The Science of Supper: Transforming Health With Family Meals – Shawn Stevenson | 1142 | Dave Asprey

Here's the thing about humans. We're not just products of our environment, we're also creators of our environment.

There you go. That's a profound statement.

We can create environments that create an automation of the habits that we want to have and the outcomes that we want. If we become aware that we have that power, if we define culture itself, define it, and it's really important that we do that. This is the shared attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors shared by a group of people that are then passed on from one generation to the next. So defining what culture is, understanding what culture is. We have the power to create our own microculture. The most powerful way to make change in our community is by changing the micro culture in your household first. Because what I've seen is that you take your culture with you. When people see you, they see the reflection of your culture. And it's very infectious. Of course, especially recently, we've really kind of tunnel visioned things that are infectious. Good things can be infectious as well. And so by focusing on creating a healthy microculture, my children are a representation of that. Myself, my wife, our relationship. These are things that reflect and influence other people around us.

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. And if you've noticed, my voice is smooth and rich and slow, that's because I'm interviewing the guest who's been on the show here at his studio in Los Angeles, who has the number one most sought after voice in podcasting after Morgan Freeman. And if that wasn't enough to give it away, our guest is none other than Shawn Stevenson. We're here at the Model Health Studio in. In Los Angeles. Sean, My God. Welcome to Human Upgrade.

This is the best intro ever. And shout out. Shout out to Morgan Freeman as well. He's been old a long time. He's doing something. He's been old for like 60 years.

Yeah, that guy's into longevity. In fact, I wonder if I could interview him about his longevity practice. He seems like one of the more interesting minds out there. Like, he's fierce.

Absolutely. Yeah. Iconic voice as well.

I'm going to see if I can get him. That'd be fun. Oh, my gosh. All right, thanks for the idea, guys. If you don't know Sean Stevenson, he was on the show last October of 2022, and he's one of these guys who's just got a huge embodiment of just peace and calm that comes from a background of having health at least as bad as me and maybe even worse, which is hard to do. And then recovering and becoming a researcher, nutritionist, who's experienced in biology, nutritional science. And we always have these really cool convers, patients going back and forth. Last time we talked about metabolic switches, dieting and fat loss. But I want to switch gears. The whole point of the human upgrade is to upgrade the environment around you and inside you to give you control of your own biology. This includes longevity, it includes muscle, how your brain works, everything. You get to pick where you want to be and what are the things you change. And one of the things that doesn't get enough attention is the fourth F word in my teaching. And if you're new to the show, I'm going to go through this real fast for you. And then we're going to get into it with Sean. He's going to love this intro. Your body processes reality before you can see it in about a third of a second. And first it looks for scary things. That's the first F word, is fear. Run away from, kill or hide from scary things. Doesn't matter if it's criticism from mother in law. It felt scary, therefore it's scary. And your body goes into its mode before you can think. Second thing is food. Eat everything in case there's a famine. So we got fear, food. Third F word has to do with keeping the species around forever. That all humans have to do. Sean, what is it?

Fornication.

Wow, nailed it. I was going to say fertility, but you're dirty minded. It's all good. So we got fertility. The other F word, I thought you might say fornication. You're the first guy who's ever said that.

I was channeling Mike Tyson, to be honest. That's what popped into my head and I don't like it, but.

Are you kidding? Mike Tyson's a genius.

Well, he. Yeah, yeah, like true.

I mean, he's got brain damage, but he's a genius. His level of self awareness is unbelievable where he is in his life right now.

Genius has a lot of flavors.

Okay, that's a fair point. Fourth F word, where we were going with all this is friend. So your body automatically says, all right, am I under threat? Am I starving? Do I have love in my life? And how do I serve my community and my people around me? And you've done some recent work in your Eat Smarter book series and you just came out with your family cookbook, which I thought was a good opportunity. And no, guys, I'm not going to tell you you have to go buy the family cookbook. You can if you want to, but we're going to talk about why the family cookbook is there, why communal meals work, and some things about supporting your community. And I gotta say, not only did you write the book about it, but you're probably just thinking about it. I would say there's no probably there. You are the most well liked podcaster in the nutrition field. I don't know anyone who's ever said anything bad about you.

Wow, I had no idea.

Yeah, there's always people, I have a problem with this guy, whatever they said, this thing, whatever. But even if people disagree with you, you just say it with such peace and gratitude all the time that people aren't pissed off. Even if you tell them the vegan diet's stupid. And all the other bad things you say, I don't know how you get away with. So what's the worst thing you've said to someone? Sean, this is going great.

Yeah. You know what's so interesting? Even hearing this, and it's a just. It's a really interesting affirmation because I don't think that about myself. You know, you mentioned this calm and peace and it's really profound to me because I don't come from that. You know, like, I grew up in a very, very volatile environment. And, you know, St. Louis, even to this day, it's the murder capital of the United States.

But it took down Chicago dud.

