Latest / Man in America Podcast / The '3 White Killers' Making Americans Fat, Sick & DEAD w/ Food Chemist Stephen Talcott

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The '3 White Killers' Making Americans Fat, Sick & DEAD w/ Food Chemist Stephen Talcott · Man in America Podcast

• 0:12
  Seth Holehouse: Welcome to Man in America. I'm your host, Seth Holehouse. So the whole idea of make America healthy again is, I think, so important in terms of movement that's happening right here in this country. And I certainly hope it's not just lip service. Now, of course, as you've seen, if you've watched the show before, if you haven't, you'll know that I cover a lot of information as it relates to big pharma, and what's happened with big pharma and the illnesses and death that in a lot of my own research is coming as a result of what's happening within big pharma.
• 0:46
  So, of course, I wanna see massive reform with sorry, reform in FDA, in in the the big pharmaceutical companies, and that whole area of our health. But the other thing is what we're eating as Americans. Because even if we can fix everything on the drug level in this country, our obesity rates are still close to fifty percent. I mean, this is absolutely insane to think about the fact that nearly one in two adults in America is obese, and that's not something you can just blame on the pharmaceuticals. It's something that I would blame on the food industry, what we're feet what we're eating as a nation, the ultra processed food, not having access to to clean organic foods, and so much more.
• 1:35
  And so joining me today is a food scientist named Steve Talcott, and he is someone that has done extensive research into how food interacts with our gut biome, the role of a healthy gut biome in terms of overall bodily health and brain health, but also what the major causes of these diseases are, and specifically obesity, or, again, which is a nearly half of the adults in America are obese. And so what he calls what's also referred to as the three white devils or the three white evils that are causing these health epidemics in our country. And so we'll be exploring how the body works, how digestion works, and how these issues are affecting us, but also what are some very proactive things that we can do to fix our gut biomes and to fix our health and to ultimately make America healthy again. So please enjoy the interview. What's the most important part of getting my family to share a healthy drink with me?
• 2:38
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• 3:20
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• 3:36
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• 3:48
  Speaker 2: we go.
• 3:49
  Seth Holehouse: Mister Steve Talcott, it is great to have you on the show. Thank you very much for being here with us today.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Howdy from the beaut beautiful state of Texas and, Texas A and M University.
• 4:00
  Seth Holehouse: Well, there we go. So, Steve, the right now, health and wellness, especially as it relates to food, medications, environmental toxins, all that stuff is is, I'd say, more on the forefront than it ever has been, especially with RFK, you know, coming into HHS and and everything surrounding that. And I know that you understand these things very, very well. So let's first start with just give us just a background of of your specialty because I think that a lot of your research and and knowledge is gonna be very helpful for us in guiding, in navigating this very complicated, food and drug industry.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Well, Seth, I I appreciate the opportunity to join you today. I mean, yes, am a food scientist. Specifically, I'm a food chemist, and more specifically, I'm a food phytochemist, meaning I work with, you know, we talk about dangerous chemicals in our foods, but I work with the natural compounds, the natural chemicals know, that God put in our foods from day one. So, you know, we're really living in contrasting world right now because as a food science professor, you know, I'm teaching my students how to process foods, how manufacture foods with food ingredients, and food additives, and all the things that those, you know, compounds do to our foods. They do extend shelf life, they make foods taste really good, they hold up, they're just very visually appealing, they smell wonderful.
• 5:25
  And on the other side of that, we're about, you know, a changing American population with overweight and obesity rates over fifty percent of our population, we need to do something different. So we also teach our students like, look, there's another way of doing this as well, and that's kind of where we do some of our research in natural products, specifically fruits and vegetables and botanicals that are just loaded with naturally occurring healthy compounds that, you know, will will do amazing things for our bodies. So that's kind of what we do here at Texas A and M. We actually run human clinical trials and show how these natural foods can have a long term benefit to your body.
• 6:03
  Seth Holehouse: And so am I correct in saying that the the best way you can eat, say, a piece of fruit is fresh off the vine, right, or fresh off the tree? Like, is there is there anything better than that in terms of just, you know, kind of nutrition?
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, obviously, that's the best, but, of course, we live, you know, in in a cold climate. It's it's winter right now. You can't go out and get a fresh muscadine grape. I can't go out and get a lot of fresh foods that aren't imported from other countries. So obviously, if we can't eat those things and they're fresh from nature, fresh from harvested, picked right off the vine, off the tree, you know, we do preserve them.
• 6:40
  There are normal processing mechanisms for doing that, and we can do that without adding a lot of, adverse chemicals. So just simply, you know, manufacturing into a juice or a puree or drying the the foods and preserving them long term that way. It's it's the second best that we can get, obviously. So
• 6:58
  Seth Holehouse: And what are some of the more commercial preservation techniques and and methods that we should be concerned about? Because I think that when you look at, you know, a drink like I've got right here, kombucha. Right? We drink a lot of kombucha, and it's the ingredients are very, very simple. It's water, organic kombucha culture, yeah, organic cane sugar, organic organic tea, and then, you know, culture and herbs.
• 7:21
  So it's it's very simple, and my family, we eat very healthy. But I know a lot of stuff you look on at the grocery store, and and what we try to do is we try to, you know, shop the perimeter. Right? That's why, you know, you you stay outside of the inside where all the preserved things are.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Processed food. Right? Exactly.
• 7:37
  Seth Holehouse: But so what are what are some of the the methods and ways of processing and preserving that are the most threatening to our health?
