Chris: Well, we’re just going to cover a whole lot of subjects because we happen to know that you know a lot about a whole lot of subjects when it comes to health and getting healthy. One of the things we noticed recently where the senate hearings in Washington regarding the use of integrative care to keep people healthy. That’s what they call it. The physicians there spoke about preventative care. For our listeners out there, Jeff, can you kind of tell us what do they mean by that?

Jeff: Well, to be honest with you, I don’t know, but what I do know is it’s not what it has to be. In other words, we often hear lip service to preventative care, but it never really truly is preventative care. That’s no longer what they’re talking about. There’s several levels of prevention, and the most important level of prevention that you talk about, I talk about and probably most of your guests talk about is called primary prevention, and basically that consists of education like maybe we’ll do some of that today. We’re trying to educate people and individuals on how to take better care of themselves so they truly prevent the occurrence of the diseases that we can prevent. So, in other words, primary care is teaching you to live in a way so you never develop diabetes or heart disease, or we teach you to live in a way that you greatly reduce your chances of ever getting it. That’s not what anybody is talking about. What they’re talking about is early intervention which used to be another phase of prevention, but that now has become primary prevention, but it’s not truly primary prevention and it’s not truly prevention. All that is it’s just getting you into the medical system sooner, which doesn’t guarantee you any healthier life or healthier outcomes. It just means you become part of the system much sooner. So, for me to go in and have earlier interventions or screenings doesn’t in any way do anything to teach me how to live a healthier life or how to prevent or reduce my risk for the disease. It just lets me know sooner when I have it. We get huddled into the system, and while I’m not the one to go into this area – I’ve know you’ve had other guests, but getting into the system in and of itself can be a problem because many times medical tests have errors, and many times we’re scared into taking actions which may not be necessary, and as some recent studies have shown, aggressive medical therapy can actually be counter productive as we’re showing in some recent studies on diabetes and heart diseases, but those who were aggressively treated actually had higher death rates. So, it may not be a system we’re not going to be into sooner. What we really want is primary prevention, but the problem with primary prevention, if it’s truly done correctly is unfortunately there isn’t a lot of money or profit in it. I don’t really have much to sell you. I don’t have any products, pills, potions, machinery, gadgets, tests or anything like that. What I’m trying to do is encourage you to be healthy, which is you did the way I wanted you to, it would probably dramatically reduced your costs, your food costs, and simplify them. I want you to be a little bit active, and even to do that you wouldn’t need any fancy systems, equipment, gyms, you wouldn’t have to spend thousands of dollars. Basically, you would need a good pair of walking shoes. So, true primary prevention is really keeping yourself out of the system. What these discussions are over are really early intervention and screenings.

Chris: One of the things I heard them talking about in the hearings on integrative care, they started talking about food. Right now, we’re marketing to these children all sorts of food that basically are helping create this crisis that we have. I think a lot of the problem with this generation, they don’t even know what real food is. A lot of people listening out there, what is whole food? What are you talking about?

