All language subtitles for Eating.You.Alive.2016.720p.WEBRip.x264.Funsaber.he_auto

The problem is
there is no known cure

and we probably
won't even treat you

because we have no hope.

I don't think it's an accident

that the information on this

has been known
for 15 or 20 years.

They told my parents
I was going to die.

No one else should have
died of heart disease.

We had the cure.
We've had it for decades.

It's gonna take
a radical shift in mindset.

We can't blame doctors,

they£re not trained
in this field.

You know, my genes
have already set my destiny.

What I thought I knew about

healthy eating
almost killed me.

Three fourths of
what we suffer from in America

is due to the food
that we eat.

It's not food to me,
it's torture.

I think we haven't
really focused

on the quality of food
that we take,

we're more interested
in convenience.

Food is medicine.

You got to put back
into the earth

in order to get back from it.

Changing what I put
into my body

can make me live longer.

Why doesn't
everybody know this?

About 19 years ago,
we were staying at the house,

getting ready for Easter
the night before,

dyeing Easter eggs
and making cookies

and setting the table.

And my father and my husband

were watching television,
this is hard for me, I'm sorry.

And in the wee hours
of the morning

I heard my mom cry out
that something was wrong.

And we raced up
to their bedroom

and he was gone.

He was 58 years old
and he was gone.

Everybody, everybody
knows suffering, it's there.

People are hurting
and it's a tragedy

and it's important to me.

Good evening, the news hit
around breakfast time

as a lot of Americans
were sitting down

in front of a plate of
bacon or sausage.

The obesity crisis is getting
worse in America not better.

We have to cut carbon pollution
in our own countries

to prevent the worst effects
of climate change.

This undercover video

shows chickens
being buried alive.

You want to tell the story
dramatically

and say you're in a hospital

and decide to change
your mind, you know.

And I don't believe anything
anyone says in a hospital,

on New Years Eve or during sex.

Those three times

are all information
is considered invalid.

Everybody that goes
to the hospital says,

you know, from now on
I'm gonna eat right,

I'm gonna exercise,
I'm gonna do all this,

they're always lying.

They say the same three things
actually during sex

and on New Years Eve.

So I was in the hospital
with bad hypertension

and I did not make any promises
to change my life.

I would say I was
probably 330 then,

got to get your weight
down to about 280

where we can control
your blood pressure with drugs.

And I said well it's 280
where I should get down to?

And then he said this sentence
that blew my mind.

And it was the first time
I'd ever something you know

anybody watching
this is very familiar with

but I wasn't familiar with it.

He said, "Well if you get
your weight down to 220, 230

you probably
wouldn't need drugs at all."

And I said, "What!

I'd thought that
my hypertension was genetic."

He says, "Well it is."

And I said, "Well no,

you're telling me that
the drugs that I'm taking are,

telling me
these are fat guy drugs.

I thought they were
generic drugs."

He said, "Well yes of course."

I said, "Well it can't
be both of course,

you can't say it's genetic

and yet if I get down
to this weight

I wouldn't have it."

And that just bugged me,

that just bugged me
tremendously.

We are eating ourselves
in the most overweight,

obese population

in the history
of the human race.

In this country
this year we£ll spend

over three trillion dollars
on health care,

Somewhere between
1 half and 75% of that

are lifestyle
related problems.

You get out of your health
exactly what you put into it.

And we have been putting
the wrong fuel in our body.

We really didn't learn much
of anything about nutrition

in medical school.

I was really angry.

I just could not understand
why I didn't learn any of this.

The system is set up
to reimburse,

kind of,
pills and procedures.

You get paid to do things

for patients. You don't get paid
if your patients get better.

We live in a pill popping
generation

everybody wants a pill
for this or a pill for that.

Big Pharma is

in the business
of us being sick.

They fund medical education,
that's what you learn about.

We've never had more pills
in human history

and yet we've never had
more chronic disease.

There's the food industry

which is a trillion dollar
industry.

There's lot of people

that are making money
off processed foods.

There are a lot of people
making money off meat,

lot of people making
money off dairy.

And it's a huge lobbying power.

Take away the supervision
from the USDA

and give it to another body.

They£re handing out subsidies
with this hand

and with the other hand
they£re telling

the American public
what to eat.

You know,
they don't look at meat

and say this is full of
saturated fat,

cholesterol, DDT,

environmental contaminants,
infection.

not part of the sales pitch.

Dairy is the most toxic thing
people put in their body,

I won't even call it food.

People that are eating
the standard American diet

don't understand, number one,

the scientific implications
of that in their body

but two, they often
don't understand

that food has enslaved them
by this addictive component.

Foods are the cause
of diabetes, of heart disease,

of many forms of cancer,
of hypertension

and if they are the cause
they can also be the solution.

What is on our plate is really
affecting our environment.

More global warming is caused
by livestock consumption

that all forms
of transportation combined.

Something's wrong
with this paradigm

and we need to shift paradigms
to find out what works better.

We're eating ourselves
into our graves.

Since a small child,
I've had a love of plants.

To have this living organism

within this
tiny little package,

a seed and you plant it

and it grows into
such beauty and potential.

I am a product
of the state of New Jersey.

I went to Rutgers,
the state university,

got a botany degree.

And then went on
to the state medical school.

I received a, you know,
standard academic training,

then went on to an internal
medicine residency

in Washington, DC
at George Washington

as a newly minted doctor.

My father who was an attorney,
69 years of age,

was suddenly diagnosed

with end stage
metastatic pancreatic cancer.

He was given a prognosis
of one to three months to live,

offered some standard treatment

and because there is
very little success

with that age, my father
decided to do nothing.

And just go home
and prepare for death.

I knew in my world
that I'd come from,

there was just
nothing available

and even still to this day,

there is very little available
for pancreatic cancer.

So I went to my local library

and finally came across
some books on food,

brought these books home
for my father.

The books were on
a whole unrefined plant food

way of eating.

He grasped onto it
and completely changed his diet

and a year later we went back.

When the doctor
saw my father walk in,

he looked a little bit shaken.

He asked my father,
what he was doing there

and why basically
why was he still alive.

My father started to tell him
about broccoli and brown rice

and the doctor lost
complete interest

in what my father was saying.

That was the point for me

that changed
what I would do as a doctor.

Our medical community
in general

has really focused
on symptoms of disease.

We see it throughout our whole
pharmaceutical industry

and our whole approach to care.

And you know,
we have this acute care model

in healthcare today.

And it was designed
a 100 years ago

to treat communicable
diseases and injury

and we're still trying
to treat chronic disease now

with that same
acute care model,

but it doesn't work.

We're trying to treat diabetes
and heart disease

the way we treat strep throat
with pills but it doesn't work.

I feel a little disenfranchised

if you will, to have
gone through

four years of medical school

and six years of training
after medical school

and never been introduced
to the idea

that your health is so closely
related to what you eat.

When I entered into practice,

I had patients
constantly ask me,

"What should I eat doc?

How should I exercise?
What should I do?"

I would throw out
a little arbitrary words

and say, "Ah, be good
the majority of the time."

Live by the four sevenths rule.

If you do well for seven days,
that's good enough.

I started to become trouble
by that. You know,

in that I was actually
giving advice,

professional advice
to individuals

when they're asking
without a fund of knowledge.

Everybody knows that doctors
don't get any really meaningful

education about nutrition.

Nutrition is really something
that maybe you get one hour,

maybe you get two hours.

Nutrition in the 1970s

in my medical school
was very, very limited.

I really still feel
that it's nearly criminal.

There really haven't been
many opportunities

to discuss nutrition in depth

because the topic
only comes up and passing.

Maybe they assumed
that we knew.

The average physician
in this country

has less than 20 minutes
of nutrition training period.

Nobody teaches you anything
about nutrition

in medical school.

What I was taught was nobody
changes their diet anyway

so just, you know,
do what you can.

I hate to say it

but your physician
probably knows

less about nutrition
than you do.

We're taught to treat diseases
after they occur,

we're not taught
how to prevent them

in the first place.

I think that people
that society in general

has a broken relationship
with food.

We're a society
that's chronically fed

from the time
we get up in the morning

until the time we go to bed.

When you think about it,
the only species

that are obese
and chronically ill are us

and the pets we keep
warm and fed.

And they get exactly
the same diseases.

If you eat the same things
that most Americans eat,

you're gonna get
the same diseases

that most Americans get.

I'm a steak guy.

- Fish.
- Sushi actually.

I like meat.

Anything protein based.

Steak, potatoes, greens.

Good cheese, I don't
really eat processed cheese.

- Lasagna
- Hamburgers, French fries.

Red Bull and a cigarette,
which I don't need neither or.

But you know what?

I'm so old now,
I'm just gonna do it anyway.

It's sad but I think I can
say this honestly

probably 95% of America
has no idea how to eat.

Who taught them? Grandma?

No, it's the television
that's teaching them.

Nutritious, delicious,
above all else, beef.

It's what for dinner.

Got milk?

Ahh, the power of cheese.

Eggs, incredible energy
for body and mind.

Well, I grew up in Texas eating
meat four, five times a day?

You know, and I liked it.

I ate a high salt, sugar,
fat, processed food,

pizza, ice-cream, candy
kind of diet.

I was pretty much a standard
cholesterolholic

that grew up on a dairy
and a beef farm.

We loved our cheese,

we loved our ice-cream
and yogurt, and

steaks, and hamburgers
on the grill.

Grew up on a dairy farm,
actually milking cows.

Believing along the way

that the good old American diet
was as good as it gets.

Certain foods are essential,

we must have them daily
for the sake of health.

Meat, cheese, fish, poultry.
Vegetables, green and yellow.

Fruits, two or more
servings daily,

at least one raw
citrus fruit or tomato often.

And eggs, three to five a week
but one a day preferred.

Cereal and bread,
rich golden butter and milk,

at least one quart
of milk a day.

I've come to see aging
in America

as a function of
accumulated abuse

of the human body.

And everybody gather around
and dig in to those

sizzly, juicy,
Armour star franks.

Hot dog diggity,
are they good?

Armour star franks.

Because wonder soft
whipped bread

is made from batter
not dough.

It has no holes,
get wonder soft whipped.

One of the main reasons

that we started
eating processed food

was it encouraged
the shelf life of the product.

We were taught that

this package foods
were healthier

and they were easier
and they made our lives better.

And many times it was
a white refined food.

But of course, refined means
about 97% of the fiber

is gone and enriched means

most of the nutrients
have been stripped out

but we've sprayed
a few synthetic chemicals

back on for you
and now we call it enriched.

Our parents, you know,
God bless them,

they didn't know any better.

The information
wasn't out there.

Meat and potatoes,
that's how you lived.

This summer try our

new grilled chicken
margarita pizza.

Who knew crab goes
with everything?

Whoever put crab on the salmon,
on a burger

and don't forget
the bacon and onions

seared inside fresh ground beef.

Introducing grill dogs,
flame grilled to perfection

and made with a 100% beef.

Get them now,
only at Burger King.

The standard
American diet is not working,

it's not good for us.

I think we haven't really
focused on the quality of food

that we take, we're more
interested in convenience.