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, we live in a world right now where it's it's very media buzz friendly. You you catch this on the Internet, the world ultra processed foods. I mean, it is becoming, like, just a buzzword for not for what not to eat. And it's controversial because if you think about a lot of foods that you may consider to be a healthy food, when you look at them in a little bit more detail, they might be considered an ultra processed food. You know, we live in a country right now where we're on the go, we're two income households, the kids are running in 10 different directions, it's hard to eat whole healthy foods all the time.
• 8:22
  I mean, it's challenging. Like I said, shopping in the grocery store, it's so convenient to go get those processed foods. And again, as a food scientist, we're really good at making those products smell good, look good, and taste good, and you can keep in your refrigerator or freezer for a very long period of time. That's what we teach our students how to do, but again, what are your issues? If your family is suffering from chronic disease, you're suffering from obesity, you're suffering from high inflammation, you're just stressed out all the time, it's time to maybe look at something just a little bit different.
• 8:54
  I mean, how we eat and how we live our lifestyles and the activity that we do as well, coupled with our diet, I think is really important for us to think about going forward. So, that's why I'm really curious about RFK Jr. And his approach to exercise first, and obviously a healthy diet and healthy lifestyle, and maybe lowering our stress level just a bit. I think it's going to play long term benefits to our country because something has to change. We're on a very adverse trend right now just towards just simple weight.
• 9:23
  I mean, we're we're we're looking for drugs to help us with that. And, really, we should be looking for a natural food option. How how we eat is the first and simplest thing we can do because we're doing that every single day.
• 9:33
  Seth Holehouse: Yeah. I believe there's some famous guy who said, let thy food be thy medicine. Right?
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Possibly some Greek philosophers who had this figured out a couple thousand years ago. And and it's true. I mean, and that's what we research, you know, in in our in our academic program here at Texas A and M is how do these healthy foods fit into a healthy lifestyle? Because you can't just suddenly start eating healthy and expect to just get healthy instantly. And there's a patience associated with this because, hey, I started a healthy diet.
• 10:01
  I've been on it for a month. I thought I'd lose weight. I might feel a little bit better, but I'm going to give up and go back to my, you know, fast food. And it's just a really, I guess we're not patient as a society when it comes to food, we're wanting that instant gratification, and switching over to a healthy lifestyle takes a little bit of time. Your body needs time to adapt to this.
• 10:22
  There's a whole mechanism between, you know, how we digest foods, the bacteria in your gut, the microbiome, and how that needs time to respond. And in fact, some of our research is really kind of confounding because we do a lot of studies with lean versus obese individuals, and we'll feed them the exact same food and see how their body responds to those, that healthy food. And it's really odd because the lean people tend to, we call the word metabolize or absorb the compounds from a healthy diet much more effectively than the obese folks, but give them time, give them four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, and suddenly their body starts changing. Their gut microbiota begins to change, and they start to feel better. It just takes a little bit of time for your body to adapt.
• 11:08
  So, yes, we we have these easy to consume foods. They're everywhere, but as you're switching to, you're trying to change something in your lifestyle, just I suggest just give a little bit of time. Be patient with the process, and you might find that long term, you're gonna be better off than in the end.
• 11:24
  Seth Holehouse: Then how important in your view is organic versus inorganic? So, you know, and I'll kind of set the table a little bit with this discussion. My family, we are, you know, very strict. Now certain times, you know, we go out to a restaurant. Even if you go to a really high end restaurant, it's hard to find a restaurant that has an all organic menu.
• 11:42
  So, you know, we have our our times, but a lot of times, we'll go to restaurants that source locally and more farm to table. But from your perspective and your research, when you look at the difference between eating, you know, more, they call conventional, right, which is, you know, full of pesticides and, you know, GMO seeds, etcetera, how how big is the difference and how important is it to get away from the inorganic and the more conventional and and eat organic food?
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, when you look at it from a chemistry perspective is what do the the foods actually contain? We're talking produce here primarily. The difference is actually kind of small between the actual concentration of natural compounds there. So, we're talking about stress level in the plant when they don't have or they're getting help from an outside pesticide or fungicide or herbicide, those plants aren't as stressed. The stress is in the plant from organic is what actually can possibly increase the levels of these natural compounds.
• 12:40
  But, you know, we also have an issue of just market awareness. It depends on where you live. You know, where I live here in Texas, there's a very small organic section to our to our local markets. It probably caters to the one or 2% of of the consumers. There's literally just not enough organic produce grown in America so that everyone can eat organic.
• 13:01
  So, yes, if you can do that, you live in a market, you have the means to do that, by all means, I think there's benefits of lowering those pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides in your diet. But beyond that, I mean, what about the rest of the 98%? Those are the ones we also need to be very concerned about, and there's ways of eating healthy in that, and there's ways of not eating healthy in that. So, you know, and that's where, again, picking your produce and how you're handling that produce, how you're washing that produce are things that you can do if you're not able to get an an organic source of that.
• 13:33
  Seth Holehouse: So it sounds like that if you can eat organic, great. You you know, you should. Yeah. But it and also what I'm hearing is that the the the bigger thing is that organic or not, first stop buying ultra processed foods. Stop feeding your kids Fruit Loops and Pop Tarts and and and, you know, move towards, say, sourdough bread with jam or.
• 13:55
  Possibly. Yes.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: And and I think that's that's when when you started your children out on this very early or or you as you yourself, you've decided to make a change, it's it's challenging. And especially when you you've you've been raising kids that haven't, you know, taken that philosophy on, it's really hard to get those kids to change. And so we're seeing a massive increase in teenage obesity right now. That rate is probably increasing more than ever. And so it's a hard choice, it really is, to suddenly go, Hey, we're going to start eating healthy and mom and dad are going to set the precedents and we're going to do this as well.
