Head over to nathancrane.com now and take charge of your well-being! Dive into a transformative discussion with Ocean Robbins on the critical link between food, toxins, and your health. Explore the profound connection between what we eat and our well-being.
Your host, Nathan Crane, is a Certified Holistic Cancer Coach, Best-Selling Author, Inspirational Speaker, Cancer-Health Researcher and Educator, and 20X Award Winning Documentary Filmmaker with Over 15 Years in the Health Field.
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Ocean Robbins as we uncover the toxic elements in modern diets and their impact on chronic diseases. Take care of your health today! Visit The Nathan Crane Podcast on YouTube to watch the full podcast!
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Audio Transcript
(This transcript was auto-generated so there may be some errors)
00;00;00;06 – 00;00;24;21
Nathan Crane
Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for joining me for this really special interview with my friend Ocean Robbins. So this interview actually I did with him a couple of years ago, it’s not anywhere available public online. And we covered so much good information that I wanted to do a whole podcast around it and help get this information out to the world.
00;00;25;03 – 00;01;03;27
Nathan Crane
Ocean Robbins is the co-founder of the Food Revolution Network. They’ve reached millions of people around the world, helping them learn about good diet choices, nutritional choices, how to improve their health, how to prevent disease. And he’s a brilliant guy. He is a bestselling author, and he deeply cares about humanity and the planet and has been doing tremendous work since he was a kid, actually helping steward and foster a healthy life and a healthy love and care for the planet and for humanity.
00;01;04;08 – 00;01;22;28
Nathan Crane
This interview we get to dove deep into some really profound nutritional education information about disease prevention and healing. So enjoy this really special interview and without further ado. Ocean Robbins.
00;01;22;28 – 00;01;51;13
Ocean Robbins
We live in a society in which it’s considered normal to eat food that’s laced with hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, GMOs, added sugars, thousands of chemicals, most of them having names we can’t even pronounce. And this is all combining to create a toxic soup that is sickening and killing us. The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington produces a report called The Global Burden of Disease.
00;01;51;25 – 00;02;19;28
Ocean Robbins
They look at hundreds of causes of death and disease in 65 countries, and they look at lifestyle factors and they look at the correlations. And they ended up concluding that the modern diet is the single biggest driving factor behind 672,000 deaths per year in the United States alone. 11 million worldwide, which means more Americans died last year from what we’re eating than died in World War One.
00;02;19;28 – 00;02;47;05
Ocean Robbins
World War Two, Vietnam or both Iraq wars, Afghanistan or Korean War combined. But this time, the enemy isn’t another country. It’s not guns and bombs. It’s our own knives and forks and the fact that we are essentially digging our own graves with them. And I see so many people who are sick, who are struggling, who are suffering from diseases like type two diabetes and Alzheimer’s and heart disease and cancer and autoimmune disorders.
00;02;47;07 – 00;03;11;00
Ocean Robbins
And they do not realize that the cause of their suffering is food. But the beautiful thing is food can also fuel health. It can also fuel vitality. It can be medicine. It can it can add not just years to our lives, but life to our years. And so, you know, there are a lot of places in life where you can feel overwhelmed by problems that feel so insurmountable, even, and confronted.
00;03;11;19 – 00;03;28;24
Ocean Robbins
But when it comes to food, you have immense power. Every dollar you spend, every bite you take is kind of a vote. And you can vote for sickness and the status quo. Or you can vote for sustainability and health and ethics and well-being for yourself and future generations. So it matters a lot.
00;03;29;15 – 00;03;49;09
Nathan Crane
Why do you think our world has become so toxic, especially the food? Why do you think we’ve gotten this far off track and have created and allowed the creation of such toxic food to even enter our our culture and our societies?
00;03;49;13 – 00;04;13;17
Ocean Robbins
We have basically an economic system in which we’ve made money more important than health and human life itself. The way I look at it, food 1.0 is about survival. If you can get enough calories to fill your belly, that’s success in food 2.0. The central organizing principle of food is commerce. It’s made the buying and selling of goods and the commercialization of our food system the goal.
00;04;14;04 – 00;04;38;04
Ocean Robbins
And it’s brought us amazing flavours and tastes and textures and cuisines from all over the world. But unfortunately, food 2.0 is morally bankrupt, so it’s killing us. Which is why I say we need to move to food 3.0, where the central organizing principle of our food system is health for our bodies and for our planet. And there are plenty of healthy profits to be made in food, three point out, which is that they come from healthy food.
00;04;38;17 – 00;04;52;25
Nathan Crane
So what are some of these toxins and toxic foods that you have seen and found to be most related to chronic diseases like cancer? Well.
00;04;53;14 – 00;05;20;18
Ocean Robbins
There are a lot of different toxins in our environment and they compound. So it’s not like I mean, your body is amazingly resilient and it can absorb quite a bit of abuse and keep recovering and replenishing and responding. But it does not have the ability to deal with the onslaught of all of the compounding factors. There are over 2000 chemicals in the American food supply that have come out of laboratories.
00;05;21;03 – 00;05;48;26
Ocean Robbins
They don’t come from the earth and they all have compounding and unique interacting cofactors. And then there are all the pesticides that are in our environment. And then there’s the plastics that we’re putting our food in and that we’re putting our water in and that we’re sitting in and they’re sleeping in and that we’re wearing on our bodies and then there’s all the hormones that that cause a lot of the hormone related cancers that we see so widespread today.
00;05;49;04 – 00;06;15;17
Ocean Robbins
And we’re feeding them to livestock. And even if we weren’t feeding them to livestock in a lactating mammal like a cow, for example, it’s producing a lot of hormones naturally, because that’s what cows do when they’re nurturing babies. It’s hormones that make it work. But when they’re pumped full of added hormones, then it accelerates that even more. When you consume that milk not just in infancy, but day in and day out throughout your life, it can have an impact on your hormonal balance.
