Is Bone Broth Worth the Hype? with Marco Canora

Hello, I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to the Doctor's Pharmacy. That's F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, a place for conversations to matter. And today's conversation with Chef Marco is going to be one that really matters and will blow your mind because it's a whole different way of thinking about food and cooking and the meaning of food. It's pretty awesome. Now Marco is a chef. He's a restaurateur. He's a cookbook author. Marco Canora promotes delicious, simple, healthful food. He opened in 2003 something called Hearth. It's a restaurant in the East Village of Manhattan, which I've been to many times because it's so darn good. He has a local following. He's been really been promoted all over. He's a two-star review from the New York Times. He's got the prestigious Outstanding Restaurant nomination from the James Beard Foundation. And in 2017, Marco won the James Beard Foundation Award for the Best Chef in New York. That is no easy feat considering how many unbelievable restaurants there are here. He's also the founder of Brodo, and this is something you better pay attention to, which is a bone broth company, a popular to-go window serving coffee cups, not of coffee, but hot, nourishing, organic, grass-fed bone broth. Now, Marco and his team opened Brodo window in Soho, which is near the East Village, last spring, and just opened their fourth Brodo on the Upper West side, and I've been there. It's awesome, for a total of two windows, two shops. Now, Brodo, along with the recipes and the Good Food Day reflect his renewed attention to his health and wellness. And you can check out that story in the introduction in the book. Now, his first book, his first cookbook was Salt to Taste, which is pretty awesome. It was a major success and nominated for the James Beard Award in 2010. He's been written about in the New York Times and Food and Wine. He was a finalist on the Next Iron Chef, a judge on Chopped and Top Chef. He also appeared on Today, Good Morning America, Martha Stewart, Nightline, and he lives in New York with his wife and two daughters. Marco and I first met on a boat. That's cool. It was called Summit Boat and it was a bunch of creatives, entrepreneurs, amazing people and he had a big stand of this brodo bone broth. And you had to wait in line for like an hour to get this bone broth. And it was so good and it was sort of before he really started having his commercial avenue on this but it was so good, I think it probably inspired him and it was great to connect when we were on a panel together talking about health and wellness and Things that are not typical often for traditional chefs. I remember being at Canyon Ranch 20 years ago and I stood up at a meeting with the chefs, the nutritionists, the doctors, the owners and I said, food is medicine and we need to focus on that here. And this was a long time ago. And the chefs got up and they go, this is not a effing hospital. This is a spa and we have to focus on taste. And I'm like, you don't have to give up taste to have great stuff. So let's talk a little bit, Marco, welcome. Thank you. Great to be here. Let's talk about Hearth, which is this this amazing restaurant. And, you know, the word hearth is about home, it's about real food, it's about cooking, it's so many great connotations. And again, I've been there a number of times, it's amazing. And he celebrates food in a way that most restaurants don't. And I go there and I look at his menu. Now, this menu we're gonna post a link to, but it's pretty cool. And on the back of the menu, I mean, the front of the menu is great, which is all the food, which we'll go over, but he talks about some of the principles of what his philosophy wild fish, getting rid of the high mercury fish, the chef rules he talks about, we'll get into that, having more variety, flavor, color, texture of vegetables, more veggies. He talks about fat has a major food group that we need to be eating more of and the right kinds of fat. He talks about awful. Now that's not A-W-F-U-L, it's O-F-F-A-L, which is organs. And we'll talk about why that's important. It sounds a little weird, but it's actually amazing. He talks about how to eat clean food, how to have food that's sweet but actually good sweets. He talks about how to have grains that are freshly milled and organic and why organic isn't the only thing we should be focused on. So it's really an amazing education about the quality of the nature and the importance of the food we eat and how it contributes not just flavor, taste, community, deliciousness, and fun but also health. So Marco, how did you get this vision for this restaurant about food as medicine and food as celebration and all those things put together in amazing ways.

Sure. Well, thank you for that introduction. You know, Hearth, we celebrated our 15th year this year, so that's pretty cool. So Hearth has been a work in progress and has obviously evolved over the years. A couple of years ago, I really wanted to kind of shift our focus and like scream a little louder out there after. I wanted it to align more with Brodo and the ethos that kind of spawned Brodo. So, you know, the big idea is, listen, like, of course I'm a chef, and of course I care about the way the food looks and the way the food tastes and the way the food smells, because that is so critical, right? But the thing that I think we often forget about is what we call our fourth rule, which is it should make you feel good. So I can't tell you how many times through my 25 years of living in New York City and dining out, where at the end of a meal, you don't feel good. You feel like it might have tasted good and you might have enjoyed your time with your mate or your loved one, but at the end of the day, it's like you left and you were kind of holding your gut and maybe you ate too much or you were eating highly processed oils. And, I was really surprised at the fact that I could walk the aisles of a supermarket and learn so much more about my food choices. than I do when I am navigating a menu in a restaurant in an urban center. So I really wanted to kind of put forth all the ideas that drive our food purchasing decisions in our restaurant. And that infographic that you referred to-- so awesome. It was-- you- find it online? Yeah, it's online. HearthRestaurant.com, hearthrestaurant.com. But it took me so much editing, right? Because you go fall down rabbit holes and there's so much you want to say. So, it really, it was like eight months in the making to distill it down to these little three sentence sound bites. And everybody was like, it's way too long, it's way too long. And I was like, I can't say it any less. No, it's so good. I mean, so yeah, it's really fun. People respond to it. You know, I think, you know, we often focus on all the bad things going on in our food system, agricultural system, health system, et cetera. But I really think that we're living in an amazing time right now. And, you know, what you're doing and what so many great people are doing out there and the awareness around food and the importance of food and the notion of food as medicine, which I like to say food is medicine that tastes good. Yeah. Which is not very common in the medicine world. So, you know, I'm super thrilled to be kind of in, in the current kind of state of the world right now in this country.