• 14:31
  And, you know, we're going to try to get you to change as well. Change is very difficult. I mean, we're very kind of set in our ways. So that's maybe the challenge that, some other allied fields can help us with. Maybe it's a psychology issue, maybe it's just a preference issue.
• 14:46
  If those foods aren't available any longer, then, you know, you're going eat it or you're going to go hungry. So, it's almost like, you know, stop smoking or, you know, other bad habits. They're really hard to break these bad habits, and food for us, as Americans especially, are a habit forming issue. I mean, we get used to eating the same food. These are your comfort foods.
• 15:07
  These are your go to foods, and so breaking that habit is going to take more than just, hey, I'm going to start buying organic, or I'm going start eating fresh fruits and vegetables. It's far more than that because, you know, we see with our kids that they'll exchange food at school. You know? They they will get these foods some way, shape, or form, whether they have to do it by by hook or crook. And so it's it's gotta be a a lifestyle change.
• 15:32
  Seth Holehouse: Yeah. I mean, I remember growing up when I was in middle school. We moved to middle school. They had the a la carte. And, you know, I you you you're either on, like, the school lunch line, which was just you get the big, you know, kind of, you know, plastic tray with, you know, five little containers on it, you get, you know, grilled cheese and tomato soup or whatever, or the a la carte.
• 15:52
  And, you know, here I was as a 12 year old kid with, you know, $4 in my pocket, and so I could have nachos, a Snickers ice cream bar. I mean, was looking at it at it now, it was one of the worst things ever for me because I I struggled with with being overweight as a kid. And and look back and it's like, oh my gosh. Like, even if my mom was feeding me healthy then, why would these schools, like, open this up for me? It was it was atrocious.
• 16:16
  But, you know, one question I'd like to ask you though is in looking at the rising rates of obesity, which is a a an absolute crisis in America. If you had to say what are the handful of the top contributing factors to the obesity epidemic, what would you attribute them to?
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: I have a good friend who calls them the three white evils, and it's refined flour, it's refined sugar, and refined salt. I mean, you know, that's what, as a food scientist, we train our students, hey, here's how you make your company successful in an economic perspective. Getting people to buy foods and buy them repeatedly is, you know, easy to process, digest, you know, flours, bleach flours, not even whole wheat flours anymore. Refined sugars, I mean, even your kombucha there has, it may be organic sugar, but it's still sugar nonetheless, you're still getting carbohydrates in that way. And then salt, I mean, sodium reduction is a big part of what the entire food industry is actually working towards, because we see that direct benefit to consumers, that consumers are wanting that.
• 17:22
  But let's face it, salt, sugar, flour, those contribute to easy to digest, they taste good, they extend shelf life, they give us what we call functional properties to food, they make processing foods easier because they're controlling water and binding water and controlling microorganisms. And then even with those flours, we have ways of processing them to make them even more absorbable. They digest so much easier. We say they go down easy, right? And they create calories that you absorb these nutrients very, very quickly in your body, and so you get that sugar rush.
• 17:53
  There's a mental part of this too. You get this, you know, this satiety, this, I'm full, but I want more. And so you get this, you know, yes, I'm full, but I want to continue to eat more because this is it tastes so good. It's so easy to go down. So, you know, maybe I'm part of the problem as well because we're teaching our students how to do this because there are still food companies out here that that is their business model, to make foods that are convenient, easy, taste good, smell good, and that's their business model.
• 18:21
  So we've got, again, it's a philosophy here for our entire industry that we need to kind of get over that. Can we make a product that's maybe in phases that's historically considered an ultra processed, bad for you product? Can we start, you know, changing that product slowly and getting it more towards healthy ingredients, and obviously removing many of the food additives and food and food ingredients that are contributor contributors to obesity and and other chronic diseases.
• 18:47
  Seth Holehouse: So and you say the the three white evils, which makes sense. What about them being refined? Because I know that, you know, like, for instance, you know, we bake sourdough bread, and and we'll get, you know, we've got a starter and and you know, we don't go and buy bleached refined flour. We're buying ancient grains, you know, whether it's spelt flour or I corn flour or, you know, or even just regular kind of wheat flour, but it's organic and it's, you know, it's it's non GMO, etcetera. So what is it though about the the refined, like, sugar, especially refined sugar and refined, flour, which are, you know, major ingredients in so many of of the foods that they're, you know, giving people these days.
• 19:29
  What's so bad about those? How do they affect the body in a way that they're they're helping to contribute to such a massive obesity obesity crisis?
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, let's take on flour. It's probably the easiest one. Obviously, when we're refining that and when we look at a wheat, you know, wheat berry, you know, we're we're just pulling out the the the pericarp, and we're separating starch from protein in that, and and we can either get it as a pure starch that we're adding to a food, and that's a very common ingredient, and again, super high digestibility to the starch, it's gonna go through your stomach and your small intestine, and you're gonna rapidly absorb those nutrients. You almost get a sugar high. It's almost like consuming pure sugar by itself because it breaks down so quickly in your body, versus say an ancient grain or a less processed where you have more fiber, you have more vitamins and minerals that are naturally from the bran of that wheat, and so those are compounds that slow down digestion, right, and those forms of starch have what we call, it's called resistant starch.
• 20:31
  These starches are not necessarily going to absorb very quickly in your small intestine. They're going to move to your colon where these same gut microbiota are going to start working on those starches, and they're instead of just absorbing it as sugar, they're going to break it down and ferment it into compounds that we call short chain fatty acids, which have amazing benefits for the body, and as a kind of a prebiotic feeding the microorganisms in your gut. And so the more we refine that down, the less of that wheat gets into your colon, and the less of those short chain fatty acids, the less beneficial bacteria you have. And we're just in this vicious cycle, right, of like everything gets absorbed very early in digestion and nothing goes to the colon where you can support healthy gut. And sugar is the same way, I mean, the more refined, the less other compounds, the less vitamins, the less minerals, the less other nutrients that are there, and they taste so much more clean than refined.