I mean the whole fast food
thing on television,

you know,
all the pizza commercials,

burger commercials,

just fast food
that you make at home,

stuff that you take
off the shelf

and you pour it
out of the box

and put some water in it,
you got a instant meal here.

It's like oh, my God,
we're killing ourselves.

Early on in this process,
it was kind of confusing

because I would
read a study that would say,

this is good for you

and then other one
would say no,

that's actually bad for you,
something else is good for you.

So the industry just has to
keep the public confused

which they have been doing
a very good job at.

I was so misinformed
as a young adult

that I didn't know
how to eat properly

and I didn't know
how to balance my diet.

I was, you know, eating
what I thought was health food,

you know, salmon,
big hunks of salmon.

I think it can get confusing
to the general public

because all they hear

sensationalized
headlines about,

oh, this fat is good for you,
this fat is bad for you.

You want a high protein diet,
stay away from carbohydrates.

We don't need food like that.
We eat food.

All that we need
is enough confusion

and then people will
throw up their hands,

you know. Oh forget it, I'll
just do whatever I want to do.

Drink your milk
for strong bones and teeth

and it turns out to be exactly
the wrong way around.

And almost a
little betrayed

that we've been told
our whole lives

that we had to eat,

you know, animal protein
and drink milk

in order to be healthy.

But that's what we grew up
with us as a culture

so we can't be blamed for it

but we have to break
those habit patterns.

I wasn't born obese.

I was fit and healthy as a kid.

Up until I was 24 years old,
but from the time,

the age of 24 to the age of 30,

I got up as heavy as 518 pounds.

I would love to say that,
you know,

I know why or how but I don't.

All I know is that I got there
and it was extremely difficult.

In June of 2013,
my wife Iris and I

decided to take my
then six year old son

for his birthday to Florida.

Two weeks prior to the trip

my son and I
went through online

and looked at all the rides

and he decided
that the Harry Potter ride

was the most epic ride
in the history of rides

and he wanted me
to ride it with him.

And if you ever
been on the ride,

they have a sample
of the seating

as you approach
the ride platform.

One of the people
who worked there

asked me to step out of line
to try the seating.

As soon as I sat down,
it was apparent

that this wasn't gonna happen.
It was his birthday.

Sorry, he begged...

he cried but I couldn't fit.

My wife practically
drug him on to the ride

and in that moment I realized

that I couldn't
live like that anymore.

Eating to excess.

You've got far too many
sausages Billie

will you put some back?

There are fresh concerns about

our globally
expanding waist lines.

Experts had thought the obesity
rate had leveled off

and they don't know
why it's rising instead.

The new report also shows

women have a higher
level of obesity than men.

The reason people get fat
is because they eat fat.

You know, from my lips
to my hips

the fat you eat
is the fat you wear.

There is unfortunately
been a lot of articles

written recently

mostly by non physicians
and non scientists saying,

you know, Americans
have been told to eat less fat,

now they're eating less fat,
they're fatter then ever so,

you know, low fat has failed,
bring out the bacon and eggs.

Well, I went
to the US department

of agriculture database

and said I know that Americans
have been told

to eat less fat but what have we
actually been eating?

Well, that turns out
that every decade since 1950

we've been eating
more fat, more meat,

more sugar and more calories.

So not surprisingly
we're fatter.

The biggest portion
of Americans

are in the obese category now.

It's unbelievable,

There are a very small
minority of people that

Just goes, it goes
from the spoon

right to hips and belly

and actually it goes there
so effortlessly,

you can take a needle
and suck the fat out,

take it to the lab, analyze it

and you can tell
what people like to eat.

You suck their belly fat out

and is full of
monounsaturated fats

then they£re into olive oil.

If it£s full of trans-fats

they're into margarines
and shortenings.

If they£re full of
omega three fats then

People worry about
if their 10 pounds too heavy,

50 pounds too heavy,

but they're not thinking
about the impact of the weight

as it pertains
to their actual health

and well being
and their risk for disease.

I want to enjoy my kids,
enjoy my grandkids.

I cannot imagine
missing one thing.

Going into this
massive change,

of course I'd love
to lose weight,

but more importantly,
I just want to be healthy.

When they say, "Doctor,
I've tried everything,

I'm miserable."

I'll go, "Well, have you tried
eating something different

or tell me what you've done
with your nutrition?"

I'm changing
what I put in my body,

but that's what I've known
for 36 years.

So, it's very scary.

Up until recently, we didn't
really think of nutrition

as being a very strong force.

Eat a little bit less carbs
and nothing much happens

or you count calories
for a few weeks

and you lose a few pounds
then you gain it all back

and I think people
have gotten used to the idea

that food doesn't make
much difference.

My family surrounds
celebrations,

sad things, bad things,

everything
revolves around food.

You know, you go to a funeral

and after a funeral
people get together, eat

and they eat same
kind of things

that helped put the person
in a casket

in the first place.

So, it's really
part of who we are.

The thought of giving up sugar,

not being able to eat my waffle
with syrup

and a side of bacon that is,

I mean, that just makes
my stomach turn.

It's that nervous
feeling of like

when you are starting a new job
or you're going from

elementary school
to middle school.

That's how I feel about
changing my food.

Because food is something
primal.

It's the first bond and love
we create

after we've been born,

and looking into old age
for many of us,

it's the last pleasure
we are left with on this earth.

I think you could save
all the testing people do

by taking
a tub of movie popcorn

and putting it
under someone's nose

and saying
does that smell good?

And if they say yes, you need
to get them to the hospital

and save their lives.

And if they say no,
they're healthy.

I think that's
all you got to do,

that's all you got to do.

I think a lot of people
understand

fruits and vegetables
are good for you,

but they don't know
how good the good stuff is

and they have no idea
how bad the bad stuff is.

I think the addiction to food
is bigger

than the combination
of the addiction

that people have
to cigarettes,

alcohol, coffee, drugs.

I truly see how food

can completely control
someone's life.

That you literally
obsess over it

and it's understandable
when you get in your car

and you drive somewhere

how many fast food places
you go by?

How many billboards
do you see?

You are bombarded all day long

and just filled
with temptation.

It's like an alcoholic,
I can't have one drink.

I can't have
that one candy bar a week

because I didn't have
an off switch.

Most of the restaurants
have very easily figured out

that if you add
cheese and butter

and salt to everything,
it tastes good

and so you come back
over and over again.

And the same thing is true

for a lot of snack foods
and candies,

they're just perfectly
tweaked to be delicious.

So, if we just look at like
the average American diet,

when we put in sugar, fat
and salt into our body,

a couple of things happen.

First, it triggers
the reward system in our brain,

the dopamine reward system
just like nicotine,

methamphetamine and cocaine.

So they have the same effect
creating some dependence

or food addiction.

Drug addicts
often have this thing

where they call
"chasing the dragon."

it's the illusive first high.

No, other high is as good
as this first high

and so they're constantly
chasing it

and I've experienced
that with food

like the first bite
is so amazing

but the second
isn't as amazing

and the third isn't.

But I just keep eating it,
whether it's the Oreos,

or the chocolate chip
cookies or the ice-cream,

just trying to get back
to that first bliss.

What sweet out nature?
Sweet potatoes, berries fruit,

healthy foods, right?
And so but now the industry

uses that natural healthy urge
against us, right?

There are chemists
that spend their whole lives,

working on the bliss point.

The ripest peach
in the world

is not as sweet
as fruit loops, right?

Within just a couple of hours
of eating these foods,

it's absorbed
into the bloodstream

and then it
penetrates our cells.

Sugar causes
measurable inflammation

inside of our artery walls

causing damage
to the lining of the artery,

the endothelial cells,

making us more susceptible
to atherosclerosis

and even more susceptible
to inflammation

that can lead to cancer.

We also know that

within a couple of hours
of eating sugar,

it suppresses our immune system

and it's specifically
the natural killer cells

that help us
to fight infections

and that can suppress
your immune system

for four to five hours.

So, if we kind of
understand this,

you know, Americans having
sugar based breakfast,

sugar based lunch
and sugar based dinner,

they're suppressing
their immune system

throughout the
course of the day

making themselves
more susceptible

to these infections
that we encounter.

Realize, that we
are going to go

through a chemical
addictive withdraw

for probably
three or four days

depending on the food
and the frequency

and the quantity
at which you ate it.

If you feel a little bit bloated
or little gassy or a lot gassy

or you're going with more
frequency,

it's not to be
concerned about. Let it pass,

let your body sort of
work itself out.

I know, it's tough
in the beginning.

I know food addictions

and I call it toxic hunger
can make you feel bad,

when you're kind of like
breaking those addictions,

you could feel fatigue,

you could feel
weak and headache-y.

You could feel like

you're emotionally
attached to those foods

and having almost

a feeling of anxiety
giving up the foods

you've come to love.

Oh, I can't live without meat.

Well, yeah, I can.

I always say, go cold turkey,

even if it's just
for a short period of time.

Go cold turkey for 21 days,

because the whole
tapering off thing,

it doesn't work
with addiction.

We're addicted to meat,
we're addicted to dairy.

There are opiates in cheeses
and things like that.

Plus, we're just addicted
to our habit patterns

that we grew up with.

Imagine you're
back in the 1950s,

before the Surgeon General
report on smoking came out

and one doctor is telling you
to smoke camels,

the other doctor is saying no,
smoke luckys instead.

So in 1964,

when the Surgeon
General report came out,

they cited 7000 studies
about the dangers of smoking.

7,000, now look, 6,000
should have been enough, right?

But I mean,
it had to get to that point

before it could tip.

And how many people
had to die until that happened?

And so, I think

we're in a very similar
situation today.

My story starts
a long time ago,

with a lot of issues
with overeating

and it escalated
many, many times up and down,

lot of yo-yo dieting,
finally at 380 pounds

and diagnosed
with type-2 diabetes

and hypertension on medication,

I decided to make a commitment

to a completely different
lifestyle of eating.

I was, in my 49th year
and it occurred to me,

I wasn't gonna see 50.

It was a lot of
sitting on the couch,

watching a lot of television
and eating

and everyone didn't
always see the eating

because I did that

after they left for school
or before,

you know, in the car

there was a lot of
secretive eating going on.

You want to believe
that there is no addiction

that this is
a metabolic thing

and that, you know,
this can be fixed, but,

you know, when you start
to find

you know, the trappings
of wrappers

I knew, I mean, it's, you know,
I knew what was happening.

I knew about all the things
that they didn't know about.

You know, you say
to yourself, okay,

at this time maybe I'm 40,
something years old and,

you know, okay I'm gonna
have all these kids,

gonna have to do something,
you gonna take care of them

if she is not around.

Every day, I though that,

they we're gonna find me dead
in the parking lot,

because I was out of breathe

just walking from my car
to my office, every day.

There were lot of things
that I didn't know,

I didn't understand,
you know, I'm like,

oh, if I could just do
the math on this,

it'll be better
but there is no math to this.

I couldn't do many things
and I didn't do many things

because of the shame
and embarrassment,

I didn't want to embarrass
my kids.

