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Episode #164
8/29/2012:Part I: Brian Clemente
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Dr. Brian Clement, Ph.D., N.M.D. is director of the Hippocrates Health Institute, the world’s first and fore-most residential complementary health care facility. The institute was founded in Boston a half a century ago and relocated to West Palm Beach, Florida in 1986. As director, Clement pioneered the integration of cutting edge, non-invasive medical technology with traditional medicine and pure lifestyle modalities. Gathering a team of health professionals from every aspect of the comprehensive field has helped the thousands of individuals seeking healing. While all kinds of individuals attend the life change program, Clement and the institute are best known for the work they have accomplished for people with catastrophic illness.
Monitoring the program’s participants through medical blood profiles and dark-field microscopic analysis has created a watershed of data and research material that has been pursued for studies by Colombia University. This information is now being considered by the National Institute of Health. Clement was a founding member of the Coalition for Holistic Health, a gathering of natural health care organizations, some twenty-five years ago. This group was formed to resist the frontal attack of the pharmaceutical industries and U.S. government on traditional therapies. He has taught in thirty countries, worked with the Swedish, Indian, and Egyptian governments on their healthcare systems, consulted the Ministers of Health in Ireland and is internationally known figure in the establishment of health policies.Under Dr. Clement’s directorship, Hippocrates Health Institute received the status of number one medical spa in the world at the turn of the twenty-first century. He spends much of his time researching, writing and addressing groups globally.
Brian Clement is the father of four children and happily married to Dr. Anna Maria Gahns Clement with whom he shares responsibility for overseeing the institute’s ongoing operations.
8/29/2012:Part II Zel Allen
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With a focus on healthy eating, compassion for animals, and environmental consciousness, her vegan journey led Zel Allen to partner with her husband, Reuben, to publish Vegetarians in Paradise. Their online publication is read by more than 125,000 visitors monthly www.vegparadise.com. In addition to her articles, the e-zine spotlights her humorous illustrations and her innovative recipes. Zel’s interest in the powerful health aspects of nuts resulted in her one-of-a-kind cookbook, The Nut Gourmet, which features 150 innovative, totally nutty recipes.
Presently, Zel spreads the message of a healthy vegan lifestyle by teaching vegetarian cooking classes at libraries, churches, and at Glendale Community College in Southern California. She lives in Granada Hills with her husband and her cat Fuzzy, once a homeless kitten. You can also see their website at VegParadise.com
8/29/2012:Part III Greg Singer
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Vegtoons producer, Greg Singer, has worked in the production management, story development and executive offices of DreamWorks Feature Animation, Fox Feature Animation and Cartoon Network. Mr. Singer also has worked with UNICEF’s Cartoons for Children’s Rights campaign, NASA’s space life sciences division, and the U.S. Peace Corps, assisting Kenya’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. Click on the links for more on Vegtoons and the Vegtoons Kickstarter
TRANSCRIPTIONS:
PART I:
Caryn Hartglass: Hello everybody! I’m Caryn Hartglass you’re listening to It’s All About Food! I hope you’re having a great day today! It’s August 29, 2012, and it’s time to talk about food. Hippocrates said, “Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well.” That means a lot to me and we’re going to be talking about that in a moment. We’ve got a packed show with lots of interesting, varied information—informative, delicious and entertaining and we’re going to get started right now.
My first guest is Dr. Brian Clement, PhD., N.M.D, L.N., he has spearheaded the International Progressive Health Movement for more than 3-1/2 decades by conducting daily clinical research as the Director of the renowned Hippocrates Health Institute, the world’s foremost complimentary, residential health Mecca. He and his team have developed a state of the art program for health maintenance and recovery. His Florida center has pioneered a program and established training in active aging and disease prevention with hundreds of thousands of people participating in this program over the last half century, volumes of data have been accrued giving Dr. Clement a privileged insight into the lifestyle required to prevent disease, enhance longevity and maintain vitality and stamina. Among his many contributions are Living Foods for Optimum Health and Longevity and Life Force, which Dr. T. Colin Campbell called, “One of the most important books ever written on nutrition.” We are going to start with Food is Medicine…Welcome Dr. Clement!
Dr. Clement: Well, nice to be here with you.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes… I’ve heard you speak numerous times and it’s always very inspiring and informative and I’m looking forward to talking to you right now!
Dr. Clement: Great.
Caryn Hartglass: Ok…so….you’ve come out with a lot of books. We’re going to start talking about Food is Medicine. I love the title. I’m sure if the government is looking at it, they’re squirming a little bit.
Dr. Clement: {Laughs} That’s right.
Caryn Hartglass: As you know, the FDA doesn’t like us calling food medicine because they figure then they have to get involved and regulate and tell us how much of whatever we can consume.
Dr. Clement: Right. Right. Well, you know what has happened is over the last 4 decades of my work and working both here in the United States and Canada as well as, Europe, developing centers, I’m constantly in a position where I’m addressing medical conferences and universities, etc., and there’s been an ongoing, lingering, 4 decades of nonsense…
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughs}
Dr. Clement: …questioning going on and they always say, “Give me empirical evidence that food can heal cancer and that food does all of this. And, a few years ago, I just came back from a lecture and I called up my researcher and I said, “Look it, check and see if we can scramble together enough information to put at least one, 250 page book together with empirical evidence.” And, he called me a week later and said, “You know, do you want to give up everything else you’re doing? Because, we can write one volume after another volume…
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughing}
Dr. Clement: …for our entire lifetimes.