00;06;15;28 – 00;06;39;04
Ocean Robbins
So all of these things compounds and it’s difficult to look at them in isolation. I think that’s probably plastic is one of the most dangerous sources of toxicity in our in our world today. But, you know, when you look at the studies, when it comes to food, we can see that processed meats are particularly dangerous. Generally, fried foods are dangerous.
00;06;39;18 – 00;07;03;17
Ocean Robbins
There’s free radicals in the oils from fried foods and generally bottled oils that particularly when they’re heated and reheated and reheated. And those free radicals are known to cause cancer and because oxidation in the body. And so you put all these factors together. And the way I look at it, if you if you drive a car into a brick wall, the death certificate might say impalement by brick wall.
00;07;04;02 – 00;07;23;24
Ocean Robbins
But we all know it was really bad driving. And the reality is that if you eat the standard American diet, you will get the standard American diseases. And we don’t know for sure if it’ll be cancer or heart disease or type two diabetes or Alzheimer’s or one of the others. But it’s kind of inevitable. And so ultimately, these things may not really be causes of death.
00;07;23;24 – 00;07;52;22
Ocean Robbins
They may more be seen as symptoms. And it’s really diet and lifestyle that are fueling them. We know that less than 10% of cancer is caused by genetics. More than 90% is caused by a combination of diet, lifestyle and environment. So let’s just break those down really quickly. When we say diet, we mean sugar and processed junk and high animal product consumption, as opposed to eating lots of vegetables and antioxidants and flavonoids and polyphenols that come mostly from the plant kingdom.
00;07;53;17 – 00;08;25;14
Ocean Robbins
When we say lifestyle, we’re talking about nuts sitting on your butt too much. Basically sitting is the new smoking. And so moving and not smoking are the two biggest things when it comes to lifestyle. And then when we say environment, we’re talking about things like plastics and environmental contamination and pollution of air and water. So having a good water filter, having a home air filter, if you don’t live in a clean environment to keeping some of the plastics and toxins out of your home, these are all steps you can take that will help protect you, environmentally speaking.
00;08;25;21 – 00;08;29;10
Ocean Robbins
But all of that together and you can slash your risk of cancer dramatically.
00;08;30;07 – 00;08;35;14
Nathan Crane
The argument that healthy food is just too expensive for the average person.
00;08;36;17 – 00;09;05;15
Ocean Robbins
Well, there’s a real concern because a lot of people feel like it takes their whole pay check to eat whole foods. And the reality is that it does cost more sometimes to eat healthy food, because we have, among other reasons, we have a subsidy system in the United States and in many countries around the world where taxpayers are literally subsidizing commodities crops, which is mainly corn, soy, both of which are genetically engineered, by the way, and wheat among a few others.
00;09;05;15 – 00;09;30;06
Ocean Robbins
And these are turning into high fructose corn syrup, wonder bread and livestock feed. So we’re subsidizing factory farms, we’re subsidizing Twinkies, which has 14 subsidized ingredients. And we’re not subsidizing the nuts and the seeds and the vegetables and fruits and the foods we know we should be eating more of if we want to be healthy. Healthy. It’s kind of like you’re being fined for wearing your seatbelts if you want to do the right thing.
00;09;30;23 – 00;09;56;20
Ocean Robbins
All that said, there’s still a lot you can do if you want to eat well and save money. A top tips are number one. The most expensive calories you will ever eat are the ones that make you sick and kill you. I mean, last time I checked, cancer was pretty expensive, so it was Alzheimer’s. And so when you’re able to steer clear of needing a lot of medical care or having a lot of sick days or having a lot of brain fog, it’s going to be good for your bottom line, too.
00;09;57;04 – 00;10;17;12
Ocean Robbins
Number two, the next most expensive calories are the ones that you don’t need to eat in the first place. So I’m talking about excess food consumption. The average American gets about 500 calories too much per day, and that adds up to a little extra weight around the middle that you have to carry around, which in turn makes you more lethargic.
00;10;17;12 – 00;10;46;08
Ocean Robbins
So you want to exercise and move less excess calories are a real problem. And guess what? The processed foods and the junk foods tend to be the ones people eat in excess. You know, the old advertising slogan that you can’t eat just one for potato chips wasn’t just wasn’t just a tease. It was actually throwing down the gantlet because there are serious researchers that are working very hard to make sure you can’t eat just one because you get addicted to their products for life that they want you hooked.
00;10;46;24 – 00;11;09;14
Ocean Robbins
So those are those are pretty expensive calories, too. And when you eat more whole real foods, your body gets the nutrient you need. And eventually you’re not hungry at times that you might have been because you’re actually satiated. Number three is food that you waste. The average American wastes about $2,000 a year in food that literally just goes bad because it doesn’t get eaten.
00;11;10;03 – 00;11;45;12
Ocean Robbins
So learning how to clear out those cupboards, learning how to go through the fridge, make a big soup with all the leftover veggies that you didn’t eat since your last shopping. Shopping from a list. Planning ahead. Those are all steps you can take to cut the food waste down and save some serious moolah. And then the last piece is based your diet around the real super foods, not $30 a pound Himalayan goji berries, but the foods that are super because they can do the most good for the most people I’m talking about, you know, you can eat quinoa, you can eat legumes, you can eat cabbage, you can eat, you know, peanut butter is fine.
00;11;45;12 – 00;11;57;01
Ocean Robbins
You don’t need to have fancy, super fancy nut butters, you know, work. You know, these things are all steps you can take when you, you know, when you eat real, wholesome, healthy foods and cook it yourself instead of at restaurants, you can save some serious cash.
00;11;58;11 – 00;12;18;03
Nathan Crane
You know, those are really great tips. And I’m just thinking of some of the things that we do with my family to which we do a lot of with what you say. You know, one of the things that helps me and our family is we do write a list every week. So when we go to the grocery store, we’re not just picking up all kinds of random things.
00;12;18;15 – 00;12;38;16
Nathan Crane
And my wife does 90% of the shopping because if I go, I do want to just I get that kind of, you know, oh, I want this and I want those goji berries and I want this. And all of a sudden it’s like I have one little bag and it’s like $200. I’m like, What happened? So actually my wife is so much more diligent about it and really looks for the best prices.
