Food 3.0: Prioritizing Health, Sustainability, & Conscious Choices – with Ocean Robbins

Dr. Mindy  

On this episode of The resetter podcast, I am bringing you ocean Robbins. Okay. I am so excited for this conversation. Because I have been following oceans father for decades, his dad actually wrote a book called The diet for a new America. And I read it when I was 20 years old. And it was the book that helped me see the power of food on our health and the power of not only choosing the right foods, but the power of making sure that foods and ingredients were clean. So I’m not going to tell you the story behind the Robin’s family, because ocean tells it so well at the beginning of this podcast. So I want you to hear the whole story, because it’s remarkable. And what you’re going to hear in this discussion that is so important is how do we choose the right foods in our eating window to make sure that we are amplifying our health? Now, let me let me break that concept down for you for a moment. Remember, when you’re building a fasting lifestyle, you have a fasting window, and you’re gonna hear a lot of guests that I bring you that talk about how do we make the fasting window easier? How do we amplify the fasting window. And then when we’re done with our fasting window, we open up our eating window. And I really want to dive in more with you all on how do we use foods in our eating window to keep the healing going. Because when we’re metabolically switching, we are operating not only from the sugar burner system, we’re also operating from the fat burning system. And there is healing that can happen in both of those. So what ocean and I unpack in this is a couple of concepts around food. For starters, we talk about super foods, and he’s got some really great ones that he brings to the surface. The most important one that I hope you all know, is the sweet potato, I love sweet potatoes, and we talk about why it’s a superfood. We also went into the concept of mindful eating, and you’re going to hear me talk a lot about how I’ve been thinking deeply lately about the environment in which we eat food and how important that is. And an ocean had some really interesting concepts on that. And then lastly, we talked about the Okinawa women. Okay, I’m obsessed with both men and women in Okinawa, but the women of Okinawa live very, very long if hopefully, you know that. And there are some traits that they do around their food that allowed them to live so long. And ocean knew those traits, and we unpack those traits. So it’s such a great calm conversation from what I consider to be you know, the Robins family is iconic when it comes to nutrition because of what oceans father started, and what ocean continues to carry forward. But also oh my gosh, you all ocean is such a loving human. What a heart. And you are going to hear that in this conversation. And his new cookbook is out. It’s called real foods. everyday ingredients to elevate your health. It is a phenomenal cookbook. We will leave links for that. Please go get it. And I can’t wait for you to listen to this conversation. Enjoy a Dr. Mindy here and welcome to season four of the resetter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself. Again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Enjoy.

Dr. Mindy  

Well, for starters, I have to just say welcome to my podcast ocean. Well. Thank

Ocean Robbins  

you. I feel very welcome and so honored to be here with you.

Dr. Mindy  

Thank you, I actually have to start off by telling you a story that I’m sure a lot of people tell you. Which is when I was in my early 20s I stumbled upon a book called The diet for a new America. Are you familiar with that book? Yeah, and it literally changed my life. And now full transparency. I’m not a vegetarian now. But your dad’s book did for me is give me this incredible healthy respect for what food could do for you. And how food is made how animals are treated like I and my 20 year old fresh brain that just really set and put me on a course of deep respect for food. So yeah, can you just fill everybody in on that book and you’re born into That legacy and what it’s been like since you’ve carried your dad’s message on?

Ocean Robbins  

Yeah, absolutely. I was born in a one room log cabin in the middle of the woods in British Columbia, Canada to parents who are growing most of their own food, practicing yoga and meditation every day for hours fasting regularly. And you know, they name their kid ocean. Well,

Dr. Mindy  

I’m married to a Sequoia that we both we just full transparency. We both named our children. You have a diver, Bodie and river. And so my daughter’s name is Bodhi, and my son’s name is Paco. So we’re under the same time. salutely.

Ocean Robbins  

Absolutely. Yeah. And my parents almost named me kale. Oh, it was way before Kale was cool.

Ocean Robbins  

I’m kind of glad they took the more conservative with their son. But you know, but we do eat a lot of kale. And yeah, and that’s why they almost named me kale. Oh, it was a staple in the Canadian winter. And I made a lot of other cabbage and carrots and other veggies from the garden. And then when I was 10, we moved to California. And that’s when my dad began working on a book called diet for new America, which came out in 1987. And it was about how our food choices affect our health, our happiness and the future of life on Earth. And as it happens, the media kind of went nuts with the story because the story starts a generation earlier here. My grandpa Irvin Robbins founded an ice cream company. You may have heard of it. It was called Baskin Robbins. And he started it with my dad’s uncle and my grandpa’s brother in law, Burt Baskin, they flipped a coin over which name went first Robin’s Baskin or Baskin Robbins, philosopher coin toss. But you know that it went on to become the most successful ice cream company in the world and kind of actually, was what brought franchising to the world. So Ray Kroc actually sold milk she milk sheen milkshake machines to Baskin Robbins, and learned about the franchising model from my grandpa, and then went on to start McDonald’s. So for better or for worse, that’s quite a family legacy. That is my dad grew up with an ice cream cone shaped swimming pool in the backyard. And with the 31 flavors of ice cream in the freezer, plus testing flavors at all times. And he was groomed to one day join her money in the business. That was the expectation from the age of about six. And then when he was in his early 20s. He was literally offered that chance. And he said no, he walked away from a path that was practically paved with gold and ice cream. Yeah, too. As we jokingly put it in our family, he had to follow his own rocky road.

Ocean Robbins  

That was good. So so that’s when you walked away, not just from the company, but any access to the family wealth. And my grandpa was really mad, because he’d spent his whole life building a business that he was proud of. Yeah, he wanted to share it with his only son. Right? And it sounds walking away from his life’s work. Yeah. And my grandpa was really hurt. And when I was growing up as a kid we’d have we’d visit we weren’t gonna let we’re not gonna let anything stop us from being family. Right. But it was tense. Oh, you know, my grandpa had walked, he’s sold the company. And then he watched it go in directions. He didn’t like, you know, four, or whatever you say about ice cream. Baskin Robbins had had certain standards as far as using real vanilla instead of vanilla. And

