246 Dr. David Friedman: Food Sanity

We tend to blame food a little bit too much. And I think rather than eat like a caveman, like the paleo people say, eat like a gorilla, like the vegans say, I say let's eat like our great grandparents ate. They were healthier. They didn't have all these issues of food sensitivities or chemicals or obesogens and pesticides and hormones and plastics and BPAs, and they had it right and interesting. If you look at pictures of our great grandparents, look in the early 1900s, late 1800s, and I challenge you to find somebody that was overweight in these old Pictures.

That's Dr. David Friedman. And this is episode 246 of Wellness Force Radio, where we discover the physical and emotional intelligence to live life well. In this episode, we're talking about food, sanity, how to eat in this crazy world where every single week it seems like there is a new diet coming in, whether it's keto or low carb, high, high carb, low fat, high fat, whatever you can imagine. Our guest today has explored all the research and the experts, which is why I'm so pumped for him to come on this episode of Wellness Force. We're talking with Dr. David Friedman. Now, this topic of food, it's at the center of all of our physical intelligence. And of course, if our body's functioning well, then it's the proper conduit for emotional intelligence, which essentially leads to living our life well. So whatever way of eating or diet feels best for you, There are some common threads that Doc is going to tell us about today that you can implement right away as soon as you're done listening to the podcast. So right now, in 2018, at the end of the year, whatever you're looking to do, gain strength or let go of some old weight. You know, these holidays right now, people honestly are kind of eating like crap. This episode can be the deep breath you're going to need to reset. Slow down and realize that with all these holiday parties and work parties and gatherings and cookies and whipped cream and everything else, you are not a victim of your circumstance. These holiday parties and gatherings, you can still choose. So let's reset. Let's take a breath break right now. This might be the first time during your entire day where somebody's told you, or maybe you've told yourself that it's time to take a deep breath. So right now, blow out all the air. Exhale all your air out. Take a big, deep inhale for five seconds. Put your hands on your belly and your chest. Feel that whole cavity Fill up. And at the top, just hold it. Feel how good it feels to hold your breath and then breathe it out slowly for five seconds. That is your breath break today. You can go there anytime, anytime you want that. 5, 5, 5, 5. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. It is always there for you. And maybe do that a couple more times right now because right now we're learning from Dr. Friedman about this food sanity concept, what the research and his own discovery of weight loss taught him about what works for men and women when it comes to letting go of the old weight and how to actually achieve fat loss. We'll talk about obesogens, which is a unique term. It's the first time I've heard this, but it makes sense because obesogens are actually the pesticides, the chemicals, the herbicides and fungicides. You know, all that stuff deep inside of the food. But don't freak out. Everything's gonna be okay. We're going to get to the clarity and the truth in this show. We're exploring the concept of if it's white, keep it out of sight, avoiding flour, sugar, milk and salt. You know, the bad kinds as well as Dr. Friedman's connection to something bigger that drives him to do his work now. Show notes from this podcast are@wellnessforce.com 246. Make sure you head over to the Shownotes page. There is a ton of resources for for you to get further clarity about your own food sanity. You can also learn more on that page@wellnessforce.com 246. You can learn more about Dr. Friedman on that page as well as this unique quote that I get to read before we bring him on. We know the saying, you are what you eat, but you are also what your meat eats. And this includes the hormones used to increase the weight of the cattle. So when you eat the cattle, these same substances can increase your weight. Not only are hormones and meat production a contributing factor to our obesity issue, but the antibiotics found in chicken to make them larger are fattening us up too. Hi, I'm Josh Trent. This is Wellness Force. My guest, today's award winning number one national bestselling author, doctor of naturopathy, clinical nutritionist and chiropractic neurologist. He received postdoctorate certification from Harvard Medical School, is a board certified physician in integrative medicine, featured across The World, Newsweek, U.S. news and World Report, and countless more. Welcome to Wellness Forest. Dr. David Friedman, I'm curious here. Jack Canfield, he actually wrote on the top of the book with so much Confusion and contradictions on what we should and shouldn't eat. Dr. Friedman sets the record straight. We love Jack Canfield. We talk about Chicken Soup for the Soul in the show. How did you actually meet Jack Canfield?

Actually, I spent some time with him in Santa Barbara through a friend of mine that hooked us up there. And I had the whole book. It was called Diet Disease Deception, which was kind of like the underground of food and the conspiracy. And he said, david, the COVID and the title, do you like it? I said, yeah. He says, do your friends like it? I said, yeah. He says, do you know who your audience is? He said, females. And then he says, females, ask them if they liked it and see what they. And sure enough, I asked them. I was in love with it. And a female said, no, I wouldn't buy. I wouldn't buy it. So Jack actually sat there and showed me how to convert that into food sanity, which he helped me name the book and gave it his thumbs up, said, it's a grand slam. It's now in your market, which is females. And as we talked about before we started, that's the primarily group that is interesting in health, interested in diet. And of course they gotta convince their husbands. Come on, you're gonna eat this.

I love that you mentioned that. It's so cool. I'm always curious how books come together. So it was through his guidance that actually the book was named.

I give him credit for the name. Yeah, he was the one that came.

Up with it for 20 years. Plus 22 you just posted on Instagram. You said you've been interviewing hundreds of health experts. But, doc, all of these have their own kind of opinions, and some of them dogmatic, some of them open minded. Is there anyone top of mind for 2018 that you've come across in your radio experience and interview that really blew your mind? Anyone that gave you new information that really shocked you or surprised you in any way?

Hmm. I think it's. It's really bits and pieces from everybody I really know. Not one person stands out. Sometimes they'll really wow me and then they'll say something that makes no sense. It's like, you know, I'll get Dr. Esselstyn on there, who was Clinton's doctor, and he's the plant based fellow, and he's talking about how plants are healthy. And I agree with that. And then he says, you got us away from avocado. It's bad for you. And I go, whoa, my radar went up. And I go, I love avocados. Why are they bad. And you got to stay away from. From extra virgin olive oil. It's bad for you. And then my radar. So that's kind of what I did, is I sit back and I just quietly listened to all these experts over 18 years, and I've interviewed them all and scientists and doctors and their opinions different is night and day. And, you know, I remember when oatmeal used to lower your blood sugar. And. And what do they tell you now? Stay away from grains. They spiked your blood sugar. And eggs used to cause high cholesterol. Now we're told, oh, no, wait, they have lecithin. They lower cholesterol. And coffee used to be really bad for you. And you have Dave Asprey say, no, it's the best stuff since sliced bread. Actually, bread's bad for you. So it's a bad analogy. You get the point. It's like I really put together all my confusion of my radio days and also my television days to write a book that can break through the fads, break through the fiction, and answer the question, what are we supposed to eat?

