Special Episode: Mark Hyman on The School of Greatness with Lewis Howes - Build Your Health to Build Your Wealth

Hi everyone, this is Kaya Perowne, one of the producers of the Doctors Pharmacy podcast. This week we're going to be sharing some interviews that Dr. Hyman recently did in preparation for his new book, Food Fix. Today we'll be sharing an interview with Lewis Howes from the School of Greatness podcast, where Dr. Hyman shares why we.

Are seeing a rise in chronic disease and why our food choices matter more than ever. Hope you enjoy it. This is episode number 916 with number one New York Times best-selling author, Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to the School School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Napoleon Hill said, no person may enjoy outstanding success without good health. And Buddha said to keep the body in good health is a duty, otherwise we shall not be able to keep our minds strong and clear. Welcome to this episode with Dr. Mark Hyman, who is leading a health revolution. One revolved around using food as medicine to support longevity, energy, mental clarity, happiness, and so much more. Dr. Mark Hyman is a practicing family physician and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, an advocate in the field of functional medicine. And he's the founder and director of the Ultra Wellness Center, the head of strategy and innovation of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, and a 12-time New York Times bestselling author, and so many other things that he's done. He's the host of one of the leading health podcasts, the Doctor's Pharmacy, and he's a regular medical contributor on several TV news networks, including CBS this Morning, Today Show, Good Morning America, Dr. Oz Show, and so on. In this episode, we talk about the kinds of food related to chronic illness. So many people have chronic illness and how you can prevent it just based on the foods you're eating. We compare chemicals and additives allowed in food in America compared to countries around the world and how it's so much different here in America. Misconceptions people have about dairy alternatives. This was a huge one for me as I love almond milk and it might be killing me. The power our food choice has on climate change how you can make a difference in your own local community and so much more. This is a powerful one that could transform the way you think about food and our economy. So make sure to share this with your friends, lewishouse.com/916. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple and Spotify. And as always, leave us a review and let us know what you think at the end of this episode. Again, I'm so excited you're here. And without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one and only, Dr. Mark Hyman.

Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got the man, Dr. Mark Hyman, in the house. Good to see you, man.

Good to see you too.

Super pumped you're here. I think you've been on twice before.

Yes, I have.

This is the third time.

Yes, trifecta.

And you are arguably the leading expert on all things health, nutrition, and an amazing doctor as well at the Cleveland Clinic. So thanks for being here. I'm super excited about this. You've got a mission that you're on which is to change the food system.

Yep.

Not just teaching people how to eat better.

Yeah.

But actually changing a whole system of what's actually legal and not legal on what we can eat I guess or what we as Americans can have at stores and what we grow, what we.

Produce, what we process, what we market, what we eat, what we waste, the whole food chain is messed up.

It's really messed up.

It's messed up.

Well, there's a lot of sick people, especially in the US. How many people are sick?

Oh, it's terrible.

And what do we categorize as sick?

That's a great question.

What's obese, what's sick, what's...

So at the top level, we have to understand that over the last 40 years, a tsunami has come that we weren't aware was coming. that we weren't prepared for and still haven't grappled with. And that tsunami is chronic disease and food related illness. In 40 years.

In 40 years.

Did we have chronic disease prior to this? We did, of course we did, but not to the magnitude. We used to have like 5% obesity rates in this country in the early 60s.

It's 40% now in most states.

I thought it was like 30, like.

A few years ago.

Nope, nobody, nope. It's like 40%. Many states are 40% and many are just pushing 40. So it's 35 to 40, depending on where you look at it. Like California's probably less. Colorado's less, but Mississippi and Alabama are, you know, 40 plus. So we have six out of every 10 Americans who's got a chronic illness, four out of 10 who have more than one. By 10 years from now, we're gonna have 83 million with three or more chronic diseases, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, dementia, you name it. We are having 11 million people, and this is, I think, a conservative estimate, 11 million people around the world die every year from bad food, from ultra processed food and not enough good food. Now, I think it's more like 50 million when you look at all the related conditions and so forth. It's a staggering number that beats out smoking, war, violence, accidents, you name it. Nothing else comes close. Not malaria, TB, AIDS, all that is a fraction, a third of the deaths that are caused by chronic illness. And they're mostly preventable. and they're mostly caused by food and they're mostly caused by the ultra processed food that our food system produces en masse. It's the biggest industry on the planet. It's $15 trillion, about 17% of the world's global product, and it is controlled by a few dozen CEOs that are in monopolies around seed production, agrochemicals, fertilizer, processed food companies, It's staggering how the system has sort of just over the last 40 years completely transformed. And I remember like I was in some store or cafe and I saw this picture of Woodstock and I'm looking at the all the sea of people. -The 60s, right? -'69. There wasn't one overweight person. I watched this movie, I think it was called Amazing Grace about Aretha Franklin, African-American church. Now African-Americans, 80% of African-American women are overweight. It is, you know, there's 80% today. 80%.

Why is that?

Well, because they're targeted by the food industry, because they're in a vicious cycle of economic stress, of social stress, of unfair targeting and manipulation by the food industry. This is well documented by, for example, studies from Yale, where they look at the amount of advertising and targeting to poor and African-American and Hispanic communities. It's staggering. And there was not one overweight person, this sea of African-Americans in 1970. And so it's literally just happened. I was 11 years old in 1970. And in my lifetime, you see this change. So we have this staggering problem of chronic illness, which people suffer from, this bankrupting people, this bankrupting our country. I mean, think about the amount of economic stress.

We talked about-- well, insurance too. so much insurance money that's involved in this too. People are having to go to the doctor so much more probably now because of these issues, right?

