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Hartglass & De Mattei, Fat Tuesday, Fasting and Food
In today’s episode, Hartglass and De Mattei celebrate Mardi Gras, aka Fat Tuesday and discuss fasting for Lent along with Juice Fasting, Water Fasting and Intermittent Fasting. They will also talk about encouraging conversation, finding the courage to be kind and break down barriers to positive change.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Caryn Hartglass: Hi everybody, hey everybody I’m waving at all of you, how are you? I’m Caryn Hartglass and you’re listening to, what are we listening to? It’s All About Food [in unison Gary: It’s All About Food]. Oh there’s an echo in here.
Gary De Mattei: It’s All About Food.
Caryn Hartglass: It’s All About Food.
Gary De Mattei: Food, food, food, food…
[chuckle]Caryn Hartglass: Food, food, food. Guess who I’m with here? Yes, you’ve guessed it, it’s Gary De Mattei. Hey Gary.
Gary De Mattei: Hey Caryn. Happy Fat Tuesday.
Caryn Hartglass: Au Mardi Gras.
Gary De Mattei: Mardi Gras.
Caryn Hartglass: Mardi Gras, c’est français.
Gary De Mattei: Today is our Fat Tuesday show.
Caryn Hartglass: It’s our Fat Tuesday show because today is Fat Tuesday. [unison]
Gary De Mattei: And what is Fat Tuesday? It’s Mardi Gras. For those of you who celebrate. Actually, traditionally, I think it’s the first day, the last day before the 40 days and 40 nights of Lent.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, you are my Christian and Catholic expert in this duo that we have here. Because I don’t know anything about it.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, we have a perfect duo. I was raised Catholic, you were raised Jewish.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes.
Gary De Mattei: And we’re in therapy.
[chuckle]Caryn Hartglass: That show already been done.
Gary De Mattei: Right. That was a great solo performance piece.
Caryn Hartglass: By the way.
Gary De Mattei: By the way.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes.
Gary De Mattei: My mother was Jewish, my father was Catholic, and I’m in therapy.
Caryn Hartglass: I’m in therapy, yeah.
Gary De Mattei: My father was Catholic, my mother
Caryn Hartglass: We ran in New York for a while.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, it was one of our first dates.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah.
Gary De Mattei: And this is the Vegan Artist’s Way Series here at responsible eating and livng.com. We’re talking all about fun stuff today and well.
Caryn Hartglass: And any day Mardi Gras day. February 25th, and as you said it is the last day of the carnival season.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: As it falls the day before Ash Wednesday. [unison] Which is the first day of Lent.
Gary De Mattei: The Lenten Fast. The Lenten Fast means for 40 days and 40 nights you’re supposed to give up meat. And we think that’s a good idea.
Caryn Hartglass: Me, too. I guess I’ve been in Lent for 31 no, for 46, 47 years. I gave meat up a long time ago.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: But I didn’t do it for any religious reasons.
Gary De Mattei: But the funny thing is you’re quite spiritual. Probably more spiritual than a lot of religious people I know.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes.
Gary De Mattei: So Amen to that one. So, I remember growing up and you know they said you have to give things up why don’t you give up meat, but eat fish instead. So that kind of is funny now, because I think give up all flesh and you know stay in the Lenten Fast forever, because it’s delicious, if you eat plant-based. To be vegan.
Caryn Hartglass: It’s delicious and good for us and good for the planet. I’m always curious now, I’ve said many times on this program don’t mean to be offensive to anyone, I am not a religious person, if anyone of you find inspiration in religion and it makes you a better person, that’s a wonderful thing.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: I’m not a religious person. I like making it up as I go along and doing things with integrity, with things that resonate to me as right, as the right thing to do. Not because someone told me. Oh you should do this. When I get into that voice, if anyone knows me you know whose voice I am imitating.
Gary De Mattei: Right, your mommy.
Caryn Hartglass: It’s my mom. And all of us are given direction from our parents. You should do this, you should do that. Some of it’s good, and some of it’s challenging to us. We’ve given boundaries so that we can bounce off of them and make informed choices. To be really diplomatic here.
Gary De Mattei: But it’s okay, so if it’s a day of letting it all go before the big Lenten Fast, so let it all go. Tell us what you really think. I’m here to listen.
Caryn Hartglass: Oh, that’s good.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah.
Caryn Hartglass: Well, I’m just wondering if Lent was one of these guilty reactions or maybe people knew that they really shouldn’t be eating meat back then. Because there are all sort of religious references in all of religions that we shouldn’t be eating flesh. But we ended up eating flesh. And so different religions came up with different ways to kind of compensate or get around that maybe this is one way, we know we shouldn’t be so, on this sacred time period we’re going to give it up just for a little while.
Gary De Mattei: Right, because we know it’s wrong.
Caryn Hartglass: Because we know it’s wrong.
Gary De Mattei: And then we go back to being wrong.
Caryn Hartglass: Until next year folks. Stay tuned.
Gary De Mattei: Until the 40 days and 40 nights. But there was as with all religions there was an out clause and that was you could eat fish, but we both know that eating fish is just like eating beef or chicken or pork or any of the other animals that are exploited and used for human consumption.
Caryn Hartglass: And we learned that where? In the movie, “Finding Nemo.”
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: Where we learned that fish are your friends not food.
Gary De Mattei: Exactly. So why don’t you give it all up. And instead of going the 40 days go forever and you’ll be much more spiritual then those who think what they are doing now is temporary, because it’s not temporary it should be forever, you shouldn’t eat animals ever.