And that is the big looming question. And I think it changes for us so much. You know, I'm 38 now. When I was 20, I could kind of put whatever I wanted down the pie hole, and things would typically work out. But as we move through life, things change. In. Earlier in your story, you talked about. Actually, this is fascinating to me, my weight loss story. You mention this in the book. You ate great. I eat pure. You said. I avoid dairy. I made the choice not to eat red meat more than 25 years ago. You eat organic veggies and herbs and fruits. You even grow your own. But in spite of all that, for several years, you remained about 15 pounds overweight. I'd love to go to this moment in time because I think people see you now as a voice of truth and nutrition. But it wasn't always the case. This £15, like, why was that? There's.

Yeah, you know, people always ask, how do I lose weight? And it's really simple. You can get this giant book, or you can just live by this one sentence. And if it's white, keep it out of sight. Just stay away from white foods. And doing just that alone is going to help your blood sugar balance, increase your energy, help you sleep better, and you're going to lose unwanted pounds. And white foods are those that have been processed and refined. They include milk, flour, sugar, salt, corn, or anything made out of these ingredients. And, of course, there's exceptions. Natural unprocessed, white foods are good, like cauliflower, garlic, mustard, mushrooms, onions, bananas, white fish, white poultry meat. That's not part of the no white. And my big weakness was, is I loved popcorn. And it was organic. It was USDA certified. I didn't pour butter and fattening stuff and salt on it, but it was my go to end of the day noshing snack. It was what I did. And I was 15 pounds more overweight. And you know, popcorn was, we've always heard is good for you, right? It's, it's. Especially if it's USDA organic and it wasn't the microwave popcorn. So I didn't have the chemicals of the bag. I did it the right way. And one day through my research, I said, you know, let me just stop eating popcorn. I can't get rid of this little. I wasn't fat, but I was stalky. Just getting off popcorn. Literally, I lost the 15 pounds. I did that in like six weeks. Now I say to people in my book, it doesn't mean all or nothing. I didn't give away, give up my love of popcorn completely. I just do it occasionally now, it's not every day. And that's kind of the concept. You just don't want to bombard yourself. So really, when it's white, keep it out of sight. And that was one of my white foods. And there I'm proof that, you know, that that's what kept me overweight. That was it. That's all I changed and I lost 15 pounds.

The fascinating part about that is we've heard this reflection from Paul Check, who we've had on the show as well. You know, he talks about the four white devils, the salt, the sugar, the flour, these white foods. What is it, though, about this resistant starch, Doc? I've heard about cooked and cooled potatoes, different things that have resistant starch inside of them. There's even some research about cooked and cooled rice. You know, these starches that most of the carbs we consume, like grains and pasta and potatoes, but some of these are resistant to digestion, you know, hence the term resistant starch. What has your research and your experience around resistant starch showed?

Here's what I found is, you know, and we, we can bring in also the gluten sensitivity and all these food sensitivities and how people are actually, their bodies are fighting certain foods that we didn't, let's face it, we didn't have this problem 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. I don't blame food. I blame something called obesogens. And these are chemicals that are actually found inside of our food, wrapped around our food, sometimes even the cook, where we cook our food on. And what these obesogens do is they wreak havoc on our digestive system. They make us have inability to digest these foods. They create inflammation, they create leaky gut. So we can pinpoint certain starches and flours and we can blame. But it really is our inability to digest a lot of these foods. You know, if you look at gluten, how come people could have a pizza 20 years ago and they're fine? How come our grandparents didn't have issues with gluten? Now it seems to be such an issue. You can't blame gluten. It's the chemicals in. An obesogen is pesticide. That's an obesogen that's poured on this Monsanto wheat and that is actually wreaking havoc on our ability to digest these foods. So really, we tend to blame food a little bit too much. And I think rather than eat like a caveman, like the Paleo people say, and eat like a gorilla like the vegans say, I say let's eat like our great grandparents ate. They were healthier. They didn't have all these issues of food sensitiv or obesogens and pesticides and hormones and plastics and BPAs. And they had it right and interesting. If you look at pictures of our great grandparents, look in the early 1900s, late 1800s, and I challenge you to find somebody that was overweight in these old pictures. You've seen them, those black and white pictures. They weren't overweight back then. It was about 3% overweight. Fast forward to today. It's 70% overweight. Why we can't blame the food because they ate pizza, they ate chicken, they ate. We have to blame what's happening to our food. And that's what I really talk about in my book is, you know, these obesogens, it's the cause of obesity, it's the cause of autoimmune disease. But, you know, we can keep pointing fingers. Oh, wheat's bad. This is bad. Well, how come it wasn't bad 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago?

That's a great point. These obesogens, and I love the term, you know, you talked about pesticide. We know that glyphosate has been in the news quite heavily lately. Almost $290 million that Monsanto had to pay. Which people don't know this. And they know this if they listen to the show. Bear actually owns Monsanto and I want to talk about that later on in the show, Doc, because you have a huge wisdom caveat that we can go off of here. When it comes to what foods are actually right for me, this food sanity. When it comes to the morning meal, I think a lot of people say, where do I start? Now before you and I interviewed here on the record button, you mentioned that you eat oats. Now oats are one of these foods where they're very convenient. They add this resistant starch to the diet when people are starting out their morning. Do you believe that cooked oats is a fit for everyone?

