>> Hi, I'm Lewis Howes, New York Times best-selling author and entrepreneur, and welcome to "The School of Greatness," where we interview the most influential minds and leaders in the world to inspire you to live your best life today.

And in this episode, we sit down with Dr. Mark Hyman, American physician and number-one New York Times best-selling author of multiple books.

And today we talk about the importance of a healthy diet and what changes you can make today to improve your health to feel better and live longer.

I'm so glad you're here today, so let's dive in and let the class begin.

♪ ♪ >> So, at the top level, we have to understand that, over the last 40 years, the tsunami has come that we weren't aware was coming, that we weren't prepared for, and still haven't grappled with, and that tsunami is chronic disease and food-related illness.

>> In 40 years?

>> In 40 years.

>> Did we have chronic disease prior to this?

>> We did.

Of course we did, but not to the magnitude.

We used to have, like, 5% obesity rates in this country in the early '60s.

It's 40% now in most states.

>> I thought it was like 30%, like, a few years ago.

>> Nope.

Nope.

Nope-ity nope.

It's like... >> 40%?

>> ...many states are 40%, and many are just pushing 40.

So, it's 35% to 40%, depending on where you look at it.

Like, California's probably less.

Colorado's less.

But Mississippi and Alabama are, you know, 40-plus.

So, we have 6 out of every 10 Americans who's got a chronic illness.

4 out of 10 who have more than one.

By 10 years from now, we're gonna have 83 million with three or more chronic diseases -- heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, dementia, you name it.

We are having 11 million people -- and this is, I think, a conservative estimate -- 11 million people around the world die every year from bad food, from ultra-processed food and not enough good food.

Now, I think it's more like 50 million when you look at all the related conditions and so forth.

It's a staggering number that beats out smoking, war, violence, accidents.

You name it, nothing else comes close.

Not malaria, TB, AIDS -- all that is a fraction, a third, of the deaths that are caused by chronic illness, and they're mostly preventable, and they're mostly caused by food, and they're mostly caused by the ultra-processed food that our food system produces en masse.

It's the biggest industry on the planet.

It's $15 trillion -- about 17% of the world's global product -- and it is controlled by a few dozen CEOs... >> Really?

>> ...that are in monopolies around seed production, agrochemicals, fertilizer, processed food companies.

Why are we eating all this food?

It's because that's the food we produce.

Right?

And so that's the other part of the problem.

We have the chronic disease, we have the economic impact, and then we're like, "Well, why do we have this food?"

So, as a functional medicine doctor, I'm always asking why.

Because as I was thinking about my patients' diseases, most of them were caused by food and can be cured by food.

>> Mm.

>> Some think, "Well, if" -- >> How many are "most of them"?

Is this, like, 50%, 70%?

>> 80.

>> 80% of anyone that comes into the hospital, or your patients, have some type of disease or some type of sickness -- >> I mean, unless it's like an environmental thing like mercury or lime or mold, you know, most of the -- >> Or cancer.

>> Cancer -- Cancer's caused by food.

>> Really?

>> 70%.

>> 70% of cancer is caused by food?

>> And sugar is the number-one culprit.

Heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, heart disease.

The big killers -- >> Are by sugar and food?

>> Yes.

>> So, if you change your diet, you should be able to... >> Prevent those.

>> ...prevent -- >> Or cure sometimes.

>> Sometimes cure.

Depends on how far along things are, I guess?

>> Yeah.

>> You could prevent heart disease, Alzheimer's.

>> Yes.

100%.

I mean, the studies are there.

>> That's crazy.

>> Even people who already have Alzheimer's, when they improve their diet, they can -- >> They get more functionality back.

>> Yeah.

So, you've got me thinking, "Okay, well, if the patients' diseases are caused by food, what's causing the food?"

It's the food system.

And I'm like, "Well, what's causing the food system?"

It's our food policies.

Like, "What's causing our food policies?"

It's the food industry that's lobbying Congress -- >> It's got money.

>> It's the biggest lobby group in Congress is agriculture and food.

By far.

Like, by twice as much as the next lobby group.