So when you go to your restaurant, you get not only delighted and excited and stimulated by the food, you're also getting healed at the same time. So, people often think that food is good for you has to taste bad. You know, Pepsi had this whole campaign of food that's fun for you and it's good for you. The fun for your food makes you sick and good for you, I don't know. But it's sort of a false dichotomy, right?

Yeah, I mean it's nonsense too. I mean, you know, the more nutrient, you know, I believe that the more nutrient dense the food products are, the better they taste. And if you and, you know, I implore everyone to do a little the only way to know that is to do side by side stuff. And it's really awesome when you get a cauliflower from the green market that was picked yesterday and taste it next to a cauliflower that maybe it's even organic, but it's grown in soil that doesn't have nutrients and cook them side by side and taste them side by side. And you will see that the nutrient dense product tastes better, smells better, performs better when you cook it than, you know, the, yeah. And they may even be bad for.

The environment and climate. So, you could think you're eating, being a vegan and eating a healthy, organic vegetable diet, but they grow it through methods that use tilling, that are intensive in terms of water resources. You're depleting the soil. You may be contributing to climate change when you're eating your vegetables. So, it's a little more complicated, but it totally is. It's such a great vision for a restaurant because your, introducing people to a way of eating that is community based. I mean, the dishes are all basically family style.

Yep.

They're meant to be shared. They're incredibly delicious. I mean, and you've got some kind of weird things on your menu, like variety burger. Yeah, you've got very, very interesting things like awful food, right? You've got organ meats and you've got liver and things that typically people sort of steer away from. So let's talk about the whole awful thing. Why? Should we be eating organ meats? It sounds like that's the stuff that everybody throws away. It's cheap stuff.

It's not really part of gourmet cooking. Why would you want to use that? So it's funny, the anecdote I use at the back of the menu on the infographic is I look at the jungle and I say, you know, guess what the king of the jungle eats when he takes down an animal that he's going to eat? And it's like, the guy that's the highest on the pyramid chooses what he wants first. And guess what he always takes first? It's the guts. And, you know, and it's a pretty compelling argument, I think, because if you look to nature, you know, everybody, we're so obsessed with research science, proving our beliefs. And it's like, I like to look other places. I like to look at history, and I like to look at nature for my belief system. And it's like, if the king of the jungle decides that he wants guts first and leaves all the other stuff for everybody else, that's pretty compelling to me. I don't need a double-blind research study.

And, you know, the fascinating research is there. I recently saw a spreadsheet of comparison of different vegetables and grains and nutrient-dense foods and then liver. Powerhouse foods. Looking at just the number and density and amount of nutrients, liver compared to the best plant foods on the planet, It's like tenfold better in terms of nutrient density, which is sort of surprising, like vitamin C and antioxidants and the B vitamins and minerals and things that you think are important.

The bees especially, right, in the liver?

Yeah, it's pretty impressive.

And a close second is oysters, is my understanding. Super nutrient dense food, like the two most nutrient dense foods, grass-fed beef liver and oysters. Yeah.

So you're not worried about the toxins in the liver?

I mean, no, I'm not.

I mean, if it's grass-fed?

Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, that's the other thing I really wanted to pose with you is that, you know, one of the things we often, when we talk about health and wellness, we don't qualify things. We want to say low carb, but we don't want to qualify the carb, and we want to say low fat, but we don't want to qualify the fat, right? And those- We say high fat. Or high fat, right? And it's like, We don't have a lot of time for nuance these days, but the fact of the matter is when you're having a conversation around diet or macronutrients or micronutrients, you need to qualify this stuff, right? A beef liver isn't a beef liver, isn't a beef liver, and a carb isn't a carb, isn't a carb. And this notion of low-carb, and I think you mentioned this once before, it's interesting because if you're talking about from a caloric standpoint, Low carb is still a lot more carbs and volume than the fat, right? And that's-- I really have such empathy. That's why I say most of your.

Diet should be carbs. Correct.

And that's-- Plant foods. Right. And that's counterintuitive. In volume. Right.

By volume.

But by calories, it should be fat. Exactly. And, you know, it's like I have so much empathy for people because it's like it's really more-- it's really hard, right? So, you know, the fact of the matter is it's like all vegetables our carbs and we need to be eating a lot more vegetables. Ask Terry Walls, right?

Yeah. Terry Walls was a doctor who reversed her multiple sclerosis using the power of vegetables.

Nine cups of vegetables a day and.

The phytonutrients and the carbs.