Cooked oats is like unbelievable for me. I feel great. And of course you want to go the healthy kind, the steel cut where it's not processed, smashed, baked, cooked and thrown in this little jar. You want to actually go with Irish oats or steel cut oats. And then I put a little blueberry in there. And I'll tell you what, it keeps me full, it keeps me happy, it keeps me smiling throughout the day. And you know what? It keeps my blood pressure and cholesterol in check. And I hear all these people say, oh wait, it can spike your blood sugar again. I don't believe it. My grandma told me that oats were the healthiest things to eat when I was a child and 30 years of research backed it up. And now all of a sudden these anti grain people are saying, wait, 30, 40 years of research is wrong because I want to sell this book. I just don't buy it. I don't think we can blame oats. I have someone who's 98 years old, he's a patient of mine, he golfs, he's funny, he's witty, he drives to see me. I said, what's your secret? I love studying. Old are healthy. I said, what do you, what do you contribute? He says every day he eats oatmeal with blueberries. And I said really? That's kind of my go to as well. So hey, I'm going to be up there. And you know that may, he may have other attributes but obviously it's not killing him.

Yeah, this is fascinating to me because it works for some people so well, Doc. But then there's some people where they eat that and it throws them into a complete cascade hormonally. How much do you factor in when you're working with clients or when you're just going across your research? How much do you factor in 23andMe or specific genotypes being expressed when we look at food sensitivities or Insulin sensitivities specifically. Do you believe in genetic testing for food adjustments?

I think it plays a small role. I'd say about 90%. No. 10%. Yes. So I get so many patients, Josh, that are sick and they're overweight, and you know what they do? They blame their parents. Oh, my mom was overweight. My mom was a diabetic. And I've got my mom. And you know something? I always say you can't blame your genes and why you can't fit into your genes. And as I said, if you look at your great great grandma and you show me a picture of a great great grandma that was overweight, go ahead and blame your genes because you're in that 3%. But you know what? If your great great grandma wasn't overweight and she didn't have high blood pressure, you can't blame her. You got to take control and stop blaming our ancestors. I don't think DNA is to blame. Of course there's diseases that are genetic, but I think that when you look at all these food sensitivities, our great grandparents didn't have those issues. Our great grandparents didn't have this high blood pressure epidemic. And dia. God, it's crazy. Our great grandparents didn't have this episode. So I don't believe that it's this food, that food. I think your body's sensitive to food because you've been bombarded with so many chemicals. And I mean, we can talk about it from your shower curtain, with phthalates that can get into your system, from the PFOAs that are in your pots and pans that wreak havoc on your ability to digest. These cause leaky gut. These are scientifically proven to destroy our gut microbiomes, and that can lead to, as you know, depression, because our microbiomes control our emotions. And so much research in the future is going to show our health begins in the gut, like Hippocrates said. Remember that? Hippocrates says the health begins in the gut. And look at this. We're finding all this research showing that it does.

I interviewed Dr. Ruscio four times on the show. We just actually are going to come out with an episode about healing the second brain. This enteric nervous system, Doc, which you're talking about, this brain to gut connection. The fascinating part about this, I'm looking at your Facebook right now, and it says there's a quote from you from the Healing Power Food Summit. It's not necessarily food that's the issue. It's what's inside our food. What's wrapped around our food and even what we're cooking our food on that's creating this obesity epidemic. We've already talked about glyphosate on the show. What else should we be looking out for that's in our food? That is as what you labeled these obesogens?

Yeah. One of them is biosphenol A. It's bpa. And this is a synthetic estrogen primarily used to harden plastic. And it's been shown to cause weight gain, insulin resistance, even linked to cancer. And BPA is found in plastic foods and beverage can containers, bottle tops. This chemical, interesting, people don't realize it's also found in thermal paper items like cinema tickets, ATM credit card receipts and airline tickets. If you touch these receipts, you can damnate your hands. So when you go to the grocery store and the person says, here's your receipt, say please put it in the bag. And if you do touch it, wash your hands, you're contaminating. And that's called free bpa. It comes right off into your hands, right under your currency. If you put it in your wallet, if you touch your eyes, touch your food, it's in your body. So it's. So stay away from that. Phthalates, as I mentioned, that's a group of compounds. They're also plastics. They're called plasticizers. And they can show up in meats, which are commonly packaged in plastics and dairy products due to the plastic tubing used to milk the cows. And they're found in sometimes cosmetics. And your shower curtain. Yes folks, your shower curtain could be why you can't lose weight. Phthalates are endocrine disruptors. This leads to excess estrogen and hormone imbalances. So simple remedy. I've just showed you the problem. How do you combat it? Simple. Get phthalate free shower curtains. You don't want that hot water hitting that shower curtain and you breathing that junk in your body. Go to Amazon. Just type in phthalate free. It's spelled P H T H A L A T E S Bed, bath and Beyond. What about BPAs? Avoid plastic products with the recycling code that has 3 and 7. They contain phthalates or BPA. Instead look for plastic with the coating that says 1, 2 or 5. So if it's 3 or 7, don't touch the plastic. And of course, never microwave plastic. That's one of the worst things you can do. People always see the word Josh that says microwavable safe and dishwasher safe.

Right?

That doesn't mean it's safe. For you?

Yes. My microwave, literally my microwave. I just store stuff inside of it. I don't use my microwave at all. Because we know about the food killing aspects of the microwave. But this is fascinating too, since we're on this obesogens point here. Hormones and estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, these are all used to make cattle fatter. And we talked about this before. The mycotoxins in meat, how important is it?

It.

Let's just set the bar of truth here. How important is it to eat free range grass fed organic beef because of this specific issue of these obesogens and of these mycotoxins that are found in cafo farmed meat? Can we go over this?

Yeah. You know the old saying, you are what you eat. We've all heard that before. But you are also what your meat eats. So you are what your meat eats. And this includes the hormones being used to increase the weight of cattle. And when you eat the cattle, these same substances can increase your weight. Think created to fatten up the cow. When you eat them, they're going to fatten you up. And hormones and meat production is a contributing factor to our obesity issue. Then there's the antibiotics, by the way, and that's used in chicken. Do you know why it's used in chicken? People say, oh, it's to fight off infection. No, it also helps them grow larger. It actually helps them grow 5 to 10% larger. So these antibiotics help to fatten them up. And what happens when we eat them? They fatten us up. So, you know, you want to look for USDA certified organic on the label. Means it's free of antibiotics, both for promoting growth and treating illness. And some companies aren't certified. But Josh, they claim they offer conditions comparable to organic. Avoid them. Some products use USDA process verified and avoid that. That doesn't put any credence into that label.

