HEALTH EXPERT REVEALS What Foods Are KILLING YOU & How The Food Industry LIES |Dr. Mark Hyman

And then of course we need government policy change. And that's the hardest part, right? Because, you know, people go to Washington, it's a shit show and, you know, nothing's going to change. I give up and like it's just, but, you know, there is, there are things getting done and there is a way to change things and, and, 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.

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 the 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 buy.

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. 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.

So 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 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, you know, I remember like I was in some store or cafe and I saw this Picture of Woodstock. And I'm looking at 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, 80% today. 80%. Why is that? Well, because they're targeted by the food industry, because their 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 in this sea of African-Americans in 1970. And so it 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 talk about insurance, too.

I mean, 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... It's the drugs. Yeah, and when you look at the amount on diabetes spent 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 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 is going to 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 ten kids who apply for the military get rejected.

Can't get in.

Because they're too fat or unfit to fight. 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-- Injury.

Like a heart, cardiac problems.

Injuries from being overweight. Wow. And you can read about this. I didn't make this shit up.

Right.

In that report, unhealthy and unprepared. Just Google it. It's staggering. So we have a $22 trillion debt. We have 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. Now they're gonna help the problem unless we figure out how to stop people from going into the system in the first place.

Into the system, meaning getting unhealthy.

Yeah, if they don't need medical care, it's cheap.

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? I'm undereducated on this. So how many different types of diabetes are there? Okay. And how is it caused?

Okay. Okay. So type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. Pancreas fails. It's called, we used to be called juvenile diabetes. And you need insulin.

It's just, you need it.

You need insulin. If you have type 1 diabetes, you need insulin. You need insulin. 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.

The glucose into your cells. Okay. So it's really important.

So how does that die?

How does it die from that?

I mean, how does the pancreas die? How does it get to that point?

It's an autoimmune, like an autoimmune, like you get multiple sclerosis or arthritis. It's basically your body attacks your pancreas. Is that from 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. Okay. 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 crip. Oh my gosh. I was working in, 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? She said, that's Coca-Cola.

No.

I said, why are you feeding your baby Coke? She said, well, he likes it. Oh my gosh. Oh my God, listen, 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 out. The ice. And then the baby like, wraps the thing. 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 two. Or type two 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. 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. Right? Well, why are my patients sick?

Because it makes money, right?

Well, no, yeah, but going even further, why I got interested in this, because as a, 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. Something will, well, if it's food.

How many are most of them? Is this like 50%, 70%? 80% of anyone that comes in to the hospital or your patients.

Yeah.

Who has 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 time. Or 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 those. Prevent.

Or cure sometimes.

Sometimes cure. Depends how far along things are, I guess.

Yeah.

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 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 it's our agricultural system that's driving so much of the problem. And what we grow has been based on good intentions that were in the 50s and 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 basically feeding Americans a diet we know is going to kill them. The research is so clear on this. There's no scientific debate, and yet we don't do anything about it because with 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, you know, gas and all this stuff.

I'm like, what is it? Is it the trucking? Is it the animal feed? Is it deforestation? 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 sinks, so we lose that.

So they're not sucking in the bad air.

They're sucking out good. 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, and 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 for 30 to 40% of all greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.

Does that mean why is that?

Okay, why? 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 a 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. 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 we, 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 the five, of the five million hectares of degraded farmland around the world, if we took just two 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 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. Soil. We're tilling the soil, we're turning over soil erosion, it runs off into the rivers, and we kill all the life in the organic matter by poisoning it with fertilizer, 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, it's the soil loss, it's, you said at the deforestation, it's the factory farming, the animals, which is, should be banned. It's the transportation, storage, refrigeration and the food waste. I mean, food waste in a lot of waste.

Yeah.

Well, we, we waste 40 of our food.

We believe.

That's not our plate.

We don't imagine going to the grocery store, buying a bunch of groceries, take and getting home and throwing 40 in the garbage. The average American wastes $1,800 of food a year and is 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 was for 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. 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 it with this research and information. No, no. because they got so much money sent to them by the lobbyists probably.

Right. I mean listen, if all the people who are walking in 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 did deride of obvious, 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, you know, you'll get killed, you'll, 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, 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 with getting advances in food labeling or dealing with toxic chemicals in our food or the 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'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, you know, 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, you know, in, in, you know, for example, you ask a question about Asia. We have this thing called grass, which is generally recognized as safe. So the Food additives. We have, you know, we have, you know, thousands of food additives. Only about 5% have actually been tested for safety. In the US, some of them are grandfathered in, right? Like 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. Crisco shortening, you know, it shortens your life. I was like, oh my gosh. 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 like bread more like fluffy and soft. And it was used in Subway sandwiches. Our friend Vani Hari outed them and said, this is your yoga mat material in your Subway sandwich.

And they got a takedown.

And she got it 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.

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 feeding, 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.

Right.