Absolutely. And then many people are not adequately covered. So there's a lot of co-pays. I mean, you know, people can have 10, 20,000 in co-pays. I had a patient the other day who, you know, had diabetes and I fixed his diabetes through food. And he says, I saved $10,000 a year in co-pays for my insulin. And my- Just the drugs. Yeah. And when you look at the amount on diabetes spend in this country, which is basically one out of every two Americans has pre-diabetes or type two diabetes. One third of Medicare spending is on diabetes. One third of Medicare is on diabetes. Medicare, if it was a company, would be the biggest company in the world, a trillion dollar budget a year. Shut up. Yes, one third of our total federal tax revenue expected to grow to 100% of our mandatory spending by 2048. And in six years, Louis, six years, the Medicare Trust Fund, which is sort of the bank account that we use to Make sure we cover Medicare. It's a little complicated how it works, but the Medicare Trust Fund's gonna be out of money. So that means that we're gonna have to get a trillion dollars a year out of our tax revenue. We're not covering it. Oh my gosh. This is a threat to our economy. It's a threat to our political stability. It's a threat even to national security, those because seven out of 10 kids who apply for the military get rejected. Can't get in. Because they're too fat or unfitted. Yes. There's 700 Admirals and Generals that published a report called Unhealthy and Unprepared about the threat in our military and national security. And not only that, soldiers are overweight. So we're feeding them crap. They go in Iraq and Afghanistan. The number one reason for medical evacuations was not war injury, was obesity related problems.

Come on.

Yes, 100%. Obesity related problems.

What does that mean? Like they're- Injuries. Like a heart problem.

Injuries from being overweight. Wow. And you can read about this. I mean, this is in that report. Unhealthy and unprepared, just Google it, you can read it yourself. Wow. It's staggering. So we have, you know, a $22 trillion debt. We have, you know, this threat of chronic disease exploding, it's getting worse and worse. Medicare for all is kind of a silly idea and so is repealing Obamacare that now they're going to help the problem unless we figure out how to.

Stop people from going into the system.

In the first place. Into the system of getting unhealthy. Yeah, if they don't need medical care.

It'S cheap, you know. so let's go back to diabetes for a second. Tell me again the stat on diabetes, how many people have it or are pre-diabetic? And I'm uneducated on this, so how many different types of diabetes are there? And how is it caused?

Okay, okay. So type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. Pancreas fails, it's called juvenile diabetes, and you need insulin. It's just, you need it.

If you have type 1 diabetes, you need insulin.

You- need insulin. To do your pancreas dies, because your pancreas makes insulin and helps your blood sugar. get balanced, keeps, that's the blood, it's not like a gatekeeper, lets the glucose into your cells.

Okay.

So it's really important. So how does that die?

How does people die from that? I mean, how does the pancreas die?

Oh, well, it's an auto, like an auto, like you get multiple sclerosis or.

Got you.

It's basically your body attacks your pancreas. Is that eating a lot of bad foods? Well, there's been links to dairy and actually as a driver of type 1 diabetes, gluten. 29% of people who have type 1 diabetes have celiac that are undiagnosed. So celiac is a big cause of autoimmune diseases, including type 1 diabetes. So that's a very small number of people. Very few. One out of two Americans have what we call type 2 diabetes. We used to call it adult onset, except now kids as young as three are getting type 2 diabetes from drinking soda from the crib. Oh my gosh. I was working when I was a resident in an urgent care center, and this woman comes in for back pain, she's got her baby in a carriage, and I see her feeding this baby this brown liquid in a bottle who's seven months old. And I'm like, what is that? Soda? I'm like, what is that?

That's Coca-Cola.

No. I said, why are you feeding your baby Coke? She's like, well, he likes it. Oh my gosh. Oh my God, my wife showed me this video on social media the other day. It was of a baby, looked like it was maybe eight or nine months old baby, having ice cream for the first time. Oh. Having sugar for the first time. And you watch the baby eat the ice cream. I light up. The ice.

And then the baby like, I want.

To rub the thing and like stuffs in his face. I was like, oh my God, it was just so crazy. And it's highly addictive. So yeah, so now we're seeing one in two Americans suffer from either pre-diabetes or type 2 or type 2 diabetes. And that is when you eat too much sugar and starch and every time you do that it raises your insulin, your body becomes resistant to the insulin and so it doesn't work as well. So you need more insulin and insulin does what? Insulin makes you hungry, it makes you store belly fat, it locks the fat in the fat cells, and it slows your metabolism. It's like a quadruple threat for your body to gain weight. So it's why we're seeing, you know, and that goes back to what we're growing, right? So why are we eating all this food? It's because that's the food we produce, right? And so that's the other part of the problem. So we have the chronic disease, we have the economic impact, And then we're like, well, why do we have this food? So as a functional medicine doctor, I'm always asking why? Well, why are my patients sick?

Because it makes money, right?

Well, yeah, but I'm going even further why I got interested in this. Because why would a doctor care about agriculture and soil and all this crap? Because as I was thinking about my patients' diseases, most of them were caused by food and can be cured by food.

How many are most of them? Is this like 50%?

70%.

80% of anyone that comes in to the hospital, or your patients, who have some type of disease or some type of sickness.

I mean, unless it's like an environmental thing like mercury or lime or mold, you know, most of the things. Cancer. Cancer is caused by food. Really? 70%.

70% of cancer is caused by food.

And sugar is the number one culprit. Heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, heart disease, the big killers.

Are by sugar and food.

Yes.

So if you change your diet, you.

Should be able to cure, prevent.

Or cure sometimes. Sometimes cure.

Depends how far along things are, I guess.

Yeah.

You can prevent heart disease, Alzheimer's.

Yes, 100%. I mean, the studies are there. Even people already have Alzheimer's, when they.

Improve their diet, they can, They get more functionality back.

So you've got me thinking, okay, well if the patient's disease are caused by food, what's causing the food? It's the food system. And I'm like, well, what's causing the food system? It's our food policies. Like, what's causing our food policies? It's the food industry that's lobbying Congress.

It's got money.

It's the biggest lobby group in Congress is agriculture and food. By far, like by twice as much as the next lobby group.

By gas and oil or whatever.

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

And it's like, what? So then I began thinking, well, if I'm gonna help my patients, I can't do it in my office. It's like I'm in the boat bailing the boat with a hole instead of plugging the hole. You're not going to the source.

Right.

So then I'm thinking, okay, well what do I need to do as a functional medicine doctor? I need to go to the root cause, right? The root cause and why. And then it became clear to me that our agricultural system is driving so much of the problem. And what we grow has been based on good intentions that were in the 50s when people were hungry, there wasn't enough food, there was a lot of poverty. And so we figured out a system to produce an abundance of starchy calories.

So we can have food.