Let's talk about that though. Really? I haven't heard of that. Thanks for telling us about that. Tell us about that one specific point again, please.

So it'll say USDA process verified. If it doesn't say it's USDA certified organic, you don't buy it because that means it's not audited. It's the thing we can talk about vitamins. If you see a vitamin supplement that says certified gmp, that's general manufacturing practices that mean it has been audited, it's been checked, and you know what's in the bottle is outside on the label. Don't believe if it says GMP methods are used because people say, oh, it's gmp. No, that's not the same thing. GMP certified is different, just like USDA certified. So you want to look for the certification and it's a play on word. It's to fool consumers into thinking that they pass all stringent testing and factors and they don't.

Yeah. And on that same package usually they have like a happy cow roaming around, but that's just not the case. I love that you brought up that point. We're going to link that in the show notes today. So if you're interested in learning all this information about Dr. Friedman, go to wellnessforce.com radio right now. You can actually click on your phone doc. Obesogens, the pesticides, the BPA. There's also what we're cooking on too. And this is interesting to me because I use a cast iron skillet because I've heard about the health benefits. As long as it's a seasoned skillet. Do you use cast iron personally or do you have any non stickware that you recommend that won't leach those harmful chemicals into our food?

Yeah, one is we want to tell the chemicals called pfoa, it's called perfluorooctanoic acid. Now that's a mouthful to say. And you know what, it shouldn't be a mouthful in your mouth. And it is if you're cooking on these cookware. It's also, Josh, it's in grease resistant packaging at these fast food restaurants. So if you see somebody eating a greasy hamburger and french fries, actually I'm more worried about the packaging than I am the hamburger that they're eating. Because these chemicals that are found in these grease resistant fast food restaurants are actually destroying the gut. So the key. Oh, let me share one thing that was interesting. PFOAs have been proven to be linked to obesity. There was interesting interview in plos One medical journal that was studied from, it was Harvard that showed that people that are more overweight, especially females, have more PFOAS in their bloodstream than thinner People. People. Now how's that for proof that kind of shocked the world saying wow, we have them in our body and it's linked to our size. So you want to avoid them. You want, as you mentioned, nonstick cookware. I like ceramic coated or tempered glass, cast irons, fine stainless steel, you know, those are the big things you want. And you know these grease resistant coatings at fast food restaurants, if you're a big fast food person, I've had people go in there and say, look, can you wrap it in a paper towel for me. I'm allergic to the wrapper. They want, if you say the word allergy, they don't want to get sued, they're happy to do that. So you really want to get off of these grease resistant fast food. I don't like any fast food. But you know, hey, it's American tradition. I'm more worried more about the wrapper.

Do you believe that the 80:20 rule applies? In other words, we look at the Pareto principle, we see people that honestly they can get overwhelmed. And I think that's why your book is so important. You know, cutting through and giving people clarity on 20 plus years of you practicing and literally eating, moving and sleeping these principles. But do you believe that there is a 20% margin for us to go celebrate on a weekend with family? You know, 80% of the time we'll eat as you've outlined in the book. But what about that 20%? What does that look like for you?

Well, I do an actually 8020 is my eating point. I do a flexitarian diet which is 80% plant based, 20% animal. And in food sanitary, I go through every chapter and we find out, hey, which animals are we supposed to eat, if any. And I go through the pork and the fish and the chicken and the beef and you know, you find the best Source there. So 80 20. But then as I mentioned with no whites, if you want to lose weight, yeah, you can cheat. But again, I don't think doing everything on the weekend, hey, I'm gonna just do sugar and salt and I'm gonna eat fattening stuff on the weekend. You know, that's like saying, hey, I'm not gonna smoke for five days, but all weekend I'm just gonna smoke away. You know, you've gotta have some value there where it's not just all or nothing. But yeah, I do agree, you do need a little bit of cheat days. My cheat is the popcorn. Again people say in your book you say don't eat popcorn. I says, yes, it's one of my guilty pleasures. I just don't eat it often.

Well, that's not really a big cheat. Most people's cheats is like fried something wrapped in another fried something. Right? It's funny, your cheat is like not really a cheat for most people because there is a. And I love that you mentioned this in the book. There's in the first chapter, it's psychologically speaking after you contrasted carnivores and you know, meat and things like this. When it comes to a mindset you know, when someone's taking on 40, 50, 60 pounds, doc, of letting go of this old weight, how much emotional intelligence plays into this? In other words, what is the mindset that one must take a step into before even looking at how to cut clarity through their food?

I think it all begins in the mind. And, you know, I think, and I have a chapter in the back, it says, you know, the most 10 common questions of people that why they get off eating right. And then one of them is, you know, hey, you know, I cheated. I might as well go all the way. In other words. Yep, I had a little bit of the candy, you know, now I'm going to go all the way. And it's like, don't beat yourself up. So, you know, you get back, you jump back on the car, you don't fall out and stay out. So, yeah, I think it's a mindset, but I think a lot of it is stress related. I think people use food as stress reliever. They look to their two best friends, Ben and Jerry, to give them comfort. And I think that if they can just realize that food is not your antidepressant, you know, it's a fuel for your body. And if you can just let go in that beginning process and think of that as fuel for your body, what are you putting in there? Just ride it for a few weeks. And you know what? You won't crave those things. You'll feel better, you'll be less depressed, you'll have more energy, your blood sugar will be better, and you'll sleep better because you fed your body the good foods. The. Yeah, it's tough in the beginning because, you know, but remember, 21 days, a habit. If you can just do it for 21 days, that third, fourth, fifth week is easy. Just make it through that first 21 days.

