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The Plant Centered and Thriving Podcast
Welcome! If you're looking for plant-based inspiration, you've come to the right place! This podcast is here so you don’t have to feel alone on your plant-based journey. You'll hear from individuals who have taken the leap to go plant-based, why they did it, the struggles they faced, their words of wisdom for you, and how they're thriving now.
The Plant Centered and Thriving Podcast
The Best of 2023: Part 1
Welcome to the Best of 2023 Series!
We will break this series down into two episodes. This first episode will be featuring some of the plant-based experts that have bestowed their wisdom upon on us.
If you are new to Plant Centered and Thriving, this episode will be an amazing place to start to get all of the best nuggets of information from our experts. If you are a long time listener, rediscover the expertise and insight these amazing gurus share with us once again.
Please enjoy Part 1 of our “Best of 2023” series!
Stay tuned for Part 2!
***Call to Action! Email us and let us know what you want to see in 2024! ***
Featured Experts:
Toni Okamoto
Ep 102
Dr. Melanie Joy
Ep 122
Nelson Campbell
Ep 119
Kaitlin Grady
Ep 121
Hannah Van Ark
Ep 108
Corinna Bellizzi
Ep 111
Sun Sachs
Ep 107
Dr. Bill Rawls
Ep 98
Adrien Paczosa
Ep 93
Dr. Joel Kahn
Ep 144
Diana and Jose
Ep 140
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WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Have a question, suggestion or comment for the podcast? Fill out form here
Plant Centered Nutrition Essential Resources:
Welcome to the Plant-Centered and Thriving Podcast. I'm your host, ashley Kitchens. I'm a plant-based registered dietitian and virtual nutrition mentor. I was raised on an Angus Cattle Farm, grew up with a lot of GI issues and used the power of plant-based eating to promote healing. Here you'll find inspiration, ideas and encouragement for your own plant-based journey. I'm so thrilled you're here today. Let's get started.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Plant-Centered and Thriving Podcast. My name is Katie and today we have a very special episode for you. Welcome to our Best of episode. The 2023 season is ending and we wanted to present to you a Best of 2023 series from all of our favorite guests throughout the year. We will break these down into two episodes. This first episode will be featuring some of our plant-based experts that have bestowed their wisdom upon us, which we are so grateful for, and if you are new to Plant-Centered and Thriving, this episode will be an amazing place to start to get a sense of all the best nuggets of information that we've covered over the past year from all of our experts.
Speaker 2:Stay tuned next week when we present part two. This will feature some of our favorite inspirational stories from guests that have used the power of plants to change their lives. We are so grateful to all of you who have followed us throughout this year. We do this for you and we are incredibly grateful for your continued support. Please enjoy part one of our Best of 2023 series. Tony Acomodo is the founder of Plant-Based on a Budget, the popular website and meal plan that shows you how to save dough by eating veggies. You have to check out this episode where she gives so many easy, practical, real-world examples of how to save money while going plant-based.
Speaker 3:I was thriving on a plant-based diet. I felt good and I was living under the poverty line, and so I wanted to show that you didn't have to go to fancy your grocery store or like a natural food specific store, but you could continue shopping at Dollar Tree or Walmart and I started creating recipes. First, that's where I started, but after getting to know my audience, asking what they needed from me, I found that what they needed was meal planning so that they could learn how to use all of the ingredients in a week and how to schedule out their meals and time in the kitchen. Not everybody loves that style, but if you are on a tight budget, I created my first meal plans, which have changed with inflation, but originally it was $100 worth of food for the month, so I said $25 per week, per person, and if you're doing two you can keep that even lower because you're splitting the food and sometimes it doesn't even out and it makes it much cheaper. Now I say it's about $35 a week, so you're adding an additional $10 per week, but still it is cheaper than what a lot of people are currently spending on food, and I have done this at different grocery stores at different places in the country and I also have my business partner, michelle Kane.
Speaker 3:She did it eating only organic and all from Whole Foods and only spent $10 more than me. So you would be looking at $45 instead of the $35. Wow, you are sticking to Whole Foods and you're going to have to put in some work to cook brown rice, to cook your beans. But if you do have a bigger budget, you can take shortcuts with things like no sodium, canned canned beans, or you can buy frozen rice if you wanted to, or you can make a big batch and freeze it for months to come. So there are lots of different options and in my new cookbook I show the different ways you can meal plan, whether that's freezer friendly meals, one pot meals, sheet pan meals or my personal favorite, which are the mix and match bowls, where really you only have to cook one grain and maybe a protein, or, if you wanted to do a big grain and use your canned beans or some tofu, baked tofu.
Speaker 1:Those are also options as well, so many great tips and I think you're spot on, really, in saying that, if you do have a limited budget, that the meal planning piece can make a significant difference in driving down that grocery bill Because, like you said too, it also a lot of food ends up not going to waste. Especially if you're kind of being, if you're being diligent with your meal planning and following through during the week, that can be a big money saver.
Speaker 3:Yes, and it also cuts down on impulsive purchases. I know that when I'm hungry, I just make decisions that are not in line with what I want for myself and I also get really cranky and people are just like you need to just go get a sandwich, go buy a sandwich, go buy a burrito, and so I have to remind myself that it's good to carry snacks, it's good to have some, some ideas. So, even if you're not meal planning, just think ahead about what you can make with what you have at home. Maybe you didn't do any prepping, but you know that you have some noodles, you know that you have some frozen veggies and you know that you have some marinara sauce and you know you have a can of cannellini beans. That's something that'll take you 15 minutes to throw together at home and you don't have to make that detour to a restaurant.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, I've been there, I know exactly what you're talking about, and that hangry place is never a good place to be. So no, yep, are there any other things that maybe you utilize or that you teach your audience to utilize, especially if we're working with a limited budget and maybe we are meal planning? But is there anything else that you kind of recommend to save some money, especially?