Which is 18 servings of vegetables, not the five to nine. So, it's confusing and I have so much empathy out there and it's like I'm really on a mission to help people navigate all the weird stuff because it's not that easy. You know, you say high fat, low carb. Well, we got to define the carbs and we have to have a qualified conversation around what do you mean? Yeah, and that really speaks to the.

Very foundation of functional medicine, which is the food is information. Right. So just when you say protein, fat and carbs is meaningless. You could have a pound of trans fat or a bunch of omega-3 fats, profoundly different effects on your body. Same thing, you'd have white flour, which is a carb, or you can have broccoli, which is a carb, profoundly different effects on your body. Yes. Same thing with protein. The quality of the protein matters. vegetable protein or animal protein?

Yeah. And it's interesting, you know, I've been saying a lot lately since I've been like trying to grow the broth business is that there's everybody understands the notion of good fat, bad fat because we've been talking about it for a while, you know, trans fat bad, you know, olive oil is a good fat. And like there's a conversation, the same with carbs, like people understand like highly processed white flour carbs bad, but slow carbs that are a sweet potato or a broccoli, like People are really getting to know that, right? And it hasn't entered the macronutrient of protein yet. And I can't wait for that conversation to start, which is qualifying what a good protein is and qualifying what a bad protein is because I'm of the belief that protein powders are simply highly processed food stuffs. And the one thing I think we all agree on in the health and wellness space is that you should stay away from highly processed shelf-stable foodstuffs as a general rule. And it's interesting, right? Because that's what, and I've heard you mention it on your podcast quite a few times. Like, wait a minute, these are industrialized foodstuffs.

But could you, for example, dehydrate your bone broth and then add hot water? Like, that would be okay, right? Or not?

See, there's a lot we don't know.

Which by the way is awesome. I'm having some right now.

Thank you. I think one of the things that everybody needs to feel more comfortable with is we don't know a lot. And I follow a lot of people I respect, like Peter Attia and Chris Kresser and all these guys who are great research doctors. And they all agree, we don't really know a lot.

We know more than we think, though. There is more agreement on things.

Than disagreements, sure.

I mean, when you pair away all the, nonsense of extremism and ideology. The basic foundational principles that you even put on your menu here. Right. Whole Foods.

Pretty much. Yeah, we could agree on that. Yeah, for sure.

That's why I created the Pegan diet, which is essentially a joke between I love vegan. Yeah. And it's sort of the same principles. Like, eat real food. If you're gonna eat animals, eat these kind of animals. If you're gonna eat fat, eat these kinds of fats.

If you're gonna, you know, we should be eating mostly plants, not plant-based plant.

Rich I call it, plant rich diet.

Right. The vegan thing is tricky too because like, you know, guess what? Soda's vegan.

It's true. Chips and soda vegan.

And so is a donut and so is like so many things are vegan.

I mean it's, I think you can do it. It's just tough to do it right. And I think, you know, I've seen over decades many patients and tested extensively their metabolic nutritional status. and I can say unequivocally that vegans and often vegetarians are nutritionally depleted.

Deficient.

They're deficient. And, I think you can do it well, but it's not easy and the default for what you eat is often a problem.

Where do you get your B vitamins as a vegan?

From a bottle of pills.

Oh, got it.

From B12.

You have to supplement that.

I mean, vitamin D, omega-3 fats, vitamin B12, these are things that are very tough and there are other nutrients that get depleted like choline and selenium and iodine. I mean, these are tough to get. I mean, iodine is- you- have to.

Supplement to get them.

In some seaweed, you can get in fish, but they have to supplement. So, let's talk about bone broth.

Okay.

It's this thing, kind of fatty thing, not fatty but- Right. Fattish. Bone broth and collagen. It's the next best thing. Everybody's saying it does all these magical properties like heal your gut and improve your muscle mass and protein. First of all, all I have to say is that brodo bone broth tastes great, which is what I care about. I don't eat stuff that tastes awful. It's delicious. And you kind of make it in a very unique way that I love you to share about and what the ingredients you use are and how you sort of And you created this cookbook, which is a whole bone broth cookbook, which I encourage everybody to get because it's pretty awesome. It's called Marco Canora Brodo, a Bone Broth Cookbook. And I'm just looking through it and you've got such creative things here. Chicken bone broth, fish bone broth, grass-fed beef bone broth, putting in vegetables, different spices.

Really creating food as medicine. That tastes... Without question. It doesn't taste like medicine. Yeah, back to this notion of research and what have you. My belief is that why I believe that this is truly a great restorative elixir is because it's been on every corner of the globe for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

It's not a new thing.

It's not a new thing at all. So, to me, again, I don't need a double-blind research study to tell me that this is a good thing to ingest on the daily. There's been people around the world doing it for centuries, and that's pretty cool. The big Chinese medicine or Ayurvedic medicine or, you know, so many cultures have long, long histories of traditional broth making.

Yeah.