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: I said, “You’re kidding!” It’s funny, as much as I think I know about things, it’s great to find out I don’t know everything sometimes…
Caryn Hartglass: Yep.
Dr. Clement: …and we discovered that the pharmaceutical industry understands that the future is that they cannot continue to sham the audience—the public—and tell them that medicines are going to help them when by the way, the lawyers—thank goodness—are out two years, three years after the drug comes and showing us it kills us. So, they’ve now spend billions and billions of dollars since the early ‘90s (an ever increasing amount) to do research on the elements into the chemicals, the phytochemicals –the phytonutrients in foods—that literally prevent and eliminate disease. Because of that, they’re doing it, really, for an economic objective, so that, eventually, they’ll create a product that they’ll charge you a $1,000 a month for that—by the way—won’t work because they don’t get the big picture.
Caryn Hartglass: Right.
Dr. Clement: So, we have taken all of this and, in a figurative way, laundered this information, put raw, incredible university studies from around the globe, this will accumulate into a 3-volume series, Food is Medicine and there is not a shadow of a doubt, that when I’m out the next time at a university and they start throwing tomatoes at me…
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughing}
Dr. Clement: …I’m going to ask the doctor who has the loudest voice to come up and I’m going to anally inject the first volume, if that’s not enough, the second, the third …
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughing}
Dr. Clement: …because we are going to overwhelm them with their own data and information!
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughing} That’s really funny! You answered my question… because… that I didn’t even ask, but I wasn’t exactly sure what the motivation was behind this book because…I mean…the people that I’m involved with, know that food has tremendous power over health and so they go into the medical journals and they look for the latest research and, so, I was wondering why would we need to have a book like this? And, now I understand why because a lot of people really aren’t paying attention…
Dr. Clement: They’re not. And you can’t find everything—not in one place—you can find this information. And what is outstanding for me, to have done this—it was a good exercise for my already committed mind—to see that, by the way, when I’ve been observing tens of thousands of people recovering from catastrophic disease, that now we have a body of evidential science that shows me, even more than I understood, why this is happening.
Caryn Hartglass: Right, and this is a good thing, but one of the things that’s a little bit, maybe, problematic is that we’re very reductionist…
Dr. Clement: Mmm…Hmm.
Caryn Hartglass: …when it comes to science. So, we like to look at one thing and see what it does.
Dr. Clement: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: And I think you mention that in between the lines when you mentioned how the pharmaceutical companies want to put these things in pills, but they don’t get the whole picture because a lot of these things work with lots of other things that we haven’t even discovered.
Dr. Clement: Look….I mean…you know because you’ve listened to me before, one of my last contributions, several years ago, was a book where I expose the supplement industry.
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: And, I actually—for 4 decades in that case, too—collected data, much more difficult, by the way, than this. And, completely, without question, exposed that more than 90% of supplements are made out of oil, turpentine, coal tar that they make blacktop with, etc.
Caryn Hartglass: Hmm…
Dr. Clement: And, although supplements are more needed today than ever in history, there’s only about 8 or 9% you should choose from—the whole food variety. I actually showed you that even most of the alternative doctors that are IV-ing into you chemical asorbic acid, as an example, are weakening your health.
Caryn Hartglass: Yep.
Dr. Clement: And the sad fact of the matter is the first time I heard of that, was out of the Linus Pauling Foundation in 1976. A young man that was directing and running and doing the research of Dr. Arthur Robinson, was formerly a Phi Beta Kappa student of Linus Pauling …
Caryn Hartglass: Hmm.
Dr. Clement: …and he called me and blew my mind because I was a big believer in every supplement then.
Caryn Hartglass: Right.
Dr. Clement: You know…high dose, long term use of ascorbic acid actually d the chances of cancer in people.
Caryn Hartglass: Oooh…Oooh!
Dr. Clement: And, I was much younger and, of course, was a little bit more naïve and I thought, “Gee, ya know, I trust him, why would he tell me that? This Linus Pauling’s Foundation” and I tried to find other science on it and it was really hard to come. But, by mistake, every once in awhile, honesty would slip out. Because most of you listening do not know that 80% of the supplements are originally made in the pharmaceutical industry today and then they’re packaged and “Ma and Pa’d” and labeled under the name of other companies. But the fact of the matter is, they do squelch the information and all the data on supplementation is conducted by the people and paid for by the people that make the supplements. Now, I’m saying, once again, that you need supplements today more than ever because we don’t have it in the soil…
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: …we’re stressed, we’re under different circumstances, we’re in a polluted, cesspool world, but the truth of the matter is, you’re killing yourself with 97% of what you’re taking.
Caryn Hartglass: O-O-O-O-OK…but… there is hope and the hope is that good food is medicine. Good food is good for us. Now, let me ask you, when I first got this book, I was going to cuddle up with a nice drink and open it up and read it.
Dr. Clement: I hope it was wheatgrass! I hope it was wheatgrass! {Laughing}
Caryn Hartglass: Green juice! I’m a green juice drinker myself.