Jeff: I agree with you that when we hear them use those terms, our ears perk up and we get excited, but just like with primary prevention, the same thing. They’re not talking about what you and I are talking about. They’re talking about new and improved Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. They’re not talking about new real food. I mean, if you look at the guidelines that were recently created for snack food in schools, they’re terrible. I gave some examples of pure junk food that could pass these guidelines. You have to look at who is being put in charge of helping create these agendas and guidelines and what their vested interests are because many times the food companies are very involved. They’re not looking to eliminate themselves. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about because they is public and it was all over the news a while ago, and to me, it kind of puts the whole picture in perspective. About a year and a half ago, a big supermarket chain in the northeast called Hanifer Brothers wanted to come out with a system to help their shoppers figure out easily which foods where the healthiest and which foods weren’t. So, they created a three star rating system, and they went through their warehouse and they rated 28,800 foods – not everything, but a huge portion of the food in their supermarket. They gave all the foods either zero stars, one stars, two stars, or three stars, and you got stars based on just general guidelines. If you had more fiber, whole grains, vitamins, minerals. You got less stars if you had more fats, saturated fats, cholesterol, salt and sugar. So, one star would be okay. Two stars was a little better, and three was even a little better. So, then they went through this supermarket, rated most of their foods – 28,800 of them, and when they were done only 24 percent of the food in this supermarket was able to get at least one star. Well, they came out with this. They came out with this as good news. They came out with all these numbers, and basically they were saying, ‘Now, you can come here and we’ll pick you help out the good foods.” It was like thee three star system. I said, “This is insane. The produce section did real well. They said 94 percent of the food in the produce section got at least one star. I said, “My god, I wonder what they’re selling in the produce section that only 94 percent got one star. Shouldn’t all the produce get three stars?” In reality, that’s because as we know, they do sell other things in the produce section, but what that means is when you walk out of the produce section, and you go into the rest of the supermarket 76 percent of the food they’re selling can’t even qualify for one star which was the lowest rating. Could you imagine if we used three stars or if we used my system of what a healthy food is? We have failed the star system, and it’s continually getting worse. Let’s face it. For years, we had healthy guidelines 2000, which we didn’t make, and now there’s healthy guidelines 2010, which we’re not going to make. According to the latest numbers, we’re no longer an overweight nation, where approximately 70 percent of us are considered overweight. We’re now an obese because of that 67-68 percent, most of the people now are obese and not overweight, and that’s just happened. So, we’re not getting any better. We’re getting worse, and it’s all dramatically affecting the children. I recently wrote an article that appeared in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, where they surveyed morning television to see what percentage of it was geared toward children on children’s show on Saturday morning, and what percent of those commercials and TV shows were promoting junk food, fast food and high sugar, high fat, high salt foods. They gave the analysis, and it was a high amount, but the most striking thing was ten years ago, they did a similar survey, and as a result, many of the food companies got together and said they were going to lessen that amount. It almost doubled.

Chris: In a lot of European countries, it’s actually illegal to market to kids like that I believe.

Jeff: Well, it should be because children don’t have the critical thinking skills to make the decisions that you and I might that their parents, yet it’s being marketed to them and being sold in ways that’s very effective. I was involved with a recent discussion amongst my professional colleagues. I think the topic was about Oprah and how she had recently failed again on a diet, and someone was making the comment on how diets don’t work, and how we have to get away from this mentality because after so many years, it’s now proven. She was an example. My response was how could they work? I mean, understanding that the principle diets in general have some issues, and we’re not really talking about a diet. We’re talking about complete lifestyle changes, but even when we’re talking about that, my response is still, why should we be surprised they all failed. Look at the peer pressure. I said, “This is the equivalent of taking like an alcoholic who has undergone a thirty day program, and has gotten his life cleaned up, and he’s gotten sober, and we send him out in the world and we tell him, ‘do your best not to drink anymore,’ yet we put him into a world that’s like a happy hour going on non-stop, and he’s the only one in there who’s trying to stay sober, and he’s surrounded by people having fun, giving out drinks, promoting drinking and there’s all jingles and bells and whistles everywhere, just promoting drinking, and he’s made to feel like a real outsider and outcast that he’s not participating. How successful can we expect him to be?’ Then, we say, “Oh, he failed.” Then, we put him back in for thirty days, and we send out after four or five times, we say, “You see, treatment doesn’t work.” How could it work? We don’t have a society anymore that encourages healthy living and healthy lifestyle. If we’re going to be successful, we’re going to have to approach it in a way similar to smoking where we change the whole culture, which smoking just became uncool. It used to be cool to smoke, the movie stars, all the advertising. Now, it’s uncool. You’re the outcast if you light up in many situations, and eventually, we’re going to have to do that with food so where you and I are no longer the outcasts because we don’t want to take care of ourselves and eat healthy. Let me give you some results of studies they’ve done. The World Health Organization is an ongoing study called the Effect in Europe, and in that study and the World Health Organization has identified our or five what they call healthy lifestyle behaviors, and they’re very general. One of them is being at your healthy weight which is a BMI of 18.5 to 25, eating at least three to five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, engaging in at least thirty minutes of activity a day, not smoking, and moderate drinking or no drinking. So, they’ve identified those five, and then they went out and interviewed 150,000 Americans to ask, “How many of you engage in these lifestyle behaviors?” Guess what the percentage was.

Chris: Really low.

