You & The Food Revolution: Heart Edition

Ocean Robbins

Thank you so much for creating this and bringing us all together. As we all know, a person with good health has a thousand dreams. A person without it’s only got one dream to get it back. This is about helping folks get their dreams back and their lives back so that we can do what we were born to do. That is a sacred work. I thank you so much for your leadership for decades in bringing this message to the world. I’m thrilled to join you now and to work with you to help spread the word. I wrote about the 31-day Food Revolution. By the way, thank you for writing the Foreword to it, because I wanted to help people move from knowing what to do to doing what they know. So the book has 31 chapters, and each chapter ends with simple action steps you can take to implement what you’re learning. The phase to thesis, why 31? There’s some good research to show that any time you start new habits for about a month, they get more locked in. But also, my grandpa started at 31 flavors of Baskin-Robbins. So I’m kind of tying it in and saying that, in the long run, 31 Steps to Health can bring you more pleasure, more joy, and more fulfillment than 31 flavors of ice cream. Then another key part of the book is that there are four parts. Part one is to Detoxify, and that’s where we focus on getting rid of the bad stuff that’s making us sick. Part two is Nourish, that’s where we focus on saying yes to the super-healthy foods that can make us thrive. Part three is Gather, and that’s where we focus on the social side of food and building a strong social network to help you stay with it. Because oftentimes, you become a lot like the people you hang out with. How do you positively influence others and also surround yourself with people who help pull you forward instead of dragging you back? Then part four is Transform, and that’s how you can change the world, how you can vote with your knife and fork every day for a better planet, with less climate chaos and more sustainability, more beauty, more joy, and ultimately more love on the planet. Looking at how we tie it all together. Because of my vision, honestly, I don’t just want to help people with their health. They also want to change the food world so that everybody can be healthier and have access to a livable future.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

That sounds fantastic. That’s probably what you’re explaining about your foundational reasons for joining the Food Revolution Network. Why? Calling it the Food Mission.

Ocean Robbins

Our mission is to provide healthy, ethical, and sustainable food for all. Right now, too often, health is available to the privileged and the well-connected. In a toxic food culture, you shouldn’t have to be wealthy or privileged in material terms. to be able to eat right for yourself and your family and to reap the benefits. The more economically disadvantaged people are statistically, the more likely they are to suffer and die from diseases that we know how to prevent and that are caused by diet and lifestyle, which tend to create intergenerational cycles of poverty. One of my passions, and I know you’re passionate about this, too, Joel is helping uplift, especially the most marginalized communities, out of these cycles of poverty by restoring health to the masses, so to speak. That’s why I wrote my latest book, Real Superfoods: Everyday Ingredients to Elevate Your Health, which is all about real superfoods, which are not super fancy, expensive things that only the rich can afford. To me, the real superfoods are the ones that can do the most good for the most people, and those are the foods that are widely accessible, widely affordable, and super delicious and nutritious. You’ve just got to know what to do with them, which is why it’s a cookbook.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

That’s so cool. What else do you think we could do for people to help change that problem where the less fortunate individuals can’t have access to healthy food and aren’t even informed about taking charge of their health?

Ocean Robbins

It’s a multi-layered issue, but one of the biggest things is eating lower on the food chain. here’s why. and It takes about 12 pounds of grain or soy to produce a single pound of feedlot beef in the United States today. It takes anywhere from 5 to 20 calories of feed to produce a single pound, or a calorie, of food from animal products in general. Whether you’re talking about chicken or turkey or pork or beef, it’s a very inefficient food conversion ratio because most of the calories the animals are consuming don’t go to flesh, eggs, or milk. They go to hoof and hide, and bones and energy the animal uses to move around. body heat and then also manure, which ends up becoming a waste problem in many cases that causes pollution. When you eat lower on the food chain, you eliminate the middleman, or the metal cow, so to speak, and you get rid of what is functionally a protein factory in reverse. There was a major study that came out a few years ago that found that worldwide, 83% of all agricultural land is being used for animal agriculture to produce 17% of the world’s calories. 