00;12;38;16 – 00;13;17;00
Nathan Crane
She goes to two or three different stores. Yeah, I might take a little extra time, but because she actually puts in the time and the care to one find the best foods for our family, but to also find it at the best cost. Going to a couple different stores, I can guarantee we save thousands of dollars a year in food costs so that could be another tip for people tuning in is find out who it is in your family, if you’re if you’re married or find a way with yourself to be a little bit more diligent about it and plan ahead and don’t just grab whatever entices you and I love your your comment about
00;13;17;13 – 00;13;42;29
Nathan Crane
you know the real super foods they are the whole foods the fresh foods, the fresh fruit, the fresh vegetables, the quinoa, the organic brown rice and black beans and that sort of thing. They’re easy and they are the least expensive and the least expensive, whereas the packaged, you know, super foods, goji berries, that kind of stuff, they are the most expensive and they’re not going to give you nearly as much bang for your buck.
00;13;43;16 – 00;13;45;17
Ocean Robbins
That’s right. That’s right. Exactly. Yeah.
00;13;45;29 – 00;13;52;27
Nathan Crane
What are some of the foods that you recommend people avoid at all costs if they’re trying to prevent or reverse cancer?
00;13;54;12 – 00;14;30;16
Ocean Robbins
So the top foods you want to avoid are going to be processed meats, number one on the list. In general, animal products, red meat in particular is associated with higher risk of cancer. You want to avoid dairy products that you’re concerned about, the hormone induced cancers and you know you want to go organic with the Dirty Dozen Environmental Working Group publishes a list of the every year the update it the most and least pesticide contaminated foods and dirty dozen is what they call the you know the ones that are the most contaminated.
00;14;30;23 – 00;15;03;09
Ocean Robbins
And if you can go organic with those, which includes things like berries, actually apples, a lot of foods that you eat the skin so that the clean 15, by the way, are the ones that are the least pesticide contaminated, even when growing conventionally. And that’s things that like avocados, melons, things where you don’t eat the outside. But those are those are some steps you can take that can definitely help eating lower on the food chain is a big positive step for avoiding cancer.
00;15;04;03 – 00;15;22;17
Ocean Robbins
And then you want to saturate your diet with the healthy micronutrients. Oh, I didn’t say sugar, did I? Yeah. Definitely want to steer clear of added sugars and processed junk and junk in general. All the chemicals in our food supply. You never know which one might later turn out to cause cancer or do so in conjunction with three of the others.
00;15;22;17 – 00;15;42;26
Ocean Robbins
Right. And then you want to eat more whole plant foods that are rich in the antioxidants and polyphenols, flavonoids, phytonutrients that are really beneficial for your long term health and well-being. And I’m sure you’re going to get there next. Right. Let me jump into that. Some of the top cancer fighting super foods every day.
00;15;43;06 – 00;16;01;05
Nathan Crane
I do want to get there soon. But actually, I have another question that came up. Okay. I know you’re also a parent like I am. I mean, I know you care very much about your children’s health and well-being. And I know for a lot of parents who eat healthy or want to eat healthy, it can be challenging to get their kids help.
00;16;01;06 – 00;16;03;25
Nathan Crane
So what do you do for your kids?
00;16;05;19 – 00;16;28;15
Ocean Robbins
Well, with our kids, I mean, they’re 18 now, so they’re a little bit more on their own in terms of their process. But, you know, as they were growing up, one of our tricks was we used to struggle a lot around meal times with our kids getting hungry before food was on the table and they’d pointed to the cupboards and they would invariably grab whatever it was the least healthy things they could find, and then they try and fill up on them.
00;16;29;00 – 00;16;48;16
Ocean Robbins
So one of the steps was I actually had to stop eating potato chips because I realized that my son and I were getting in all these fights and, you know, finally realized better stop buying them. So that was a good step, right? I was eating organic kettle chips, but they were still potato chips. Right? So the potato chips are no longer in our house and getting rid of the bad stuff is really helpful.
00;16;48;26 – 00;17;09;18
Ocean Robbins
And then the next step was we learned to put out, you know, before dinner was even on the table, we put out like some steamed veggies or some carrots and hummus and just have them snackable sitting there and our boys would just reach over and graze, you know, and I don’t mind if my son gets filled up with a bunch of kale or some carrots and hummus before dinner’s ready.
00;17;09;27 – 00;17;29;28
Ocean Robbins
More power to him, you know, it’s all good, right? So having some snacks and some ready to go stuff that’s healthy is really helpful with kids. And, you know, we definitely had some times when we had to create some boundaries, but the key thing is reducing the exposure. So, you know, you don’t want to be, say no all the time and having kids staring in the face of something that’s not healthy.
00;17;30;08 – 00;17;51;23
Ocean Robbins
So obviously you start with what you put in your cupboards and what you, you know, put in your kitchen in the first place. And if you’re going to go out to a restaurant, try to choose restaurants that have healthier options and not get stuck in a place where everything on the menu is kind of bad stuff, right? So, you know, never took our kids to like fast food restaurants and that kind of thing, you know?
00;17;52;25 – 00;18;17;15
Ocean Robbins
And then, you know, getting them growing food is really helpful. We find that children that grow food are more likely to eat that same food. So gardening is great whether it’s in a school or church or community garden or backyard, even in your own kitchen, you can have a little, you know, by the windowsill, grow a little something and let the kids learn the connection between soil and sunlight and plants and nourishment and food.
00;18;17;23 – 00;18;40;19
Ocean Robbins
And once that connection gets established, it changes the child’s life, quite frankly, to just know where our food comes from and how it happens and how it works. So those are some of my top favourite tips. And then you can, you know, give you foods, creative names. You can, you know, get playful with it. And as kids get a little older, ask them to agree to at least have a bite of something.
