Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I am thrilled to be talking to doctor Caldwell B. Esselstyn today. He is a genius. I don't even know how. There aren't enough words to describe what he has done in preventative medicine, in longevity. Those of you who care about longevity, you're gonna have to listen up. He's been recognized as one of America's leading physicians. He is most notably known, probably by former president Bill Clinton, who credits doctor Esselstyn for transforming his heart, his health, with the vegan diet.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: There's going to be a seismic revolution in health. It's never going to come about through the invention of another drug stent or bypass. But the seismic revolution will come about when we in the profession educate the public as to the lifestyle and most specifically, the nutritional literacy that will empower them to absolutely annihilate chronic illness.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: He's a Yale graduate and a limited Olympic gold medalist in rowing and former army surgeon who served in Vietnam. He has been a champion of the plant based diet since 1984 and promoted a whole food diet way before it was cool or trendy. Now he's the director of the cardiovascular disease prevention and reversal program at the Cleveland Clinic. And with over 150 scientific publications, his pioneering research has always been at the forefront of all disease prevention. He and his wife have so much energy and clarity, and they have authored books, cookbooks, and a plant based food business his son started. I have been vegan multiple times in my life. In the last year, I've been 98% to 100% vegan. And I can tell you after today's conversation, I'm now 100% vegan. And I'm not gonna switch it. Please welcome doctor Esselstyn. And stay with the whole conversation. You won't regret it.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: All right, so you know who's with us this morning to help us get moving, we have fitness expert Tracy Anderson.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Tracy Anderson. Tracy Anderson. I'm so grateful to her.
Doctor Esselstyn, thank you so much for joining us today. I recently have gone completely plant based a couple of times in my life I have been, but I think this time I'm truly committed. And a lot of my motivation for it came from so much of your work. And also my son, who is 25 years old.
We sadly lost his father at 48 years of age to a heart attack, and no man in his family had ever made it to 60. So this is anything around the heart and heart health everyone should take very seriously, but in particular, our family and my son at a very young age is. Is looking at all the possibilities that are available to us to rewrite our health for longevity. And really, what I'm interested in here, in this space with my audience is really speaking to the people who have dedicated their lives to empowering us, to use the things that are available to us, to everyone, to really make a difference and advocate for our health. And you are not only a gold medalist, an Olympic gold medalist, but a gold medalist. And how much more could you do for public health than what you've done in your life? So thank you so much for all of that.
I love listening to you lecture. Where are you calling in from today?
[00:04:13] Speaker B: We're at home. At home in Cleveland, Ohio.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Oh, in Ohio. Okay. So I'm a midwesterner myself. Did you grow up in Ohio, or did you just go there by way of your job?
[00:04:26] Speaker B: I actually grew up on a farm in upstate New York.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Wow. I did. I grew up in the midwest, and then I went to college in New York. So we kind of reversed.
But I love Ohio. Ohio is beautiful.
So I want to talk to you first and foremost about the things that my audience craves answers to. And I think today, as you see Instagram and social media and podcasts making our ability to communicate so almost overly available, there's so much that people are trending in their health. You know, all kinds of diets, from ketogenic to paleo, to eat all this meat and lose weight to being plant based and all of this. There's so many isms. I feel like that you could write a book of all of your. Of all of your little tips and things, but you say, like, before, you're going to put anything past your lips. Like, I love. I watched this lecture, and you said it a couple of times. I'm like, it's such a visual. Like, it's such an amazing expression. Like, before you're going to put this past your lips, you should know all of these things, and. And you know so much. So how do you eat today? Because you're succeeding in the longevity game. So what is your diet like in your house?
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Well, it all sort of started with me when I was about 1979, when I was chairman of the breast cancer task force at the Cleveland Clinic. I became increasingly disillusioned with the fact that for no matter how many women I was doing breast surgery, I was doing absolutely nothing for the next unsuspecting victim. And that led me to do a bit of global research. And it was quite striking to find that there were multiple cultures where breast cancer rates were 30 and 40 times less frequent than the United States and in rural Japan. In the 1950s, breast cancer was very infrequently identified.
As soon as the japanese women would migrate to the United States, by the second and third generations, still pure japanese American, they now began to experience the same rate of breast cancer as their caucasian counterpart.