People make fun of them,
like they don't exist, you know,

and they do exist.

I was morbidly obese
my entire adult life.

Being obese sucks.

You know that people
are looking at you.

You can only imagine

what they're
thinking about you,

even though they're too polite.

I was eating what
most American's consider

to be a healthy diet
with lean protein.

So, I was pretty much down
to chicken and salmon

as my protein.

But we were
cooking those proteins

in butter and olive oil

and obviously
it was not working.

I had tried every fad diet
that there was low carbs,

south beach, atkins, weight
watchers

to try to lose weight

and I discovered
what a lot of people have,

which is as long as
you're doing these diets,

they work great, the problem is
when you stop dieting,

all the weight comes back

and often more then
you were in the first place.

Wisdom is the process of
finding out

that your intuition is wrong.

It's not easy
to have to learn something

that goes
against your instincts.

For example,
people have the feeling

when they're sitting in a car

that they're not in danger

if they don't have
their seatbelt on.

That was sort of
the way people felt

in the 1950s and '60s.

So your intuition
doesn't understand

that you're sitting
in a two ton vehicle

going 50 miles an hour

and that you are actually
helpless.

I thought I ate super healthy.

The truth is that
I was completely wrong,

but the type of information

that I could find
available to me

said that these foods
were actually good for me.

I thought I was healthy

because I didn't have
meat in my diet,

I didn't have milk in my diet,
I didn't have eggs,

I didn't have cheese.

But I was eating
all this other junk

full of oil and sugar
and salt and all that.

I filled my body
with protein and calories.

Little did I know what it was
doing to my body at that time,

but I continued to eat that way
all the way up

through the '94 Olympics
when I was competing.

And thought nothing of going
to a fast food restaurant,

eating two hamburgers
and a couple orders of fries

and a chocolate milkshake.

I had the idea that it had
no consequences for me

to eat this kind of food
because I looked and felt great.

Well, I'm thin, I don't really
need to think about that.

I don't need to think
of plant based.

That's for someone who's,
you know, obese or over weight.

But the reality is that

it's not so much
about the weight

because the weight
is really a symptom

of what's happening
on the inside

and many times
that symptom goes unnoticed.

I was just kind of
your typical kid,

I was on the year book,

I played volleyball,
so we really had no idea

that anything
was coming or that,

anything was wrong.

When I was 16 years old,
I was told

that I had six months to live.

So the first clue

that something
was actually wrong

was one weekend I had gone
to the Jersey Shore

with my friends.

I remember we
went to a diner

and I had these pancakes

and I literally,
I could not get the pancakes,

to my mouth, it hurt so bad.
And the next morning I woke up

and this excruciating pain
that felt like

it would take weeks to heal
was gone.

But the strange thing was

that same exact identical pain
was in my left shoulder

and after a couple of days

it disappeared
from that arm too.

Not long after that
migraines started.

I had this huge rash
across my face

going from one cheek
across my nose

to the other side.

My blood test showed that
my kidneys were in trouble

so they sent me in
for kidney biopsy.

So next thing I know
I'm going in to surgery.

So it's just kind of,

it was just so chaotic
and then, you know,

the doctor told us
what happened and they said,

you know, you are in
stage four kidney failure,

and you got six months
if we don't do

something really, really
aggressive.

Six months,
you'll be on dialysis

or you'll be dead.

So I was put
on high dose steroids,

it was about
seven different pills

I had to take every day.

And I also was put on
experimental chemotherapy

to try to save my kidneys.

I was told
I couldn't have kids,

I was told I probably
wouldn't live past my 50s.

I'd probably be handicapped
by my 30s.

Well, with lupus

your immune system's
attacking your own body

and so my immune system
had suddenly stopped

recognizing my kidneys
as my own

and were attacking my kidneys
trying to kill it.

I'd also developed blood clots

that had happened
when I was in medical school.

And so I was taking
blood thinners

because I had experienced
a mini stroke,

a transient ischemic attack

and thankfully
I didn't damage my brain

but I was in a lot of danger
of dying at that point

if I didn't use
this blood thinner

for the rest of my life.

Otherwise, you know,
I was trucking through,

I was two months away
from graduating medical school

and then I met
this most amazing person,

Thomas Tadlock and he just
changed everything for me

and I went from only dreaming
about a white coat

to dreaming about
a white dress.

The hardest thing
I ever had to do

was to tell him
about my illness

and the fact that
marrying me was,

you know,
not going be long term.

And he, you know, it
was hard for him to hear

but he just said that

he'd rather have a short life
with me

than a life time
with someone else.

So he would take care of me.

If you need a surgery
or if you're in an accident

and you need diagnostics,

the United States
is the place to be.

But if you want to prevent
chronic disease,

we're near the bottom
of the list.

We are taught
to trust the medical field

and take the medicine
they prescribe to us.

Really, I grew up
thinking that drugs,

things like that
from the doctor

were the normal thing to do

and that, that's what
would cure you.

And unfortunately
the pills aren't the answer.

Because if they were the answer

we've never had more pills
in human history.

And yet we've never had
more chronic disease.

We need education
more than medication

and our doctors are not
getting this in medical school.

And if they are not,
then you're not getting it.

We are very focused
on procedures and medications.

Medical school is pharmacology.

In fact we even learned about
pharmacology during lunch.

We get take out, what are called
drug lunches

by pharmaceutical reps.

Pharmaceutical industry is like
any other industry in America.

They're there to make money
and produce profits.

They fund medical education,
that's what you learn about.

These medications,
you don't get them for free.

You pay a price
for using medications.

And they work
as a permission slip.

They enable people to think

because their numbers look
better they're okay,

while the underlying pathology
advances day after day.

So in a sense, they give people
a false sense of security

that leads them
to, give them permission

to keep eating the same diet

that cause the problem
to begin with

and the inevitable
consequences,

their disease gets
worse and worse and worse.

But don't take it if you
or if you and it might cause,

you know, rectal bleeding
and your eye might fall out

and hey, you might even
want to kill yourself.

It's kind of like, really?

But, it's gonna make me
feel better

but I might
want to kill myself?

I think I feel the way
I'm feeling, I'm okay.

Look big pharma is,

one of the most
profitable industries,

the reason they're not
researching to antibiotics,

things that we need

is because you take it
for ten days.

That's not useful.
No we want drugs

you take every single day for
the rest of your life, right?

And what are those? Those are
chronic disease drugs, right?

High blood pressure medications
for example, right.

You have to take them everyday
for the rest of your life

because they don't treat

the underlying cause
of the disease.

The pill companies
don't make money

when you're healthy.

They make money
when you're sick.

There is no profit in health,

they need to keep you in that
kinda zombie state,

in between where you're just

shoveling more and more meds
until you basically tap out,

that's how the game works

and that's whats
stacked against you.

I'm skeptical about
the medical community

because I know
they're pill pushers

and it's just
part of what they do,

the pharmaceutical community
has their hooks way to deeply

in the government,
in the regulatory system.

Approximately,
106,000 people die

from drug side effects.

And now that's just
in hospitals

and that's just one year

and these are drugs
that are properly prescribed

and taken as directed.

These are not medical errors,
these are not suicide attempts,

these are not mistakes.

These are drugs

that were prescribed
exactly right

and taken exactly as ordered.

And we're killing
106,000 a year

and that's a lot.

That's a million people
in ten years.

When you're young,
you think you're invincible.

You don't think
what you're gonna eat's,

gonna really hit you
down the road.

Really didn't start
thinking about that much

until my dad had a heart attack

and then had quadruple
bypass

and then, you know,
you start thinking well, uh-oh

you know,
he's got a problem so

So, today we're gonna see
Andre with high cholesterol,

his cholesterol report shows

that his total cholesterol
is 189 on medication.

With a whole food
plant based diet,

we can take that
cholesterol level

below a 150 without medication.

And that's gonna be
one of our goals.

I'm controlling
my cholesterol now

and my triglycerides
with medication.

But a lot of the research
I've done on the medications

I'm on is not very positive
and they have side effects

and I've suffered
some of the side effects.

If I'm going to be on this
for a long time,

is there a better way?

If I can do it through
a dietary means,

which would allow me

to get off of these drugs
completely,

that would be the optimal goal.

For me to change anything,

I'm gonna have
to have that proof

to where through this diet,

it will put me, my triglycerides
in the safe range,

my cholesterol
in the safe range

and hopefully

the cholesterol ratios
good to bad,

within an acceptable range.

I'm open minded
to see what happens,

give it a shot,
see if it works,

I mean what do you have to lose?

Pythagoras and Socrates
was talking about this

and Hippocrates 2,500 years ago.

The healthiest cultures
on the planet without exception

were plant based.

I don't think it's an accident
that the information on this

has been known
and is now just bubbling up.

Then you have to ask
the question, you know,

why are we so oblivious
to all of this?

That gets you to
questions concerning

obviously governance,

the US Department
of Agriculture

whose mandate is to promote
agricultural products.

I mean, that's what they do.

At the same time
we put them in charge

of protecting public safety
by meat inspections and,

you know, nutrition guidelines.

How the government
is telling us what to eat,

is through what they subsidize
and so that's what people eat

because people eat
what's inexpensive.

What foods are subsidized?

Well, we're going broke

so shouldn't we be subsidizing
healthy foods,

so are we making apples cheaper

are we out making
kale cheaper?

No subsidies to
the sugar industry

and goes to feed crops,
primarily to feed livestock.

So you can actually get kind
of a low cost of production,

thanks to our tax dollars!

We are giving
billions of dollars

to livestock industry,

so you can make
Dollar Menu burgers.

In 2014, I had the privilege
to be invited to testify

in front of the USDA
Dietary Guidelines

Advisory Committee
in Washington DC.

Out of the 46
speakers invited,

42 represented industry.

Americans who consume

the recommended
amounts of dairy foods

are better able to meet

key nutrient
recommendations

including calcium,
vitamin D and potassium.

In fact, it's difficult
for most Americans

to meet these
nutrient recommendations

without consuming at least

three servings
of dairy foods daily.

We know quite well that

a lot of these policy decisions
and political decisions

are being made through
financial considerations

with people with big money,
big companies, big CEOs

and big Washington connections.

And so, when it comes to eat
more messaging,

like eat more
fruits and vegetables,

they come out and say it.

When it comes to eat
less messaging

well, then there's a
conflict, right.

So what do they do?

They don't actually
mention foods,

god forbid, they say,

you know, eat less saturated
and trans fatty acids.

Now that's wink, wink,
nudge, nudge,

code for eat less,

you know, meat and
dairy. That's the sources

particularly cheese
and chicken in this country.

But they can't come out
and say eat less cheetos.

They can't come out and say
eat less meat, eat less dairy,

they would get hammered.

Dairy is one of
the strongest lobbies

as far as food production
in this country goes.

They have the most money

and they will use it
ruthlessly.

There is not an asparagus lobby

that I'm aware off.

There is no money
in telling people

to put the burger down
and have a broccoli spear.

The USDA had
a internal news letter

that promoted meatless Monday.