• 21:28
  I mean, it's a super clean, super sweet, intense flavor, whereas the less refined sugars aren't as sweet, in my opinion, and, you know, they're just I mean, it's this craving factor. You know, we tend to be addicted to sugar in that way, and these refining ways that we process foods actually contribute to that. I mean, it just makes it so much easier to consume and to continue consuming more even after you're full.
• 21:53
  Seth Holehouse: And so these refined products are are damaging the the gut biome. Right? And so and would you say that's one of the the the main causes of a lot of the illness and and obesity and everything in this country? Is it actually that we have just a damaged gut biome? And and what what role does the biome play?
• 22:15
  Right? Because I know that, you we do probiotics. That's one of reasons why I you know, I drink fermented drinks is, you know, all the things that I've I've kind of understood. Okay. These are some good things to help get healthy bacteria in there.
• 22:24
  We avoid antibiotics if we, you know, unless we absolutely have to. So what role does the gut biome play, and and what role or what role does the damaged gut biome play in a lot of these these, you know, health crises that we have here in this country?
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: No. I mean, the gut microbiome is about a hotter topic in the food nutrition research areas as we can get right now because we're understanding, and every day there's more research being published on the benefits of a healthy gut microbiome. Now, it's challenging because we don't always know exactly what a damaged or an altered or what we call a dysbiotic gut looks like, but when you compare it to someone who's healthy, it's kind of very obvious when we characterize not only the type of organisms, but the number of organisms that are present. So, you know, we do a lot of research on what we call the gut brain axis, where literally there's kind of a strange concept, right? How there's compounds formed through the catabolism, the breakdown of the nutrients that you're feeding yourself, and you're actually feeding those bacteria in your gut as well, and we actually find those compounds either literally in your brain or how it impacts compounds formed by your brain or compounds formed in your gut.
• 23:41
  So compounds like neurotransmitters and enhancing cognitive function, and it relates back even back to liver function. So it's really like gut, liver, brain access as well, and how you can, by eating healthy, you're allowing these bacteria to ferment in your gut. You have your sourdough bread outside, but you have basically a sourdough culture inside your intestines as well, and they're producing new compounds, and those compounds are being absorbed in your bloodstream. They're going to your liver, being metabolized, and they're going to your brain and all the other organs in your body. So really, again, healthy gut, healthy human, and this is why, as I mentioned earlier, we do these studies, we find obese versus lean individuals, and obese people just they just they're eating a healthy diet, but they're not getting the benefits from it.
• 24:27
  They're not metabolizing the compounds the way someone who's eating a cleaner diet, and I'm not saying necessarily obesity is directly related to the gut microbiome, but it is a long term chronic effect where we understand if you can't if you're eating healthy and you can't absorb and utilize these nutrients in a normal way, you're going to experience higher levels of inflammation, you're going to be maybe experiencing cognitive decline, depression, mood swings, memory issues, your neurotransmitters aren't firing the way they should, and yeah, you're just, I mean, and that's why I say it takes time. So we need time to eat a healthy diet, give yourself that patience so you can let your gut microbiome catch up to the healthy diet that you're eating. And, you know, I tell people, I said, give it a minimum of three months, you know, three months of your entire life is not much to ask for, but if stay on for three months and you don't see a difference, then I'd say go see a doctor, but I think you'll it's amazing the transformation that you'll see in just a very short period of time. So, you know, pick a period of your life and go, this is the point I'm going to make a change, and this is the point I'm going to try, and hopefully that will infect your family and your friends and those around you, again, it's a psychology thing.
• 25:39
  Think get a support network is also important, really important for that as well. So, you know, get your wife to do it, you can get your kids to do it, get your neighbors to do it. We've got to do something, you know, systemically different in our in our nation if we're going to change this this trajectory that we're on. So, yeah, feed your gut, feed your feed your brain. Everybody's much happier in in the end.
• 26:00
  Seth Holehouse: And so if someone, say, hasn't eaten very healthy and they are thinking, maybe that's me. Maybe I'm one of those people that has brain fog and, you know, these other issues and lethargia because I've got, you know, an unhealthy gut. If if they want to start rebuilding their gut, they wanna be and they what is it being be proactive. What what advice would you give them if they sat down with you and said, hey. Look.
• 26:23
  You know, what can I do? What what would you tell them to to do to start rebuilding a healthy gut?
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Well, our research, I'm going to go back to our research that we do. Our research tells us that it's consistency. Okay? When we do clinical trials, we're using, you know, we're using like a single fruit. For example, we've done some work with mangoes, we've done some work with cherries, we've done some work with cranberries.
• 26:49
  So mango is a good example. So, you know, we'll have a cohort where they'll eat a mango on the first day, then three weeks later, and six weeks later, and guess what, okay, in six weeks I ate mangoes three times, you think you're changing your diet, you're all being healthy, but really on those days that we sample their blood and urine and fecal samples, we're seeing no difference whatsoever. There it was as if you didn't eat it at all, there was really no long term benefit to that. And then the other cohort of the group, they're eating mangoes every single day. I mean, they're eating like 400 grams of mangoes, which is one large mango every single day, day in, day out for, you know, six weeks.