Caryn Hartglass: You may have more experience with this but I know I’ve heard people who go through life and they more than ever they give up something that they know they should give up.
Gary De Mattei: No it’s not just me.
Caryn Hartglass: And then after that period is over the response is usually oh I feel so good because I gave that up whatever it was.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, exactly. And so you’re supposed to give up candy for example, you’re supposed to give up chocolate maybe or something that you feel or consider decadent. Booze, a lot of people give up booze but they use Fat Tuesday to just over consume in all of those departments. It’s a very, you know Mardi Gras is a very hedonistic and that’s because they’re thinking well I’m not going to be able to do this for another 40 days and 40 nights, and so they have a hangover for 40 days and 40 nights. But they never want to touch the stuff again. So a lot of bars are going to be really you know going all out tonight. A lot of places, a lot of clubs will be it’s like a St. Patrick’s Day kind of thing.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, I wanted to stay on this subject, but take a little tiny detour in a humorous, joking way Gary. But I’m thinking that after last night you might want to give up chocolate.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, what’s a great segue. So last night we were doing some work getting ready for our week and it was late and I had a few squares of dark chocolate and I could not get to sleep afterwards.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, Gary is very sensitive to caffeine.
Gary De Mattei: And this is all since going vegan. Because I was like a 9, 10, 11 cup a day caffeine guy. And I think on top of that I drank a lot of Diet Coke, liters and liters of it.
Caryn Hartglass: You used to have a lot of caffeine, but I mean you used to have lots of other issues back then. Were you able to sleep, back then?
Gary De Mattei: You know I really didn’t pay attention to it. But once going vegan my body got rid of all of the toxins, most of toxins.
Caryn Hartglass: And you have more vitality now.
Gary De Mattei: More vitality, much more energy. And so a little caffeine goes a long way. So three squares of dark chocolate I was just, I was on the ceiling.
Caryn Hartglass: It kept you up all night. No more chocolate for you.
Gary De Mattei: At least not at night.
Caryn Hartglass: Not at night.
Gary De Mattei: Not at night, unless I’m driving across country or something and then [Caryn: There you go.] keep the chocolate coming. And it doesn’t have to be a lot of chocolate because this was a little bit of chocolate, this was endangered species chocolate and three squares of that and I was up all night. I was doing house work, you know, cutting my 8 x10 pictures and resumes and stapling them together. I was just you know I was going crazy.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, so no more chocolate for Gary. Gary’s giving up chocolate for Lent.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, I’m giving up chocolate for Lent.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, ha, ha, ha.
Gary De Mattei: No, but I mean it’s a good idea not to have it after 10:00 for me.
Caryn Hartglass: Well, there’s a lot of good ideas about what not to do in the evening at either after 6p.m. or 8 p.m. or 10 p.m. depending on when you got up in the morning, and when you’re going to wake up.
Gary De Mattei: Right, exactly.
Caryn Hartglass: Like one of the things that’s trending and I’m getting off the topic again, but intermittent fasting.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, we have a big thing about that now.
Caryn Hartglass: I do.
Gary De Mattei: Let’s everybody know what intermittent fasting all about because it’s fascinating.
Caryn Hartglass: So, in the morning most of us have something called breakfast. If you pronounce it differently it’s called break fast. Break fast, we’re supposed to be fasting, and then we break it with some nourishment. And that fast should be around 12 to 16 even 18 hours I’m hearing now, but at least 12 of no food, so from your last meal from the night before until your first meal the next day you should have a fast of at least 12 hours, 16 is even better. That’s half a day.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, and the little that I’ve been doing that, I feel terrific in the morning when that happens.
Caryn Hartglass: Me too.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, I feel very good.
Caryn Hartglass: And what it does. So the experts out there who study nutrition are learning more about digestion, and the cycle of digestion and what occurs throughout the cycle when we put food in our mouth and between the next time we put food in our mouth, and there’s a lot of things that go on. And one of the things that goes on is after the food is somewhat digested it’s moving through the intestine then the body cycles into this detoxing period where it takes the stuff that it doesn’t want and sends it out. And you can break that cycle by snacking [Gary: Right] or eating too soon [Gary: Right] and at night that’s the time when our body really does serious detoxing, some rebuilding, some restocking, rejuvenating. A lot of work is going on while we’re asleep. [Gary: Right]
Gary De Mattei: Presumably asleep right.
Caryn Hartglass: Presumably asleep. That’s why sleep is so important and you have to give the body time to do all of that. And then you break the cycle not just by waking up, but by eating.
Gary De Mattei: Well, this is really good. I mean this whole subject that we’re on. The Fat Tuesday, the day before 40 days of fasting, all of that, it’s a very good topic for our listeners today, because what we’re talking about during the Lenten Fast is actually fasting. So what a great program we have today for everyone.
Caryn Hartglass: Is that surprising you?
Gary De Mattei: Yeah.
Caryn Hartglass: We always learn something from these programs.
Gary De Mattei: No, it’s true. And it’s almost like we planned it. Right? And well we did plan it, so.
Caryn Hartglass: You’re right.
Gary De Mattei: That’s was getting this out to you. So you are an expert on fasting as far as I am concerned because you’ve done a lot of fasting. And you’ve gone to fasting, what was the place that you went to for fasting once or you talked about it that what is was you talked about a couple of places for fasting.
Caryn Hartglass: Sure, well I did
Gary De Mattei: So if people want to fast, if they want to detox their bodies what’s some good advice that you can give people who are interested in taking this Lenten Fast concept a little further?