So, once a week
for your health,

for the environment
consider, you know,

reducing meat consumption

and there was
such a political firestorm

to that radical proposition

that it was retracted
within hours

and you know,

I think that was just a lesson
that you can't even go there,

doesn't matter
what the science says,

you know,
money talks in Washington.

The dogma in
the nutrition industry,

if you open up
the fitness magazine

and if you open up
the body building magazines

especially like you will
never succeed

unless you eat
as much animal products

as you possibly can.

So, I was terrified at first,
I was like,

okay, I wanna be healthy

but I don't know
what's gonna happen.

That's the first question
anyone asks when you tell them

that you're
a plant based athlete,

is like where do you
get your protein?

It's funny
that protein is an issue,

because number one,
people don't know what it is.

Number two, they don't
recognize it in food.

The whole protein thing
is such a myth,

it's a mainstream
propaganda thing

by these dairy
and animal companies

that throw this thing
out there that,

the amount of protein
you need in your body.

Standing in front of you
is obviously not a hindrance

in bodybuilding
to eat whole plant foods.

So what's the problem
with so much protein?

It can damage our kidneys.

Some even cancers will grow
or exacerbate

because of high levels
of protein.

And for somebody

who is absolutely
stuck on protein,

that's their big issue.

I'm not sure I'm
gonna get enough.

Get in your car,
go to the nearest rural area,

pick out the biggest bull
that you can find,

then go to the nearest
racetrack,

find the fastest, biggest,
most muscular stallion.

Go to the zoo,
look at the tallest giraffe,

the biggest elephant
and all those animals

with rippling muscles
are vegans,

they're getting
all the protein they need

entirely from plant sources
and you will too.

If you go back 10,000 years,

you look at old
skeleton's fossils,

people had no cavities,
people had these perfect teeth.

You go back, you think wait
a second,

they never brushed a day
in their lives,

no Listerine, no water pick,
no flossing.

Yeah, but no candy bars.

Before the invention
of the candy bar,

they had perfect teeth,
I mean...

you think,

our bodies would have
evolved to like

have our teeth fall out?
Doesn't make a lot of sense.

Okay, but so,

cavities are completely
preventable through diet.

We say, wait a second,

if they're completely
preventable

why do people continue
to get cavities?

Well, people like dessert
that kinda out weighs

the cost and discomfort
of the dentist chair.

And look that's fine, right.

Look, I enjoy
the occasional indulgence.

I got a good
dental plan, right?

All right, but what if

instead of the plaque
on our teeth,

we're talking about
the atherosclerotic plaque

building up
inside of our arteries, right.

Then what are the consequences
for you and your family?

Now, we're not talking about
scraping tartar anymore.

Now, we're talking
literally life or death.

If you had told me,

the stuff I know
now affects my health,

I would have thought
you were crazy.

I was 57, I thought I was
too young to have a stroke.

When Pam and I got married,
I weighed 140.

As I got older
that increased about,

I don't know,
10 pounds a year or so

when I had my stroke,
I was at 240...

almost 250.

He didn't know
how to do anything.

He didn't know me
as his wife.

According to my wife,

I had the mentality
of about a three year old.

Even to go
to take a shower or bath,

he wasn't sure what to do.

He'd just go in there and
he'd stand.

When I had my stroke

they diagnosed
that I had diabetes

and I was untreated
for approximately 10 years.

Pretty soon
the doctor set me down,

he tore off my chart

after my stress test
was going on and he says,

you see anything wrong
with that?

And handed it to the doctor.

When that was done,
they came out and said,

"We need to do
immediate surgery."

I was pretty high risk,

because I'd had a stroke
and the way I looked at it,

if I didn't have surgery
I was gonna die anyhow.

He came
through the heart surgery,

he did good but he...

he still never got any better.

I had a stroke,
I had to live with that.

I was diabetic,
I had to live with that

and I had a basket of pills
I had to live with that.

Every 34 seconds
someone in the United States

has a heart attack,

and in case you haven't heard
one in three women

will die of heart disease.

I didn't go into medicine

to help people get
a little bit better here,

little bit better there.

I really wanted
transformational change

and I was becoming
disillusioned.

It's the whole mindset
of our medical culture.

We're taught as medical
students and physicians

to treat the bad outcomes
of our horrific health habits.

I used to work
every Christmas and Easter.

Six to eight hours
after that big holiday meal,

we would see the strokes,
we would see the heart attacks.

It was just amazing.

Nobody puts these things
together

and says, "Dear Lord,

people are eating
themselves to death."

My blood sugar west 441,
I had five blockages,

two of 'em were 100 percent,

two was 80
and one was 70 percent.

I was on 13 pills a day
and two shots.

I had seven stents

in my original
right coronary artery.

They just kind of dismissed

that it was anything
to do with food

that it was more
family genetics

that I had a double whammy,
because I was diabetic.

Since the days of Hipocrates,

there's almost been
a basic covenant of trust

between the caregiver
and the patient

that were ever possible.

The caregiver is going
to share with the patient,

what is the causation
of the illness.

And today in Cardiology,

generally, that's just
not being done at all.

Not at all.

We cut people open.

We'd bypass their
clogged arteries.

We'd tell them they were cured

and more often
than not, they would go home

and do all the things

that had caused the problem
in the first place.

You know,
smoke and eat junk food

and more often than not,
the bypasses would clog up

and we would cut them open
again sometimes

two or three times.

And so for me,

we were literally
bypassing the problem.

We weren't really treating
the underlying cause.

If you had a nail

stuck in the bottom
of your shoe

and every time you stepped down
it hurt your foot

because that nail's
poking your foot.

I could give you some tylenol
or advil and say,

"Well, just keep going on."

Or I could say, "I believe
we've found the cause,

let's remove that nail
from your shoe

and you don't need
any medication."

That's the way it is

with the whole food
plant based diet.

As a youngster,

my own family
had a lot of health issues,

and as a kid I remember
my two favorite uncles

having to have
bypass surgery.

And these were people
who I loved

and they were never the same
after the surgery.

And then one day,
I start waking up

with the most severe pains
in the morning.

I jut knew
something was really bad

but I kept thinking,
maybe It'll just go away.

You know, I just wanted
to believe anything

but, oh, my goodness,
I've got some heart issues.

I went to the Cleveland Clinic.

I had a 100 percent
on my right artery blocked

and two at 65 percent.

I had a hardening

on the right side
of the artery.

I also had
left bundle block,

I had an enlarged heart,
I had leaky valves,

I was a real mess.

Even though we tend to think
of advances in medicine

as being a new drug
or new laser

or something really
high-tech and expensive.

In our studies over the last,
almost 40 years now,

we've used these
very high-tech expensive

state of the art
scientific measures

to prove how powerful

this very simple and low tech

and low cost interventions
can be.

And we found for the first time

that not only
can you help prevent disease,

but you can actually
reverse it in most cases.

What Ornish showed in 1990

in the most prestigious
medical journal in the world,

he could measure
and show that the arteries

were opening up without drugs,
without surgery

just, you know,
plant based diet,

and other healthy lifestyle
changes.

After that publication,

no one else should have
died of heart disease.

We had the cure.

We've had it for decades

yet hundreds of thousands
of people continue to die

from this preventable,
treatable, reversible disease.

The catheter is again in
the aorta now, in the left main,

an injecting dye
in the left main

and if you look very closely,
I'll slow it down,

you can see
there is a significant

narrowing of the vessel
right here.

See this is a normal
vessel here,

this is a circumflex vessel
and if you look right here,

it's very hazy and so that's
the cholesterol plaque,

that is limiting the flow
significantly down this vessel,

so the patient comes in
with a heart attack

or comes in with chest pain.

Most of what I do
are coronary bypass grafts

and Oklahoma is
number two in the nation

for death
from cardiovascular disease

and it's because
the way we eat.

There is no question about it.

About six years ago,
I woke up with left arm pain.

I went to my cardiologist,
my cholesterol was 494,

my triglycerides
were over 3200.

I had a stress test,
it was abnormal.

I had a 85 percent blockage
of my left anterior descending.

An 80 percent a little further
down stream

and a 70 percent of my
right main coronary.

And he said that
it was too big to stent

so he recommended
I have a triple bypass.

It was like a slap in the face

'cause it just
never crossed my mind

that that would happen.

So many of our friends had,

you know, had this happen

and they went in
and they had the stents

and they were fine

and that was what we were
gonna do, you know.

So, it was,
it was a real wakeup call.

One of my partners recommended
that I read the China Study.

I had read that the Saturday
before they arteriogram,

and in that book is mentioned

Prevent and Reverse
Heart Disease

by Dr. Esselstyn
and so I found that book,

read it literally that day,

called my cardiologist
and said,

"I think I wanna try diet
before I have bypass."

And it literally
scared him to death.

Don't let your culture
hold your heart hostage.

Hey, it's in the family genes,
I'm gonna get it,

I'm gonna die of something,

why not let me eat
what I wanna eat

and enjoy life.

I hear that all the time.

It's very common for people

who have a family history
of heart disease

to have a family history
of eating

a very poor, low nutritive
quality diet,

high in junk food,
high in salt, sugar and fat.

One of my sites that I work at
is a heart hospital.

I see patients that come in
there, not infrequently,

who are about my age,
built like me,

they come in
with heart attacks.

They're thin and healthy
on the outside

but on the inside
their arteries

are filled up with saturated
fat and cholesterol

and inflammation.

They're very surprised by it
when it happens

but I see how my friends eat
after a bike ride for instance.

Exercise is great
for many different reasons.

But exercise alone
is not enough

and a plant based lifestyle
is incredibly beneficial

because it reduces
the risk of so many diseases

that affect us.

The whole truth will come out
one of these days.

Truth cannot be suppressed
for too long.

Erectile dysfunction
to a urologist is ED,

but when a cardiologist
hears ED,

that's early death.

Erectile dysfunction is sort of
the bad boy in the block

'cause nobody wants
to talk about it.

But in general,

statistics are pretty
earth shattering, right.

Roughly, 40 percentage
of men at age 40, 50 at 50,

60 at 60 and then by the time
we are 100,

we're all in trouble.

The problem is
when person develops ED,

that's the first sign

that there is some problem
in the blood vessels.

The pathophysiology is the same
as coronary artery disease.

The obstruction
of the arteries

to the penis by plaques
that develop in there.

They're much smaller arteries
going to the penis

than to your heart
and that's what why

we typically see those symptoms
develop first.

Most people don't realize

that cardiovascular disease
is a systemic disease process

that means
if you have a heart attack

you're at risk for ED
and peripheral arterial disease

and stroke and dementia

and so in short people
need to realize that

when they have a stent
and they fix one little area,

it does not cure the problem.

It simply solves
one little spot

and so ED is no different.

It's kind of
a warning signal that

well, that's not working well.

And if that's not working well

we know you're not getting
the oxygen supply

to your brain
and to your heart.

Where cardiovascular disease
has its inception

is when we progressively
destroy

the capacity of our lifejacket
and our guardian

which is the inner most
layer of the artery,

the endothelium.

The damage to the endothelium
begins

when an excess LDL
cholesterol is absorbed

The resulting
inflammatory response

triggers immune cells
called macrophages.