• 27:28
  That's a lot of mangoes to eat, and those people, the change is dramatic, especially for obese individuals. So it's not one of these, hey, I ate healthy on Tuesday and and I ate healthy again on Saturday, and those are, I'm eating healthy now. I ate two days of the week, I did something good. I think our research will show that that benefit to you is really kind of negligible. You have to be consistent in your approach.
• 27:52
  You have to do this at every single meal, every single day, and you're going see massive changes in your gut microbiota. You're going to be absorbing more of these beneficial natural compounds, and you're going to see that change. Your memory and your focus is going to pop up. You've got, you know, great neurotransmitters firing. You're going to feel good about yourself.
• 28:10
  You're have more energy. You're going to have more, you know, as we talked a little bit about cellular energy, your cells are happy. They're firing. They're doing their normal metabolic processes. Your liver is detoxifying detoxifying your body much, much more effectively, but it has to be, again, not just daily, every single meal daily event, and you will I I assure you, you will see massive differences down the road in in your approach.
• 28:34
  So So
• 28:35
  Seth Holehouse: it's really I mean, it's it's like most things in life that work well, it's slow and steady wins the race. It is. It's not you know, because I've I've
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: done Right.
• 28:43
  Seth Holehouse: I've done so many yo yo diets when I was younger, and it's like, oh, I'm gonna do, you know, keto for I do it for a month. It's you know, it works really well that I crash. And then, you know, my wife who's very healthy, she's helped me so much because she doesn't really diet. She just eats healthy. And she's like, you you shouldn't don't be dieting.
• 29:01
  Just eat healthy. And it's really helped me actually to understand, you know, how to approach this. So I I wanna pivot a little bit and talk about antioxidants because I understand that's something you do a lot with, and I've grown up hearing about how important they are. And I remember when, like, the the palm drink first came out
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:20
  Seth Holehouse: The pomegranate juice, and everyone was raving about it with antioxidants. But walk me through, like, actually, as if I'm a of a two year old that understands antioxidants a little bit, walk me through what are antioxidants and why are they so important in our overall diet?
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know, may maybe I'll start this with a with a simple statement by asking you a question, it's rhetorical, why are fruits and vegetables good for you? I mean, what is their true benefit? Mom always said, Eat your fruits and vegetables, they're good for you. We never really understood why or how. So, Yeah, natural compounds, right?
• 29:59
  It's like, Hey, can we prove? People often ask me, What do you do for a living? I actually proved mom right, you know, that we need to eat our fruits and vegetables. And the question is, Why? And what is in those fruits and vegetables that are so good for us?
• 30:11
  Obviously, we have dietary fiber, we have vitamins and minerals, those are great sources for that, but kind of the secret to these, like, you know, healthy fruits and vegetables really aren't reliant in their, we call them phytochemicals, phyto for plant and chemical is a natural chemical, nothing synthetic, it's all natural, you know, put there by God, and here they are. And so we started trying to figure out, okay, you know, for years we said, what do these compounds do for your body? You know, are they anti inflammatory? Are they, you know, do they augment chronic diseases? And we started realizing it's like, yeah, they actually do do that.
• 30:47
  And obviously, no, these kinds are different in every plant, you know, so you look at the phytochemicals in a carrot, they're going to be different than the phytochemicals in a blueberry. And so, okay, are the compounds going to, you know, should we eat more blueberries? Should we eat more carrots? Well, there we go. Eat your diversity of fruits and vegetables along the way.
• 31:07
  But these compounds are basically, they're just nature's little antioxidants and the fact that they can donate an electron to an oxidized system. So your body, you're constantly aging, your body is in a constant state of what we call oxidative stress. Just breathing, waking up every day, normal cellular function in your body is an oxidative stress to us. So the concept behind this is that when we're eating high concentrations of these natural chemicals, yes, they're chemicals, in our body, they can help us to lower that oxidative stress. You're a stressed day at work, you live in a city and you're breathing air pollutants all day, you're eating those pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides from your diet, again, because all of us can't eat organic all the time, these natural compounds can help us fight that.
• 31:56
  They can help your body, basically enhance its immune responses, enhance its anti inflammatory responses and antioxidant systems. And so we found this link between, hey, there's this kind of this, you know, relationship between when we're eating these healthy foods that are really high in these antioxidants, we're seeing a change in long term chronic disease, you know, manifestation. So there's a link there, okay? It's, okay, it's not like not chemotherapy, right? It's not, I have a headache, I drink some, I eat a blueberry and my headache's gone five minutes later.
• 32:35
  They're not miracle compounds, but again, these are compounds found in your diet. You should be eating them three times a day minimum, right? And even supplementing, you can get higher concentrations, and it's that long term effect again. You're eating these compounds that have normal benefits to your body. Your body was made to synthesize and metabolize these compounds.
• 32:55
  It's amazing as we look, for example, at the gut microbiome. There are bacteria in your gut that express metabolizing enzymes, it's basically a biological protein, are their sole purpose on the planet is to metabolize a compound found in fruits and vegetables, and we find no other reason why it's there. That's the only thing that enzyme does. So those bacteria were put on this earth along with these fruits and vegetables to to meet somewhere, and that meeting place is in your colon. And so it's amazing just how, you know, if you don't eat these compounds, those bacteria have nothing to do, and they're doing nothing for you.
• 33:35
  So it's amazing how we're all kind of put together in this great plan of natural foods and bacteria in our gut, and these antioxidants that are present. And so, that's the benefit of those compounds. We just started, you know, researching compounds that are fruits that are really high and vegetables that were really high. And so, you know, some fruits got really hyped up and some fruits, you know, didn't along the way. You know, my philosophy is they all are beneficial compounds for us.