So we can have food. And we were great at it. And we have cheap abundant corn and wheat and soy, which are the commodity crops that are turned into industrial processed food, which is now 60% of our diet. And for every 10% of that you eat, your risk of death goes up by 14%. Yeah, so you're crazy. So you're basically feeding Americans a diet we know is going to kill them. so clear on this. There's no scientific debate and yet we don't do anything about it because we have these dysfunctional food policies. And then the way we grow the food causes climate change. We'll get into that but the number one cause of climate change is our food system. Really? People don't realize that. I didn't know it.

I'm like, oh, it's oil and gas and all this stuff.

I'm like, what is it? Is it the trucking? Is it the animal feed? Head to head. Okay, so first of all, deforestation is devastating. Not only do we like destroy the.

Soil on which we cut down the.

Trees, but the trees are carbon sink, so we lose that.

So they're not sucking in the bad air.

They're sucking in carbon dioxide. Right, I mean basically plants suck out carbon dioxide, that's what they breathe. We breathe oxygen, they breathe carbon dioxide. So that's a perfect antidote, right? And then the soil also, we're damaging by the way we're farming. We've lost a third of our top soil. It's responsible, people don't know this, but of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the loss of soil organic matter, like healthy rich soil, is responsible 30 to 40% of all greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.

Does that mean why is that?

Does it come from the soil? Because soil can hold more carbon than is in the atmosphere right now. There's a trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere, which is a lot. I don't know, trillion tons. I don't even know how to measure that. and the soil can hold three trillion tons of carbon. And how does it do that? It's an ancient carbon capture technology that is available all over the world. That's free. Free. That can be more effective than all the rainforests on the planet, than all the forests and trees on the planet. It's called photosynthesis. And if you have grasslands, for example, like we had big prairies in the United States, they suck down carbon, they breathe it, and they put it through the plants into the roots, feeds the mycorrhizal fungi, which then make healthy soil, feeds the bacteria, and you get this incredibly rich live soil that holds tremendous amounts of organic matter that is carbon, right? I mean, carbohydrates comes from the word carbon, which comes from carbon dioxide. Wow.

Right?

Ding, ding, ding. It all connects. And so we've lost.

So we don't have the soil for it to consume, then it just bounces off back into the air, I guess, and we're just consuming it in other ways.

Yeah, and the soil can hold so much carbon. The UN estimated that if we took of the 5 million hectares of degraded farmland around the world, if we took just 2 million of that, and spent 300 billion, which is the total military spend for 60 days around the world, which is not much. 60 days, two months of everybody's military spending. We literally could stall climate change by 20 years because of putting back the carbon in the soil. And not only that, it holds water. You see in Iowa and the Midwest, there was floods that just destroyed a million acres of cropland that otherwise could have been fine if the soil could hold the water, but it just sits on the top where it runs through. and we lose all this water. So that when you have an organic matter in the soil, it holds 27,000 gallons for every 1% organic matter in the soil per acre. So it's an incredible water sink, it's a carbon sink, and we've lost all these soils. And it's because we're growing these commodity crops in ways that destroy soil. We're tilling the soil, we're turning over soil erosion, it runs off into the rivers. We kill all the life in the organic matter by poisoning it with fertilizer, with pesticides, with glyphosate herbicides, and it's staggering. And then we have all these sort of unintended consequences. We started growing all this food and we thought this agricultural revolution was great. All these chemicals are great. You know, fertilizer is great. We can do all this good stuff. Tractors, big farms, more food, feed the world. It's backfired on us. And it's producing the worst food on the planet. that's causing devastating environmental damage, staggering climate change. So it's the soil loss, it's deforestation, it's the factory farming of animals, which should be banned, it's the transportation, storage, refrigeration, and the food waste. I mean, food waste in-- A lot of waste. Yeah, but well, we waste 40% of our food. We believe that's not a play. Imagine going to the grocery store, buying a bunch of groceries, and getting home and throwing 40% of the garbage. The average American wastes $1,800 of food a year and it's about a pound a day. And that goes to landfills. The landfills, then it rots and creates methane. So you could be a vegan throwing out your food waste and scraps and you could be contributing to climate change. If food waste were our country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China. Wow. Yeah, it's methane to produce. And we need to compost, we need to have community garden, like it's always to fix it. But it's like when you look at the whole end-to-end food system, it is the number one source of climate change, about 50% of greenhouse gases.

And people just don't appreciate that. So why, I mean, if this information is public and it's out there and.

Policymakers are aware of it, they're not aware of it. I spent two hours on a sailboat this summer with a senator, a smart senator. He wasn't aware of it.

And I literally, his jaw was hanging open the entire time. and then I presented with this research and information. No, because I got so much money sent to them.

Well, I'm a lawyer, probably.

Right.

I mean, listen, if all the people who are walking their office are Monsanto and Cargill and, you know, McDonald's and Pepsi and, like, and they're all donating millions of dollars, I would say billions of dollars, they're not hearing the other side of the science. And, you know, how do you, how do you fight that? So, you know, I, I always should deride a lobbyist, but I, I plan on, you know, I'm creating a Food Fix Campaign, which is a nonprofit, along with an advocacy organization, to start to literally lobby senators, congressmen, key people in the administration around these issues and start to drive policy change.

Because in the UK, and you were talking about, I think in Australia, New Zealand, or in, I think in Asia, you were saying that you can't do certain things with the food, otherwise you'll go to prison, you'll go to jail, you'll get killed. Well, yeah, I mean, like in the.

UK, they don't have a lot of these dyes and, you know, Right? Yeah, so it's so funny, you know, the FDA, you know, is so influenced by the food industry. And I was once with the former head of the federal drug administration, Food and Drug Administration, Peggy Hamburg. Former. She was, you know, but then she was the FDA commissioner. Yeah. But now she's former. And I was at the World Economic Forum. I said, Peggy, how come, you know, we have so much trouble with getting advances in food labeling or dealing with toxic chemicals in our food or antibiotics in animal feed or, you know, it's like, she's like, well, when we try to make too aggressive change, Congress threatens to shut down our funding because of the food lobby.

They threaten to shut it down.

Yeah.

And then what? If they shut it down, what would happen?