They enter the vessel wall

and begin to gobble up
the excess cholesterol

creating these foam cells.

Now, these large cholesterol
laden foam cells accumulate

resulting in plaque build up
from the inside out

causing a pimple like area

to bulge into our artery
passage ways.

Over time, the covering
of these pimples can rupture

triggering a blood clot

that can block
normal blood flow

to an area resulting
in a heart attack or a stroke.

Back in 1900, we consumed about
4 pounds of oil

per person per year,
currently 74 pounds.

So, we have added a tremendous
amount of oil to our lives.

All oil is a 120 calories
a table spoon,

and most Americans consuming

between 250 and 700
calories of oil a day.

You're taking the oil,

removing it
from the original item

whether it be an olive,
whether it be a Soy bean,

whether it be a coconut

and you're isolating
that oil out.

When you isolate that oil,
you have 100 percent fat.

Fats in oils
are a major contributor

to blocked heart arteries,

high blood pressure,
high cholesterol,

heart attacks, heart failure.

Oil injures endothelial cells.

Olive oil, corn oil,
Soy bean oil, safflower oil,

sunflower oil, coconut oil,
palm oil, oil in a cracker,

oil in bread,
oil in a salad dressing.

So I have a number of people
even on a plant based diet,

that will come in and say

Dr. Stoll,
I'm eating really well

but I'm still gaining weight.

And my first question to them

is well, how much olive oil,
coconut oil etc

are you using in your diet?

When they start to add it up,

sometimes they're adding
five, six, tablespoons a day.

So, here we are, you know,
600, 700 calories

they're adding to their diet
and they don't realize it

because they're adding in oils
that they assume are healthy.

There aren't some special oils
you can buy

that are health promoting.

They're all processed foods

with almost no levels
of micronutrients

and phytochemicals
in them, with no fiber.

Coconut oil
is 90 percent saturated fat.

Lard is 43 percent
saturated fat.

The coconut oil miracle

is that it's still
on the market.

And so when we just

hear little clips
on the news,

maybe on the internet, it says
olive oil is the way to go.

We grab on to that

and unfortunately
it's bad information.

Here I am,
I'm just out of recovery

from my heart catheter

and he looks at me
and says, you know,

"I think I'd like you to meet
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn,

he was my mentor
at medical school.

Sure enough the next morning,
he gave me a call,

he said,
"I want you to read this book,

Prevent and Reverse
Heart Disease

and call me back."

There is hard science out there

that you can halt and reverse
this disease with nutrition.

There is a common feeling

that, oh well patients
won't do that.

Well, nothing is further
from the truth.

I read it, within a few days
I called him back

and I said, "I'm in.

I'll do whatever
you want me to do."

When folks are willing
to change their,

you know, 50, 60,
70 year old worth of habits,

it's amazing watching cure

for the first time
in my career.

I really believe that
diet is the primary way

that we need to change things.

I've been now plant based
for almost three years.

What it's done is at that time
my cholesterol was 310,

today it's at 143.

Plant based nutrition

has allowed me to have
more energy

than I've ever felt in my life.

The body is a natural
self healing machine

and disease in unnatural,
avoidable

and in most cases reversible
with superior nutrition.

What I thought
I knew about healthy eating

almost killed me.

One moment, I was eating meat
with every meal.

The next moment,
whole food, plant based.

A very drastic change
overnight.

Within six months
my cholesterol was down to 115,

my LDL was 15, which was
as low as they can measure.

My triglycerides
had fallen to a 175.

The last time I had
my cholesterol checked,

it was 96 and my
triglycerides were 97.

And there's not a drug
on the planet that can do that.

That is solely through diet
and I'm just utterly amazed

that the human body
has the ability

to heal itself so quickly.

You know I abused my body
for 53 years,

I'm currently 59
and I feel better now

than I felt when I was 35.

Genetics is not our destiny.

Our genes can be directly
affected by the food we eat.

We know that you can
reverse heart disease

with plant based diet,
we know this,

you cannot do with medication,

but you can do it
with a plant based diet.

And when they ask doctors,

"Why don't you
teach people this?"

They say, "They don't think

people are going
to want to do it,

it's too difficult" Well,

let them be the judge of that.

I think it's too difficult
to go under the knife

and have my chest cracked open,

you know,
but give people the chance,

the opportunity.

Two weeks after starting

the whole food plant based diet
with no oil,

my angina had
all of a sudden stopped.

By the time I went back
to my internist,

my hemoglobin A1C
was coming down.

They took me off the shots,

they took me
off of the starlix pills.

Within a couple months later
I went off the metformin.

The doctor said,
I don't think you're diabetic.

I don't have
any arthritis anymore.

I'm enjoying life,

I love the food
that I'm eating,

I would say the bottom-line
to all of my health issues

is you don't have to suffer

with heart disease
and diabetes,

because it's food borne
illnesses,

and if food is what got you
into this mess,

food can get you out of it.

By definition, a mammal
makes milk for its young,

and so a horse makes milk
perfect for its foal,

and a human being makes milk
perfect for the infant,

and a cow makes milk
perfect for her calf.

The thing is that we have
different nutritional needs

when we're young
than a calf has.

They grow real fast.

A little baby calf grows
from 60 pounds to 600 pounds

drinking milk.

If you fed a baby calf
human milk,

the animal would
starve to death.

So when people eat
baby calf food

designed to
accelerated growth

they grow, people get fat.

We know the protein
from dairy casein

is a cancer promoter
on the DNA level.

It actually tells your DNA
go ahead and make some cancer.

The earlier you introduce
young children to dairy,

the higher their risk,
about 14 fold higher

to develop
a devastating disease

called diabetes type 1,
which is an autoimmune disease

that destroys the pancreas
irreversibly.

Dairy calcium is kind have been
made into a myth

that if I eat cheese
or I drink milk

and have a good calcium intake
from dairy

that I'll have strong bones

and that's actually
not been proven

in the literature at all.

When I look at people,

and they're drinking
all this milk to try to combat

the osteopenia
and osteoporosis,

I tell them that the countries

that consume the most dairy
have the weakest bones.

And they're like,
what do you mean,

I say "Well, most of Asia
didn't have osteoporosis

up until recent times

and they didn't
drink milk at all."

If you don't drink milk,

where are you going
to get your calcium?

Where do you think the cow
gets their calcium, right?

They have a thousand pound
skeleton, that's a lot it,

they get it from plants, right.

Start everyday

with milks' protein
and milk life.

The dairy industry says,
oh, milk does the body good.

We're believing advertising,
we're not believing truths.

In 1999,
I had that wake up call.

I was diagnosed with both
breast and cervical cancer.

So the doctor said

you've got to have
a mastectomy next week,

you got to have
a hysterectomy immediately,

you got to have chemo,
you got to have radiation.

And I was like a deer
in headlights

and I was like, there's no way.

All of the doctors
were pretty clear

that they felt that

I probably wouldn't live
longer than a few months,

because I had cancerous fluid

that had metastasized
from my ovaries,

all the way
up the pleural cavity,

on my right lung.

Until you've seen

a loved one get sick and die
in a hospital

or walk through the halls

or been to an intensive
care unit,

people don't know. I mean,
you drown death,

when you die with lung cancer,

I mean horrific,
horrific deaths.

The war on cancer
under President Nixon

started in 1971.

The incidents rate
that is the number of people

that get cancer
was one in eight.

The survival rate was about
27 percent, 28 percent

which means a little more than

70 percent
of the patients died.

Just a couple of years ago,

the National Cancer Institute
published their latest figures,

the incidents as much higher
and the survival rates

are basically unchanged
around 31, 32 percent.

It's a travesty

that people continue
to suffer and die

when we have the tools,
we have the knowledge,

we just the system is such,

it just doesn't reward
that kind of behavior.

It doesn't make anybody money.

I think that
the assumption there

is that there is a rational
helpful benign process

that's running the show
in government

and there isn't so
what's running the show

is a vicious free for all

and that nobody
is really interested

in helping
Americans get healthy.

Nobody makes any money
sending you home

to eat your vegetables
and drink your water.

And I think that's probably

the base root
of the whole problem.

In our morning rounds, how
where you live

affects your odds
of surviving cancer.

New government data shows
people in the south

have the highest risk
of dying from cancer.

Kentucky ranks number one.

Cancer
defined by modern medicine

is essentially
a wild, erratic cells

that's growing without control.

And it's very active
metabolically.

First up,
chemotherapy is standard

for most
breast cancer patients.

I think the whole
chemotherapy industry

is very sad.

It's based on an assumption
that I find to be flawed.

The way that cancer is assumed
to work

is once started
progressively gets worse

because of certain events
to come along like mutations.

Therefore,
that leads to the idea,

well, how do we treat
people with cancer.

We can't get those cancer cells
to go back to being normal.

What are we going to do?

We're going to kill them.

And how best to kill them

except to have
created some chemical

that can zap those tumors.

That's called chemotherapy,

but chemotherapy is not working
for the most part.

The focus on cancer
seems to be

early detection,
early detection

and we have breast cancer
awareness month.

I would like to see,
breast cancer prevention month.

And that could be
for all types of cancer,

not just breast cancer.

My mom and aunts
had had breast, cervical,

uterine or ovarian cancer.

They did the surgery,

the mastectomies
and the hysterectomies.

They did the chemo.

They did the radiation,
and I really saw what that did.

I saw that not only
did it not heal,

but it made the situation worse

and I was convinced
that many of the people

that I loved the most
in the world

had actually died

not as a result
of being diagnosed with cancer,

but as a result
of all of those treatments.

Why do chemo surgery
and radiation

not do well for the most part?

because they do nothing
to change the root cause,

the biological terrain

the culture medium
if you will that,

any disease will grow in
as not functioning properly

it's conducive to growing
a cancer cell for example,

conventional medicine looks
at the tumor and says,

okay, that's the disease.

I don't, I look
at the tumor and say,

that's the symptom
of the disease.

In our research, for example,
we showed 40 years ago,

we could have a model

and we could turn
cancer on and off.

And it doesn't have anything
to do with mutations.

I went to see Dr. Joel Fuhrman
who...

to my good fortune
was my primary care physician.

And he examined me

and we talked
and I just decided,

well it's not gonna hurt
to ask another person,

you know, if there is a chance
that I'm gonna get through this

and I said, "Do you think
I'm going to survive this?"

And he said, "Yes, I do."

And I said, "That's wonderful,

because you are the only one
who has said that."

You don't have to be sick.

You don't have to wait in line
for a terminal illness.

There is something
you can do about it,

and the time to start is now.

The motivating factor for me

to adopt a whole
food plant based diet

was I didn't want to die.

My wife had adopted the whole
food plant based ideology

for at least
two to three years.

And I did it really purely
as for health,

I had dragged family along
fairly successfully,

my husband was good
when he was at home,

and I was cooking for him.

We hear the term
always committing,

committing to something
100 percent.

And I think for me

adopting a whole food
plant based diet,

I wasn't fully committed.

He was diagnosed in November
of 2013 with kidney cancer,

turned out to be
stage four cancer.

I think at that moment

I never had to
nag at him again,

I never had to convince him,
he was completely onboard.