Ocean Robbins  

we’re using, you know, products that were from cows that were treated a little bit better. It wasn’t like they were really anti factory farms. But they had certain values and ethics. They treated their employees pretty well. But once it got bought, it just became another corporation. Yeah. But my grandpa felt hurt to see people that he’d worked with for decades fired or not treated, right, and all the things, but he had no control over it. And he blamed it all on my dad. Oh, like if you had stayed in the company, none of this would have happened. Yeah. And our family name is no on a product with ice cream. It’s made in China. So yeah, all those feelings. And so So I think that it was challenging. And then a very interesting thing happened. My dad came out with his book and it became this runaway bestseller. My grandpa didn’t read it. My grandma asked at one point did you write this book just to hurt us? Who because she felt that my dad was like saying that conventional agriculture had some problems and that ice cream wasn’t health food and yeah, but then my grandpa was on death’s door. He’d lost his he lost his brother and Robert Baskin to heart disease. My dad’s uncle died when he was ironic or, yeah, and he ate a lot of the family product. Yeah. And he was a big man. And he passed at 54. My grandpa in his late 60s was on a similar path. He had serious heart issues, serious weight issues and type two diabetes. His doctors told him Mr. Robbins, you’re very sick. And if you don’t make some big changes, you’re going to take these medications for the rest of your life and it probably won’t be very much longer. They said but if you want to make changes, there’s a book you should read. I’ve heard that a copy of diet for new America by the Renegades son who walked away from my grandpa’s life’s work. And my grandpa, bless his heart, read the book, not the one my dad had sent him with an autograph in it, but that one the doctor gave him and he changed his life. He wound up following its advice and he gave up processed foods and sugars and he cut weight down on his animal product consumption, he started eating a lot more fruits and vegetables and whole plant foods, gave up ice cream and our results, he lost a bunch of weight, he reversed his diabetes, he reversed his heart disease, got off all these medications he’d been told he needed to take for the rest of his life. His favorite part was that his golf game improved seven strokes. My favorite part was that he lived 19 more healthy years. And I got to know my grandpa as I was growing up and not only know him, but now I’m healthier. I know him happier. Yeah. And so he got a second chance when he got to live out his golden years and his retirement years with more health and vitality taking the dog for a walk for an hour and a half every morning, amazed. And so we’ve really seen in our family, what happens when we follow the standard American diet and get the standard American diseases seen what can happen when we make a change? Yeah. And you know, I’m so proud of my grandpa, because he was a stubborn cookie. Yeah. And if anyone ever had an investment in the standard American diet, it was him. Yeah, manufactured and sold so much ice cream. And yet he had the courage to make a change, right. And if he could make a change, maybe there’s hope for some of the rest of us to make changes to with all the habits and all the inertia and all the reasons why we don’t want to make changes. Maybe we can find hope to Yeah, you know, a lot of us don’t get a second chance. Ya know, like Mike, my dad’s uncle, who I never even knew he was gone before I was born. But my grandpa did, and he took it. And so for everybody who’s listening right now, like we all have a chance right now, whether it’s our first chance or a second chance, or 10th chance, we all have a chance to do something with our lives to make positive and healthy choices. Yeah. And so my life is just dedicated to giving as many people as possible the opportunity to seize those opportunities, so we can have the help that we want. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

God, that was like such a great completion to the story that I didn’t know. So thank you, because I’m thinking as you were talking, and please pass this on to your dad, because that book literally set me on the course that I’ve been on. And I what I learned was so many things in that book, it literally I carried it everywhere. I went like I was like this book. And what I found so fascinating was the fact from my end, think about this from my 20 year old brain. My 20 year old brain was like, why would you give up millions? You? Why would you give up? Like you had a path, like you said that was paved with gold and ice cream. My 20 year old brain was like, why would you give that up? And then it translated into? Because people’s health is that important? Yeah. And here’s an individual that stood up one individual that stood up and said, I don’t want that, because it’s too important that people stay healthy. Yeah. And that left a massive impact on me. Yeah.

Ocean Robbins  

You know, we live in a culture where it seems like we’ve made the almighty dollar more important, right? Human Health, yeah, then the wellbeing of others, and maybe even the survival of our species. It’s like, we’ll save the planet if it’s convenient and economically viable. But the reality is that lives are on the line, our lives are on the line. Yeah. And the way I look at it, food 1.0 is about survival. If you can get enough calories to fill your belly, that is success, well said. And that’s been the reality for most of human history. And for many people today. Food 2.0 is about commerce. It’s about the buying and selling of goods. And it brings us taste and texture and cuisine and option from all around the world. But it’s morally bankrupt. Yeah, it has no compass. Yeah. And it’s killing us. And it’s killing our planet, which is why I’m calling for as you are for food 3.0, which is governed by health for our bodies and health for our world. And there’s healthy profits and food 3.0. They just come from healthy food. Yeah. And I think that when we orient that we realize food is medicine, food is fuel, food will shape our destiny. And you know, a lot of us are thinking about food, and they think about we think about short term pleasure.

Dr. Mindy  

But that’s good. Most of most people do it that and

Ocean Robbins  

my question is, what if we asked not what do I want now? But what do I want most? Yeah, you know, because at the end of the day, there’s more pleasure in a body that works. I don’t know anybody who thinks it’s pleasurable to go through chemotherapy, or to like be morbidly obese and not be able to get off the couch, or to feel like crap, and your brain is foggy, and you can’t remember the names of your loved ones anymore. No, that’s what we’re headed towards. If we the standard American diet, there’s more pleasure and, and be able to do what you love and play with your grandkids and, and dance and sing and, and celebrate and play sports and do all the things you love. Yeah, with a clear mind and a clear conscience. Yep. And that’s what we make possible when we treat food as a source of nourishment, not just a source of entertainment. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

And it’s really inspiring to hear you talk and I want to dive into the superfoods here in a moment. But another story that my audience has heard a lot from me is that during the pandemic, I was asked to, to advise a group of high school teachers in the south on what they could do, what kind of foods they can use to support a healthier immune system. Yeah. So I get on this, there was about 30 of them. I get on to this zoom call. I’m so excited to share what I know with them. And I go through all the ways they should eat healthy and at the end of the call, basically, several of the teachers said we agree with you But we can’t afford, right? We can’t afford healthy food, or we don’t have time for healthy food. And here are the people teaching our children. And I walked away from that. And I thought, well, that’s where fasting comes in. Because I have so much admiration for people like you. And we talked about our friend Vani, who’s like fighting the fight against food, and we need to keep fighting that. But until we do, I’m like, why don’t we take fasting and let’s all learn how to heal ourselves with fasting because the food industry is not, does not appear to want its clean. Its act up anytime soon. Yeah,

Ocean Robbins  

one of the things that I think is powerful about fasting, I remember the first time I did like an extended fast and I, when I started eating again, like I didn’t take food for granted, like I was that first I was like, Oh, this is really special. You know, what am I get I course, I spent 18 hours during my fast thinking about what I was going to break. And a little bit of hunger. Yeah. Although that fades after a certain point. But then I was really I was more conscious Yeah, of what I was eating. It’s like, if you can eat nothing, then you’re not a prisoner of your desires. And I think a lot of us are so caught in addictive cycles around food and fasting can be one of the ways for some people to help break that. Yeah. And then you get to make a more conscious choice as you re enter the relationship with food. As you’re entering it. Oh, yeah. And what foods are actually going to serve your vitality and wellness so that it’s conscious, rather than compulsive?