Dr. Clement: Good! Good! That’s Good! {Laughing}
Caryn Hartglass: Then, I realized, it was not the kind of book that you read from cover to cover. It’s kind of difficult to do that. How is someone supposed to use this book other than showing other doctors and nutritionists that there’s all this information.
Dr. Clement: This is a reference book. You know, it’s amazing, in the time it took, the several years it took for us to put this together and write it, I forget some of what I wrote down and read a 100 times.
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: So, it’s on my shelf and it’s on a lot of our guests’ shelves and patients around the world now because, when you pick it up, you’ll say, “Gee, what am I getting from this food?”
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: What other than the nutrients, the vitamins, the minerals, what else is in there? What phytochemical is in there? What disease can this help me prevent? And, that’s not only good for you, who is somewhat professional in this and myself, it’good for the people we work with and, so, it’s a very universally accepted book. No, it’s not a bedtime story book…
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughs}
Dr. Clement: …it’s a wake yourself up book! {Laughing}
Caryn Hartglass: Well, yeah, I like that it starts with aging, age, well it works out well in the alphabet, but so many of us are concerned about aging because we’re somewhat vain in addition to wanting to feel good and, do you remember what you can tell us about aging and he we…
Dr. Clement: Yes, I can. The one thing that we universally have to agree with, even the most conservative people I know on the subject of nutrition and healthcare, is that, low caloric intake and high density nutrients prolong your life. Now, ever since 1930, there have been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of studies conducted on it and not one of those studies has come up with anything different as a conclusion.
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughs}
Dr. Clement: So, our first job is to get rid of the meats and the dairy food and the junk food, and the fast food and the chemicalized food and the pesticides, but once you’re beyond that, then we’ve got to control our emotions so that we’re eating less of those foods.
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: Now, the anorexic and bulimics don’t listen to me in this segment. {Laughs}
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughing}
Dr. Clement: Now, the rest of you we have to get to the point—and you know what’s really interesting is as we age, our body naturally tells us that. It says, “Hey stupid you’re going to die soon if you don’t stop eating!” So, that’s why you eat like a horse at 20, 30, 40, but by the time you’re 60, 70 and 80, the body’s saying, “Hey, I’m going to preserve me, if you’re too dumb to do it!”
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughs}
Dr. Clement: So, low caloric intake, high density nutrients are what. This year, by the way, we’re in the middle of a study with the University of California to disprove genetics.
Caryn Hartglass: Hmm.
Dr. Clement: And, when we publish this study sometime next year, we’re not going to say, “Eat the Hippocrates Diet.” What we’re going to say is, “Low caloric, high density nutrient intake will prolong life and reduce disease.” And in this case, we’re literally taking the most severe forms of cancer that they, in writing, in the mainstream allopathic profession, admit they have zero success rate with. Although, they have zero success with many, with Stage 4 lymphoma and Stage 4 breast cancer, they put that in writing in medical journals. So, we intentionally use those kinds of people and we’re going to show that you can change genetic predisposition with low caloric, high density nutrients. That’s what we’ve been doing here for 57 years.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, well I can’t wait to see that book. Because as you know, unfortunately, as we learn more about our genes, a lot of people feel that because of their genes, they can’t do something and that’s really, bad information.
Dr. Clement: It’s a criminal act. It’s more than bad. Let me tell you, the biologists and the doctors have hijacked genetics. Just please, take a moment if you buy into that paradigm of stupidity and look and read the guys who created the genetic code, they tell us—the men who created the genetic code—less than 5% of your health depends upon heritage and genetics. That means 95% of your health, your disease, your potential disease, your premature aging depends upon your lifestyle.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah. People really need to hear that it’s really, really important and it feels better when you know that you’re in control!
Dr. Clement: Look, Look it…we are such an ill culture and society. We had 8,500 women last year who did not have cancer, submit themselves to removing their breasts because some biologist, some doctor told them some falsity about genetics—about a BRAC gene or something.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah…
Dr. Clement: …this is mortal sin as far as…this is barbaric beyond barbaric!
Caryn Hartglass: I really agree with you. Yeah, so, I really believe it this. I’m a long term vegan and I had advanced ovarian cancer 6 years ago and I know that I’m here today because of the food that I chose to eat and how—even though I was a vegan when I was diagnosed and there’s a whole story behind it—I knew what I needed to do to heal…
Dr. Clement: Exactly.
Caryn Hartglass: …and it’s all about greens to me. So, how do you feel about conventional medicine today? Do we…is there some of it that’s worthwhile? Is it complementary to good nutrition?
Dr. Clement: Well, when it comes to nutrition, it’s not on the same line or the same sentence with mainstream medicine. The best that you’ll ever get at what is called, “progressive,” but it most certainly is not, medical school, is a few classes on nutrition and all of it’s improper and incorrect nutrition. So, that doesn’t come together, but do I think there’s aspects of modern medicine that are phenomenally effective? Yes. I think emergency medicine, the only ones who have the right, in my opinion, to call themselves, “Doctors,” are those people…
Caryn Hartglass: Hmm.