If, just theoretically, the whole world went vegan tomorrow, which I’m not saying that’s going to happen, but just to stay with me for a second, we free up an area of land equivalent to the entirety of the United States, China, the European Union, and Australia combined instantly. Land that can be used for rewilding, reforestation, or carbon sequestration initiatives. Or to grow organic food for future generations of humans. What that would do is reduce not just land use but also water use, topsoil erosion, aquifer depletion, and all the other major environmental crises of our time. That would in turn free up resources that could ultimately reach the world’s poor. See, when we recycle corn and soy through livestock, they’re not available to feed hungry people. in a world of 8 billion and counting, where no new births outpace deaths by more than 2 to 1 population, the population is still going up fast. What we’re on a trajectory towards is environmental collapse on a systemic level. But we can help turn that around by eating lower on the food chain, reducing our ecological footprint, and freeing up land, water, and soil resources to feed humanity. That, in turn, can make food more accessible and affordable for all. It’s only one step. There are a lot of other things we need to do. Of course, but it’s a big one.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

There’s also all the work you’ve done to bring information to economically disadvantaged people. Like, for example, in your recent book on superfoods. But it’s also true that we have all these things in parallel to each other. 

Ocean Robbins

It’s so profound that animals are part of us. They’re part of our humanity. They make us smile. They make us laugh. They make us remember. That’s what it means to be human.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

Let’s get back to what we’re talking about here. This is important, as we’re saying because we’re improving our health. We’re living longer, but we’re also what we’re doing; every choice we make and everything we put in our mouths has a downside or an upside that filters down the rest of humanity. We’re interrelated with other individuals, both human and non-human. We are all interrelated, and in a way, we can protect our planet. You’ve been at the forefront, you and your dad, at protecting our planet with these choices, and the individual has been marrying that together for like 30 years now. It’s been work you’ve done.

Ocean Robbins

Thank you. Another piece of it that gets me pretty excited is the political and economic side. We have so many arguments among politicians about how much tax we should pay, how much we should spend on social services, and what we can afford. How much can we add to it? How much can we afford to increase the national debt? All these questions are based on a certain economic climate. But consider the fact that in the United States, we spend more than four and a half trillion dollars every year on health care, which is disease symptom management. 80% of that is on chronic disease management. 80% of those chronic diseases can be prevented or, in some cases, reversed with a healthy diet and lifestyle. Truly, it’s not an exaggeration to say that we could be saving trillions of dollars every single year in healthcare costs just by changing our diet and lifestyle, and those trillions of dollars exceed the military budget. What could that free up for families to not be in poverty? For communities to be healthier? For bankruptcy’s not to have to happen. But also for the whole economy. The Medicare system, for example, needs the resources it needs to be solvent for future generations of citizens. That, in turn, opens up so many doors of possibility for community reinvestment that don’t come at the expense of future generations,  increasing national debt because the resources are there and we’re not wasting them out of control. Medical costs for diseases that were caused by the food we’re eating, which, by the way, is also destroying our planet. There are so many ways that a healthy diet and lifestyle based around whole plant foods can save lives, improve lives, improve economies, and help make the world a better place.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

It seems almost every person has to step up and change the direction the world is heading. and your leadership here is so critically important that people can feel pride in and build self-esteem for the right reasons rather than for the wrong reasons. Because it’s all about being a force, a leader, and a lighthouse. Every person listening to this has to become a leader and move the world to a better place. What is your input here about how people who struggle with the implementation of services and want to move in a positive direction know all the benefits, but they don’t seem to be able to sustain these changes? Do you have any added practical advice for individuals here?

