Building a Golden Gut with Dr. B.

today's conversation with dr will bolshowitz is brought to you by plant strong foods you can check out our growing assortment of insanely delicious 100 whole food plant-based goodness at plantstrongfoods.com and be sure to save 10 off your first order with the code rip 10. that's my name rip followed by the number 10. it gets back to your gut is a muscle just like you train to swim train to run you can train to eat your gut is adapted to whatever it is that you have been eating for the last three months so if you shift your diet in any way you are asking your your gut to catch up and adapt to this new dietary pattern if you have something that you have eliminated it's going to be hard for you to bring it back because your gut is not adapted to it but it can be adapted to it and this is where you start low and you go slow i'm rap esselstyn and welcome to the plan strong podcast the mission at plantstrong is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement we advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands promotes and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health enhancing your performance restoring the environment and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with we welcome you wherever you are on your planet strong journey and i hope that you enjoy the show hello my plan strong p shoots thanks so much for tuning in to the plantstrong podcast i'm rick esselstyn and i gotta say you know you're in for a fantastic riveting interview when you and your guests show up wearing the exact same t-shirt that says eat plants take epic dumps that deserves a big kale yeah and of course that must mean i'm talking to the one and only dr b dr will boschwitz for those of you that are not familiar with dr bolschwitz he was on last season of the plant strong podcast he is a gastroenterologist who literally burst onto the scene just a few years ago when his first book fiber fueled hit the new york times the best sellers list this groundbreaking book was a guide to optimizing the gut microbiome sharpening one's immunity lowering cholesterol and of course promoting weight loss through a diet rich in diverse fruits vegetables nuts seeds whole grains and legumes you know what we like to call a plant-strong fiber-filled diet well his new book the fiber fueled cookbook inspiring plant-based recipes to turbo charge your health goes the extra mile and tells you exactly how to do this with delicious recipes and all kinds of meal ideas this is especially vital for those with food sensitivities which include more and more and more of us who often fear the foods that could actually improve their health today we're going to talk about three of the most common gut issues people have and how to treat them with a powerful growth strategy and i want you to know that growth is a wonderful acronym in dr b's book that we will discuss in detail so you don't want to miss it and by the end of this episode trust me i think you'll want to be playing some crazy rock and roll air guitar and you know it's a wild ride when dr b is on the show so let's get ready to jam all right plans strong people he's back and he's better than ever dr will bolshewitz here he is and you know what look at this we are both thumping our chests loud and proud i don't even know where i get my protein from how dare i dump my chest i'm a protein deficient vegan yeah but where do you get your fiber huh that's my question for you that's the question people really need to start asking honestly and that's that's what they should be asking rip they should be and we did not plan this out we were both wearing our eat plans take epic dumb shirts it fits so nice doesn't it oh man it is it's a great it's a nice cut it's a nice cut but even more than that it's the right message people need to hear this it is it is so thanks so much for joining me today i know that you got a lot going on right now in fact you've got two bambinos coming into the world here in the next couple weeks correct we do actually before my book is born the the book birthday uh my wife and i are expecting a new one a baby girl literally i mean hopefully we can get through this podcast it's like any day now so well the due date is the 20th right i think you said the due date is the 20th and then for what it's worth we said to the doctor look like we we don't want actual to actually have the baby on the 20th unless that's the way that god wants it to be so um because we have a heart stop the heart stop is thursday which is the 21st so yeah so the baby is coming on thursday if it doesn't happen uh sooner but like literally we're coming down to the last couple days here right and then you've also got another bambino which is you know fiber fuel was insane i mean what you did with that book when it came out you know you had to deal with when we were we were just hitting covid 19 was in its full stride and you turn that sucker into a new york times best seller sold hundreds of thousands of copies i mean it's you're crushing it absolutely crushing it but the world needs more fiber fueled we we do there there it is the cookbook i love it and and the thing that is so amazing to me about this new baby of yours is that it's it's not just a cookbook you've got all kinds of like new and hot gut health topics seminal stuff that wasn't necessarily in fiber fuel correct yeah one of you know one of my goals with this book i mean just to kind of frame the context because your audience i mean look the plant strong family y'all know me right i've we've been hanging out and we have and um so but just to frame this you know fiber fields comes out and my my goal with fiber fueled is to say to the entire world not just the plant-based community like let's go outside the plant-based community because we need to shake it into people and they need to hear the power of fiber and why this is so critically important you know i frankly rip i i can't explain why this isn't on the nightly news every single night when 19 out of 20 people in the united states are not just like mildly deficient in fiber they are wildly deficient in fiber this is the key to our gut health that we have clear research suggesting that by consuming more dietary fiber we can reduce our risk of multiple different diseases including heart disease cancer diabetes stroke chronic kidney disease i could keep going yeah right so my goal with fiberfield was yo guys you need to hear this fiber is powerful it could simply change your life this is not grandma's old drink right right then what happened is people read this book and they reached out to me with very nice messages saying dr b you know i'm excited i want to be a part of it i want to do it but many of them would say i don't think i can eat this way and so this is where it comes back to an honest conversation you and i were out there pounding the drum saying guys this is the diet this is the it's not going to change no matter what science emerges or to continue to say it's a plant-based diet but the the problem is that there are some people that on their own personal journey they are struggling to get there and so the fiberfield cookbook is my tool to reach out for whoever you are and show you a path that you can implement in your own life that will allow you to accomplish your goals from a health perspective using the power of plants yeah now one of the things that you had to have on the cover of the new cookbook was the exploding kiwi fruit which i absolutely adore now i'm gonna put you on the spot here for a second all right okay and if you get this correct i will i will buy you dinner the next time we're together well if if and if i get it if if i get it wrong i'm buying you dinner next time we're together no you don't need to do that so here's my question to you there's lots of different varieties of kiwis do you know what particular variety that is that exploding one on the cover of your book oh man um i i do not i do not so it's like on the tip of my tongue i'm thinking of the latin but i don't know this is what this is i'm going to give you four varieties okay and you tell me which one you think it is right all right is it the bruno is it the blake is it the chico early or is it the hayward okay let's let's work through this let's move okay i'm taking you all inside my head as i work through this question is it the bruno okay we don't talk about bruno yeah okay we've all seen in kanto or if you have kids you've seen in kanto we don't talk about bruno so it can't possibly be the bruno so we got the blake we got the rio chico okay the chico early all right this sounds like you're trying to distract me here i know you possibly do that so it leaves me with the blake or what was it the humphrey the hayward hayward okay all right um so i'm coming from a place of humility i'm willing to be wrong but i'm going to take my shot i'm going with blake oh my gosh you are so close it's the hayward it's the hayward oh all right all right but anyway yeah that's the hayward and it's the most popular of the kiwis with the nice you know brown fuzzy on the outside um do you ever just eat the whole kiwi skin and all yeah i do yeah i do absolutely um this is why i actually purchase organic kiwis so that i can still eat the skin because there's nutritional content in the skin and actually what's interesting is they did a research study on constipation there's a chance when you and i get together there's always a chance we end up talking about poop yes so let me just kind of go right off the bat i'm going to fire the first shot and say that there is uh research with kiwis where kiwis are just as effective as medications for the treatment of constipation and you just eat