Well, they, they're limited in their ability to do their job. And so the FTC, the same thing happened. In the 70s, there was a movement by the Federal Trade Commission to have negative education campaigns around sugar and how bad it was. But the Congress says, we're going to pull all your funding and shut you down if you do this. And so they pull back.

So.

For example, you ask a question about Asia. We have this thing called GRAS, which is generally recognized as safe. food additives. We have, you know, we have thousands of food additives. Only about five percent have actually been tested for safety in the US. Some of them are grandfathered in, right? So Crisco, for example, trans fat was grandfathered in as a safe food to eat. But it took 50 years for researchers to finally prove to the FDA that it wasn't safe because it was the basis of all processed food. Oh, right. Crisco shortening, you know, it shortens your life. Oh, my gosh. And, and so the they literally had to be sued by a scientist in order to actually turn it into a non-safe substance. And then of course they gave their food industry years and years to get out of the food. But in this country there's so many things that are used in our food supply that are banned in Europe like BHT, butylated hydroxytoluene, food additives, various dyes and something called azodicarbonamide which is a softener that makes bread more fluffy and soft. And it was just in Subway Sandwich. Our friend Vani Hari outed them and said, this is your yoga mat material and your Subway Sandwich. And they gotta take it out. And she got out. But the FDA still says it's fine to eat. And in Singapore, if you use it and you're a food producer, you get a $450,000 fine and 15 years in jail for putting it in the food. That same ingredient.

The same ingredient that anyone can use in the US right now.

In the US, yes. and most of the things that are safe, quote, safe here are banned in Europe. So it's like, yeah, they're not doing their job. And then antibiotics, you know, we have 30 million pounds of antibiotics are used in animal feed, we have about 37 million total. So about 7 million for humans to treat disease and 30 million for animals. Why? For growth. It's a growth factor. It makes them fat and it makes humans fat too. And it is used for prevention from overcrowding. And the FDA says, well, this isn't a good idea. I mean, nobody thinks it's a good idea. But they go, Would you please, pretty please not do it? It was a voluntary guideline that the FDA produced, not mandatory.

Please don't do it, yeah.

You have to have a vet certify that the animal's sick before you give them antibiotics.

Oh, man.

And now they, you know, continue to do it and just laugh. You know, they had voluntary The FDA, FTC put in voluntary guidelines around junk food marketing. Would you pretty please not advertise the bad stuff and advertise more good stuff? It was just voluntary and the food industry went ballistic and had it overturned. So even the voluntary guidelines are nullified.

Like, no, wow.

And it just, it's, I mean, sugar.

I mean, it's like, I'm the first one to raise my hand when I say, like, I love sugar. And it's my biggest vice, right? Everybody loves cookies and candies and cakes and Brownies and anything you can think of, I love it, right?

You know, we programmed all of that.

I don't know why I don't have diabetes.

So much sugar I've had in my whole life.

You can't be having that much, because you look pretty good. Well, I train hard, too. I go through waves. But as a kid, I would drink like 9, 10 Dr. Pepper's a day, I remember.

What? Like some days in the summer, you're.

Just sipping on President, is that what it is? Exactly. I would just, I mean, I would run around and work out and play.

Sports, but then I would just drink.

Because I thought that's what you were.

You were 16, 18, you know, like.

And I was like 9, 10, right? So I was like, but it was, you'd see it on commercials like your NBA superstar drinking Dr. Pepper or Sprite or whatever after on the basketball court. And I don't know if it was just like subconscious or just it tasted.

Good and you didn't think about it. I mean, this is where the food industry is so, I mean, I talk about in my book, food facts, but the food industry is so strategic about how it advances its mission and goals. And it does it through multiple channels. And I'm just going to go through them because it just, people just don't know. The celebrity endorsements, right? Yeah. First, you know, obviously, you know, celebrity endorsements, which is the obvious one, they co-op social groups. So they, they fund groups like the NAACP and Hispanic Federation. The, you know, African-American and Latino communities are the most affected by diabetes and obesity, and they co-opt them by funding them. I want to show the movie Fed Up at the King Center in Atlanta. And Bernice King, Martin's King's daughter, was all about it and she was excited. But once we got a schedule a few days later, I got a call that we couldn't show it. I'm like, why? She's because Coca-Cola funds the King Center. No. Yeah. I went to Spelman College, which is African-American women's college in Atlanta. And the dean said to me, half of the 18-year-olds coming into college have a chronic illness, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, 18-year-old women. And I'm like, why is there soda machines all over the campus? Why? It's just because Coke funds. No. And one of the people on the board of trustees is one of the highest executives at Coca-Cola. Oh, man. An African-American woman. It's like, so they co-op social groups. And that's why they, for example, oppose soda taxes, because they're in the funding of these, these big soda companies. And then of course they fund research. So they fund 12 times as much research, $12 billion worth of research a year, to study nutrition. So Gatorade gets studied by Pepsi. Really? Gatorade's the best thing in the world. It's not, it's just sugar, right?

Right.

So it corrupts and pollutes science. So people are confused. Why is there so much confusion about nutrition science? Third, they create front groups. call them spin doctors. So they create front groups that seem like they're independent groups like Crop Life.

Yeah.

Or, you know, like the Center for Consumer Freedom. Right. Or the American Council on Science and Health, which by the way is run by a bunch of doctors who suggest that pesticides are safe, that high fructose corn syrup is great for you, that smoking doesn't cause disease.

And, you know, why do they do, why would they do that?

Because they get paid a lot. They're funded by Monsanto and Big Food and Pepsi. Just look at their funders. And they're, I mean, they spend $30 million fighting GMO labeling in California, this front group. It was all funded by Monsanto, right? And then you, so we got these front groups. And then you have them co-opting scientists and academies. So the Nutrition Academies, the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, their funding in large part comes from industry. And so the Academy of Nutrition, Dietetics, which is our main nutrition association, 40% of their funding comes from the food industry. You know, they have sponsored, you know, lectures at their meetings that are, you know, when people say, well, high fructose corn syrup is good and diet drinks are good and like, it's just completely corrupted. And so these professional societies give guidelines and they're corrupt. And Dr. Ioannidis from Stanford, who's a scientist who looks at carefully at the research and conflicts of interest, says, you know, these professional societies like the American Heart Association and Diabetes Association should not be making guidelines. And then, so you've got all these ways in which they sort of screw things up. And then, of course, they are aggressive in advertising and marketing, which is illegal in most countries. And then they have lobbyists running around Washington driving policy that supports all what they do.