I think people see you now, you know, 20 plus years. You're the breathing example of health and wellness and longevity. But it wasn't always the case because you had a back injury early on in life, and I believe you went to a chiropractor and that's what led you down that road. Did you ever think when you had the back injury and maybe in your first couple years of healing and doing your own work, that you'd be on this show 20 years later interviewing hundreds of people like, did that inflection ever come through for you when you were going through your back healing process?

No, because I had a herniated disc. It hurt my back. And my dad, his dad and his dad are MD So I was in a medical family, so obviously the medical routes where I was heading. And my mom says, hey, why don't you try a chiropractor? So I went to a chiropractor. And I'll tell you what, within three weeks, I was feeling fantastic, and I said, you know what? I want to go to chiropractic school. My dad said, hey, give it a look at, because this is phenomenal. Even he was blown away. So I went to chiropractic school, learned how to help people, fix people, and then excelled. I got a degree in neurology, had a diplomat in neurology, wrote a book on neurology, actually, textbook. We sold medical schools and chiropractic schools. And one of my students said to me one day, hey, Dr. Friedman, you say that the brain and the spinal cord control the entire body, all the organs and everything that's within us. What controls the brain and spinal cord? Very interesting question. It didn't take me long to answer.

Food.

Food controls the essence of who we are. It controls our brain and spinal cord. So I wrote a book on neurology. Says, there's another level here. So I started learning more about food. And then when I got out into practice, I got a degree in natural medicine, naturopathy. I mean, I just was like this. This. This knowledge. This knowledge was power to me. I was hungry for it. And people weren't getting better, Josh, no matter what I was doing for them. I would try every technique, every physiological instrument, therapy, and they weren't getting better. I started altering their food, and they would get better in days. One lady came in with pain in her leg. It was at night, and I was working on her for weeks and weeks and weeks. She wasn't getting better. I said, I'm doing everything I can. Tell me this happens at night. What do you do right before bed? She says, well, every night before bed, I drink a glass of milk to help me sleep. I said, ding, ding, ding. Milk can create inflammation and creating the spasm you're getting in your leg. Try getting off milk. She goes, really? I go, give it a shot. Three days later, leg pain stopped. I could have worked on her for six months and failed. So I started realizing food has this power to either harm or heal. And that's really why I got into food and started looking at another level because, you know, beyond medicine, beyond chiropractic, beyond physical therapy, food is medicine.

This is fascinating to me. Food controls the brain and the spinal cord. I have a few questions there, but I want to Go back. How did you actually heal through your chiropractic modality? How old were you? You were a young man, right, when the happened?

Oh, yeah, I was very young. I got injured when I was about 18, 19 years old. So it was very early on that I got injured and in a car accident. And so basically it was just fascinating. You know what really fascinated me, Josh, is this guy with his hands fixed me. And he didn't need. He didn't need a scalpel, he didn't need to put me under anesthesia. I didn't need to go to the pharmacist. And I said, wow, imagine having your tools as your hands to help heal people. How amazing is that? If I'm on a deserted island and you and me are hanging out and you have bad root canal, there's no nothing I can do. I don't care if I'm the best dentist in the world, you're out of luck, buddy. If you have appendicitis and I'm the best surgeon, you're out of luck. But if you have back pain, headaches, neck pain, tmj, carpal tunnel, I'm gonna fix you right there with my hands.

I'm thinking about that. You know Wilson Tom in that movie where he was the castaway? Right. He had to use the, the. The. I think it was the shoe, the ice skating shoe to fix his teeth. And I'm just like, yeah, you're kind of screwed if you're on an island and you don't have anybody to heal you with your hands. There are some things, though, that we look at. There is a fight between the medical profession and the chiropractic profession. And I'm curious too, because your father seemed like he was so open to you being in chiropractic. Why do you think he was so open minded in that regard? Why does this fight still exist between MD and chiropractic?

Well, what's interesting, the fight is very low now. It was bigger. And then we actually sued the AMA and we won. And that's a lawsuit people really never heard about because it was suppressed. Because if McDonald's sued burger and won and they were found guilty of antitrust law, it would be on every cover of every magazine. 20, 20, 60 minutes, dateline. You would have seen it everywhere. Well, that didn't happen when the chiropractors sued the American Medical Association. And we won. They appealed it six times and we won. A judge found them guilty of conspiracy to wipe out a competitor. Not that we were bad or quacks. That they had put rumors out. It was strictly to get rid of a competitor that was taking money out of the their pocket. But after that lawsuit came, it started getting better because now the judge said how dare you restrict medical doctors from being friends with a chiropractor. We couldn't even be friends with an MD if they saw an MD going into an office of a medical of a chiropractor fired. You get kicked out. You couldn't refer patients. It was forbidden because of this goal to wipe out this competitor which is illegal. That's illegal. So it doesn't happen anymore. Luckily we won and now we're at every, every health, I mean every insurance is covered chiropractic and we're accepted. We can go to hospitals now. I mean list goes on and on military. So I think it's dwindling. There's still a few from the old school, but the new generation, Harvard Medical schools teaching chiropractic. So it's changed. So that thinking's off now. But boy it was tough 15, 20, 30 years ago.

So today marks the day of exactly a month where I let go of coffee. And you're probably thinking why the hell would you let go of coffee? I'll tell you why. Because I'm 38 and at this point the coffee was not serving me in the afternoons. I actually did my 23 me test recently and found that I am a slow caffeine metabolizer. Now this is interesting because for some of us, not all of us, coffee can actually be a double edged sword. So for many of us out there that have caffeine sensitivities or are noticing that caffeine is not getting giving you those results that you want anymore in regards to your afternoon energy. Take a deep breath. I have the solution. I did the N equals one myself. I did two doses of organifi red juice with the Asahi and the cordyceps in the afternoons. This is honestly my saving grace. It's the only thing that allowed me to get through this transition phase of letting go of caffeine. Whether you're letting go of caffeine or not, micronutrients and adaptogens can help you with after afternoon energy. That's, that's when most of us, that's when most of us lose our mojo. We dip down with the energy. But you can flip this. You could change this without a bunch of heavy stimulants. Just go to Organifi.com WellnessForce use code WellnessForce. You get 20% off. A big discount. 20% off the red juice, you can double stack it in the afternoon. You can even just do one of green, one of red and one of gold for an all day energy adaptogen Fuse over@organifi.com WellnessForce don't forget use code WellnessForce for 20% off your entire checkout. You strike me as a man who's been on this really path of health and wellness. But in a way, you also seem to be connected to faith and spirituality. How has that played into this process for you? Because from a food perspective, you're an expert in the world and the nation. But what about your faith practice and your spiritual practice? How has that played into you even publishing this book? It's not easy to publish a book.

