pesticides herbicides and we use six billion pounds around the world of glyphosate, which is pretty toxic. Then we use 400 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer which has all kinds of devastating consequences. So the way we're growing the food in the food that we're growing is devastating our health and devastating planetary health. And and and so the problem is that the food industry is the biggest industry on the planet. It's 15
Billion, sorry trillion with a t dollar industry that is now trying to maintain the status quo. Unfortunately, which is not a good one. So I was like they said, oh we're going to make people sick and fat and we're going to destroy the environment. They just didn't know but now they know and so there's a very concerted effort to control our food policy, which is you know, what does a doctor why would I be carrying about politics and food policy, but it occurred to me as I'm sitting in my office in patients.
Noun 1 but I can't cure diabetes in my office is cured in the kitchen in the grocery store and the farm and I need to look upstream and look at the root causes and the begin to so what's causing the food that they're eating this making them sick. Let's the food system what's causes the food system. It's our food policies. And why do we have the food policies we have because it's a food Lobby that drives that and so they drive a lot of the status quo and that and they do it in they do it in government policy and we spend half a billion dollars just on the farm bill in one year 1999-2000.
I've the the GMO labeling law was defeated because the true mystery collectively spend a hundred ninety two million dollars on one bill in lobby. And they do this by driving our dietary guidelines policy our agricultural policies that promote the growth of these raw materials or commodities for Ultra processed food. They do it through controlling what we can say on food labels. They control the restrictions on marketing so we can't actually limit marketing for junk food.
And across the whole multiple 10 agencies of the government. There's there's so many policies that are influencing our food system that are often at odds with each other contradictory, but they're in the interest of the food industry. So that's happening and then they're also copying science. So the Nationals who he'll spend a billion dollars on research for nutrition food industry spends 12 billion, most of its propaganda, like, you know, the dairy Council says milk is Nature's perfect food while all the studies show that ER Coca-Cola finds it
Now when they find a study that obesity has nothing to do with soda, you know, so it doesn't make sense. They also fund groups that are front groups like The American Council on science and health which sounds like a great noble cause with crop life or you know the group for sustainable agriculture and they're all front groups for the food industry to propagate their agenda and create misinformation. And then there's the coop Public Health groups like The American Heart Association American Diabetes Association Academy nutrition dietetics.
Eighty percent of their budget is from the food industry. So they're they're they're not giving independent advice and then they caught social groups like the NAACP and Hispanic Federation in groups that are doing good in the world. They fund them for example, I was I was showing a movie as that. I was in a number of years called fed up which is about childhood obesity and the the problem we have with the food industry and sugar and starch and I went down there and I met with the the head of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, which is Martin Luther King's church went with his daughter.
His King and they're very excited to get behind this and have a screening at the King Center Atlanta and I was excited about this in a few days later. I got a call so we can't have this showing at the King Center. I'm like why so we'll Coca-Cola funds the food industry funds the King Center. So it's pretty frightening. When you see all these different strategies to Target certain groups to put out wrong science to support misinformation through these front groups through influencing Public Health groups through control.
In policy and it's a really devastating effect, which has led to the fact that six out of 10 Americans have a chronic disease that 75% of us are overweight that 42 percent are obese that 88% are metabolically on healthy. I mean just take that information it 12 percent of Americans are metabolically healthy and means 80% are not and these people are more risk for covid-19 and other other chronic diseases. So we really had this this crisis moment here and I think
Need to understand how all these things are related and then we need to design a strategy to both from a Grassroots level from a business Innovation level from philanthropy and from clearly policy to change what's
happening.
wow, I mean that that is one whose update in a great where I was with you the whole time, you know, when I hear that and I think about my community my audience listening or watching or or anyone consuming this right now, it's like it can feel very overwhelming to individual for the individual that yes doesn't have
the feeling of just like there's there's two things that come to mind one is like
Do these people realize that they're actually destroying people's lives because you know almost at the end of the day. It's like you said it's not a conspiracy theory. It's not like it started that way, but now that you are aware and we continue to fund it in that direction it mainly people feeling quite helpless. Where is a great place for people to get started. Of course this book for people to get educated because I feel like the biggest challenge in making choices when you're like, oh my God, I can't trust the labels. I got us.
