Fix Your Food to Fix Your Brain with Dr. Mark Hyman & Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. Your question for today is a big one. How do you fix your food so you could fix your brain? You know, we've done episodes about food, that the food you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. And to continue this conversation and go in depth, I'm very honored today to have a very special friend and a special guest. back on our show today. He is head of strategy and innovation at the Cleveland Clinic Functional Medicine. He's the author of 12, that is right, 12 New York Times bestselling books, and his latest book is called Food Fix. It is a must-read for everybody who eats, especially—

Well, I think most people eat.

Everyone should read this book because it really matters, and I want to thank you for coming back on the show.

Thank you.

You are a man on a real mission. You are unstoppable. You are in every city. It's remarkable because we've known each other for close to 10 years, and I always see you—

More.

Yeah, more than that, and I see you everywhere, on television, on these stages, and your mission really is nutrition.

Yeah, well, it's to change the world through getting people healthy and fixing our food and fixing our health and fixing the planet, fixing everything that matters. Because if you care about your gray matter, like you said, food matters, and food matters to everything that also matters to us.

Yeah, that's very true. And eating is such an intimate experience. You know, the challenge though— I saw this quote on social media, and everyone should follow Mark there. It's just like you're saying, that it's There's no such thing as junk food. There's just like junk, and then there's food, right?

Well, I always say, you know, when you go in a grocery store and there's a health food section, what does that make the rest of the food in there?

Exactly, exactly. So what are we gonna— what do we do about this? Everyone who's listening at home, they're watching on video right now, they know they should eat better, but you know, there are forces out there that are really not setting us up to win. And we really need to take agency and responsibility for it.

Thank you, Jim, for that question. Well, I'm a doctor. I see patients, and I've been doing it for 30 years. And I've learned over time that the most important thing that causes so much of my patients' suffering is food. But it's also the cure. Food is medicine.

Yeah.

But then I realized I could sit in my office all day, but if we live in an environment where it's hard to access, find, and eat good food, How are people going to really change? And it occurred to me that I have to think about the why. Why do people eat the way they do? Because they're surrounded by food produced by a food system that's not working. And I'm like, well, why do we have that food system? Well, it's our food policies. It's the policies that drive the kind of food that's produced, you know, processed, marketed, distributed, eaten, wasted, right? All those things matter. And I'm like, well, why do we have those food systems we have? They said, well, it's really our food policies that are caused by the food industry. They really are the dominant force driving the education of our lawmakers that drives them to make policies that they think are okay. So I just talked to a friend who told me a fascinating story about how the lobbyists work. There was a testimony in Congress about the dietary guidelines, which I've been increasingly limiting the amount of sugar that they suggest is acceptable, which is a good thing. And there was a woman speaking about cranberries, and she basically was saying the antibiotic overuse has led to the increase of urinary tract infections and antibiotic resistance, and we need people to eat more cranberries. But the only way to get people to eat more cranberries is cranberry juice.

Oh.

So we need to raise the limits on the sugar so we can get more sugar in the cranberry juice, 'cause they're bitter, So people can eat the cranberry juice. And I'm like, and this is what they're telling lawmakers is the solution to the 30 million pounds of antibiotics that are used in animal agriculture that causes the antibiotic resistance. I'm like, this is crazy, right?

Right.

So that's the problem. And I think I realized in order to solve my patients' health in my office, I can't do it there. I can't do it in the clinic or the hospital. I have to do it in the kitchen. in the grocery store, at the restaurant, on the farm. And that's why I started thinking about the bigger context of food and the food system. And that's what this book is about, Food Fix. It's about how do we save our health, our economy, our communities, and our planet one bite at a time? Because people don't understand the broad implications of food, right? And people care on this podcast about the brain, and I'll get to that, but number one, it causes chronic disease. Obesity, diabetes, cancer. Alzheimer's, cancer, but also mental illness. Mental illness is so rampant in this country.

Right.

We see divisiveness, we see conflict, we see depression, we see anxiety, we see ADD, we see memory issues, we see all these things, increasing rates of Alzheimer's. And not all of it is caused by food, but it's a huge factor. And so if you care about your brain, you have to care about food, and you have to care about the food system that produces it. And we need to fix that 'cause it has broad consequences. It threatens our kids' academic futures. Kids who are eating Doritos and Coke for breakfast or not at all or eating processed food can't focus, their test scores are lower, their grades are lower, their absenteeism is higher, their ability to earn a good living is reduced, they're increasing risk of disease, and their lives are threatened by the food they're eating.