You.

So you've got this massive effort and it's often subversive and illegal and they, it's, you know, it's kind of shady.

Yeah.

I mean, here's an example. Like in California, there was a group that, you know, wanted to have anti, was, was it to promote GMO labeling? And they put in a ballot. What does that mean? Promote GMO label.

So that you have to label.

If you have a food, it has GMO in it, you have the label.

Yeah.

So on Coke, A can of Coca-Cola would say GMO corn.

Right. Kind of like in a cigarette box.

Where it says like this will kill you. Right. And your plant-based burger would have to say GMO burger.

Right. Right.

So food industry like that. So the grocery and your facts of America got together. Because it would really cost them huge amounts of money. People were aware of this stuff. They don't want to.

They stopped buying it.

Yeah. And by the way, why don't they label it though? That seems like the smart thing to do. By the way, most countries do have it.

Really?

I think 30 to 50 countries have it, including China and Russia, which are not known for transparency or democracy.

And.

It'S terrible. So they basically tried to put this thing now. The food industry got together with the Grocery Manufacturers of America, which is their trade group. And they're like, we can't have this. So they spent millions and millions of dollars fighting this ballot. And the way they did it was illegal because they got the food companies to donate in a way It should be transparent for campaign finance. You have to be all transparent. It was all secret. They got caught. The grocery manufacturers of America got fined $18 million, which is the largest fine ever for an infraction for campaign finance violations. But they appealed it and it was down to $6 million. And they appealed it. But it's like, and of course the ballot, because they did all that work, it didn't pass. So they were successful. So what's a few million dollars when they're have billions at stake. So they're so corrupt. And then in California, it was even worse. There were four soda taxes passed here in the 2016 election in, you know, in many states. Soda tax in many states. It's soda tax, right? So you pay an extra penny an ounce, whatever, for sugar, sweet and drink, which, by the way, has been proven to reduce consumption dramatically. It works. That's why you want to do it. And it works, and that's why the food industry is so against it. so what the American Beverage Association, which used to be called the American Soda Pop Association, did was they took, and this is crazy, they created a ballot measure to prohibit any local taxes from being passed unless it was a two-thirds majority, which would mean that you couldn't fund schools, police stations, fire stations, local stuff, and it would have crippled local governments all across the state. It had nothing to do with food. But then they went at the last minute before it was about to pass, and they spent millions pushing this, they went to Governor Jerry Brown, the most liberal governor we've probably ever had in America, Governor Moonbeam, they used to call him. And they're like, look, you pass this preemptive law, which means you can never pass another soda tax in California, and we'll pull this ballot measure. So basically they got Governor Brown to pass this preemptive law, which means that you're not allowed to go and pass another soda tax in California. Why? Why? Because they don't want soda taxes. It's crazy. It's crazy. And why did Governor Brown do it? Because he didn't want his entire state, local governments to be crippled by this new ballot measure that was about to pass. So it was all done behind closed doors. You can never tax again. You can't now in California. You can't. No, and they're doing this states. Can you change the law? Back, you could. It just takes more effort and energy. They're gonna have to, you know, but they're doing this in all across the country. It's a playbook that the tobacco industry used.

Wasn't tobacco, I mean, isn't cigarettes have a tax on them now?

They do. They do. There was a huge lawsuit that sort of changed everything, right? There was huge litigation and multi-billion dollar settlements and all kinds of restrictions that did happen. But food is more complicated because it's not cigarette is one thing. It's like soda, it's processed food, it's everything. So this is all the bad news. The good news is that you know, we can fix these problems. We can reverse climate change. We can reverse chronic disease. We can fix these dysfunctional food policies. We can, and some of the social injustice issues which we didn't talk about is related to food, we can actually help save our economy if we change the way we grow food, the way we process food, the way we distribute, market, eat it, and waste it. And we can do that. It's not like we need to invent some new technology. We have the ability to do it. We know what to do. The science is there. It just is going to take a grassroots movement and some political pressure to do it.

What would be the first steps that someone could take to help?

Well, I think, you know, it seems like such a big. It is. It is a little bit. So let's talk about some of the solutions. So we know, you know, food is causing chronic disease. It's destroying our economy. It's crippling our environment and killing all the pollinators and all biodiversity and. causing social injustice because it targets poor minorities who suffer from problems. It prevents kids from learning in school because they're eating all this crap. It threatens our national security, creates political instability. So we know all these things. But the good news is that by fixing the food system, we can solve these. And how do we do it? Well, it's going to need citizen action, it's going to need business innovation, and it's going to need policy change. And of course, other philanthropists and governments to help get on board. and I think that's what's really exciting to me because there's so much hope. So for example, on a personal level, you can shift what you eat and what you do to drive change in the marketplace. Why are companies like Nestle and Unilever and Danone creating regenerative ag programs within their supply chain? Why are they trying to up the quality of their food and take out chemicals? Because consumers are demanding it.

Well, they're buying companies like Primal Kitchen.

That have like health- Like Whole Foods, right? Bought Primal Kitchen, which is basically a, you know, Whole Foods, you know, really high quality nutritious product with no junk in it. Exactly. Right? So, and yes, that's part of the problem. They're buying up these companies. But I think they're seeing the change and there's a positive change. I mean, General Mills just committed a million acres to regenerative agriculture. That's incredible. That's happened because people are demanding different things by voting with their fork, voting with their wallet. And I think we can also do things like join communities part of agriculture associations, which gets food delivered to your house from a local farm. You can shop at farmers markets. You can use a company like Thrive Market that sources regeneratively raised products or Mariposa Ranch where you can buy direct from the ranch, regeneratively raised meats. You can actually start a compost pile, which will help end food waste because we don't throw out all our scraps. If you live in an apartment like this, you can still have an apartment little composting bucket that then you can take to, you know, local compost place. Interesting. In some states, like in California and San Francisco, Mayor Newsom, who's now governor, mandated composting. So you go to the airport in San Francisco, there's a compost bucket there. Wow, that's cool. There's compost, there's mandatory composting. You can't throw your garbage in states like, in countries like France, you get a fine and you can go to jail if you throw out your garbage. In Massachusetts, they passed a law that if you produce more than a ton of food waste every week, then you can't throw it out. So it's now created side businesses where Whole Foods and other grocery chains are giving their waste to farmers. And these dairy farmers who are struggling to make money because dairy consumption going down. I mean, it's nut milk, right?

