This YouTube interview (March 11, 2022) between host Josh Trent and guest Brian Sanders centers on food-industry misinformation and practical changes viewers can make. In this chunk Brian argues that many processed foods are marketed as "health foods" despite being harmful; he describes his personal background—growing up in Oahu, early interest in filmmaking, studying mechanical engineering, later returning to film—and notes a personal health impetus (he lost both parents at age 30 and, at 38, has been on an eight-year health journey). The film "Food Lies" is introduced as Sanders' major project exploring food packaging and industry deception.
Chapters
These processed foods, part of the biggest problem is they're sold to you as health foods. And you don't think that they're bad for you, but they are. Some people who have poor health or very overweight, they know it. They're like, yeah, but I love Popeyes and I eat fried chicken all the time. You think you're doing the right thing, and you're not. The changes you can make are actually pretty simple and straightforward.
Brian Sanders, welcome to the show.
Josh, I'm so glad to be here.
This has been a long time coming. I've rescheduled maybe three or four times. So this has been marinating. This conversation's been marinating. So many people know you as the director of a film that's coming out that we're going to go deep into. It's called Food Lies. So today's going to be interesting because what I want to do with your expertise and your knowledge is, yeah, I do want to understand what's truly going on with food packaging and with the lies that, you know, basically big food has been pumping for multiple generations here. Well, not generations, but decades. But I also want to talk about the solutions because I feel like so many people out there, they. They know, quote, quote, what the mainstream media has been telling them about food, whether it's like, low fat is good or high carb is good. But let's talk about how you even got into this world because you were a mechanical engineer. So very logical and linear. How did you even get into filmmaking? Like, what was that journey? Because it's a pretty interesting road from, like, sitting behind a cubicle or a desk or whatever you're doing to being out there and interviewing health experts in the world. So how did that work?
Yeah, well, I grew up with film. I grew up in Hawaii, which we were talking about before, and it was great. And I was just always making film since I was, like, 12. Then I started making films in class, seventh grade through high school. A lot of them were shown to the whole school. And what's interesting is the guy I made these films with, he ended up going to film school. I went to mechanical engineering school. I had my whole journey and got into tech. I got into some other things, came back around a film. We came back together and started making this film together. So he joined on the project and is now the editor, director, videographer for this film. So that was kind of my full circle back into film. So, yeah, mechanical engineering did not help me prepare me for this film. But, you know, I'm glad to be back to something that I grew up loving.
You grew up in Hawaii, in Oahu. And did you live off the land? I mean, what was that like when you were growing up as a child? In other words, how did your affinity for organic without the label of organic really start? Like, what was that like for you as a kid?
Well, it wasn't like that. It was kind of learned later. That was a problem. Part of my journey is my health journey of myself and my parents. And so we grew up with the food pyramid, so we grew up in Hawaii. I mean, I grew up barefoot, so I, I was always at the beach, hiking, stuff like that. But food wise, we just follow the government guidelines. We're like, okay, we gotta eat pasta, low fat, dairy, lean chicken, cereal for breakfast. All the same, the same old stuff that everyone's heard. And that's, that's how I was raised. And I didn't find this until later in life. And I didn't find out that I needed to make a change until my parents. Well, I lost both my parents at 30. So, yeah, I'm 38 now, so eight years I've been on my journey to, you know, not fall to the same fate.