We were told
that given what it was

and the type of the cancer,
renal cell carcinoma

in a fairly aggressive one as
to what they were seeing

on the tests taken.

That it would be probably
a matter of months

that I had to live.

He went through a major surgery
to have the kidney removed

and many of the lymph nodes
around it

and you know,
they were pretty brutal

and they said that, you know,

that he might not even
survive the surgery

because it has gone
up his venae cavae

and they had to clamp that off
and he could bleed out

and so that was
devastating in itself.

And they explained that

chemotherapy and radiation
was not effective

in controlling or healing

or working
with renal cell carcinoma

and they said there was
current research being done

with respect
to immunotherapy drugs.

He recovered really well
from this surgery,

rather quickly,

he was accepted
into a trail study

and it was an immune
boosting therapy

and we went down
to Vancouver for that,

and after the third treatment,
it attacked his liver.

So they explained to us
that this liver attack,

the side effect from the drugs

and the rates that my liver
was battling right now,

it could be a fatal episode.

So he was dismissed
from the study

because it doesn't look good
to kill your trial patient.

So they basically sent us home
to recover from that.

There is no way.
I'm not gonna do surgery,

chemo or radiation.

He said to me,
"What do you mean, no,

you don't have a choice?"

He said, "You'll be dead
in six months."

I said, "Well,
I'll tell you what,

if I'm not dead in six months,
I'll come back to see you."

Conventional medicine uses

the term a five year survival
of a cancer

without a recurrence
of the same cancer,

you might have another one.

But, without a recurrence
of the same cancer,

is considered a cure.

For me, it really isn't.

For me, a cure is

when a patient lives
the rest of their life,

as along as they don't mess up

and start doing
the bad lifestyle choices

that they had.

We did a national wide survey
of a total of 6,500 families

and what came out of that

was supporting
what we had done initially.

And that was the moment,
in that process

we turned away from vegetables,
and fruits, and grains

which we learned
how to be the whole form,

the entire kind of form.

And we put in
all the animal foods

and all the processed foods.

We're making a big mistake.

Animal protein
can turn on cancer

and the protein
that we were using primarily

was the main protein in
cow's milk.

When you are eating
super inflammatory foods,

you're eating dairy products,
you're eating meat,

you're eating eggs,

you're eating all this
inflammatory foods,

processed foods,

all these oils
you shouldn't be eating

and then you add
to that pesticides

and all these chemicals

that we know
can potentially cause cancer.

Now you're
in the perfect storm.

So, I continued on

with our whole food
plant based diet

and he just got
better and better

and with each scan
things were reducing,

lymph nodes
were shrinking in size.

And initially they had said
it would be naive

to think that
this would not spread,

and it didn't spread
and it reduced.

And it kept reducing
to the point

where it was radiologically
undetectable.

At this two year period,

where you're told
plain and simple that

you're probably gonna die,
if you make that outset date,

you're probably got to get
sicker and sicker.

And I didn't.

And I got healthier
and healthier and healthier.

And at two years,
when he should have died

according to them,

he went back to work,
full-time.

I've never been this healthy
in my whole life and I just,

I'm carrying on,

what has brought me here
this far, this healthy

and the way I am,

has been adopting
whole food plant based,

there's no two ways about it.

My friends and family
didn't believe me,

they didn't approve.

My doctor didn't like it.

But when that six month
mark came,

I made that phone call.

I want an appointment.

When they ran all the tests

and I was completely
cancer free.

Some of the things
that I found

from those tests he ran,
not only did I not have cancer,

but rheumatoid arthritis

that I was diagnosed
at the age of 27 with,

that the doctors
had told me then,

"You could be crippled by this,

you could end up
in a wheel chair,

you're going to have
to take drugs

for pain management on this."

It was gone.

I had always had these problems
with eczema, psoriasis.

My skin looked better than ever
and from a little girl

I was diagnosed
with all kinds of allergies.

For the first time in my life

that I could remember
I had no allergy.

Like this is really something.

I realized that this lifestyle
had healed my body completely

from the inside out.

I'm Pamela Swallow, I just
turned 70 this summer,

but I've been 18 years
cancer free.

I was diagnosed in 1997

with metastatic stage four
ovarian cancer.

My prognosis was horrible,

but not everybody
is right all the time

and I was determined to live
and I have and so could you.

I have a major blockage
in my right thigh.

I have a lot of plaque in,
I guess in major artery.

I was trying to find solutions.

When I was shooting
Captain America in Cleveland,

I was going
to the Cleveland Clinic

and while I was there

the doctor asked me
about the blockage,

she started telling me
about this doctor

that could possibly help me

and we went to have lunch
with Essie and Ann

they're just such enthusiastic
and healthy people.

I had already read his book.

I was convinced
that I need to try this

and I decided
I was gonna jump right in.

I was little daunted by
the okay, no oil, no dairy,

no nuts, no sugar, no, the nos.

But I got to it
and I started it,

I was getting along fine
with the diet.

I was doing great.

In the middle of all this,

the movie
that I was preparing to do

in the spring, the director
wanted to see me,

because he heard
I was back in town,

and he wanted
to talk to me about the film.

When I left, I got a call
later on that evening

from my agent.

He was like, you know,

director was very concerned
about you, and they said,

"If you don't gain like,
20 pounds

between now and the time
that movie starts,

they're gonna fire you."

So, contrary
to my health needs,

I went back to flesh
and not just plant based diet.

I gained weight by like wham,

it just came right back
just the way, I lost it.

My leg cramps came back.
I started to snore again.

I don't pop up out of bed

as energetically
as I used to,

my regularity changed,

my susceptibility
for catching things

changed drastically.

I get tired after I eat
which is really trippy,

you know, it's the food
supposed to give you energy.

I eat now and it's kinda
like, I need a nap.

So my digestive process
is very different.

I know that at some point,
I'm gonna go back to it,

because I know how to do it,

and I know how I felt
when I was doing it.

Mainly because I know,
I could do better from myself.

Everything
that I was ever taught,

everything I'd ever read,
basically it was telling me,

"Hey Hispanics have a high
percentage of diabetes."

I was also lead to believe
it's in your genes,

it's just part of who you are.

I was a fast food junky.

My body was telling me,
you need that sugar,

you need that fat,
you need that salt

and so I was going

through the drive-through
all the time.

My family has been devastated
by chronic disease.

My mother was diabetic.

She had a kidney transplant.
She was legally blind.

Many, many years of dialysis,
many, many years of shots,

injections and pills
and ultimately passed away

at the young age
of 61 years old.

My oldest brother,

he was diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer,

he passed in 2002.

My twin brother Joe,

he's been diabetic
over a decade

and just about four months ago
he had a heart attack.

And then the youngest brother
is Martin,

he was diagnosed with diabetes
at a young age,

in his early teens
13 or 14 years old.

He has had his
right leg amputated.

He has had a kidney
and pancreas transplant.

He's legally blind.

He does dialysis
three times a week,

and he takes 25 medications
every single day.

I was headed down
that same path,

at the age of 43 taking
two insulin shots,

two oral medications
for diabetes,

a high blood pressure
medication

as well as a high
cholesterol medication.

I even asked my doctor, I said

"Will I ever
get off this insulin."

And he flat out told me,

"No, you're gonna be
on insulin

the rest of your life."

I was very upset,

I was actually
quite pissed off,

because I'd seen what this
had done to my family

and now here I was.

Up until fairly recently,

people had a completely
wrong view of diabetes.

They thought diabetes is caused
by eating sugar

or eating starch
and eating bread.

And that was somewhat logical,

because the carbohydrate
in the bread

does release glucose,
it releases sugar.

And so it will make
the blood sugar rise,

but it turns out
that was never the cause of it.

Type two diabetes
is caused by the build up

of tiny microscopic
fat particles

in the muscle cells,
and what happens is

as the fat builds up
in the cell,

the insulin can no longer
bring the glucose inside.

So what's the answer,

the answer is get that fat
out of the cells,

the diabetes will improve.

Most of us have no idea,
where our food comes from.

I started to question,
where that food was coming from

and how that food was raised.

I never made the connection

really between
what was on my plate

and then that was once a living,
breathing animal.

Once I made that connection

I didn't want to have
any part of it.

I don't see animals
as food anymore,

I see it has complete suffering
and I want people to know that,

that animal didn't just
naturally die,

and then they package it,
and it becomes food.

That's not how it is,

the animal suffered
everyday of its life,

it was beaten,
it was tortured,

and then it became
food for you.

The plight of farm animals
is more than ever something

that really matters to me.

But what also surprised me

was how many basic human rights
violations exist,

with humans
in addition to what's happening

to the animals.

A lot of milk that we drink
actually has a lot of puss

or white blood cells in it.

Largely because a
lot of these animals

are not treated as well
as they ought to be.

You don't have to take a life
in order to sustain yours.

Every time
we're purchasing something,

we're voting with our dollar.

So, if you choose
to eat animal products

and you choose
to take your dollar

and vote for cruelty,

and harmfulness and death
you're part of the problem,

then you're not part
of the solution.

I knew right then,
and the other day

I didn't want to be
part of anything

that promoted cruelty.

Informing the public
to the truth

about what humans
are suppose to eat

is going to be vital
for the future of our health,

the future of the environment,
the future of animal welfare

and the future of the finances
of this country.

Sustainability is becoming
more and more an issue.

So it's not just
the health of people,

not just cruelty
to animals and what not.

It's actually
an issue of survival.

People are not making
the connection

that what they're eating

is really affecting
the environment.

Over a third of the landmass
in the world

is taken up
by livestock, agriculture.

If you look at
all of the animals

that are being raised
for consumption,

it totals around 70 billion.

Livestock are basically

black boxes
of inefficiency, right?

You pour in huge amounts

of feed, of protein,
of energy, water,

and these animals
have the audacity to breathe

and move around
and waste energy

and like, you know,
live their lives

and then only about
half of them

you can eat the rest is
the skeleton and skin.

I mean it's just like,
huge amount of resources

to get these
tiny kind of scraps from them

when we could just be
eating the food directly,

you know,
cut out the middle moo.

We're having a big water
shortage in California,

now they're rationing water.

Long showers
40 gallons of water,

short showers 20 gallons.

One burger is 4,000
to 18,000 gallons of water

to make a third
of a pound burger.

75% of the deforestation
taking place in the Amazon,

is because of
animal agriculture.

We're raping the land,

is really what we are doing.

We are taking everything
out of the dirt

that we want to have
in the dirt,

the microbes,
the organic matter.

We are headed towards
our dirt not being viable

to grow anything.

Most people
don't understand that,

the biggest contributor
to greenhouse gases

more than all transportation
combined

planes, trains,
boats, automobiles

is animal agriculture.

We need to do
something right now

to start reversing
global warming.

Well I can do something
about that right now

I can just stop eating,
stop eating animals.

So, when he start
thinking of world hunger,

and you start thinking about

all the water
that's being wasted,

and transportation,
not to mention the cruelty.

You start looking at it
from a bigger picture

and realizing
that your dollar

that you're voting with
doesn't just affect you,

it affects not only your fellow
human beings,

but also your planet.