Dr. Mindy  

Well said. And I think that if you look at even the way I teach fasting, where you’ve got like an eating window, that might be eight to 10 hours. A lot of people say to me, Well, how do I get enough protein? How do I get enough vegetables in that eight to 10? And my answer is high quality. Let’s go high quality and what some of the foods we’re gonna dive into here in a moment, but like, let’s be, to your point, very mindful of what you’re eating, and I watch it change people’s relationship to food, just because they have a shorter time period. Yeah, to eat their food in Yeah. So it’s really incredible. Yeah. Okay, these super fits. Okay, so there’s a couple of things I have to tell you. And I’m just, I just have to like, throw this out here. Let’s start with this one, because this is literally my favorite food on the whole planet. And I’m pretty sure that this food has changed the direction of my hormones as I’ve gone through menopause. And that is the sweet potato. Okay, got a chapter. It’s, I feel like I’m like the spokesperson for the sweet potato and you put it in as a superfan.

Ocean Robbins  

Everyone doesn’t know we’re talking about put it in a book called Real superfood. Exactly the ingredients. My latest book, and it’s also a cookbook, yeah, yeah. So yeah, we got chapters on each of these superfoods. So yeah, sweet potatoes. Okay. I mean, how special are they? Right? Because we I don’t know about you. But I grew up thinking that sweet potatoes were sweet. So therefore, they were probably less healthy than like regular potatoes. Yeah, it turns out nothing could be further from the truth. They are super loaded with phytochemicals, antioxidants that are amazing for us. They’re, of course, they’re high in fiber. They’re not high on the glycemic index.

Dr. Mindy  

No, they’re less they’re lower on the glycemic index, right, than a regular potato. Right,

Ocean Robbins  

right. Why is that? Why is that? Well, because they have so much fiber and so much other compounds that are in there that slow down the digestion process, even though there’s some sweet in there. The people of Okinawa, Japan are probably the longest lived documented population in the world. The elders there consistently live into their hundreds. They have vastly more centenarians per capita than we do in the United States. And they outlive us by about 10 years, the elders there, and they don’t have more medical care. In fact, they have less medical expenses than we do significantly. You know, it is a developed country, so they have good hygiene and so forth. But what did they eat there? Well, it turns out over half their calories come from sweet potato, half of half their cow. Seriously, so yeah, got a lot of sweet potatoes. I mean, that’s just insane to me, I think I’d get tired of them, but, and they actually need a particular type. Primarily, it’s a purple sweet potato.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so this was gonna be my next question. By the way, have you seen the Netflix series on the blue zones and the Okinawa Yeah. And I just want to point out the other thing that they do that I’m really trying to figure out how to do is they create, they created something called a Moai. And the Moai is a community that supports each other and uses its resources to come together. Yes. And I think that’s a really interesting concept in a world where we’re like, This is mine, right? We’re, you know, like, these people who are living so long are not only eating sweet potatoes after diet, but they’re also really embracing supporting each other, which is incredible.

Ocean Robbins  

The four pillars of lifestyle medicine are eat better, stress, less, love more and move more love. I think these are just really central. So you’re talking about the love more peace that sounds strong social ties and connection, that sense of belonging. We have studies telling us that loneliness kills faster than cigarettes. Yeah, and I think there’s an almost an epidemic of loneliness and 2020 only made that so much worse for a lot of things. All around the world, we need each other, we belong to each other, we need to feel a sense of community and connection. That’s what opens our hearts. Yeah, turns out to be good for our physical hearts. Yeah, and our life expectancy and our well being. And it brings down all the reactive fight or flight responses in the body and helps us to settle things down cortisol levels, brings up P serotonin, all of this so, so love and belonging is critical. Exercise, of course, is really critical. Yeah, and we could talk about that too, and bringing down stress through practices like meditation, or mindfulness or deep breathing, or all the different things that help settle the nervous system. These all work in concert and in Okinawa, and all the Blue Zones actually, they do all of them in very different ways. Not all of the same fate. They don’t have the same types of exercise or same diet, but they all have certain things in common and in Okinawa, sweet potatoes is a big part of their diet. They eat a predominantly plant based diet, very little animal products, a little bit of fish, fish, and and they eat lots of fiber. Yeah, and of course, all the other pieces. So yeah, but sweet potatoes are they’re actually not related to potatoes. They’re a family you have.

Dr. Mindy  

The big question I have that I get all the time is when I’m looking at the sweet potato, right yams, like all the different colors, but we call them all sweet potato.

Ocean Robbins  

Well, here’s the thing, actually what we call yams, or sweet potatoes. So they’re all They’re all sweet potatoes. So yams are a very large vegetable, if you will root vegetable in Africa, that maybe weighs 20 or 30 pounds. And when they’re full sized, and they have no sweetness to them. Oh, there they are, like, Stark thing. Yeah, when I was really young was like, Oh, very anticlimactic, went to like a special grocery store. But we really don’t have VMs. In the United States or much of the developed world. They’re not that popular for some good reasons. Yeah. But for some reason we called a garnet or Yeah, or certain varieties of sweet potato yams. They’re actually not though they’re so all this all a family of sweet potatoes, then some are orange, some are purple, summery, yellow, some are more white fleshed, okay, and they’re different colors on the outside. And they have different levels of sweetness, right. And they have different different pigments reflect different antioxidants and phytonutrients in them, each of which has its own unique benefits. If you want the absolute most bang for your buck, go for the purplish ones. But it’s

Dr. Mindy  

okay, so wait, I want to stop there. Because that’s so just to fill everybody in my husband, Sequoia is like obsessed with the purple. And every time we get him, he’s like purple, purple, bring up bring more purple. And then he starts sending me all these science studies on the purple ones. And the purple ones feed a very specific type of bacteria in the lower intestinal tract. Yes. Do you know that? Yeah. So talk a little well,

Ocean Robbins  

I mean, the wonderful thing is that I mean, there’s so much we don’t know yet about the microbiome, right? It’s like these leading edge frontier of medical science. But as we learn more, we’re like, Wow, maybe that’s part of why like we see the Okinawans live a long time. And then we see they eat a lot of sweet potatoes. We don’t really know why for sure. Right. But but we do know that sweet potatoes have a lot of specific kinds of fiber, right seem to be linked to better microbial health on the lower intestine. Yeah. And you know, each one has a different mix. But that seems to be part of the genius of it. Yeah. So we have this word fiber. I was just telling you and David Perlmutter, recently established fiber was its own food group. The carbs food group. Yeah. I mean, macronutrient. Group, I’m sorry, but it should be its own macronutrient. Yeah, really, it should be should have a fourth macronutrient. Technically, alcohol is the fourth macronutrient. But that’s not what

Dr. Mindy  

it’s not. Yeah. One thought on that before you continue on. I think we should stop just like we stopped saying oil and fats and plumping them all together. I think we should say nature’s carbs and manmade. Right? And then we would then the nature of carbs would be including fiber. You