>> By, like, gas and oil or whatever, yeah.

>> Yeah, exactly.

Right.

And it's like, what?

So, then I began thinking, "Well, if I'm gonna help my patients, I can't do it in my office."

I can -- It's like I'm in the boat, bailing the boat with a hole instead of plugging the hole.

>> Yeah.

You're not going to the source.

>> Right.

So, then I'm thinking, "Okay, well, what do I need to do as a functional medicine doctor?"

I need to go to the root cause, right, the root cause and why.

And then it became clear to me that it's our agricultural system that's driving so much of the problem.

And what we grow is based on good intentions that -- We're in the '50s, people are hungry.

There wasn't enough food.

There was a lot of poverty.

And so we figured out a system to produce and abundance of starchy calories.

>> So we could have food and not starve.

>> So we could have food.

>> Cheap.

>> Cheap, abundant.

Corn and wheat and soy, which are the commodity crops that are turned into industrial-processed food, which is now 60% of our diet.

And for every 10% of that you eat, your risk of death goes up by 14%.

>> Shut up.

>> Yeah.

>> Crazy.

>> So, you're basically, you know, feeding Americans a diet we know is going to kill them.

The research is so clear on this.

There's no scientific debate, and yet we don't do anything about it because we have these dysfunctional food policies.

And then the way we grow the food causes climate change.

We'll get into that, but the number-one cause of climate change is our food system.

>> Really?

>> People don't realize that.

I didn't know it.

I'm like, "I think it's oil and, you know, gas and all this stuff."

>> But what is it?

Is it the trucking?

Is it the animal feces?

>> End to end.

Okay, so first of all, deforestation is devastating.

Not only do we, like, destroy the soil on which we cut down the trees, but the trees are a carbon sink, so we lose that.

>> So, they're not sucking in the bad air, putting out good air.

>> Right.

I mean, basically plants suck out carbon dioxide.

That's what they breathe.

We breathe oxygen, they breathe carbon dioxide.

So, perfect antidote, right?

And then the soil, also, we're damaging by the way we're farming.

We've lost a third of our top soil.

It's responsible -- People don't know this, but of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the loss of soil, organic matter, like healthy, rich soil, is responsible for 30% to 40% of all greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.

>> Does that mean -- Why is that?

>> Okay, because soil is -- it can hold more carbon than is in the atmosphere right now.

>> Really?

>> There is a trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere, which is a lot.

A trillion tons, I don't even know how to measure that.

And the soil can hold three trillion tons of carbon.

And how does it do that?

It's an ancient carbon-capture technology that is available all over the world, that's... >> Free.

>> ...free.

>> Yeah.

>> That can be more effective than all the rainforests on the planet, than all the forests and trees on the planet.

It's called photosynthesis.

>> Uh-huh.

>> And if you have, like, grasslands, for example, like we had big prairies in the United States, they sucked down carbon, they breathe it, and they put it through the plants, into the roots, feeds the microorganism fungi, which then make healthy soil, feeds the bacteria, and you get this incredibly rich-life soil that holds tremendous amounts of organic matter that is carbon.

Right?

I mean, carbohydrates comes from the word "carbon," which comes from carbon dioxide.

>> Wow.

>> Right.

Ding, ding, ding.

It all connects.

>> Interesting.

>> And so we've lost -- >> So, we don't have the soil for it to consume, then we -- it just bounces off back into the air, I guess, and we're consuming it in other ways.

>> Yeah.

And the soil can hold so much carbon.

The UN estimated that if we took the five -- of the five million hectares of degraded farmland around the world, if we took just two million of that and spent $300 billion, which is the total military spend for 60 days around the world, which is not much -- 60 days, two months of everybody's military spending, we literally could stall climate change by 20 years because of putting back the carbon in the soil.

And not only that, it holds water.

You see, you know, in Iowa and in the midwest, there was floods that just destroyed a million acres of crop land that otherwise could've been fine if the soil could hold the water, but it just sits on the top or it runs through and we lose all this water.