two kiwis a day it's beautiful you know what it's so funny you brought that up because i read that can i when i was researching what kind of kiwi was on the cover of your book i read about the hayward and the chico early that's the real name the chico early it sounds like a bs name doesn't it and and it talked all about how a kiwi is so amazing at uh helping to prevent constipation yeah and they also you know the the other beautiful thing is that we talk about prebiotics prebiotics are the food that feed our gut microbiome and kiwis not only are a rich source of fiber so that's one prebiotic but also they're a very rich source of multiple different types of polyphenols polyphenols are what give the explosion that beautiful color that we so enjoy right and that exploding color is really just an explosion of polyphenols that are coming into contact with your gut microbiome and um and feeding it and fueling it and making it stronger so this is you know it's like uh this is the artwork on the cover of my two books but at the same time like this is healthy for gut microbiomes everywhere yeah and you know what we we continue to hold that up for a sec because what's also gorgeous and again i don't have a hard copy they're hardly out there right now but i did go through the virtual one that you sent me and the recipes are absolutely they are so beautiful delicious and inviting and alexandra caspero right with plant-based juniors helped you with the recipe section yep so so alex caspero she's from plant-based juniors she has worked with the plant strong family she's been on your show she published a book all about how like uh babies and toddlers i think exactly junior and tyler um i know that she's she's been at your retreat in the past so like it's it's really cool sort of the family is all coming together she did the 80 recipes for fiber fueled she did 125 recipes or maybe slightly less than that because some of them are fermentation recipes but she did most of the almost all the recipes for the fiberfield cookbook and then the photography is done by ashley mclaughlin and she is um someone who she did the oshie glows cookbook with the new york times bestseller well you guys you guys have crushed it absolutely crushed it the information it is such a just a practical practical guide so i want to dive in will and let's start with the the whole fiber paradox right we talked about how we have so many people right now in this country that are literally fiber starved right and um and anyway just the fiber paradox you know hit me hit me with what this whole thing is all right well so my books are called fiber fueled but some would argue that i should have called them the fiber paradox because we all know that books is books called paradox they sell well right some sort of paradox people love it even when it doesn't make sense like beans are you know beans are like the healthiest food that exists and we're going to write a book about how their paradox the the fiber paradox is a real paradox which is that we have to keep it real there are people who struggle to process and digest fiber that is not because fiber is inherently bad in any way that is basically the manifestation of a damaged gut and when you consume fiber we as like big and strong as you and i are we lack the enzymes as humans to process and digest fiber so we are completely reliant on our gut microbiome to do that for us and that's what they're designed to do they're there for that we evolved to ask them to do that but if you have a damaged gut and you present it with a large amount of fiber it may struggle to keep up with what you're asking it to do it's a little bit more of a heavy lift than it can handle in that moment and so people will feel unwell and they'll go oh fiber is not for me the fiber paradox is that actually the fiber is for you in fact the person who needs the fiber the most is the person who will struggle the most to bring the fiber on board isn't that isn't that isn't that something else and and you know in your opening statement i think on this chapter in the book you talk about how what 95 or 97 percent of us are are deficient in fiber in 19 19 out of 20 people if we walk onto the street are deficient in fiber and you know the average woman is getting 15 and a half grams of fiber per day it's supposed to be at least 25 25 is the minimum the average man is getting 18 grams of fiber which makes it sound like we're doing better than the women are that's not true the average man is supposed to get 38 grams of fiber we're getting less than half the recommended amount so we have this huge fiber deficiency and part of what i'm trying to accomplish here is to actually address this nutritional deficiency where it's as you mentioned right off the top rip you know everyone says where am i going to get my protein from yet we're all consuming like twice as much protein as we actually need because protein is everywhere right protein is in every single plant protein is in animal products protein exists in the processed foods it's everywhere but fiber is not everywhere fiber is in plants fiber is not in animal products fiber is not in those ultra processed foods and so this is why we need to take this diet where we're like 60 processed and 30 animal products and only 10 plants and we need to flip this this needs to be the opposite we need to flip it where it's now going from 10 and we're cranking that up to getting up to 90 or more that's where we want to be and so if we have the vast majority of americans that are literally fiber starved and they try and introduce more fiber into their diet they're is it fair to say then that their their gut their microbiome because it's not adapted they maybe get bloating they get indigestion they don't feel great and they're like oh i can't handle fiber yeah that's exactly it and part and part of this is is empowering people with an understanding of what's actually happening with their body yeah because they may misinterpret the signal and say oh well because i had some discomfort it must mean that i'm not capable of consuming that food and that could not be further from the truth the truth is that your gut is completely adaptable you can make it whatever you want it to be but it's conceptual it's a it's a framework that's conceptually similar to exercise so like rip you are an athlete right you swam in college right did you just jump in the pool and go compete or did you practice practice my ass off exactly like how many hours a day were you in the pool preparing for that like one event that's going to be over in about like six seconds right too much right so and the same is true for um you know rich roll like rich roll didn't wake up one day in his 40s and go run a hundred miles it's not forrest gump movie that's a movie like rich roll trained rich rule prepared his body and he challenged himself and he slowly increased those challenges incrementally just like you would do in the pool you start to swim and you start to challenge yourself and you slowly increase those challenges incrementally until you find that you're capable of doing things that you didn't think that you were capable of doing your times are off the charts in terms of swimming or your rich role and you're running for a hundred miles right so this is your gut your gut is adaptable yeah it can it can be trained whatever you have done in the past your gut forgives you yeah and now it's time to move forward what i what i also find incredibly amazing is how you open up this chapter talking about how what if i told you that in the just in the 21st century we just discovered a new organ yeah and that's is essentially what's going on here with the microbiome right it's that huge oh it really so first of all just to put into perspective how big this is for science there is a scientific revolution taking place this is the major discovery that's taking place of our time it's not like you know columbus discovering north america right this is the discovery of these microbes that were invisible and we couldn't see them and we didn't acknowledge their existence until one day about 15 16 years ago we developed the laboratory tools that we needed to suddenly take a look and what we found was oh my gosh like this is an ecosystem living inside our colon and this ecosystem evolved with us through three million years to the point that we have trusted them with absolutely critical parts of human health they are connected to our digestion which is access to nutrients i mean gosh what's more life-giving than that we need nutrients just to live connected to our metabolism our immune system our hormones our mood our brain health even the expression of our genetic code you look at this entire package and you say this is like basically everything that matters for human health and we like didn't even know that this really was a serious thing until very recently and it's not even human it's right that's right and who who who did most of this research was it rob knight who was it well one of the confluence of kind of scientists this is a confluence of scientists as a confluence of scientists there are many and i think each one of them you know when you develop a new laboratory technique rip that's a complete game changer there's so much opportunity for many different people to apply that technique we still are in the very early phases of understanding what's going on here but where we are rip though that's very exciting is we are transitioning from a position where we were just describing what we were seeing to now we are looking at ways in which we can manipulate to achieve a health effect and benefits yeah and right in the center of it in these conversations that are coming out it's