And moving on to Japan, it was even more struggle. It was even more striking. In 1958, in the entire nation of Japan, how many autopsy proven deaths were there, from cancer to prostate? In the entire nation, 18 deaths. By 19, 78. 20 years later, that had risen to 137, which still pales in comparison to the 28,000 men who will die this year in this country from prostate cancer.
So it was along about this time that I began to feel that there might be more bang for the buck if we could look at cardiovascular disease, because it was the leading killer of women and men in western civilization. And I was encountering, in this review, I was encountering multiple cultures where cardiovascular disease was virtually non existent. And the common denominator of those cultures without heart disease was that they were all thriving on whole food, plant based nutrition. So the next challenge was, you can't just make a pronouncement and ask people to start to start eating plant based nutrition. You have to be a little bit subtle about this. And by that, I mean you've really got to do the research, because if you can show with research that there is absolute, irrefutable scientific proof, but by changing to whole food, plant based diet, you could either halt or stop heart disease, then you'd be on your way to making a statement that was backed up by solid science. So that's roughly the background. I started the first study back in 1985.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: That's amazing. And have you been plant based since you found.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: I couldn't. Ann and I agreed that we certainly couldn't ask patients to eat this way unless we were to transition ourselves. Remember, I grew up on a cattle at an Aberdeen Angus beef farm and a dairy.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: I didn't realize that. That's amazing.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: And it was really.
It's just a little bit embarrassing to think that the products that we were raising were adversely affecting people's health.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: That's a whole different way of looking at a transgenerational business and stopping that. And not that anybody thought they were doing anything wrong, but for you, that's progression. You know, many people get stuck in their environment and they can't be fluid, they can't change, they can't grow out of it. They can't even envision a world other than what they grew up in. So it's extraordinary that you did.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: To answer your question about the family, yes, the whole family converted. And I should also share it with you now. We have four children and ten grandchildren, all of whom are plant based.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: That's amazing.
We are as well. I really. And I feel amazing. I feel great.
And my blood work has changed so much, too.
And you talk about this, about how changing your biochemistry by what you put through your mouth, don't let anything pass your lips, that it's not going to really help you with this power that you have to change your biochemistry. In one of your talks, you speak about making yourself heart attack proof by changing that biochemistry, and that you can change your biochemistry for the better in potentially as little as three weeks. Do you still believe that or.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: I still believe that, and I think we can show it to you on PET scans, which is a way. A PET scan is a way of measuring areas of heart muscle to see whether they are receiving their due supply of oxygen and nutrients. And so you get a baseline PET line. You get a baseline PET scan when you first see somebody, when they've got a lot of symptoms, they've got a lot of disease, and your PET scan will be abnormal. And we found out that when some of these patients would follow our program precisely, if we repeat the PET scan in as little as three weeks, you can see that area that was previously not adequately supplied with oxygen and nutrients is now restored. So it's really extremely exciting.
We had another example. I'll try to the reason I'm excited about this one. This is the first one in 40 years that I've seen.
There was a gentleman who, from Seattle, in his early sixties, he began getting abdominal pain, and he was then evaluated for diverticulitis, which is a condition of the intestine where there can be inflammation, and that all that was negative. So on the 29 December, he then had a CAT scan of his abdomen, which revealed that the main artery, the superior mesenteric, the main artery that was feeding his small intestine, was now 75% blocked.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Well, at that point, he. We don't want that to block off all the way because that could be extremely dangerous.