So, when you have organic matter in the soil, it holds 27,000 gallons for every 1% organic matter in the soil per acre.

So it's an incredible water sink, it's a carbon sink, and we've lost all these soils, and it's because we're growing these commodity crops in ways that destroy soil.

>> Soil.

Gotcha.

>> We're tilling the soil, we're turning it over.

Soil erosion, it runs off into the rivers.

We kill all the life in the organic matter by poisoning it with fertilizer, with pesticides, with glyphosate, herbicides, and it's staggering.

And then we have all these sort of unintended consequences.

You know, we started growing all this food and we thought this agriculture revolution was great, all these chemicals were great, you know, fertilizer's great, we can do all this good stuff, tractors, big farms, more food.

>> Right.

>> Feed the world.

It backfired on us.

>> Wow.

>> And it's producing the worst food on the planet, it's causing devastating environmental damage, staggering climate change, so it's the soil loss, it's the deforestation, it's the factory farming the animals, which should be banned.

It's the transportation, storage, refrigeration, and the food waste.

I mean, food waste -- >> A lot of waste.

>> Yeah, but we waste 40% of our food.

>> That's on our plate.

We don't eat it.

>> Imagine going to the grocery store, buying a bunch of groceries, getting home, and throwing 40% in the garbage.

The average American wastes $1,800 of food a year, and that's about a pound a day.

And that goes to landfills.

The landfills, then it rots and creates methanes.

So, you could be a vegan throwing out your food waste and scraps and you could be contributing climate change.

If food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah.

It's methane we produce, and we need to compost.

We need to have community gardens.

Like, always to fix it, but it's like, when you look at the whole end-to-end food system, it is the number-one source of climate change.

About 50% of greenhouse gases.

And people just don't appreciate that.

>> So, why -- I mean, if this information is public and it's out there and policymakers are aware of it -- >> They're not.

>> They're not aware?

>> No.

I spent two hours on a sailboat this summer with a senator, a smart senator.

>> Who wasn't aware of it?

>> And I -- Literally, his jaw was hanging open the entire time.

>> They're not presented with this research and information?

>> No.

No.

>> Because they got so much money sent to them by the lobbyists, probably.

>> Right.

I mean, listen.

If all the people who are walking in their office are Monsanto and Cargill and, you know, McDonald's and Pepsi and, like, and they're all donating millions of dollars -- I would say billions of dollars -- they're not hearing the other side of the science.

>> Because in the UK -- And you were talking about in Asia you were saying that you can't do certain things with the food otherwise you'll go to prison, you'll go to -- you'll get killed, you'll... >> Well, yeah.

>> I mean, in the UK, they don't have a lot of these dyes, right?

>> Yeah, so it's funny.

You know, the FDA, you know, is so influenced by the food industry.

And I was once with the former head of the Federal Drug Administration -- Food and Drug Administration.

And I was at the World Economic Forum.

I said, "Peggy, how come, you know, we have so much trouble with getting advances in food labeling or dealing with toxic chemicals in our food or the antibiotics in animal feed?"

You know what I mean?

She's like -- She's like, "Well, when we try to make too aggressive change, Congress threatens to shut down our funding because of the food lobby."

>> They threaten to shut it down?

>> Yeah.

>> And then what?

If they shut it down, what would happen?

>> Well, they're limited in their ability to do their job.

In, for example, you asked the question about Asia, we have this thing called grass, which is generally recognized as safe.

So, the food additives -- we have, you know, thousands of food additives, only about 5% have actually been tested for safety.

>> In the US you're talking about?

>> Some of them are grandfathered in.

So, Crisco, for example, trans fat, was grandfathered in as a safe food to eat, but it'd take 50 years for researchers to finally prove to the FDA that it wasn't safe because it was the basis of all processed food.

Crisco, shortening, you know, it shortens your life.

>> Oh, my gosh.

>> And so they literally had to be sued by a scientist in order to actually turn it into a "non-safe substance."

And then, of course, they gave the food industry years and years to get it out of the food.

>> Right.