not like just drug development in fact in many cases it's not drug development instead the tran the conversation is shifting back to what do we eat back to fiber it's really cool yeah food baby um what so speaking of you know the american the american diet and how americans just seem to be willing to try anything that hits the newest and latest you know diet it seems like we have now progressed to where you know the atkins wasn't good enough south beach wasn't good enough paleo quito and now we're in this crazy carnivore thing what are your thoughts on like you know a meat only diet it just it sounds so ludicrous to me but how does that affect gut health okay so um unleash the kraken here we here i come um let's start with this okay we have to create a juxtaposition which is that because when you consume an animal product only diet i can tell you what the fiber content of that diet is because there is no fiber in animal products so the fiber intake is zero the plant diversity in that diet is zero and before i move forward with this conversation let me look at the counterpoint number one what are the health benefits of fiber in the largest study to date the gold standard study by professor andrew reynolds from new zealand he did a systematic review and meta-analysis which by the way that is our highest quality evidence that we have nothing else can touch that you can't do better than this and it was involving uh population-based studies large-scale population-based studies and randomized controlled trials he compiled 132 million person years of data we have only been on this planet for three million years yeah this is the entirety of human history more than 40 times over and he's putting it into one study to allow us to understand what does dietary fiber fiber from plants eating the food what does this do for human health here's what it does rip number one less likelihood of having a heart attack less likelihood of dying from cardiovascular disease that's our number one killer less likelihood of being diagnosed with breast cancer colon cancer or esophageal cancer less likelihood of dying of cancer that's our number two killer less likelihood of having a stroke that's a number five killer less likelihood of being diagnosed with diabetes this is our number seven killer randomized controlled trials when people consume more dietary fiber they lose weight they lower their blood pressure they lower their cholesterol and there was a trend towards reversing type 2 diabetes they just needed more people in the study for that particular part they didn't have enough people these are cardiac cardiac risk factors when you take this and composite people who consume more dietary fiber live longer period and i'm talking about a diet that has zero dietary fiber you could not go lower yeah it just um i mean what so you just talked we went through that that litany uh that wonderful list there but so what are the ramifications when you aren't doing fiber i mean you mean it's there's it's got to be dramatic let's talk about the gut yeah so um we know that our dietary choices can affect our gut microbiome in less than 24 hours they actually did have a study where people consumed an animal product exclusive diet for five days they monitored their this is one of the few carnivore studies that actually exist there's almost none but during this 2014 study published in the journal nature by lawrence david five days on an animal product based diet what you see is that you lose the short chain fatty acid producing microbes those are the probiotic microbes that we get from dietary fiber that are anti-inflammatory and like everyone agrees they're good for us you lose those on the flip side you grow different microbes that are more adapted to a high fat diet because the high-fat diet causes your gallbladder your liver to produce more bile and the bile actually alters the microbiome and what you see emerge are the are bacteria like bilophilibosworthia that's been associated with ulcerative colitis or you see bacterioides that's been associated with colorectal cancer you see a decrease in the short chain fatty acids which are anti-inflammatory and explain everything that i just said in that dietary fiber study from andrew reynolds you see an increase in what are called secondary bile salts which by the way are one of the pathways that red meat is carcinogenic associated with colorectal cancer so in just five days you're causing a shift in your gut microbiome that increases your likelihood of developing autoimmune disease which by the way this finding is more than a five-day microbiome study this has been confirmed by other studies rep red meat consumption connected to increased risk of inflammatory bowel disease and in five days you you discover that you are shifting your microbiome towards a microbiome that would be pro carcinogenic in terms of developing colorectal cancer are number two cause of cancer death in america and this also is confirmed by other studies this is by the world health this is why the world health organization has labeled red meat as a likely carcinogen yeah yeah so now the other thing rip is that we know from robert from rob knight's research the american gut project that the single greatest predictor of a healthy gut microbiome is the diversity of plants in your diet people that had more varieties of plants had the healthiest guts gut microbiomes they were consuming more than 30 different plants per week they were the healthiest it was it was actually above veganism right because if you're a vegan and you're eating the same foods all the time that's not as healthy as cranking up your plant diversity right so we're talking about the counterpoint we're talking about diametrically opposed where this is this is the you can't get further from plant diversity than this this is zero plants it's true yeah and you talk about over and over again how it's that plant diversity that's going to give you a a biodiverse gut which is going to give you a healthy ecosystem that's exactly right and so so if we withdraw all these foods you have to understand these microbes it's hard for us to fathom this because we can't see them with the naked eye but if i hand every single one of your listeners a microscope and let you take a look we would see life inside of us these microbes they need to eat their preferred food is fiber and if you go on a zero gram of fiber diet you are literally you could not starve your microbiome any more than this now i don't have data that's long term to prove that you would actually cause like serious harm to your gut microbiome and make it so that you are intolerant and worsening your intolerance of foods right i can't prove that but i can tell you that anecdotally i've seen this a million times well so you just brought up a very important word which is intolerances and i think a large part of this new book is people that are battling different food intolerances and for whatever reason they're excluding plants thinking that that might be a problem so will you i'd love for you to talk about some of the food intolerances that you talk about in the book whether it's the big three whether it's you know uh gosh histamine or whatever yeah yeah let's let's take it from the top so a food intolerance is when you consume a food in normal quantities like not eating like you know six pounds of kale and nothing else right you consume a food in normal quantities and that food causes symptoms that you do not want right it could be gas bloating abdominal discomfort cramping diarrhea constipation these are some of the examples of how a person may manifest a food intolerance now there are many different causes potential causes of food intolerances in terms of identifying what are the foods but here's the key i want everyone to know the problem is not the food the food is what is activating the symptoms but the problem is your gut and your gut needs to be healed and how do you know that your gut is healed your gut is healed when you take a food that you have been intolerant of and you become capable of consuming it and now this food that you thought was your enemy has now become your friend and and your term for an unhealthy gut is dysbiosis is that correct yes so dysbiosis is the is the um medical term that we would use uh you know when we're being rigorous about it but like you know you could call it leaky gut if you want to we're basically talking about the same thing the only thing that i will say with leaky gut is i would caution your listeners i know you have very intelligent well-informed listeners but i would caution them to be careful what they read on the internet that's all i'm saying so talk me through like what are some of the big three food intolerances or what are i should say um the big three when it comes to issues people have whether it's constipation whether it's uh celiac disease um gallbladder dysfunction you talk about those yeah i love this so uh so this is a great place for us to start and enter into a conversation that perhaps becomes a little bit of a narrative for this episode today yep which is that in in my new book the fiber fields cookbook i introduce an acronym which is growth g-r-o-w-t-h now growth first of all in my community and i this is your community too you share the same mindset growth is an important word in the fiber field space because it's about our mindset we're trying to grow we're trying to get better it's not about winning or losing you still win when you grow and you learn something and you get better at something no matter what in this case i'm using it as the acronym to guide and show people let me hold you by the hand and walk you through how to heal your gut and we start with the