So two weeks later, he and I had our first encounter, and he was marvelous. He absolutely, totally stuck to the diet. Precisely. Remember? Now, this was. Therefore, it was January, excuse me, December 29, that he had this CAT scan that showed the 75% narrowing. I counseled him a week later, and then by February 7 of this year, in other words, about four weeks later, they repeated the PAT scan that previously showed the 75% block, it was now all gone.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. In four weeks.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: And also, so was his abdominal pain that stopped at two weeks after he got on the program.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: Really? Now it's not going to happen that way because there may be times where plaque reversal may take upwards of a year or more on some plaques that are made up of fibrosis and scar and calcification, very, very, very resistant to improvement. But it's so exciting and so provocative that when you have a plaque that is made up of inflammation, fat and cholesterol, how powerful the body can be.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: In resolving it, it is amazing. I love how excited you are by the research and the evidence. When patients will buy into and actually do, they will handle the hard truth of where they've gotten to be, and they will do what you say when they participate with you. You know, it seems that when there's no other hope for them, a surgery won't work or this won't work, and they really do buy into what you're saying, and they really follow it, because I think so much of the time, people don't actually follow what, they don't follow it to a t. You made.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: A very important observation. I think you said that you had a strong family history in your family. Many of the males had not lived, is that right? Beyond six.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Correct. My son's father, he was amazing. He played for Bobby Knight at IU. He played IU basketball for four years, and then he played for the New York Knicks and the most amazing human being, and 66912, and he passed away of a heart attack at 48. And they said that in the autopsy, that he had a heart of an 85 year old, and his dad also passed away the same way, and his father's father as well.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Here's something I think your audience might want to think about. Every single patient that I have ever treated for heart disease, or any of my colleagues have ever treated for heart disease, or any colleague anywhere in the United States or Europe or Australia who has treated patients for heart disease. Every single one of those patients at one time did not have heart disease, right?
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: So should we ask them to start changing when they need a bypass or when they already had a heart attack, they don't want to have another one, or they have to have stents or they have to start living on lots of drugs? Why? What is happening? We've gotten there too late. I mean, it's nice to really help these people and stop their disease occurring. But when you think about it, to stop that from ever starting in the first place.
That should really be the goal. That should be the goal much more with schools and people feeling comfortable about eating this way, because, you know, it's so exciting to think that you can exchange one pile of delicious food that is absolutely destroying you for another pile of delicious food that absolutely will keep your arteries clean.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's amazing. Let's talk about that plant based diet for a little bit, because the information you're so generous with, your, your information that's available out there, but with antioxidants, because people talk a lot about antioxidants. And you were. Can you talk to us a little bit about antioxidants and how best to get it? There was something you were saying about making sure you have vinegar with it and no oils. So do you live on a plant based no oil diet or do you have some oils?
[00:16:52] Speaker C: Good grief.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: We don't even have it in the house.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: No oil. Is this your wife?
[00:17:02] Speaker B: That was not my voice.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: I know. I love her, but I want to hear what she says. Is this Ann? Is this your wife?
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Ann. Tell me more about that. No oil.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: They want to. I think Tracy wants to know how you, how do you cook an onion? Just cook it.
[00:17:19] Speaker C: It's full of water.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: With water.
Okay, so no oil. I love this. So even for someone like Sam, who, my son, who's 25, to prevent this genetic thing that could be in our family, you would say no oil. Plant based. So those two, meat and oil, are equally as detrimental to creating gut disease.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: No, I think it has to go deeper than that because it's very difficult for families to talk to another family member and get them to change their nutrition. But what I find is so important is if you're going to have even patients with heart disease, if you're going to make them have a significant lifestyle change, you've got to give them information and you've got to. Two things are so important. One, you must show the patient respect. And the only way that I know to show patient respect is to give them our time. And by that, I mean at the present time. The last paper of some 200 patients that we published, we were running close to 89.3, almost 90% adherence, close to four years.
Now, the other part of that is right now I run a seminar about every six weeks or so of about 20 people with heart disease. It's all done virtually now. And these patients over the. It's a single day, and it's not a ten minute office visit, is five and a half to 6 hours, they're going to learn all about how they have created their disease and exactly how we are going to empower them as the locus of control to halt and to reverse their disease. And the other thing that is, I think so imperative is you take the time to have them understand the disease causation. All experts would agree the we're heart disease. This disease has its inception, its onset, its beginning is when we progressively injure the life jacket and the guardian of our blood vessels, which happens to be that delicate innermost lining called the endothelium. And it is the endothelium that manufactures this truly magic molecule of gas called nitric oxide. And it is nitric oxide that is responsible for the salvation, preservation and protection of all of our blood vessels because of the remarkable functions that nitric oxide possesses. For example, nitric oxide will keep all the cellular elements within your bloodstream flowing smoothly, like teflon rather than velcro. Nitric oxide is also the strongest blood vessel dilator in the body. When you climb stairs, the arteries to your heart, the arteries to your legs, they widen, they dilate. That's nitric oxide. Number three, nitric oxide will protect the wall of the artery from becoming thickened, stiff or inflamed, and protect us from making blockages or placket. Now, the key thing here is this, or to know that everybody on the planet Earth who has cardiovascular disease has their disease, because by now, in the previous decades, they have so sufficiently trashed, injured, compromised, and turned their endothelial system into an absolute train wreck that you no longer have enough nitric oxide to protect yourself from making blockages and plaque. However, the good news is this. This is not a malignancy. This is a benign, foodborne illness. And once you can get patients to understand that never, never, ever, ever again are they to pass through their lips a single morsel, a single morsel that is going to further injure an already train wrecked endothelium, because by then the endothelium can recover. Make enough nitric oxide so you can halt disease progression. And we often see elements of disease reversal. Now, the next segment is what are the foods that every time they pass our lips, we injure? They are, number one, any drop of oil, olive oil, corn oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, coconut oil, palm oil, oil in a cracker, oil in a chip, oil in a piece of bread, oil in a salad dressing.