00;18;41;06 – 00;18;59;14
Ocean Robbins
They don’t have to eat the whole thing. But at least to be open minded and that’s good manners. And some kids need five or ten times trying something before they learn to like a new food. So stay with it and be creative and make sure you present healthy food with the same pizzazz that you might prevent present unhealthy food.
00;18;59;14 – 00;19;15;24
Ocean Robbins
You know, we have people who are like, Oh my God, we have the cake. It’s ready. It’s ready. It’s almost ready. Oh, it’s so good. And they’re like, Oh, and here’s the broccoli, you know, guess what the kids are going to get excited about. But if you’re like, Oh, wow, I just got this broccoli today from the farmer’s market, it smells so good.
00;19;15;24 – 00;19;34;04
Ocean Robbins
Oh, my God, it’s so crisp. And I think this is the sweetest broccoli I’ve ever eaten in my life, you know? Ooh, look at that. Looks like a tree, doesn’t it? You know, then guess what? And then, like, oh, and there’s the cake, you know, that’s going to create a different emotional bone. And so, you know, obviously we have to practice what we preach.
00;19;34;15 – 00;19;46;06
Ocean Robbins
And as someone who’s addicted to junk food is going to have a hard time picking their kids to love healthy food. So ultimately, if you’re a parent or you have kids in your life that can be kind of a catalyst or a wakeup call to, you know, get on the right track.
00;19;46;26 – 00;20;11;06
Nathan Crane
Yeah, that’s a great point. I mean, what you have in the house and what you eat as a parent is most likely what your kids are going to eat. Now, as you said, they might not like it at first, but I do a lot of these things as well. You’re giving me some good ideas, too. You know, my son’s three, my daughter’s eight, and my son still drink his main food sources, you know, smoothies right now, which is great.
00;20;11;06 – 00;20;36;19
Nathan Crane
I hope he doesn’t get tired of them soon. But in those smoothies, my wife puts all kinds of fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, just a plethora of all different types of food sources. So that that’s kind of his main source while we’re introducing him to more Whole Foods, trying to, you know, get him to eat actual nuts and seeds, actual beans, actual rice, that sort of thing.
00;20;37;00 – 00;21;00;27
Nathan Crane
Same with my daughter. She’s a little more picky and she really only like she’s like a modern leader, only one seed, one thing. And it’s I’m not mix shop. So it’s a little challenging with both of them. They’re both different, unique in their own ways. But I think one of my big takeaways so far, and certainly not perfect with it, but I think speaks to something you said, which is try to find that balance.
00;21;00;27 – 00;21;18;17
Nathan Crane
Like course, I want them to eat healthy, but I don’t want to force it on them so that later they resent me and go off and start eating fast food on their own because we told them no so many times to all the delicious cakes and all that kind of stuff. So it’s like, yeah, letting them eat some potato chips.
00;21;18;17 – 00;21;40;08
Nathan Crane
Yeah, letting them eat some cake. Yeah. Letting them eat some of these things that their friends are eating and kids are eating in school, but constantly educating them about all the negative potential consequence is down the road of those things, versus the broccoli might not taste as good as the potato chips, but guess what? You’re going to feel so much better long term.
00;21;40;08 – 00;21;56;17
Nathan Crane
And yeah, I have to repeat that a thousand times because, you know, it doesn’t quite make sense when something tastes so good and something else doesn’t. Then why isn’t this good for you? But I find that my daughter makes really great health decisions for herself for the most part.
00;21;56;25 – 00;21;57;14
Ocean Robbins
Yeah, I.
00;21;57;14 – 00;22;10;06
Nathan Crane
Think that’s it. As a parent, right? This to guide our children so that they make better decisions as they grow older, not force them to do things, but how do we educate them? So they want to make good decisions on their own.
00;22;10;08 – 00;22;24;19
Ocean Robbins
No one wants to be the food police. And when your kids are two or three, you may be able to control what they eat. But when they’re 18 or 20, or certainly when they’re 30 or 40, you won’t be. So it’s important to create the conditions where they can be the authors of their food lives in a good way.
00;22;24;19 – 00;22;43;10
Ocean Robbins
And that’s, I think, the goal of every parent with every choice. Right, is you want to help get your kids on the right track and then ultimately help them know how to get themselves on the right track and re correct when they fall off. Right. So that’s beautiful. That makes total sense to me. Every parent’s got to decide where they want to draw the line.
00;22;43;28 – 00;23;14;24
Ocean Robbins
But one thing we don’t need is more fear around food. Like when you’re eating food, do it with love, do it with dignity, do it with gratitude, do it with respect, taste it, chew it, enjoy it. Nothing is going to be benefit in by guilt and shame and blame and misery. I think that a person who eats beer and franks with no children thanks is it’s probably going to be healthier than a person who’s, you know, eating their their sprouts and, you know, tofu with doubts.
00;23;14;24 – 00;23;39;28
Ocean Robbins
And I don’t know what a good rhyme is for tofu, but you know what I’m saying? But it’s you know, you want to you want to bring joy and pleasure and your relationship with food and ultimately with family. It’s also all about love. I mean, when kids feel loved. And that goes a long way, you know, and if the tone is one of, I love you and I want to help you, love your life, that’s really different then that’s bad and you’re bad for one, you know, guess what?
00;23;39;28 – 00;23;45;07
Ocean Robbins
That creates shame and guilt and a deep shadow. And then eventually that’s going to come up in other kinds of destructive ways.
00;23;46;07 – 00;24;17;10
Nathan Crane
Yeah, absolutely. That’s I mean, it’s such a good point. And that’s actually one of the entire series of our one of the episodes in the series of our upcoming docu series about cancer is exactly how our mind, our thoughts, our beliefs, the energy of what we put into food and into our lives and into our relationships, how that directly and scientifically affects our body’s ability to either generate diseases like cancer or reverse them.
00;24;17;10 – 00;24;34;12
Nathan Crane
So that’s such an important point you brought up, and I’m glad you did. Speaking of talking a little bit about the immune system, what are some of the things that you’ve found to enhance your immune system?