>> But -- But in this country, there's so many things that are used in our food supply that are banned in Europe, like BHT -- butylated hydroxytoluene -- food additives, various dyes, and something called azodicarbonamide, which is a softener that makes, like, bread more, like, fluffy and soft.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> And it was just in Subway sandwiches.

Our friend Vani Hari outed them and said, "This is your yoga mat material in your Subway sandwich."

>> And they got it taken out, right?

>> Yeah, and she got it out.

But the FDA still says it's fine to eat, and in Singapore, if you use it and you're a food producer, you get a $450,000 fine and 15 years in jail for putting it in the food.

>> That same ingredient?

>> That same ingredient.

>> That anyone can use in the US right now?

>> In the US, yes.

And most of the things that are "safe" here are banned in Europe.

So, it's like, yeah.

They're not doing their job.

And then the antibiotics.

We have 30 million pounds of antibiotics are used in the animal feed.

We have about 37 million total, so about 7 million for humans to treat disease and 30 million for animals.

Why?

For growth.

It's a growth factor.

>> Right.

>> It makes them fat.

And it makes humans fat, too.

And it is used for prevention from overcrowding.

And the FDA says, "Well, this isn't a good idea."

I mean, nobody thinks it's a good idea.

But they go, "Would you pretty please not do it?"

It was a voluntary guideline that the FDA produced.

Not mandatory -- >> "Please don't do it."

Yeah.

>> You have to have a vet certify that the animal's sick before you give them antibiotics.

>> Oh, man.

>> And now they, you know, continue to do it and just laugh.

The FDA put in voluntary guidelines around junk food marketing.

"Would you pretty please not advertise the bad stuff and advertise more good stuff?"

It was just voluntary, and the food industry went ballistic and had it overturned.

So even the voluntary guidelines are nullified.

>> Like, "No."

Wow.

>> And it just -- >> I mean, sugar, I mean, it's like...I'm the first one to raise my hand when I say, like, I love sugar.

>> Everybody does.

>> It's my biggest vice.

I love cookies and candies and cakes and brownies and anything you can think of, I love it, right?

>> We've been programmed on sugar.

>> I don't know why I don't have diabetes, so much sugar I've had my whole life.

And I don't know if it was just like subconscious or it tasted good and you didn't think about it.

>> I mean, this is where the food industry is so, so strategic about how it advances its mission and goals.

And it does it through multiple channels, and I'm just gonna go through them because people just don't know.

>> Celebrity endorsements, right?

>> Yeah.

First, you know, obviously celebrity endorsements, which is the obvious one.

They co-opt social groups, so they fund groups like the NAACP and Hispanic Federation.

The African-American and Latino communities are the most affected by diabetes and obesity.

I went to Spelman College, you know, which is African-American women's college in Atlanta, and the dean said to me half of the 18 year olds coming into college have a chronic illness -- obesity, hypertension, diabetes.

18-year-old women.

And I'm like, "Why is there soda machines all over the campus?

Why?"

It's because Coke funds... >> No.

>> And one of the people on the board of trustees is one of the highest executives... >> At Coke.

>> At Coca-Cola.

>> Oh, man.

>> An African-American woman.

It's like, so, they co-opt social groups.

And then, of course, they fund research.

They fund 12 times as much research, $12 billion worth of research a year, to study nutrition.

So Gatorade gets studied by Pepsi.

[ Chuckles ] >> Really?

>> Gatorade's the best thing in the world.

It's not.

It's just sugar.

Right?

>> Right, right.

>> So, it corrupts and pollutes science so people are confused.

Why is there so much confusion about nutrition science?

Third, they create front groups called spin doctors, so they create front groups that seem like they're independent groups like CropLife or... >> And they're tweeting that.

>> The Center for Consumer Freedom.

Or the American Council on Science and Health, which, by the way, is run by a bunch of doctors who suggest that pesticides are safe and high-fructose corn syrup is great for you, that smoking doesn't cause disease.

And you know... >> Why would they do that?

'Cause they get paid a lot?

>> They're funded by Monsanto and Big Food and Pepsi.

Just look at their funders.