Number two, anything that's animal protein, meat, fish, chicken, fowl, turkey and eggs. Next one, anything that is dairy, milk, cream, butter, cheese, ice cream and yogurt and sugary drinks, diet cokes, pepsi and coke and sugary foods, cakes, pies, cookies, stevia, agave, excesses of maple syrup, molasses and honey.
I also don't like peanuts, peanut butter, nut butters, cashew sauce or avocados. And lastly, coffee with caffeine. Now that's a pretty rigid list, but those foods, now there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of delicious recipes that can be made with those. So you don't have to feel that you're sacrificing anything except you're going to get to your seventies and eighties and nineties with blood vessels that are clean.
And now what are you going to eat? I've said, well, we don't want you to eat. What are you going to eat? You're going to have all these absolutely marvelous whole grains for your cereal, bread, pasta, rolls and bagels, 101 different types of legumes, lentils and beans. All these marvelous red, yellow, green leafy vegetables, white potatoes, sweet potatoes and some fruit. Now, it's interesting that about a decade ago, I made a significant change in our program that was out of recognition of the fact that the endothelial production of nitric oxide is age dependent. For example, you never heard of a boy or a girl at age eight having a heart attack. No. They have nitric oxide coming out of their ears, but by their time, they're beautifully healthy. At age 50. They now have 50% of the nitric oxide they had when they were age 25. And by the time you're 80, you lost 70%. So the two changes I made were, one, a greater stimulation of the endothelial production of nitric oxide. And number two, we embrace the newer research that shows us that mankind has an alternate pathway for making additional nitric oxide. So here we go.
I need that patient to chew six times a day a green, leafy vegetable roughly out of the size of one third of a cup after it has first been steamed or boiled, five and a half to six minutes so it's nice and tender. Then you must anoint it with several drops of a delightful, either balsamic or rice vinegar. Why? Because research has shown us that the acetic acid from those vinegars can restore the nitric oxide synthase enzyme contained within the endothelial cell that is responsible for making nitric oxide. So you're going to chew this alongside your breakfast cereal again as a mid morning snack, again with your lunch and sandwich. That's three, mid afternoon, four, dinner time five. And of course, I adore it when you have that evening snack of arugula or kale. The second benefit from chewing the green, leafy vegetable, you restore the capacity of your bone marrow to once again make the endothelial progenitor cell, which will replace our senescent, injured, worn out endothelial cells. Third benefit, when you're chewing the green, you are chewing a green nitrate. As you chew this green nitrate, it is going to mix with the facultative anaerobic bacteria that reside in the crypts and grooves of your tongue. Those bacteria are going to reduce the nitrates that you've been chewing to nitrite. And then when you swallow the nitrite, it is your own gastric acid that is going to further reduce the nitrite to more nitric oxide, which can enter your nitric oxide pool. So when you think about it, the minimal expense, no side effects, what you are doing all day long, dawn to dusk, morning to night, you are absolutely restoring nitric oxide, the very molecule the deficiency of which gave you this disease in the first place. But there is a caveat to this, and that is that toothpaste with fluoride, public drinking water with fluoride and mouthwash will injure the beneficial bacteria in your mouth. And I do not like antacids because antacids will reduce your gastric acidity and you will be unable to reduce the nitrite to more nitric oxide. And then the top six vegetables are kale, swiss chard, spinach, arugula, beet greens and beets. Now, if you want the entire list, it goes like this.