Ocean Robbins

My first advice is simple. Make friends with a good recipe—something that you can enjoy—and then make it again and again. Most of us don’t have all that many things that are part of what I call our starting rotation—the things that we return to day in and day out. For some people, it’s like their favorite cereal and milk or whatever it is that they make a lot of. make something.  There’s a familiarity that builds and a comfort that builds when you learn how to make a good recipe that you enjoy, and that’s also good for you. You can make it once a week, make extras, or have leftovers. These can be powerful. Then you make friends with a new good recipe, and you make that once a week. Maybe it’s a tofu scramble or some delicious salad that you love with some beans in it and a lovely dressing. Find ways to enjoy super-healthy foods that love you back and that you can fall in love with, so that’s number one. Number two is to think long-term about healthy habits, not short-term about a quick diet binge. The best time to repair a roof is when the sun is shining, not when it’s pouring rain. The best time to develop healthy habits isn’t when you’re in the middle of a binge and an exhausting week late at night. It’s when you have some energy on the weekend. Maybe you shop from a list, plan, and plan out multiple recipes you’re going to make during the week. Another piece is cooking quantity with healthy foods because time is a big issue, especially in a toxic food culture where so many of our fast foods and convenience foods are junk foods. You want to learn to take charge of your kitchen and cook in quantity. Making leftovers and even making friends with the freezer can be awesome. Do not be afraid of frozen fruits and vegetables. They’re often frozen at the peak of ripeness or freshness, and all the vitamins and minerals are locked in. They may be healthier than, say, refrigerated fruits or vegetables that have been sitting for a couple of weeks since they were harvested. Frozen can be fine. It can also be affordable, and it helps reduce waste because you get exactly what you want when you want it, and it’ll be preserved for a while in the freezer. Those are just a few tips. There are so many more. Get rid of the bad stuff. You can go through your kitchen and say goodbye to things that are not healthy for you. The best way to not eat unhealthy foods is to not buy them in the first place. Getting them out of your kitchen so you’re not tempted is super healthy. This is a super good idea. A lot of people are like, Oh, I’m going to get on a healthy pattern as soon as I eat all this junk food that I’ve got in my cupboards. That may sound good from a research standpoint, but why not give it to somebody else who’s going to eat it anyway and then go ahead and clean house, so to speak, so you can get a clean slate because then you won’t be tempted in the wrong direction? All these steps can help move you forward. Love yourself a whole lot when you slip. Don’t beat yourself up. Just keep going. Keep moving forward and get some accountability in place. Someone you can talk to when you say, Hey, I want to make these healthier choices. I see what’s possible. I’ve taken this summit. I’ve learned something. I want to put it into action. Would you help me? Can we talk once a week, and you’ll just check in and ask me how I’m doing? I’ll tell you what my commitments are this week. I’m going to eat three servings of vegetables. This week, I’m going to make one super healthy recipe that I’ve never made before. I’ll have oatmeal tomorrow for breakfast, whatever it is, and then follow through and tell them how you did and how it felt. Here’s the thing. I’m making a promise to you. Every step you take towards more health can give you more vitality, more energy, more heat, and a greater sense of capacity to keep going. You build momentum, and you keep moving and making progress one step at a time. Within six months or a year, you could be in a whole new body with a whole new perspective on life, feeling a whole lot better.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

That’s it. That’s good. That’s what I say, either you make progress, or you make excuses. You have to make progress. You have to keep me.

Ocean Robbins

Yes.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

Ocean, what do you think about this idea of GMOs versus organic? I know you’re a proponent of organic farming, so give me a little bit about that. Also, what about if that is only for the rich? In other words, how does a person who thinks they can’t afford to eat organically feel? Because I know that when I eat organically, I’m also preventing farmworkers from being exposed to pesticides. I’m going to be exposed to leukemia. I’m a plumber who works with chemicals. I feel like we would get more people that would do it the more we’d have more people supporting farms that are using poisonous chemicals and killing the bees and killing cancer, and humans work with chemicals. Give me your feedback on this.