Speaker 3:I'll start with the mindset. The mindset of being okay, saving money, putting something back if it's not within your budget, asking the cashier to double check the sale price that didn't get rung up the way you expected it, and I know it can feel embarrassing and maybe the line of people behind you is they're all tapping their feet. But my dad always said they don't pay your bills. So if you are on a tight budget, just channel your Giorgio Komodo and have him in your ear saying they don't pay your bills and you're never going to see them again. So it's not that big of a deal and it can have long-term benefits for you and your family to save those extra dollars every single time you go to the grocery store. And so, getting in that mindset, being okay with using your coupons I use an app for coupons. I also use rebate apps. That's a place to start. Then, once you're in that place, go and take inventory of what you have. Make sure you're using what you have first when you're developing your meal plan. You don't want to go buy additional ingredients that you don't need and that you're probably not going to use, and then create meals that are going to complement each other and use the same ingredients. You don't have to use all the same, but it'll prevent you from using half of the onion in this recipe and half of the onion going to waste. Use the same onion if you have half left in another thing. So a pasta and a soup or something like that.
Speaker 3:And once you create your meal plan and you go to the store, that is a whole other experience and you are going to want to stay the course. There's going to be a lot of distractions when you get there and beautiful, bright colors and the marketing is designed to get you to spend more than you need to. Once you get there, stay the course. Pay attention to your list. Try not to be distracted. Understand that a lot of what is marketed as a sale is paid placement and they're wanting you to buy that.
Speaker 3:Go to the aisle of the thing that you need and check for the cheapest price. Look for price per ounce and Pay attention. You'll see that what you think is the cheapest might not be the cheapest. So a jar that's really small could be the cheapest thing, but if you look at the price per ounce, it might not come out to the cheapest price. Yeah, so at the grocery store, pay attention, and even when you're being rung up, I know that I've put down the wrong number for my bulk items and I'll be rung up for something that's more expensive. So things like that you can catch them before you leave the store.
Speaker 2:We were thrilled to welcome Dr Melanie Joy, a Harvard educated psychologist, celebrated speaker and the author of seven books, including the best-selling why we Love Dogs, eat Pigs and Wear Cows. This amazing episode is full of so much information. We discuss carnism, the invisible belief system that conditions people to eat animals and creates this certain psychology called carnistic mentality. We discuss this and so much more Enjoy.
Speaker 4:The emotions of grief and anger and sadness and whatever else are these emotions that many vegans carry around. These are actually healthy, legitimate, normal emotional responses to the global atrocity that is carnism. Much more concerning is the apathy and the numbing of the dominant culture. So we can reclaim our sensitivity and also appreciate that this projection or stereotype of being overly sensitive that's been used to silence the voices of people who challenge a project. And, throughout history, people who were working against African slavery, the abolitionists, were called sentimentalists and women suffer jets were called hysterical. Somebody, by definition, who's overly emotional isn't rational, and people who are not rational are not worth listening to. So this stereotype is a form of shoot the messenger. If you shoot the messenger, you don't have to take seriously the implications of their message. Now, this was sort of a long-winded example, but I really want listeners to take this point in, which is like knowledge is power, and when you recognize these cognitive distortions, these psychological distortions, for what they are, when you understand these stories and stereotypes that have been created by carnistic culture, you are much less likely to apologize for something like your sensitivity, which is a beautiful thing and a gift that the world needs much more of, not less of you know and much less likely to feel bad about yourself and pathologize yourself and apologize for who and how you are, so really getting informed about carnism. And I would say the other thing that can go a very long way for new vegans and all vegans, all people is one build what I call relational literacy, which is the understanding of an ability to practice healthy ways of relating, and we can talk about this and unpack it a little bit more later if you want to.
Speaker 4:But when you build relational literacy, you know a big part of that is learning effective communication.
Speaker 4:Communication is the primary way we relate. You kind of develop this superpower where everything in your life gets a lot easier, a lot easier, and most of us, you know, have to learn complicated geometry that we'll probably never need to use, and yet we don't get a single formal lesson in how to relate to that and how to communicate effectively. And like, when you look at the most pressing problems in our world and in our lives, these are not problems that exist because we don't know how to do geometry. So you know most of us never get a formal lesson in how to relate in a way that's healthy and just building your relational literacy, even if you just build it by, you know 10% of what it is now can be completely game changing for you and help you navigate relationships and communications with everybody, not just people who don't share your philosophy or ideology. On the heels of writing and directing the 2015 documentary film Plant Peer Nation, we welcome Nelson Campbell, who founded Plant Peer Communities in early 2016.
Speaker 2:Released in theaters in over 100 cities, the Plant Peer Nation film highlights the dramatic healing power of a plant-based diet and also examines the political and economic factors that have suppressed information about these healing benefits. Check out this next clip, where Nelson explains what inspired this grassroots movement that is now involving over 200,000 people, called Plant Peer Pods.
Speaker 1:There's actually a quote on your website. I wrote it down because I thought it was really remarkable and I wanted to touch on it at the close. I feel like it's related to what we're talking about here and it says, if you don't mind me reading it it says there are two impulses present in many of us. One is the impulse to be right and to judge others who are wrong. The other is the humble, nonjudgmental impulse to love, and I know you all relate very heavily to the second part. But I was curious what makes you favor the humble, nonjudgmental love aspect of things? Because that's truly what you're doing, especially when you're hosting these immersions and with the films that you're creating and these pods that you're creating, which I do want to touch on. But what makes you lean more heavily into that versus, maybe, more judgment or being harsh or critical of people?
Speaker 5:This goes to a very deep level, I think, Ashley. It goes back to this issue of ego again and wanting to be right. People will say things and they'll represent themselves in a certain way and then feel the impulse to defend that.
Speaker 5:They define themselves maybe by what they say, and sometimes by their reputations, and sometimes by their money and their things. But that's not who we really are. We are not those things, but we have all these attachments around us and so we're always driven to want to preserve and defend those things. And many Eastern philosophers talk about this that if we can live without those attachments and we can make ourselves vulnerable and open to other people, what that really means is that first of all, it allows us to open our eyes, to see bigger truths, because today, I don't care what side of the political aisle you're on, there's splinters of truth everywhere that no one side has the truth. There are splinters of truth and if we can open our eyes, we can see those truths and weave together something bigger so we can see more deeply and we can understand and we can see the bigger connections and come together to make change. And when we open our eyes that way and we see those truths, we also can learn then to open our hearts and we can expand our compassion.