00;24;34;12 – 00;24;56;21
Ocean Robbins
Well, there’s a lot of wonderful immune boosting foods. And that I’ll tell you, though, my favourite supplement actually is vitamin D. And you mean you can get it from the sun and that’s great. It could be one of the reasons why people tend to get more cold in the winter because we have less sun exposure in the winter.
00;24;57;15 – 00;25;23;25
Ocean Robbins
But Vitamin D is a hormone that your skin produces in response to sunlight. And it’s also it’s very hard to eat it, but there are a few, few animal products that have little bits of it. But really it’s a supplement and you can get vitamin D three supplements. And I’ll say for myself that in the last six years I used to get colds a couple of times a year, like most people do in the last six years, since I started taking Vitamin D every day, I’ve had one cold.
00;25;24;12 – 00;25;45;06
Ocean Robbins
In that time. My dad’s had none, I think, in the last ten years since he started taking vitamin D. So it can make a big difference, at least based on our anecdotal experience. And there’s a lot of research to back that up. But as far as foods, oh, my goodness, there are there are so many. It’s again, it’s kind of the same list that you’ll generally here for a lot of things.
00;25;45;15 – 00;26;13;13
Ocean Robbins
You’re going to want to lean a little more into the vitamin C, rich things, though, with immune boosting. So, you know, citrus is wonderful. I discuss this wonderful and then green tea is good for your immune system and and certainly greens lots and lots of greens are good for your immune system. When your body is well nourished, when it has the nutrients it needs, then it can do its job well and you’re less likely to be susceptible to illness.
00;26;13;13 – 00;26;36;01
Nathan Crane
Absolutely. There’s a lot of scientific evidence that we cover and in our film, the integrative perspective, as well as throughout this summit and through the docu series about the role of the immune system in preventing and reversing cancer. And so, I mean, it is critical and not only cancer, but really all chronic, especially autoimmune disorders and diseases. Right.
00;26;36;01 – 00;26;58;13
Nathan Crane
So talking more about some of those foods, nutrients, supplements that can support in healing or let’s say invigorating, reinvigorating and rejuvenating the immune system. What are some of the things in addition to vitamin D that you do every day to enhance your immune system and prevent your risk of cancer?
00;26;59;12 – 00;27;32;00
Ocean Robbins
We can never talk too much about exercise and moving. So one of my favourite ways is I have a bike and I travel on bicycle for local things where I don’t have heavy bags or stuff to schlep around or I’m not taking kids and so little appointments, whatever, and that keeps me moving. And it kind of it’s a kind of a rule I have, unless it’s absolutely pouring rain that I’m going to bike anytime I can, and that’s helpful to me in terms of just getting that exercise built into the fabric of my everyday life.
00;27;32;16 – 00;27;56;18
Ocean Robbins
I also, you know, for myself, obviously not eating the process junk and eating a lot of wholesome foods that I didn’t mention. Garlic and onions are great immune boosting foods. There’s wonderful properties in them that are that are great for your body and prebiotics and probiotics are really good, too, for your immune system. We talk a lot about probiotics, which are, you know, a famous one is acidophilus.
00;27;56;18 – 00;28;17;04
Ocean Robbins
All the beneficial bacteria that help you digest your food and produce the neurotransmitters that are good for your brain. And, you know, they make your gut happy and healthy. Prebiotics are that food that those bacteria need to eat. And primarily what they eat is fiber, specifically the soluble fiber. And so that’s what you really want to get lots of.
00;28;17;04 – 00;28;28;03
Ocean Robbins
And guess what? There’s no fiber in any animal products. There’s no fiber in any oils. There’s very little in white flour, almost nothing sugar. There’s a lot of it in vegetables and.
00;28;28;03 – 00;28;28;19
Nathan Crane
Fruits.
00;28;28;25 – 00;28;47;28
Ocean Robbins
And legumes and whole grains. So again, we want to base our diet around these kinds of foods, and that’ll give us a lot more fiber, which helps us keep the good guys in our gut so they don’t starve to death. And then they when they have the nutrients they need, they can do their job for us well. And boosting our immune system is one of their critical functions.
00;28;48;02 – 00;29;06;04
Nathan Crane
You get the same benefits of the fiber if you blended in a smoothie, blend in apple and in spinach and all that with maybe some juices and water as if you eat it whole. Right. Is it I mean, it’s obviously processed further. So are you going to. Yeah. What’s the big deal if we.
00;29;06;04 – 00;29;23;25
Ocean Robbins
Don’t get the same benefits, you get some there are basically a couple of different kinds of fiber primarily. And some one of them gets broken down in a way that you kind of lose it when you blend. And the other one less so call it 50% is good. The benefit of blending as soon as you can consume a lot more quickly.
00;29;24;07 – 00;29;39;10
Ocean Robbins
And sometimes that’s beneficial. But it’s kind of sad to me. We see a lot of green smoothies and what people are really doing is drinking a bunch of fruit juice with a kale leaf added to the mix. And you know what? You’re better off eating the kale leaf steamed or raw, then blended into a smoothie with a bunch of fruit juice.
00;29;39;10 – 00;30;03;21
Ocean Robbins
So fruit juices better probably than coke because it’s got some fiber if especially if it’s but if it’s actually juice rather than a smoothie, then you’re even taking a step away because all that pulp that you’ve wasted is actually where the fiber is. So when you have juice, like even apple juice, for example, or orange juice, you’re talking about a product that has been separated and you’ve got all the sugars and devoid of the fibers.
00;30;03;21 – 00;30;24;10
Ocean Robbins
And so it’s going to be bad for your blood sugar. It’s going to be it’s not a whole food. And, you know, yes, it’s probably better than Coke, but that’s a low bar. And so when you base a smoothie around juice, then that can be a problem. But when you actually are blending up a whole foods, you know, maybe with some water or some milk or something, then that can be beneficial.