Yeah. I mean, for years, you know, St. Louis is. But you know, at the same time, you know, I just think about when I was experiencing poor health. Advanced degenerative disc disease at the age of 20 was when I got the diagnosis, which that is years in the making before, you know, I go in and get a scan done. I broke my hip at track practice when I was 15 years old. Chronic asthma, hospitalized on rotation. And obviously a lot of this stuff we think about as relegated to people who are much older. So as a very, very old person in a young biological. From a biological perspective versus the chronological perspective, I was 20 years old and I was a very old person. But at this time I was also very aggressive and agitated. Oh, yeah, a lot of. That's what I'm saying. So to hear this is really powerful because I was walking around with this like, feeling of I gotta prove myself, I gotta protect myself. Very assertive, very aggressive. And also, you know, having kids at a young age too, you know, I was. My patience was just really non present, you know, and I wanted to be better because I grew up in an environment, a household where my mother said something once and then she's screaming, you know, there's a lot of violence in the household. There's a lot of violence outside my door. And so to have the affirmation and you sharing that just reflects back to me that you can cultivate these qualities. You can, regardless of your circumstances, develop a sense of peace and presence. And it's not that it's a competition or anything, but my wife has seen this transformation where I'm the more patient parent now. I'm the person who's very much more laid back and peaceful. And when I'm saying that though, what it really is is I'm more conscious of the options. Yes, I'm thinking about the options on what I get to say, how I present myself. And I'm just more thoughtful and more mindful of the power of my words, to put it like that. And so even what people are picking up, and maybe they're not, they're talking good behind my back is because I just, I feel that I'm just more thoughtful in the way that I'm saying things.

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There's two kinds of regulation. What you're talking about is nervous system regulation. And your nervous system is very well regulated. Stephen Porges, who's the father of polyvagal theory, is just kind of a godfather of how does your body regulate itself. I've had the honor of interviewing him a couple times. And he talks about how your voice is a really strong indicator of where your nervous system is. And from my first interview to my second when I got on with him the second I was, oh, Dave, your body sounds much more regulated than it was before. And earlier, I was talking about your voice. This isn't that you were born this way. It's that you built this and you built it out of necessity. And I. Maybe that's one of the reasons I just. I think you're cool. It's similar things. I was really old before I was 30. You know, arthritis, pre diabetes, three knee surgeries starting I was 14. They said you have arthritis in your knees. And just like things are wrecked. And when the brain stuff started going for me, when you don't have enough energy, you get angry real easily. So I. Same thing I remember you just popped into my head. I had thought about this in years. I was, I don't know, maybe like 18. I'm going to the. The swap meet right now. People under like, 40 don't even know what that is. So before we had Amazon, which is basically a swap meet. Buy all sorts of cheap crap on Amazon, that doesn't work very well because they destroyed a lot of small businesses. But you go to the swap meet to buy the cheap crap, and there's the guy with all the skull head spiked rings. And I was like, I want five of those. I just want to be tough. And he's like, man, I don't know who's after you? Is it a motorcycle gang? And I'm just like, no, I just like having dangerous things, right? And it was like some manifestation of that. Just like, there's a word for it. It's like a bone to pick with everyone just having, like a super angry vibe all the time. There's like an edge on me. And I didn't understand it was coming from my nervous system and from my brain, from the nutrition and all the things wrong with my biology made me feel that way. And then I believed it was, you know, maybe there's an external threat. Maybe it's the mold in my bedroom. Our bodies suck at even, you know.

This parts of our brain, you know, our amygdala, for example, we call it an amygdala hijack. You're much more likely to jump into that part of your brain when you're not well, you know, when you're chronically stressed, when you're malnutritioned. And we've got a lot of data on this. It isn't just something we're just throwing out there. And so we're really not our best selves in a lot of these situational constructs and in particular in relationships. As you brought this up, you know, this fourth F is so important because our environment is really dictating what we do. There's this profound statement that we're a product of our environment. And I kind of lived by that because of where I grew up and really replicating the behavior that I was around. But here's the thing about humans. We're not just products of our environment, we're also creators of our environment.

There you go. That's a profound statement.

We can create environments that create an automation of the habits that we want to have and the outcomes that we want if we become aware that we have that power. And unfortunately, especially in our world today, we've outsourced a lot of that awareness. And so a lot of the things that we're doing. As a matter of fact, I like to look at culture itself is really the controller of our thought. It's kind of like. And I remember this in my economics class, we had this concept of the invisible hand. Right. Culture really works as an invisible hand that's guiding us towards the choices that we're making. And depending on which culture you're in, in the United States, we have this belief in this profound freedom that we have, but our freedom is based on our perception of the choices that we have that are presented to us.

Yeah, like if you vote, it changes things. Like, people just believe that despite the evidence.

Well, I'm not going to open up that Pandora's box. I'm going to say. I'm going to say that you don't.

Let me put any words in your mouth, man. What's up with that?