Ocean Robbins  

got that? That works, too. Yeah, yeah, really. But I think that, you know, as a macronutrient fiber, if we think of it distinctly is just so powerful. And it’s not just like there’s one kind of fiber and we say, okay, there’s soluble and insoluble, which is a very basic thing, does it dissolve in water or not? Right. And then there’s like, we have this sort of crude way of saying that, you know, insoluble fibers like a broom, and it helps clean you out and keep your regular soluble fiber nourishes the good bacteria in your gut. And at a very gross level. Those are true, but it’s not nearly so simple. There’s so many different kinds of soluble and insoluble fibers. And so they feed different types of bacteria. Also, partly depending on what’s already going on in there, though, what’s already populated, but they also can help you have more balance with the microbial ecosystem.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, so talk about that because I think fiber again, this is I don’t want to, to just smooth over this because it’s got a lot there. It’s a prebiotic, right,

Ocean Robbins  

right. Yeah, exactly. prebiotic means it feeds the good bacteria. And while people are taking probiotics, it’s a $60 billion industry in the United States right now. Most of those are just passing through. Others may take up some Um, route and population, but not necessarily in the ways you would want. In some cases, it’s like a mono crop, you can have too much of anything and it’s out of balance, what you want is a lot of diversity of microbes. And the best way to do that is to feed them. Yes, you know, you starve them. It’s like keep bringing in more reinforcement, and they die because they’ve got nothing to eat. Yeah, feed them, and then let them find their own natural balance. And they have this exquisite way of working it out with each other, when they have the right content a

Dr. Mindy  

little more intelligent than we are, perhaps they

Ocean Robbins  

might just be Yes, exactly. We don’t even understand there’s so many of them. Yeah, many different kinds. So we think these, we have this concept of good bacteria and bad bacteria, you know, but it’s so much more complex, some of the so called bad bacteria in their right place, can actually be part of a healthy ecosystem. And tests are really important. Like, you look at nature and say, well, there’s good bugs and bad bugs, mosquitoes are bad bugs. Okay, I think we can all agree on that. But at the same time, they actually serve a part in a larger ecosystem. And we with our limited human brains don’t understand that sometimes, like, how do things fit together? How do they work together, there’s an ecology there. And nature has evolved in exquisite ways. And the same is true in our own guts. Yeah, so rather than just coming in with like, okay, acidophilus being take a big pill with 100 billion colony forming units, like in some cases that can be helpful when things are way out of balance. But in the long run, what you want to focus on is restoring the ecosystem, right? So the good guys propagate, they’ll naturally propagate, yes, and support each other and work together without overpopulating. And that’s the key thing. And feed the right food is critical. And it’s fiber fiber. So, you know, there’s fiber and all whole plant foods. There’s no fiber in any animal products. There’s no fiber in bottled oils, there’s no fiber and added sugars. And there’s very little fiber and white flour, or all the processed foods you see today. So if you eat whole plant foods, you’re gonna get a lot and the average Americans getting about 15 grams a day of fiber, doing you’re told we need at least 30. But our Paleolithic ancestors in many parts of the world got 100. Yeah, and we probably would do better with at least 40 or 50 grams a day. Yeah. So 15 is not even bare minimum, less than 5% of our population is getting 30 Yeah, and and so that means more whole plant foods, which you know, sweet potatoes, and all the other superfoods that we’ll be talking about.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. And I think that again, the fiber is really massively important, because I came up with this thing in fast like a girl, because one of the biggest pieces for me of that book was we needed a whole chapter on how to break a fast. Yeah. Because because people were getting so attached to the fast that they didn’t know how to go back into food. Yeah. And so I looked at it through the microbiome size. And I was like, Okay, well, if we’re changing the terrain, through fasting using of the gut, then what would be the most logical thing to put back onto the guide? Yeah. And I called it the three P’s poly phenyl, probiotic, and prebiotic foods. And when you look at what matches all of those, we’re back at the you know, the fruits and the vegetables and their ability to support these microbes. Yet, we’re just not don’t have enough people eating enough of them. Yeah. So it’s really critically important.

Ocean Robbins  

I love when you said probiotics. You said probiotic foods. Yeah. Because you know, we think about probiotic capsules and pills. Yeah, fermented foods are really the best way to get probiotics. Especially I’m a big fan of wild fermented, which is things like sauerkraut and kimchi and yeah, permet pickles that are fermented without having an inoculant added. So when you take a yogurt, for example, yeah, explain any yogurt. I mean, I’ve made yogurt or plant yogurts, yeah, homemade soy milks, and almond milks, and oat milks, and all sorts of things. And it’s really fun. But what you’re doing is you’re taking a specific bacterial species and inoculating it into a warm medium, and letting it sit for 12 hours or 24 hours, and it propagates and thickens up and get sour and makes the yogurt and in a sense, you’re you’ve got an alive bacteria in there, which is lovely. And you know, it’s alive because it made thicken up and turned into a yogurt. At least it was alive. If it sits in the store for a long time. There’s no telling, but but you’re still just getting a small number of species right and and that can have health benefits, no doubt about it. And it’s great that you’re eating it with food, because that tends to help it get through your body a little better. And it does help by the way, make the medium more bioavailable to the bacteria tends to break it down. And you are getting one one cool thing is you’re getting some of the post biotics in that. See probiotics, they breed these bacteria, and then they slough off the liquid and distilled to get the powder that you consume. Whatever liquid has the post biotics it’s the they’re the ones that are created by the bacteria in their living how bacteria excrement if you want to get gross about it, but in a sense, those post biotics may actually have more benefit to the Human Microbiome than anything you lose that with the pills. But when you consume an actual fermented foods, you’re getting those post biotics which turn and out to be absolutely profound. We don’t even understand why entirely. Yeah, we do see that there’s a significant correlation between post biotics and bringing down inflammation and contributing to overall health in the body and microbial health interesting. They seem to help feed the microbiome in interesting ways. So so that’s one benefit to like fermented keepers and yogurts and things like that. But but if you get the wild fermented, like the sauerkraut, and the Kim cheese, and pickles and so forth, those have all kinds of bacteria in them. They may be fermented for six months or a year or so. musos have this Yeah, they’re they ferment for quite a while or even just a month, but they get whatever’s in the air tends to propagate. And one interesting thing, these all have salt in common, right. That’s part of what makes because that’s what ferment that’s what fermented that’s what keeps it safe. So you can just put cabbage out and it would ferment, but it will also get moldy and rotten and gross and disgusting. Right. Okay, so cabbage and water, you won’t get sauerkraut. Really putrid smell, yeah, but either way. There and somehow it seems to naturally select so that you’re getting the good stuff and not the dangerous stuff. So it tends to be anti pathogenic, pathogenic. Weed. That’s why this

Dr. Mindy  

is interesting, because we have another thing we’ve tried to do as a society is go low salt.