Caryn Hartglass: Sure well the first thing if you want to do Lent, but think about something you really want to give up and with the ultimate goal of giving it up long term. But you just to trick yourself you’re going to say you’re going to do it for a short term because that makes it easier. [Gary: Right, right] We have to play games with ourselves because our minds are always playing games on us right.
Gary De Mattei: Sure.
Caryn Hartglass: But there are different kinds of fasting. So there’s intermittent fasting which everyone can do which is 12 to 16 to 18 hours between our last meal and our first meal in the morning.
Gary De Mattei: So no more midnight snacks, no more responding to come hither texts from Dominos when you’re streaming you’re Netflix, you have to turn your phone off, you have to not go and get the chips, you’ve got to really be diligent about, ok I am going to be watching a little bit of tv tonight, but I’m not going to be feeding myself while I’m watching.
Caryn Hartglass: And for people who are really trying to lose weight, I think that’s the easiest and first step that anyone should do. Because you’re really not depriving yourself, but there’s that time where you’re giving yourself a break.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: Ok. Then there are other kinds of fasts. And there are many kinds, I mean you could, I’m going to talk about the classic ones. You could do a juice fast.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: And the thing about a juice fast is what kind of juice are you going to be consuming? So you’re having just juice. No food with fiber, no solid food, just juice. But what kind of juice are you’re going to have? And if you’re going to do a juice fast in my opinion, the best kind to do is a green juice fast, not necessarily a high fruit juice, high sugary fast.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: You could maybe add a fruit or two to your green juice, but you want it to be
Gary De Mattei: Primarily green.
Caryn Hartglass: Primarily green.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: Primarily vitamins and minerals.
Gary De Mattei: So would you say that how long would you say someone should do a juice fast?
Caryn Hartglass: Well, that’s a really great question. So some people could do a fast for a day, you could do it for two days, you could do it do for a week, you could do it for two weeks. I don’t know if you want to prolong a juice fast for too long. There might be some medical reasons to do that for certain length of time, but not for much longer.
Gary De Mattei: So keyword
Caryn Hartglass: But I’m not you know the doctor.
Gary De Mattei: We’re not doctors here, right, keyword medical reasons, so are there medical doctors out there that promote juice fasting?
Caryn Hartglass: I believe there are. So, but there are also people that promote water only fasts, so they have to talk about that too, and there are different places you can go to for one and the other, or one or the other, there are all kinds of facilities out there. So I know True North Health Center in California does water fasts.
Gary De Mattei: And that’s Doctor…
Caryn Hartglass: Dr. Alan Goldheimer. Goldhammer.
Gary De Mattei: Goldhammer, was just in the movie.
Caryn Hartglass: Is he in the Gamechangers?
Gary De Mattei: He was, wasn’t he? Or was he in What The Health? He was in one of those two? You should watch them both.
Caryn Hartglass: He’s a chiropractor.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: And he’s built a really nice place over there, and not only do they do water fasting to help people heal, but they also do a lot of events where they have cooking demos and show people how to prepare food. When they come off the fast or just for those who want to learn more about food prep. And I’ve interviewed him I’ve got notes.
Gary De Mattei: And fasting is primarily about getting rid of all the toxins in your body and to start clean.
Caryn Hartglass: That’s yes.
Gary De Mattei: The inflammation.
Caryn Hartglass: Cleared out. And it’s not just
Gary De Mattei: The inflammation caused by certain foods.
Caryn Hartglass: Food, but also we live in a toxic world. So even if we’re eating as clean as we can, we’re breathing.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
[chuckle]Caryn Hartglass: And just breathing brings in stuff because we can’t control our environment.
Gary De Mattei: Sure, okay so that’s the extreme side of fasting, but a great way to start is by saying I’m not going to eat after a certain time because I want to at least go 12 hours without any food.
Caryn Hartglass: Right, now some people will skip eating for a day, they’ll do one day a week they won’t eat.
Gary De Mattei: [agrees]
Caryn Hartglass: And that’s fine too.
Gary De Mattei: That’s okay.
Caryn Hartglass: That’s okay. What you want to do always is drink water. I never recommend not doing anything. Doing any of these things and not drinking water. Water is always necessary.
Gary De Mattei: Right. So be careful. Of course, you want to consult a physician before you do any of this.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes.
Gary De Mattei: And we are not physicians. Although, we have played them on tv.
[chuckle]Gary De Mattei: But….
Caryn Hartglass: And you know the fact that this is Mardi Gras this is a really important time to bring this up. If you really want to fast, a serious fast, I mean I don’t know if you’re going to do more than give something up, but if you want to do a juice fast, or a water fast. You absolutely do not, I repeat you do not want to party your brains out before you start this fast. That’s the worst thing you could possibly do. You want to ease into a fast and that means start by eating healthier before you fast. That means reducing sugar, oil, and salt, that means eating more fiber, eating more vegetables and eating more fruits and vegetables, reducing meat and dairy, before you start the fast. I can’t say that enough because if you start a fast after a major party, [Gary: Yeah.] I can’t tell you what kind of nightmare you’re in for.
Gary De Mattei: Right, which is why a lot of people who try to stop all of the things that they were doing the night before they’re never successful at it. Because you can’t, you’ve got to ease into it. Just like you said.
Caryn Hartglass: It can’t be painful.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, it can be very painful, you can get sick. Okay, this is really fascinating stuff because I mean because a lot of people are going to be going around thinking that have to give something up, and we’re here to tell you ease into it. Ease into it.
Caryn Hartglass: Ease on down, ease on down the road.