00;30;24;20 – 00;30;43;25
Ocean Robbins
Certainly no problem with it. But it’s not you’re not getting all the benefits that you would if you ate the foods directly. There’s also something to be said for chewing the actual act of chewing create saliva and that saliva is an important part of the digestive process. So, you know, as in many things in life, sometimes the best things in life are a little bit more work.
00;30;44;18 – 00;30;59;21
Ocean Robbins
You have to chew your food, but there’s a lot of benefit in it. I’m not at like on an anti smoothie campaign and I think green smoothies can be a part of the picture for a lot of people, but I don’t think they are the saviour that many do. I think we need a lot of good, healthy, wholesome food as well.
00;31;00;16 – 00;31;25;12
Nathan Crane
That’s a good point. Yeah, you should look at it more as a supplementation to your diet. Been your main source of health and nutrition, right? The main source of your health and nutrition should come from the whole foods that you’re eating on a daily basis. And the smoothie, at least this is how I look at it for my life is it kind of supplements me to be able to get a lot of nutrition packed into a single drink?
00;31;25;24 – 00;31;44;19
Nathan Crane
Yeah. Yeah, because I can add some, some organic super food powders to the things that I normally are not going to get on a daily basis. And yeah, then I add spinach and I’ll add a banana and I’ll try to fill it up. I’ll add flax seeds and chia seeds, add a little bit of apple juice and the rest water.
00;31;44;19 – 00;31;52;23
Nathan Crane
And, and I find that is a great way to supplement some of those nutrients I might not be get it from even my, my whole food diet.
00;31;53;13 – 00;31;55;04
Ocean Robbins
Yeah, yeah.
00;31;55;04 – 00;32;08;25
Nathan Crane
So you have a big background in sustainability and I know that’s a big focus of passion of yours, how to sustain sustainability, play a role in preventing and reversing diseases like cancer.
00;32;09;18 – 00;32;34;04
Ocean Robbins
One of the things that really concerns me is that we live in such a toxic world. And, you know, when we look at the fact that 90% of cancer cases are caused by diet, lifestyle and environmental factors, you know, the diet is processed foods in excess animal products, excess sugar. The lifestyle is sitting on our butts all day and too much too many people are still smoking.
00;32;34;28 – 00;33;06;20
Ocean Robbins
And when we look at environmental factors, we’re talking about pollution of our air and our water. We’re talking about pesticides and hormones and glyphosate, and we’re talking about plastics in our homes and our cars and our clothes. And all of these things together are creating a lot of toxic load on the body. So I’m interested in how we can reduce our exposure and live in such a way that we are more resilient in the face of the inevitable exposures that we all have.
00;33;07;17 – 00;33;32;08
Ocean Robbins
As long as you breathe, you’re going to be part of a world in which there are pollutants that are in the air. As long as you drink, there’s no way to be absolutely immune from the contaminants on this planet. But when you reduce your burden and you optimize your resilience, you can do better and reduce your exposures dramatically and your odds of dying prematurely, dramatically.
00;33;32;08 – 00;33;41;22
Ocean Robbins
So, you know, at the end of the day, nobody’s perfect and the world is not perfect, but we all have the best we can do. And I’m interested in helping each of us to do that.
00;33;41;23 – 00;34;17;20
Nathan Crane
Looking at the future of humanity, looking forward ten, 20, 30, 50, even 100 years, what are some of the biggest changes you think we can make as a society here in the United States and in other developed countries around the world to turn this sinking ship around, if you will, to turn this you know, to really create this food revolution that you speak about and that, you know, your organization, Food Revolution Network, in your book talks about 31 day Food Revolution.
00;34;18;00 – 00;34;28;12
Nathan Crane
What are the biggest changes we need to make as humanity if we are to create a healthy and vibrant future for the next few generations?
00;34;29;28 – 00;35;01;14
Ocean Robbins
Well, that is million dollar question. You know, my focus is on food because that’s where I have chosen to put my life energy so I can look at that piece of the puzzle. There are other pieces to the puzzle. If we want a sustainable world, we’re going to have to look at every aspect of society, our economic systems and why it is that we are that that many companies are find it financially advantageous to offload and outsource their the real environmental impact.
00;35;01;29 – 00;35;34;13
Ocean Robbins
You know, if you can it’s cheaper to clear cap and to log sustainably. Ironically, it’s cheaper to produce meat in factory farms on pasture, not because Mother Nature deems it more efficient, but because all the pollution is outsourced. And frankly, feed is subsidized. So we have to change our economic system so that it values life and health and the future of the planet and helps to encourage companies that naturally want to make money to do the right thing instead of the wrong thing.
00;35;34;27 – 00;35;54;29
Ocean Robbins
And we also, you know, we need to change how we transport ourselves. We need to change, you know, how we produce our electricity, how efficient we are in our use of that electricity, so many other pieces. But again, back to food, which is my focus. I want to see the abolition of the factory farming system. I want to see to eat way less meat.
00;35;54;29 – 00;36;20;24
Ocean Robbins
And if we are going to eat meat and for it to be better meat that’s raised with animals that saw the sun and knew what the blades of grass looked like and lived their natural lives in some sense. And that their manure went back to the earth. Instead of piling up in giant polluting lagoons, I want to see a world in which our food is growing organically and sustainably.
00;36;20;24 – 00;36;48;01
Ocean Robbins
And quite frankly, we need to invest in regenerative agriculture, which means instead of just doing, not doing bad, we actually have to do good. We can sequester out of the atmosphere and help to fight global warming by capturing it in the soil where it belongs. And when we grow food in sustainable ways, we can actually do that. So right now, there’s this terrible crisis of topsoil erosion, which is threatening our ability to grow food for future generations.
00;36;48;01 – 00;37;07;17
Ocean Robbins
A recent U.N. report concluded that by the year 2050, we expect to have about half the arable land that we did in 1950 on planet Earth. That’s a very big deal. It means that we have to grow food for a growing population on half the land we had a century earlier. And that’s where we’re headed right now, which means mass starvation, folks.