Right, right.

They partnered with this sort of venture firm, I think, Vanguard, and they created this model of anaerobic incinerators, which essentially is a digester, an anaerobic digester, where they throw in the food waste, they throw in some cow manure from the farm, and it produces energy that creates electricity for 1,500 homes on this one farm. In Europe, there are 17,000 of these anaerobic digesters. We should mandate that nationally. Sure. So you can actually do something good with your waste. So there's a lot of things we can do. You can actually be an activist in your schools. I know so many people around the country who've been activists in their schools and get their school food changed. And it can be done with school nutrition guidelines. It can be done within budget. There's a group called Conscious Kitchens, which creates a template for schools to do this. There's something called My Way Cafe in Boston. where they've done this at scale. So there's so many opportunities we're really in your workplace, you can be an activist and say, let's get the soda out of here. I mean, universities, Cleveland Clinic is one of the first to get all sugar-sweetened beverages out.

And there's University of California, San Francisco. Isn't it crazy that hospitals used to.

Have- oh my God, I mean, they still do have like all the vending machines with sugar candy, with sick patients. Oh my God, yeah. When I went to, when I was working in the inner city hospital, in Springfield, Massachusetts as an ER doc. I literally like, you know, working hard, you always have time to go because the cafeteria is open from 8 to 12. Grab something real quick. 12 to 1 and 6 to 7. So like the only thing that was open from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. was McDonald's. Yeah. And I would go get the burrito thing because I thought that was a little healthier. But it was like, it was terrible. And, you know, so there's a lot of things that institutions can do. There's something called the Good Food Purchasing Program where Institutions can buy food in ways that are good for their employees, that are good for the animals, that are raised in humane, sustainable ways that are good for the climate and so forth, good for the farm workers. So a lot of things that people can do. And I have a whole action guide. If you go to foodfixbook.com, which is where you can find out about the book, you can pre-order it. You also get an entire action guide that guides you through all the things that you can do in your own life. And then of course you can vote with your vote. You know, people are so apathetic when it comes to politics and we live in a democracy, we take it for granted. You can change it by voting. You can, because it matters, you know, and I think 50% of people don't vote and often people vote who might have different values than you and you think it doesn't matter and it does matter. I mean, you know, I had worked for me at Cleveland Clinic, this young African-American woman, you know, who grew up, you know, very poor and I said, why are you voting? She goes, no, I'm not gonna vote. Why aren't you gonna vote? It doesn't matter. It's like irrelevant. But you know, we look at what happened in Alabama. The African American women in Alabama went out to vote and they voted for a Democrat. And that was like, I don't know when the last time they had a Democrat in Alabama was. Because they stood up and asked for something different. Changed. Wow. So there's a great website called foodpolicyaction.org where you can look at your congressman and senator, what their voting record is on food and ag policy. And then you can write to them. There's all mechanisms for being activists to communicate. And they even ousted two congressmen who were in the pocket of big food by a big social media campaign based on using citizen activism. And that's how things happen, right? We think our voice doesn't matter, but look at what happened, look at abolition, right? Our entire economy, our entire agricultural system was based on slavery. It ended. Women's vote, you know, It, women got the vote because they stood up and said, hey, it took, you know, another 50 years to get civil rights. Civil, I mean, women's rights, but civil rights, same thing. Gay rights, same thing. You know, it didn't start in Congress, it ended in Congress. So we need to actually create grassroots efforts and everybody needs to be empowered to do this. And that's really what the book is about. And then, of course, we need been in business innovation, right? Like these are anaerobic incinerators. It solves food waste. It solves the methane from the cow poop. It solves the economic issues of farmers, 'cause they make 100 grand a year. And it produces renewable energy and electricity out of poop and garbage. It's pretty amazing. So it's like a what? So there's all kinds of great business things that are happening. There's a company called, I think it's a private equity group called private, it's called Farmland LP. And basically they buy up conventional farms. They convert them to regenerative farms, which basically restores the soil like we talked about. and they turned the profits from single digits to more than double digits. So their first fund had a 67% profit. And then there's this thing they called ecosystem services. So every year we use up natural capital, right? We take out resources from the earth, plants, biodiversity, mineral, everything, right? Soil, water, and we use up about $125 trillion a year of natural capital, which is about 40 trillion more than the global economy. And most of the way we farm now depletes our natural capital. With conventional farming, destroys the soil, water, pesticides, chemicals, pollinators, bees, blah, blah, blah, chronic disease, they create regenerative farms which actually put in $21 million of benefits to the environment, whereas the conventional farms will in the same amount of farming we'll take out $8 million worth of benefit.

Wow.

So it's a win-win-win. And this farmer in North Dakota, who had, Gay Brown, who had his farm decimated by hail and bad weather and was about to go bankrupt. And he started researching and found out about regenerative ag. And he started to convert his 5,000 acre farm in North Dakota to regenerative ag. And now he's built 29 inches of soil. He doesn't need water. He doesn't use pesticides, fertilizers, chemicals. He produces more food on the same land. It's a very diverse set of crops that restores ecosystems, restores pollinators, restores soil organic matter, and he makes 20 times the amount of money as his neighbor. And produces more food, better food, with less inputs in ways that restore the environment. So this is a scalable thing. It's innovating, yeah. Yeah, it's innovating. And I think this is a model that needs to be grown. And yes, we need incentives from the government, we need business investments like these guys from Farmland LP. So whatever way we need to do it. And then of course we need government policy change. And that's the hardest part, right? Because people go, Washington, it's a show and nothing's gonna change. I give up and it's just, but there are things getting done and there is a way to change things. And the people you elect do care about getting reelected and they want your vote and if they know that you care about stuff, they will change things. They'll change it. They will change things.

They want to be in power.