Jeff: Very good, it’s not funny, but that’s a very good guess. It was four percent. There is no set formal exercise or activity someone has to do, and if you look at many of the long lived cultures, they don’t even know what exercise or formal exercise is. They get their activity in their what we call activities of daily living by walking and working and climbing stairs and bending down and lifting things and just everyday activities, and gee, you know what, they’re the longest lived populations who are able to live long with very low rates of disease. That’s part of that whole culture environment. We made it set it up with this belief system that if you don’t’ do this amount of exercise this way for this amount of time, you’re not really exercising. It’s just not true. We just had a discussion this with my input on what is the best piece of exercise equipment, and my answer is the human body. It’s the greatest piece of exercise equipment ever invented. I enjoy jumping jacks, maybe not everybody can do them, but there’s very simple exercises everybody should do, brisk walking, running, jogging, sit-ups, pull-ups, jumping jacks. There’s all kind of calisthenics. For a very long time, simple exercises like calisthenics, and the original gymnastics before we had all the fancy equipment, was designed just to keep the human body fit and didn’t involve using any other equipment. That’s the difference. They found out on this topic – sometimes they say, “People are gifted, or they have different metabolisms,” it’s not really true. What they found out in some recent studies is that thinner people actually burn more of what they call neat – which is Non- exercise activities – and basically what they found out is throughout the day, they did more movements, even little movements some of what they call fidgeting. Those were the movements accounted for upwards of 300 calories a day. Well, when the study came out, I showed my mother, and I said, “You see this. You know you always used to yell at me for fidgeting. It turns out it’s proven to be helpful.” If you think about it, it’s 300 calories a day, if the math is perfect, be it somewhere thirty pounds a year that it can account for. So, me being up walking around right now instead of sitting in a chair, makes a difference. Well, I remember when I was growing up, my parents had the greatest exercise equipment ever at home that I was forced to engage in every day. I used to come home from school, and I would come into the house, and my mother would point outside the kitchen door, and say, “Go outside and play.” She said, “Do not come home until supper’s ready when I call you.” Occasionally, I’d come back to the door and peak in, and I wasn’t even allowed to do that. She’s said, “Get back out and play with your friends,” and that’s what we did from the time we got home until dinner. We climbed trees. We chased each other. We played tag. We played catch. We played football. We played hide and go seek, but we were constantly moving. Today kids are sitting in front of TVs playing video games, which in and of itself they’re not getting the activity, but then in addition, while they’re sitting in front of the TV or playing video games, they’re also consuming extra calories because they’re eating, and then in addition the calories they’re consuming usually are in the form of some sort of junk food. It’s like a triple whammy, and then we say, “Gee, I wonder why my kid’s heavy.”

Chris: What are some of the most difficult that you see people struggling with when they switch from a processed food type diet to healthy whole foods?

Jeff: Well, the first thing is truly understanding what this about because just like I was saying that Hanifer Brothers when they truly analyzed the food and to show how much of it really couldn’t even qualify for basic health guidelines, that most people don’t understand health food and that is because most of the information people get is actually not true health information, but it’s marketing and advertising that’s disguised as health information. So, no longer is like evil – evil, and by evil I mean the unhealthy foods, but the unhealthy foods are now being sold to us as healthy foods, and most of them now are being sold to us as super foods. I meet people all the time who we talk about eating right, and their first response is, “But, I already eat healthy. I use olive oil. I drink wine. I have dark chocolate. I have salmon. I have cocoa powder,” and the name all these things that they hear about all the time in the news and media that aren’t really healthy for them especially when they eat all every day. So, they don’t have a concept of what truly is health foods, and that’s the first obstacle is really getting people to understand – A what is health food, and the part that goes with that is to start using their critical thinking skills in evaluating a lot of what they’re being told. I mean, if you’re familiar with my lecture series, almost every single lecture is on a topic, and it’s basically on that point – separating information from misinformation.

Chris: So, what is whole food? What is the right diet?

Jeff: That’s a good question, the best foods are fresh fruits, vegetables, starchy vegetables, what I would call intact whole grains, and some nuts and seeds. Those would be what I would want to center most anybody’s healthy diet around.

Chris: So, by starchy vegetables, are you saying the P word?