Ocean Robbins

Let’s talk about organics first and then GMOs. Organic agriculture is food that has been grown without the use of synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. In the case of animal agriculture, it’s also been produced without antibiotics and a few other specific standards and has been fed organic feed. The benefits of food that grows organically are numerous. From a personal health standpoint, you’re getting less exposure to pesticides. Many of the pesticides used on our crops today are based on formulas originally developed during World War II to kill people. We call them pesticides, but we can also call them biocides. They kill life. It depends on the quantity. The amount that we’re consuming in our food is not enough that you’re going to kill over and die in most cases. But they definitely could increase the risk of cancer and other long-term health problems, birth defects, etc. I would rather not consume foods that kill bugs than the foods that I feed my family. Pesticides have many concerning problems with them. So if you go organic, you’re getting away from that. There are still certain pesticides used in organic agriculture, but they’re much milder, they’re much more heavily regulated, and they’re not synthetic. Then the fertilizers that are used in conventional agriculture make for bigger yields and faster-growing crops, but they are not necessarily more nutritious. There is a concern there as well. This doesn’t tend to be very sustainable. One of the nice things about organic is that it can be better for carbon sequestration; it’s better for keeping the topsoil healthy. There are many different ways to grow food organically, but most of them tend to be more sustainable. When you have better topsoil, you also have more drought resistance and more flood resistance, which is important with climate chaos unfolding on the planet. We need resilient farms and farmlands, and organic farming is helping prepare us for our more resilient future. Yields are a little lower in the short term, about 10% lower. But that can balance out over time because the soil becomes more fertile and more prolific over time. Those are some of the advantages. on an immediate level. Then I also want to add, as you mentioned, the farmworkers, because when farmworkers are exposed to pesticides in the field, a lot of them die of cancer and other health ailments. I don’t want to support that. I want the people who grow our food to be treated with decency. One of the ways we do that is by not exposing them to carcinogenic compounds on the job. You’ve heard about the canary in the coal mine. So in some ways, farmworkers are a little bit like the canaries in the coal mine. They’re on the front lines. They’re facing it day in and day out. If these pesticides are toxic for them, they’re probably not great for consumers as well. Those are some good reasons to move organic if you can. Let me be clear. Organic food costs more. There are several reasons for this. One is volume. Conventional agriculture is just on a much higher scale, and that tends to create efficiencies that are not there with organic food. Smaller supply chains equal more pricey elements. But number two is that organic certification costs are borne by the organic producer.  For example, if you want to spray your field with tons and tons of pesticides, you don’t have to report to any regulatory body. You can just do what you want. But if you want to grow your food organically and be certified as such, you’ve got to pay for all the inspections, fill out all the forms, and do all the paperwork, which costs real money. It’s kind of like being fined for wearing your seatbelt. You’ve got to pay extra to do the right thing most safely. But that’s how the system is right now. Then you’ve also got the fact that there is a somewhat lower yield, at least in the short run and the costs are externalized for pesticide agriculture. Whereas with organic agriculture, you’re creating a more sustainable future, you’re reducing water consumption, and you’re creating a better environment for farm workers. Also for animals. If you’re talking about animal agriculture, none of these costs show up in the marketplace for the consumer. If we looked at all of that, we might end up finding that organic food is cheaper, but in the short run, it’s not. If you can’t afford organic, don’t stress about it. This is just a good thing to do when you can. But there’s a lot of research showing that people who eat more fruits and vegetables, for example, are a lot healthier than people who don’t. Most of those fruits and vegetables were not growing organically. Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. Do the best you can. The Environmental Working Group comes out with a report every year on the Clean 15 and the Dirty Dozen, the least and most pesticide-contaminated foods. What we find is that the least pesticide-contaminated foods tend to have some kind of shell that you don’t eat, whether it’s avocados, melons, or other foods like that. So with those types of foods, if they have a shell, you don’t eat them either, including mangoes and papayas. Organic is not as important from a pesticide exposure standpoint. Leafy greens and berries tend to be the most pesticide-contaminated. If you want to get pesticides off your food, soak it in a gallon of water per tablespoon of baking soda for about 10 minutes. That’ll get rid of about 90% of the pesticide exposure. If you can’t afford to go organic, then that’s a great option, especially with leafy greens and, ideally, berries as well. There’s not any residue left to convince. after you’re done, but a gallon of water and a tablespoon of baking soda soaking for 10 minutes does the trick. Those are a few pointers on that. You also asked about GMOs or genetically modified organisms. What’s a GMO? Some people think it means got moved over, but no, it doesn’t; it means genetically modified organisms. These are crops that have not just been bred for certain characteristics. These are crops that have had the DNA from another life form a virus, a bacteria, maybe even a pig or a fish inserted into the DNA of a specific plant, trying to confer certain traits. The biotechnology industry has promised the world that GMOs will bring us bigger yields, more drought-resistant crops, less pesticide consumption, better flavor, and better nutrition. But about 30 years into the mass production of GMOs in our food supply, we don’t have any of those traits. What we’ve got is crops that have one or both of two characteristics, and one is that they are pesticide producers, so they produce B.T., which is an insecticide in every cell of the plant, which means certain bugs take a bite, their stomachs split open, and they die, which is helpful for not needing other pesticides to be sprayed on it because the plant itself is registered with the EPA as a pesticide. Then number two is that we’ve got herbicide tolerance, which means they can be sprayed with Roundup and other herbicides, and the weeds will die, but the plants won’t. Herbicide-tolerant crops are now being sprayed with very large amounts of herbicides, which, by the way, are classified as part of the pesticide family. Those are winding up in our food at unprecedented levels. Roundup, as an example, is the biggest one and is an endocrine disruptor. It’s a probable carcinogen, and it’s an antibiotic. It’s been patented as an antibiotic. This means that it can kill bacteria. I don’t know about y’all who are watching, but when it comes to this, wow, what’s happening to our guts if we’re regularly consuming an antibiotic herbicide in our food? If you want to avoid GMOs, the best step you can take is to go organic. Because organic is by definition non-GMO, go non-GMO certified or look out for the big GMO crops. The main ones right now are corn, soy, canola, which is used for canola oil, and also sugar beets, which are about half of our sugar supply. Those are used in highly processed foods in large quantities. If you’re going to eat any of those foods, particularly corn, soy, and canola, look for non-GMO or organic options if you don’t want to be part of the GMO experiment.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