00;37;07;17 – 00;37;30;21
Ocean Robbins
That’s the reality, especially with climate change causing more droughts and more floods and more instability. And we have aquifers being depleted and we have glaciers melting away, which could impact the ability for a couple billion people in Asia to be able to have sustainable water in the summertime, when typically glacial melt has filled the riverbeds. So these are big problems.
00;37;30;28 – 00;37;51;16
Ocean Robbins
But what I want to say is that we can help in a substantial way by eating lower on the food chain, because right now, according to the UN, meat and specifically beef is responsible for more net carbon impact than our cars are. We can eat more regenerative lead with going organic, supporting local farmers and local food production systems.
00;37;51;25 – 00;38;12;19
Ocean Robbins
And as regenerative agriculture gets more up to speed with its science, eventually, I think we can have a certification system for it for farms that are actually sequestering carbon and growing their topsoil. And when we can invest in those options, we will be knowing that we’re participating in helping to heal the planet. So those are a few of the steps we can take that could make a significant difference.
00;38;12;19 – 00;38;24;00
Ocean Robbins
We we don’t have to be cutting down tropical rainforests for rainforest beef. We can actually be plenty new forests that can also soak up carbon because we don’t need so much land when we lower on the food chain.
00;38;24;13 – 00;38;47;24
Nathan Crane
So in addition to a plant based and or vegan diet, however you want to look at it being a obviously supporting the sustainability of the planet and humanity, how, how does plant based diet directly affect our ability to prevent and reverse diseases like cancer?
00;38;47;24 – 00;39;16;14
Ocean Robbins
In terms of cancer specifically, we look at certain nutrients that have been documented to fight cancer. And, you know, we talked earlier about some of the bad stuff, the processed meats, sugar, chemicals, pesticides that have been linked to higher risk of cancer. Then there are certain phytonutrients and that that have incredible cancer fighting properties. One of my favorite foods, food wise, is mushrooms.
00;39;16;14 – 00;39;41;19
Ocean Robbins
In one study conducted by researchers at Western University of Western Australia in Perth, they studied 2000 women for eight years and they ended up concluding that the women who consumed at least a third of an ounce of mushrooms every day, the equivalent of about one mushroom were 64% less likely to develop breast cancer than women who did not 64%.
00;39;42;15 – 00;40;06;04
Ocean Robbins
Other studies found that when women consumed mushrooms daily and drank green tea daily, their risk of breast cancer dropped by 89%. Other studies have shown that women who eat greens daily have a 50% drop in breast cancer risk. So what happens if you eat greens and mushrooms and green tea daily? Well, we don’t know that data, but the odds are your cancer risk is going to drop even lower.
00;40;06;16 – 00;40;28;17
Ocean Robbins
So mushrooms are amazing, not just with breast cancer, but a lot of other a lot of other forms of cancer. There are studies showing they’re beneficial with stomach cancer or colorectal cancer, prostate cancer and breast cancer. Another great one is garlic. People used to hang it up outside their door to ward off the vampires. It does ward off bad guys, but not just vampires.
00;40;28;24 – 00;40;56;14
Ocean Robbins
It can fight off certain cancers. Garlic is incredible. In one study, researchers studied over 40,000 women in Iowa. They tracked their consumption of 127 different foods over five years, and the food they found was most highly associated with a significantly significant decrease in colon cancer with garlic, women who had at least a serving of garlic a week had a 34 5% drop in their risk of colon cancer.
00;40;56;28 – 00;41;22;08
Ocean Robbins
And there are a lot of other studies showing it’s found helpful with stomach cancer and many other forms of cancer as well. There’s also berries which contain ellagic acid that’s been found to inhibit tumor growth. And turmeric is amazing. It’s that orange colored spice that’s a staple in Indian curries and it has a polyphenol in it to men that is helpful in reducing cancer risk.
00;41;22;08 – 00;41;51;25
Ocean Robbins
So turmeric is amazing. Many laboratory studies have shown that it can actually kill cancer cells, especially. It’s been effective with breast cancer, bowel cancer, stomach cancer and skin cancer. We’re talking here almost about treatments, but obviously it’s also helpful with prevention. So turmeric is amazing. And then cruciferous vegetables, the most popular one being cabbage, have been found helpful with breast cancer, lung cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer.
00;41;52;09 – 00;42;23;05
Ocean Robbins
It can be these can detoxify, they can remove carcinogens, they can kill cancer cells, and they actually can prevent tumors from growing. Then there’s leafy green vegetables, legumes, red grapes. It’s walnuts, too. And celery. Don’t get me started on celery. It’s amazing. There was a study found that out. People who ate two medium stocks of celery a day had a 60% drop in their risk of lung cancer.
00;42;23;05 – 00;42;34;20
Ocean Robbins
So big stuff here. What happens if you eat celery and berries and green leaves and cruciferous veggies and turmeric and get your berries and your garlic all at once? I don’t know. I want to find out.
00;42;34;29 – 00;43;12;07
Nathan Crane
A lot more studies being done on exactly that and more and more evidence coming up that the plant based diets, specifically, as you spoke about already, organic locally, if you can primarily non-GMO, is definitely a powerful way for us to really take back control of our health and our children’s health and the health of the planet. I didn’t hear anything in there that you shared, and I’ve never seen any science that says if you eat more meat and drink more milk, you’re going to have a better chance of preventing and reversing cancer.
00;43;12;11 – 00;43;13;16
Nathan Crane
I’ve never heard that.
00;43;13;17 – 00;43;38;11
Ocean Robbins
I’ve you know, I’ve never heard that there are there are a few people claiming it, but they don’t know. There are no studies to back it up. There are some murky data on dairy products. There have been some studies that have linked them to higher cancer risk, some lower more honestly, have led to higher cancer risk. But obviously, you can cherry pick the data and find studies that back up a lot of different things.