It's not. And you know, in the book, in each chapter I use what's called the dig method. Dig. And it's discoveries, instincts and God. And I use the word God. And I had my agents and people saying you can't say God in a book. You know, it's gonna offend people. I'm like, what? I can't. When can you not say God? That's my faith. You have to line up with our God created body to figure out what we need to eat.

Yeah.

So it's dig D I G. We dig for answers. You have to have the science, that's the discoveries. They have to be unbiased, they can't be paid. I call it biased. B U Y A S E D and I show you how to get rid of the biased instincts, tap into your gut. Forget what the media says because that's gonna change next week. Coffee could be bad for us again this week. It's good. Trust your instincts. And then you have to look at God, our creator. How are we designed? Sometimes we look at a little bit of the biblical, but it's a lot about our God created body, what that means to you. And I did have to put in there what that could mean. Infinite wisdom, mother nature, spiritual universe. I had to throw that in there just to make them happy. And I get it. You know, I'm not praying, preaching religion, but I'm sure we all agree we're pretty much unbelievably created entities that have this ability to thrive and heal. Something, some force. Somehow we were created in this magnificence. And my belief it is God.

That is one of the best tweetable quotes I've ever heard. I love that because I think you're right. This faith practice, when we're letting go of old weight, you talk about strategies in the book how to do this, there is an emotional component, but I believe, too, in my own life, I used to be 280 pounds. So I know what it's like personally to lose and regain, gain weight, back and forth. Dealing with the emotional struggles of this can seem so overwhelming to people. And I know now, at 38 years old, without my practice of spirituality, of faith, whatever it is, God, Buddha, whoever you worship, it's like there has to be some connection and respect to a force outside of us that's greater than just us otherwise, don't you believe? And I'd love your take on this. If we're losing weight just for ourselves and we're not thinking about the people that we're going to be able to love stronger, the connection to our community, things like that, don't you think that our connection to some higher power of some sort can actually be a sustainable tool in weight loss for life?

It can. And I actually did a lecture called God's Divine plan for your Health. And I actually shared how you get these good Christians, and they do a good job and they help others and they're willing to really help. I saw it here with the hurricane in Wilmington. They're such good people, and they'll go to church and they'll worship, and then they're overweight and they're sick and they're smoking and they're eating bad. And it's like, well, wait a minute. How do you think that your heavenly Father is looking down on you and seeing that. That you're not taking care of his vessel that he created? I said, that's kind of like somebody building a car. For years and years and years and years, they're on their own building it from scratch. And the Father gives it to the son on his 16th birthday. And I mean, this guy, the Father built it by hand. And the son goes out and just does donuts. And he doesn't put radiator fluid in there, and he burns and it comes back and it's smoking and he doesn't clean it, how would that father feel? He created this car, and this son just didn't take care of it. How do you think God feels when he looks down and says, you're not taking care of the vessel that he created? And that's kind of how I look at it. You know, whatever religion you believe in, if it's Buddha, you know what? You need to be healthy because your creator doesn't want you running those tires bald and not taking care of the car that he created.

You know, I love this because. And we're going to pivot here to more about this brain and spinal cord, but just to tie up this loop here, this practice of doing something outside of yourself. I think a lot of people, they want to lose weight because they'll be sexy and they'll look good naked and all these things. And those are fine. Those are temporary motivational factors. But I love the way that you do these. Can you dig this sections in the book? I think it's really cool and I think you're right. This God aspect is a part of it. And by the way, it could be whatever form of God that you connect to. I do want to go back to the spinal cord specifically. We know about the inflammatory cytokines that foods can produce and, and people that are retaining water and all these different pieces. When it comes to inflammation and the spinal cord specifically, are there common threads of foods that you've seen inflame people the very most?

Yeah, actually, as we talk, milk is a big inflammatory. So basically, milk is public enemy number one. And you know, when I talk about milk get off milk, they go, well, how am I supposed to get calcium? You know, I need it for strong bones. And people drink milk for its calcium content. But here's what happens, happens before that milk goes to the grocery store, it's pasteurized, meaning it's been exposed to extreme heat, which is great because it destroys bacteria, but it also renders a lot of the milk's content insoluble. It's destroyed during that heating process. What if raw, unpasteurized milk was available? It still wouldn't give you enough magnesium needed for your body to absorb the calcium. See, the calcium to magnesium ratio in cow's milk is 9 to 1. 90% calcium, 10% magnesium. Experts now say we need 1 to 1. 50, 50. Guess where you can get that from plants. The same place cows get their calcium from. And elephants, they're pretty strong boned animals, wouldn't you think? An elephant, they don't eat calories.

Yeah, they're carrying some weight, my friend.

Yeah. And what about gorillas? I mean, theythey don't eat calcium. So if you really kind of get rid of the propaganda we've been fed that we need milk for calcium, it's not true. And then they say, well, what about protein? Protein's the biggest reason it's bad for you, because protein is basically, it's used also to make glue to hold together wood. Think of the cow logo on Elmer's glue. It's there For a. So if you swallow this glue like substance, your body attacks it, it creates inflammation. That's called casein. That's the glue like substance in milk. And it leads to everything, Josh, from bronchitis and allergies and asthma and sinus and ear infections, irritable bowel, you name it. So you don't need milk for the calcium. And the second pick would be, don't go heavy on the beef. I know everybody's into this beef and yes, if it's antibiotic free and hormone free, that's better. But these folks that are eating beef every single day, it actually has a sugar so unique sugar. It was Discover four years ago. It's called NAU5GC, which is found abundance in cows, not found in humans. And when we eat this molecule, it triggers an immune response inflammation. Our bodies attack it and that can lead to chronic problems, even colon cancer. So definitely, and that's been so studied. So the more red meat you eat, the more likely you are to get the colon cancer. And the most authoritative report on colon cancer risk to date was published by the World Cancer Research Fund. And they concluded almost half of colon cancer would be prevented if people ate less red meat. So does that mean, you know, I don't personally eat meat, but I get so many friends that do. And I said, just cut back. Just, you know, do 80, 20, do what our ancestors ate. And we can even go in cavemen. That's what they ate. Cavemen were not the big beef eaters. They ate a little beef when they could be lucky enough to catch it. It was mostly plants because that was easier to attain. And science has proven this through fossils and research. So really I think those are the two cut back milk. If you love your beef, go with bison. That doesn't have that chemical, that's fine. And then you wanna go antibiotic hormone free beef, but you still got that molecule that's in there that does create inflammation. So don't go overboard with it.