letter g which is where you're at right now rip with this question g stands for genesis what is the root cause of your symptoms we have to understand the root of your symptoms if we want to properly know how to heal you how to fix it so we have to start there before we even get into the food let's first make sure that we understand what it is that we're trying to fix and in the book i bring forward what's called the big three of food sensitivity i'm taking you the listener or perhaps the reader inside my head as a gastroenterologist i want you to know how i'm approaching your specific issue and thinking about it the big three of food sensitivity are the three things that i want to make sure are not there i don't want to miss them because if they are there and i treat you for them what i've discovered time and again is that your food intolerances will wash away so like it's a cool thing when i don't even have to change your diet i just correct something that's going on in you with your health and boom now your gut's back on track again and you do can you give me an example of what that would like what that would look like yes so here are the big three and i'm gonna give you an example for each yeah first is uh let's talk about celiac disease celiac disease is a condition where people actually their immune system reacts when they consume gluten it affects about one percent of people if you have celiac disease you need to be on a gluten-free diet if i make the diagnosis and i put you on a gluten-free diet most likely your symptoms will go away entirely number two constipation my favorite topic we've already touched on it we're back for round two within this podcast and i bet you will be back for round three at some point oh yeah all right so constipation number one cause of gas and bloating if you have gas and bloating this may be it and it's not just how often you go i mean look if you poop once every seven days okay you're constipated but there are a ton of people who are listening to us right now that don't realize that they're constipated they have gas and bloating they may have some other symptoms but they poop every day so they go doctor i am not constipated i am pooping every day is it a complete bowel movement because if it's not a complete bowel movement you may be backing up and if you're backing up it's constipation that's causing you to get bloated what's your definition of a complete bowel movement all right so when so what it comes to my definition for constipation okay okay all right it's not the frequency that can be part of the story here's the definition constipation is the inadequate evacuation of your bowels that leads to the manifestation of symptoms you don't want so inadequate could mean that you're going once a day and you're pooping out seventy percent but there's still thirty percent in there you feel like you didn't really empty it [Music] don't you don't you feel i mean if you don't mind i just like for you and let's just stop for a sec so yeah i know like for example um when i go to the bathroom i can tell if i've just primed the pump a little bit right or if all right that's good i'm i'm good till lunch right because usually like clockwork 6 30 to 6 45. you know there's a little knocking at the door and i'm like oh that was that felt like yeah 50 70 or that was 100 i am golden right right isn't there don't you kind of also doesn't your body kind of know i think you knew if you're if you're tuned into it yeah i think you do know i think i think you do know if you're paying attention to this i think there's a lot of people you know we have we have turned um conversation about bowel movements into something that is taboo like we're not allowed to go there we should go there we have to go there because this is way too important to human health if we're going to measure a person's heart rate and blood pressure and weight and call them vital signs we should be looking at their bowel movements right this is the window into gut health um now how do you know let me describe a couple of patterns rip just to kind of frame this because you're bringing up some good points here all right if you feel like you are not completely emptying and you have gas bloating and here are some of the other symptoms of constipation it could be abdominal pain it could be anywhere in the belly could be around your belly button it could be framing the abdomen left upper right upper left lower right lower these are some of the places many people will have nausea they get full very quickly they lose their appetite they have acid reflux they have a ton of fatigue some combination of these symptoms if if you're saying dr b this is me the question i'm asking is are you constipated and when you get relief here's one of the big questions so it's not just do you feel like you completely evacuated the other question is after you go do you get some relief at least for a period of time many people will go several hours where they'll go look i have a good morning bowel movement but then two o'clock three o'clock in the afternoon my belly starts getting distended and it gets worse and worse as the day goes on yeah here's the deal you're having a great morning bowel movement that's awesome it's setting you up to start your day but you need another bowel movement two three in the afternoon if you had that good second bowel movement which frankly when you're eating a high fiber diet you should be pooping two or three times a day so if you get that good second big evacuation i guarantee you you're going to you're going to feel that difference you're going to notice it well you know you were um let me think you weren't you didn't come to plan stock the last one that we had before um before covet hit but we actually have to drive up this long driveway and we had these signs say you know honk you know three times if you've pooped if you poop three times a day right and and most people at least in our community are pooping two to four times a day right it's almost it's almost like you eat and then you have this gastrointestinal response and then you poop right which is exactly where we should be right this is exactly where we should be and so you know when it comes to like this question of constipation how do i know as a doctor that my patient has actually gotten themselves to where they need to be the answer is the gas and bloating are gone you know it's it's so i i probably was probably three nights ago and i don't know why but i got my first stomach ache like like uh just like it was doing somersaults and nuts in literally probably a decade i i haven't i honestly will i don't think i've had diarrhea constipation stomachaches in over a decade yeah and and i got it i think it's probably we went out and we had some pizza uh of course i had no cheese on it but something probably affected me but it made me realize how many people are probably just as a normal part of their living are dealing with constipation diarrhea you know stomachs that just don't feel good bloating you know pain that's no way to go through life no it's not it zaps you of your quality of life um it makes you fear your food this is actually a quite human response it's not that you're a bad person or that you're you're like male adapted you're actually just doing what everyone else does which is when you feel like food is causing injury to you you try to avoid it and that's actually not the type of relationship we're supposed to have with our food food is supposed to be a source of joy it's supposed to be one of the top couple pleasures that exists in this life that we lead along with having a great dump and like the other stuff i mean like we're not gonna get you know are rated here we don't have to get into the other things that are great in life heck a great hug a great hug or like telling your wife that you love them right or the birth of a child i mean you guys know this is a wonderful plant strong community you guys know the stuff that lifts you up and makes you happy and it's all there but this has got to be part of it this is part of like being the essence of being human is finding joy in food yeah we'll be back with dr b in just a sec but now it's time for another plant strong proof email and this is from krista our journey started on march 26 2020 after my husband was told he needed a quadruple bypass within two weeks i'm going to make this short because our story is longer but so grateful and thankful for finding out about whole food plant-based diet and dr esselstyn who called us and told us what to do we both started eating a whole food plant-based no oil lifestyle on may 2nd 2020 after watching forks over knives and made the switch immediately it was like turning on a light switch today it has been almost 23 months and no open-heart surgery my husband feels great and no longer takes any cholesterol high blood pressure or diabetes medication after taking the blood pressure and diabetic medication for 30 plus years my husband was 78 when he was told about his severe coronary artery disease and blockages and he will turn 81 on may 14th we tell everyone our story and how incredible eating this way has been thank you krista krista thank you so much for sharing this email i want you to know that i will be sure to share it with my father as well and it just makes me ask the question isn't it amazing how much we have the ability to turn back our internal clocks even into our 80s and it's truly a testament to the miraculous nature of the body and also the miraculous nature of the wonderful whole plant-based foods that we feed these bodies i want you to be sure to stay tuned because we're going to have my father essie on the podcast in just a few weeks to celebrate