The the ingredients on the back where do people trust where do they find trust is real? Yeah.
Well, you know, I spent a lot of time when I wrote the book food fix to dive into practical Solutions both for individuals or businesses policies and I create a food fix action guide it's free. They can go to Food facebook.com and downloaded essentially give you 20 in the top things. You can do as Citizens and individuals to have an impact change change your health and change.
Change planetary health and drive policy and drive businesses and it works when we when we change we want to do we vote with our wallet. We vote with our voice. We vote with our fork and we vote with our vote. We see massive change. I mean General Mills and Danone which are two big food companies are now funding Farmers to convert their lands to regenerative agriculture. So the literally stepping up and doing what the government isn't doing and funding Farmers to transform agriculture to produce nutrient dense food in a way that
doors the soil restores the plant nutrition and restores human health that that's groundbreaking and it's because we can make those choices. So I talked about how do you become a Regina Terrian? How do you regenerate your own health? And how do you regenerate planetary health and our social communities and their health and it's pretty simple right? It's eating real food is not buying into the industrial food. They were all eating which is hard to do for some people but I get real clear resources on what to look for where to buy things were to buy things that are not necessarily expensive.
Giggling it's expensive to do this but actually can be done really at scale and in a way that isn't going to break the bank to become a smart consumer. You have to read food labels. You have to seek out different sources of food, whether it's community supported agriculture or farmers markets or online retailers that sell direct to Consumer like Thrive Market or Mariposa Ranch, which actually celebre generally raised beef and other animal foods that are really healthy for you and and there's things you can do if you if you get inspired in your own.
T you can be an agent of change right? Maybe you want to get your local government to start a compost ordinance. So you'll compost your food because food waste is a huge problem like 40% of our food is wasted and it's one of the biggest drivers of climate change. The bigger it is a bigger contributor methane than cows and and it's all your vegetables are grown in the in the compost that I mean in the in the in the landfill and you can you can actually start to understand how to how to do these things for yourself and maybe have a compost pile in your in your group if you want to
I'm an active activist. You can turn up the heat on your politicians and and food companies by finding organizations that are doing it in supporting them or lobbying Representatives. I mean, you can actually have an impact locally and you can decide maybe you want to work in your school and help the school lunch and nutrition you better and people have done that and so in the book is just full of examples of actually how to take control of your own health and your own life and your own community and it's working. I mean, it's why we're seeing the changes were
seeing. Yeah, absolutely and thank you for creating.
In that action guide everyone that's food fix book.com if you want to go and grab that because I think that's what people are looking for. I really believe that people are looking for Action guides because that's where they know they need to start and one of the things I'm fascinated by when I was looking at the book and I've been looking at your work you talk about how I think it's like the average child between something like 2 and 13 or 14. You say like sees on average like 10 to 11 junk food ads per day.
It's terrible. I mean the average kid sees probably 10,000 adds a year that's television now we're seeing stealth advertising. So this is a lot of these studies were done on food marketing to kids. It was there's about 17 billion dollars spent in 2004 when it was tracked on junk food advertising the kids in the worst of food, the the more the ads and the worst has were so and and now Facebook for example last year had, you know 500 billion ads.
Yes.
For junk food on Facebook. It's just it's just unbelievable how much and their stealth games for kids like adver games where they're literally embedded propaganda for food company. So little McDonald's go to McDonald's store and go to the, you know, get your Burger King whatever it's it's terrifying. So we see the biggest impact actually is this changes in food marketing and in this country, there's the First Amendment you can't restrict people's right first news right right to free speech and it's you know, but I don't think there's any
Law that prohibits us from protecting our children from these kinds of messages because they can't tell the difference between reality and an ad tell her about eight or nine years old and they're targeting these kits and in Chile when they actually repealed the ability or remove the ability for these companies to Market between 6 a.m. And like I think 10 p.m. The it was dramatic reduction in the use of these foods and dramatic reductions in obesity. But this country is doesn't want to do that because it's just a bit such a big moneymaker for these companies.