Jeff: Like P like the green pea, or P like potato. Potatoes are just a wonderful food, and all of the varieties – I won’t get into the politics of it, but last year, World Health caused 2008 the year of the potato, and called it a great food, and one of the ones that could potentially not only solve hunger problems, but also some of the economic and nutritional problems around the world because it is such a nutrient dense food, and it’s so low in calories, easy to grow, economic, and it’s just won on so many categories. Here’s the irony in all of this. We are given what I call short sided information, and short sided conclusions. It’s like telling the alcoholic they should drink because they’ll have fun tonight, but we don’t go on and tell them what’s going to happen the next day or the next day. So, they set up these short term answers. Let me tell you what I’m talking about. When we talk about healthy living, we have to really think about what are the outcomes that we really want, and for most people they come to two things. One is living healthy with very low rates of disease or disease free, and the other is being able to do that for a long time. So, we want long life and it to be disease free. So, there we have to ask ourselves a question. Okay, where in the world could we find such people who are already doing that, and let’s find different groups of them, study them and see what they all have in common – common denominators – because the way I look at things, which is usually pretty logical, is that makes sense. If you want to achieve something, let’s find groups of people who are already doing it and see the common denominators. When we do that, we find out that all of the long lived populations eat a plant based diet. They’re active. They don’t smoke. They have healthy body weights. What’s really ironic is when you look at the Okinawan Centenarians who are some of the longest lived people on the planet. I think they have the highest rate of people over a hundred per capita than anywhere else in the world, and when you look at their diet pre-1950 before western influence, 69 percent of their calories was potatoes. Then, you go and look at the Chinese Centenarians, and 65 percent of their calories were potatoes. Not only are we not number one, we’re not in the top five. We’re not in the top ten. We’re not even in the top fifteen. We’re somewhere around twentyish, so we’re not the longest lived. The one food that’s common in all long-lived populations – now, it doesn’t mean that this is what they eat the most of, but it is the common denominator in all long-lived populations, the food is beans. Beans is the common denominator. You will also find lots of whole grains. You will also finds lots of vegetables. You find fruits, and you find some nuts and seeds on occasion. Most of them also have small amounts of animal products. You see what is locally available, and usually what’s the result of necessity, but you see a small part of their diet. When you look at the Okinawans, and you take the potatoes and you add in the whole grains and the legumes and the fruits, you’re looking over ninety percent of their calories come from plants. When you look at the Chinese Centenarians, you see the exact same thing. About ninety percent or just over ninety percent come from plants. So, that is the common denominator is plant foods.

Chris: Eating this way does make a huge difference in health. Is that right?

Jeff: If you consume them in the right form, and that’s where the confusion is. I’ll say to somebody, “Yes you should eat intact whole grains,” and they say, “Is whole wheat acceptable?” I’ll say, “Yes.” They’ll say, “Oh good because I love bread.” I’ll say, “That’s not an intact whole grain, and it usually contains lots of fat and salt and sugar and sometimes the wrong fats.” They’re like, “I thought bread was a whole grain. I’m getting some national brand’s whole wheat variety,” and it’s because they just don’t realize them, and then I say, “Actually the true intact whole grain when it comes to wheat is called the wheat berry.” It’s just amazing to me how few people know what a wheat berry is. They look at me and goes, “This is whole wheat. This is a wheat berry,” and they just shake their heads and walk away going, “God, is he weird.” If you were able to find this rare wheat berry, and of course that would be difficult, then you prepare it the exact same way you would a kernel of rice or any other intact whole grain, like oats or barley. A one to two ratio with water, and you bring the water to boil, a whole wheat berry might be for twenty to thirty minutes. So, and then you have wheat berries. People make wheat berry salad. Some people eat it just like they would rice or any other whole grain, but the point is that people think wheat bread is a whole grain.

Chris: We’ve been talking with a lot of physicians too that are talking about a lot of people have allergies to wheat. It’s fairly common.