Yeah. We get this all the time in our community. We have a lot of parents who are watching and listening to this, and they're saying that their children aren't learning the way that they used to.

Yeah, I mean, one of the studies in the book that I talk about is a study of children who come from poor communities who eat processed food. Their brains are 10% smaller. Their IQs are 7 points lower, which is a lot. And this is what we're doing to our children. So that's just one of the factors, but it also contributes to not only the chronic disease and this cognitive and behavioral and emotional issues, but it also threatens our economy because the costs are staggering for mental illness and chronic disease over the next 35 years, both direct and indirect costs. It's $95 trillion. That's a lot of dollars. If you took those as dollar bills and you stacked them one on top of each other, it would go over 6 billion miles. Now, just to put that in perspective, there's a NASA spaceship that's been traveling for 13 years to get past Pluto. at 36,000 miles an hour for 13 years, and it's only gone 4 billion miles. So we need, you know, that's how much money it is. And it's almost the entire world economy, uh, that we're gonna spend on this. So it's economic imperative. Medicare is gonna run outta money in 5 years. Half of our federal budget will be needed for Medicare and Medicaid within 5 years. I mean, this is, this is an imminent issue. And then you've got the environmental issues and climate issues. People don't understand that the food system is the number one cause of climate change. And then climate change conversely impacts our ability to grow food, right? If you have the floods, for example, in the Midwest with soil that can't hold water 'cause it's industrial farming that depletes the soil, you have these floods and we've got a million acres destroyed, which is why President Trump had to give $20 billion in aid to the farmers To survive. So we're in this horrible cycle. So it's climate, it's environment, it's social justice issues, it's poverty, violence, mental health. All these things are related, and I think food is the problem, but it's also the solution.

That's good to hear. And so what, for somebody who's listening to this right now, we all could play a part in this. How do we, I mean, it sounds like such a grandiose challenge of epic proportions, But little by little, a little becomes a lot.

Yeah.

So what are some of those little things that somebody could do to be able to begin to have this food thing?

Well, it starts with all of us, right, individually, and that's the place to start. I think your work is so good because it helps people train their brain to do things they didn't think they could do and optimize their brain function. But I always say it's a lot harder to be focused and attentive when your brain is fueled by junk.

Right.

And if you actually figure out that your brain is connected to your body, And that it requires feeding and care, then all of a sudden it's a game changer. So you could do all your techniques, right? But if you're eating processed food and soda and you're in a brain fog because of it, good luck. I mean, you're going to get better somewhat, but it's not going to be as good as if you—

Yeah, you and I have talked about this, um, where it's kind of like this metaphor of a computer where I could teach somebody how to read faster or remember names or pick up another language or memorize their TED Talk, but if their hardware is— if they have high blood sugar, I mean, what's that doing to someone's brain?

Yeah, remember in the old computers you had to defrag your computer?

Right.

Because it would all slow down, it wouldn't work because it was just too much crap in there. And then you had to hit defrag and it defragged. Now it does it automatically, I think. But it's like you need to defrag your brain. And it's important because if you care about your health and your brain, and you fix that, you're going to make choices about food that's going to have a ripple effect, right?

Yes.

So if you say, I'm not going to have chemicals that may be bad for me, like glyphosate, for example, which is an herbicide used on soybeans and wheat and other crops, then you stop doing that. It sends a message to the food industry that they listen to, right? So Kellogg's understands that they're being outed in their Cheerios for having more glyphosate than vitamin A or D. And so if you're feeding your kids Cheerios thinking it's a healthy breakfast, you're actually poisoning them. So Kellogg's declared on their own without government regulation, we are going to eliminate glyphosate from our supply chain. That's because individuals said enough, I'm not gonna buy that stuff anymore.

And we vote with our dollar.

And our fork. Yeah, so I think it's really important to make those choices that are good for you and your brain and that will have ripple effects. So choosing whole foods, stopping buying processed or ultra-processed food, which is 60% of our calories, eating foods that actually are regenerative, that restore the soil, restore the healthy ecosystems, and there's a whole science of how we do that.

What about organic food?

Organic food is important, but regenerative is the next step. It's regenerative organic, which essentially puts the emphasis on creating healthy soil, on conserving water, on not using chemicals, on really specific farming practices that help. And if you buy that, guess what? More people will do it. And now General Mills committed 1 million acres to regenerative ag. So our behavior matters. And then you'll see the benefits. You know, I just wanted to share a few statistics about the impact, 'cause people think, oh yeah, brain, whatever. But there's been amazing, elegant studies done in prisons and juvenile delinquent centers, and you have a captive audience and you can control their food. Now most people don't want to be locked up and fed a certain diet. Now they volunteered obviously for the studies, but when you look at the data, it's just striking, 'cause it's sort of this magical sort of set of circumstances where you actually can have volunteers who are willing to change and do it in a controlled way where you know exactly what they're eating, 'cause most times people will cheat and eat whatever they want.