• 34:04
  So the more and diverse of those compounds you can eat, and and eat long term and consistently, the better benefits you're gonna be. So mom was probably right in all.
• 34:14
  Seth Holehouse: Yeah. Mom was right, and my wife was white. Right. So Outset her. Yeah.
• 34:19
  It's okay. And so with with antioxidants, I I mentioned, you know, palm and the pomegranates and, you know, the whole huge craze about that. But what are some of the the foods, fruits, vegetables that have the highest levels of antioxidants?
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: That's a question I never get. No. Obviously, you know, a lot of marketing behind a lot of fruit, fruits like that. If you think about, you know, like, let's take fruits for example. The fruits that are naturally going to be the highest in these antioxidants are going to be your darker colored fruits.
• 34:51
  So look at the flash of strawberries, you know, light red, blueberry is dark, dark purple, dark blue, in its color, so you're probably going to naturally see there's more of these compounds, you know, in a blueberry, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't eat strawberries, okay, along the way. It's also where these compounds are located, and maybe something we'll talk about a little bit, but, you know, the skin and the peel of most of these fruits and vegetables are where most of these compounds reside. And we think it's there for disease protection, insect protection, physical damage, and so and they're exposed to the sun. So a lot of these compounds are synthesized by light exposure. And so, yeah, so that's, know, dark fruits are a great place to start along the way when you go on the vegetable side, you know, the green leafy vegetables.
• 35:39
  It's kind of weird. You look at a vegetable like spinach, oh, spinach is so healthy for you, what is in that spinach? Well, we see this dark green spinach, which is chlorophyll, but if you were to take all the chlorophyll away from spinach, spinach is actually bright yellow. It's loaded with carotenoids, which is, you know, carotenoids, beta carotene. And so that that green chlorophyll is kind of hiding that that beta carotene hiding underneath the cells there, but, those those are great places to go.
• 36:04
  And, of course, I've I've done a ton of research with carrots along the way, I'm a big advocate of carrots as a nice, you know, simple way of getting basic nutrition into your body. These carotenoids are lipophilic, some of these are fat soluble. The compounds in fruits tend to be water soluble, so you get a good combination between compounds that are fat soluble and compounds that are water soluble.
• 36:25
  Seth Holehouse: And what about grapes? Right? Because I see you you've got grapes behind you. I know you do some work in in kinda consulting with the the Muscat you know, Mighty Muscadine, Vintastic, which is, you know, a company that I work with, and I my family loves these drinks. But so what about grapes, and and what about the Muscadine specifically?
• 36:42
  Because, actually, I I hadn't heard of Muscadine grapes before, before I discovered this company, but walk me through what's going on there.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Okay. So I'll just kind of back up just a bit. You know, I have I have my my entire research, I've kind of worked a lot with kind of exotic fruits, you know, fruits that you gotta get on an airplane to go find. So, you know, like fruits like acai, and we're working with japocha kava right now, a fruit you've also probably never heard of before. You know, camu camu, these fruits that grow on the on the shores of the Amazon River down in down in South America.
• 37:15
  And, you know, for you know, pomegranates, same way. I mean, you know, nobody had pomegranates twenty years ago, and now they're everywhere. You can buy them at the local, you know, garden center and put one in your backyard if you want. That's how common they are. But muscadine, wow.
• 37:32
  I mean, what a what an amazing fruit that's right here in our own backyard that I would say 90% of Americans have never heard of. You don't really need to get on the airplane to go to go find it because they grow all throughout the Southeastern United States. And so I discovered muscadines when I was probably old enough to walk. I grew up in Southeast Texas, they've grown wild, they're a naturally occurring grape. And so we were literally throwing rocks and sticks at them to knock them out of the tops of trees.
• 37:59
  The vine was brought to the side of a pine tree or an oak tree, and you see these gigantic, big, huge, you know, grapes, and you bite into one, you're like, wow, where has this grape been my entire life? It is just a flavor bomb, an explosion of just, you know, fruity flavors. It's amazing. Again, so much so, I put it on a vineyard of my own. And when I was at University of Florida and I, you know, was a professor there initially before I came to Texas A and M, you know, we would take extracts of these muskermine grapes and we would put it under our analytical instrumentation, and I was like, holy cow, I could literally spend a lifetime studying all these compounds.
• 38:38
  It is just a diversity of compounds here is amazing. You know, a fun exercise I do is to name a healthy fruit, and the compounds that are found in a healthy fruit, the muscadine grape probably also has those same healthy compounds. It is just, it's got a little bit of everything. It's got probably over a hundred different antioxidants that have been identified in the grape. And so, yeah, so we had a chance to to use some existing technology in how you extract these antioxidants, we we call them polyphenols, and and make a concentrate from those polyphenols and put them into a product like Vintastic so that you now have a healthy beverage year round.
• 39:18
  You don't have to wait till the season, which is, you know, August, September, and it gives you an opportunity to experience the health benefits and these antioxidant polyphenols year round. So that was of one of the concepts behind, you know, in putting together Vintasic.
• 39:33
  Seth Holehouse: And so the muscadine grape, is is it because I I hadn't, again, I hadn't heard about it. You know, I I grew up in Ohio, and and in in Ohio, you know, we'd have frost grapes or, you know, we we would have natural grapes, and they're they're actually invasive, you know, in a lot of ways. And so people hate them and but, you know, I was like, oh, it's just just, you know, God's like giving us food. Right? And if there's if there's ever a food shortage, you're gonna be, like, like, kicking yourself for cutting down all the grapevines that were growing up your, you know, your your bushes or your trees.