And, I mean, they spend $30 million fighting GMO-labeling in California, this front group.

It was all funded by Monsanto.

Right?

And then -- So, you've got these front groups, and then you have the nutrition academies, the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association.

Their funding, in large part, comes from industry.

And so the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, which is our main nutrition association, 40% of their funding comes from the food industry.

You know, they have "sponsored," you know, "lectures" at their meetings that -- You know, when people say, "Well, high-fructose corn syrup is good and diet drinks are good" and, like... >> Right.

>> It's just completely corrupted.

And so these professional societies give guidelines and they're corrupt.

And Dr. Ioannidis from Stanford, who's a scientist who looks carefully at the research and conflicts of interest, says, you know, these professional societies like the American Heart Association and Diabetes Association should not be making guidelines.

And then -- So, you've got all these ways in which they've sort of screwed things up, and then of course they're aggressive in advertising and marketing, which is illegal in most countries, and then they have lobbyists running around in Washington driving policy that supports all they do.

So, you've got this massive effort, and it's often subversive and illegal, and it's, you know, it's kind of shady.

>> Yeah.

>> So, this is all the bad news.

The good news is that, you know, we can fix these problems.

We can reverse climate change.

We can reverse chronic disease.

We can fix these dysfunctional food policies.

We can end some of the social injustice issues, which we didn't talk about as it's related to food.

We can actually help save our economy if we change the way we grow food, the way we process food, the way we distribute, market, eat it, and waste it.

And we can do that.

It's not like we need to invent some new technology.

We have the ability to do it.

We know what to do.

The science is there.

It just is gonna take a grassroots movement and some political pressure to do it.

>> What would be the first steps that someone could take to help?

>> Well, I think, you know -- >> It seems like such a big... >> It is, it is.

So, let's talk about some of the solutions.

So, we know, you know, food is causing chronic disease, it's destroying our economy, it's crippling our climate, it's destroying our environment and killing all the pollinators and all biodiversity, and it's causing social injustice because it targets poor minorities that suffer from problems.

It prevents kids from learning in school 'cause we're eating all this crap and it threatens our national security, creates political instability.

So, we know all these things.

But the good news is that by fixing the food system, we can solve these.

And how do we do it?

Well, it's gonna need citizen action, it's gonna need business innovation, and it's gonna need policy change, and, of course, other philanthropists and governments to help get on board.

And I think that's what's really exciting to me, 'cause there's so much hope.

So, for example, on a personal level, you can shift what you eat and what you do to drive change in the marketplace.

Why are companies like Nestle and Unilever and Danone creating regenerative ag programs within their supply chain?

Why are they trying to up the quality of their food and take out chemicals?

Because consumers are demanding it.

>> Or they're buying companies like Primal Kitchen that have, like, healthy -- >> Like Kraft, right, bought Primal Kitchen, which is basically a whole-foods, really high-quality, nutritious product to their [indistinct].

And, yes, that's part of the problem -- they're buying up these companies -- but I think they're seeing the change and there's a positive change.

I mean, General Mills just committed a million acres to regenerative agriculture.

That's incredible.

That happened because people are demanding different things by voting with their fork, voting with their wallet.

And I think we could also do things like joint community spread agriculture associations, which it's food delivered to your house from a local farm.

You could shop at farmers markets.

You can use a company like Thrive Market that sources regeneratively raised products or Mariposa Ranch where you can buy direct from the ranch regeneratively raised meats.

You can actually start a compost pile, which will help end food waste, because we don't throw out our scraps.

People in an apartment like this, you can still have an in-apartment little composting bucket that then you can take to a local compost place.

>> Interesting.

>> In some states, like in California and San Francisco, compost -- mandatory composting.

You can't put it in your garbage in states like -- in countries like France.

You get a fine and you can go to jail if you throw out your garbage.

In Massachusetts, they passed a law that if you produce more than a ton of food waste every week that you can't throw it out, so it's now created side businesses where Whole Foods and other grocery chains are giving their waste to farmers and dairy farmers who are struggling to make money 'cause dairy consumption's going down.

Everybody eats nut milks, right?