Speaker 5:People have always loved their neighbors, you know, even just to take the extreme example, even during the Holocaust, the people working with those I can't even imagine those gas chambers would go home to their communities and they love their families and they love the neighbors, you know, in the house next door. But that was a very limited kind of almost perverse type of love, you know, when it's very tribal, yeah, and I think what a lot of our spiritual leaders have tried to get us to do is to open our eyes so we can see these bigger connections and make our love more expansive. And here's the key At the end of the day, if we do that, we feel greater freedom and satisfaction and fulfillment in our lives. When we live that way, it's actually better for us. And that's this for each of us individually. And that's the secret that most people don't understand when they, when they hang on to those attachments, that dogma, you know those superficial ways they define themselves, they limit their, their lives, they limit themselves and they don't get as much out of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Was this part of the driving factor for starting the pods in a way where people can actually come together, even if it's like a tiny bit of a driving factor, where people are coming together not just online, but actually together face to face in a community that they can be vulnerable and share and connect with people on a deeper level?
Speaker 5:Exactly, actually, because when we are living in community, we do tend to become more vulnerable and open to one another. That's the power, that's the power of connection.
Speaker 2:Caitlin is the director of strategic partnerships and public affairs at Clever Carnivore, chicago's first cultivated meat company. A 30 year vegetarian and 10 year vegan, caitlin is a proponent of alternative proteins as a scalable solution to many of the negative externalities of conventional meat. Check out this next clip where she and Ashley discuss what cultivated meat is and how it's made.
Speaker 7:Yeah, cultivated meat certainly, I think, is the most accurate. Some people say things like cell based meat or cell cultured meat. I think that that actually doesn't provide any additional clarification, because conventional meat is made of cells, were made of cells. Plant based meat is made of cells Good point. Cell based is kind of just saying like it doesn't really provide clarification about what it is. Some people are saying cultured meat, which I think there could be some confusion there, because aquaculture is a type of fish farming. I think there was a consumer study that showed that with education, that cultivated meat is the most palatable and also the most accurate description of what we're actually doing. So, yeah, we say cultivated meat.
Speaker 7:So cultivated meat is actual meat that is grown outside the animal. So basically it's made by producing initially a very small, non invasive skin sample from an animal and then that sample is grown in bioreactors and fed something that's called a cell culture media, which is basically just a nutrient rich liquid, contains things like all the things your cells need to grow, so vitamins, minerals, amino acids, water, salt. In my opinion, I always call it like the cells Gatorade, because and I think technically we actually, I think some of the scientists here have actually tried the media. So it's it's totally all stuff that that's needed in your body to grow, and so we take that sample and put it in the media. So we're basically feeding the media to the cells and that produces real animal muscle. This is a very simplified version, by the way, but basically it's it's it's doing something that you know we've actually been doing in human therapeutics for a long time.
Speaker 7:So, and just applying it to growing growing meat, we and actually it's really interesting because you're able to grow muscle, but you can also change the media and you're able to grow fat. So of course, you know meat is made up of actual animal meat and also fat, so so we're able to do all of this. So what I like to say is that we're recreating the conditions inside of an animal, outside the animal. So it's just, it's just producing meat in a in a different way and, yeah, so like the cell media is the same temperature as the animals body. It's it really is saying like what happens inside an animal, in our case a pig and let's do it outside the animal.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean it's just so wild that we are able to do this. I mean, what brilliant people are behind this kind of stuff. I mean it's just so innovative. And the fact that you mentioned it's non invasive. So there's, it sounds like no harm is done to the animals. Like what does that even look? Like they're taking, like tweezers and like picking out something. How does that work?
Speaker 7:Yeah, that's right, and this is really important to me as a person who is vegan for a lot of reasons, but primarily for the animals. Basically, there's just like a small incision that's made and a little bit of the skin is taken, but that can be numbed and then it's kind of sewed back up. So it's, in my opinion, the least harm possible to an animal and like, hopefully it's not hurting them. And also, compared to you know the way that we factory farm 9 billion animals a year, I think that taking a really small incision is, and especially because in the case of most cultivated meat companies, that small sample can provide an infinite amount of meat because of the nature of how cells replicate. So for us, for example, we have cells from a pig and we will never have to go back to that animal to get additional samples and we will be able to make meat basically add infinite, so forever.
Speaker 7:Wow. So which I mean that's? I think that that also kind of speaks to how efficient cultivated meat is. Rather than you're having to grow crops to feed animals to, you know, feed them water, to have them on transportation trucks and go to slaughter, we are making meat right here in this very innocuous looking office building. So the supply chains a lot shorter and it's far fewer resources, much, much better for the environment. And I know that some cultivated meat companies actually have like. I saw that one of them who's making cultivated lamb. I was looking at the employees there and they have Lucy the lamb as one of their. They were like Lucy provided our initial cells and now she's living freely and, you know, roaming the prairie. Yeah, it's really cool and I think for me, like knowing that that we are able to make meat without real animal meat, without harming animals, is really just such an innovative and amazing thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I definitely want to go back to that environmental impacts. I think it's really important to talk about just all the areas that this had that this can potentially impact for the greater good. But you had mentioned something about kind of adjusting. You mentioned like kind of the fat, like you can grow fat and muscle. Does that mean that we can kind of adjust the fat content of some of the meat that we are growing so that maybe, like quote, healthier it's less saturated fat laden like what does that look?
Speaker 7:like. That's exactly right, ashley? A great question. So, basically, what we're making is identical to conventional meat. However, we do have the room to kind of tailor. So, for example, we, in terms of, like the health benefits of this product it is meat, but we don't have to include cholesterol so it could be a cholesterol free animal meat product, as you mentioned. Yes, we are able to adjust the meat to fat ratio. So if you wanted to make a low fat product or even a higher fat product for people, for example, I know keto I do not endorse keto, by the way, people interested in you know like a higher protein keto diet or something that we could, you know, make a higher fat content.