Yeah, that's that's that's really a law making because ultimately the people making the decisions are obviously aware that the food is not healthy for people and it's not going to benefit their body or their mind but they still continue to invest in, you know, creating challenges for kids and you know, I always whenever I get asked randomly to invest or be a spokesperson for different brands or whatever it may be and whenever it
I think that's aimed at young people. I'm always just like well, would you let how old you I always ask how would you how was how was your son or daughter and then tell me their age and I'll be like would you recommend them to you this product and the amount of times I've heard people say no I wouldn't but I'm like but you're selling this like that, you know and it yeah, I'm just so confused by that. Do you think that's the level at which we have to change it like it needs to change on the level where people go my profitability is not as important as people's children like
It's yeah because changing, you know, I was really excited to hear, you know, this group called The Business Roundtable, which is all the top businesses in America. They get together the CEOs and last meeting they made a stand they said we have to look not only in shareholder value but stakeholder value meaning what is the impact of our company on our customers on the workers, you know on the environment, you know, who are the stakeholders in the products for creating and it's not just about profits and shareholder value, which I thought was a
Big step forward. So I think we're seeing more movements towards conscious capitalism, but there's definitely entrench companies and just don't want to change and they're not they're not going to do it on terribly. So there has to be sort of a parallel system that grows up that that shows that this can happen and I think we're doing it it's and I wanted to happen faster, but I think it's I think it's
happening and how much of it is also and I know you you know, the answer that is but it's how much of it also is is our addiction and habits because of the way these products have been created.
Dated so we also find it hard to let go of them. So I'll give you a personal example, you know, I grew up eating for sugar products a day when I was young and so sorry for chocolate products today. Sorry not function. Well chocolate products a day. And so I would eat a chocolate biscuit a chocolate bar and chocolate ice cream and a chocolate yogurt nearly a wow my legs and I was overweight as a child. I struggled with it whether it was bullying or whether just eating unhealthy and As I Grew Older I started to
Is that I was addicted to Sugar especially in chocolate and I got so used to having it and it took me to who I've talked to you about before meeting my wife within the find me Alternatives because that's what I said to my wife. I was like, I need an alternative if I'm gonna have to shake this habit. Yeah, and so I ended up finding things sweetened with monk fruit and yeah and other things which have been amazing, but
that's good for you Monk Fruit, right?
I know how ironic I do not hear and I have any affiliation with it was forever.
The Intriguing thing to me about that is that there are alternatives that exist. But but I want to share this for the audience. It's like I get what it feels like to be addicted to food that may not tell us about how much we're addicted to these.
Yeah. I mean, this is a real problem Jay. I think most people don't realize it and they internalize the feelings they have about what they eat and blame themselves. Oh, why can't I stop eating this? Oh, I'm gaining weight and I just can't stop myself and they think is there.
Fault that they're overweight or they're sick and then is just a bunch of nonsense and scientific nonsense because when you look at the science of these Foods these ultra-processed pulverized foods that are high in starch and sugar. They're really designed to hijack our brain chemistry and our hormones and our metabolism in a very specific way and and the these companies have organizations called taste institute's where they hire
are craving experts and the science of craving and they design their products in a specific way to create the Bliss point of the food. What does that perfect crunch taste sugar? Whatever it is. So it's going to make you go boom and have this pleasure sensation and it's about dopamine. It's like heroin or cocaine and it works in the same area of the brain and and it's not just a theory they know this, of course, they deny it although one of the top Executives from one of the big soda companies.