Right.

So you've done studies for example in prisons, Giving kids a multivitamin and fish oil reduces violent crime in prisons by 37%.

Wow.

Yeah. And if you look at, if you look, for example, at the violence and bullying and aggression we have in this country, it's pretty scary. You can see in certain studies, they look at the behavior in kids and juvenile delinquents and so forth. There was a 91% reduction in bad behavior and things like antisocial behavior, such as Fighting and threats, vandalism, being disrespectful, disorderly contact, defiance, obscenities, refusal to work, endangering others, and all kinds of other stuff.

91%.

91%. I mean, it's crazy. And then another study looked at 12 months with these kids, 3,000 incarcerated youth replaced junk food with healthy options, and they were— and they got rid of sugary and processed food. And there was a 25% reduction in assaults, 21% A 50% reduction in antisocial behavior, a 75% reduction in the use of restraints, and get this, 100% reduction in suicides. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death in kids between 10 and 19.

These aren't little incremental numbers.

No, it's dramatic, it's dramatic. We see this over and over and over again in large and small studies where you see Changes in violence, changes in behavior, changes in depression. There's a study called the SMILES Study, which is a randomized controlled trial of a healthy diet compared to a processed food diet, and there was a dramatic reduction in depression as a treatment for depression.

Wow.

And anxiety. What can you eat to fix anxiety? So if you're anxious and you're depressed and you have brain fog and you're malnourished, how are you gonna actually make your brain work to do the things you wanna do, and why should it be important to you? Because if you want to be living a satisfied, fulfilled life, you have to be able to be present, to be focused, to engage with your family, to be able to learn, to be able to show up for your work, to show up for your friends. I mean, how do you do that when you have FLC syndrome? That's when you feel like crap, right?

That's a technical term. Yeah, there's a more advanced medical condition called FLS, but So what we're talking about here is those remarkable results that were taking place in this community. Imagine if we extrapolate that and that was happening in people's homes.

Yeah.

You know, across the country. And so what would your message be? I'm curious if you were talking to some of these executives for these food companies that are producing a lot of these high-sugar processed foods, What would your, what would your message be to someone who's watching that or listening to that now?

Yeah, well, actually, I've had these conversations with Nestlé and with Pepsi and with large— the largest food companies out there. And the truth is, they understand that the marketplace is shifting. They understand that consumers want different things. They see the millennials coming on board who aren't going to tolerate any of the junk that they're making, and they're making changes. Campbell's Soup Announced it was gonna be non-GMO, you know.

And it's become— and it becomes economically viable for them to do so.

Yes, yeah. And in fact, regenerative agriculture produces more food, better food, makes the farmers more money, puts soil back in the dirt, basically organic matter, conserves water, increases, you know, pollinators and biodiversity. It's kind of a win-win-win, and it's Profitable. So, uh, and that's key, it's profitable. Uh, there's a company called Indigo that pays— figured out how to use tech to measure ecosystem benefits, how soil is restored and all these things, and, and they pay the farmers a premium. Uh, and, and another, another, um, another example is, is a private equity company that's figured out if you buy a conventional farm and convert it to a regenerative farm, you literally can increase the profits by 6 or 7-fold. So they used to have single-digit profits on the conventional farm. Now they have 60, 70% returns on the farms and they add value to the environment. They add $21 million of value, whereas those conventional farms before were taking out $8 million of benefit from the environment, using up resources and water and destroying soil and so forth.

So here on that, that other option is better because it's a net positive.

Yeah, it's a win-win for everybody. Better food for you, better for your brain, better for your health, better for the economy, better for the farmers, better for the environment, better for climate. It's sort of a no-brainer. And it's like, you know, if you wanna solve the problem, you have to go to the root cause or literally the root or the seed. Start with the seed and go to the root. And it's the seeds we grow. And I think, you know, we've gotten into the place where now the majority of what people eat is just, you know, 4 to 6 crops. It's wheat, corn, soy, rice. You know, it's very few crops around the world that are the majority of our food. And we've seen 800 species of plants— there's a 90% drop in plant, edible plant species in extinction because of what we do. But they're, but they're in these heirloom vaults. But these, these are so powerful. These are superfoods. People say grains are bad. Well, what grains? Yeah, the industrial processed grains for sure. But there's something called Himalayan Tartary buckwheat, which is a superfood. It's grown at high elevations in the Himalayas that is high in protein, low in starch, full of phytochemicals that heal your body, and nutrients and fiber. I mean, it's an incredible food. And yet, you know, we don't get to eat that stuff. And that's good for your brain, it's good for your health, and it helps restore the environment. It's, it's all these benefits. So we need to sort of combine, you know, modern scientific innovation and technologies and agricultural advances with sort of ancient and sort of combine the best of those practices into a new way of thinking about how we grow food and how we process, distribute, sell, market, eat, and even waste food.