Ocean Robbins  

Right, right. There is no question that sodium, excessive sodium consumption tends to come in processed foods. Yeah, right. And those processed foods have all kinds of things wrong with them. And it’s true for somebody who has cardiovascular disease in particular, or is at risk of stroke, high salt can be problematic. Yeah. And I think probably if there was one compound that is causing the most deaths of anything on Earth, it would be salt for that reason that

Dr. Mindy  

the you know what it is just a really interesting nuance on that part of the conversation is that it’s When insulin is high, and sodium is high,

Ocean Robbins  

right? That’s the best deadly combination. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

So if we can get everybody’s hemoglobin a one C down, we get their more metabolically flexible, salt wouldn’t become this thing that is causing everybody to have

Ocean Robbins  

cardiovascular Yeah, so you get the insulin down. And also blood pressure down. Yeah, which tends to go together as well. Because it will increase your blood pressure. Because if you put salt in water, it’s like, it makes things expand, right, and your body will hold more water if you have more salt, which can increase the blood pressure. But if you don’t have cardiovascular disease, it’s probably not so much of a concern. And then there are people who genuinely don’t have enough of it, which is also a thing, right? You want that right balance, and you also want enough potassium. So yeah, a lot of this sodium potassium balance consideration, if you’re low potassium, then high sodium can be more problematic, if you get a good balance with lots of potassium than that helps your body regulate. So that ratio is probably what we need to pay more attention to now, whereas potassium, it’s in bananas, I

Dr. Mindy  

was just gonna say, what’s the food, I mean, bananas. I love bananas. But

Ocean Robbins  

there’s lots and lots of lots of fruits and vegetables. So potassium is great. And then that’s more what we should probably focus, but you also want to get away from the processed foods. And one of the interesting things is, we tend to be so reductionist in our thinking, we’re like, Yeah, let’s call out, like food industry is great to come up with fancy new hyper processed foods that avoid that compound. Yeah. Or adding this other thing, and we’re like, oh, this vitamins. Good. True. We can have that for a penny a package. Yeah, no, and then put a big label on it. Now with this added, right. Yeah. But we don’t realize nature is doesn’t work like that. It’s all about ecology. It’s a symphony. It’s a, it’s an ecosystem. Yeah. And food is an ecosystem, you know, and you can’t just you know, what concert would sound good. If you just heard the trumpets. I mean, it’d be if it’s Wynton, Marcellus playing it, but like, most of the time, you want to hear a whole thing, right. And so that’s how food works. That’s how our bodies work. We don’t recognize a isolated pill very often, we tend to recognize the whole so we get a study, say, you know, people who had higher blood levels of this compound were healthier. And then we give them more of that compound, their blood levels go up, and they die sooner. Right? We see this time. And again, vitamin E is a classic example, where people had higher blood vitamin D blood levels, and they were living longer and having lower heart disease. So they started giving them vitamin D supplements and their blood levels went up. And they died sooner. Yeah. Right. And

Dr. Mindy  

we Yeah, and we don’t see that with food because, right. And it’s interesting when we look at what food does to us. Yeah, the human bodies always meant to come back into this homeostasis. And so when you’re using food, it’s like you you can you can’t over it the right food, healthy foods, super foods. You can’t really go to the extreme where it’s now damaging, right? Right. Can you like when you’re using

Ocean Robbins  

not with health? I mean, okay, extreme, anything’s possible. There was a woman who was battling cancer, and she decided that she wanted to eat a lot of bok choy. So she ate a case a day, a case a day, like, like, pounds a day of bok choy. She juice some of it and she ate a bunch of it raw. Right. And she wound up having a seizure. Yeah, because she was getting overloaded with certain compounds that are in bok choi that were causing her problems, you know, and now she was Syria situation. That’s one case, it’s an n of one. But based on that, we’re told all sorts of terrible things about all of the brassica family. Cruciferous vegetables in general. Don’t eat too much of them. Well, yeah, don’t eat 15 pounds a day of anything, please, uh, you know, can be too much of a good thing. We need diversity. Right. And so, I think that’s important. But in general, healthy foods don’t tend to lead to binges. I don’t know, anybody who stays up all night snacking on kale. You know, like, you know, when you’re late at night,

Dr. Mindy  

just, I do have to, like fully call myself on a great binge that yesterday, which was dehydrated persimmons.

Ocean Robbins  

Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

The whole bag.

Ocean Robbins  

I’m not gonna lie. Yeah, I could see that.

Dr. Mindy  

But and if there had been another bag I probably would have. Yeah,

Ocean Robbins  

so that’s possible. It’s the Met slightly processed. Yeah, you’re right. Probably if it was actual persimmons, you probably would, although Okay. Okay. I’ve been known to indulge in like, you know, 10 pounds of cherries at a city and and I paid the price, the toilet.

Dr. Mindy  

And so actually, to your point, what it was, it’s the less fiber when you dehydrate a food like that? Well,

Ocean Robbins  

obviously, less water is the big one, right? You’ve taken out all the water? I don’t know, maybe a little less fiber, but most mostly you’re losing water. Yeah. So altered, it is altered. Yeah. And so lightly processing is anything you can do in your kitchen, maybe with the help of a blender, or a stove, or a dehydrator or an oven. And these things are basic, and they will alter food a bit. But they’re not going to be the kind of hyper processing. They’re not like, yeah, it’s possible to overeat and binge on anything, right. But when you think about what people binge on, it’s almost always hyper processed, hyper palatable, junk foods have been engineered, you know, lays out the famous slogan, but you can’t eat just one. Right? That was actually a challenge to the consumer. We own your tastebuds now. You know, and people like being seduced. They like that feeling of compulsion. There’s a pleasure and that desire, brings them alive, right. And so I think that lays was also making an offer, but they’re also engineering their products. Yes. Hooked. And we’re willing, willingly following along and allowing ourselves to go there. When you eating real foods, it’s much harder to get hooked like that. So just cleaning up your diet to get away from hyper processed makes you more the author of your food life. Yeah, a lot of folks, we’ve been on the empty end of the wrong end of an empty bag of cookies or potato chips a little too often. Yeah, no human. And that’s human nature. But when you change what’s in your kitchen, it’s a whole lot easier to make conscious choices about what of it you will or won’t consume.

Dr. Mindy  

So well said and before I leave the fermentation idea, because I think it’s there’s a lot to unpack just on fermentation alone. In your book, do you have recipes for fermenting? Do you have some advice for us about how we can make our kitchens better, because a lot of people don’t even know where to start with that