Gary De Mattei: Now, that’s good. Now, okay, so when you talked with people on this show who promoted a plant-based diet, and you’ve talked to many of them, a lot of the time I’ve heard people say things like “giving up,” as opposed to other phrases. And I feel like when you adopt a plant-based diet, when you go vegan, you’re not giving up anything, you’re actually opening up and receiving.
Caryn Hartglass: You’re opening up, exactly.
Gary De Mattei: And receiving so much more variety out there.
Caryn Hartglass: You’re shedding the false notions that you’ve been trained to believe and then you’re open like you said to the wonders.
Gary De Mattei: One of the things you’re open to, the wonders, but also, you’re open to understanding how magnificent this machine you’re living in is, your body. Because all of sudden you get clarity and that’s the thing that I understand every time I have a late-night piece of chocolate. I have clarity about what that chocolate does to my system, I mean it really does remind me that this is powerful stuff, and I would sit and eat bar, after bar, after bar, not realizing what it was doing to me. And now a few squares and I’m you know I’m a just aware of how it affects me as well as a cup of tea that has caffeine in it or a cup of coffee. And you know it’s nice because you’re back to doing things naturally within moderation.
Caryn Hartglass: I have my own mission of what I want to share on this show and in my life, and I’ve said this many times before, I come from a place wanting to reduce pain and suffering, I want to get people off the animal because there are so many species on this planet that are innocent and are treated horribly. And, but I want to do that from a place of joy. Bring people to the light, bring people to yummy, delicious food, no deprivation, you feel better, and you want to, it’s infectious, you want to share what you’ve discovered with everyone else, and I’m waiting for that viral effect to happen. I think it’s starting to take off where we get some momentum going. But also, I also believe it opens up our minds to seeing the world the way it is. [Gary: Right.] And we have been manipulated and brainwashed and influenced over centuries, longer than that. [Gary: Right.] And it’s really hard to shake that off.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, for example, why do humans, for the most part, not all humans, I’m talking to one that doesn’t believe this, but and this is a heavy question, and you know, but I’ll ask it and send it out there to our listeners. Why do humans, some humans think they are better than the animals? And is there an answer to that? Is there, I mean there’s a discussion of speciesism, but it’s a very, it’s a hot topic now, especially. So, why is that? I know you’ve interviewed a lot of folks on this show, Melanie Joy being one of them, who wrote a book called, “Why We Eat Cows…”
Caryn Hartglass: “Why We Love Dogs”
Gary De Mattei: “Why We Love Dogs,”
Caryn Hartglass: “Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows.” Something like that.
Gary De Mattei: “Why We Love Dogs.”
Caryn Hartglass: And she came up with a concept of carnism.
Gary De Mattei: “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows.” Anyway, there’s a lot of people talking about this, I’m not sure a lot of people listening today or people out there have even heard of, carnism or Melanie Joy or any of other people talking about speciesism, but I know it’s a very controversial subject to compare speciesism or racism, a lot of people are very sensitive about that, so I’m not going to get into it. But these subjects are being discussed and right here on this show as a matter of fact, you have had guests that have talked about it. So, I guess the simple question, and I’m a simple guy, that I’m asking is, that I asked myself after the veil was lifted when I adopted a vegan lifestyle that was how did this get started in the first place? Why do we feel like we’re better than these ascension beings, what the human being want to go and mess with a grazing cow?
Caryn Hartglass: Sure, there’s a lot of people that have asked this question, there’s a lot of books on the subject, I recently interviewed the author of “The Meat Question,” and he got into it I’m thinking of some other programs I’ve had on this show about that question.
Gary De Mattei: Which are all archived by the way at responsibleeatingandliving.com.
Caryn Hartglass: And I even go back and review them.
Gary De Mattei: Right they’re great.
Caryn Hartglass: Because they’re so much information in there. But it’s linked to many things a long time ago before the internet, before a lot of things. [Gary: That was a long time ago.] You know we only had what was around us, and we had our own consciousness so it was always about our ego and ourselves, and we didn’t even realize for a long time that the earth went around the sun. There are still people promoting the flat earth theory. [Gary: Right.] So we’ve got some issues as humans [Gary: Major.] and what we believe, but I think capitalism has a lot to do with our current view of the world and over time we have learned to use property to advance and so some people have taken advantage that property, and so women and other people have been used as slaves and animals have been used to work for certain people as property. And it advanced certain people that may have power and they took advantage of that power and over time we all fell into the hierarchy and you can’t help but kind of believe that you have a place. Not that it’s right, but over time [Gary: Do you think…] it becomes.
Gary De Mattei: I think religion has played a big part in that as well. [Caryn: Oh sure.] And that’s probably why when you say you’re not a religious person I always follow it as saying, you are a spiritual person. But religion is an organized belief system, right? [Caryn: Yes.] that is there to keep people in control because they want to keep people…
Caryn Hartglass: Well, the thing that turned me off personally was when I was told that as a woman I wouldn’t be able to do certain things in the religion. There was actually a prayer that the men would say thanking God for making them a man, and the woman would substitute that line and say thank you for making me I don’t know I’m translating it I don’t know remember it exactly, but making me the way what you wanted me to be. [Gary: Right.] But not a man. And that was like I’m sorry I’m not signing up for this, I don’t believe in this, it’s done.
Gary De Mattei: But again my point being that was a way of controlling the women, [Caryn: Yes.] and making them subservient to men. [Caryn: Yes.] Right? You didn’t have a penis therefore…
Caryn Hartglass: And there is a lot of things I couldn’t do. I was the best student in my class, but I couldn’t get the honors.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah.