father's day and if there's other people out there like krista it sounds like his sage advice has changed many people's lives and i know he's inspiring people each and every day please be sure to follow this podcast and share with your friends and family so they'll never miss an episode of the plan strong podcast either now speaking of the miracle of food let's head back to dr b uh okay so we were talking about about celiac constipation what's next okay so so we talked about celiac we talked about constipation then the third is the gallbladder so now the gallbladder can present in a number of different ways people hear that the only way that you can have a gallbladder issue is if you have gallstones that's not true people hear that the only type of symptom that the gallbladder will be is right upper quadrant pain that radiates to your back on the right side that's not true either the gallbladder can present with many different types of symptoms one of the big things in the book i try to give tips like actionable tips that can like open up your mind to possibilities empower you so you can have a better conversation with your doctor or figure out what's what's going on one of the big things that i look for is like are you waking up in the middle of the night with pain that is often the gallbladder because the issue is that like you could have the most rip-roaring food intolerances out there and the gut will sleep at night and it will rest and it will leave you alone it will give you that respite while you're sleeping but if you have a bad gallbladder it doesn't care if it's three in the morning and you've got a big meeting tomorrow morning it doesn't care so with the gallbladder if you fix the issue the person's symptoms will go away entirely and that's the key this is this so this is what i'm looking for is like celiac go gluten-free boom you fix the problem yeah constipation make them poop boom bloating and gas are gone gallbladder issue fix this problem boom no food intolerances but with constipation when you say make them poop but in order to make them poop you got to get that that fiber going down the old gullet well now uh yes yes yes yes absolutely resounding yes but but also let me uh let me unpack and get into some of the nuance of this rip because um like so many things that exist it's yeah there's always scenarios where i just wanted people to really have an understanding of how to how to navigate complex scenarios so here's the deal let me let me say this if you have mild constipation you crank up your fiber you drink some water you go for a walk you will poop and you will feel great yeah take your poop for a walk come back come back and do it again tomorrow the same cocktail constipation hydration movement it will keep you going and you will be so grateful that you listen to this podcast but if you are the type of person who is coming in to see a doctor like me you have moderate or severe constipation here's the one thing i want to warn you if you are super locked up and you pour that fiber in there but you don't get moving you're still locked up then the fiber actually can make you feel worse and these are some of the people involved with the fiber paradox they crank their fiber up they're still constipated and then they feel worse here's the key get things moving first when things are moving the the fiber is your friend we want to float that log down the river right right you don't want to drying up on the rocks no it's funny i know exactly what you mean because a lot of our six and seven day immersion retreats we have people that are severely constipated and that tumbleweed of fiber and plant-based foods just it's backing up right right and but then once it basically that that you know that dam is broken uh boy life is completely different so much better right exactly so so it's something worth thinking about is if you're cranking up your fiber and you're finding that you feel like your gas and bloating is going getting worse one of the things that i would say is ask the question could i be constipated and if the answer is yes focus first on getting things moving one of the things that i will use rip is magnesium completely natural it's a mineral it's a supplement most of us are low on magnesium at baseline you can check it with your doctor they can check it before you take the supplement and then you start taking a magnesium supplement to get things moving typically magnesium oxide magnesium citrate or magnesium sulfate get things moving first get the pooping going then start to increase your fiber and when you do it this way first focus on bowel movement second cranking up your fiber you will actually find now the fiber is your friend and it is helping you to keep those bowel movements moving and the constipation is gone for good smart i like that you so gallbladder dysfunction one of the things that i read in that chapter and i did was not aware of this you talked about how the fat is the macronutrient that the pancreas um which i guess is somehow maybe related struggles with struggles to help keep up with the most yeah and um and it seems to me like most americans are consuming probably 35 to 50 percent of their calories from fat typically the wrong kinds of fats yeah totally and and that pancreas is that is that connected with the gallbladder dysfunction at all it can be it can be so so a couple of things the the gallbladder and the pancreas are actually connected through a series of basically tunnels um think of it almost like water slides that are basically intersecting but leading down to the same pool all right and so that's these are called our bile ducts and the bile ducts carry the bile from the liver down to your small intestine but on that path they are basically intersecting with ducts that are coming from the pancreas now when a person is eating a high fat diet you are you are actually working your pancreas you're asking your pancreas to go into overdrive to keep up with the uh requirements of this high fat diet so you can process it and you know one of the things that we're seeing rip emerge which you'll find me it's not like this is not the backbone of the fiberfield cookbook but it is brought forward for people to consider is that there's a diagnosis called pancreatic insufficiency and this is becoming increasingly common in people who they may think they have a healthy diet and they're having digestive symptoms many one of which can often be diarrhea or looser stool and it's that their pancreas is actually struggling to keep up with the dietary demands of their high fat diet and if they just could simply reduce their fat they would be in a much better place got it um so i fee i feel like we maybe it was me that got us off track here but i think you were talking about the strategy for the growth strategy okay let's get back on track here yeah yeah yeah once we identify the root of our problem that's g for genesis now let's jump into r o w i'm going to put these three letters together because they're a part of a dance that's happening with trying to figure out what's causing food intolerances restrict observe work it back in now you guys please don't be triggered by me using the word restrict okay because i am not advocating for a restrictive dietary pattern i am advocating for abundance all the plants all of them but the problem is that we don't have a blood test or a poop test or a hair test or a saliva test that will tell us what we should and should not eat they are not accurate so when you're trying to understand your food intolerances what we can do is we can take one step backwards it's a temporary step we take one step backwards so that we can take 10 steps forward we take our food that we're curious about let's pretend it's legumes all right am i intolerant or sensitive to legumes well if we take the legumes away just for a couple days we see how we feel and then we bring the legumes back by shifting the currents off on off on you basically are able to test and isolate and see whether or not this is the cause of your food intolerances and once you figure that out you're not going to eliminate leg games trust me you're going to take what you think is your enemy and you're going to make it your friend and this is where we move into t train your gut now you and i have already been talking about this a little bit so i'm going to accelerate the conversation a little bit but basically it gets back to your gut is a muscle just like you train to swim train to run you can train to eat your gut is adapted to whatever it is that you have been eating for the last three months so if you shift your diet in any way you are asking your your gut to catch up and adapt to this new dietary pattern if you have something that you have eliminated it's going to be hard for you to bring it back because your gut is not adapted to it but it can be adapted to it and this is where you start low and you go slow yeah you know what let me just make a comment on that like the the guys at the firehouse at station 2 yeah we we started eating all these bean dishes beans at every dinner and one of the guys was it just tore him up right tore him up and that was probably for a good month or so and then he was fine but he had to go through you know a good month before he could actually tolerate the amount of beans we were we were eating it at lunch and dinner yeah so so if you take that particular uh firefighter yeah right and we look at what's happening with him here's here's the way that we approach this number one the question becomes is there something else going on right we go back to the big three of food sensitivity and we start with this could he be constipated because the question is if he is let's get this