So when you start
to educate yourself

not just about the way
that you feel,

and about the way
the people around you feel,

but when you really
start to take it all in,

and you've just
started to lean in,

oh, you're in all the way.

The formula is clear,

you want to eat the foods
that promote good health,

you want to avoid the foods
that contribute to poor health.

Basically we don't eat anything
with the mother or a face.

Like most people like,
kind of walked away,

from there going, what do you
eat? you know.

So what is whole food
plant based?

It's a food
that comes from the ground,

it's less altered by man,
it's less processed by man.

Like fruits, vegetables,
whole grains and beans

you know, and nuts and seeds
to a lesser extent.

We're not talking about
unhealthy plant based eating.

We're talking about
whole foods.

I take away all their meat,
and all their dairy,

and all their oil,
and they look at me,

they go "Dr. McDougall,
I got nothing to eat,

there is nothing for me
to eat at all, nothing."

I say, "Yes, there is."

And then I show them the key
which

you have to know,
or you'll fail."

I show them the starch.

I say,
"Well, do you like potatoes?"

"Oh, I love potatoes."

Beans, and lentils,
and vegetables

you didn't even know existed

and even fruits
from other countries.

Turnip, collard,
mustard, kale...

Greens, beans, onions,
mushrooms, berries and seeds.

Black beans, brown rice,
salsa, avocados, quinoa.

Bok choy, swiss chard, kale,
collards, collard green,

beet greens, mustard greens,
turnip greens, napa cabbage,

brussels sprouts, broccoli,

cauliflowers, cilantro parsley,

spinach, and arugula,
and asparagus.

You got it.

Always eat too much,

stuff yourself
on those berries.

They feel good,
they feel good in you,

they give you energy,

you don't have to drink
anything,

they got so much liquid
in them, they feel great.

That's one food I love.

Spinach or collard greens,
you ever think

you'd ever say collard greens?
I say collard greens.

Mustard greens.

Where's Jeb? Where's granny?

All of a sudden,
Elly May Clampett.

You start saying things
like that, Clampetts,

when you eat like this,
you know,

I'll have some mustard greens,
some collard greens,

three pounds of those steamed

and then like this much
apple cider vinegar.

The first thing people
say is, I don't have time.

When somebody says to me,
I don't have time,

what I really hear is,
I don't want to.

If tomorrow I'm going to be
diagnosed with cancer,

I don't have time for that,

but I will have time
to do chemo, radiation,

surgery, recuperation.

The hardest part about changing
your diet and your health

is just deciding to do it.

Oh, plant based diet,
I don't think I'd like that.

Well, you think
that long enough,

you probably won't try it.

Don't you remember
when you were little

and mom put
something on your plate

and said, well just try it,
"No, I don't want to try it."

Well, just try it.

It's like riding a bike,
you know, you like the idea,

you want the outcome,

you can read about
the technique

all day long but at some point
you just got to get on the bike

and find your balance.

And once you find your balance

you just glide
and it's so freeing.

So, I started and I started
very seriously.

I started every meal,
three meals a day,

which consisted mainly
of fruits and vegetables,

some nuts and seeds,
and it just worked.

And in about six months
I lost 120 pounds

and then over the course of
maybe another six months,

I lost another 100 pounds,
so I lost 220 pounds.

The diabetes went away
within weeks

and the hypertension
also went away.

I started to feel great.

I can't she's got
so much energy today,

I can't really keep up with her,
to be honest with you.

Recently I was lucky enough
to have an echo

done by my coworkers,

and she was overwhelmed

by what she saw
on my echocardiogram.

There were no blockages,
there is no plaque,

the elasticity in my heart
is excellent and she said,

"We don't really see
hearts like this."

The number one thing
that she said was,

"Susan, I'm convinced.

I see what you eat everyday,

but this for me
as a echocardiogram sonographer

this is what sells me."

I have reversed disease,

the damage that hypertension
does to your heart,

and type two diabetes,

it was reversed in the last
five years from eating this way.

The first thing I noticed was

that I didn't have
all those greasy dishes,

and then I noticed that
my food bill was lower,

and then I noticed
that I felt better.

After all if you have
all those greasy dishes,

think what the inside of
your intestine must look like.

The vast majority of the world
subsists on rice and beans

for fractions of what
we pay for food.

The thing people
have to understand

is that it is not expensive

to eat a healthy
whole food plant based diet.

Sure if you go out
to restaurants

or buy vegan processed food,
it is

but where
I live in the ethnic markets,

in the area of Los Angeles
a pound of beans are $0.49.

And you get it, put it, cook
it in your pressure cooker,

you're done in 10 minutes.

For me I'm not
buying meat anymore,

I'm not buying dairy anymore.

When in season, I can go to
my local farmer's market.

And when I explained to them
they asked for like,

how can I do this really.

And I say well, you can
actually buy a 25 pound bag

of brown rice for 25 bucks.

You can buy a 20 pound bag
of whatever your favorite bean

is for 20 bucks, and a bunch of
fresh frozen vegetables

for $0.99 a bag
and you have meals for a month

for two people for 60-70 bucks.

And they look at me like,
"Oh, I never thought of that."

You're not eating the cheeses,
and the meats, and the eggs

and so the average family
is gonna save a lot of money,

plus you're not
gonna be in the line

at the pharmacy counter as much,

and if diet changes can start
to cut that down,

you're saving serious money.

We went in
and ransacked our pantries,

our refrigerators, our freezers.
Started emptying things out,

taking out all the things
with the oils, the sugars,

the processed foods,
got rid of the meats.

From one day to the other,

our lifestyle
changed completely.

We threw away
everything we had,

and we went to the store

and bought new food
and we started.

By the time we got

from the TV room
into the kitchen, he said,

"We shouldn't have anymore
animal products in our house."

I was like yay.

We just switched like that
and then there was a moment

where we said, "Well
what about the children?"

I said,
"It's not a democracy."

They're just along
for the ride.

I want to feel better.

Looking back at where I was
just 11 months ago,

I don't even recognize
that person.

I could not imagine
the drastic changes

that we've seen
in less than a year,

not only
the physical changes

of the weight loss,
but coming off medication,

I feel good on the inside,
I don't hurt anymore,

my knees don't hurt.

I feel better now than I did
when I was in high school.

Making this lifestyle change

to a whole food plant
based way of eating

is the absolute best decision
I've ever made in my life.

It's not so much about trying
to invent a new way of life,

but rather discovering
the foods that are right here

in front of you.

So it's about shopping
in the produce department.

It's literally about knowing
which aisles to walk down

in your supermarket,

which stuff to grab
and which stuff to just keep

walking right past.

The first priority is to eat
whole unrefined plants

and to avoid
animal sourced foods

and foods that are processed.

A fresh roasted beet,

I get really excited
about produce.

The foods that don't require
a label tend to be the highest

in nutrients and most
beneficial for your health.

Things like fruits, vegetables,
whole grains, beans, lentils.

However
there are a lot of foods

that do have labels,

I'm talking about
your frozen pizza

that's got a dozen
ingredients in the crust

and a dozen more
in the toppings.

My God, there are paragraphs
of ingredients.

You don't want that, especially
you don't want the mono

and diglycerides,
you don't want the added oil,

and there are usually four
or five or six different ways

that they're
stuffing sugar at you.

For example,
we'll pickup raisin bran,

and I'll show folks,

okay, "Tell me how sugar
is in that per serving?

And how much fiber
is in that per serving?"

They very quickly realize that
often they may be eating

for breakfast something that
is a bowl full of sugar.

You can pick up a jar
of spaghetti sauce

and it will have sugar in it.

Now that being said, there are
a plenty of packaged foods

that can be a part
of a healthy diet,

for example canned vegetables,
frozen fruits and vegetables.

However, the way
they're packaged

matters a great deal,

and the way
they're processed matters.

So in teaching people about
label reading, I tell them,

if it has a package,

turn it over
and look at the label.

So let's take a look
at this one,

'cause it looks
really promising,

it says 100 percent
whole grain,

it also says heart healthy,
and good source of fiber.

So let's take a look
at the ingredients

just to make sure.

Whole wheat flour,
water, sugar,

sugar is the third ingredient.

It's also got soybean oil
in it, and those mono

and diglycerides
that we don't want.

So again, it's so important
to read those labels.

With nothing to lose,
we decided to just try it out

and see how things went,

and so we decided
to do it for a month

and the pounds just started
to fall away,

I think I lost 14 pounds
that first month.

So over the course
of the next 18 months,

I proceeded to lose
half of my body weight

for a total of
about 130 pounds.

It's never too late
to feel young, to lose weight,

to feel energetic, to enjoy
your family, your children,

your grandchildren,
your great grandchildren

and be able to help
heal yourself with food.

I eat amazing food that tastes,
smell, and look amazing.

I'm not eating grass.

I am so satisfied,
I love my food.

I just, I eat so many
different things now,

and I try new things

like I never
would have tried Indian,

or Ethiopian, or Thai,
and they're my favorite.

And I would have missed those
had I not become plant based.

With plant based cuisine,
we can create all the flavors,

textures, satisfying, feelings

that you always
want from a meal.

Let's demystify this notion

that if you are
a plant based eater,

you are giving up everything.

If food tastes good,
food tastes good.

It's because of what
it's made of.

Hi, good morning.
Hey, doc.

Good to see you, welcome back.

- Hi, how are you, Yvonne?
- Good.

When I first heard about this,

I thought it was a bunch
of malarkey, you know.

And then the challenge
was made, you know, try it,

what does it hurt?

So I tried it.

Without medication
your cholesterol was 300 range.

Yes, previously.

Okay, and now,
without medications

and making some changes
in your diet,

your cholesterol is at 171.

- Really?
- Yeah.

So it's almost half of
what it was before

on no medication.

Your triglycerides have dropped
another 20 points.

Both your cholesterol
and your triglycerides

are safely in the normal range.

Sweet.

On no medication.

That is proof to me.

You can't lie in the numbers

and you can't lie
with shedding the weight,

and I felt great.

So we kept on going
with it and it's working.

I was told, and I was convinced
by my doctor,

you're gonna be on this
for the rest of your life,

cause you're just genetically
predisposed to be this way.

And it took this to prove to me
that's not true.

I'm eating plant based
whole foods

and my cholesterol
is no longer an issue.

I feel as good as I did
when I was 20.

A lot people think that
when they go plant based,

it's gonna be really difficult

and the cooking
is going to be really involved

and involve 15 to 20
ingredients, but it's not.

One of my favorite things
to make

is my garlic alfredo sauce.

It's just seven ingredients,

basically just start out
with chopping some onions,

chopping some garlic,

throw it in a little bit
of vegetable broth

on a pan,

sauté it for about
eight minutes

until all the broth
is evaporated

and then you just add it
to your blender.

And you're gonna want to add
the cooked vegetables...

the remaining broth
which is another cup.

I have a half cup of cashews.

Now if you don't have
a high powered blender,

you're gonna have
to soak your cashews

for about five to six hours,

otherwise,
they're gonna turn out gritty,

and you don't want that
in your sauce,

you're gonna want it
thick, and creamy, and smooth.