Jeff: That’s an issue, but here’s the problem with that, if I just may say, and that’s why that’s important because boy do I hear a lot of that today. “Well, I’m gluten sensitive.” Well, that’s possible. There’s some evidence that one in a 120 are gluten sensitive, so it’s not that it’s rare, and many people may be. The gluten issue is an important issue because it’s an example of what’s happening. We’re all getting distracted by this issues that may have some relevance, but they’re not the main issue. The incidence of gluten sensitivity is said to be one in 120. So, it’s not rare, so it maybe common and people may be sensitive to gluten, but gluten sensitivity and whether you avoid gluten or not is not responsible for the obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, heart disease and cancer epidemics that we’re seeing and problems. Here’s the real problem. You can now go to the grocery store or the health food store and see sections and aisles of gluten free products, and they may be gluten free, but many of them are still junk food. So, people are now eating junk food that’s just gluten free, but in the end, it still may be high in calories, high in fat, high in salt, high in sugar, and not high in nutrients. So, again, it’s the distractions. Remember those five things I mentioned earlier – the no smoking, the weight, the exercise, the fruits and veggies, and the alcohol? The World’s Health says those five alone and I believe this is a conservative estimate can reduce eighty percent of the cardiovascular disease and diabetes and forty percent of the cancers, those five things.

Chris: Do you see this as being an attainable shift?

Jeff: I think it’s possible, but the companies are only going to make the shift if there’s a benefit in it for them because these companies – and I’m not saying this in a negative way, anybody who is in business is in business to make money – are going to pursue those avenues if there’s profit in it for them, and right now we have two problems, and one is most people are not buying those foods. Remember, in that study I showed you, only four percent of the population said they were engaging in those five healthy lifestyle behaviors. They also studied the Nurses Health Study, and the Physicians Health Study. In the Physicians and Nurses, the numbers were better, only about four percent were following this healthy lifestyle. So, companies are not going to invest all its energies into producing products that only four percent of the population is going to buy if even that amount. So, I think it’s possible, but we need a whole shift. People say, “Well, is it really possible.” There’s another great example that it is possible and it also was done by the World’s Health Organization, and it’s called the North Corellia Project. What happened is about thirty years ago, a young physician came out of medical school and specialty in public health – I forget his name offhand. He was determined to show that you could make a difference and share a community. He picked North Corellia because it had one of the highest rates of heart disease. He went into the community and tried to make a difference, like what we’re talking about. He realized he was going to have to get everybody involved. For the first few years, there was lots of resistance because he was trying to get the schools involved, the industries involved, community health, doctors, farmers, everybody. He knew there was no way you could just do it by getting one involved. He was trying to get the whole community involved, and it took some time, but eventually he made progress, and twenty-five years later, it’s a twenty-five year study, he was able to reduce the death rate from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke somewhere around I think it was seventy to eighty percent. He dropped it dramatically from cancer, and lifespan in both men and women went up around seven or eight years. So, it can be done, and the World’s Health is now using that project as an example in trying it in three other communities right now.

Chris: What did he do?

Jeff: He got everybody involved. So, they know longer used butter, and they cut out some of the fat. They changed the Tyson food the farmers would growing. In one of the interviews, I remember he was saying it was really hard to get one of the farmers to move away. I forget what he was producing, but it was not the healthiest food until he had a heart attack. Then, once he had a heart attack he changed his product to one that was more healthier. It’s a very famous project, and if you Google the North Correlia project in World Health, you’ll find lots of information. I wrote an article on it, and it’s on my website, too, a few years ago, but I just used it to show that you can make a difference, but it’s going to take everybody. See, right now, we have people just pointing fingers. The food industry says, “Well, it’s because we don’t get enough exercise,” and other people say, “Well maybe we get enough exercise but it’s the foods yet.” We want kids to walk and have safe food in school, but then they come home to junk food. So, it’s like everybody is pointing fingers. We just have to stop, and just say, “Okay, we know what contributed. It doesn’t matter how much or what percent. We’ve all contributed. It’s time to change direction. We all have to start doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.” Maybe it’ll take us ten years. Maybe it’ll take us fifteen. Maybe it’ll take us twenty, but did you ever see that movie We are Marshall or Marshall. It’s about the college football team. They lost a whole team in an airplane crash. The next year, they got a new coach, and he wanted to start the program up again, and they said to him, “Do you really think you can get a program together and make an impact?” He says, “No, but in ten or twenty years we can. We can’t get there if we don’t’ start here.” So, he knew he couldn’t win. He knew he didn’t have any players. He knew it was going to be tough for the first few years, but he knew if he didn’t start moving in that direction, they could never get to where they wanted to be, and eventually they did win the championships. So, that’s what I’m saying. We’re not going to change the world today. We’re not going to change it tomorrow, but if we want to get to a point to where we properly educate people and we see our children out healthy again running around where it’s safe for them to be outside, and to be eating right and companies promoting healthy food. Yeah, it’s not going to happen tomorrow or next week or next year, but we have to start moving in the direction so maybe in ten years or fifteen years, we’re well on our way to see that happen. I’ll make two observations about the health of our people today, how my work over the last twenty years or so – one is that most people are much sicker than they think they are, and two, is most people can get a whole lot better than they think they can. People just have no idea of the power of food even amongst the professionals. When I see professionals come in to observe the programs that I work with, even the leading cardiologists, dieticians, they come in and watch for a week or two and they see people’s lives literally change, cholesterol drops, blood sugar drops, blood pressure drops, that just is unheard of to them, and in ten days, seven days, fourteen days, they just said, “I had no idea that this could happen.” They just did not know what was possible, if we provide the human body with what it needs in its best form.