Dr. Clement: …I mean, they’re heroic people, they save lives everyday, God bless them and that technology is improving by the minute. I think diagnostics and medicine, although, some of them are problematic and cause disease (because of radiation, etc.) that has revolutionized what we know. You know, babies aren’t be born as still births, and with umbilical cords killing them anymore because we can now look into a body before the baby’s coming out. So we can’t just say all medicine’s bad. I also would like to say to the listeners who are angry with doctors, I’ve only met a handful of doctors out of the thousands that I have known, who you should be angry with. The rest of these young men and women, when at 18 and 19 chose to go to medical school, I promise you, did it for the right reason.
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: They didn’t sit down at 19 and calculate that I want to go to school for 12 gruesome years to make a lot of money because it doesn’t happen in most cases unless you’re a specialist and lucky. So, they went in for the right reason. Now, here’s the problem …the problem is that the pharmaceutical companies globally pay for the half the medical education …
Caryn Hartglass: Yep.
Dr. Clement: …so here’s what you’re really getting is an education on how to always give the same answer, a prescription, a prescription, a prescription. When, for instance, the world of oncological cancer medicine today, they admit that 93% of the people who are medically treated for cancer, the cancer will return, but they keep proceeding and doing it. We had an oncologist come here, recently, and sent his friend to us who had Stage IV liver cancer that went into his brain who, by the way, is in the beginning of reversing it, now…
Caryn Hartglass: Hmm.
Dr. Clement: …and when this man came to us, his son came along who was a pharmacist, a very successful, young 40 year old pharmacist in the New York area. At graduation every week—we have a formal graduation where we honor the guests who have been through the program—and he, actually, stood up and cried and he had me crying and he had everybody else crying and he said, “You know, for 15 years I have been writing prescriptions. I cannot image how many hundreds, if not thousands of prescriptions for chemotherapy I have given out,” he said, “but it took my father getting cancer and the doctors saying he needed chemotherapy for me to look at the package.”
Caryn Hartglass: Hmm. Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: Now this is the man who owns the pharmacy…
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: …God knows how many prescriptions…and he said the very first thing they tell you on chemotherapy drugs is “Warning, this causes cancer.”
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughing!}
Dr. Clement: It’s insanity! It’s insanity at its worst! Now, I mean, you know…to profit from something you know is problematic to me, is the lowest thing you can do.
Caryn Hartglass: Ummm, ok…I want to talk about a couple of other books that you have coming out, if you don’t mind.
Dr. Clement: Sure.
Caryn Hartglass: Because I think you have a new one coming out either today or yesterday?
Dr. Clement: Yes, it’s already printed, they called me yesterday, so you are right.
Caryn Hartglass: Killer Fish: How Eating Aquatic Life Endangers Your Health. Now, that one, I haven’t read and I need to read because a lot of people are getting interested in health and nutrition and everyone thinks that fish is a part of that.
Dr. Clement: If I were to create a substance to get you sick, I wouldn’t have to do it, I would just tell you to eat fish.
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughs}
Dr. Clement: Of course, when I write books, obviously, I think I know something before I start writing it, but I always challenge myself to come up to speed on all the latest research and data and I was stunned, because what’s happened over the last 5-10 years with data and research on this has been shocking. We just finished—and I’ll offer this to your listeners too—we just finished writing the latest magazine and you’ll all get it, I know you’re on the list…
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: …but I others can be. You’re going to get it by the middle of September. It’s all about this fish issue today and my editor came into my office and said aren’t you depressed after we did this one? And I said, “Yes, unfortunately, I am…
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughing!}
Dr. Clement: …because it’s not just about eating fish and the diseases it causes, but the degradation of the oceans and the lakes and the streams and rivers…
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, yes.
Dr. Clement: You know…you’re going to love that magazine and anyone who’s interested, all you have to do is get on the Hippocrates website, and I’ll spell it, this is a big, hard name for most of us, it’s Hip, H-I-P, P-O-C-R-A-T-E-S, I-N-S-T, hippocratesinst (all one word, father of medicine, inst) .org and there’s a place to sign up for the magazine there. But, this book is going to first and foremost put this issue exactly where it should be. Fish is not a health food. Fish is not a good source of Omega oils, fish is the most contaminated object on the planet Earth today. Fish has transgendered itself and the vast majority of fish out there today, boys are girls and girls are boys fish.
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughs}
Dr. Clement: Fish contain the highest level of chemicals and heavy metals of any one on this planet, including humans. What happens is biomagnifications occurs, where the bigger fish eats the little fish and is eat by a bigger fish and you, the big nut, eats the fish…
Caryn Hartglass : {Laughs}
Dr. Clement: …now we have massive amounts, thousands, upon thousands of times more gathered together and accumulated chemicals and toxins than you could imagine. It’s not just the usual suspect, Mercury. One of the things I report is that top oceanographic scientists who are from Sweden and Canada went and looked at the 250 most pristine little brooks, rivers, lakes in the world. Most of these locations do not have human, residences for hundreds of thousands of miles from them. North Pole, Lapland, Northern Canada, South Pole, etc. When they looked at 2” fish and below, every one of these little aquatic life areas, these 250, 2” fish or below, 80% of the boy fish were now girls…
Caryn Hartglass: Hmm.