That’s great. You gave people a lot of information about at least this idea of organic GMOs and what they could do right now to minimize their exposure. That’s why we’re going to pause right here for a minute, because thanks, everybody, for being with us today. If you’re a summit purchaser, stay with us because I’m going to dive a little bit deeper into this captivating discussion. If you’re not, you can click on the button below to get complete access or thank you for being part of the summit and for being a valuable member of this community. Hold on one second. I’m going to continue. Another five more minutes. We will all be done. 

Let’s get started. I know there’s a lot more we can talk about, but there are two things I want you to address. One is that I want you to talk about the neuroscience of gratitude and how it affects a person’s food choices to be healthier. That’s one aspect I want to ingest. The other thing I want just after that would be about hope for the future and how we could work together to hope for the future. It’s gratitude, how it impacts our own lives, and how it can impact how we work together.

Ocean Robbins

Wonderful topics. Gratitude first.  I’m so grateful you asked, Joel. Gratitude is an incredibly powerful force. One of my friends, Lynne Twist, says what you appreciate, appreciates. Often, when we focus on all the things that are wrong or broken in the world, we kind of get more of that. When I was first learning to ride a bike, I remember riding towards a pothole, and I’d seen it up ahead of me. I’m saying to myself, Don’t hit the pothole. I’m riding straight at the pothole, looking straight at the pothole. Guess where I ended up? Spilling on the curb right next to a pothole because I was going where I was focused. So this is a powerful lesson. If you want to move in a positive direction, look at where you’re going, not what you’re scared of or pushing away from. Gratitude is a profound example of that because you’re giving thanks for what’s already present in your life that works. A lot of times, we focus on all the things that don’t work in our bodies and ignore all the things that do. For example, right now, your blood is carrying oxygen to every cell in your body. It carries nutrients to every cell in your body, and it disposes of waste in every cell of your body brilliantly, creatively, and consistently. Without regard for the good guys and the bad guys, everybody gets loved. That said, if you start to develop a cancer cell, your body can cut off blood flow to that cancer cell when it is not acting in alignment with the whole. Your body’s brilliant. There are millions of incredibly intelligent actions taking place every second of your life beyond your consciousness. There’s so much we can be grateful for. But if we stub our toes, we’re just cursing the heavens about that, that toe stub, and how much it hurts. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. But we can quickly forget about all the things that are right with us and with our lives. Just taking a moment to give thanks and appreciation can be an act of getting into a better relationship with the universe, and it helps your body secrete the neurotransmitters that help you feel better and more at peace. Here’s the interesting thing, Joel, when people express gratitude, they don’t just, like, see the harmful side of their glass, their glass gets fuller. There’s a considerable body of research on this, which shows that people who take even five minutes a day at the end of the day write down three things they’re grateful for from the day. When they do that for a few weeks, they start to see lower blood pressure. They start to exercise more, and they start to make healthier choices, which in turn creates positive feedback loops. Long-term people who express more appreciation to their spouse are more likely to end up in happy and even successful long-term marriages. People who express more gratitude are more likely to live longer and to be healthier, by just about every metric we have available to us now. Is it because grateful people do better things and then have more to be grateful for? Possibly. It is hard to know, but the critical intervention here is that people can start in the same place, and when they express gratitude regularly, they end up in a different place. It’s not just like, I won the lottery, therefore I’m grateful. It’s like I’m grateful; therefore, I’m more likely to end up with better outcomes. that’s powerful. Gratitude is an actual verb, in my opinion. It’s a force that moves through us. It’s a choice we make, and it can be liberating and even life-changing. This connects to food because I love to sit around the table and give thanks before a meal. When you do that with loved ones, you’re building social connections. In our family, we sometimes also use it as a chance to just kind of reflect on what we are grateful for. Everyone says one thing, and then you get to know more about what’s going on in your family’s lives, and you get to have a sense of connection around that gratitude. Thanksgiving is a very powerful ritual that can be profound for its health-giving as well as love- and family-building effects. Then you also asked about the other question, hope.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

Yes, hope.