Ocean Robbins  

we didn’t focus on real soup on fermenting the meals. But we definitely talked about how to make our kitchens better and clean up and get on the path to a healthier way of life. You know, for a lot of people the problem isn’t knowing what to do. It’s doing what they know, you know, so we all know we need to eat more vegetables and less processed junk. But are we doing it you know, the average American thinks that the average Americans diet is a c minus and that their diet is a b minus. So oh, they think they’re doing bad. Okay, average person thinks they’re doing better than the average person, right? So we all tend to like, give ourselves a little bit of a rose colored glasses when it comes to our own choices around food around food. And we know that we live in a toxic food culture, and then most folks aren’t doing too well. When it comes to eating healthy food. We think we’re a little better. I don’t think b minus is anything to get too excited about. But you know, but I think that as we move in a healthier direction, the beautiful thing is that you get momentum, yeah, and it gets easier and easier to do the right thing. And fasting can be one of the ways to break the chains. So you get some freedom around it and some mobility around it. But then what do you do with that freedom? Do you go back into your old habits? Or do you start to make more conscious choices with that mobility and freedom? And yeah, you know, and I think that it’s so important to keep leaning into healthier choices. So what I focus on is the basic principles are get rid of the bad stuff in your kitchen starting right like if you don’t have it there you’re a lot less likely to be pulled towards it late night, but also say Yeah, so the good stuff like make a shopping list of the healthy foods you want to eat on the regular Yeah, and then get them so you’re always have healthy options. Cooking quantity because time is a big factor for a lot of people doesn’t take twice as long to make twice as much so I’m a big fan making friends with leftovers and making love them and making friends with the freezer. You know one day is dinner can become the next day’s lunch and for me the following day is breakfast. I’ve been no intake you know, Yeah, something’s really good. Why not? I don’t need breakfast to be some carb laden sugar or whatever thing like I might enjoy some, you know, quinoa and veggies and sweet potato you know the nice sauce. So, but yeah, you can just make friends with leftovers and cooking quantity. We like to cook certain staple was in volume. So like legumes or a whole grain or even kale will have it like in the fridge and containers and then we can mix and match. For a quick easy meal, just steam it and you’re ready to go, you know, are added to a stir fry, the freezer is great, like you can have frozen veggies that are ready to go isn’t destroyed. Here’s the awesome thing a lot of people think that Frozen is like somehow a compromise, it actually often is better nutrient wise than fresh. And here’s the here’s why. Because frozen foods were generally packed and frozen at the peak of freshness and ripeness right off the vine. So they’re super, super fresh, and those nutrients get locked in there. And yes, they degrade over time, if it sits in the back of your freezer for two years, be suspicious, but it lasts a lot better than it will in the fridge like a lot better. So something could be in your freezer for a month. And it’s going to be fresher and more nutrient loaded than something that’s been in your fridge for three or four days. And so so it’s a great way to lock it in and preserve it. And then you’ve got it ready to go anytime you want. It’s often cheaper. And that’s because you’re cutting out waste. You know, farmers can grow food and get it packed and in the freezer instantly. And there nothing was lost in the process. Whereas on the journey to the supermarket half of its getting, well don’t

Dr. Mindy  

they pick it actually green so that it will ripen on the way on the way the

Ocean Robbins  

supermarket they do. But if it’s going to be frozen, they don’t. So it also may have been more vine ripened. So there’s a lot to like about frozen. Yeah, for all those reasons. And yeah, if you’re going to eat super, super raw, you won’t get that same texture from a frozen food. But if you’re going to cook it anyway, then have at it with the freezer. It’s

Dr. Mindy  

a really interesting concept. And you just flipped my paradigm on frozen, because my brain has always been like, no, it’s ruined the nutrients, but you’re but I also know that that when they pick up a vegetable so that it can be ready and sit in your grocery store. They have to pick it green, which means it didn’t get enough time on their, you know, in the roots to be able to get all those nutrients. If you

Ocean Robbins  

ever look at tomatoes, like in a truck, like a semi truck on the freeway. Yeah, loaded up with tons of green tomatoes. Yeah. And you’re like, wow, that’s not the same if you ever been a gardener and you’ve like, picked it tomato off the vine and eaten it like juicy and drenched in the sunshine. It’s so sweet, you know, and those green things are never gonna taste like that they’re gonna taste a little bit like some cross between cardboard and you know, water, you know, but with a little bit of tomato flavor. So you know, there’s something so precious about fresh and yeah, frozen can be one path to fresh remarkably,

Dr. Mindy  

I love it. And a little side family history on my end on that one. My grandfather invented the dry cleaning system. The toxic dries, I always feel like I’m like trying to unwind karma here. But he was a beautiful man. And he was named one of the top 10 Adventure inventors of his time alongside Birdseye, who invented the process of freezing fit. So every time president comes up, I always think of our own family history and how my mom whose father it was always says, you know, your grandfather was honored alongside of the guy of Birdseye, whatever his original name was. So, anyway, so there’s my family history. Okay. Okay, we have to go into coffee and tea, because I think it’s really interesting. What and as I’m listening to you talk, I’m thinking about Andrew, do you remember Dr. Andrew Weil wrote a book, it was like eight weeks to optimal health. And like the first three weeks, he didn’t take anything away. He just had you add? Yeah. And I feel like that’s what you’re doing with this cook? Yes. You’re saying here are these mega? Like superfoods? Let’s just focus on adding those in and adding in is a lot easier than taking away really

Ocean Robbins  

is you crowd out the bad with the good? Yeah, you know, and then no one’s getting deprived. Making Friends with great recipes, I think is one of the keys. When you find a recipe you love, make it again, here’s the fascinating thing about recipes is, you know, the first time it takes a while, second time is a little faster than it gets a little faster. If you’ve made it 10 or 20 times you can do it almost in your sleep like you just do it. You don’t have to remove oh my god, I forgot that spice. I gotta go back to the grocery store. Yeah, like you’ve got it all, you would automatically add the things to your list because they become part of your starting rotation. Yeah. And so I love to make recipes that I make over and over. I’ve got some recipes I’ve been making since I was 12 years old. You know, and I look back. They’re not in the book now. But no, there are some that are better ones in the book to be honest. Then your 12 year old 12 year old. Yeah. But yeah, I’ve got a cookbook when I was 12 and made some stuff and I’ve been making it ever since. And when I’m tired and stressed. That’s what I do. Because like I can just do it so fast, right? Yeah. I don’t just dump things in and I have a feel for it. And it works out right. Yeah. But but with a new recipe. You try it out and you practice it. And I think one of the keys is recipes that use real Whole Foods. Yeah, recipes that taste good recipes that are relatively simple and easy. And recipes that don’t cost an arm and a leg and they use ingredients you can easily access right? So it’s not hard to wait, order it on Amazon and wait a week and you know, like let’s get let’s just go you know, what have we gotten our kitchen? How do we make it happen? So for real super foods, we really focused on those kinds of recipes that are super are easy to do and and that tastes amazing. And hopefully you find some and then you make them over and over again. Yeah. And gradually, if you make one thing once a week and it makes leftovers for a couple of meals, boom, you’ve got three meals a week covered out of 21. Right? Or maybe less if you’re fasting some. Yeah, and you’re on the path, like solidly on the path.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so tell me why coffee.

