Dr. Mark Hyman introduces the Blood Sugar Solution Cookbook, arguing that cooking real food is a revolutionary act against the health crisis caused by processed foods. The book focuses on community, kitchen makeovers, and healthier food choices to improve individual and public health.
Hi, this is Dr. Mark Hyman. I want to tell you about the Blood Sugar Solution Cookbook, why I wrote it, and why I think you all need to get a copy today. It's because cooking is a revolutionary act. You see, the cure for what ails us, both in our bodies and in our nation, can be found in the kitchen. It's a place to rebuild community and connection, to strengthen bonds with family and friends, to teach life-giving skills to our children and to enrich and nourish our bodies and our souls. And yet, in the 21st century, our kitchens and our taste buds have been hijacked by the food industry. In 1900, only 2% of meals were eaten outside the home. Today, that number is over 50%. The food-like substances that are proffered by the industrial food system trick our taste buds into momentary pleasure. But then our biology rejects the junk that's forced on our genes and our hormonal and biochemical pathways. Your tongue can be fooled and your brain can become addicted to those slick combinations of sugar, fat and salt that are pumped into those factory-made foods. But your biochemistry cannot handle these foods and the result is the disaster we have in America today. 70% of us are overweight and obesity rates are expected to top 42% by the end of the next decade, up from 13% in 1960. Today, 1 in 2 Americans has either pre-diabetes or diabetes. That's type 2 diabetes. I call that diobesity. In less than a decade, the rate of pre-diabetes and diabetes in teenagers has risen from 9% to 23%. Really? Really? Almost one in four kids has pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes? Yes. And perhaps even more shocking, 37% of the skinny kids, the kids in a normal weight, have one or more heart disease risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or high blood sugar. Because even though factory food doesn't necessarily make you fat, It does make you sick. You see, the food industry taxes our health and mortgages our children's futures. Obese children will earn less, will suffer more, and die younger. It's time to take back our kitchens and take back our homes. You see, transforming the food industry seems like this gigantic undertaking. But in fact, It's an easy fix. The solution is in our shopping carts, our refrigerators, it's in our cupboards, it's on our dining room tables. This is where the power is. It's the hundreds of little small choices you make every day, choices that will topple the monolithic food industry. We need a revolution. Cooking real food is a revolutionary act. We have lost the means to care for ourselves. We have now raised the second generation of Americans who don't know how to cook. The average child in America doesn't know how to identify even the most basic vegetables and fruit. Our kids don't know where their food comes from or even that it grows on a farm. Cooking means microwaving and food grows in boxes plastic bags, and cans. Reading labels is also supremely unhelpful in identifying the source of most foods. The ingredients are mostly factory-made science projects with a remote and often unrecognizable lineage to real food. We're brainwashed into thinking that cooking real food costs too much. It's too hard. It takes too long. Hence we rely on inexpensive convenience foods. But these foods aren't so convenient when we become dependent on hundreds of dollars of medication a month, when we can't work because we're sick and fat or sluggish, or when we feel so bad we just can't enjoy life anymore. The average American spends eight hours a day in front of a screen, mostly a television, and spends more time watching cooking shows that actually cooking convenience is killing us. In fact, real food can be inexpensive. Choosing simple ingredients, cooking from scratch, shopping at discount club stores, getting produce from community supported agriculture associations or CSAs, community gardens or co-ops all build health and build community and save money. Europeans spend nearly 20% of their income on food. Americans only about 9%. And yet, food is the best investment in your health. And I believe in the collective power of our collective intelligence. Within my community, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of unheralded chefs experimenting with food, creating extraordinary great recipes and meals. Within our individual and our national communities, is the cure for what ails us. We are the answer. We are the revolutionaries who will change the face of food in America and around the world. The Blood Sugar Solution Cookbook is the product of this collective intelligence. Truly, the community is the cure. Yes, we need to change policy in order to change the food we grow and to subsidize real food instead of those walls of processed fat and sugar and flour and trans fats that line our grocery store and convenience store shelves. Yes, we need to end food marketing to children. We need to make schools safe zones for kids with only those products and activities that support healthy minds and bodies. There is no room for junk food or factory foods in schools, period. Yes, we all need that, and we need more to take back our kitchens and our health. But each of us, each of us, can start at home with a kitchen makeover. Three simple actions can change everything. First, do a fridge makeover. Then do a pantry makeover. And lastly, do a shopping cart makeover. This book, the Blood Sugar Solution Cookbook, gives you advice on exactly what to keep and what to discard from your fridge, pantry, and shopping cart. It also provides fabulous tasty recipes gathered from our own community of health and cooking revolutionaries and from my own favorite recipes to delight your palate, to stimulate your senses, and nourish your body and soul. The recipes are designed to be made, to be shared and enjoyed with family and friends. Think of this book as a roadmap to pleasure and health. Now, once you've taken back your kitchen, then you can start something really revolutionary. Find eight or so people you'd like to know better, who you love already, or would like to spend more time with, and invite them to start a supper club, once a week or maybe once a month. And then rotate dinners at each other's houses. Share the cooking by creating a potluck, or maybe you want to take turns choosing some of the favorite recipes from this cookbook and preparing a feast for everybody. At each dinner, Pick a topic, maybe about food or health or community, and then talk about it. And then let the juices flow. This stew of food and friendship will nourish you deeply. And in this way, one by one, kitchen by kitchen, community by community, we will all take back our health together.