Dr. Clement: For instance, the Potomac River, which by the way your Capitol is on, the White House is near, etc., every single fish, they’ve ever tested there in the last 10 years has transgendered at some level and people do not know this. And, this biomagnifications issue is just crazy. There’s other terms that I explain to people in there that make science really easy to understand. This isn’t a boring book, it’s an enlightening book and it will make it so palatable and easy for you to walk out and say, “Never, again, in all my life am I ever going to eat a fish.” By the way, anyone who reads this book and eats fish, I promise they’re suicidal!
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughs!} Well, I want, and you may know some of these people, I’m not going to mention any names, but I know some big proponents of a plant based, plant strong diet who call themselves sometimes, “Nearly Vegan,” where they eat mostly plant foods all the time, but just sometimes they have fish…
Dr. Clement: Well, sometime I’d like to have a debate with them and we’ll see who wins at the end of that one, because there’s nobody on the planet Earth, ever, who needs any animal based foods. And, if you eat an animal based food today, you’re not only picking up non-nutritive substances that your body takes days to rid itself of, and weakens your immune system and raises your potential for health [issues], but now you’re putting in all the chemicals and all the heavy metals all the diseases and, in the case of fish by the way, all the parasites and amoeba. If I wanted to give you a parasite or amoeba, the fish is the easiest and best way to do it…
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughs!}
Dr. Clement: …and why tolerate that? And, there’s this misnomer and misunderstanding, confusion and I, actually, think lack of ethics that surrounds the issue of eating animals. And the point I want to make to you, if you don’t need to do it and you can flourish, and be strong and healthy, and stay young and vital longer than you would otherwise, why would you do that? For some crazy idea that there’s something in a fish that you don’t get in plants? I know for 41 years I’ve eaten this way and I’ve never touched an animal based food. I’m healthier in my 60’s than I’ve ever been. I’ve raised 4 children, 3 are grown adults they’re having grandchildren now, never touched an animal food in their life. Never. Completely healthy. Never missed a day of school. I’ve worked with hundreds of thousands—200 thousand people myself. I’ve watched people come back from the dead on plant based diets.
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clements: Now, you have people who have theories and philosophies who call themselves “experts” on the Internet, and then you have real scientists like Hippocrates and me that do this and do clinical research and have the substance, the proof and the empirical evidence of this. So, you have opinion people, who have their own ethical problems in eating animals, and then you have people like us who prove what happens when you do not animals and do not eat fish.
Caryn Harglass: Well, you don’t have to convince me, but I thinks it’s really great that you’re coming out with this book and I’m, definitely, going to grab it. Now, we just have a few more minutes left and I wanted to talk about plants because there are more people realizing the power of plant food, but there are different plant based diets.
Dr. Clement: Yes.
Caryn Hartglass: And, so, just a couple of foods I wanted to talk about. Some people think sprouts are good and some people don’t.
Dr. Clement: Ok. Let’s go back in 1948, there was a really smart scientist who was looking at his microscope and was dissecting vegetables and actually saw an element that he didn’t know what it was then, come out of the vegetable onto the Petri dish with the microscope and attack a cancer cell and kill it.
Caryn Hartglass: Hmm.
Dr. Clement: Then he would take another vegetable and maybe that vegetable would come out and get a virus and kill it. And, he was so puzzled and he brought colleagues in and that was the beginning of what we know as phytochemical science.
Caryn Hartglass: Ta, da, da!
Dr. Clement: “Phyto” meaning plant science. And, after that, not much was done, because when I was a little boy, in that period of time, science was a big thing, we had the jet age, you know, science was going to take us out of the darkness and nobody put much power or thought into biology or natural methodologies, etc. It wasn’t until the pharmaceutical companies realized that the jig was up and that people were realizing that their chemical approach was bad that they started to put money behind research and the first money, of any significance was done at John’s Hopkins. So, now John’s Hopkins started a research project and realized that when they look globally, populations that ate, even horribly bad food, but ate cabbage or where cabbage was a big part of that food, had less cancer. So, that was a pretty easy thing to determine, but now they had to do the science on it.
Caryn Hartglass: Hmm.
Dr. Clement: What the heck was it in cabbage and the cabbage family that made you well and they isolated that down to broccoli. Remember, Daddy Bush, the first Bush, basically, he got himself in trouble when John Hopkins came out and said, “Eat broccoli, because broccoli will prevent and eliminate cancer. And, he said, “Well, I don’t like broccoli.” Remember that?
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, I do and I was so angry when he said that. He should have kept his mouth shut.
Dr. Clement: You’re not kidding. Now the next thing was, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins was part of this and said, “My God, you know, if broccoli is the best of all the cabbage family to prevent and eliminate cancer, how about if we sprout the broccoli?” And, when they sprouted it, they found it was 48 times more effective with the phytochemical to isolate, kill and prevent cancer. Now, what the phytochemical in broccoli is, is called, it’s called sulforaphane. And sulforaphane…the two oncologists, the two cancer researchers that were on that particular project—I had the opportunity to meet years after that—and both said the same thing to me, (one man had done research for more than half a century in cancer) and he said the most effective anti-cancer agent I’ve ever worked with was broccoli sprouts. And, all’s he done for 50 years is find ways to kill cancer.
Caryn Hartglass: Wow.
Dr. Clement: He said, “We actually named—created a new word, a new name during that study—called ‘phytochemo’ or plant chemo.”