Chris: Do they get pretty inspired by that experience?

Jeff: Well, most of the time they do. It impacts them, and they try to do what they can. So, there’s like lots of little of these shells that I call them all over the place trying to do good, and hopefully eventually we’ll be able to get enough of us that we’ll be able to make that shift where things will change on a bigger scale. Yeah, you have to get health professionals seeing what’s possible. They don’t know. You have to get people seeing what’s possible. They don’t know, and a lot of them are afraid of the change because they think their quality of life will go down. Maybe they think they’re going to give up something, but what people don’t realize which you realize is when you make the change, you don’t lose anything in life. You now get like life squared. Life becomes so much better, and easier.

Chris: Jeff, do you have a sense of hope regarding the future for our kids? What’s your take on that?

Jeff: I do because otherwise why would I do what I do. So, I do, and I think the good things about kids is they’re sharp, and they’re intuitive, and one of the things that I’ve learned in working with them is when you show them the truth and the reality, like in some classes I’ve had with kids. One of the things I like to show is to take them to the grocery store and the healthfood stores, and show them how deceptive food products. You know the story where something may say fat free, and it’s really full of fat, or no sugar added, and it’s full of sugars. That gets their attention. Kids don’t like to be lied to. That opens their eyes. Kids want to feel good. They really do. Being overweight, not being able to bend down and tie your shoes, not being able to walk distances without becoming exhausted, not being able to run around and appreciate the energy you have, they don’t like that. So, when you show them the path, and that there is hope, they respond pretty quickly, and kids seem to respond better than adults, but kids need to be in environments where this supported. I remember one time during a kids’ program, a parent came over to me and said, “My god, I’ve never seen my son enjoy just a bowl of fruit and vegetables like he is right now.” I said, “Do you ever make them available to him?” She frowned and said, “Ah, no.” How can he enjoy them? There is no one food that you must eat. I recently explained how simple this is wrote up some recipes that had like three ingredients, five ingredients and how inexpensive, simple you could compare them, and how they would meet every nutritional need. Someone responded that because my recipe had tomatoes in it, well, it would never work for me because I don’t like tomatoes. Okay, leave out the tomatoes, put corn in. It’s not going to be that much different. Put red pepper in. Put whatever you want in. There’s no one food. If you don’t like potato, maybe you like sweet potatoes. If you don’t like corn, if you don’t like broccoli, maybe you’ll like carrots. That’s the power pack. That’s why I don’t like getting into that broccoli is the best vegetable or blueberries. Eat a variety of berries or find the two or three that you like. Eat a variety of vegetables. Find the two or three that you like, and if you don’t like one, don’t eat it. Sometimes some of my clients will come, “Oh, you don’t understand. I only like two vegetables. I could never do this.” I say, “Really, which two vegetables?” They say, “Carrots and peas.” I say, “Great. I want you to eat carrots and peas everyday with every meal, and you know what? Every now and then try one other, just try one, and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.” We also have the flipside. People are so funny, and I don’t think they realize it, the irony in what they’re saying, but somebody said to me, this is an example of a conversation that’s happened many times. They said, “I could never do this because I love salt, and you’re basically asking me to cut salt out.” I said, “Well, in your situation, it’s probably a good idea. Where do you salt?” They go, “I put salt on everything. I salt this. I salt this. I salt that. Without the salt, nothing would taste good.” So, I say, “Well, do you use any other spices?” “No, I only use salt. I put it on everything.” I said, “Okay, well have you tried,” and I’ll give another spice like Mrs. Dash table blend. I said, “Did you try this?” He said, “Yes, it’s pretty good. I could use it.” I said, “Okay, so here we go.” They say, “Well, what else do you want me to use?” I say, “What do you mean what else?” They say, “Well, is that it?” I said, “Okay, wait a minute. You just told me used salt on everything, put one product on everything. I’m giving you another one product. Now you want a variety.” It’s really simple. People don’t realize what they’re doing or saying. One time my customer came up to me. He said, “I just wanted to eat stone crabs on occasion. Could I do that?” I said, “You know the reality is you could probably get away with eating anything you want on occasion if it’s truly on occasion.” He said, “Good, because that’s my favorite food in the world, stone crab.” I said, “Okay, whatever.” So, he walks away, and five minutes later he comes back up to me and goes, “You know what? I have another question for you. What would you recommend I put on them because by themselves, they have no flavor?” Do you see the irony in what he just said? In other words, his favorite food in the world has no flavor to him. It’s the mayonnaise sauce and the mustard sauce and everything. It’s just the irony that people don’t really realize what we’ve gotten into as far as food and health.