Said to me Mark you want to come to our lab and see what we've done. We've actually been able to extract the taste buds from humans and we grow them in a culture in the lab and then we can stimulate them and see what's happening. Like you do not want me to go in there because I'll put this all over social media and it's a very scary thing and so the science has shown for example that if you take a group of overweight guys and one day you give them milkshake that's regular milk, shake and the next day you get my trick milkshake, which is exactly the
Same except for the way in which the sugar is absorbed. So there's starch and they're the same carbohydrate the same protein the same fat the same fiber the same calories exactly the same and they taste the same so they don't know what they're drinking when they found that when they had the one that had the sugar that was absorbed quickly compared to the one that's absorbed slowly. It created this pattern in their brain that lit up the same area called the nucleus accumbens as heroin or cocaine and you can see it on a
Summarize this is not just a theory that oh, it's may be addictive is not really a true addiction. It actually is and when they looked at their other biomarkers or blood levels of insulin sugar adrenaline cortisol stress hormones, you literally sugar your stress hormones go up so you can be meditating all day. But if you're eating sugar all day, you know, you're in trouble and I think we don't understand how powerful these foods are and how they hijack our biology but within a very short time Lily just 10 days or less you literally can reset your biology.
We reset your brain chemistry reset your hormones and your taste buds and get out. And I remember I ran this course once in Accra Paulo, which is the Yoga Center near me. I know it. Yeah, and and it was it was it was sort of a sugar detox and this one came in just like there's no way I can do this. I've been addicted sure my whole time my whole life. I'm never gonna be able to get off this I said just do exactly what I'm saying and just try to do this and even a way that's going to reset your biology because food is medicine and she's like, okay. I'll try it day two. She like I can't believe in anymore Cravings. I don't want it. I don't need it on it's like my whole biology.
So I think people can be very empowered by making those kinds of changes
and and does it just just to dive into that slightly tiny bit more guys should not change for people being extreme or is it incremental? So it's like let's say someone's listening they got it. They are consuming too much sugar or they're having too many sodas or whatever is it? Like they should go the next no sodas. What's that almost that 10 day program? What?
Yeah. So do you have like one ounce less of so today are 12 sodas 11. Okay, you know
I think as a doctor and I want people to be able to have the experience of Health, you know, it's like an Awakening. I want them to actually quickly be able to experience that. So I usually can miss people to do a dramatic change for a short time, you know, like a week or 10 days and then their bodies tell them how they feel like, oh my God. My migraines are gone. My digestion is better. I'm sleeping better. My sinus trip is gone. You know, my Skin's clearing up. My acne is gone. I feel better. I don't Cravings my energy is good and they go. Wow, I'm getting the connection, but you what I eat.
And how I feel as if I always like to give people an experience and I created a program called the 10-day reset and it's essentially giving them that opportunity even downloaded free at get Pharmacy.com. It's just a simple way of eating in a specific time frame and it's been that way it's going to really regulate your biology because every bite of food, you take regulates your entire biology it changes your gene expression. It changes your hormones your brain chemistry or immune system your microbiome everything literally with every bite and when
You understand that and you can upgrade or downgrade your biology literally with every bite your biological software can change you can really see rapid changes and we've seen incredible things from people, you know, getting off insulin in three days, for example, so it's really powerful and people make the choice to try this and I think you know Tiny Steps in tiny habit changes are good and BJ Fogg talks about this for some things but I think if you really want to see the power of this, you know, short-term dramatic change can give you enormous benefit.
I'm completely with you on that II think that when you experience something immersively in an extreme way, you're more likely to quickly fill the benefits of it and to recognize it powerful. Now that may mean you may go back to your old habit quicker, but you now know what you're trying to move towards as opposed to not having a tangible experience. So I'm perfectly with you. I wanted to check that with it with an expert at that. Definitely. I can totally relate relate to that too.
Me about you talk a lot about in the book and what I'm really trying to do for anyone who's listening or watching right now is the book is just for and you can already tell dr. Mark Hyman is a phenomenal story teller, he's got a ton of great studies that you know, I'm a I'm massively into studies. And so anytime that is amazing. I am really fascinated intrigued the book is full of the insights that the tools and the actions that you can take in each of these areas, but I do believe that the first step is
Occasion and awareness. So I'm hoping that as you listen to this the podcast is going to give you the insight about each of these areas of our life that food impacts, but when you read the book that's going to give you the full set of you know, what part of the you need to change and where the action is. So what I'm fascinated by the book is you talk a lot about how there's food racism. I think that this is so obviously relevant right now. Yeah, and I'm sorry.