Ocean Robbins  

Okay, we have coffee and tea is I

Dr. Mindy  

agree with you, and yet people are doing it wrong. Okay. So

Ocean Robbins  

here’s the thing about coffee and tea. There’s a lot of studies out there, yes, showing how people fear based on the look at their diet, and their lifestyle and what they eat and drink over decades. And then we look at how long they live, and how what diseases they do and don’t get. These are called epidemiological studies. And they have their downsides because correlation isn’t causation. But over time, we learned to filter out like, Okay, how many of them were smoking and smoking accounts for this much worse life expectancy and this much higher risk of disease. So we adjust the data based on that. So if people who are say drinking more coffee are also more active, or also exercising more, also smoking less, we try to adjust for that. And then say, Okay, what does that leave us with? Right, right. So after adjusting for that, and I’m not just talking about one or two studies, I’m talking about dozens of them involving literally hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of people over decades, you get some interesting data, right? And the data is overwhelming. People who consume coffee, have higher life expectancy have lower risk of Alzheimer’s, lower risk of cardiovascular disease and lower risk of type two diabetes and more balanced blood sugar, lower rates of obesity, and are more economically productive. for what that’s worth. So you put all that together, okay. Obviously, it’s a drug that’s making people’s brains more active, maybe they’re doing more stuff? Well, maybe decaf seems to have a lot of the same benefits. So not quite all of them. But that may be because we lose some nutrients in the decaffeination process. Yeah, coffee is by far the highest source of antioxidants in the American diet, by far. Now, partly, that’s because we’re getting way too few. So we don’t know for sure if somebody was eating a super healthy diet already. Right? And then they did or didn’t drink coffee. How would that affect things? Hard to know for sure. But based on what Americans are eating and drinking, coffee is radically accelerating their life expectancy and health. And part of it is that it’s opening, it’s making the blood flow, it actually dilates blood vessels, right? Yeah. Which can is part of its cardiovascular benefit. But that brings down inflammation, it brings down blood pressure, but also increases blood flow, which makes for more energy, which is why sometimes runners will use them use coffee before a big race. Right? It also gets our brains thinking now, is there a benefit to having your brain think? Yes, obviously there is and we’re more active and engaged. All that said, some people don’t do well with the caffeine. I mean, truly, some people are jittery. They’re wired, they can’t have coffee after 10 In the morning, because then they’re up at night. And they cannot I’m actually that person. Yeah, absolutely. So not everybody is the same. And it’s one of those compounds that caffeine that affects people very differently. And there’s what’s called the half life, how long is it in your system, for some people that half life is half an hour for some people, it’s all day.

Dr. Mindy  

Oh, it’s, it’s so your how you metabolize that

Ocean Robbins  

1. So if you’re a slow metabolizer, you’re actually going to have do less well with it most likely, and have more of the negative effects, the jitters and the distress. So coffee is not for everybody. Even though studies show that it’s good for most people. Green tea also has some caffeine, but it also has l theanine and some other compounds in it, that help mitigate that are actually calming agents. So it doesn’t create that that spas in the same way. And green tea is even more loaded with antioxidants, and a whole host of host of phytochemicals. Matcha is even at the top level there. So out of all black tea and oolong and green, they’re all coming from the same tea plant, right and they’re just processed in different ways green is the least processed and then matcha is actually the whole leaf ground up after it’s been fermented I never knew and so you get like loads of antioxidants and health benefits from that. And if you don’t do well with any of those things had viscous is even more loaded with antioxidants love i bet i viscous tea is number one above all else and eat and drink we know of that humans consume for antioxidants. So hibiscus is fabulous. If you don’t want to do the caffeinated beverages at all there was sort of a pecking order I’d probably say from an antioxidant perspective. Hibiscus Tea Green tea, and then you’ve got oolong, then you’ve got black. And then you’ve got coffee. Oh, so

Dr. Mindy  

it’s coffee, even though all the one right, exactly. Well, at least it’s no one in

Ocean Robbins  

terms of some of the critical antioxidants and phytochemicals. But and then in terms of caffeine coffee is the highest of those things that I just need. Right. But interestingly, yerba monta seems to also have incredible health benefits. There is some concern that it may be linked to higher risk of cancer. We’re still not sure about that. So I’m a little cautious on yerba monta, but I personally love how it makes me feel and it doesn’t Create the jitters that the coffee does. So everything you got to listen to your own body, you know, just because studies show that something’s good for most people most of the time, doesn’t mean it’s good for everybody all the time, or it’s good for you right now. So I’m a big fan of like, Be your own and have one experiment, pay attention. I think that actually, attention is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. So when you bring love and care and attention to your body, you’re already sending signals of I care, you matter. And I’m curious about you. And so those that’s a powerful force, and then it’s got to do that, especially with the caffeinated beverages, yeah, really are different. But in general, for most people, coffee can be super healthy. Now, let me also add that a lot of people are adding a bunch of cream and she’s gonna

Dr. Mindy  

say, I feel like we need to say that type of coffee because people will listen to this and they’ll go rush off to some of the franchise’s that your grandfather,

Ocean Robbins  

Starbucks drinks that have more sugar in them than Coca Cola. And then they’ve got a bunch of factory farm dairy in there, which by the way, Starbucks spends more on dairy than than it does on coffee, I believe, you know, and you wind up with a product that is that’s a lot of other stuff that probably isn’t a you’re doing your body any favors. And the studies show that when you add milk to coffee, you reduce the efficacy of the antioxidants quite significantly. Now, it’s interesting, because you would think that some of the fat would help slow absorption of the caffeine and so forth. But personally, I add unsweetened plant milks to my coffee when I do cold brew, by the way, because coffee can be acid forming.

Dr. Mindy  

I love the cold brews. Yeah, I almost too much. They’re so smooth, right? That I could drink too much. And then I’m like doing them right.

Ocean Robbins  

Yeah. Yeah. And they’re actually can be more highly caffeinated. Yeah. But when you mix that I make a homemade latte. So I mix like half, half of it is unsweetened soy milk, and then half of it is is the cold brew coffee. And I just I enjoy that very much. I make sure I’m done by one in the afternoon.

Dr. Mindy  

Right. But what we’re not saying is I mean, so you mean, if I look at this through my toxic lens, there’s not only are we looking at some of the cancer causing chemicals that are in some of these coffees, but like tea, for example, I’ve recently heard that there is plastics and almost every, you know, tea brand major tea brand out there that people are drinking, is there a good like litmus test that we can say, hey, this is how you know you’re getting clean coffee and tea?