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughs}
Dr. Clements: And so, those who say sprouts are “bad,” all we’ve been doing here for 57 years with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people with the number one ratio of having people reverse the aging process and reverse disease than any other organization in the history of man, is giving massive amounts of sprouts in the forms of foods, in the forms of juice, etc.
Caryn Hartglass: Right,
Dr. Clements: This is what I’ve been eating; it’s a great source of protein, one of the greatest sources of essential fatty acids, nutrient rich like nothing else. The average sprout is 10 times—listen closely—10 times more nutritious than the best vegetables. The kind of sprouts we use a lot of here, wheatgrass, sunflower, pea greens—listen closely—are 30 times more nutritious than the best organic vegetable you can grow in your backyard and eat raw.
Caryn Hartglass: Wow.
Dr. Clement: So, why wouldn’t you take something that is 10, 20, 30 times more nutritious? Anyone who would say they don’t like sprouts, obviously haven’t used them and haven’t found the clinical research as we have on them or has Johns Hopkins.
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm. Ok, well…I’m sproutin’! I’m a sprouter. I love sunflower sprouts and pea sprouts. Love ‘em!
Dr. Clements: They’re great stuff.
Caryn Hartglass: They’re really great stuff. Ok, one more question, I could talk to you for hours, but I’m not going to today. The question is fruit. Is it good? Is it not good?
Dr. Clement: {Laughs} This was a rude awakening for me because when I became a raw food consumer, it was much easier, because you know I was a sugar addict like everyone listening there…
Caryn Hartglass: Yep, watermelon mono-meals.
Dr. Clement: Yes, exactly, I turned in my white sugar and eventually my honey and my maple syrup for 10 mangoes at a sitting and 30 pound watermelons and gallons of carrot juice and all of this business because I perpetuated my sugar addiction.
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: Then, an unfortunate call came to me because half my diet was fruit at that point and I was running around saying this is the greatest thing in the world, high as a kite!
Caryn Hartglass: {Laughs}
Dr. Clement: The icon of Hippocrates was not our founder, Ann Wigmore or Viktoras Kluvinskas or Anna-Maria or myself, it was a woman called, Eydie Mae Hunsberger.
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: And back 32 years ago, when I became Director of Hippocrates, I wanted to know why people came. And, at that point 65% of the people who came to us came from reading her book, Edie May’s book, How I Conquered Cancer Naturally. And that book sold a million copies without one penny being put into advertising.
Caryn Hartglass: Huh.
Dr. Clement: And, Eydie Mae, who I loved, she was down to earth, she was a California woman, had a great marriage, real simple, not counter-cultural in any way, was interested in science in increment of why my cancer, Stage IV breast cancer went away, she called me and said, “My tumors are growing back, but not my cancer.” So, this is our icon, I’m holding my breath saying, “Oh my God, if she goes down with cancer, I’m even doubting what we’re doing here!” And this goes on for 3 years and then she’d call me and say, “Oh, my tumors are going down, again, and I don’t have cancer.” Third year, she called up and said, “Uh, oh… Now, I live in southern California where they grow a lot of dates and all my neighbors and I get along and they bring me boxes of dates when they have them and I eat the dates at certain times of the year and the tumors grow and when the dates run out, guess what? My tumors go down.
Caryn Hartglass: Hmm.
Dr. Clement: So, she said,” We’d better look at sugar in fruit.” Now, remember, still today, most people out there listening to me out there think fructose is still better glucose or sucrose, and what we write in Food as Medicine, is that fructose ages you just as quick, if not more so, than white sugar does.
Caryn Hartglass: Mmm…Hmm.
Dr. Clement: And these are things that people don’t know, but science is in on this. So we, then did a study on our guests—and we had to be very quiet in those days because we used to get yearly visits from the Food and Drug Administration, who were agents for the pharmaceutical agencies…as a matter of fact, 60% of the pharmaceutical or, 60% of the Food and Drug Administration’s budget is given to them by the people they’re supposed to watch, called the pharmaceutical industry!
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah.
Dr. Clement: So, we had to do a quiet study and we did it and 30 some years ago, we took fruit out of the diet for people first with cancer and then with viruses and bacteria and then we saw spectacular changes in healing. Because, what we do know now, and even main stream medicine agrees with this, is that sugar feeds cancer.
Caryn Hartglass: Yep.
Dr. Clement: Sugar feeds viruses and it doesn’t matter if it comes from a mango or it comes from carrot juice or it comes from white sugar that you’ve eaten. So, we think fruit is a wonderful thing if it’s ripe, it’s organic and if you’re healthy, to eat in very small amounts.
Caryn Hartglass: What about berries? Are berries better than the other ones…?
Dr. Clement: Berries are one of the better one…
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah.
Dr. Clement: … because they are indigenous. We only eat 15…at most…when you’re healthy…only 15% of your diet as ripe, organic fruit. Before we leave, ripe is hard, unless you see the tree in your backyard, or you go to a place where you shake the tree and it comes down from either a vine or a bush, it’s not ripe. All commercial fruit, including organic, is picked unripened. They cannot pick ripe fruit, put it in a box and ship it, it would be rotten by the time you open it.
Caryn Hartglass: Hmm.