That if we define culture itself, define it, and it's really important that we do that. And this is the shared attitudes, beliefs and behaviors shared by a group of people that are then passed on from one generation to the next. And so a lot of our beliefs about life are passed down from our predecessors, from our parents, our grandparents, and the people before us. And so in our world today, however, we have infinite access to all these different cultural inputs. And so we've gone a bit crazy. All right? We haven't evolved in a place where we're able to even take a lot of that on. We might be concerned about the opinions of maybe the 100 people in our tribe. Now it can be a million quote followers that you have that people are on high alert, trying to fulfill the desires of these different people on what I'm supposed to be.

Right.

And so now I want to circle all this back to say this. So defining what culture is, understanding what culture is. We have the power to create our own microculture. You and I both, for many years, have been working to change the larger culture scape to make health easier for people. Right. And we've made a dent, and we absolutely have, and it's amazing. But it is not a good use of our time because it is hard. It is very hard. And what I found in my own personal experience, I've been in this field for 21 years now, and I've had, I've worked as a clinician, working with real people and real families. And so I've seen that the most powerful way to make change in our community is by changing the microculture in your household first. Ooh. Because what I've seen is that you take your culture with you. When people see you, they see the reflection of your culture. And it's very infectious. Of course, especially recently, we've really kind of tunnel visioned things that are infectious, good things can be infectious as well. And so by focusing on creating a healthy microculture, my children are a representation of that. Myself, my wife, our relationship. These are things that reflect and influence other people around us. And so where does this stand in the science as far as longevity? Because this is one of the things that we're both very passionate about. Researchers at Brigham Young University did this massive meta analysis. And this included 148 studies, huge data set, and about 300,000 study participants. And they found that having healthy social bonds, healthy relationships, was the number one determinant on how long those people are going to live. Right? They looked at beating, obesity, they looked at smoking, they looked at alcohol, they looked at exercise. All those things do matter. But there's something about having healthy relationships that stood out beyond even those things. And what it is, is your relationships affect how you do those other things, because the culture, the environment, is going to determine your choices.

When you talk about the culture in the home, I feel like a lot of culture is beliefs about reality that are untested and not supported by observation. Right. And one cultural belief example like that I learned from. Strangely, in college, I took this class called Religion and Violence because I was like, why do people commit violence in the name of religion? I just couldn't understand it as a young Asperger's guy, and it was taught by a rabbinical scholar and he said, well, what do all these groups have in Common. I said, well, they're all irrational. And he stops. He goes, no, Dave, they're profoundly rational. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, if you believed what they believe, what they're doing is rational. And so you realize culture instills beliefs that haven't passed the reality test. And somehow when culture can infuse beliefs that are reality based and do move humanity in the right direction, it's a really powerful tool for passing knowledge between the generations. And it feels like there's been a lot of erosion of culture. And what you're proposing from family dinner is a way to put culture back in. But here's my question. You're a dad, I'm a dad. Where does the culture come from that we start in our households? Where do we get it? How do you know it's real?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I've got the biggest answer that's jumping out for me is we can look back and this is the most. One of the most profound things for our health, period. Just looking at what humans have figured out, that looks like it works, right? We evolved eating together for, you know, just thinking about this tribal construct. We. Recently, for the first time, I took. My family, went to Hawaii, which seemed like, Again, I'm from St. Louis. I didn't get on the airplane till I was, I think, 25 or 26 or something like that. And so to say that I'm even going to Hawaii, that is not. The magic is not lost on me. Right. But I'm seeing this through different eyes than other people. And so as I'm sitting there at this performance of a luau.

All right, those are not real luaus. Yeah.

We're seeing a representation of something that we used to do. Right. So everybody was involved in food, right? So the procurement of the food, the hunting, the gathering, the food preparation, and of course, most importantly, eating together. And that is also where a lot of the culture was getting passed down and shared. Because this is where stories, before the advent of writing, for example, your history and the lessons about survival, about moving the culture along was passed down through stories, right? So there would be stories and songs and dance and performance, and it was a really magical experience that become. That was integrated into our culture at the time through. Through our evolution. And now we just look at it like, oh, wow, that's really. That's awesome. Look at him go, you know, doing the little dances and things like that. But this is how we evolved. Now from there, we kind of, I'm not going to say devolved, but I did just say it to where we start to become more separate, right? So we move from this tribal construct to our neighborhoods, right? But even within that and there's still cultures around the world that still have close family, right? Extended family who are in close proximity but that further and further started to dissipate and separate to the degree today where you have families that aren't typically around extended families. But today we have something new just in the last couple of decades in particular the last 10 years where in your own household you can be radically separated from your family members because of our screens, because of social media for example, it takes you out of the environment, it takes you out of the present. It inherently does that. It's just it is what it is.

Sure it does.

And so having four or five family members in one household that can be completely separated and in completely different mindsets, environments and cultural experiences now with that.