And, and, you know, and when you want to talk about food waste, it's like 30% of a grass-fed cow is bone. So we need to utilize those bones. We need to get those nutrients out of those bones and put them in this delicious broth that, by the way, is the forgotten staple in your kitchen. I like to say salt, pepper, fat, water, and broth are the things you need in your kitchen to become a great cook. And I know you believe in cooking as much as I do. So, you know, there's a lot of debate around, is it stock? Is it broth? Is it... And it's like, I kind of... My response is like, call it whatever you want. You know, you boil clean bones from clean animals. for a long time and you get all of the connective tissue to release all of its goodness into the broth and you end up with a nutrient-dense filled with umami with the glutamate. I say it's the natural MSG because there's a lot of glutamate in there, the G of MSG. And, it makes everything taste good whether you cook rice in it or cook quinoa in it or deglaze a vegetable or deglaze japan with it. So, you know, there's nothing, you know, it's interesting, like with Brodo or broth shops, it's like we have one foot in the tradition of it because it's been around forever. And then we have another foot in the fun, Innovative part because, you know, if you put it in a coffee cup with a ciplid and you start adding things and customizing those things with other powerful food stuffs like ginger and garlic and turmeric and fat. You really, it's like an amazing palette.

You even have a bone marrow bone broth.

Yep, we buzz the grass-fed bone marrow into it and then we do barbecue spice bone marrow into the beef broth and it tastes like you're drinking barbecue. And it's kind of endless how much you could do and how tasty it is. And by the way, it doesn't have 50 grams of sugar the way a lot of these sweet coffee beverages have. and a large broth has 20 grams of protein. Yeah, so let's talk about what's in it.

Because it seems all mysterious. You know, you take these bones, you.

Throw them in water.

Yeah, it's really not. What do you do? What do you put in it? How do you, what's in these bones? Right.

And what does it do for you? So, I like to use a variety of bones, right? So, you know, I believe that a lot of the collagen exists in the connective tissue. So, I love to use feet. I love to use knuckles. I really love to use neck. And what's cool about the neck bone is it's hard to get all the meat off of it. and you want some meaty bones because the meat is where the flavor is. And, I think a lot of people go out and they buy marrow bones, which are femur bones, and it's very easy to strip the meat off of a femur bone. So, a lot of people are at home making stock with a bunch of clean white bones, and then they're like, God, this tastes awful. And, it's like, well, of course it is. It's some bone marrow, maybe. Yeah, but of course it tastes awful because It's just bone. Like you need meat, you need vegetables, a little tomato product, some pepper, some bay leaf. You know, it's like it's a thing making broth, right?

More just it's more bone soup than bone.

Right. And I think we're so obsessed with function, right? It's like I went to Expo East this year and it's like everything is so function based. Function, function, function. Where it's like the name of the thing is, you know, based on the function of the thing. and it's like, let's not forget that it needs to taste good or there's gonna be no adherence, right? As you know, one of the most difficult things is for people to adhere to the program. And, I tell you what, it's gonna be very easy to adhere to the idea of drinking a cup of broth every day. And, that's important and that's to the point of making food taste good with the healthy ingredients. It's like, food is absolutely medicine, but it's our job as chefs and doctors to figure out a way to make it taste good so that people have adherence to this new discipline of cooking for yourself, eating healthy foods. So, the shocking thing you just said.

Was that bone broth, like a cup of bone broth has 20 grams of protein? Yep.

Or 16 ounce cup of beef broth or hearth broth, 20 grams of protein. So, in all these proteins. And then we put an egg yolk in it too, by the way. You whip an egg yolk into that thing, add some nutmeg and cinnamon and it's like you have a broth-based eggnog.

That is like to die for. Wow, so that's an amazing amount of protein.

And it's not just like any protein, right? It's got bioavailable protein, I think that.

Your body understands, right? I mean, it's unique protein and has.

Different amino acids than let's say you get from beans or grains, right? Right, it's a soluble protein too, yeah, and very high in glycine, arginine, glutamine, proline, and if you look at research science, there actually is a bunch of studies around these component parts and these particular amino acids that are purported to do all kinds of things from helping the mucosal lining of your gut or building stronger tendons or building more muscle or glycine is even purported to help you sleep better because it's like a GABA thing and it helps calm your brain.

It's also important for detoxification and building glutathione.

Exactly. So, boy, us stressed out New Yorkers, we could use a little bit of all that stuff, right?

Yeah, you know, essentially when you drink it, you just have this sense that you're doing something really awesome for your taste buds and your body.

It's really energizing.

Yeah, I find it calming and it's got some interesting magical property. I don't know what it is, but every time I drink it, I'm like.

Yeah, I feel so good. And I'll tell you anecdotally, being at the window or being in my shops, it's like the customer feedback. Yeah. is just if I ever get down at the struggle of growing a small, growing a upstart business, I just go and spend a couple hours in my shop because seven out of ten people who walk into the shop are just filled with like all these unbelievable stories. Just before I got here, a woman was like, you know, I've had gastrointestinal problems for years and years and ever since I've started coming here and I drink it every day and like it's totally gone and it's like, Yeah, glutamine.

Is so important for repairing your gut.

Exactly.

And, it's one of the key amino acids in there.

And, it's like this notion of N=1 study. It's like if it were, everybody is complex, right? And, it's like if it works for you, then it works for you. And, I got to tell you, I hear time and time again, day after day for three years now, how this really helps people. And, it drives our whole company because it's really exciting.

Now, can you just get it in New York or do you guys sell it online or?