Speaker 7:And also worth noting in terms of health, that our product is 100% free of antibiotics, whereas conventional meat I learned this stat recently. It's absolutely staggering to me that over 70% of antibiotics globally are fed to farmed animals to keep them even well. To keep them well, because of the nature of you know they're, they're crammed into these small it's 20,000 chickens in a shed. Of course, that's going to breed disease, so they're just preemptively fed antibiotics, which, of course, has massive human health implications in terms of antibiotic resistance. Not a very fun topic, but but I think important to note that our product doesn't have antibiotics and it's it's, you know, produced in a very clean environment.
Speaker 1:Wow. So there really is no need for, because, I mean, I grew up on an Angus Caltifarm, so antibiotics, obviously, yes, were necessary, and then so were like steroids and different things to like make the animals grow faster. So there probably isn't a need for that either. Yep.
Speaker 7:No steroids, Yep and our product also, we are able to say that it's not genetically modified, so non GMO. And I will say that I think that there is like I personally I'm pro GMO like as in I think there's a lot of anti science, fear mongering around GMOs. But for people who are concerned about that, it is a non GMO product. So it's non GMO, antibiotic free, steroid free.
Speaker 2:Hannah Van Ark is a registered dietitian dedicated to helping people thrive by eating more plants. Her work in longevity and heart health nutrition research started in 2012. And it inspired her to adopt a plant forward lifestyle, which transformed her own health and grew into a passion for helping others do the same. Check out the following clip, where she and Ashley discuss the importance of fiber.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I definitely want to touch on fiber, hannah. Oh, yes, because we know that fiber is associated because of predominantly plant based diet is obviously rich in fiber. That obviously plays a role in health and longevity. So I'm curious if we can just kind of touch on what fiber is and where we get it, which we kind of just hinted at, but kind of what fiber is in a plant based diet For sure, and I feel like you and I have connected online a lot about, like our love of fiber and our belief that fiber is underrated as opposed to like 15 point, push to 10 and like all this stuff.
Speaker 9:Yeah, so fiber is so important and what fiber is is it's essentially it is a carbohydrate, but it's a carbohydrate that we don't digest for energy. We don't have the enzyme in our bodies to break down fiber for energy. So what happens is when we eat fiber, it passes through us and it goes right to our healthy gut bugs in the colon and so that's called our microbiome, and a collection of a diverse, you know microbes in our microbiome is a really good hallmark of health. So fiber passes to them and they tend to eat those and, you know, thrive on those sorts of things. And in terms of where it's found, it's only found in plant foods. So this is one of the reasons why we think it is so key to eat mostly plants is because fiber is so critical to every aspect of health and it's only found in plant foods.
Speaker 9:So the way that I like to frame it to like my clients and my following, is that fiber is pretty much like the bones of the plant. So, as animals, we have connective tissue and bones and everything that we need to hold us up. Plants don't have that. They have fiber instead. So animals don't need fiber. We've got bones and connective tissue plants to give them structure. They need that fiber.
Speaker 9:So, if you remember nothing else, fiber is the bones of the plant and that's basically the reason why you can only find it in plants. You're going to find zero grams of fiber in animal products, so it's important. And then it's found in most plant foods and I would say it's found mostly in whole plant foods. So if you have super, ultra refined plant foods, oftentimes those won't have as much fiber or any fiber, depending on the type of food.
Speaker 9:But if you have whole plant foods, which are fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds those five categories primarily then you're going to get some fiber from those and in particular, I think that we don't know about this enough, but really it's it's whole grains, beans and fruits that have the most fiber, and vegetables have some fiber and they're important for a lot of reasons, but not nearly as much fiber as the starchy or types of plant foods, and so it's really important to you know, when I see people on a keto diet or like a low carb diet who are saying that they get a ton of fiber on their diet, they probably don't get as much fiber because they're eating only non-starchy vegetables, which do have fiber, in particular, scratchy fiber called insoluble fiber but they're missing out on the kind of squishy fiber, the soluble fiber, that's found on the interior of beans and grains and fruits, and that's the gut bugs favorite food.
Speaker 9:That's what they truly thrive on, and so I would say that most low carb diets are fiber deficient, even though they may be eating a lot of non-starchy vegetables, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it definitely does, and I think that just reiterates how the importance of fiber and how we do we emphasize protein so much.
Speaker 9:When we think of protein, we think of meat or animal products, and so then our emphasis is on that, or our focus is there, and it kind of puts this like shadow over fiber, which is very, very important, like you said, at the very least for those little little little guys in our colon that want to feed off of them, yeah, yeah, and I would say that, like the importance of fiber in terms of longevity in particular, is its interaction with chronic disease, because what we know is that our gut health and our gut microbiome it's this wild world that influences absolutely everything and more and more is coming out about it every single year.
Speaker 9:And back when I was in research, we had a laboratory next door to mine that was focused in microbiome research and we did like some collaborations and stuff like that and just the stuff that there is. There is no chronic disease that is not tied to dysbiosis, which means poor gut health. So all chronic diseases that we have identified are tied in some way to poor gut health. So it's really, really important to try to keep the gut as healthy as possible from a longevity perspective, because it can help to improve, or rather decrease, the risk of chronic disease. It can help to decrease the risk, in particular, of certain cancers. I mean, when we talk about colon cancers, colorectal cancers, diverticulitis, sort of polyps that can become cancerous within the colon, when we have fiber sweeping through like a broom, it becomes really a lot better and easier to manage those sorts of conditions. So all of that is super, super important and so from a longevity perspective, fiber is critical, carina.
Speaker 2:Belize is a natural products industry executive, omega three expert and pioneer who led the early growth of Nordic naturals from less than 1 million to over 100 million in annual sales. Given her concern for the future health and wellness of people and planet, she has shifted her focus from fish sourced omegas to algae, leading the development and launch of Orlo nutrition, a brand that features the world's first carbon negative omega threes. Check out this next clip where she and Ashley discuss the importance of supplementation for your essential fatty acid.