00;43;39;12 – 00;43;59;16
Ocean Robbins
And but but no, there there’s nobody credible that can really tell us that we need to eat more meat for lower cancer is the exception maybe that I don’t consider credible. A lot of people are advocating a ketogenic diet for cancer prevention. They’re saying that cancer cells don’t eat ketones and if you’re in ketosis, they’ll starve to death.
00;43;59;27 – 00;44;23;06
Ocean Robbins
And that cancer cells like sugar, well, they may like sugar, but they can’t eat ketones. And that’s been documented now. So and there are absolutely no studies showing lower risk of cancer for people in a ketogenic diet. But there are abundant studies showing higher risk of cancer for people who don’t get enough fiber and don’t get enough whole plant foods and eat too much meat, all of which are promoted by a ketogenic diet.
00;44;23;19 – 00;44;40;26
Ocean Robbins
So in the long run, I think it’s a bit of hogwash to think that ketosis is going to fight cancer. I understand a lot of people are desperate, especially when they’re dealing with cancer immediately. And of course, if something works for anybody, I’m the first one to say, please do what works for you. I’m never one to put ideology ahead of people’s lives.
00;44;41;09 – 00;45;01;12
Ocean Robbins
But I do think that the science is pretty clear that a diet that’s low in fiber, which you can’t if you’re eating 80%, 90% fat, you’re going to have a pretty low fiber diet, a diet that is, you know, low in that all of the vital nutrients that come from plants and a diet high in meat is not going to be a friend to your cancer fighting goals.
00;45;02;07 – 00;45;37;29
Nathan Crane
Yeah, I did an interview with Dr. Joel Furman, who’s part of this summit as well. And one of the things he mentioned in all the blood analysis that they do with their patients is they’re supporting them in reversing cancer is he finds it’s only about maybe 2% of people that actually because of some genetic predisposition or some reason they’re not able to get enough protein or synthesize enough nutrients because something’s going on with their body that they that they do have them either eggs or a little bit of meat.
00;45;37;29 – 00;46;01;04
Nathan Crane
But but still, their primary diet is a plant based diet. And so I find that fascinating because it’s only about 2% of the people that that they see. And I think that’s something important to note is, yes, you know, I find the plant based diet works for me and my family and it has for many, many years. And the evidence certainly is pointing to that.
00;46;01;04 – 00;46;25;07
Nathan Crane
If you want to live healthier, longer, with more vitality and prevent reverse almost every disease that a very diverse, organic, plant based diet is certainly the way to go. And so as we kind of wrap up here, I want to ask you, because I know it can be very challenging for people to either start changing their diet, switch their diet, even if they want to, because of the additions of the sugar, the processed food, the meat, the dairy.
00;46;25;15 – 00;46;36;10
Nathan Crane
There’s some we can go into so much on that. But just kind of wrapping up, what are some things that people can actually do to start being more diligent about their diet.
00;46;37;19 – 00;46;54;13
Ocean Robbins
In order to get from point A to point B, you’ve got to have three pieces of information. You’ve got to know what point A is. You’ve got to know what Point B is, and you’ve got to know something about the terrain. That’s how a GPS works, right? It’s got it’s mapping data, but it has to know where you are and have that GPS going in and it’s got to know where you’re going.
00;46;54;13 – 00;47;10;10
Ocean Robbins
And so I think that similarly, if you have health goals and food goals, you kind of want to know what they are and identify them and clarify what your mission is. If you want to fight disease, do you want to live a long, healthy life? Do you want to dispel brain fog? Do you want to feel better? Do you want to have a better sex life?
00;47;10;17 – 00;47;29;06
Ocean Robbins
And those kinds of things can all happen when you know what you’re headed towards and then you want to also know kind of where you are. Like, honestly, self assessment is kind of important. Do you slip default, you have late night cookie binges. It doesn’t really matter if you avoid junk all day. If you binge all night, you know.
00;47;30;07 – 00;47;48;04
Ocean Robbins
And so it’s important to understand kind of where you’re slipping, what you’re weakest, what the weakest links are in your food chain so that you can make progress. But the main thing is don’t make the perfect into the enemy of the good. Clarify the way you are, set some goals and then take steps. One step a time forward.
00;47;48;08 – 00;48;11;22
Ocean Robbins
I’m not interested in fancy diets that you go on for a few weeks and then binge afterwards. I’m interested in habits. It’s our habits that shape our destiny. It’s what we do when gravity calls, when you you can jump, but you’re going to land. And so I’m interested in what you land in, what catches you, what sustains you, what are the groups that you go on go into when you’re on autopilot?
00;48;11;29 – 00;48;34;28
Ocean Robbins
And the right use of willpower isn’t to fight the groups, it’s to create new ones. And then you just keep channelling your energy there. And then it gets easier and easier so it eventually you don’t have to struggle. It’s not an uphill battle just to do the right thing for your health. It’s the path of least resistance. And you then you’re on a superhighway towards health and vitality and the joy and the pleasure that you deserve before.
00;48;34;28 – 00;48;56;27
Nathan Crane
Well said, ocean. I’m a testament to exactly that as well as that changing our diet can be challenging at first, but the more we do it, the better we eat the learning, the better we, the more we learn how to cook with whole natural foods and make them taste delicious. It’s the easier it becomes. And then you start feeling better, you feel better, you eat better, you eat better, you feel better.
00;48;56;27 – 00;49;16;01
Nathan Crane
It’s a snowball effect and you never want to go back to eating the same way again. So I want to thank you for joining us here for the Global Cancer Symposium. I want to encourage everyone tuning in. A great place for you to start and go into. The next step is pick up Ocean’s book 31 day food revolution.
00;49;16;01 – 00;49;39;03
Nathan Crane
You can get that at food revolution dot org. You can also join their newsletter and stay up to date. They produce an annual summit with the world’s leading experts and a whole lot of additional support, resources and ongoing information to support you in making these healthy food choices for yourself and your family. Again, this food revolution dot org and ocean again.
00;49;39;05 – 00;49;42;14
Nathan Crane
Thank you so much for being here and sharing all your wisdom with us.