Dr. Clement: All of this so called “ripe fruit” is not really ripe, so you have to know where that comes from to be ripe. If you eat unripened fruit, besides the sugar problem, now you’re going to give yourself arthritis, osteoporosis, acidity…
Caryn Hartglass: Wow!
Dr. Clement: …all kinds of problems.
Caryn Hartglass: Well, Dr. Clement, thank you so much for joining me. I’ve learned a lot and it’s really been a pleasure talking to you. I’m so glad you’re doing what you’re doing!
Dr. Clement: It’s a lot of fun! Can you imagine watching people come back to life?
Caryn Hartglass: I know, it must be so wonderful!
Dr. Clement: It’s great!
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me and to visit your website “hippocratesinst” Is that what it is, “dot org?”
Dr. Clement: Yes, hippocratesinst.org H-I-P-P-O-C-R-A-T-E-S “inst” I-N-S-T, “dot org.”
Caryn Hartglass: Thank you so much.
Dr. Clement: Take care. Bye-bye now.
Caryn Hartglass: Ok, bye-bye. We’re going to take a very quick break and then we’re going to get talking to Zel Allen about her latest cookbook, Vegan for the Holidays.
Transcribed by Gail Schriver 2/16/2013
PART II:
TRANSCRIPTION:
Caryn Hartglass: I’m going to bring on my next guest who is Zel Allen with a focus on healthy eating, compassion for animals, and environmental consciousness. Her vegan journey led her to her partner, Reuben, and to publish Vegetarians in Paradise. There online publication is read by more than
125, 000 visitors monthly at VegParadise.com. In addition to her articles, her e-zine spotlights her humorous illustrations and her innovative recipes. Zel’s interest in the powerful health aspects of nuts resulted in her one-of-a-kind cookbook, The Nut Gourmet, and Zel spreads the message of a healthy vegan lifestyle by teaching vegetarian cooking classes at libraries, churches, and at Glendale Community College in Southern California. She lives in Grenada Hills with her husband and her cat, Fuzzy, once a homeless kitten. Visit her website at VegParadise.com. Hi Zel, welcome to It’s All About Food.
Zel Allen: Thank you so much.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, so we just had a heavy half hour talking about the power of plant-based foods and what they can really do for us. The great thing is that plant-based foods are delicious.
Zel Allen: They certainly are, and now we can talk about the joy of the cooking.
Caryn: The joy! As you know, there is a wide range of vegan cooking, and sometimes it is healthy and sometimes not so healthy. I always say you can be vegan and not healthy by living on French fries and Coke, and we don’t want to do that. Holiday time, however, is a time when we can be a little more indulgent and still eat pretty healthfully.
Zel Allen: That’s my favorite phrase, a little indulgent.
Caryn: Right! So you have some great recipes in your new book Vegan For the Holidays. It’s interesting that it is coming out now, August, because it’s primarily for Thanksgiving through New Years. So people can pick up your book in advance, start thinking about it, get ready, get some gifts going, and not worry when the holidays come because you have it all figured out in here.
Zel Allen: Yes, I have done my best. I have a few things that you could actually prepare now and put in the freezer or refrigerator. One of those things is a fabulous pan forte. I don’t know if you are familiar with it, but it is a typical Italian fruit and nut confection. It’s thousands of years old, actually, and it has quite a little history, but it is absolutely irresistibly delicious. Traditionally, the Italian version is made with glace’ fruit, but my version starts with dried fruits and nuts. Then we boil up a little syrup and add it to the fruits and nuts mixing it all together. Then we put it in individual parchment-lined pans and bake them in little rounds. So it is kind of like a round, flat cake. One of my testers made it, as she was wanting to give someone a gift. She sent me an email about it , and the “OMGs” kept re-appearing in that little message, and as a matter of fact, yesterday we gave one as a gift, and they just pulled it apart and began chomping away on it. It’s pretty addictive.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, and I like the idea of using dried fruit instead of all those artificially colored, sugary pieces of things that are supposed to be fruit.
Zel Allen: Agreed. Yes.
Caryn Hartglass: I do like the idea of making things in advance because when the holidays come, things get crazy and hectic.
Zel Allen: They do, they do. So it’s great if you have a little something put away in the freezer.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, it’s brilliant! So I just wanted to point out a few of the recipes that jumped out at me as being a little creative, or a little more unusual, and you seem to have a thing for pistachios, I’ve noticed, which we don’t see enough of.
Zel Allen: Well, it’s true there were a few little Salmonella issues a while back, and I think what happened is that people got a little frightened and stopped purchasing them. So, they weren’t as plentiful, but there are places where they are still quite available. Unfortunately, nuts have gotten a little pricey, like everything else.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, like everything.
Zel Allen: But, it’s the holidays! So you have to kind of break out of the mold and realize that this is a special time.
Caryn Hartglass: Well, if you plan in advance, which is something I like to do, you can really look for nuts and get them for reasonable prices. Although, sometimes I spend more than I should on nuts because I really like them to be organic, fresh, and high quality. There are a couple of places online where I like to get them, but you can look around and find places that are reasonable.
Zel Allen: Very true. If there is a Trader Joe’s nearby, that’s a place you can get nuts fairly reasonably. Now, is Costco nationwide?