• 40:03
  So with the the muscadine, is it is it just kind of like your average grape, or is it there's is it something that that's more specific that it's higher in antioxidants or polyphenols? Or
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: It tends to be. Exactly. I mean, you gotta realize the musculine grape is native to the Southeast Of The United States. So it's a it's a it's a the the grape shell we're growing maybe for your wineries and juice in Ohio or California or New York are genus and species called Vitis vinifera. So, muscadine is also a Vitis, which is a grape, but its species is called rotundifolia, so it's vitis rotundifolia.
• 40:43
  So it's a little bit different in obviously its genetic composition, but absolutely, it grows in, you know, in places right now where we have really warm winters. I'm in Texas right now, it's short sleeves shirt weather today, these really mild winters cause a lot of disease and insect pressure on plants. So if I was to take, you know, let's say a Cabernet Sauvignon from California and plant it in my vineyard in Texas, it would die in just probably a couple of years. The disease would just be too much. There's bacterial pressure, there's mold pressure, mildew pressure, insect pressure, predation issues.
• 41:25
  And so over the millennia, this grape has just developed this tolerance for the heat. It's developed tolerance for disease pressure. And in doing so, in this protective note, remember, maybe we're talking about sunshine also helping synthesize these compounds in the hot humid summers, these these grapes just put on a tremendous amount of these antioxidants in response to heat and light, and they they just turn into some of the most the the highest antioxidant containing, highest polyphenolic containing grapes on the planet, as well as the diversity of compounds that are there. There's just they're, you know, they're really more like a small dark fruit than they are a grape. They resemble more of a raspberry, a strawberry, a blueberry, a blackberry than they do, you know, your standard table grape that you might find.
• 42:11
  So these grapes are like supercharged grapes, amazing flavor, super hearty, you know. This is my vineyard as well. I mean, I've never sprayed anything. You don't need to do anything. The grapes just take care of themselves.
• 42:25
  It's amazing. Even, like, when an insect comes and land on the leaf, the leaf will actually, like, curl up and kill the insect. I find these little leaves curled up, and inside there's a dead insect. I'm like, wow. Not like a Venus flytrap, but, I mean, they protect themselves, and so they put all the all that energy into synthesizing these amazing compounds that when we eat them, we get the benefits from them.
• 42:46
  Seth Holehouse: And so how because okay. Looking at a few things you told me that the the skin contains most of the benefit, which also, I mean, growing up, I remember my, you know, my mom saying, hey. You know, eat your potato skin also because a lot of the nutrients are in the potato skin, and actually, I learned to eat to enjoy potato skins. So considering the skins are on these grapes, but also considering that what you do is scientifically perfect the method of extracting and preserving things like antioxidants, etcetera, what do you do? Like, what's the process with the muscadine grapes and vinetastic versus, say, Welch's grape juice?
• 43:23
  Or or even say a not from concentrate, you know, kinda healthier grape juice, just your typical, you know, kinda grape juice you'll find in in a in your grocery store.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Well, the hallmark of a muscadine grape is it's in just unusually thick skin. I mean, if you just, like, go to the grocery store and find an average grape, take and look at the the thickness of that grape's skin, muscadine will probably be a hundred times that thick. It is a massive thick skin, and again, all those nutrients are found in that. So, you know, for a product like Vantastik, we're starting with an extract of those skins and seeds. So when you're pressing out grape juice, that juice, I mean, the process for Welsh's or other juices is the same.
• 44:06
  We're literally crushing the grapes and pressing them in the juice and getting grape juice out of that. The difference is that we're saving those skins and seeds leftover from the muscadine, which contains, again, you know, 95% of all the antioxidants in the grape are in those skins and seeds, and we're simply air drying those to preserve them as quickly as possible. And then we're coming back, and this is where, you know, the Vinetastic product starts with patented process for extracting those antioxidant polyphenolics from the dried skins and seeds, and we can concentrate those, okay, to incredibly high concentrations. This is where you can't get this in any other form of the market, and we concentrate it to a liquid concentrate. And so from that liquid concentrate is what we're adding to Vintastic in order to get an efficacious dose of antioxidant polyphenols in every bottle.
• 45:01
  So that's goal behind, you know, the the processing mechanisms. And and why muscarina is just really so different from other from other grapes and other fruits is that super high concentration leftover in their skins and seeds.
• 45:13
  Seth Holehouse: I see. So while a a typical grape juice is taking the grapes, squeezing, the juice comes out, maybe they take the leftover skin and seeds, and that they sell them off, you know, or using some of their process. But what what you're doing is you're squeezing them out, then you're taking the ski the skin and the seeds, which are the most nutrient dense. You're you're drying them and then further extracting the the oil or the essence of those and then kind of putting that into the grape juice along with the the juiced grapes. Is that correct?
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, yeah, we we can sell the juice separately, but yeah. So in this case, we can we can take this super concentrated water soluble extract of the of these polyphenols, and and we can use them in all kinds of products, fantastic, they can go into energy shots, they can go into cosmetic products, or that can actually be dried again and put into, say, a capsule or some sort of supplement form, which allows you again to get these antioxidants year round, because you're not just waiting for the harvest season, which is very short, obviously a very short shelf life from fresh grape. So it allows us to expand manufacturing and get these healthy compounds, you know, in your diet every single day. That's the idea behind it, right?
• 46:28
  We a way of eating these things every single day, and so when you wake up this morning and the only thing you have to eat is a Pop Tart in your kitchen, you know, at least it gives you an opportunity to perhaps supplement your diet either with this Fynt tastic, which is basically an antioxidant infused water, or with, you know, a dried capsule that contains grapes, seeds, and skins. So there's lots of options for you. So even when you can't eat healthy, you can't find organic, you're stuck eating these refined foods, it allows you to get these these beneficial compounds into your diet at every single meal.