Important for people to understand because I think either we don't believe it exists or were so consumed by it that we're not mine explain that concept to
us. Well, I mean, I think you know, we have certain populations in this country that are so disproportionately affected by chronic disease and by poor health and African American Community has been a community and Native American communities and we look at covid-19.
It is far away hurting these populations more than anybody else, you know, for example in Louisiana in Chicago African-Americans are 30% of the population a seventy percent of the deaths, you know, Native Americans are experienced the same thing and they if you're African-American America, you have twice the rate of getting diabetes. You have probably four times the rate of getting kidney failure and three and a half times likely to get amputations because of diabetes your and your
Targeted more than the the rest of the population than food marketing is often more directed to minorities and we see this is from Yale's studies that have shown that we actually are targeting these populations more. So there these Health disparities are huge and there are a lot of reasons for I mean there's we called structural violence, you know, we talk about structural racism, but there's a bigger concept which is one of the structural violence the social economic political conditions environmental conditions that are driving disease, right? We see this with reflections.
These are chronic disease. And and this is what we have in America. We have this structural violence that has led to incredible amounts of disease in these populations. It's leading to these Health disparities and we have to understand why and the reasons are complex, right? There's there's the racism issues and the segregation we had and lack of access to education housing and opportunity and funding and there's a lot of issues but the problem with food is that is it it drives these populations to be more
sick less able to learn School less able to succeed in life and more likely to get disability and chronic disease as they get older. So we see this sort of dismantling of these populations in scale and ways that we don't see, you know their populations and it's it's really heartbreaking because it's so fixable and I've seen this happen, you know and went down and even if you're poor in your white a lot of these things are still evident and it's part of the movie Fed Up. I went down to this little town in Easley, South Carolina.
There was a family of five living in a trailer food stamps and disability. The father was 42 already on dialysis from kidney failure from diabetes. My mother was like overweight to plus a hundred pounds. The sun was practically diabetic and 16 and I said listen, I'm not going to lecture you. Let's just cook a meal together. Here's what's in your kitchen. Like here's all the junk and I showed him everything that they were eating. They thought was fine like Cool Whip, which said zero trans fat but was all trans fat because the FDA left a loophole that said if you have less than half a gram per serving.
You can say no trans fat, but it's all are so it's just like it's just all the food industry influence and they go out like horrified and then I said, let's cook a meal of turkey. Chili. Let's create a nice salad with olive oil and vinegar dressing salt and pepper. Let's stir fry some asparagus lets roast some sweet potatoes simple simple meal wasn't expensive and they actually loved it. They never cooked in their kitchen before and I just get a little bit education. I said, here's a guide on how to eat well for Less good food on a tight budget from the environmental working group.
And we're on the board and I gave him a cookbook. I said you can do this and they did it and when the year they lost 200 pounds together. The father was able to lose enough to get a new kidney the sun lost 50 but then went to work at Bojangles, which is a fast food restaurant down in the South and so I'm facing a job for these kids there and he gained 50 pounds like it's playing an alcoholic to work in a bar and and then he figured it out and you lost a hundred and thirty-eight pounds and he got into medical school. He asked me to write a letter of recommendation. So people can
actually come out of this if they're given the right education tools, but I work in these communities and populations and they just don't know they just are unaware of this sort of level of food racism and food and food even apartheid is happening these communities where you see the lack of ability to access food and lack of ability to find, you know quality ingredients because they're buying food at the gas station. That's where they get their
food.
Yeah, thank you so much for raising awareness about this super important issue because I feel like it's just not talked about no, and I didn't ya Goin no, sorry.
It's internalised. You know, like II went on a rafting trip and I read the story in the book with a Hopi Chief was a Native American Chief and they he lives in one of the oldest inhabited cities in America Robbie, which has been somebody's lived in there for over a thousand years, and he was very very overweight and he was just struggling to get down to the raft and
And threw up because it just was so out of shape and I we got on the raft who kind of got to know each other I said, you know, you can actually fix this you can get rid of your diabetes. He's a what do I have to do? He said well I said, well, you have to get rid of the starch and sugar in your diet the sodas and sweets and all that. He's like, wow. Well, okay, but what I'm going to do for our traditional Hopi ceremonial Foods, we have these traditional Hopi ceremonial Foods. I'm like what foods like cookies cakes pies. I'm like thinking to myself.