Speaker 1:I mean I have clients come to me that tell me, well, their doctor recommended fish oil. And when they ask, well, why fish oil? Well, it's like you need it for the EPA and DHA. Okay, well, can I not get that from algae? It's like, oh well, yeah, I guess you can. You know you can take an algae based supplement.
Speaker 10:Well, this is the penance for the success right, like for a long time, when people said omega three, they meant flax oil. Now, when they say omega three, they generally mean fish oil. But what they really mean is EPA and DHA. These two's particular fatty acids are really what the research is behind. Epa and DHA work in all the tissues in your body. They're involved in the 37 trillion cells that you have, and so if you don't consume them on a daily basis, you're making your cells from the other junk in your system, and I say junk because usually, when we're not consuming enough of these, we are replacing it with garbage, and I mean we could have a deep conversation about that.
Speaker 1:Yes, we could. We could talk about that for a long time, and I think, just so the listener is aware too our bodies cannot make some of these fatty acids. Is that correct?
Speaker 10:And that's why we make omega threes or omega sixes, but the problem isn't omega sixes. This is why these two particular fats are called essential fatty acids, because they're like vitamins. We need vitamins because we can't produce them in their body. We need to consume vitamin C, or we can end up with scurvy. We need to consume vitamin D, or we end up with rickets. We need to consume omega three, epa and DHA because if we don't, the synapses in our brain won't fire as well, and that also impacts our nervous system and our digestive system. Our cardiovascular health will decline, will be more likely to adhere plaque to our arteries. I mean, this is there's science to this. It's almost like EPA casts a slippery net over our entire cardiovascular system, so things don't clog up as easily. Think of it like a lubricant, if you want to. It almost is. It's like a non-sticky lubricant.
Speaker 10:If you, however, are consuming plenty of omega six, which most people are omega sixes are coming from the seed oils in our diet. That could be, and these again, essential fatty acids, but we consume so much of them that we fall out of balance and we need to have a closer balance to one to one of omega threes to omega sixes, the only way to achieve that. In a modern diet, the only way to achieve that is to stop consuming fried foods, stop consuming processed foods and start consuming more omega three plant source foods as well as supplement. Because the cars are stacked against us. We've literally removed the present omega threes from our seed oils because it improves their shelf stability. Canola oil would even have some omega three in it, but we don't want to have it in there because it makes the product have a quicker expiry, so it won't last at the shelf.
Speaker 10:We're going to go ahead and refine it out. Let's do the same thing with our corn oil. We'll do the same thing with all of these different plant sources. That would have a closer balance of one to one. These are what get used in producing foods that we consume, that are offered on shelf in a box, in a bag or whatever. There's a reason that all these nutritionists, all dietitians, say whole foods, plant-based. Walk away from the box, make your own food from scratch, consume fish. They'll say consume fish, even to vegetarians and say well, you should consider being a peagun. This is Dr Mark Hyman's new word in his new book right.
Speaker 10:Be a peagun. Eat fish and vegetables, because it's hard to get that balance without supplementation. Then it's hard to convince people that they need a supplement every single day of their lives in order to get at that balance. The reality is that's where we are. That's where we are because our food systems are when you might need to consume a vitamin D every day and not talking a lot maybe 1,000 IU. And you might need to consume an omega-3 every day not talking a lot maybe 250 to 350 milligrams of EPA and DHA every day. Just do it. You get that with Orlo. That's in the polar lipid form and it's going to be absorbed into your tissues. You won't have a burp. All of these good things. Then you might want to also consider where else you have insufficiencies in your diet. Be real, be honest with yourself.
Speaker 2:Sun Saks is the co-founder of Rewire Fitness, a 20-year veteran in software development and a lifelong endurance athlete for the past 35-plus years in competitive cycling, triathlon and adventure races. Enjoy this fascinating episode where Sun discusses the importance of mindset as an athlete.
Speaker 8:So what the science has shown is like when you're under a greater amount of cognitive fatigue, your perception of effort feels much harder, and then that limits your physical performance. So a little experiment, like a little thought experiment, if we all think about this, if you've ever had a day where you work really hard or you have a lot of stress and you're supposed to work out in the evening, one, it's going to be very hard to motivate to get out there, go to the gym, go for the run, whatever it is. But two, it'll actually feel more difficult, and that's because your brain is under cognitive strain and it's actually misperceiving or amplifying the physical effort, because of course, the two are interrelated. It does take cognitive focus to go through a workout and if your brain is fatigued, it's going to basically send signals that your body is having a harder time and thus you're not going to achieve your goal or it's just going to feel very difficult.
Speaker 1:I feel like the traditional sense of being like well, go to the gym anyway, push hard, push through it. Why is that maybe not so helpful in building mental resilience? Or why is that maybe the traditional way that we approached it a bit flawed, in your opinion or from what you've seen based on your expertise?
Speaker 8:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously I've had first-hand experience with it and then also from working with many different athletes and scientists. Basically, this idea that you build mental resilience as a side effect of physical training is very flawed, because one what we call the minimum effective dose varies over time. So let's just say you're training four days a week and you're going for runs and you're going to the gym. You're going to have to keep pushing yourself harder and harder to get to that very acute state where you're going to get some kind of resilience out of it, and in the meantime you're going to keep adding more cognitive load which is going to keep reducing your ability to perform, and so it becomes a vicious cycle where you're literally just digging a hole and not allowing your brain to recover.
Speaker 8:Like most people these days don't say well, I'm just going to run every single day, regardless of how I feel, and I'll just get stronger. Like that's been demystified these days. And the same thing is with your brain. Like if you just keep pushing yourself over and over and over again, pretty soon you're actually going to break down. You can have low energy, it's going to be hard to motivate and your physical performance is going to go down. So there's a better way, there's a more targeted way to really just focus on that mental resilience the same way you would with physical training.
Speaker 1:Okay, what are some of those ways, if you don't mind sharing some better ways to maybe shift that focus to this old style of thinking where you just kind of push through, keep going, do it every day, no matter how you feel, to just be more mindful of where you are mentally.