Gary De Mattei: So I get it, so then maybe it’s just another way to keep people where the elders think they need to be, and so what we’re saying is again, when you adopt a plant-based diet, when you go vegan. Your world will open up and you will see when you connect the dots a lot of these things. I mean this show is called, “It’s All About Food,” but a lot of the things, but the reason we call it “It’s All About Food,” is because it is all about food. I mean people were hungry, people needed to eat, people saw something walking around out there, they killed it, they skinned it, they ate it. Okay, and so, but now we’re in a little better position where we don’t need to do that.
Caryn Hartglass: Some of us.
Gary De Mattei: Some of us.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: I got to make a disclaimer. So I truly believe and I know you do to that when people adopt vegan, a vegan diet, healthy, whole food plant diet, minimally processed etc. They will feel better and their world will open up. And I like to think that that will also affect people’s outlook on the world and their politics, it doesn’t happen all the time.
Gary De Mattei: No.
Caryn Hartglass: Because there are a lot of angry vegans and some of them have the same philosophy or politics that I have that we argue a lot. [Gary: Right.]
Gary De Mattei: So it’s humans argue, but the thing that scares me and I use that word scares me or that term scares me loosely, but the thing that worries me I should say, is people aren’t willing to accept that arguing is perfectly okay. They really feel that if they don’t win the argument that they need to destroy the person who they are arguing with.
Caryn Hartglass: That’s a really good point. I think people are afraid to have an honest dialogue these days. [Gary: Yeah.] I was telling you recently I started to engage a little more on the Facebook, [Gary: The Facebook, yeah.] And I’m always polite never emotional, I don’t call people names, I don’t attack. [Gary: Right.] But I will. If somebody says something that I don’t agree with I ask a question, why do you feel that way? How does this affect you personally? What else do you recommend? Questions like that. Are those offensive?
Gary De Mattei: No.
Caryn Hartglass: No right away people respond back very defensively. Calling names, saying whatever else is it is bullshit, and we are really are at this unhinged state now [Gary: Right.] where we don’t know how to have an effective dialogue. We don’t know how to communicate anymore.
Gary De Mattei: Right, and that’s the thing about being what I consider being an American is that you can disagree with me and I will defend your right to disagree with me, but the some of these folks that are out there now, you know engaging I guess you could say with you on social media or even in public are seriously out to destroy you if you disagree with them.
Caryn Hartglass: So what we’re saying to you is that we are here to have a conversation, [Gary: Right.] and we’re happy to have a conversation with you. And if you don’t agree with us you can either call in and have a conversation live or you can send an email to info@realmeals.org and I want to share a recent comment with someone who wrote in and asked a question, and we had a little back and forth. So the question had to do with people who have lived over 100, and this particular person wrote in and listed five people, five sectarian doctors who have all lived over 100, and his question was, “What’s the ideal diet, and should I base what I’m doing on these few doctors who have lived over 100?” I thought it was an interesting question, and I wrote back, and I said, “Yeah, there’s something that you can learn from these people. But it’s only five people and you can’t really base everything on this very limited sample.
Gary De Mattei: So why don’t you read to us what you said, because I thought it was fascinating.
Caryn Hartglass: Oh thank you, I will.
Gary De Mattei: So read the letter and you can keep the person’s name out of this.
Caryn Hartglass: Ok.
Gary De Mattei: And then read your response [Caryn: Good.] and then read their response. [Caryn: I will.]
Gary De Mattei: This is a good thing.
Caryn Hartglass: I think it is good.
So the question was:
The best health diet and exercise would be learned from what a centenarian and doctor both in the same person have been doing as they must have been doing something right all these years.
Age 105 Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara from Japan – consumes a small amount of milk and olive oil every day for smooth skin and smooth arteries.
Age 104 Dr. Ephraim Engleman Famous Rheumatologist
Age 102 Dr. Fred Kummerow Ph.D in food chemistry and professor of food science.
Age 107 Dr. Geraldine Branch Gynecologist
Age 114 Dr. Leila Denmark Pediatrician
And he writes:
All 5 centenarian doctors eat a proper balanced diet in the proper food groups.
All 5 take no vitamins or supplements since no living creature does either.
All 5 eat a small amount of animal products 3 times a day for health reasons and longevity.
All 5 never sold any products to the general public.
If you know of anyone with better advice I should follow then the five listed let me know their name, age, credentials, and track record.
Ok I thought that was a very interesting message, and I was happy to respond to it. So I wrote thanks for your question, yes, you can learn something from this small selection of people, but you cannot assume that what they chose would be the ideal for everyone or even most people. From a scientific point of view, you need to compare a much greater number of people on a particular diet over a long period of time and compare then to a control or population that does something different to see the effect, it’s difficult and expensive to do. Epidemiological studies are helpful because we can learn about a big population and their health we also have learned a lot from people who were reasonably healthy on their original country’s diet and then they came to the United States and adopted the standard American diet, SAD, and got all the chronic diseases that Americans have. From this we have learned that food that has a greater impact, from this we have learned that food has a greater impact than environmental and genetic makeup. And things have changed a lot in 100 years from when the people this person has mentioned were born. We are exposed to many environmental toxins now and the quality of food has degraded. The lifestyle for many has changed as well and this has an accumulative effect as well as impacting the health over generations. I believe that Vitamin D and B12 are essential for many people today for many reasons and when exposed to environmental toxins and bad diets specific supplements can aid in healing. And personally I choose an all-plant, all-organic, primarily whole food diet because from the research I’ve seen it’s not only the best health but kind to animals and gentle on the planet. And as all my listeners know the person I admire most for the best information diet and nutrition is Dr. Joel Fuhrman at drfurhman.com. He’s only 66 years old and I hope he lives to at least 120 only time will tell.