let's get this young man pooping and then once this young man is pooping then we can throw these beans on board and it's not gonna it's not gonna have this effect so much perhaps at all but if it is the beans and he's struggling all right your gut will adapt your gut will become keep i can assure you your gut will become capable of processing and digesting this food it did happen to him i am not saying that you need to just suck it up yeah yeah i am saying that instead think of it like exercise all right so let's uh take a quick example rip is it fair for me to say let's let's go outside to swim we've been talking about swimming a lot you like to ride your bike is that fair love it mountain bike for two and a half hours yesterday that's what i'm talking about all right so this this this gentleman right here this this athlete his name is oh okay the firefighter's name was derek but okay anyway go ahead go ahead so i'm going to use you as an example here yeah you like to ride your bike you're out riding your bike you hurt your knee all right you limp down to the to where you're safe you go home and the problem is now here you are and your your knee is injured clearly you're not ready to ride your bike right now we have two choices rip here's your first choice okay you tell me you can withhold your uh your choice until the very end okay the first option is rip i you're i'm going to tell you right now i have a strategy where you will never feel pain in your knee ever right i know what that is yeah don't bike again i'm going to put you on the couch not even that bike again i don't even watch you walking okay i don't even want you walking man like because if you don't walk and you don't put any weight on your knee you won't have any pain now the problem is like you're in great shape for your age just in general you're in great shape that's gonna fall apart and you're now sedentary you're laying on the couch and you gain weight your metabolism falls out of whack and now we have basically put you at risk for metabolic issues like coronary artery disease down the road yeah and severe depression sure among other things right and you're constipated as hell yeah all right option number two i get you hooked up with a great physical therapist you're not ready for the mountain bike right now we got to get your knee reoriented right but with this physical therapist they're going to work you through a program and it's going to progressively challenge your knee and every time you challenge your knee it's actually going to get stronger and you're going to restore function and the pain is going to be reduced right now there may be some discomfort on this path but we will try to minimize it and when you emerge on the other side you have no pain you are fully functional you have no athletic restrictions and you are back up on that mountain baby sign me up let's go so all right i now i realize this seems so obvious right but this is the exact same choice that we face when it comes to our gut which is that when your gut is hurt you can either stop eating food and that puts you into a restrictive dietary pattern where you actually make your gut weaker and it becomes less functional and less capable but you feel no pain or alternatively uh remind me rip the name of the firefighter his name was derek derek okay so alternatively with derek we can we can face this food yeah we can do it in a way where you don't have to actually like feel like you're destroying your body yeah yeah yeah the one thing i will say and this is for people that are out there and you you tell me if i'm right or wrong here but it does seem like legumes are probably tend to tear people up more than anything else and maybe one of the reasons is because they i think of all the plant-based foods they are some of the highest in fiber that's exactly it thank you right yeah people are not connecting this dot but this is an important connection which is that there are three types of prebiotics that exist earlier when we were talking about kiwis we talked about fiber we talked about polyphenols the third are resistant starches there are only a couple foods which can offer you all three prebiotics and by the way anytime we talk about prebiotics we're talking about something that is good for your gut but simultaneously is also challenging your gut it really fits with the fiber paradox right so there's only a couple foods that have all three legumes are one of them whole grains are the other all the prebiotics are there so it's you're challenging your gut more that's why people feel it but this is also the reason why if you bring dan butener in here yeah it's gonna tell you that the number one food in the blue zones is legumes yeah and we bring in the uh the you know dr guntry and he's going to tell you to stay away from because of lignans and all that other stuff right the whole grains and the beans that are literally it's the ultimate paradox here well right and that's you know the paradox is what i was alluding to earlier with my like little cheeky uh joke about it but you know we good science good science focuses on the big picture and in particular what happens with humans bad science is where you take a test tube study and you never even ask what happens with a human being right so the um the issue with what is being taught in in the plant paradox that lectins are like the source of all of our problems yeah is based upon test tube studies but then when you ask the question what happens when a human being consumes legumes and whole grains that are high in lectins and the answer is they live longer less heart disease i love it with less cancer yeah with less diabetes and you go down the line and we're talking about like in human studies the most healing foods and bear in mind the other thing too is like we it has to actually make sense right so if we are attributing all of our major health epidemics to lectins yeah let me share with you how much uh how many pounds of beans we're consuming on a yearly basis now as a point of reference the average person in the u.s is eating 220 pounds of meat per year which is more than their body weight but by 50 pounds um so anyway how many pounds of beans not you rip not you the average person in the u.s how many pounds of beans are they consuming oh this is going to be really sad i'm going to guess 15 pounds dude you're 250 percent more than what they're actually eating the average person in the u.s i'm not kidding rip is consuming six pounds of beans per year oh my god probably probably baked beans too oh totally and if we go back to our parents generation they were consuming eight pounds of beans that's not that great either but they're going from eight pounds to six pounds we're actually consuming less legumes than the prior generation and we're gonna say that this is the cause of all of our epidemics wow isn't that crazy you know let me let me let me toss out another thing like a hundred years ago the average person was eating guess how many pounds of cheese the average person was eating 100 years ago oh gosh i would guess like two and a half pounds something like that five right yeah and guess what it is today guess what it is today uh 40 50 50. right and that's the average and you and i aren't eating any so somebody's eating 150 pounds well and also the cheese is uh i mean look like the cheese that you put out like on your deck and it's still there a year later and it hasn't decomposed or molded over yeah what is going on exactly hey let's um i i want to ask you a bunch more questions we got about 20 minutes if that's if that's cool with you yeah let me toss can i toss in one thing real quick before we then it becomes a rip esselstyn like you can um pepper me with questions yeah come back to me but before we go there the last letter in the growth strategy yes is h and h perhaps my favorite letter stands for holistic healing that was gonna be my next question you know what you're a great host and so you're probably coming back to it but just think i just wanted to finish the thought so that we have the full arc of the growth strategy h stands for holistic healing and basically what i'm saying here is this there are people who do everything right eat good food sleep exercise they meditate and they still are suffering with issues it comes back to we are not just like a digestive organ that's working in isolation we are not just enzymes meeting proteins fats and carbohydrates we are a complete person we have a soul a spirit our mood affects our gut this is why in times of acute stress you will find that most people will manifest some sort of digestive symptoms bloating gas pain diarrhea constipation or a combination and that's acute stress and what's happening in the body just to unpack and explain this real quick is that your your brain actually this is the brain gut access they're talking to one another and your brain releases this hormone from the pituitary gland called corticotropin releasing hormone crh crh initiates the stress response and there is a cascade of events that start happening in your body as a result of this and if you follow that waterfall down at the bottom what you will discover is it is causing injury to your microbiome this is why you manifest you don't you don't even change your diet right and it's just like you feel unwell and you're not tolerating the same food that you could tolerate because of the stress now what do we do about the person who's dealing with chronic stress that is unremitting they have something that is um unsettled in their life and it could be anything it doesn't have to be trauma with a capital t well let's say it's just a job that you're not happy in a relationship you're not happy in