Caryn Hartglass: I know we have them here. Yeah, I think they’re everywhere.
Zel Allen: So any of these big purchasing clubs where you can buy things in bulk, you can do a little bit better. It’s a way to save a little bit of money, which everyone is trying to do these days.
Caryn Hartglass: So you have some nice recipes with pistachios, and another ingredient I don’t see enough of in recipes is chestnuts.
Zel Allen: Oh, yes, one of my favorite ingredients, people don’t know how to use them actually.
Caryn Hartglass: I love chestnuts, and I lived in France for four years where there were plenty of chestnuts around, all different kinds, sweet and savory, but not here in the United States. They really are lovely, so I’m glad to see that you do have a few yummy recipes with chestnuts.
Zel Allen: At one time chestnuts were a big American product because we had American chestnut trees. Are you familiar with the fact that there was a blight? I think it started in the very early 1900s. I think in the late 1800s they were importing chestnut trees from Asia, and along came a blight with one of the trees, and it infected all the trees in the U.S., and by 1950 there was not an American chestnut tree alive.
Caryn Hartglass: Wow, that’s very sad.
Zel Allen: Yes. The tradition died. I know I used to read about people on the streets of New York and Chicago having hot chestnuts available in the wintertime on the street, and that’s gone.
Caryn Hartglass: Oh no, they still sell chestnuts in New York City.
Zel Allen: Oh, they do?
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, they do. It has made a comeback. You can get them when it’s really cold out, and it really is a lovely thing to buy roasted chestnuts.
Zel Allen: Oh, yes, it really is. One of my favorite, easy, easy recipes is the garlicky chestnut butter. It’s wonderful!
Caryn Hartglass: So, where do we get them from now? Do you know?
Zel Allen: Well, the American Chestnut Foundation has been working with a plant pathologist and cross breeding to come up with a blight-free American chestnut tree. So they are starting with small plantations and working through the Forestry Department, and I think one day we will see what once was, from Maine to Georgia I think, along the Appalachian slope they had chestnut trees. They used to say a squirrel could jump from tree to tree from Maine to Georgia and never touch the ground, but that may come back someday.
Caryn Hartglass: Oh, I love that image.
Zel Allen: Yes, isn’t it great?
Caryn Hartglass: Oh yes. Now another recipe I wanted to highlight is the Shiitake Tornadoes and cashew cream sauce. Is it tornadoes or tornados (Spanish pronunciation).
Zel Allen: I call them tornadoes because they are black, kind of like the black cloud you see coming towards you, although I’ve never been in one, but from what I’ve read. The Shiitake Tornadoes are little balls coated in black sesame seeds, and they make a beautiful presentation, especially if they are sitting in this cashew cream sauce. It is rich and lavish, and it is perfect for a very lovely, holiday meal.
Caryn Hartglass: So you’ve been doing this for a long time. How long have you been doing this vegan thing?
Zel Allen: We have been vegan for about 22 years, and we kind of come from an interesting perspective. We are not young anymore. I’m 74 and my husband is 81, and people are surprised when they meet us because we don’t act like other people in our age range.
Caryn Hartglass: You’re all energy!
Zel Allen: Yeah. We have the zip and the zest. We do live in a hilly area, so we walk up and down the hills, but we know so many people who can barely walk that are in our age range. Also, we don’t take the pills they take. We don’t need them. So, yes, following this healthy path has been a huge change for us.
Caryn Hartglass: You have had your website, VegParadise.com, for over 10-15 years?
Zel Allen: It’s been 14 years.
Caryn Hartglass: Have you seen a change over the years in terms of the people who are visiting and the numbers?
Zel Allen: The numbers, absolutely. When we first started, we did this basically to find community. When we started our own vegan path, we were doing it on our own. There was one doctor of Oriental Medicine that I had gone to, and she suggested that a vegetarian diet would be very helpful. So we started on that path basically by ourselves, and then after a couple of years we were feeling a little lonely. We needed some company to share a nice vegan meal with.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah!
Zel Allen: So, we went looking on the net, and there was nothing, and our son said, “why don’t you start a vegan website.” So, we started our little Vegetarians in Paradise website, and the first day we had about two visitors, and then five. We got excited when we had 15 visitors. We started out with a Los Angeles focus, pointing out restaurants and farmer’s markets in Los Angeles. Then we realized that people from all over the world were coming.
Caryn Hartglass: That’s amazing. Well, you know, when there is something you really want in the world you have to go and do it yourself because people aren’t going to do it for you. So you’ve created a community. I’m sure it’s just growing and growing, and a lot of people have really benefited from it.
Zel Allen: It’s very rewarding. We get wonderful emails all of the time saying how helpful it has been.
Caryn Hartglass: Oh, I bet! So I hope you have tremendous success with your new Vegan For the Holidays, and I really appreciate your making this book and for everything that you are doing because It’s not just good and delicious, but it’s also good for the planet and certainly wonderful for the animals. So thank you for joining me on It’s All About Food, and happy holidays when they roll around.
Zel Allen: You too! Thanks a million.
Caryn Hartglass: Thanks so much. Okay, that was Zel Allen, and definitely pick up a copy of Vegan For The Holidays before the holidays are here.
Transcribed by Ann Dungey, 3/19/2013