And the writer wrote back and said: Okay, I like your response as it is reasonable, Dr. Fuhrman seems decent and he continues writing. And this is what I wanted to get to. I wrote the same thing to other people interested in diets and some vegans and other types but they did not respond, as they might think I am here to argue, debate, teach, convince, sell something, etc. I asked a simple question and you wrote back. I am actually here to learn, but I suppose others think I am here for a challenge or something. But not the case.
Gary De Mattei: That’s good.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, so that’s the point. Everybody’s unhinged, everybody’s on the edge, boy is ready and defensive.
Gary De Mattei: To attack.
Caryn Hartglass: And we need to calm down, and have sensible conversations.
Gary De Mattei: Yes.
Caryn Hartglass: How do we do that?
Gary De Mattei: Yes, and again as I American I am here to defend your right to disagree with me and that’s what I think we’ve lost sight of is we don’t feel that way anymore or at least some of the folks that you’re referring to, the ones who are out to destroy you if you disagree with them. And we’ve stopped, we’ve lost the ability to disagree.
Caryn Hartglass: Here’s another thing, so I’m engaging on the phase book, I’m being brave, I’m not being afraid and I’m trying to help people wave through this massive amount of information online, and a lot of it
Gary De Mattei: A lot of it is disinformation.
Caryn Hartglass: Disinformation.
Gary De Mattei: A lot of it is out there to confuse and deflect and anger.
Caryn Hartglass: So one woman was engaging bravely and she started giving me these YouTube videos to watch. Now I don’t like to watch a lot of videos because they take time I prefer to read and report or transcript because it’s faster and I can get to the meat of the subject no pun intended, and this one particular, but, I said I am going to watch a few minutes of this video. The title actually said, “Just watch the three minutes if you don’t want to watch anything else, so I said ok I’m in three minutes, and this woman in the video was spewing emotional nonsense. And one thing she said it had to do with immigration into Canada and food. This show is called It’s All About Food, and one of her arguments against immigration was that Canada already imports most of the food they eat. That’s just wrong. Just go, you could Google it and get all the statistics Canada grows a lot of food and they make more food than they eat. And
Gary De Mattei: And that’s the disinformation that many people will just take as gospel.
Caryn Hartglass Exactly, and another piece of that is some of that is raised to feed animals, to feed people and if you take animal out of the equation you could grow a lot more better-quality food for more people.
Gary De Mattei: Right and its delicious food and a lot of people don’t want to hear that because they want their meat. And so what we’re here to do is not to preach, but we’re to give you an opinion and the opinion is backed by a lot of facts. And these are actual facts. These are science [Caryn: Not made up facts.] Not made up facts, so. [Caryn: Yeah.] So and again I’ll just respond to my own statement by saying there are hundreds of interviews that Caryn has had with experts in this field, and they’re all archived at Responsible Eating and Living so check them out. And
Caryn Hartglass: And once again if there’s a video or an article or something that has moved you and you feel compelled to believe it and maybe some of it is against what some of the things we say here on this show, let’s talk about it.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: Let’s have a conversation.
Gary De Mattei: That’s what we’re all about is having a conversation.
Caryn Hartglass: Yep.
Gary De Mattei: It would be fun to have a conversation with you because I am sure Caryn gets really tired of having a conversation with me.
Caryn Hartglass: Never, never Gary, it’s always fun.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, and if you disagree with us, that’s great. You can feel safe here talking with us.
Caryn Hartglass: That’s the point yeah. I have to admit I tried I don’t know how many years back who remembers who’s been listening to this show a long time. I had a couple of people on the show from a very different perspective. And we had a few conversations. I totally disagreed with everything they were saying, and I found, I was embarrassed because I found I got in a confrontational way. And I didn’t think it was beneficial for this program.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: So if I ever do that again I will come from a different place. I don’t want to be confrontational. I want to be open and conversational.
Gary De Mattei: I am going to make a little plug for a film we made here at Responsible Eating and Living that I think six people saw. It’s called “The Lone Vegan,” you’ve probably heard Caryn talk about it, but that was a situation that we documented on film when Caryn was asked to speak to 200 cattle producers in Yerington, Nevada, and they wanted a vegan on the panel. And so we went on this journey to Yerington and Caryn faced off with 200 cattle producers, and so she’s very well skilled now at this, so you are safe to chat with her because she’s preached to the fire, that was
Caryn Hartglass: And they liked me that was the bottom line. They listened and liked me.
Gary De Mattei: They listened and like you and you sang the national anthem, and they ended that by saying well you have more balls than our bulls.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes now you can watch that film it’s at Responsible Eating and Living.com/LoneVegan.htm.
Gary De Mattei: Right and it was preaching to the fire, and that’s what we’re talking about here. Sometimes you know it’s nice to preach to the choir and a lot of folks unfriend the people that disagree with them on social media and they just keep that group of people around them that agrees with them. But what we’re suggesting is let’s try and let that wall down and you know engage with all the citizens that are around us. And yeah sometimes it’s uncomfortable, sometimes it’s even, it even gets you sick once in a while. But if we don’t make an effort to reach out across the aisle, and embrace those that disagree with us then we’re never going to get, we’re never going to move forward.
Caryn Hartglass: It takes courage.
Gary De Mattei: Courage and kindness.
Caryn Hartglass: It takes courage and kindness. That’s Cinderella’s mantra right, “Have courage and be kind.”