Ocean Robbins  

You know, it’s a little bit hard to know for sure. Because you’ve got to trust Do you trust the manufacturer? Yeah, you know, you can contact them and ask if they have a policy? Do they test for plastics? Where are their sources that allow X and it’s interesting, because when you do that, eventually they’ll put a thing on their website, and you can just Google it. And you know, at least they know people care and are paying attention because they have no incentive economically to do the more expensive thing that creates a better product if nobody knows about it, right? So when people care and ask then they know oh, there’s an interest in this Fairtrade is a good example of that a lot of folks realized a while back, well, a lot of our coffee and chocolate is coming from slave labor from farmers that are in destitute conditions. Well, guess what, when farmers are in destitute conditions, and they’ve got a toxic pesticide, that’s going to increase their yield and let them feed their kids next year or go to school, have their kids go to school, they’re probably going to use it, even if it’s regulated, not illegal in the United States. So so there’s a lot of incentives to cut costs or to use plastic and the processing of the tea for example, right? So so you want to invest in I think, Fairtrade as much as you can afford to it’s because that’s the way labeled that. Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of different certifying agencies, they’re not all perfect, but they’re all big steps in the right direction. Okay. So fair trade, especially with coffee and chocolate is important. You know, chocolate, most of our chocolate in the world comes from the Ivory Coast and Ghana and West Africa, where child slavery is a big deal. There’s a lot of kids that are not going to school, they’re working in the fields, 12 hours a day under terrible conditions. Some of them are literally separated from their families and sold off into slavery by the hundreds of 1000s. And most of that is in the chocolate industry. And I don’t want any part in that. So So I choose to go with Fairtrade organic. And here’s the thing about organic, there’s no organic chocolate being growing in West Africa right now. So it’s coming from Central America, for the most part when it’s organic, which means at least you’re avoiding the most extreme forms of enslavement. So chocolate, I’m talking about chocolate right now. But coffee has some of the similar dynamics. You know, where you I want the people who grow my food to be paid enough to feed their own families. Yeah. And so Fairtrade is a way to help to ensure that and in the process, you tend to get a cleaner product. Yeah. Now organic certified is also great, because again, folks tutor certified organic tend to be doing other things, right. And obviously, there’s less pesticides involved in organic agriculture, which is better for the environment, and farmers and farmworkers and for our health, and

Dr. Mindy  

that’s why I love going to a farmers market. Because we literally sit and talk to the farmer and we get to know them and, you know, you get a real passionate one will come out with like a, Hey, let me show you where your eggs are being laid, or let me show you where I grew this and we found the right person. But I think to put it into context, what you just said that’s really important is See that we go with our, you know, have wake up on a Monday morning, we’re like, I hate Monday, we go straight into Starbucks. And we’re like bitching and moaning about the day, we have ahead of us drinking a cup of coffee from potentially a situation where a child’s been taken from her family from their family

Ocean Robbins  

and cow, and cows are being tortured in the factory farms. And then the sugar is grown in plantations too. And all of that is creating also a toxic load on our bodies. And added sugar. Obviously, we talked about crowding out the bad with the good, well, part of that is not bringing in the bad. So if you’re going to consume coffee, not doing it with a bunch of added sugar, because that sugar is mitigating whatever health benefits there are, and creating a whole cascade of problems in your body as well. And

Dr. Mindy  

just to point out, like, it gets so depressing, so quick when you go down these paths. But we can’t ignore it anymore. We have to wake up and start to see that our choices and vote with our dollars and our choices affect other people’s lives. Our personal tastes, bad choices are going to affect another person’s life if we’re not conscious about it. Yeah. And what I just heard is if we can just look at Fairtrade, and we could just start to get Fairtrade items, we’re now at least, and do buy the chocolate you love with a Fairtrade stamp stamp on it. We’re aligning our tastebuds with the humanity of the world. Exactly.

Ocean Robbins  

And that’s powerful. And that’s the biggest case for going organic, by the way, like, yes, there’s pesticide contamination. There may be higher nutrients and organics. But there’s no question that farm workers are not getting poisoned in the fields in the same way. And, you know, farm workers have rates of cancer that are through the roof. So in one study, the average life expectancy for farm workers in California is 51 years. A lot of them are dying of cancer in droves. And you know, that’s because they’re dealing with the pesticides, you know, the canary in the coal mine. Yeah, like the farm workers are like the canaries in the coal mine. Yeah. And if they’re dying, who wants to eat that food then? And what might it do to us? But we know it’s doing it to them? Yeah, we know it’s doing it to US soil and water and environment and birds and honeybees. And so if you like, I want a sustainable world for future generations with the pollinators with the insects, you know, that are thriving, they can pollinate our crops, like let’s move away from pesticide dependent agriculture as much as we can. Yeah. And that starts with our consumer choices. Yeah. Oh, that

Dr. Mindy  

was so well said. Okay. So to close this down, and I have so many questions, but I do want to point people towards the book because, again, you listed out I believe it was 10, superfoods.

Ocean Robbins  

We got remember exactly how many we got Ooms. We’ve got whole grains. We’ve got alliums, like onions and garlic, which are really amazing. Actually, spices. In general. Spices are incredible. Incredible. So potent. And such and they also add flavor, right? We’re not about starving. Anybody’s taste buds here. Yeah, sweet potatoes, and leafy greens, which everyone hears all about. Because should we should keep talking about that? Yeah, those are some of my favorites, right there.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, yeah. And I think again, I’m so excited about how cookbooks are coming out into the world now because they somebody told me the other day, it was called a cookbook plus, where it’s like all these recipes, but then they teach in the beginning. And when I opened when I got a copy of yours, and I opened it up, I was like, oh my god, I love that we have chapters all on one food. Yeah. And then I saw sweet potatoes. You know,

Ocean Robbins  

what I think is important about superfoods here, why we chose that names. I feel like we have a lot of marketing for foods that are called super foods that are, they are super healthy in many cases, but they’re also super expensive. And they have super big ecological footprints they may come from around the world. And to me, the real super foods can do the most good for the most people. I don’t know any superheroes that only save the super well connected and super rich from burning buildings, you know, that they want to help everybody. And so I’m interested in the foods that we can make the staples of our diets that won’t cost an arm and a leg that are widely accessible, that are already well known to us. Let’s lean into them and crowd out the bad with the good and reap the benefits. Because we have 10s of 1000s of studies published in peer reviewed medical journals, showing us in no uncertain terms, what are the consequences of the status quo, and what’s possible when we make a change. And the change we’re calling for is to bring more of these foods into our diets into our lives, and reap the benefits. You know, your body will thank you for the rest of your life. You make choices that say I love you, I care about you. I’m willing to invest in you. I love that.

Dr. Mindy  

And we’ve lost our our ability to see food as healing, we have lost the art of doing that. And that is what I hear when I listened to you talk so passionately and so eloquently about the foods it’s like, yeah, like, why are we not why are we so willing to give over our power to a supplement or to a medication without trying what nature provided for us? So so well said Okay, speaking of superpowers isn’t my last question for you. And I’m really interested in what you’re gonna say. If you had one superpower that you bring to the world, what do you think it is?

Ocean Robbins  

I’m gonna go with love. Yeah, I mean, that might be a lot of people. probably say that but, you know, I feel like when I was a little kid, I was always like, how do we bring more love into the world? You know, like less pain, less violence, less hurt, you know more love. Right? And to me, the food revolution is about love at the end of the day, it’s about loving our bodies, loving our planet, and loving the people who grow our food and wanting to be a part of a more harmonious and healthy and loving food ecosystem. And so, you know, that’s what lights me up. And that’s what warms my heart. And that’s what inspires me every day. Yeah, well,

Dr. Mindy  

I will tell you, I, you know, again, followed your father for years, and just met you personally. And I follow you and I’ve met before, in like bigger groups. I’ve seen your work but when I actually sat next to

Speaker 3  

you, I felt love. So thank you, Mindy. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

thank you ocean for everything your day. Thank

Ocean Robbins  

you for having me.

Dr. Mindy  

Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.