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's got cookies and candies and cakes and brownies and anything you can think of, I love it, right? We've programmed a lot of it. 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, 'cause you look pretty good. Well, I train hard too, right? I go through waves. But as a kid, I would drink like 9, 10 Dr. Pepper a day, I remember.

What?

Like some days in the summer, you're just sitting around. I'm not the president, it's not what our president does. Exactly. I would just, I mean, I would.

Run around and work out in place.

Sports, but then I just drink because I thought that's what you were.

You were 16-18.

You're like, now 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 so strategic about how it advances its mission and goals. And it does it through multiple channels. And I'm just gonna go through them because it's just people just don't know.

Celebrity endorsements, right?

Yeah, first, you know, obviously, you know, celebrity endorsements, which is the obvious one. They co-op social groups. So 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, you know, 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. I know. 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 you know, in the funding of these big soda companies. And then of course they fund research. So they fund 12 times as much research, 12 billion dollars worth of research a year to study nutrition. So Gatorade gets studied by Pepsi. Really? Gatorade is 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, or, you know, like the Center for Consumer Freedom, 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 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 spent $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 and Dietetics, which is our main nutrition association, 40% of their funding comes from the food industry. They have sponsored 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...

Right.

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 they do. So you've got this massive effort and it's often subversive and illegal and it's, you know, it's kind of shady. I mean, here's an example. Like in California, there was a group that, you know, wanted to have anti, was 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 that has GMO in it, you have to label it. So can of Coca-Cola would say GMO.

Right.

Porn.

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.

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? Like I think 30-50% countries have it, including China and Russia, which are not known for transparency or democracy, right? So, and they don't, and it's terrible. So they basically tried to put this thing. Now, the food industry got together with the grocery manufacturer in America, which is their trade group, and they're like, we can't have it. So they spent like 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 where 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. 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 people do it. And it works, and that's why the food industry is so against 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 pull this, 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.

Just take more effort in energy. They're gonna have to, you know, but they're doing this in states all across the country. And it's a playbook that the tobacco industry used.

Wasn't tobacco, I mean, isn't cigarettes have.

A tax on them now? Or in some states? They do. It's like, 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 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 big. 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, killing all the pollinators and all biodiversity, and it's 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? Consumers are demanding it.

Well, they're buying companies like Primal Kitchen.

That have like health- Like how they craft, right? Bought Primal Kitchen, which is basically a Whole Foods, really high quality nutritious product with no junk in it. Exactly.

Right.

So, yes, that's part of the problem. They're buying up these companies. I think they're seeing the change and there's a positive change. I mean, General Mills just came in at a million acres to regenerative agriculture. that's incredible. That 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 community supported 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 directly from the ranch. generally raise meats. You can actually start a compost pile, which will help end food waste because we don't throw out our scraps. If you live in an apartment like this, you can still have an in-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 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 of farmers. And these dairy farmers who are struggling to make money because dairy consumption is going down, it means nut milk, 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 from this one farm. In Europe, there are 17,000 of these anaerobic digesters. We should mandate that nationally. 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 for 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 the hospitals used to have. Oh my God. They still do have like all the vending machines with sugar and candy. Yeah. 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, 'cause the cafeteria's over from 8 to 9. 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. And I would go get the burrito thing, 'cause I 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 their 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. I'm like, why aren't you gonna vote? She goes, 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. Yeah. 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, 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, civil, I mean, women's, 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 a 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 because 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 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 turn the profits from single digits to more than double duty. 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. 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, well, in the same amount of farming, will take out $8 million worth of benefit. So it's a win-win-win. And this farmer in North Dakota, who had, Gabe Brown, who had his farm decimated by hail and bad weather, and was about to go bankrupt and he started researching 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 Farm Lane 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 you know, people go to Washington, it's a shit show. you know, nothing's going to change. I'm just, I give up and like it's just, but you know, there is, there are things getting done and there is a way to change things and, and, 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, we, we can actually be active and, 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 Act. We need to implement policies that create food as medicine to treat chronic disease. We need to get rid of the dysfunctional food policy. like food stamps, which pays for $7 billion in soda. That's horrible. 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, you know, it says 40 grams of sugar. Nobody knows that's 10 teaspoons. So 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, yeah, I think it's got to happen here.

It's got to happen globally. It's a global problem. Yeah, it's huge.

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

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

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.

Yeah.

Dairy. Has dairy been declining?

Yeah. Dairy in the last five years? Yes.

Dairy consumption has been declining dramatically.

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

Yeah.

A lot of these bills, milk produced. Now people are still eating cheese. They're eating yogurt, they're eating cheese. But actual milk consumption has gone down.

And the nut milks have gone up.

Why is that? Is that because of education? Is that because of something else? I think probably a lot of reasons. I think probably a lot of reasons.

75% of the population is lactose intolerant.

So, they don't feel good.