Ocean Robbins

First of all, I want to acknowledge that we live in tough times. There’s a lot that’s painful going on in our world right now. It would be easy to get lost in a lot of cynicism and despair. But to me, hope isn’t a spectator sport. It’s not something that comes from sitting on the sidelines and calculating whether things are going to get better or worse out there. Will the good guys win or the bad guys win? Hope is more of a verb. Also, it’s something that comes from how we live. As long as there’s breath in your lungs, blood in your veins, and thoughts in your mind, there’s hope. There’s hope that you can make healthier choices. There’s hope that you can be on the right side of your wellness. There’s hope that you can be a part of the solution in some way on this planet. I would like to focus more on the things that are in our control, the things that we can do something about, and feel hope that we can do that. Then I would end things I have no control over that are completely out there because we could argue all we want about what’s going on in the world and politics and policy, and everything is good or bad. What should they do out there? But how powerful is that? What kind of difference does that make? Who cares what you are? They should do. At the end of the day, what matters so much more is: what we do. What do you do? What do I do? How can we become the authors of our own lives rather than looking at life as a spectator sport? To me, hope in action is saying that something is possible, so I’m going to do it. Hope opens the door. Of course, action is walking through the door. The next step from hope is to do. You could say, I could eat better. I could learn to make oatmeal. I could eat all of the wonderful G-bombs that Dr. Fuhrman tells me about. I could exercise and get a gym membership, and I could use it. That’s hope. But then Change means doing it and reaping the benefits over time. so you never get change without hope. But hope alone isn’t enough. I’m interested in what we do. Most of all, I also recognize that having that hope and that spark of possibility is critical to creating change right now.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

What you and I want to bring to my attention is that unless you have that hope and take those actions, you can’t be effective. At least in leadership, facilitating change for the better. Unless you take care of yourself, do them, and make the changes necessary to be a good role model, then you’re going to be weakening your ability to have a positive effect on the rest of humanity.

Ocean Robbins

You’ve got to walk the talk, and some people say, how do I get my loved ones to eat better? Well, first of all, eat as well as you can yourself and be an example because more and more, especially as we get older, people look at us and they’re like, I’m 50, and people look at me and they’re like, You don’t look 50. I would have thought you were just getting out of college, and I’m never quite sure how to take that, but the core point is that you age differently and more vibrantly and more joyously when you treat your body right. And that, in turn, becomes a living example of what’s possible. When people see you have lost a bunch of weight, when they see you feeling better and brighter, when your skin’s clear, they’re like, “What’s your secret?” Then you can tell them. then you’re not shoving an ideology down their throat. You’re just sharing your enthusiasm for what’s working for you, which is the best and most satisfying way to change culture.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

We’ve said a lot, and I’m so pleased and excited about the message people are going to hear in this interview. Before we close, though, I know that you’ve made this incredible promise to plant a tree in low-income communities. People buy a book. You got to just before we leave; can you just tell me more information about you, this book, and this pledge? How would it work together? 

Ocean Robbins

Well,  first of all, for every product that Food Revolution Network sells of any size, we fund the planting of an organic fruit or nut tree in a low-income community. We work with trees for the future. So we’ve planted over 100,000 trees now in low-income communities all over the world. and I’m an organic fruit and nut tree. These are trees that are growing food in populations and communities that need it. To me, that is such a wonderful opportunity to spread the movement around the globe. and we also did that with my first book, The 31-Day Food Revolution. Literally every copy that is sold, we donate to trees for the future as well. It’s a lot of fun to do that. I would encourage everyone to think about the ways we can build giving back into our legacy and our lives in small ways or big ways because then it takes on a different sense of meaning to me. Every product we sell is hopefully also helping people heal their lives, walk lighter on the earth, and be part of the solution on planet Earth. But the fact that we’re also giving back in this way just fills my heart even more. So, I invite you to think about what would fill your heart. What will give you a sense of purpose and meaning beyond just yourself? How can you align your food choices with what you want for your life and also for your world? To me, that’s what the food revolution is all about.

Joel Fuhrman, MD

That wraps it up. Thank you, Ocean. Thank all of you for joining us on this reversing heart disease summit. I’m so excited that you’re all here and making these changes that we’re talking about. Take care, everybody. Thanks again. Bye bye.