i just had a patient recently rip who i could not she had this ulcerative colitis i could not get her better until she changed her job and when she did her colitis went into remission was not a nutrition thing so we have to look at the whole person this is where it's like i i want to elevate us as humans elevate our nutrition elevate our lifestyle but also bring awareness to the importance of taking care of yourself and finding joy finding love in your life yeah yeah what about uh and we've talked about like you know taking your um taking your poop for a walk right but ex does exercise affect gut health i mean how important is exercise imagine big time yeah every yeah yeah i actually was part of a recent study with um uh some doctors at the university of nottingham in the uk uh professor anna valdez and and emerita vijay and i so i i was this is a pub one of my recent publications where we took a group of people and we actually had an exercise intervention and what's cool is it was literally 15 minutes that's it 15 minutes i'm not saying this is optimal exercise i think more is better but what i'm saying is like this is a minimal amount of movement and it actually without changing their diet at all without shifting fiber at all it actually caused the change in their gut microbiome towards microbes that produce short chain fatty acids towards microbes that help us to process and digest fiber so in other words without even changing your diet you can actually shift your microbiome to make it more accommodating to the fiber that you're preparing to eat through exercise huh that is correct the human body is truly it's a miracle um what it comes back to is that there's a currency right the currency the the the health is being paid through short chain fatty acids this is the currency of human health and so what we end up seeing is yes you you eat a certain way and you will be rewarded with more short chain fatty acids but guess what when you exercise and when you sleep these different things they can have that same effect yeah short chain fatty acids and how how many of these scffs are in uh animal products oh that's an easy question there's zero i had to i had to pause because yeah i was like hold on is this is he trying to pull faster let's talk fiber fuel points right because or fiber fuel unleashed where you talk about points and you saw in the first book you were like and i love the way the goal for people was to eat 30 different types of basically whole plant-based foods including herbs and spices correct yep right for optimal diverse biodiversity and minimum of 30 per week but let's crank it up and let's go higher right 30 per week so talk to me about your new game plan here in in the cookbook when it comes to plant points you got the rookie you got the artist you got the you know the the the the the god and you have the you know the the legend i mean yeah tell me about this all right well i'm a big fan of music and um so i thought and i also am a big fan of games ooh yeah so like to me if you can gamify something then it really motivates me because i'm like ooh a game i can't wait let's go right so and this game does not need to be against anyone other than yourself but the point is that our food system is not going to introduce diversity for us yeah if anything they want to contract our diversity because they make more money by selling three different plants wheat corn and soy not that these plants are bad but that we need to go beyond what our food system is going to feed us so it becomes implicit like this is upon us it's on our shoulders to eat with diversity in our diet how can we accomplish that like this let's i'm challenging you all of you not just you rip all of you i'm challenging you to a game where when you sit down at that table we're playing the game and you collect as many plant points as you can at that meal every single plant counts now to be fair uh just be upfront about some things if you uh like take the italian seasoning that has five different herbs and you sprinkle that you don't get five point points for italian seasoning like that's that's crazy but if you were to take fresh herbs and introduce them could be basil with your pasta sauce boom that counts that's an extra plant point right um so and every single meal if you start thinking this way and you start moving towards increasing your plant points then you are naturally increasing the diversity within your diet you are naturally fueling a healthy gut microbiome i can assure you that if you are cranking up the diversity of plants in your diet unless you are actively trying to undermine me and prove me wrong you will be increasing your fiber content to the point that it will go way beyond the minimal expectations and you will be building not just a healthy gut microbiome but you will be helping building a healthy dietary pattern so plant points is our way of playing the game you can do it against yourself how many points do you get and in the book i define different types of rock stars yeah and what kind of rock star you ultimately are right are you mick jagger right or are you or like mick jagger who's like you know he's like 95 years old and he's still like selling at wimbley stadium or are you like the garage band that's just getting started it's okay if you're the garage bands we'll work towards becoming mick jagger yeah and so tell me when you like today are you going to become a rock god are you going to be a rock legend oh man uh like every day i'm doing my best to try to become a rock god i may not i may not get there every day but right so for listeners that means he's getting 20 points or more 15 to 19 is makes him a legend and 10 to 14 makes him a star so when you become that rock god today at the end of the day what what are you going to play what music are you going to play and tell me about your air guitar what's it going to be huh this is the best question i've gotten in any podcast i've ever done thank you for throwing this my way is it is it ac dc what is it no uh i think uh okay first of all it's gotta be a guitar solo it's got electric guitar specifically it's got a guitar eric johnson eric johnson um i'm going with uh i'm going with pink floyd comfortably numb and if you don't know what i'm talking about go turn on this song like youtube it nice pink floyd comfortably numb and you'll hear the guitar solo and it's just like this is dr b right now and you just see my face i'm just yeah yeah baby i love it i love it so i'm today at the end of the day when i get my 20 points and i'm a rock god i'm gonna play and you're gonna everybody's gonna think i'm the biggest cheese ball out there but my family and i last night we watched marry me with jennifer lopez um maluma and uh and owen wilson and it was so much fun and the marry me song i can't get it out of my head uh-oh but anyway so i'm gonna play marry me and i'm just gonna air guitar to no guitar that's there but anyway i love it that's all i i do too i do too so i i love the way you do the points and the gaming and to get people to eat more fibrous brush too is um just real quick is that bear in mind like this is not just about you this can be about the other people in your life that you're trying to bring along for the ride and a way to create inspiration for them right so like with our kids i have two soon to be three kids when i want my five-year-old son to eat more plants he does pretty decent consider compared to most other boys because he's in our family this is what we're feeding him but like if i want to get him to really crank it up he's going head-to-head with daddy and he wins yeah yeah yeah um let's talk for a sec you you are a huge fan of crowding and sprouting and uh i gotta say i i don't like fermented foods i like tempeh yeah i do like sourdough bread and you got some amazing like sourdough recipes in there between pizza crusts and crepes and breads those i can i i like but stuff that you know you salted and you leave it in jars for a while yeah there's something about it just doesn't like i don't think i like the taste of it well there's then that's that's okay first of all this can be an acquired taste second of all there are many different paths to a healthy gut there are many different paths to a healthy diet we're working on finding what works for you rip and what works for you is going to be different than what works for me that's just reality like i'm not trying to make you the second version of me that's boring i think you're more fun being yourself right so but um within the world of fermented food i want to tell people this important study that came out last summer that people need to hear about because this is a this is a gut health game changer so i've been talking pounding the drum about diversity of plants these last couple of years and i actually am broadening it broadening it out a little bit to say let's make sure that when we talk about plant diversity part of the conversation is fermented food and here's why stanford university professors christopher gardner who by the way is someone that i work with on the scientific advisory board for a company called zoe also justin sonnenberg erica sonnenberg they're all professed stanford and what they found is that in 10 weeks by asking people to introduce fermented food into their diet they were able to increase the diversity of their gut microbiome and reduce measures of inflammation most of us are not eating fermented foods the takeaway from this study to me is we should be eating fermented foods not in an obligate way where it's like we don't enjoy what we're eating but what we should do is look at the plethora of options and find what makes us excited and go yeah i know i hear you there and