Speaker 8:Yeah, that's right. So there's two different interventions in our system at a high level. One is around the cognitive recovery and then sort of the sport psychology, and the other part is around the pure kind of resilience training. So on the recovery side, let's say you wake up in the morning and you have a poor night's sleep and, as a result, you're a little more emotional, you're a little more frustrated and your brain is just simply tired. So what do you do? Well, in our system we'll basically create what we call a recipe, which will be a combination of different evidence-based approaches.
Speaker 8:So in one experience, the last two to four minutes, you'll go through a specific breathing modality, like you might do box breathing or 478 breathing, which is going to get your body into a homeostasis, get it into a recovery state.
Speaker 8:We then pipe in what we call binaural beats, which are basically a device for getting your brain into a calm or recovery state.
Speaker 8:Just by listening to the music We'll bring in things like self-talk and visualization. So you have mantras that you repeat, that are cues or triggers to being in the right mindset, and while you're looking at the screen, we're also priming you subliminally with positive imagery. So you come out of the experience, feeling refreshed mind and body, and that's a much better place to start, even if you have a goal that day like you're coming into the gym or out for the run or even for some important meetings or whatever your responsibilities are with a calm, ready mindset, which is really the best place to be for performance, as opposed to stress, distracted, full of anxiety, like that's not going to help you, yeah, so that's a really important part of what we do, and we find people will come to the app multiple times to help them with pre-workout, get into a prime state for a workout, help with stress, help with a good night's sleep. There's a lot of different tools within the system for that kind of stuff, so that's the first piece.
Speaker 1:I mean, you mentioned different things that you can utilize to really tap into refining that mental fitness, and one of them you included breath work, which I feel like we're learning more and more about, of how powerful our breath can be in our mental and emotional mindset, I guess to be the right word, and I think that's really helpful. And not just that, but, like you said, the music, even the images. I think so many times when we're like, oh, I need a mental break from something, maybe we just pick up our phone and scroll through social media, but I feel like very few people walk away from that, being like, oh, I feel so much better, I'm more relaxed.
Speaker 3:I'm in a calm state.
Speaker 1:It's usually the opposite, so. I just find that very refreshing to hear that it's very targeted, targeted tools to really help improve your mental fitness.
Speaker 8:Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's really important. Just spending, like I said, two to four minutes can make a big difference. Like we see the average person coming out of one of those sessions having a 70% reduction in stress. You know, wow, just a massive change. Just giving yourself that, like, even if you don't use the app, try it. Look up box breathing, look up 478 breathing, look up Pranayama breathing. You do that for five minutes. You're going to feel material, materially better.
Speaker 6:Wow.
Speaker 8:Now, of course, when we layer on more protocols, it amplifies the effects. But just doing that, just giving yourself a little bit of time each day, you hit the reset button.
Speaker 2:As a fourth generation physician, bill Rawls, md, has dedicated his life to medicine, but when faced with a personal health crisis in his late 40s with Lyme disease, everything changed. In his quest to regain his health, dr Rawls was confronted with the limitations of conventional medicine and knew he had to find his own path to restore wellness. For the past 15 years, he has extensively studied the science behind herbal therapies and new sustainable approaches for protecting health. Check out this clip of Ashley and Dr Rawls discussing the importance of looking at health from a cellular level.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of times we go to the doctor and we have these symptoms and we're given a prescription or something like that. But it sounds like you're really trying to dig and find the root cause at a cellular level, not just at the surface.
Speaker 12:Yeah, it's a big deal. When you start taking health, wellness, understanding the human body, down to the cellular level, you change the conversation. That's one of the things that is missing in our conventional medical system. We basically treat our body like it's a car and we compartmentalize. So we've got cardiologists and pulmonologists and gastroenterologists, you know, and so we treat these individual parts and you know, when someone has a symptom, we address those symptoms or those manifestations of illness with drugs or surgical procedures, which has value, you know, it can stabilize a bad situation or suppress illness, but what it doesn't do is address cellular stress, which is the root cause of all illness. Right, so we are artificially blocking symptoms, we are artificially blocking manifestations or processes of illness, but we're not addressing the underlying cause of the illness. So that's something I started looking at to say, okay, you know, and it gets complicated, you know, because we have a lot of different cells in the body and so many different processes. You know there are thousands of different illnesses and just as many drugs and all these complicated pathways. When you take it down to the cellular level, it's pretty easy, because if you're taking care of one cell in the body, you're taking care of all the cells in the body. And cells need good nutrition. They need a clean, contaminant free environment. They need downtime for sleep to recover from stress. They need good blood flow from exercise and they need some protection against all kinds of invasive microbes. You know so if you're doing that for any cells in the body, you're doing it for everything, so you can take care of your heart and your brain and your muscles and your joints all at one time, which is kind of cool. So that's the advantage that this kind of thinking does and that's the difference in drugs and herbs. So when you look at this thing, drugs are designed to artificially block processes. You know they're, in essence, low dose, therapeutically dosed poisons that we are poisoning pathways. So you know we in a way in some way block some of those manifestations of illness, but we're not addressing the stress factors, bad food, toxins, all of these things that stress our cells and cause us to become chronically ill. So when you start doing that, you know, eating a better diet, cleaning up your environment, getting the rest that you need, getting the exercise you need you know you start creating an environment and sell your health in your body and your cells start coordinating functions and your hormones normalize and everything starts working again. So what the herbs are doing is they're compounding that.
Speaker 12:And when I say herbs, you know what we're talking about is the complex chemistry that we call phytochemistry of the herb. So all living organisms are made of cells, so plants are made of cells too. Plants have to protect their cells from free radicals and radiation and toxic substances and every form of microbe. So plants have a chemical system of cellular protection and they use a lot of the same chemical messengers that we do to coordinate cellular functions. So when we take an herb, we're basically taking the plants defense and regulatory system that enhances anything that we're doing.