So we sell it online, both coasts, free two-day shipping through e-commerce.

And does it come like cold or?

Yep, it comes in this awesome box with some insulation that you run under water and it goes down the drain. So it's like super eco-friendly insulation that we're really proud of.

You need a factory in Iowa so you can get to the whole country.

Exactly, that's coming. We're getting there. But we really believe in shops. you know, two of our shops are pretty close to Starbucks and, you know, we don't aspire to have 18,000 brotos, but, you know, we like to say for every 50 Starbucks there could be a broto broth shop. I'm glad you said that. It's certainly, when you look at them side by side, you know, it's really no contest in terms of the nutrient value, right? I mean, there's no sugar, there's a lot of protein, it's low in calorie, there's no dairy, there's no gluten, it's like allergen free food. so it's got a lot going for it. And most importantly, as you said, it tastes really, really good.

And it connects to this whole idea of food waste, right? Well, yeah, you mentioned, you know, 30%.

Of a cow is bone.

Bone.

And other animals, probably about the same ratio. So. Right.

We just, what do we do with them? Normally, throw them out.

Well, for a long time, they were, it wasn't worth the time and energy. I mean, now that, now that this country seems to be somewhat obsessed over bone broth, that's changing the game a little bit in terms of what you used to be able to get bones for seven years ago compared to now has changed. But that's certainly a better model to get people using these bones and getting more nutrient value out of them. The problem is the vast majority of our supply chain now is still commodities beef, which as you know, there's a lot of problems with that.

So, as a chef, it seems a little bit out of your wheelhouse to be focused on things like sustainability and climate and the environment and even nutrition. I mean, as a chef, it's not something most chefs focus on. It was taste and flavor. And yet, this is really the core of who you are and what you do, which It's amazing. Now, in your world of chefs, is this a trend? Is this a movement? Are more and more chefs caring about this?

Certainly, there's more and more awareness around all those buckets you mentioned. I was really surprised. We did the whole nutrient-dense forward menu concept a couple, three years ago at Hearth. And I was really surprised, frankly, that there hasn't been more people doing that. that's not to say that it actually happens more in the fast casual world where there's this focus on function and nutrient density, whether it's a salad concept or like a quick... Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of it happening in the fast casual world, a lot more so than in the more fine dining world. And, you know, that's fine with me because I feel like we're like standing out on an island a little bit in a very competitive climate that is Manhattan. so I'm very happy that there aren't a lot of followers, but I am surprised by the fact that there aren't more chefs out there in the fine dining world kind of talking about the choices they're making as it relates to nutrient density and nutrition. Because, you know, a freshly milled grain is very different than a flour that you buy and, and all the things that we talk about. Right. They're all pretty important.

Just guys like Dan Barber and David Anthony Mintz, you know, Anthony Mintz, who's Boulé and Barber.

I mean, they're amazing. Dan is the stuff he's doing with seeds and, like, he's just one of the most brilliant chefs in the world.

Yeah.

So that's an exciting. So it is certainly happening. Absolutely. I mean, in general, people's awareness around food and the power of food is just. And it's why I said to you earlier, it's so exciting to be part of. you know, all that. Oh, my God. The energy around it is, like, so real and palpable. And I feel it every day in the shop and every, every night in, in my dining room. Like, people want it. People are conscious, people are reading labels more, and they just, you know, the big thing is we have to convince them they have to spend more money on food.

Yeah.

Like, that's the big hurdle.

It's like, well, you think about it. You know, United States, we spend probably nine percent of our income on food. In Europe, it's 20%. In some countries, it's 50%. We don't prioritize it. We'd rather buy our fancy stuff, our flat screen TVs, or computer, whatever.

And we give up so much for convenience too. I've heard you say that before. It's like convenience comes at a cost to our health and we have to start realizing that. And also, it's like infrastructure has to change. Our distribution system is not built for fresh food. Food manufacturing system is not built for fresh food. Our agricultural system is not built for nutrient dense fresh food. I mean, yeah, you look at the farm bill, right? How much is going to the other category, which is like, all the farm.

Bill, we should be eating. Farm bill is a joke because it's not really a farm bill. It's a food stamp bill, which is about 75% of the trillion dollars, which is no doubt, three quarters of a trillion dollars is spent on food stamps, which is important for the poor, but most of that is spent on highly processed junk food and 10% of it is spent on soda alone.

Yeah, it's scary.

Yeah, it is.

These numbers are insane.

Yeah. So, what about the food waste issue? Because, you know, Dan Barber has this really cool thing where he makes these amazing meals out of food scraps. You've got companies like Imperfect, which are taking all the ugly food and misshapen. mislcolored things that get thrown in the landfills, it creates methane and climate change. 40% of our food is wasted.

I know.

What's your view on this whole food waste issue? And how do we do it? And how do you work with it in your restaurant?