I hear you. You know, for me, this conversation, you hear this phrase that ignorance is bliss. And I don't feel that right now in this conversation. Some people just don't wanna know so they could just be ignorant and blissed out. But ignorance is not bliss.

You might wanna know if your house is on fire.

Exactly, ignorance is pain. Ignorance is suffering. Not knowing the information in this book, where— because it's— I could see somebody listening or watching this wanting to turn an eye or an ear somewhere else because they don't— it's, it's not positive news, but there is a— there could be a positive ending to this.

Of course.

Because to take responsibility as an individual or a family, a community, a nation, you know, as, as our world, we all, we all play that part.

It's called Food Fix, not Food Apocalypse.

This is good.

And the point of the book is a series of actions that follow on from the problems. So how do we fix agriculture? We need regenerative agriculture. How do we fix healthcare? We need to incorporate food as medicine. How do we fix our dietary guidelines? We need to sort of get science back in the game. How do we fix SNAP or food stamps? We put nutrition back in the guidelines around food stamps so you can't Buy 75% of what's bought with that is industrial processed food. I mean, I think Coca-Cola is the biggest welfare recipient in the country with billions and billions of dollars of soda that are bought through food stamps.

So what can— I want to ask you before I ask you the solutions, which are many in the book, what is like a day relative to food? What does a day look like for you and your family generally? And I know you're always traveling around and such, but what's— how are you interacting with food?

A perfect day would be, you know, wake up. I try to do time-restricted eating, so I'll eat early and I might not eat till 10 or 11. I'll have a cup of coffee in the morning, and then we have what we call Alkagizer Shake, which is essentially tons of veggies in a Vitamix.

Okay.

So just like a liquid salad, basically.

Like, what are you throwing in there?

Oh, everything, you know, kale, cucumbers, celery, avocados, you know.

All the brain foods.

Cilantro, yeah, like pretty much Not really sweet at all, but it's kind of really nice and savory and delicious. Uh, and then, um, you know, maybe have a big salad for lunch with a can of wild salmon or sardines and nuts, pumpkin seeds. Dinner usually is, you know, just, uh, really tons of veggies. I'll order 3, 4 sides of veggies if I'm out. If I'm home, I'll cook, you know, 3 or 4 vegetable dishes with a small side of a sort of micro-sized protein.

Mm-hmm.

And, and I'll sometimes have plant-based proteins, or I'll have grass regeneratively grazed beef or sustainable fish or pasture-raised chicken.

Now, what happens if you're out and about and you're at a restaurant?

I try to be a restaurant whisperer.

A restaurant whisperer.

And I've learned how to hunt and gather wherever I am. So I'm pretty good at sniffing out restaurants that are more focused on whole foods. For example, I was in San Francisco and I found a restaurant called The Perennial, which unfortunately closed, But the whole restaurant was based on the principle of regenerative agriculture. So everything there was a regenerative food. Mm-hmm. So they made bread, but it was from Kernza wheat, which is a perennial wheat with roots that go down feet and feet and feet and build soil that are super nutrient-dense, low gluten. So I'm like, wow, this is amazing, or grass-fed beef. You can't always find that, but I try to find restaurants. Like I'm going tonight to a place, and I live in New York, so it's easier. And you can't always be perfect. Sometimes you just gotta eat whatever. But I also bring a day's worth of food with me in my bag. So I have always, you know, grass-fed beef jerky, turkey jerky, nut butters, macadamia nuts. Things are, you know, whole food bars, not really super processed, but just made from a few simple ingredients. And I have that in my bag at all times so I don't get in trouble.

And it's planning. It takes conscious effort and design, but at least it's by design, not by default.

It's easy. I mean, like now, you know, you can get anything anywhere. I go to Thrive Market, which is great. Our friend Gunnar runs the company and I'm an investor, and basically I order There are a lot of different snacks that I can carry with me that are not perishable. There's bags of olives, there's bags of nuts, there's nut butters, there's special bars. It's really easy to find great sourced regenerative— they even have a regenerative sort of section on there so you can seek to buy regenerative food.