Speaker 12:Now, herbs there's a pretty broad spectrum of herbs, you know, and there's some herbs that have chemicals that are very drug-like and some plants that have chemicals that don't mesh with us like nobody would want to eat poison ivy. But these other herbs so many herbs that have this protective function that what they're doing is protecting cells. So the herbs that I was taking they were suppressing microbes but they were protecting my cells from free radicals and toxic substances and you know things that we do with a bad diet and not getting sleep. So I was getting all this robust extra protection in my life and that was enhancing my recovery. You know it was giving me what I needed.
Speaker 12:So it basically promotes healing and that's what's missing with our drugs, you know. I mean, when I was a physician I knew that no matter how good my drug choices were, or how good my surgical skills were, or if the patient had lost the ability to heal, then things weren't going to go well. So drugs really have no capacity to promote healing. So what healing is is the ability of cells in the body to recover from stress, to regenerate and repair internal damage. So when we're protecting cells from stress with all this complex herbal phytochemistry, we are promoting healing. So drugs don't promote healing, herbs promote healing.
Speaker 2:Adrienne has more than 20 years of experience working in the dietetic field, with a focus on eating disorders, neurochemistry, nutrition and business development. Check out this clip where she and Ashley discuss the importance of nutrition and its effect on our mental health.
Speaker 1:We're so focused on, maybe like our outward appearance or a number on the scale or a pant size, that we kind of lose sight of all these other things that really we need to nourish, like our mental and emotional health, like our physical health.
Speaker 6:Yes, oh, it's so interesting, like this could be a whole other podcast is like your mental health actually starts with nutrition. So all of our brain chemistry are serotonin or dopamine things that make us happy, excited, fallen, love, oxytocin start with nutrition and nobody ever talks about that is like how are we really taking care of ourselves from a mental homicide? And like allowing us to eat an abundance of food and also food is awesome and enjoyable and shouldn't be good, bad, right, wrong. And if you love marshmallows, rockstar, enjoy marshmallow. It's like they're funny, they're cute, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yep, they are, and right now, when it's like cold outside, they're great. With a little hot chocolate, it's like perfect. Oh, yes, exactly, yeah. So how can people maybe work through and this is again. This could be a whole another podcast, but, like you know, we've all grown up in diet culture and some have. Some of us have definitely grown up in more extreme versions of diet culture than others. But how would there be some tips that you give people to kind of start working through, maybe relinquishing some of those beliefs that they've learned over the years from diet culture?
Speaker 6:Oh, it's like breaking up with bad boyfriend. Oh, my goodness, it's hard. And I think that's the first thing is like know that this is hard and know that it's going to feel like you're going against everything you see in social media and media and it's going to feel like you're doing something wrong.
Speaker 6:And so I think just noticing that it's going to feel really weird and people and possibly in your circle, like when you were going, if somebody was starting to go plant based, having that community is really important to you. So I think kind of that whole journey of you start going plant based and if you're trying to break up with diet culture, it has that same kind of path of like it's going to be lonely in the beginning until you find, until you find your people, and so I think that's really important. I think my biggest thing is like the more that you can make peace with food, which sounds so easy, so easy to make peace with food. That is a process and I strongly encourage you to reach out for help and support. Finding a weight inclusive dietitian, finding a mental health provider, cleaning up your social media, all of those things.
Speaker 2:Dr Joel Kahn of Detroit, michigan, is a practicing cardiologist, a clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine, and is known as America's Healthy Heart Doc. Check out this next clip as Ashley and Dr Kahn discuss the importance of heart health and how a plant-based diet can help with that.
Speaker 1:What is one of the most common pieces of advice that you give your patients?
Speaker 13:Well, I want them to become students and there's nothing better than understanding. I mean there's such a lack of information about whole food, plant-based diets and how huge the science is Compared to the other popular diets the ketogenic diet, the low-carb diets, the carnivore diets, the paleo diets. Certainly, in my specialty of heart disease it's 99 to one for scientific data suggesting. Every time you make a bowl of a slow-cooked oatmeal with some ground flaxseed and walnuts and blueberries on it, instead of Speedway egg wraps or eggs and bacon. Every time you have a gigantic salad for lunch with some white wine, vinegar and maybe a little extra virgin olive oil, with every vegetable nut and seed on it, instead of driving through Chick-fil-A and getting a burger. It's a little more work. And every time you experiment with a dinner nice lentil stew or a nice bean soup with a whole grain bread and maybe a big salad again, or broccoli or calvary every time you make these changes you're feeding your body insanely healthy macronutrients, carbohydrates, fast protein, micronutrients, all the vitamins, minerals, plant-based minerals, antioxidants in plant-based foods are 60 times higher than in animal-based foods. So protect our cells, protect our bodies.
Speaker 13:So once they get it, it's pretty easy, and I mean there are people that are sick type two, diabetic, obese, hypertension, heart disease that probably should jump in. Just look at, I'll go two months and try and do Dr Ferman's program, dr Essison's program, dr Ornish's program, dr Bernard's program, dr McDougal's program these are some of the famous programs out there that are based on books or websites. And there's other people. Look at, I tell them just conquer breakfast, just get those egg-bacon wraps out of your life. Take the time to make overnight oats so in the morning you can just grab something and be on your way, or a quick smoothie. I mean, once you've got breakfast down, let's start bringing lunch to work instead of letting some restaurant of poor quality food dominate your health.
Speaker 13:And then dinner's a little tougher because there could be a spouse involved in children. A lot of my patients do make two or three different meals a day for dinner because they are trying to eat one way for their health and their spouse won't go along with it, or children or the teenagers are revolting. But so dinner's a little tougher. There's even a book out there, very popular about 10 years ago, called Vegan Before Six by Mark Bitman, a New York Times writer. It's a good book. But how he lost a ton of weight and reversed his type two diabetes by just eating every breakfast and lunch vegan and dealing with life at dinner time as healthy as he could, and I don't do that. Every meal is plant-based, but some people can start that way and still see health benefits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not like once you become a student, it's almost hard to not follow through with some of those recommendations that you're talking about.