Those are not your traditional ceremonial foods and what's happened. Was that the government put everybody on Renovations? They cut off their food supply in their traditional ways of hunting or fishing or even growing food they diverted and hope you're as they've been diverted their water. So they had no access to Rivers anymore. And then they piled in these commodity Foods flour sugar and shortening right and that became their diet and they government Commodities Were the Staples. So they made Indian frybread and Indian tacos those nothing.
Being about that and and and these foods are so toxic and now that's why we see 80% of them have diabetes by the time they're 30 mm life expectancy in some of these communities is 46 and it's terrible and it's not just the American communities, but he's internalized this this food Concepts that he thinks are his traditional foods. And this is in between the African-American communities and Latino communities. And you know, I think in Chicago there's something called the Chicago Loop if you live outside the loop.
Your life expectancy 16 years less. If you take a subway from Midtown Manhattan to the Bronx, which is a very poor African-American communities. Your life expectancy is goes down six months for every subway. Stop go to Harlem and the Bronx so these things are really not talked about much and I gave a lecture a few years ago was on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Junior's assassination at the Harlem Riverside church and was really about food oppression and
You know, it was a little intimidating for me because it mostly African-American Community. I'm a white Jewish guy, you know who you are. And what do I know about it? But it was it was you know, Governor Cuomo spoke there I spoke and and I just was able to share what I was seeing from the science and from the data about how these things were being affected and it was it was an incredible response and people really resonate with very short 10-minute talk. You can find it online just do Hyman food oppression. You'll find it but it's sort of is really catapulted.
Me and to really trying to raise these issues because we can't we can't resurrect our communities unless we have resurrect our health and we can't resurrect our health unless we resurrect our food and we can't resurrect our food until we fix the food system and fix it Agriculture and to pull that thread that connects everything together.
Yeah. Absolutely. And what I'm trying to do in our interview today is really understand that the role of the individual educating the individual because I feel like if the individual is educated then we'll start to see this rule change.
Tell me about we've talked we've definitely tapped into this. We talked a lot about how it impacts our physical health, but I know in the book you also talk about how nutrition and food can actually medicine for our mental health. Yeah, and I think that this is this link again. I feel like what you're doing in the book is just topics that I at least at least I can be honest and say I'm not hearing about in a non conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theories. I don't love conspiracy theories. I like I like gator and I can discussion and change nation. And so that's what I think you do. So well in his book, but let's talk to me about the connection between mental health and and our diets
and you know Jo was it was a surprise to me. I was practicing functional medicine working with patients may come up with these physical complaints. They have an autoimmune disease or they would have some digestive issues or
Whatever was going on, or they have ADD whatever and I would I would treat them and restore their health by dealing with restoring these basic biological systems your gut your immune system your detoxification system your hormones all the things that we we do in functional medicine and and a lot of its using food as medicine.
And then they would report back. Dr. Hyman. I don't what happened. But my depression is gone. My panic attacks are gone. My ADD is better. My memory is better. My brain fog is gone. I'm like what's going on here? And I began to really investigate what was happening and I sort of jokingly call myself The Accidental psychiatrist because I was treating people's body and their brain was getting better and I began to realize that you know, let's just take depression for example, you know depression.