Yes, they want to be in power. They want to stay there. So we can actually be active and I'm working with a group that is an incredible strategy group that launched Bono's ONE campaign, which raised about $100 billion through congressional appropriations for AIDS and poverty relief, Democrat, Republican, bipartisan effort, and they know how to make sausage in Washington. And I'm working with this crew and we're raising money to actually change the policies that matter. You know, we need to start supporting regenerative ag, we need to implement policies that create food as medicine to treat chronic disease. We need to get rid of the dysfunctional food policies like food stamps, which, you know, pays for seven billion in soda. That's horrible. You know, like, you know, we need to get school lunches better. We need to end all the food marketing to kids. And these things are not going to be easy. We need better food labels so people know what the heck they're eating instead of, like, you know, it says 40 grams of sugar. Nobody knows that. 10 teaspoons, you know? So like, there's so many things we can do and we're working on a very focused strategy. I'm super excited because, you know, one, unless you identify the problem, you know, you can't fix it. And two, once you do, you can mobilize grassroots, you can, you know, pressure congressmen and senators, you can do all sorts of things to change policy. And I think it's gotta happen here.

It'S gotta happen globally. It's a global problem.

Yeah.

It's huge.

So they can get the- Sorry, I get carried away.

No, it's great, man. Keep going here on my monologue. You got all the resources and the information on this at foodfixbook.com, right?

Yes.

So they can go there, they can get free downloads, they can buy the book there. I'm curious, you said something about nut milk and about dairy. Has dairy been declining?

Yeah, dairy in the last five years? Yes, dairy consumption.

You know, it's been declining dramatically.

Do you know the percentages or the-- yeah, I think over the last few years, it's gone down about 25%. Borden, which is a big meal producer, has been around since 18, I think 87, has gone bankrupt. What?

Yeah.

And a lot of these milk producers, now people are still eating cheese, they're eating yogurt, they're eating cheese, but actual milk consumption has gone down and then the milk has gone up.

Why is that? Is that because of education?

Is that because of disease? I think probably a lot of these, I mean 75% of the population is lactose intolerant.

Yeah.

So they don't feel good.

I used to drink so much milk every day.

And how did you feel? Fine.

I always had like a stuffy nose.

Right.

I was always tired and workouts and practices. Like I was always blowing my nose.

Actually, milk is nature's perfect food, but only if you're a cat. I mean, we're the only species that consumes milk after weaning. There are very few populations that seem to thrive on milk, the Masai and some of the Northern Europeans. The other problem with the dairy we're eating today is not the dairy we ate.

Right?

There are heirloom cows. I mean, you travel around the world, you travel, I travel, and you go see these really weird looking cows in other countries. Like, what is that? And it's a cow. But these are, you know, complex breeds that have different types of protein in the milk, different types of casing. And the, the Holstein, the sort of, the homogenized cow. I don't mean homogenized milk, but everything, they're all the same. Not the same. And they're fertilized by, like, this three bulls, I they get the sperm, and it's like they're all the same. And they have bred out the beneficial or the safe casing, which is A2 casing, and then A1 casing, which causes more inflammation, more congestion, more irritable bowel, more autoimmunity, more skin issues. So people are getting that milk isn't always the best. And, and I think then, you know, people are eating nut milks now.

They're not, are those good for you, though? Because a lot of people have still like skin problems.

Yeah.

Well, nut milks are problematic.

So, one, almond milk is great, but you know, almonds are-- you- can't have.

Too much of it. I started to get like a rash after it. Like I switched from milk years ago and I started to get like eczema, like a little eczema right here and there. And then when I stopped drinking it, it would go away and I was.

Like, huh, maybe I'm drinking so much almond butter, almond milk, everything had carrageenan in it, which is causes lanky gut. You get lanky gut, you get eczema. So it's a thickener they put in into these milks. They put a lot of sugar in these milks. They put a lot of gums in these milks.

So you have to be very careful about which one you're having.

Because it's healthier doesn't mean it's healthy. Yeah, and I don't want to, again, drinking tons of soy milk. It could be GMO soy, it could be glyphosate. If not, it could be, you know, getting huge amounts of these phytoestrogens, which our bodies aren't really meant to get. Eating traditional foods and traditional to be fine. Tofu, miso, tempeh, those are fine. Really? Those are how people have consumed soy over millennia. But not 10 pounds a day and not three gallons of... No, I had a stepdaughter once, she loved soy milk. She was drinking it all day and she started like at nine years old getting little breasts. And I'm like, well, that's not good. You know? Yeah. And so yeah, we have to be smart about it. And I think, you know, if you're using a little here and there, but I don't recommend people drink it as a drink.

Really?

You know, if you want to put.

A little coffee, almond milk or soy.

Milk, or macadamia milk, coconut milk. Don't drink it.

No, I mean, I think have it sometimes. You have a glass once a week, maybe it's okay, but not like drinking glasses every day.

Yeah, probably not. But you could add it to things. Sure, you know, put in a smoothie, you know, you can mix them up, you know, it's macadamia milk, you know, cashew milk, there's, you know, hazelnut milk, all kinds of milks now. So, I like, you know, I like macadamia nuts. Macadamia nuts are so good. It's like sweet tasting. Yeah, you can make your own nut milks. I have cookbooks, like food, what should I cook and others. Teach you how to make your own.

Nut milks at home.

You soak the nuts, you put them.

In a blender with some water, there's.

No additives, ingredients, sugar. It's great. But not too much of it, is what you're saying. Yeah, that's the challenge. It's like anything. Except look at the calories. Drink a lot of water. That's better. Yeah, listen, anything can kill you, right? Water can kill you. marathon runners who overhydrate, their body is diluted, their blood is diluted with too much water, and they get what we call low sodium or hyponatremia, and that causes seizures and death. So yeah, you can die from drinking too much water. So it's all about eating stuff in complex amounts and in a complex variety of foods.

So a variety of food is good.

We've seen 800 species of plants.

That'S good. Not having the same, like, three things every day.

Listen, most of our diet is, is corn, soy and corn, soy and wheat. Most of our diet, you know, and, and in other countries, rice in there. And, and those are, you know, all mostly turn into processed food. I think we used to have, you know, like I said, 800 species of plants we ate. Now there's 12. We've lost 90% of all our edible plants. half of all our livestock species. We've lost them. God, stink.