there's there's such a vast variety of fermented foods that are out there that everybody should be able to find something that works for them yeah and in the book we have quite a few fermented food options but there's other things that you could look at too i mean i think tempeh like tempe is a great one because you don't actually have to ferment it yourself you just pick it up at the store yeah right but we have tempeh lettuce wraps that i actually did a collaboration with a local charleston restaurant and they were they sold out every night by 7 p.m wow yeah wow what about sprouting i mean i you know obviously i've had doug evans on the on the show before and he's he is mr sprout although he got his hair cut recently and he needs to have the hair going crazy in order to truly be you know dr sprout but he'll grow back yeah we will it will um all right sprouting is i think like most most people perhaps in the plant strong community this is a higher level of awareness compared to other groups but most people are not sprouting and they should be sprouting is um inexpensive it could not be more nutritious it is like eating the food as a whole food all parts of the food and eating it as fresh as it could possibly be when a seed or a legume germinates nature has an initiation mechanism where it is basically like enhancing the protein the fiber the vitamins and then many in many cases creating medicinal benefits so as a quick couple quick examples broccoli sprouts are substantially higher than mature broccoli in the key phytochemical which is sulforaphane which is the cancer crushing phytochemical well by like a hundredfold right i mean it's substantial yeah it's substantial and and this is where the bitterness of broccoli sprouts comes from you consume them they're super bitter embrace the bitter right the bitter embrace the bitter because that bitterness is smashing cancer and helping to keep you safe and healthy yeah um another quick example uh people that have histamine intolerance so it talk we it's a little bit of a big topic we didn't really get into it very much tonight uh in our show but um it's really firmly in the book and there are people who have this issue and you can sprout peas and those peas actually in the presponding process release an enzyme called dao diamine oxidase this is the same enzyme that your body as a human uses to break to break down and process histamine so you have histamine intolerance nature has created medicine but it's not a pill it's a pea sprout those little friendly guys yeah and you know last thing uh i don't know if you've ever tried onion sprouts rip i haven't i haven't oh dude i'm telling you man that's that's your homework then because you are a well-rounded uh plant-based eater but for the for the well-rounded plant-based eater out there who's tried it all if you haven't tried onion sprouts i'm just telling you you will be addicted and what are you putting up talk to me what do you put them on how do you eat them uh sprouts in general sprouts in general including onion sprouts salads soups sandwiches smoothies it's the s's right all right so onion sprouts you may not put into a smoothie that'd be a little bit of a funky thing but like man in a soup and a sandwich like you take uh you take derek from the firehouse right and you get your chili recipe yeah and then you put a iceberg of onion sprouts on top and i'm telling you it's like a whole new level that you didn't even know existed yeah can i let me i want to go through some of the recipes that are in the cookbook okay because uh i went through and i'm like okay i'm these are like some of the ones that i am going to personally make cool from the book and i'm just going to start here there's a beat risotto that looks absolutely like crazy insane mango burrito bowl i'm all about big old man-tastic burrito bowls right fill me right up the pizzoli the indian curry you got a creamy cajun bowl breakfast you got a trinity overnight oats it's more of a savory but you got the tumeric the ginger and the cinnamon oh i mean that's my three that's my breakfast spice combo turmeric cinnamon and ginger is so good yeah yeah you got an ancient grain porridge of millet quinoa amaranth all gluten free right for people that have uh celiac or something like that you got a veggie scramble and sourdough toast uh sweet potato waffles like get out of town um speaking of sweet potatoes you got a sweet potato well you take sweet potatoes to the next level and you got sweet potato bars yeah i mean where you put all kinds of different toppings mexican sweet potatoes is it a mediterranean sweet potato like there's different there's different combinations i'm all about the combinations yeah yeah and then um you got a roasted eggplant dip that i'm gonna try because i can't stand eggplant but i'm going to see if i like it ginger broccoli pasta salad looked incredible edamame pesto pasta zippy cilantro bowl i have that in here because i think it's interesting and uh alex actually mentions it because there's so many people that come to our immersions that can't stand cilantro yeah it's almost like a certain certain number of the population they have this genetic taste where it tastes like soap to them yeah i know it's very it makes me very sad for them because it's not their fault right and i absolutely love it but you're so empathetic you really are you got sweet potato and lentil burgers uh sweet and spicy peanut tempeh wraps and then this is what i'm gonna well i'm gonna try one of these tonight you got peanut butter date cookies that you know peanut butter and date how can you go wrong and then this is this is one that is just mexican hot chocolate brownies made with black beans and cayenne pepper i don't want that oh yeah oh definitely well yeah i know uh combining the spiciness with that chocolate oh man that's money yeah that it's world class right there oh yeah oh yeah and what's cool is i i actually one of the things that alex and i so going a little bit behind the scenes because you know alex and your community does too going a little bit behind the scenes you know we were building up to this book right and it's not these recipes they don't just cut like you know materialize out of nowhere there's a lot of thought that goes into this and part of what we wanted to do here is um we wanted to celebrate the many flavors from across the globe so hopefully people as they're listening you describe these you know you're touching on like you're touching down in east asia touching down in the mediterranean you're in mexico you're in the good old united states of america and you can take a world tour with your taste buds and stay at home in your kitchen yeah world tour with the taste buds i like that why not yeah yeah well you've made it very very inviting and practical and accessible to to everyone really um way to way to go um well let me say that you are truly a disruptive innovator you are what i love is the way you're challenging the status quo and you're changing the culture by introducing something that is so insanely simple but nobody knows about it and you are really you are you're doing amazing work and i'm so glad that you are part of this um what's the word i'm looking for now i'm not going to say um you're trying to avoid movement because i was trying to avoid the word movement you didn't want the pun because when you get around me it's like the puns are everywhere right so it's almost like being with aaron spitz you know the the author of the penis the penis book never ending yeah yeah uh but man anyway um i uh i'm so glad we're united in getting this message out there well you know i think what's really cool rick to be totally honest and just to kind of riff off of that first of all that that means a lot coming from you um and i really mean that um but what's cool is that like i just have this image of your dad in the 1990s 80s 1980s early 80s he's he's running and he's william wallace right and he's got this massive braveheart sword and he's running across that battlefield screaming at the top of his voice eat more plants right and he's and he's out there leading this charge and you know the your dad is on the mount rushmore of plant-based eating and here come here comes the new generation and here comes you and i and we got our kilts too that's right we got our braveheart freedom you take our lives but you'll never take our food freedom fiber oh and we're gonna we're gonna we're trying we're trying to wake up america because gosh needs it so we're working on it we're doing our best we got a lot of work to do my my friends hey hit me with the big plan strong boom hey all the best with the new baby thank you my friends are you ready to become a rock god just like dr b well if so i want you to play the guitar solo to we are the champions by queen because when you get an abundance of fiber in your diet with 30 plus rock and roll plants a day you are officially a champion in my book the fiberfield cookbook is available right now and we'll be sure to link to all of these resources in the show notes on the episode page at plantstrongpodcast.com all right in the meantime i'll see you next week and until then take epic dumps and oh yeah keep it playing strong the plantstrom podcast team includes carrie barrett lori kordowicz amy mackey patrick gavin and wade clark this season is dedicated to all those courageous truth seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth most notably my parents dr caldwell b esselstyn jr and ann kryl esselstyn thanks for listening

Channel: PLANTSTRONG by Engine 2

Views: 36,529

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Id: pe7wgvDvQhI

Length: 89min 26sec (5366 seconds)

Published: Thu May 19 2022