I used to drink so much milk every day. And how do you feel? Fine. I always had like a stuffy nose.

Right.

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

Actually, milk is nature's perfect food, but only if you're a cow.

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, the dairy we're eating today is not the dairy we ate. So 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. I'm like, what is that? and it's a cow.

Right.

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 think they get the, you know, the sperm of the bull. And it's like, they're all the same, and they have bred out the beneficial or the safe. A2 casein, and then A1 casein, 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 I think then people are eating nut milks. Now, they're not completely.

Are those good for you though? Because a lot of people have still skin problems.

Yeah, well, nut milks are problematic. So one, almond milk is great, but almonds are.

You can't have too much of it. I started to get like a rash after, like I switched from milk years ago and I started to get like eczema, like a little eczema 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. Well, it had carrageenan in it, which is causes leaky gut. You get leaky 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.

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

Just because it's healthier doesn't mean it's healthy.

Yeah, and I don't remember again drinking tons of soy milk. It could be GMO soy, it could be full of glyphosate. If not, it could be getting huge amounts of these phytoestrogens, which our bodies aren't really meant to get. Eating traditional foods in traditional amounts are 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 pounds a day. gallons. No, I, I had a stepdaughter once. She loved soy milk. She was drinking it all day. And she started, like, at, like, 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, I don't recommend people drink it as a drink.

Really? You know, if you want to put a little coconut almond milk or soy milk.

There's soy milk, almond milk, coconut milk.

Don't drink it.

No, I mean, I think have 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 can add it to things.

Sure. Yeah, put in a smoothie. You know, you can mix them up. You know, it's macadamia milk, cashew milk, hazelnut milk. There's all kinds of milks now.

So, 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? Teach you how to actually 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. Drink a lot of water. That's good. Yeah, I mean, listen, anything can kill you, right? Water can kill you. You know, marathon runners who overhydrate, their body is diluted, their blood is diluted with too much water. 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 like eating stuff in complex amounts and in a complex variety of foods.

So a variety of food is good.

We used to eat 800 species of plants.

That's good, not having the same like three things every day.

Listen, most of our diet is corn, soy, and corn soy and Most of our diet, you know, and in other countries rice in there. And those are, you know, all mostly turned 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 plant species, half of all our livestock species. We've lost them. Gone, extinct.

What do you mean? Those plants are gone?

Gone. I mean, there are some.

We can't create. There's no seeds anymore?

There are seed banks that are there. There's seed vaults.

Oh, those are valuable.

Yeah, the USDA has a lot of seeds. Actually, a friend of mine was trying to develop different varieties of plants. He 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 them and said, what is this? 'cause he was working with an agricultural guy to grow healthy food. And 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 the Himalayas that grow it. So, you know, how we bring that back? How do we start to create different sort of more, you know, 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, you know, tens of feet into the ground, breaks up the soil, creates organic matter, and creates incredibly delicious wheat that's heirloom wheat or not. It's actually a new form but it's actually doesn't have all the gluten in it. It's more 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.

I'm in.

Yeah.

I love this. Foodfixbook.com and get all the information there. They can get the book. Your podcast has a lot of amazing information as well. People want to learn more.

Dr. Doctor's Pharmacy.

And, 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?

No, we can mention it. So, I spent 30 years doing functional medicine and just seeing the power of food to actually heal people. And, 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 didn't know how bad I was feeling until I started feeling good. I was joking. I think I had FLC syndrome, which is when you feel like crap.

Right. Well, it's just like the information, the.

Pain, the achiness, the tiredness. You said you had congestion. No, your digestion's not right. You have a little headache, brain fog. You're tired, you're achy, you don't sleep well, you have skin problems, blurry eyes. Yeah, 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. Oh, 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 and- Impacts you. Yes.

And then you go, wow, now I can choose.

Now I can feel like crap or I can feel great. But now I know.

Yeah.

And the most 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-S-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 and it's just awesome.

Wow. 10 days.

10 days.

Reset it.

I mean, I didn't do it. You know, like 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 her mom's house, we were here, it's like, a little ice cream, a little this, and I didn't go too far, but you know, I didn't feel great. And I came back and I just did the whole 10-day reset.

It's like, I feel amazing. I mean, you don't crave bad stuff. Your energy's up. Your sleep's better.

Your joints don't hurt. 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. Pharmacy. Dr. Pharmacy.

Yeah. We need everybody on the team here to fix this food system because it's an existential threat. And 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 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. Like, 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, I have the mission, I want to be energetic and engaged. And I just want to sit around all day and binge on Netflix, right?

Yeah.

I mean, watching Netflix is fine, but like, not in a way that avoids life because you feel so bad. And I think what's frustrating for me is, Louis, is that I see so much needless suffering. You know, some things we can't change. You know, we can't change, you know, natural disasters. You know, I can't end war. But this is a solvable problem. Yeah, it's totally fixable. Love it.

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

All right.

Appreciate it.