Yeah, and I love this too, because when you look at all the great masters, whether it's in nutrition or anything in life, it's the middle way. It's the middle path of not too little, not too much. This Goldilocks zone. And I know people are probably freaking out, like, what do you mean I can't have any dairy? There are also alternatives though, you know, almond milk and hemp and rice and cash. Cashew. What do you actually drink for milk?

Yeah, you know, it's interesting if you're doing recipes, cashew milk's Great. It has the same consistency as milk. So if you need it for baking, cashew milk's good. Cereal. Almond milk's great. Hemp milk, coconut milk's good in coffee, so you don't need it anymore. And you know what's really interesting is, you know, I get all these conflicting. The vegan, the paleo, Mediterranean, Atkins and so forth, and keto. They all tend to disagree about everything. But luckily the plant folks and the Paleo don't like milk and dairy. So being that they're the most popular diets right now, that means stores are carrying dairy free alternatives everywhere. It's easy to find. You want yogurt, go for it. But go with almond yogurt, it's delicious. Cashew yogurt. I love coconut milk. So ice cream. I'll tell you what, I'll get a bowl of coconut ice cream or cashew made ice cream and mix it up with regular. I bet you can't tell the difference. But boy, when people hear about it, they go, ooh, yuck. I go, why are you yucking? Have you tried it? They go, no. I go, try it. They hear the word cashew milk or almond milk or coconut milk ice cream, and they were just brainwashed. It's delicious. You don't have to give up what you love. You can still go with your ice cream, you can still go with your cereal with milk. Just do dairy free.

I think this path of change, you know, it starts out with one thing, right? Like maybe literally someone listening right now can just do one thing like removing dairy and just seeing how they feel in an order of operations. And I know you outline somewhat of this in the book. Is there an order of operations for food removal? In other words, what's the lowest hanging fruit someone listening can do right now to remove one thing, then see how they feel and then the next thing?

Yeah, again, besides the dairy, I would definitely put sugar. And that's something else that all the health experts, the majority tend to agree that, you know, this sugar, we're just consuming too much of it. And of course, it's the white processed sugar. Now, Josh, we talked about spiritual and our creator. I don't think our creator, whoever you believe that is, in my world, it's God. I don't think he made a mistake with having a sweet tooth. Our taste buds are sweet because we love sweets. So I don't think we should get rid of sweets. Just the man made white processed sugar that man created that we didn't have 50 or 100 years ago. So you Want to go with monk fruit? It's delicious. Low hand. You can go with stevia. You can go with xylitol from the birch tree. There's so many options. You can do date paste instead of caramel. It's delicious. You can do that and make that with dessert. So in my book I share a lot of these, you know, swap this for that. But my point being is sugar is one of the worst things you can add. So it's. And it's the easiest to get rid of because you've got alternatives now. You don't have to have sugar on things.

Yeah. And when people are removing these too. I love that you mentioned the coconut sugar in the book. This is derived from the coconut palm tree. Do you ever feel like though, because there's some of the data coming out, that a lot of these farms in the Philippines and everywhere else, they're being absolutely depleted by people that just have this unquenchable thirst for coconut water and coconut products. Have you come across any research about coconuts and how the United States can actually kind of tame themselves when it comes to eating coconut products?

Yeah, you know, coconut's gotten a lot of bad rap lately and I talked about that extensively in an article I wrote. But you've got to realize that when you're looking at soy and you're looking at corn oil, which are big, big, let's face it, one of the biggest moneymakers for America, the energy is coconut oil because it's taken it away. Coconut's actually gotten real popular putting in coffee. Right. The oil company. So you know, it's become very popular and it's taking away money from the big agriculture and it's taking money away from big farmer and pesticide because they utilize those for their, their pigs, their crops. So in other words, it's a money loss. So I'm all for coconut. And a lot of people say, ah, this study says, that study says that listen, the healthiest people in the world, world eat coconut and they're healthy. I'm not. It's hard for me to believe that you're going to die if you eat coconut. I've not seen any studies.

Yeah. And I think, you know, eating close to the land you mentioned, 80, 20, you know, 20% having some really organic meats that are free range source. I want to shift here because we're going to cycle down and I think about these questions, these 10 questions that come up in your practice and all of your research over the past two decades. Question nine, actually you call it, excuse Number nine, I can't let food go to. Now, let me talk about this from my perspective because I came from an Italian background. If you didn't clear your plate and I'm talking take the bread and wipe the plate, you know, the sauce on the plate, then you were being disrespectful. And we have these familial behavioral characteristics that we inherit from our parents. When people say this phrase, I can't let food go to waste, what does that actually mean? What's the deeper psychology behind that phrase? How do we turn that around?

I think a real simple. Just live by the mantra that eat till you're satisfied, not full. People tend to think they have to eat to their full. When you unbuckle your duck buckle and you know your belly say, that's too far gone. You should eat to your satisfied. Here's what happens. Eventually that area of satisfaction becomes your fullness. So your body will get used to not having to gorge and be a glutton for all this food. And I think we just eat. And you know what else I think think it is? It's become social. We eat in front of tv. So we eat, eat and eat. We don't think and we just keep eating, eating. I say stay away. Turn off tv, don't read, don't do Twitter, don't just eat. Concentrate on the food and then you're done. Because if you're not, you're going to overeat. Because you're chatting, you're eating. You know, I'm saying, especially if you're watching TV with a big bowl of something or pizza, you're going to eat more pizza. If you're watching a meal, if you just go to your table and you eat one or two pieces, you'd be surprised that that's going to turn into four or five pieces. If you're sitting in front of the.