>> Right, right.

>> They -- They partner with this sort of venture firm, I think Vanguard, and they created this model of anaerobic incinerators, which essentially is a digester, an anaerobic digester where they throw in the food waste, they throw in some cow manure from the farm, and it produces energy that creates electricity for 1,500 homes from this one farm.

In Europe, there's 17,000 of these anaerobic digesters.

We should mandate that nationally so you can actually do something good with your waste.

So, there's a lot of things we can do.

You can actually be an activist in your schools.

I know so many people around the country who've been activists in their schools and got their school food changed.

>> So bad, the food.

>> It can be done with school nutrition guidelines.

It can be done with the budget.

There's a group called Conscious Kitchen which creates a template for schools to do this.

There's one called My Way Café in Boston where they've done this at scale.

And then, of course, we need government policy change, and that's the hardest part, right?

'Cause, you know, people go, "Oh, Washington, nothing's gonna change.

I give up."

But, you know, there are things getting done and there is a way to change things, and -- and -- the people you elect do care about getting re-elected, and they want your vote.

And if they know that you care about stuff, they will change things.

>> They'll change it.

>> They will change things.

>> They want to be in power.

>> Yes, they want to be in power.

>> They want to stay there.

>> So, we can actually be active.

And I'm working with a group that is an incredible strategy group that launched Bono's One Campaign, which has raised about $100 billion through congressional appropriations for AIDS and poverty relief.

Democrat-Republican bipartisan effort.

And they know how to make sausage in Washington, and I'm working with this group, and we're raising money to actually change the policies that matter.

You know, we need to start supporting regenerative ag.

We need to implement policies that great food is medicine to treat chronic disease.

We need to get rid of the dysfunctional food policies like food stamps, which, you know, pays for $7 billion in soda.

>> That's horrible.

>> You know, like, we need to get school lunches better.

We need to end all the food marketing to kids.

And these things are not gonna be easy.

We need better food labels so people know what the heck they're eating instead of, like, this says 40 grams of sugar.

Nobody knows that's 10 teaspoons.

So, like, there's so many things we can do, and we're working on a very focused strategy.

I'm super excited, 'cause, you know, one, unless you identify the problem, you know, you can't fix it.

And two, once you do, you can mobilize grassroots, you can pressure congressmen and senators.

You can do all sorts of things to change policy.

>> Yeah.

>> And I think it's got to happen here, it's got to happen globally.

It's a global problem.

You know, the decline of the Roman Empire was because of bad stuff that was going on there.

Well, our food is the decline of our empire.

>> Really?

>> Yeah.

Absolutely.

>> Well, if we're all sick and dead, we can't do anything.

>> I mean, yeah.

The amount of disability and suffering.

Mental illness is connected to food.

>> Depression.

>> Depression, obesity, chronic disease.

It limits our productivity, our ability to engage in life.

Like, we all want to feel good.

We want to have energy.

We want to be able to love the people we love in our life, to do the work we want, have a mission in life, to be energetic and engaged and not just want to sit there all day and binge on Netflix, right?

>> Yeah.

>> I mean, watching Netflix is fine, but, like, not in a way that avoids life because you feel so bad.

>> Yeah.

>> And I think what's frustrating for me is, Lewis, is that I see so much needless suffering.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, some of these we can't change.

You know, we can't change, you know, natural disasters.

You know, I can't -- I can't end war.

But this is a solvable problem.

>> Yeah.

It's solvable.

>> It is.

Yeah.

It's totally fixable.

>> Dr. Mark Hyman.

Appreciate you, man.

You're the best.

>> Alright.

>> Appreciate it.

We hope you enjoyed this episode and found it valuable for your life.

Make sure to stay tuned for more from "The School of Greatness" coming soon on public television.

Again, I'm Lewis Howes, and if no one has told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

If you'd like to continue on the journey of greatness with me, please check out my website, lewishowes.com, where you'll find over 1,000 episodes of "The School of Greatness" show, as well as tools and resources to support you in living your best life.

>> The online course "Find Your Greatness" is available for $19.

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