Chris: Now, Jeff, if people want to get a hold of you or find out more information about what you’re doing, can you tell them your website?

Jeff: Yes, my website is www.JeffNovick.com, and there’s an active support forum there, and there’s a blog and newsletter, and there’s also an event schedule, so you can see all my speaking events around the country, and where I am and what I’m doing.

Chris: Great, so what’s next for Jeff Novick?

Jeff: More of the same, but the same is good, and hopefully we’ll be able to help a few people. I continue to work with Dr. John McDougal and the McDougal program out in California. We just had an advanced weekend a few weeks ago, that in spite of the economy and what’s going on, it was the largest attended one yet. It was an incredible weekend with three days filled with incredible food and lots of great information. Dr. Campbell was there. Dr Popper was there. Dr Nedly was talking about food and depression and mental performance. So, it was an incredible weekend. So, I’m out there once a month working Dr. McDougal. He has that ten day live-in program, a five day program and a three day advanced weekends throughout the year. So, that’s a great place if you want to come and spend time with me where we can sit around and have a great time. The ten day program is a live-in residential program, medically supervised where Dr. McDougal becomes your doctor, and out of the ten days, what I do is I provide about five or six lectures throughout the week. I have small group sessions with the participants while they’re there, and I spend most of the day with them sharing meals and discussing little one on one talks or little group discussions over their personal issues and needs. Dr. McDougal sees everybody formally at least three times during the week, lectures every morning for two hours, and is available also throughout the week, and with three huge delicious buffets of food a day, along with food available. We have great chefs from the area come in, and we have cooking schools every day, and it’s attached to a spa. So, we have exercise classes throughout the day. It’s just a wonderful ten day experience. Because we’re located in such an incredible area, we even go on field trips. We go out to Bodaga Bay. We go up to the redwood forest, and in addition to help people learn to apply this in the real world. We take supervised trips to a local grocery store and also to the local health foods store, and we also go to several restaurants in the neighborhood – a Chinese restaurant, a Thai restaurant. So, not only does everybody get immersed in the program, we also venture out into the real world to show people how you could actually do this. It’s open to anybody. Many who come do have health issues that they’ve been trying for long term unsuccessfully to resolve. So, they’ll come there. Some had weight issues. Some come because they don’t ever want to get health issues. They want to learn how to prevent them all. Great program. Dr Doug Lyle is the psychologist on staff and is available throughout the week, and gives several lectures throughout the week on the whole behavioral change and psychology of changing behavior and dealing with the real world. It really is the total picture. Right on the front of my website is a link and a little vide of the ten day program, and there’s links to Dr McDougal’s sites. If people go to Dr. McDougal’s website at DrMcDougal.com, and he has a discussion board, and in the discussion board, there is a forum that I host where I personally answer everybody’s question. In the last years, it’s been one of the most active forums. I think I’ve had over one thousand questions answered in the last year.

Chris: We look forward to talk to you again soon.