• 47:02
  Seth Holehouse: So even if you're you refused to give up your Pop Tarts, at least have some healthy stuff along with the Pop Tarts. Right? I
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: mean, are we gonna make America stop eating Pop Tarts tomorrow? No. I mean, we're not. I mean, that's that's the reality of the situation.
• 47:17
  Seth Holehouse: It is.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Plus for people to to eat healthy, but it's it's not realistic today. And and this is where I'm I'm really curious of, you know, with RFK junior. He's he's proposing some solutions that'll be today's solutions, not a year or ten years from now solutions. So I'd be curious how his confirmation goes, but even if confirmed or not, we still have a conscious decision to make, right? We need to start making decisions that we're going to start this today, and we're to do this every single meal, and we're going to be consistent about it, or your whole body doesn't work.
• 47:49
  I mean, that's the idea, body has to work with these compounds, and some of these compounds were made for your body, and so we're not taking full advantage of your body's normal system and your ability to digest and the and the bacteria in your gut to actually metabolize and for your body to absorb and utilize these compounds for your long term health benefits.
• 48:11
  Seth Holehouse: Makes a lot of sense. Well, so I'll bring it here's the website. It's just mightymuscadine.com. I'll throw that into the into the description. We I think we have a code set up, Seth, s e t h.
• 48:22
  I think they'll get free shipping and, some sort of discount, which is always good. When I was first looking into, this company, you know, because I I I never wanna recommend anything that I don't try or or love or use myself. And we got a couple of cases of the the flavored drinks, like the blueberry cherry potpourri, pomegranate, pineapple mango, and then we got, like, the just like the straight grape juice and the energy shots. And and my family, we blew through them. Like, it was funny because I thought, oh, this is gonna last us, like, months because I had a couple boxes of these things, and no.
• 48:55
  It wasn't like a meal. Oh, I I was drinking two or three of these things every day. My daughter, my four year old, she's we have a little bar fridge. It's her fridge. And so she's, you know now, of course, we limit it, and she can't open the bottles on her own.
• 49:06
  So, you know, she can't get she can't drink 12 bottles of grape juice in a day, but constantly, you know, kind of the grape juice, kind of the grape juice because it's it's actually really, really good. It's like because I I grew up loving, you know, Welch's grape juice, and I remember the commercials where the kid do they, like, lip smack after they they drink the grape juice, and and this stuff just blew that away. So it's it's really good, but it's also it's nice because, you know, it's healthy, but it also it tastes good. So it's that whole combination of it's not just, you know, giving my my daughter, you know, chocolate or some sugary stuff or something that's useless. It's actually okay.
• 49:40
  Okay. Yeah. This obviously has natural sweeteners in it from the the grapes, and but it's it's so good for her. And and we know we've actually been really healthy, and I'm not gonna say it's only that. We do a lot of stuff, but actually, my family overall, you know, most famous I talked to, they say, oh, we we had a nasty bug going around and, you know, all the you know, we were sick, and we've actually been really, really healthy, especially through this winter season, which has been good.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Works, isn't it?
• 50:03
  Seth Holehouse: It is. It is.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: So, Steve You you mentioned your daughter, so it was a funny funny little story as we were developing fine Vintastic. You know, we were in the offices of Mighty Muscadine there in North Carolina, and you know, I had different flavor profiles and different concentrations of the extract, and so we were all sampling, figuring out how we want to get this product to taste. And the owner of the company, Mr. Jerry Smith, his granddaughter, who was about five or six in the room at the time, and so we were all sampling, and she had drunk her little small sample, and her little tongue wasn't long enough to get into the bottom. So she was over there in the corner with her tongue trying to lick the bottom of the of the cup.
• 50:45
  And I looked over and said, okay, when a five year old likes this product and they're trying to get the last drop out of the bottle, you know your kids will drink it. So there you go. So there's that starting them off early along the way, giving them something that they're gonna like that has no sugars, no artificial colors, no artificial flavors, and that has a healthy dose of these polyphenolics and these antioxidants. I mean, there's a way right there to start your family, you and your family off on on a different foot this year.
• 51:15
  Seth Holehouse: It's great. It's great. Well, Steve, thank you for for coming to us. It looks like live from your your your vineyard behind you. But I I appreciate you, you know, giving me your time today and just doing what you're doing.
• 51:28
  And I do hope that the the whole idea of making America healthy again is not just lip service because I'd love to see obesity, diabetes, you know, autism. I'd love to see all these things go from this upward curve, you know, back downward to getting us back to a really healthy baseline as a country. And I think that, you know, the work that you're doing is gonna, hopefully contribute to that. So I I thank you for what you're doing, and thank you for giving me your time today.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Seth.
• 51:55
  Seth Holehouse: Oh, absolutely. Take care. Numbers don't lie. The impact that Balance of Nature makes every single day is astounding. You can see the numbers for yourself at their website, balanceofnature.com.
• 52:07
  So listen to these stats concerning Balance of Nature's worldwide success. More than a thousand success stories are reported each month. Hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide. Millions of orders delivered each year and billions, yes, billions of fruits and veggie supplements consumed by people who've decided to start living better. There's only one number missing.
• 52:30
  That's you. Do what I did and add yourself to these numbers. Start taking Balance of Nature's whole food supplements like so many others around the world. Here's another number that should get your attention, 35%. Use my discount code Seth to get 35% off plus free shipping and their money back guarantee.
• 52:49
  You must use my discount code Seth. So call them at 802468751 and use the discount code Seth, or order online at balanceofnature.com. Use discount code Seth to get 35% off plus free shipping.