Oxo, kale, collards, collard green, beet greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, nappy cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, cilantro, parsley, spinach and arugula and asparagus. And the reason I go through that like that with, you have to understand a whole food plant based nutrition can do wonders for your memory.
Thank you for your patience.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: Look at you. I know you know where you won me over, where I thought, oh, gosh, people that listen to the first list of nos, they're like, well, those are all very habit forming foods. It's so easy to become addicted to many things on that list. And then when you're listening to the list that we can have the potatoes, I was really grateful for.
I was grateful that I could still have, if I can have potatoes, I'm fine.
And nuts, so nuts are not something I can't. I'm allergic to almonds. So I worry about that sometimes being plant based because I stay away from nuts, but it's not essential.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: I will confess I'm a bit of an outlier when it comes to nuts. A lot of other people are pushing that. But especially for patients with heart disease, nuts can be very addicting and they can be filled with a lot of saturated fat. And the reason that I'm able to speak with some degree of assurance on this is that we started this about 39 years ago.
And on multiple occasions when we've had patients reverse, not only alter disease, but when we've seen them reverse their disease, that's something that if you're going to take on, have keto and paleo and all the others, do they have any studies where they've taken patients seriously ill with heart disease and have the disease halt and reverse?
[00:28:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So I feel better about that. And the olive oil. What about olive oil? Because people are saying eat so much olive oil.
Why is olive oil on your list? I'm just curious.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: Well, olive oil, because I have a slide in my presentation that shows this wonderful study from South America showing how palm oil, corn oil injures the endothelial function.
Remember, it's the endothelial cells that are making nitric oxide, which is our protector. So when oils injure your endothelial production of nitric oxide, what you're doing is you're creating a lot of inflammation with these oils and also you're killing the very factor of nitric oxide which is our great protector. In 1980, Doctor Firchcott, working in his laboratory in Brooklyn, was taking the largest blood vessel from the rodent and the aorta. And he would do this elliptical spiral staircase, cut on it right through the endothelial cell, immersed it, and it would constrict. But one day he took the order. No cut, no injury to the endothelial cells. He immersed it and it dilated. He did it again with another one and it dilated as long as he didn't cut and injured the endothelium. So now the race was on for the next eight years, what was the EDRF endothelial derived relaxation factor that doctor had identified?
And it was three physicians, Doctor Murad, Doctor Lou Ignaro and Doctor Firchkott in 1988 discovered that that factor was nitric oxide. Nitric oxide was discovered in 1988. And in 1998 those three men for that discovery received, won the Nobel Peace Prize, right?
[00:31:12] Speaker A: Yeah, that was the year my son was born. That's amazing. But for you to go as a leading physician and create an entire practice a communication to people with that science that makes them understand this power that is in all of our hands is so remarkable and generous, because I think that so many very brilliant people don't get their message out, you know, out to society, to society at large. So we just continue to make, to live in these terrible cycles and systems that history, you know, you have pinpointed in some of your lectures how clearly we got to this corrupt place with food and our health here in America. And to disentangle that, to move that in the right direction, it's going to take people like you that really understand the science and the evidence and the studies just point blank, telling us like, it is like this.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Well, Tracy, it's people like you that allow us to get the message even further out. Come on.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: It takes, it's going to take a village. Hey, listen, I've been trying to get people, I've been focused in my lane for 25 years, and I couldn't believe when I started creating the choreography of movement that I create, how difficult it was to get people to move. It's so difficult to get people to want to exercise.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Helps people move a little, is a, there's a film out called forks over knives. It's now about to been out about twelve or 13 years, but it's still a wonderful film. And I was part of the team that put it together. And it really, in a very sort of straightforward, common sense way, helps guide people who are skeptical or don't understand it, to move in the direction that a whole food plant based nutrition, which is going to save their lives, not only from heart disease, but also from stroke, from diabetes, from hypertension, Crohn's disease, cancer, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and multiple sclerosis. I mean, it's as if the heavens have opened and given the medical profession a tool that is incomparable in our bag, to have people understand that they are being empowered as the locus of control to halt and stop this disease and many other of the chronic illnesses. Because it's really sort of a, when you think of it, it's really an incredible black eye on the medical professions in the United States, Europe, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand.
We've known for 90 to 100 years that there were multiple cultures on the planet earth where cardiovascular disease is virtually nonexistent.