Doubt is an inflammatory disease, which we don't think of it's like, you know, it's like a sore throat, but it's in your brain and your brain, you know doesn't hurt but it can be depressed or feel sad or be anxious or have OCD or a TD or whatever and and so it has different ways of expressing that inflammation whether it's Alzheimer's even as an inflammatory disease autism is inflammatory. And then the question is what's driving the inflammation and it's are primarily our inflammatory process nutrient poor diet. That's this industrial diet. It's like
The nutrients that our bodies and our brains need to function and I just saw case after case after I started people on a Whole Foods diet. I took out the processed food got rid of inflammatory foods, like gluten dairy got rid of sugar gave him a moment to sort of heal and then put in the nutrients that their bodies needed Miracles were happening and I began to sort of go. Wow, you know, the body is so connected to the brain. And so yes, there's a mind-body effect. There's also a body mind effect and that body-mind affect his work fixing because
Cuz you can do something about it, you know, if you want to deal with your mental health issues, if you want to become enlightened, it's a lot easier to do it. If you deal with the problems first, you know, if your if your gut is healthy, if you are not low thyroid functioning if your nutrition levels are vitamin D is good your B12 levels good. It's much easier to actually get to what you want to do in terms of your spiritual goals or your personal goals. If you are feeling good, right it's a lot harder to get enlightened if your
Group poisoning or you have do some nasty thing going on in your body. And so this really was the Genesis of this book the ultra mind solution about how we fix our minds and our bodies by fixing our body first so that we don't have to work on our minds as well because that's that's that's your lane. But but it's it's it was it was such an insight for me to go. Wow. There's so many people suffering from mental health issues that are driven by physical issues.
No, it's 1000% It's all interconnected and even I find like
Sometimes people need their minds help to change their body and they need their bodies help to change their mind. It's you know, it's and I think the the fixation of it either or or where do I start? It's almost like we need to be absorbing all of it. Like I found that and I can identify with what you're saying that I was someone who focused a lot of my mind that was able to find a lot of peace and calm in my mind, but then I found that I've neglected my body and it's almost like Real Alignment in your life is felt when your body and mind are aligned, right?
Hayes you can't have a advanced mind and they neglected body. That's not a lineman that's going to constantly cause friction in your life. And it's the same with what you're saying where if people are feeling mind fog or struggling with a mental health illness and they're not taking care of their body and like you said their brain. Yeah, then then again you can't switch that so I totally see the interconnectedness and I hope more and more people listening will realize that when you read the book food fix that you'll be able to start making those two.
Weeks that you need to in your lifestyle
even education, you know, we talked about in the book and how our kids are so impaired. I mean, you know one in 10 kids has ADD kids have learning difficulties. Dyslexia challenges with you know, academic performance and the CDC put out a report that I talked about in the book on the influence of nutrition on academic performance and its massive, you know, how do kids learn when they're eating junk food and going to school in the morning with flaming hot chips and a Coke.
They can't function they crash and so providing good nutrition can have radical effects on kids academic performance and close what we call an achievement Gap and I think it also affects Behavior, you know, we think about mood but one of things I was shocked to discover is that is in violence and violent behavior and aggression are also connected to our diet and in prison studies that I talk about in the book prisoners who are fed a who are violent who are fetty. Hopefully, it's healthy died in prison. Can you reduce violent crime by 56%
and if you had a multivitamin goes down by 80% if you do it in kids in juvenile detention centers these kids 91% reduction in bad behavior and violence a hundred percent reduction suicides. I mean, it's just staggering and if there was a pill that could do that everybody be taking it there be a giant pharmaceutical company marketing and we don't hear about these issues because they're not something that's going to create billions of dollars in profit. But unfortunately, it's where the it's whether whether where the where the real effect can
be. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely everyone. I want to recommend that you not only go listen to The Doctor's Pharmacy podcast, but you also check out the book food fix that I have next to me right now again, huge recommended recommendation for the book A to get educated become aware of what's really happening. What's working in the background that's going to give you enough confidence and enough of a reason and a why to go and actually make the changes in your life. It's really easy to live in ignorance and in the pain and just allow for it to continue and feel like
Like it's only because something outside is impacting you but actually take responsibility for our help and our futures is huge. And if not for yourself, then at least your children. Yeah, the future generations and dr. Mark Hyman. I believe you doing such a great service. Honestly, you really are in reading all of these issues in all areas in the depth of the research in the lengths. You've gone through to share this with us. I'm super super grateful. Thank you. We end every interview with
Cool the final five which are your Fast Five round, which is answers in one word to one sentence maximum. Okay. All right, and don't drive in these are your final five. So question number one. What's the best change you've made in your diet?