What do you mean?

Those plants are gone? Gone?

I mean, there are- we can't create-.

There'S no seeds anymore. There are seed banks that are there.

There's seed vaults.

Oh, those are- Alaska, they're valuable. Yeah, the USDA has a lot of seeds. Actually, a friend of mine was trying to develop different varieties of plants. I was trying to get some old seeds and got to the USDA and by accident he got a packet which was numbered like 43216 whatever. And he's like called him and said what is this? Like because he was working with an agricultural guy to grow healthy food and go these are these Himalayan buckwheat Himalayan buckwheat which is kind of a rare buckwheat from the Himalayas. It grows in really rough conditions and it's one of the most nutrient phytochemically rich dense foods high protein, low starch, full of phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals on the planet.

And it's almost extinct.

Pretty much. Maybe there's a few villages in Himalayas that grow it. So, you know, how we bring that back? How do we start to create different sort of more beneficial grains? There's Kernza wheat, which has been developed by Russ Jackson out in West Jackson out in the Midwest, which is a perennial wheat that grows roots that go tens of feet into the ground, breaks up the soil, creates organic matter, and creates incredibly delicious wheat that's heirloom wheat. It's actually a new form, but it's actually doesn't have all the gluten in it. It's less inflammatory, less sugar.

Oh man.

So we need to kind of bring back some of these different kinds of foods in these complex farms that actually restore soil, restore human health.

Amen.

Yeah, I love this foodfixbook.com and get.

All the information there. They can get the book.

Yeah.

Your podcast has a lot of amazing information as well. People want to learn more. We're in doctors pharmacy.

And the pharmacy. The doctor's Pharmacy is the podcast. Yes. And then when's the new.

Are you talking about the new product as well or.

No, we, you know, you mentioned it. So, you know, I, I, you know, I spent 30 years doing functional medicine and just seeing power of food to actually heal people. And, you know, people often don't understand how close they are to feeling good or how bad they feel. It can be like one or two days switch.

Yeah.

I mean, Dr. Hyman, I didn't know.

How bad I was feeling until I started feeling good. And I was. I was joking. I see. I had FLC syndrome, which is when you feel like crap. Right.

And it's just like the information, the.

Pain, the achiness, the. Like you said, you had congestion. Nose. Your digestion is not right. You have a little headache, sluggish, you have brain. You're tired, you're achy, you know, sleep well, you have skin problems, blurry eyes. All that stuff. And people are like, oh, this is normal. This is just normal. I have an irritable bowel. I have sinus issues. I'm like, my joints are a little sore. No, it's your food. It's what you're eating. And so for in 10 days, you do a 10-day reset. It literally like, it's like when your computer's not working, you hit the reset and it reboots everything. It's like a reboot. And then you get to see within 10 days how powerfully food Impacts you. Yes, and then you go, well, now I can choose. Now I can feel like crap or I can feel great, but now I know. Yeah, and then a more serious form of what we call feel like crap, which is FLC syndrome called FLS. Right, exactly. That's when you go to the doctor. And the first time I ever created anything because I really want people to have the experience, it's called, it's a company called Pharmacy, and you go to getpharmacy.com with an F, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, and you get the 10-day reset. It's a whole program that's really integrated and it's powerful and it involves lifestyle change and diet change and the right nutrients and supplements and shakes.

It's just awesome. -Wow.

-10 days. -10 days. -Reset it. -I mean, I didn't do it. You know, I came back from the holidays, you know, and I try to do well. I cook Christmas dinner. I'm Jewish.

Yeah.

-My wife's family and I made it all healthy. But, you know, when it was their mom's house, we were here, it was like, a little ice cream, a little this, And I didn't go too far, but I didn't feel great and I came back and I just did the whole 10-day reset. It's like I feel amazing. You don't crave bad stuff. Your energy's up, your sleep's better, your.

Joints don't hurt, your digestion's good. I gotta get it.

I gotta get it for me and the team.

Make sure we reset it.

Amazing. So, getpharmacy.com.

Yes. Food Fix Book. FoodFixBook.com and your podcast. Dr. Fx's Pharmacy. Yeah. We need everybody on the team here to fix this food system because it's an existential threat. if we don't do it, we're screwed. I mean, we're just, you know, we know the decline of the Roman Empire was because of some bad stuff that was going on there. Well, our food is the decline of our empire. Really?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, for all sick and dead, we can't do anything. I mean, yeah, I mean, the amount of the amount of disability and suffering. A lot of pain. Mental illness, mental illness connected to food. Depression. Depression, obesity, chronic disease. It limits our productivity, our ability to engage in life. We all want to feel good. We want to have energy. We want to be able to love the people we love in our life, to do the work we want, to have the mission we want, to be energetic and engage. And I just want to sit around all day and binge on Netflix, right? I mean, watching Netflix is fine, but not in a way that avoids life because you feel so bad. And I think what's frustrating for me, Louis, is that I see so much needless suffering. You know, some things we can't change. We can't change, you know, Natural disasters. You know, I can't end war. But this is a solvable problem.

Yeah, solvable.

Yeah, totally fixable. Love it.

Check it out. We'll link up everything below on the resource page as well. Dr. Mark Hyman, appreciate you, man. You're the best.

All right.

Appreciate it.

Sure.

There you have it, my friend. Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about your health, to learn about the economy and to learn about our planet. There's so much going on with our food system and you have the power to make a change by making different decisions with what you eat and researching the things that you're eating. Again, every decision we make has a bigger ripple effect on the planet and our community. If you enjoyed this and you know people that would love this interview, share it with a friend, share it on social media, tag me @lewis howes. and lewishowes.com/916 for the link to share out to your friends on this episode with Dr. Mark Hyman. Make sure to check out all the good stuff about him at the show notes and check out his show and books as well. I'm so grateful for you. You know, we're learning together, we're growing together. And those that have a learning growth mindset typically earn more. They typically are happier. They are typically healthier. and are in better relationships. So continue to show up on this podcast every single time we drop an episode. Make sure you subscribe, be a part of the community on social media. Make sure to check out all the different things we have going on at lewishouse.com and Napoleon Hill said, no person may enjoy outstanding success without good health. I leave you with good health, lots of love, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do Something great.

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