But did we bring that information, hear and treat patients with it? No.
We invented drugs, stents and bypasses, none of which have one single solitary thing whatsoever to do with the causation of the illness.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: So what do you do? Sadly, today, most patients, when they see a physician, they get a script for drugs or stents or bypasses, none of which are going to really stop this disease.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: I feel like it would be great if you and Ann were up for a series of books, cookbooks, like, for this.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: They've done it.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: They have. Okay. Where can we get those?
[00:35:01] Speaker B: For instance, in my book, prevent and reverse heart disease, Ann had put in 140 recipes.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Oh, great. Yeah.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: Then there's the prevent and reverse heart disease cookbook with Jane, my daughter Ann. Another 140 recipes. Then just recently, I guess, about a year and a half ago, there came out with their new one, be a plant based woman warrior.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I need to be selling that on my website.
That's amazing. I love that. That's great. I didn't realize that the prevent and reverse heart disease had that many recipes in it. That's amazing.
Yeah. That's so great. So what is next for you?
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Well, what we've got to do is sort of continue to what we're doing and see if we can't have a hand in training physicians.
You see the bind that most doctors practices are in today if they have tried to see one patient for the five and a half to 6 hours that we have when we were actually treating 20 patients, the practicality of this is very challenging. So that what I've suggested to some of those physicians who have expressed an interest, take off Wednesday afternoon and or Saturday morning, and then surround yourself with the patients in your practice who need this information, and you don't have to do it all at once on one Saturday, have them come back one or two, three, multiple Saturdays, so you can give them the whole information. Because when you begin to show the patient respect and show them how we want them to really get their arms around this disease and its causation and how to stop it and all the nuances that go with it. You're not going to do that in a ten minute office in the visit and writing out a script.
And it can be.
Not every physician really gets turned on by doing this. I mean, it's so much easier for them to write a prescription than it is to sit and talk to the patient about this disease, its causation, and how they can be the locus of control to stop it.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: That's so interesting. So a year ago, I came out with a new fitness apparatus, and a lot of the things that I innovate, I have to explain why the weird is normal or why you should be able to move like this or be dynamic like this. And so a year ago, the people, it's called a my mode. And what I did was I included these monthly mi mode founders calls, and they last five to six to 7 hours. So when you said that you do this with this group of patients, and that really resonated with me because these calls have turned out to be the thing that is just as mutually beneficial for me, because to really understand where people are struggling, because you can't change a culture before it's ready. And we're so immersed in processed foods, hamburgers, milkshakes, all of this lifestyle here, that to really be able to change a culture like this, it's going to take a lot of time like that, a lot of this generous information, getting them to understand so that they are inspired by, you know, you to keep, to drive their own ship in that direction for their own health, you know, because it, it's such a beautiful thing. And I think it's amazing. I think you're onto something there because these calls, they do take a long time, but I have found them to be very beneficial to myself and to the people that I'm serving for the purpose of getting them moving and comfortable in their bodies and learning and showing up for their health and themselves.
But I feel like doctors have to not have a very big attachment to their ego and their time to be able to do it, because you really do have to be very patient and generous when you do these calls. Right.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: Tracy, I promised you that I would have Ann tell you how you can find those three books. Prevent and reverse. Prevent.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: And be a plant based.
[00:39:39] Speaker C: You can find them everywhere. I mean, anywhere you buy a book.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: Everywhere you find a book. I love the plant based women warriors. That's amazing. I'm going to get that the second we hang up.
[00:39:52] Speaker C: You'll love that book. And it's broad. The prevent and reverse heart disease cookbook and preventing heart disease cook are basically directed to heart disease. Although it's really for everybody and for.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: Everything, as your husband listed, it's not just heart disease. You're going to prevent so many things. I want to ask you this. Do you, is there any tofu in your diet?
[00:40:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Yes.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:40:20] Speaker C: I mean, that, and that's, that's good. I mean, it's really good for women.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I started, I love tofu, and when I went vegan, I started it. And I'm 49, and I had my blood work done before I went totally plant based, and it showed that I was like, in perimenopause and then I got it done six months later, and my doctor was like, what are you doing? Did you take something? And I was like, no. The only change that I've made is I'm eating tofu. And I wasn't eating tofu before. And he felt like, I mean, I'm definitely gonna be going through perimenopause and menopause, but I felt a lot better. And he felt like that contributed.