A quarter cup
of nutritional yeast,

that's gonna give it
a depth of flavor

and a little bit of
cheesy undertone,

quarter teaspoon
of black pepper,

a half a teaspoon of salt

and one tablespoon
of lemon juice.

Blend it up and you got some
delicious alfredo sauce.

You can pour it over some
cooked pasta,

and everybody
is gonna be shocked

that there is no dairy,

and there is no butter
or cheese in it.

It's really, really delicious,

it's just as rich
as traditional alfredo sauce,

but it's actually good for you.

It's about just being creative,

it's about not so much
seeing road blocks,

but rather seeing
the opportunities

that come with these
new aspirations

that you may have.

There are three reasons
to eat out.

One, you don't have to do
the dishes, two, the ambience,

three, companionship.

You never go out to eat

to further destroy
endothelial cells, okay.

Everybody says,
well, gosh doctor,

Dr Esselson it's so hard.

Aren't they gonna have,

some of these places, have oil?

Yeah, all of them.

When the waiter or the waitress
comes to your table,

you turn in your seat,
take your glasses off,

look them
squarely in the eye.

You must understand

that I'm deathly allergic
to a single drop of any oil.

Now you get creative.

Can I have part of this item
on the menu

mixed with part of this
and put it together?

Then the chefs
are really actually,

if you just ask the question,

they're very excited
to create something for you.

We have to be that change,
we have to be the ones to ask,

and hopefully soon enough
demand that we have organic,

plant based foods
in restaurants

across the country.

We'd adopted this lifestyle
on December 3rd of 2011.

Within days, three to four days

I start to see
my sugars plummet

and I'm seeing my weight
drop anywhere

between five to seven
pounds per week.

My psoriasis went away,
my heart burn,

I've not had heart burns
since I adopted this lifestyle

and I'm Mexican,
I love spicy food,

I eat jalapeños
and spices, Indian food.

And lo and behold,
by the end of January 2012

so not quite 60 days later,

I was off all five
of my medications.

Four to five months in,

my erectile dysfunction
went away,

so here we are three and half
going on four years later,

my health continues
to be normal.

My A1c levels,
my cholesterol levels,

my blood pressures,

I'm healthier than I was
even 20 years ago.

So when my wife and I adopted

a whole foods
plant based lifestyle,

we basically changed

the trajectory
of my family's future.

So we're gonna make
the cauliflower hot wings,

which you're just gonna love,
they're really easy.

So you start with
a head of cauliflower,

or you can cheat like me
and buy pre-cut florets.

Just set those aside
and whisk together

one half cup
of plant based milk,

such as soy milk
or almond milk,

one half cup of flour,
I'm using chickpea flour today,

but you can use any flour
that you happen to have,

whisk in some garlic powder
or some onion powder

or even cayenne
if you want it to be hotter,

or little nutritional yeast,

then pour your almond milk
into your flour

and mix it
so it forms a batter.

Take each floret
and dip it into the batter

and shake it off
just to coat it.

Put it on your baking sheet,
bake it for about 12 minutes

at 450 degrees, just until it's
golden and fork tender,

and then when you're done,
toss it with some hot sauce,

or teriyaki sauce,
or barbecue sauce.

Just mix it together

and then you have your
hot wings ready to go.

When we're looking at this
plant based nutrition data,

it's more than heart disease
and risk factors,

it's actually a lot of cancer,
lot of inflammatory diseases,

such as lupus
and Sjogren's syndrome,

and rheumatoid arthritis

and so you know
plant based nutrition

and good lifestyle are good
for a variety of things,

not just heart disease.

At the time my husband
was working for MTV,

and he was helping
recording artist,

get really fit for videos,
you know,

and I said I want
to look like one of them.

It was purely vanity.
We're gonna go to Maui,

we're gonna get married
and I just want,

I want to look as good
as I feel emotionally.

And I want to do it
in a healthy way

and that's what he did.

It wasn't about starvation,

it wasn't about
hurting your body,

it was about learning
how to take care of your body,

learning how to nourish my body
in a way that would

cause me to have
a fast metabolism.

And most people think about
fuel in terms of,

these big building blocks

like protein and carbohydrates
and fat,

but that's not what it's about.

It's about vitamins,
and minerals,

and phytonutrients,
and enzymes,

and things that
your cells actually need.

I had to eat so much food,
more than I'd ever eaten before

and drink all this water
and take, you know,

do all this, eat more
than I ever had before,

and he told me
that was going to make me

actually lose weight.

So even though I was skeptical
I did it,

and in the four months
not only did I go

from the size 10 to a size 3
but I was really fit

and I felt the best I'd ever
felt in my entire life.

I had no more aches and pains,
my joints felt great,

I was energetic.

When it was time to get my
blood test and everything,

I didn't really think
it was going to affect them,

because that was impossible,

I just, you know I thought
this was just something

that improved how I felt.

And so I told my husband, well,
whatever this is that you did,

I'm gonna eat this way
from now on,

because I feel so good.

When I got my next round of
blood test a few months later,

all the lupus indicators
were negative.

The doctor had a medical
student with him and he said,

this woman alleges
to have lupus,

but we are not finding
any evidence of it.

Maybe there is just
an error in the test.

Go have your wedding, come
back and we'll test again.

And we tested again
few months later

and now even the antibodies

for the clots were
completely negative.

And my blood pressure
was coming down

to that of an athlete, and my
"genetically high cholesterol"

that I was told that
I could do nothing,

but blame my parents,

that's what my doctor
told me as a kid,

that was completely normal
and in fact optimal.

And that's what's
happened ever since then

and right now I'm sitting here

and it's been 10 years since
that first negative blood test,

and there has been
no sign of lupus coming back,

in spite of me continuing to go
on and not only expose myself

to those things they said I
shouldn't like

going out in the sunshine
but also having two children.

I have continued to actually
get healthier and stronger

as the years have gone by.

You know, I think
we all love process food

for their convenience.

But what if you could have
the convenience

without the processed food part.

You know, one of my favorites
is macaroni and cheese in a box

which I grew up with like
everybody else

and used to love.

So I've come up with a vegan
version that's whole foods.

It's something you can keep in
your pantry in a jar,

pull it out and take
a little cup of it

and just mix it up
with some non-dairy milk

and just pour it
over some noodles

and you got
an instant easy dish.

Comes together in
about 30 seconds,

so you better watch
carefully or you'll miss it.

All right, first I've
got a cup of cashews,

they go right into
my food processor,

along with some
nutritional yeast,

and some herbs and spices.

Put it in your food processor,

you just let it whirr
for about three minutes

and that's it,
that mix is ready,

good to go in your pantry,

ready for you
anytime you want it.

Free.

At 43 years old, I am free.

I spent a decade
and half trapped.

My body I thought was my tomb,
this is where I'm gonna be.

I have no way out, there's
no escape. And then to find out

that not only can I escape

but I can come
out on the other side,

like a whole
different person.

This doesn't take a lifetime.

You can fix you.

In the first three months,
I lost 70 pounds.

I was too big to do any
kind of rigorous exercise,

I was 15 minutes on
a flat slow treadmill,

because that was
all I could do.

By the six month mark,
I was down 107 pounds.

If you'd told me from 60 plus
inch waist to 30 inch waist

in less than two years.

I had to say no way.

I didn't just lose weight,
I'm not just thinner,

I'm healthier,
completely healthy.

The thing about Dr. Stoll
that set him apart

from every other doctor,
he sat me down and said,

"Let me write you
some recipes"

and him writing those recipes,

he was more willing to
write the recipes first

before the prescriptions

and it changed everything.

There are doctors
that are waking up,

because you can't deny

the result,
I'm just one person,

but there's millions
of me out there,

that are experiencing
the same results

that we didn't
receive on meds.

I look in the mirror
now and I think that

we're not talking
ten years ago.

We're talking 20 months ago.

And I don't even
know that person,

when I see those pictures.

It's a lifestyle.
And that's the key thing.

People ask me all the time, so
how long are you gonna do this.

And I tell them, planning
on living to about

Because I'm never going
back, I'm never going back.

After about two weeks
the things I noticed was I had

a lot more energy,
I could walk a lot further

and I could walk a lot faster.

I dropped a bunch of weight.

My cholesterol
dropped like a rock.

Everything seemed to
come back into line.

He now rides a bike.

I mean we go for
long bike rides.

When I got out
of the hospital,

I don't know how
many medications I had,

and I'm off all that now.

He walks miles and it's
giving Greg back to me.

There's all kinds of diets,
but this is a way of life.

Most wives take for granted
what a gift a husband is,

and to be able to do those
things with their husband,

and I'm telling
you, I'm so thankful.

Doctor called me at home

and he says, "Hey, I
just got your blood work

back from the lab and I was
reviewing your results,

and you are
no longer diabetic."

That was really good.

Sorry.

We've had this astonishing
experience

that we've lived through

and it's kind of
shaken us awake

as far as what's
important in life.

That's what so many of us
in healthcare want

is to make these
changes in peoples' lives.

It's the most effective
and powerful way

to treat the broad
range of illness

that a primary care
doctor confronts.

It's just a easiest thing you
can do to have better health.

It's low hanging fruit
literally and figuratively.

I did not know how bad
I felt, until I felt good.

I'm sure there are times
in my life

when I was younger
that I felt better,

but there is no time
I remember feeling better.

You will lose weight,

you will lose your
high blood pressure,

you will lose your diabetes,
you will feel better,

you will lose your risk
for stroke,

you will lose your risk
for dementia,

so there are side effects.

Dr. Esselstyn
entered in my life

at the worst time in my life.

And I felt like
he was a God send.

My life changed,

it's the single best thing
I've ever done, by far.

I believe that my chance

of getting coronary
artery disease is zero.

Whole food plant
based nutrition

is indeed the answer

to the healthcare crisis
in America.

It's all about sustainability
of the mind, of the body

and of the planet.

Change doesn't come
from the leadership down,

leadership only changes

when people wake up and
demand it. Demand that change.

You know today
is a different day,

today is a new opportunity

to live the life
that you want to live.

Not just the one
that you're living,

but the one that you truly
really want to live.

Two weeks, three weeks,
all you got to do is try it.

There are people in the world
that do it for ethical reasons.

There are people that do it
for health reasons,

and there are people that do it
for environmental reasons.

And ultimately
it doesn't matter

why you do it,
because it's a win, win, win.

Finding the plant based diet
gave me freedom.

Freedom that all the other
fad diets and gadgets

and even my doctor
didn't give me.

I've been on medicine
for over 30 years,

and for the very first time,

I can truly look someone
in the eye

and I can say, I can heal you.

Realize that there are people
who love you,

who need you to do this,

because they need you
in their life as well.

It's the best thing
that ever happened to me,

it saved my life,
it saved my marriage.

I am very proud of her.

This is progressive medicine,
this is correct medicine.

This is where
medicine should be.

The vegetables, and the fruits,
and the whole grains,

and the beans,

those foods have power
that you never imagined.

And It's time to put it to work.

Come on, what's on your plate?