Yeah, mindless eating is big. And you're right. Especially Doc, with all the cell phones and calendar notifications, it seems like we are under a siege of distractions. And that's the thing, too. You know, what I've been doing this year is I take a massive deep breath before I eat food. Do you have a personal ritual before you eat? How do you set up your table for yourself?

Here's the thing about eating, and this is something that most people don't realize, but we chew too fast. And when you chew too fast, your body doesn't have time to register that you're full. Because when you chew, you literally, you break down the Food in your mouth. And let's say you're eating carbohydrates, literally, chewing, chewing, chewing. It sends a signal to the brain. The brain says, hey, stomach, colon, prepare for carbohydrate digestion. He's chewing carbs. If you're eating protein, same thing prepare for. So it's this neat system. But if you scarf down your food, your brain doesn't have time to do that. Communication, feedback, and you eat more and more and more. I was at a restaurant, Josh. I'll never forget this. I'm sitting there, it was a few weeks, weeks back, and there's this lady, she ordered her food, and I watched her. And you would have sworn that there was three words said. These words, ready, set, go. Because she scarfed that heel down. So I was watching her, like, oh, my, why are we in such a hurry? Answer your question is slow down. Chew your food. You'll lose more weight, you'll get fuller, you'll digest better. And you know what? You'll enjoy your food more than scar. We're always in such a hurry. I've seen people. One lady I saw in the car, she's on her cell phone and she's scarfing down this hamburger while she's. It's like everybody's in such a hurry. Take your time. Chew your food. It's so, so important, and there's research on that, that when you chew your food, you actually lose weight than if you scarf it down because your body didn't have time to digest it properly.

And for the people who are listening, that might be analytical, like what doctor mentioned. It's amylase, protease, and lipase. These things that are literally signaled from our body's innate system. That's been happening forever, 10,000 years plus this evolution. You know, we're in a strange. We're in a very challenging time, doc, because we are experiencing a technology explosion. And there's people that are in a hurry. Like this example from the woman in the cafe. Everyone, it seems, is in the biggest hurry of their life yet. That's not where life is actually lived. What are your thoughts on how we change this as a society? And obviously, we can start with food, but I think this hurried, frenetic mindset, it ripples out into all phases of life.

It's funny, because people will take their time, slowly to get that right picture of their food to post on Facebook, but then they'll scarf it down and not enjoy it. Right? Yes. My view is this. I think that you're so right. We really Got into this technology and I was guilty of it as well. And what I did is I stopped waking up first thing and checking my cell phone. I think you need 30 to 40 minutes of welcome to the new day without shoving that oh my God email, my God fires putting out or bad news or this hurricane's on the way or Trump said this and this was, you don't need that to start your day. So I say don't check your electronics first thing in the morning and also don't put it in your face before you go to bed. You know what I'm saying? Give yourself that buffer before bed. Wind on down slowly. It's all about social media and I think that we're just so accustomed. I was on a bus at an airport that was going, you know, to the, was driving to the parking lot and there must have been 60 people on it. Not one person was looking up. They were all looking down at their cell phones. I remember the day Josh used to read magazines and chat. Oh, where you from? Did you go on airplane? You wouldn't even recognize two people behind you in front of you that were on the same airplane anymore. In the old days you would.

Yeah. Now you bring up a great point. I'm so glad this conversation. I love where we've gone in this conversation, but I loved mostly where we've ended up because all the tools that you've talked about and the ways that people can take this actionable behavior change, this is all outlined in the book. Now what is the website where people can go to actually take a look, download the book, get the book delivered? Obviously Amazon's out there, but is there a better place where people can learn about the book?

Yeah, it's available wherever books are sold and you can go to the bookstores or foodsanity.com you can actually see all the books where it's available. And I ran out of room for recipes, so I actually include a 92 page ebook that has recipes with what I talked about. The swapping eat this, not that. And it's breakfast, lunch, dinner and desserts. Delicious desserts. Yes, you can eat great and still be healthy and still lose weight. So that's available. You can go to that. It's a good compilation. Of course, best to get the book and read about what the ingredients are and why I say to use certain ones. But that's available@foodsanita.com and you can learn more about me at drdavidfreedman.com and you can see all my social media followers there as well.

Yeah. And I can dig that, doctor, because the whole process of understanding what's right for me, it's a process and I think people are looking. And I, for a long time before I became a trainer 10, 15 years ago, I kept looking for the master magic ticket, you know, the, the Willy Wonka where I could get in and I would find the influencer or the guru that would unlock the perfect health for me. And all I had to do was follow exactly what they've said. And I want to say with a caveat to your work, this 80, 20, this flexitarian, we have to make sure that people are also understanding who they are in this moment. That's exactly where all of us are. So as parting guidance, this wellness journey, how would you define wellness for your life? What is your definition of wellness?

I think wellness is that day when you look in the mirror and you smile and you're happy. And I think too many people look in the mirror and they're not happy with what they see, how they feel in the morning, how they act. I think when you look in the mirror and you can smile and so many, few people smile when they look in the mirror. Josh, have you noticed that people aren't happy with the reflection they see? And I think the key to wellness is really being happy with who you are and really striving for a better tomorrow. People take advantage of the 364 tomorrows in a year and let's start today. Don't take advantage of all those because the new year's resolution is not the time you need to worry about losing weight and being healthy. Make today your resolution, not January 1st.

Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom of the show and honestly for these decades plus of what I believe to be a broadcast of self love and self care. That's really what I get from you. And you walk so many lines in this spiritual health and wellness and also reminding us what's most important, which is to take a breath and slow down. Dr. David Friedman, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thanks so much, Josh. I enjoyed it.

Hey my friend, thank you for hanging out and growing with me today. Everything you learned on this podcast starts with your morning practices. So from over 200 world class guests and counting, we've distilled the gems, the best of the best science backed practices down into a 21 minute.