Gary De Mattei: “Have courage and be kind.” You know and it was the anniversary of one of my personal heroes, the death of someone I like to read, a quote and I’m a curator of quotes and those of you who are fans of Ghostbusters: The Original Series we’ll remember Harold Ramus who did much more than Ghostbusters. He was an actor, a director, a writer anyway one of my favorite comments of his which I will read to you now as I think [inaudible] to what we’re talking about now, he died on February 24th 2014 I believe at the age of 69. But he said, “You have to live your life with a certain blind confidence. That if it’s your destiny to succeed at these things it will happen. If you just continue to follow a straight path to do your work as conscientiously and as creatively as you can and to just open to all opportunity and experience. There’s a performing motto at second city to say yes instead of no. It’s actually an improvisational rule. It’s about supporting the other person. And the corollary to that is if you concentrate on making other people look good, then we all have the potential to look good. If you’re just worried about yourself, ‘How am I doing? How am I doing?” which is kind of a refrain in Hollywood, you know people are desperately trying to make their careers in isolation, independent of everyone around them. And I’ve always found that my career happened as a result of a tremendous synergy of all the talented people I worked with. All helping each other, all connecting and reconnecting in different combinations, so…identify talented people around you, and then instead of going into competition with them, or trying to wipe them out, make alliances, make creative friendships that allow you and your friends to grow together, because someday your friend is going to sitting across a desk from you running a movie studio.”
Gary De Mattei: Now of course that was Harold Ramus talking about the business of show. But you can easily adapt that to life. And surrounding yourself with people that agree and disagree with you but making alliances is kind of what we’re talking about here because…
Caryn Hartglass: Always be nice to people on the way up, because you don’t know who you’ll see on the way down.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, but also you learn something by keeping open to everyone’s opinion. Sure you can have your own opinion, but those cattle producers, those, that was a metaphor for how rigid people can be about their own beliefs. And thinking what they’re doing is actually good for the animals.
Caryn Hartglass: Well, that’s why it takes so much courage to change because it rocks people’s foundations, foundations that are built on exploitation and abuse. And we don’t want to see that.
Gary De Mattei: No, I mean a lot of those cattle producers actually thought they were helping the animals.
Caryn Hartglass Sure.
Gary De Mattei: I mean keeping them on feed lots by forcing them to eat food that they normally don’t eat. By injecting them with hormones, and then slaughtering them or shipping them out to be slaughtered. They never really did any slaughter them on the feed lot, they just fatten them up.
Caryn Hartglass: My mother brought me to our family physician when I was 15 years old and when I said I didn’t want to eat meat, and this incredibly smug, slim tanned doctor who really thought he thought a lot of himself. His answer to me was, “It’s okay to eat cows because when we eat them we give a lot more life to more cows. More cows get to live, get the opportunity to live because we’re eating them. And that was the end of his explanation.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah.
Caryn Hartglass: What, so sure a lot more cows get to live, their moms get artificially inseminated in a very unpleasant way, they get ripped away from their mothers they’re lives may not be very nice, but they get to live. How nice is that.
Gary De Mattei: Get to live a very short time on this planet and there’s a great book that I think you even spoke to the author of the book where we get to see farm animals or what we call farm animals actually living a full life. [Caryn: Oh yes, Isa Leshko.]
Gary De Mattei: Yeah. Didn’t you talk to the author of that book?
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, I’m going to pull that up right now. I have two copies of it actually.
Gary De Mattei: Oh what a wonderful book. And what it does is it shows you an animal like a pig for example, like its tail wasn’t clipped off, it actually has like it’s tail intact. And that’s the first of many eye-opening, brilliant photographs in this book. It’s just wonderful, you actually get to see a cow living its full life not slaughtered at a young age.
Caryn Hartglass: It’s Isa Leshko.
Gary De Mattei: Isa Leshko, yes.
Caryn Hartglass: And she has a book. It’s mostly photographs.
Gary De Mattei: Mostly, and they’re beautiful photographs.
Caryn Hartglass: Allowed to Grow Old.
Gary De Mattei: Allowed to Grow Old.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah.
Gary De Mattei: So when that doctor you more cattle get to live, what the doctor didn’t tell you was that more cattle get to live a very short life.
Caryn Hartglass: A very short, abused, unpleasant, unnatural life.
Gary De Mattei: A very painful life. A very unhappy life.
Caryn Hartglass: And then you get to eat it. All of its flesh with all of the hormones it excreted after living a pained and scared life. And those hormones can’t be good.
Gary De Mattei: No. So if you want to give up anything for Lent, give up meat, and just keep giving it up. That’s my message on this Fat Tuesday.
Caryn Hartglass: That’s good.
Gary De Mattei: And another thing that we talk about a lot, you and I as a team here at responsible eating and living is how to rename some of these sayings like, “kill two birds with one stone.” One of the things that you’ve said over the years, was “free two birds with one key.”
Caryn Hartglass: I’m not the author of that, but there’s lots of expressions like that that we need to [Gary: Right] rescript.
Gary De Mattei: So how about we rescript Fat Tuesday.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, now I didn’t come up with a name before we started this program, so I can’t say I have a response for that.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, so but you did.
Caryn Hartglass: I said “Fun Tuesday.”
Gary De Mattei: Fun Tuesday, right.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah.
Gary De Mattei: Something like that. So if you have an idea of how to rescript Fat Tuesday so we don’t want to Fat Shame anybody or anything or even any holiday. Help us out here. Once again you can write to us at info@ realmeals.org. info@realmeals.org.