The best change I made was to dramatically cut out starch and sugar. I don't eliminate it. But I really don't eat any flour products and if I ate sugar is usually part of some whole food, right it can maybe I'll have a
You know whole huge chocolate which I love which is, you know, very low glycemic and I think that and getting rid of industrial food is is been the best things I've done. I love bit, of course, you know adding and all the
good stuff of course super practical. Okay, great second question. What do you know to be absolutely true about health that a lot of people would disagree with you.
Wow. That's a good question. No one's ever asked me that Jay. I think that the biggest thing that people don't understand is that
That you know, the way we Define disease is completely wrong. So our normal conception of disease is completely flawed because it's not based on causes is based on symptoms. So I think people just don't understand that and so if you focus on causes not symptoms and treat that the root cause people get
better. I love that great on sale right that question what gives you the biggest? Hope for the food industry.
I see.
I see hope because I see these food companies waking up. I see companies like General Mills and Danone and other companies and Nestle really understanding that this can't go on that they're their survival depends on Transforming Our Food system. So I see the the and they see the culture shifting and people demanding more Consciousness about their food. So I'm excited about
that. Awesome question number four. What's the biggest lesson you've learned in the last 12 months.
Wow, I've been traveling for 25 years and on the road and covid has locked me down and I've realized that having a rhythm instability and quiet and time to think is actually a good thing and I think I've really learned that it's time my life to shift how I'm doing things so I can actually cultivate more of that.
It's brilliant and your fifth and final question is if you could create a law that everyone in the world would
To follow what would be
who a lottery would have to follow? Well, I think it would be it would be a law that would be that all governments would Implement that would influence every single policy around food, which would be quality is king. So no food policy can be made in let's it's putting the quality of nutrition and nutritional density first and every single thing we do whether it's dietary guidelines are what food we bro.
Go or what food we Market or whatever it is. It's going to transform everything if we can do that.
I love that. That's because I like you're gonna ask you one more question. Does this come to my mind? Do you think that it's possible to create healthy food? That's affordable.
Absolutely. I mean this the studies are really clear that it may cost 50 cents more day to eat healthier. And like I said, there are guys like good food on a tight budget that are are actually incredibly effective in helping people eat well for Less good for them good for
Plan and good for their wallet and I think we get caught up in a sort of elitism about eating healthy, but it really is family in South Carolina. They lived on food stamps and disability for a family of five and they were able to do it in one of the worst Food deserts in America. So it's really more about education and awareness than it is about money. That's great to hear.
Awesome. Dr. Mark Hyman. Thank you so much for being a guest on on purpose. What I'd love for everyone to do is tag me and dr. Mark Hyman on Instagram with your favorite.
Sites your favorite thought or idea or concept or fact that Mark Hyman stated today that stayed with you and how you're going to experiment with your diet. I'd love for you to think about what is that deep dive experiment you can do for the next seven days. What could you remove from your diet or add to your diet based on the insights in the book based on the guidance in the book that you think's going to make a massive change try and experiment for just seven days for one week and see how your life changes and as I said,
Out and grab a copy of the book will put the links in the podcast description so you can go straight to Amazon and grab your copy. Dr. Mark Hyman. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you'd love to share
nothing other than I think you know, we're in this moment where everybody can focus in on their own health and by doing that they will literally help us get through this covid epidemic and help solve so many of our Global problems because what we do to ourselves we do to our communities and our families and what we do to ourselves and your planet and so understanding that
that is a circle and that we can actually impact that by making those small changes in ourselves. I think is very very powerful message people understand and
thank you so much. This is great. Thank you everyone for listening and I'll see you again next week.
This podcast was produced by Dust Light Productions. Our executive producer from Dust Light is Misha Yusuf. Our senior producer is Juliana Bradley. Our associate producer is Jacqueline Castillo Valentino Rivera is our engineer. Our music is from Blue Dot sessions and special. Thanks to Rachel Garcia the dust like development and operations coordinator.