It's obviously a very complicated issue. A lot of people want to kind of like force this idea of it's elitist to say this or think that. But like one of my beliefs is we need to spend more money on food. And once you start spending more money on food, you have more focus and attention to get the most out of the food. And I understand that the zip code drives, like, the people who need it the most, and that's true. But, you know, I think part of the problem is we're producing so much cheap food that it's. It's pretty easy to throw it away because they don't perceive a lot of value. It's like. you could liken it to anything. Like you buy the great leather jacket that you spend a lot of money on and you take care of it and you have it for 25 years of your adult life, right? Or you could just buy crappy leather jackets and buy 15 of them. I think that there's an interesting conversation around, and I saw it happen at Hearth when we decided to shift everything to a better version of the thing. One of the big conversations I had with my cooks early on was like, listen, we're only getting grass-fed butter right now. So guess what? You better be really careful about where you use it, what you're basting with it. Don't put too much. And, like, you. You create more attention and you put more value on things, and then you're going to waste less of them. I think part of our problem with food waste is we're producing so much bad food, and, you know, yeah.

And I, you know, I think it's something we aren't really aware of, but, you know, it sort of links to also food waste that happens, not just on the farms or in, in restaurants or grocery stores, but even in the home. And, you know, I, I think how do we, how do we sort of get people inspired about cooking? Because as a chef, that's your life. It's what you do. It's what you care about. But, and we, yes, we want people to eat at your restaurants and buy your bone broth, but at the end of the day, most of the time, most people have to learn how to cook at home. And it's such an obstacle for people. I think it takes too much time. It's expensive, it's difficult, it's hard. How do you break that down?

You know, so much, so many things boil down to education, right? And like one of the things around food waste is people have to understand, and I learned a lot in the past couple years growing the broth company, but it's like you have to understand why things spoil and then what to do to mitigate against that spoilage, right? And, it's like things like acidity levels and water content. These are all things you look at that add to shelf life or take shelf life away, right? And, just learning and educating yourself around some simple traditional preserving techniques, whether it is cover it in vinegar or put it in the oven overnight at 180 degrees and dehydrate all the water out of it. if you have some beets that are going bad, well, like slice them up and put them in the oven overnight at 180, and you're going to get the water out and you're going to dehydrate them and you're going to have this cool little beet gummy bear that you could that'll have you'll extend the shelf life. Yeah. And, you know, cooking. Yeah, beet gummy bears are amazing. But yet, I agree, like cooking is such an unbelievable process that people need to just dive in and learn how to love it. It's one of the few things we do that engages all of your senses. And it's pretty accessible. You don't need a ton of tools.

Or training.

Or training. And you have to cut yourself a break and be a little bit forgiving and start simple.

And.

It'S one of those things where it's so important that you need to figure out a way to learn to like it. and learn to deal with like, yes, it means dishes, but it's like, guess what a lot of people do instead of cook? They watch TV and they watch cooking shows. It's like, that's true.

Spend more time watching cooking on television than actually cooking.

Right. And there's such a payoff, right? There's such a payoff to your health. There's a payoff to your palate. There could be a great payoff to your pocketbook. You know, like the idea of learning how to buy whole chickens and breaking down those chickens and using the parts and making broth. It's like, there's, it's really, and there's.

A article about that, how you can eat a meal for a family of four with chicken and salad, some basic food, so you can go for McDonald's for a family of four.

There's so, yeah, exactly. There's so much benefit from learning how to cook that, you know, it's our job to encourage it. And frankly, like we need to bring home economics back into our schools, right? Because we need to teach kids from a young age, you know, I'm trying to pitch this idea of, like, the electric company of cooking and nutrition and health, right? So that there's a chef and there's a farmer and there's a nutritionist like yourself. And it's like, it's just like electric company. And there's all these fun and colorful things around growing food and cooking food and why? Because there's too many children out there that have no idea.

Yeah.

And we need to, we need to change it from the ground up, and that means bringing home ec back.

Yeah, well that wasn't an accident that disappeared. It was a design of the food industry that subverted it and invented a woman named Betty Crocker, which I've talked about in the show, who basically I thought was real. My mother had the Betty Crocker cookbook. You've probably seen it. And there was a woman named Betty who was a Home Ec teacher that was promoting families growing gardens and learning how to cook and having meals together. And they were like, this is dangerous to our convenience culture. We need to shift that and get rid of Home Ec and take over the kitchens of America. I think the thing about people don't realize about cooking is that it's modular. And that if you understand the building blocks of how to cook food, you need to have knife skills and how to chop stuff. You need to know how to saute, how to roast, how to bake, what timing you need for different foods so they come out at the same time. You don't want to like stir fry vegetables and then cook your meat, which.

Is going to mean your vegetables are soggy.

Yeah, dead after. So it's really, Some basic modular simple skills that are kind of lost. It's a lost art. And I agree. If you teach people those simple things, then they can use recipes, but they don't necessarily need them. They can just make simple food. And I can make dinner in much quicker time than I can go to a restaurant, order the meal and eat it.

No doubt about it. And save yourself a lot of money.

Yes.

And it's probably going to be better for you because you're going to use you know, likely you're going to use a better oil and you're going to get something at the green market. And obviously not everyone has access to the things that we have access to living in New York. Yeah. But still, like, you know, shop, shop in the produce section, no matter where you are. Well, some, some areas of the country don't have a produce section for hundreds of miles.