[00:41:02] Speaker C: But if you go to Jane Esselstyn on YouTube, there are lots of recipes that, from all three of those books that we have done food demos on, like how to cook an onion without oil or just so that's a nice.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: You're putting it out there. You're being just as generous, you know, as your husband, with giving us, like, how to do. How to do these things. So thank you. So Jane is involved in the family mission as well, and so is our.
[00:41:39] Speaker C: Son Rip, and all his food products that are amazing. They are.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: What are his food products? Please tell us.
[00:41:47] Speaker C: Plant strong.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: Okay. Plant strong. I love this. This is amazing.
[00:41:54] Speaker C: Rip was a professional triathlete, and then he became a firefighter, and he wrote the engine two cookbook. And after that, John Mackey hired him at Whole Foods to be a sort of ambassador. Whole food, plant based ambassador, and also to create food for whole foods that had no meat, no oil, and no dairy. And he did that for ten years. And then when Amazon bought whole foods, he was able to go. And so he has got, for instance, right now, plant strong has these amazing. This is an oat. There's an oat. Walnut and almond. An almond oat.
Here is. I just. What I happen to have here is a plant strong, amazing pancake and waffle. And this one is gluten. There's gluten free one.
And, I mean, there's thousands of.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: I love this. Okay, so you'll make pancakes then and.
[00:42:57] Speaker B: No, no. Ann makes the pancakes and will make.
[00:43:00] Speaker A: But we can have the plant strong pancakes. I'm just saying, see, I'm trying to get people to see, like, you can still have things that you can have delicious things.
[00:43:08] Speaker C: Here are sahola.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: Oh, black beans.
[00:43:13] Speaker C: I mean, he's got five of. I only have three of these here.
This is a spicy Cajun jambalaya, and this is a sweet and smoky. Anyway, they're all great to have on hand when you need something quickly. And there's more.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: Oh, I am going to become a plant strong customer immediately. That is so great. Especially the oat milk. I love it. I love it. And I love that your daughter lives next door. That's so important, because also for longevity, we're talking about all of these things that are so key for longevity, but also that your marriage, your family, that closeness and commitment is so important for longevity. That relationship.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Sleep, exercise, and also it's pretty important to have a cadre of associations or friends that you can respect and enjoy.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Do you ever have a drink, or is that off the table?
[00:44:14] Speaker B: That's pretty much off the radar, because I think while there was a lot of fudging for the longest time about alcohol, really, finally, it's pretty well established, both in the United Kingdom and here, that alcohol is a toxin. It is toxic to your brain, it is toxic to your liver. It is toxic to your heart. So really, the.
And I think everybody has at some time, known or experienced or seen somebody who's had more alcohol than they need, and yet one of their most vital systems, their brain, has totally been trashed by the alcohol. But also it contributes to cancer, especially in women. Cancer. The breast.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:04] Speaker C: Two things.
And that is these amazing broth.
Sweet corn. There's a mushroom, and this is the vegetable, but there is no added sodium. It's the only one out there that I know of with no added sodium.
[00:45:21] Speaker A: Wow. These are all dad approved?
[00:45:25] Speaker C: Yeah. And these are. These are at whole foods. So is the milk. So are the stews. The other thing online.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: I love it. Well, look, you're extraordinary. We're going to get the books. It was such an honor to have you come on and speak to me and to be so generous with our audience. You two are the dream I love. Thank you, Anne, for joining. I love this. This is so. This is really great. I haven't been this inspired in a long time. On any kind of zoom, there are.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: Two take home messages.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: I'm going to repeat.
Every single patient who has heart disease at one time did not have heart disease.
And I think that's a very important point, so that people can know it is literally, it is their own behavior that makes this problem. It's not something that has to do with stress or with genetics. It's the food.
Now, I think it's the reason I stick with this at my age is because I have this vision that there's going to be a seismic revolution in health.
And the seismic revolution in health is never going to come about through the invention of another drug stent or bypass. But the seismic revolution will come about when we in the profession really educate the public as to the lifestyle and most specifically, the nutritional literacy that will empower them to absolutely annihilate chronic illness. Thank you, Tracy.
[00:47:11] Speaker A: I love that.
Thank you. That's so powerful.