Caryn Hartglass: Ok, one of the things about Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday is food.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: And everything at least here in the United States is influenced by New Orleans.
Gary De Mattei: Cajun food, right.
Caryn Hartglass: Cajun food. And we’re not going to give you any recipes for Mardi Gras, but if you want to make anything Cajun just add Cajun spice.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, what are those Cajun spices?
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, I had it up here just a moment ago, but it’s pretty simple.
Gary De Mattei: Remember the Louisiana chef on what was his name, the Louisiana chef he was, he had a wonderful way of speaking, was it, Justin, the PBS show, Justin Wilson?
Caryn Hartglass: Ok, well you look that up. Cajun spice [Gary: Yeah, Justin Wilson]. Is a combination of garlic powder, paprika, black pepper, onion powder, cayenne pepper, I’m going to say cayenne pepper, cayenne pepper, cayenne pepper because you want it to be spicy. Oregano, thyme, red pepper flakes, and there’s probably based on different areas, variations on that theme, but you can take any chili and throw Cajun spice on it and feel like you’re ready for Mardi Gras. With a little corn bread you’re good to go.
Gary De Mattei: You know I’m going to do something tonight I think with a little Cajun spice. Because I used to really love to do blackened food, I’m sure a lot of people out there do that too, where you rub that Cajun spice all over something and then you put on a hot, hot cast iron grill and let it blacken on the outside and it’s and I am going to try that with some tofu I think. Or some, or even you can do that with some vegetable, you can do that with broccoli, you can do that with a lot of really cool things. Blackened yeah it’s going to be fun. Or of course red beans and rice, they call it dirty rice. And there’s also gumbo, lots of wonderful gumbos, there’s a lot of vegan recipes for gumbos and just Google Mardi Gras food, vegan Mardi Gras food you’ll find it out there, it’s really a lot of fun.
Caryn Hartglass: So we just have a few minutes left. And I wanted to give an update about what’s happening here at the Responsible Eating and Living headquarters with regard to food. So one of the things is that we are real here, at real Responsible Eating and Living.com. We walk the walk, and I like to share what we do here at home in our home headquarters. This week I’ve got sauerkraut fermenting in the cabinet [Gary: Right.] and it’s about a week of waiting, I think I’m ready to harvest it and put it in the refrigerator I could wait longer, but I think a week is about a nice time. I’ve got almonds that I have soaked and skinned and I’m going to turn them into yogurt tomorrow. [Gary: Yes.] And I’ve got something I haven’t done in a really long time, is I have sunflower seeds sprouting and I’m so excited about them. They take about 9 days, it’s a long time.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, I call it the aquarium. You have the sprouter. Tell everybody about our sprouter. Because it was from a friend of yours who had a company who is longer with us, right, he passed away.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, it’s, I have a Fresh Life sprouter, and it was recommended by the Sproutman, that was Steve Meyerowitz. Who unfortunately passed away a few years ago in just a horrible car accident.
Gary De Mattei: When you spoke to Steve [Caryn: Many times I loved chatting with him.] on this program, right.
Caryn Hartglass: And he had wonderful recommendations about sprouting you can find more about him. His sons are running the organization now at sproutman.com. But I did buy, he inspired me to buy one of these Fresh Life sprouters, and what I liked about it was it enabled me to make my favorite sprouts sunflower sprouts which I otherwise found hard to do, other people recommend making sunflower seeds sprouts in dirt beds, and I really didn’t want to go there.
Gary De Mattei: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: But I could do it just with water with this Fresh Life sprouters, it also enabled me to make broccoli sprouts which were also difficult to sprout otherwise. You want to make sure that you have seeds from a certified reputable source.
Gary De Mattei: Right, make sure that’s very important.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, and you might want to listen to my archived interviews with The Sprout Man, at responsibleeatiingandliving.com. And if you need help navigating them and you’re interested in sprouting let me know at info@realmeals.org. I’ll send you the links happy to do that. So I’m looking forward to
Gary De Mattei; That’s info@realmeals.org. Remember that.
Caryn Hartglass: Info@realmeals.org. I’m looking forward to harvesting my sunflower sprouts because they’re the best on salad.
Gary De Mattei: On salad, and what’s your favorite salad that has sunflower sprouts?
Caryn Hartglass: Donna’ s in Santa Cruz.
Gary De Mattei: Donna’s in Santa Cruz, California. They make the greatest salad then they top it with sunflower sprouts.
Caryn Hartglass: Sunflower sprouts. So some of the reasons why the sprouts like that are expensive is that they take a long time to grow. They’re not easy to grow, but you can grow them at home.
Gary De Mattei: All right so who’s in the news lately in the entertainment world? Well, Harrison Ford says he no longer eats meat and dairy. Harrison Ford has cut meat and dairy out of his diet. The star says he made the switch for his health and for climate change. Go Harrison Ford.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, I like that all those, those sci-fi movies either in real life or in the story, like Star Wars, everybody’s vegan in Star Wars. Not Star Wars, Star Trek.
Gary De Mattei: Star Trek right.
Caryn Hartglass: Anyway, but here we are in reality and I want to bring everybody back to reality, and say that it’s time to end the program.
Gary De Mattei: Wow, we talked a lot today on Fat Tuesday.
Caryn Hartglass: Yeah, we did. So have a great Fat Tuesday.
Gary De Mattei: Yeah, go out and have some fun tonight, and then go vegan tomorrow.
Caryn Hartglass: That’s right, everybody have a delicious week.
Transcribed by A. Ellis 1/2/2020