It's definitely going to be hard. I mean, I used to live in a small town in Idaho with 3, 500 people, I think, you know, there were people that probably never ate a vegetable in their life. The produce section was as big as my dining room table, which is not very big. And most of it was kind of gross. But we figured out how to use the stuff that was there. Sometimes we'd drive 50 miles to the next town to go to Costco or Trader Joe's or somewhere where they had cheaper, healthier food.

And there's a way to do it. And the world of e-commerce especially, right? Yeah, now you can get all the blue apron type companies.

It's like you get stuff delivered right to your door. So amazing. So how do you look at your restaurant in terms of the experience you want to create for people? Because I've been there and one of the things that really was powerful, was symbolic and it was meaningful was you had this little box on the table.

Yeah.

So tell us about the box.

I love the box.

On the table. What is it there for? Why do you have it and tell us about it.

You know, how did you start it? Well, Four or five years ago, I started noticing how insane it was the people in their phones, right? And it was just like, it was to the point where I would walk through the dining room and I just could not get over how extreme it was, right? And like, not many people get that angle of like being in a dining room with 80 people to really see it. I mean, you see it walking the streets. But I was privy to seeing 80 people at once. And when I tell you something- In.

A place where people come to connect with each other.

Yeah, exactly. And when I tell you that 60 to 70% of them were not connecting with each other and they were all like embedded their heads into their phones, whether it was a couple or a family or whatever. And it was insane. And we started as a group of managers at Hearth, we started talking about it and we wanted to figure out a way to do it that was kind of chill and low key and not dogmatic and wouldn't create complexities. And we were like, maybe we could ask them to check it like a coat. And then we're like, no, then we're responsible for these $800 things. And like, that doesn't work. And we debated for literally, we debated for like 18 months how to execute in a way that would be super easy and not really require dialogue, because I really can't stand Preaching. Diet and dialogue, like servers having dialogue tableside at a restaurant is a pet peeve of mine. And it's like... You want them to.

Talk to the customer.

Well, it's like you need to be prepared to answer any question that a customer asks, but they're there to be with their guest. And like, it's just so annoying when they go on and like when the tableside server diatribe goes on and on and on. on, I find that very intrusive and annoying. So we're very conscious of that. We're there and we want to be attentive and we want to provide great service. And we're obviously educated and informed to answer any question you may have. But we're not just gonna spew out stuff like you need to ask. So I didn't want there to be this thing on the table, like, if you want to put your phone away, you'll get a free drink or whatever. And we didn't want to do that. So we finally came up with this idea of, you know what? Let's find some cool old cigar boxes online. Let's put a note on top that says, Open me. And then inside it says, We would like to invite you to put your phone in the box and be present with your guest. And that's it. And you know what? Everybody sits at the table and there's like a knife and a fork and a napkin and a, you know, the standard tabletop stuff. And then there's this cool, colorful box and it says, Open me. So it's like we don't have to do anything. Like the box does everything. That's awesome. And, and people use it. It's amazing. Like, for one, there's always a conversation around it, which is great because people start talking about it. I would say seven out of ten people are like, they light up and they're excited and they throw their phone in the box and it's fantastic. Eight out of ten people, seven, eight out of ten people to use it. So it's fantastic. And like, you know, Guys like you in the functional medicine world, and if you look at the whole Blue Zone concept, one of the things that I believe never gets enough play in terms of the holistic view on what it means for health and wellness is the notion of connection and community, right? And what a vital role that plays into one's psychological health and physical health and I think that when you look at the Blue Zones, one of the things they all really have that we don't have much of is community and connection and gathering around a table and having a ritualistic meal together. And like, I really believe that that is so critical to your health. So the fact that people put away their phones at a restaurant and actually, and you see they become more animated, they actually start looking at each other in the eye and they're engaging. And like, I really think that that is as important as the healthy foods that we're preparing and putting on a plate for these folks. And by the way, if you eat the best quality food and you're stressed.

And disconnected from your body, your digestion can't work, you can't absorb the nutrients. They've actually studied this. You literally don't absorb the nutrients because if you're stressed, you don't want to be absorbing food. You want to be running from a tiger, right? Right. So it's powerful. So, you know, your restaurant does that in so many ways.

One, just the name of it.

Let's gather around. Hearth, right? The center of the home. Two, the shared plates. So you're eating in community. Passing things. You can't just be on your phone, eat your food, 'cause it's gonna be gone if you don't look up. And you've got this beautiful box, which.

Inspires people to sort of stop for a minute and think about the quality of their experience. We were super excited when we landed on how to do it, and then.

We launched it, and the feedback was great.

And yeah, it's really special. I love it.

I think everybody should get a box for their home. A lot of people have and they're.

Starting to do that. Right, when people come to my house.

For dinner, I'll often say, Here's a basket, put your phone in.

Put it away.

Let's just be here. My God. For my wife, I tell this story many times, but for our anniversary, I gave her a box. She's like, oh, that's a nice little box. I'm like, no, that's not the present.

The present is, I put my box.

In the box for the weekend. Right.

I'm all yours.

Yeah.

What a great gift.

She is like such a gift that we can give each other that is more valuable than anything.

Especially if you have children or, you know, your family or, yeah, your wife. I mean, it's so valuable to, like, put down your phone and be with whoever it is you're going to be with, even in a, you know, business meetings as well. It's like, you know, it's like I'm here to engage with another human. And it's like we're kind of we're kind of losing our we're losing our skills. And it's pretty frightening.