Speaker 13:And then you get it under your skin about the environmental issues and animal rights and you're eating a dead animal and you're just going to a butcher shop or if you can sneak your way into a slaughterhouse. I mean that old Paul McCartney phrase of slaughterhouses had glass walls, we all would be vegan and I agree with that. It's the worst industry on the planet and there are ethical farmers and there are some nice people out there, but we're talking Tyson and the other big Cargill and the massive international conglomerates that make most of our food. It's horrendous how it's both destroying the planet and just your desire to have cow milk instead of soy milk is costing thousands of gallons of water and unbelievable cruelty to living animals that are pretty nice beasts overall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they really are. I agree, Dr Kahn. As a last question, I'm curious is there one thing, a habit, lifestyle, eating habit that you would absolutely never do as a cardiologist?
Speaker 13:Well, if you had to pick one thing in the food world, you'd stay away from processed red beet. The thing that people love bacon, pepperoni, sausage, hot dogs, ground hamburger, poor quality. I mean, the studies are just overwhelming. They're for heart disease, it's basically the number one most toxic food for risk of colorectal cancer. Probably prostate cancer, breast cancer, maybe pain credit cancer. Probably the number one most toxic food is processed red beet. And these are huge studies all over the world and multiple studies. I mean.
Speaker 13:The World Health Organization shocked the world in October of 2015 when they came out and said processed red beet causes colorectal cancer, not associated. But in every study they combined with a panel of experts, a couple dozen panel of experts and seemingly without too much funding bias. They announced that and it created a huge pushback. But the data has been reproduced and reproduced. So sorry bacon lovers, you're killing yourself one crispy bite at a time. Plus, it induces type two diabetes. It's high in saturated fat. So and yeah, you can live to 100 eating bacon. But if you're smart and you wanna play the odds and you really would like to be healthy as your kids and grandkids get older and you retire and you're not a medical mess when you're in your 60s and 70s. I would cut that out first.
Speaker 2:Diana is a nationally recognized registered dietician and certified diabetes care and education specialist, and holds her masters in nutrition science and policy. Jose is an exercise physiologist with a degree in exercise science and a two-time Ironman triathlete. Together, they created a digital health platform that helps people prevent, manage and reverse type two diabetes through diet and exercise. Get inspired by these success stories that they share about their clients.
Speaker 1:So I would love to talk success stories if you have anyone kind of off the top of your head or someone that you want to share.
Speaker 11:There was this guy that joins our program, think last year, and he was a dairy farmer, Okay, so naturally, his dietary patterns were very high on animal products, right, Meats and dairy. So this person finds our Instagram channel or our TikTok and, well, he sees that we're helping people reverse insulin resistance. So he reaches out, he joins the program, but he tells me, Jose, I don't know about this plan-based approach, I don't know if I want to follow it. Is there something else that I could do? Like, hey, look, we have a problem in our hands, right, your A1C is above 12. You were just put on a cholesterol medication, on a blood glucose medication, on a blood pressure medication and another one to protect your kidneys. There's a problem at hand. We have the solution. Please go through this program and let's see what happens. Right, Like, just promise me that you're going to do this for the next three months. He was like, okay, I can do this, and his wife was there and she's the one that promised me that he was going to do it. So that's basically how it worked.
Speaker 11:Now fast forward a month and he was very, very compliant. He will send us pictures every single day. A month. Down the line. He starts feeling better. So he goes to a different physician to get his blood work redone. The doctor was like well, I cannot really do an A1C right now because you just got it done a month ago and it was 12.0, but your fasting blood glucose is much better, your cholesterol problems are gone, Blood pressure is back to normal. I have to take you off all medications. So within a month he got up all medications. Of course, he stayed compliant for the next two months. His A1C came down to 5.6, from 12 to 5.6 within three months, and that was the best thing that I have seen in my life.
Speaker 1:And just three months. I mean he was seeing results after one month, four weeks.
Speaker 11:There's people that see results within a couple of days, so it's pretty wild.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, and I imagine he is just, I would imagine beyond grateful that he joined the program, like actually took the leap, because I'm sure it was a scary step.
Speaker 11:He definitely was grateful, left out two paragraph testimonial in our community forum, so he was very excited.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. We love stories, so that's great.
Speaker 14:This woman came to us because she, her doctor, would not approve her immigration visa and because of her health, because her A1C was too high so we wouldn't approve it and she had to. He basically gave her three months to change her lifestyle, change her diet, and then he would reevaluate. So she found our program and she came into our program with an A1C of about 7%, which is type two diabetes, and she did our 10 week program. So our program is spends 10 weeks and throughout that time she lost a total of 26 pounds and then when she went to get her A1C level checked again, she had gone from a 7% to a 5.9%, which is a huge drop in A1C, and her fasting blood sugar went from in the 200 to 100. So she went back to her doctor and he approved her visa and she was then allowed to leave the country in travel.
Speaker 14:So that was just that was really touching and she felt like it wasn't just about the visa. Obviously she said that she was so sluggish, always sleepy, like she would never have the energy to exercise. She would always be craving, like not the healthiest foods, and then after our program she said that all of her cravings for Micaily processed foods kind of stopped. She said like following more of a plant-based diet was like the easiest plan she had ever followed and easiest thing to ever stick with. She had tried keto before. She had tried just being in a calorie deficit before low carb and nothing had worked. And it wasn't until she joined our program and did our method that she felt healthier, her blood sugars dropped significantly and just felt like she had developed a healthy relationship with food again.
Speaker 1:Oh that's so incredible, I mean, and so it's such an impact with just I'll say just because I don't want to undermine it, but like with her changing her diet. I mean incredible and I think kind of similar to what you were saying. When you go plant-based, it can be, there can be so much abundance and it can be incredibly liberating versus restricting, which I think sometimes it may look a little restrictive, but it sounds like even with just the two stories that you mentioned, I mean this was a life-changing decision for them. I mean this was a life-changing decision for them. I mean this was a life-changing decision for them. Thank you so much for listening to the Plant Centered and Thriving podcast today. If you found this episode inspiring, please share it with a friend or post it on social media and tag me so I can personally say thank you. Until next time, keep thriving.