I mean, this is an exciting time to be alive because just like when it comes to information, food is readily available and food is Yeah. That we're taking on, you know, on the inside. How can we support this movement?

Well, first, the first thing is there's an action guide that you can get online which lists the actions for individuals, what business innovation can do, what governments can do, how you can be active in politics. It really is a sort of a how-to manual, a manifesto for a new food system. And you go to foodfixbook.com. You'll be able to find it there. There's simple things you can do in terms of choosing your diet to be focused on being a nutrivore, qualitarian, regenerative, which is eating whole real foods grown in the best way possible that protects the environment and protects your health.

Mm-hmm.

You can start to be active in your communities, right? Maybe your school lunches are crap and you can be an active parent and help the school change. And there's lots of models for that— conscious kitchens and My Way Cafe, and a lot of people have paved the way. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. I talk about those resources in the book. If you work for, you know, a government, a local government, you can create a program of what we call good food purchasing program, where you source the foods in ways that, that have certain standards that protect the workers, protect the animals, protect the earth, protect humans, right?

Mm-hmm.

You can start a compost pile. I mean, everybody should have— nobody should throw out 'Cause food waste is one of the biggest healthcare, I mean environmental problems because it emits so much methane when the scraps are put in landfills. It's the 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China if it were a country.

Wow.

And we waste 40% of our food. So don't throw it out. Give it to a farm for the pigs. Make compost. Figure out how to actually engage in that. And you can do it whether you're in urban or rural environments. You can start a community garden. Be an advocate, for example, with your local municipality to see if they can get a composting ordinance put in so you can make mandatory composting in your community. San Francisco's done it, other places have done it. In Massachusetts, they outlawed— if you make a ton of food waste as a business a week, like Whole Foods or any of the stores, Safeway, whatever, you have to dispose of it In a way that doesn't go to a landfill. So it's created incentives where farmers, for example, dairy farmers who are making very little money, are struggling because people aren't drinking milk. They figured out, well, they could buy this or get this stuff free. They could build these anaerobic digesters where they throw in the food waste, they throw in some dairy poop.

Right.

And it turns into electricity that fuels 1,500 homes and makes the farmer $100,000.

Wow.

So it makes the farmer money, it provides electricity, and it kind of ends the methane from the poop and the methane from the food waste. It's sort of an amazing win. So government, you can be active. People listen, and I think people think as individuals they can't do much, but they can, especially if you band together with groups.

I love that. We're going to put the extended version, we've never done this before, but because this conversation, we went long, I'm going to put the whole extended version in our private Facebook group as well. We have tens of thousands of people in that group and they are very active, not only with themselves and their families, but also superheroes for the world.

You're a superhero, Jim.

Well, the reason I'm bringing this up is because the institutions you're talking about, it's this triple bottom line idea where it could not just be profit, but also be people and planet also as well. And you are a real force of nature, you're a force for good, and I really appreciate everything that you do for our world. I want everyone to do this, besides pick up a copy of Food Fix, because most of you are reading a book a week as it is, our one book a week club.

There you go, should be quick.

And I want you to do this, I want you to take a screenshot of this episode, this podcast, this video, or take a picture of your notes. I want you to tag Dr. Mark Hyman in it, tag myself, and post it, because when you share something, you get to learn it better, and that's really the reason why you learn anything. You learn something for your own benefit, but then you want to learn it to be able to share it with somebody else.

It's so true. That's why I write books, because I don't know stuff and I want to learn something, so I'll research and research and learn all this stuff, and then I write a book. Now I'm an expert.

And that's what the best teachers are, some of the best students also as well. So teach it, and when you teach it, you get to learn it even deeper. And then share that knowledge with other people, especially this episode because of the importance of the topic we're talking about. So take a screenshot, tag on social media, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Dr. Mark Hyman, tag myself, and then share your big aha. What is the one thing you're going to do to be able to fix your food, to make your food fix for you and your family? And as always, I'll repost some of my favorites, and I will actually send a copy of Food Fix to one of you as a thank you for doing so and helping us to share this incredibly important message. Thanks for coming on, buddy.

Thanks, Jim.

All right. Hi, Kwik Brain. It's your brain coach. I want to thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number 1, make sure you share this, because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning as well. Number two, make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a thing. Because if you miss a video, you miss a lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing: if you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number: three one zero two nine nine.

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