It's great at Cleveland Clinic, we have our staff meetings and everybody puts their phone on the table.

So important.

In the front of the room and.

Then nobody touches them and everybody's present.

It's just awesome. Yeah, a real productive meeting, right? So, Marco, if you were king for a day and you could change something in our landscape of food and health.

What would it be?

Can I have more than one?

You can have as many things as you want. Oh, really?

Oh, God, we'll be here.

You can make as many decrees We'll be here all day.

Many balls, you can change everything.

We'll be here all day. So let's see. One of the things I would do is I would have a better, I'd put something in place around the process of making foods. So, you know, if you look at our packaged food world and our supermarket world, there's so much oversight around ingredient panels and there's so much oversight around nutritional facts panels.

And the, not necessarily the right kind, but, yes, correct.

Correct. But, you know, the thing that they never, that they're never transparent about is the process. And I think there's Pro, I think there's problems in, in process. Right. And I think that I, as a consumer, I want, I have the right to know the way in which you're doing the food because, yeah, the origin of it and also the process by which you're doing it, because, like, you know, I don't know, like, if you take a chickpea and you, like, fill it with air and then dehydrate it and then put it, fry it in some crazy oil and then puff it through some crazy machine, it's like, I want to know about that. Right. And I I I don't buy the fact that, like, you know, because it has all the right buttons on it, you know, the, the healthy snack food Market, like, there needs to be transparency around the process. A lot of it's junk because.

Yeah.

So I think that that, you know, and. People need to understand that. And right now we can't because there's nothing that says you have to talk about process. So I would have a new section on packaged goods that is like the process section.

You know, there is an environmental working group, food score app. Or actually put in and scan any processed food and it will tell you the degree of processing, all those things.

Really?

Yeah, it's very interesting.

That's amazing.

Quality of the nutrition.

I'm going to get that immediately.

Processing. and whether there's any weird bad stuff in it, it's actually interesting.

Right, so that's one. Another one is the research science in this country, I think is flawed. And I think, you know, Nutrition Research. Peter Attia and I think Gary Taubes were doing this thing called NUSI, and basically the premise was, you know what, we need to do research that is independently financed, right? So that it's like, research science today is funded, it requires a lot of money, and it's funded by the people with big food and they want it to say something. So if you follow the money, you usually find that the research is kind of flawed.

Yeah, right. Eight to 50 times more likely to find a positive outcome for a study if it's funded by a food industry company. Right. versus an independent researcher.

So I feel like third parties need to fund in this country. And I think if that happened, there'd be more, there'd be better research.

Philanthropy and even the government has to fund the right research.

Exactly, so I would change the way in which we do research in this country. And then the other big one for me is like, I would change the cafeteria systems in hospitals because it's just so disturbing to think that the sick people in our country that are in beds in hospitals are being fed what they're being fed.

It's absolutely true.

And it's just like, it's so problematic on so many levels because these are the experts, these are where we go. Like, we have trust in that system and doctors, and they're the people that take care of us. And then they bring up the tray of food, and it's like a packaged drink that has, like, you know, protein, it's just, you know what's happening in the hospital?

It's like the hospital is serving Frankenfood. Do you know what's happening at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York? They've got a bunch of chefs together creating delicious meals. Right.

About 20 to 30% of the food was wasted because people don't want to eat it. Now everybody's eating the food, it's delicious, it's transforming the system. So there needs to be more of that, right? Like, so I would put huge focus on that and I would make sure that, you know, I would just, I would accelerate that mission because it's true, it's starting to happen. It just needs to be happening a whole lot more. They need to understand that they need to spend more money on food.

So good.

So those are three things.

It's great. And by the way, I just came back from Abu Dhabi and the Cleveland Clinic has a center there. And I've been working with a team at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland to reform the food in the hospitals. We're all over it. The challenge is working with these big food service companies like Sodexo, Aramark.

It's very hard.

And it's very tough.

They say, Margin, margin, margin. Right.

And it's very tough. so in Abu Dhabi, it's amazing. It's more of an autocratic system and there's less bureaucracy and the alignment of incentives are all there. And the CEO of the hospital says, no more white, no more white flour, no more white sugar, no more white rice, potatoes, all this stuff that's starchy.

And is making people sick. Out.

And only good food in organic.

All the food in the hospital is organic. It's unbelievable.

Such a no-brainer though. How is it possible? How is it possible that that's not happening?

Faster.

It's so great. It's really a shame. These are all inspiring ideas. This has been a great conversation. Thanks. Thank you for being on the Doctor's Pharmacy, Marco, and talking about things that really matter. You've been listening to Doctor's Pharmacy with Marco Canora, the founder of Hearth Restaurant, the author of Brotto, a bone broth cookbook, many other cookbooks. Check out his restaurants, his site, get some bone broth. And if you like this podcast, please leave a review. We love to hear from you. Sign up for this and subscribe wherever you find your podcasts on Google Play, iTunes, wherever. And if you liked it, share with your friends and family and we'll see you next time on the Doctor's Pharmacy for another conversation that matters.