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Pedram Shojai, OMD is a man with many titles. He is the founder and CEO of Well.Org, the editor of Be More! magazine, the author of the NY Times bestseller The Urban Monk (Rodale, 2016) and Rise and Shine (Process, 2011), the producer and director of the movie Vitality, the executive producer and writer for the film, Origins and the Host of two weekly video podcast series, The Urban Monk and The Health Bridge. He also has recent projects launching in 2017. His new movie Prosperity (2017) and his new book The Art of Stopping Time (Rodale 2017). In his spare time, he’s also a Taoist priest, a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a kung fu world traveler, a fierce global green warrior, an avid backpacker, a Qi Gong Master, and an old school Jedi bio-hacker working to preserve our natural world and wake us up to our full potential.
Since 2009, It’s All About Food, has been bringing you the best in up-to-date news regarding food and our food system. Hosted by Caryn Hartglass, a vegan since 1988, the program includes in-depth interviews with medical doctors; nutritionists; dietitians; cook book authors; athletes; environmental, animals and health activists; farmers; food manufacturers; lawyers; food scientists and more. Learn about how we can solve many of the world’s problems today and do it deliciously, here on It’s All About Food.
I’ve some exciting news. We learned a few weeks ago on It’s All About Food about Dr. Pedram Shojai’s brand new documentary Prosperity. It is LIVE right now and ready to watch.
Just out of theaters and ready to inspire millions more across the country, Prosperity will prove that we CAN all come together, change the world and make a profit at the same time… if we make the right decisions.
Click right HERE to register and see Prosperity FREE right now!
When you watch it I’d like to challenge you to open your mind to the new possibilities for not only socially conscious business, but things you as a consumer can start doing right now in your own life.
Once you’ve seen the movie you’re going to be excited about the possibilities, and Dr. Pedram has something huge planned to help you do just that.
He’ll be streaming a fantastic set of new videos called the Roadmap To Prosperity Event – and when you sign up for the movie you’ll have access to them ALL – also 100% free as soon as the Prosperity screening is over!
When you go and watch the movie be absolutely sure to read the entire page and learn what’s in store in the Roadmap to Prosperity Event!
It’s got the power to change lives and the world we live in.
Take a minute and get signed up here if you haven’t!
TRANSCRIPTION:
Caryn Hartglass: Hi everybody! I’m Caryn Hartglass and thanks for joining me today for It’s All About Food here at the Progressive Radio Network. I’m in the studio with my guest today and I’m really looking forward to what may come out of this program but first I want to tell you what I’m doing here in the studio. Something that l like to do for a living and that is breath (Chuckles). We were talking about the importance of breathing and I’m feeling a bit frazzled and I feel like a lot of people have got a lot of stuff going on and it’s always important to get back to really the simplest basics of all and that’s breathing. So if you want, you can join me for a moment; let’s just take a nice big breath (Deep Breath). Okay, I’m letting go of everything just so I can be here in the moment and this is going to be a really good moment a delicious moment. I’m here with Pedram Shojai and I want to call him superman or super person or just amazing. Everything I’ve read and now he’s sitting right next to me. I’m getting chills not just because I’m in an air conditioned studio that’s freezing! He is a man with many titles and he’s the founder and CEO of www.well.org. I know you’ve been there www.well.org. He’s the editor of Be More! magazine, the author the New York Times bestseller The Urban Monk and Rise and Shine, the producer and director of the movie Vitality, the Executive Producer and writer for the film Origins and the host of 2 weekly video podcast series The Urban Monk and The Health Bridge. He also has recent projects launching in 2017. That’s now everybody! The new movie Prosperity, which we will be delving into a bit and his new book The Art of Stopping Time, in his spare time he’s also a Taoist Priest, a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Kung Fu world traveler, a fierce global green warrior and an avid backpacker. A Qi Gong Master and an old school Jedi biohacker working to preserve our natural world and wake us up to our full potential, wow I just feel all energized and exhausted actually reading your bio.
Pedram Shojai: (Laughing)
Caryn Hartglass: Well, welcome.
Pedram Shojai: Thank you.
Caryn Hartglass: Welcome to It’s All About Food so you’re just in from Hollywood. You had a big event. Was it fantastic?
Pedram Shojai: It was great, it was great. Myself and a couple of filmmakers have been working to help young aspiring new talent in documentary to look at alternative distribution and be like listen if you’re going to go spend your 5 years of your life doing this thing, bedding the farm and trying to make the world a better place with it; traditional distribution typically won’t work for you. So here’s how you use the internet to get this in front of millions of millions of people and really make the change that you’re striving to make.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, well I like going outside of the box. I don’t want to be cliché there but we’re all finding that the traditional conventional ways aren’t necessarily in our best interest for just about anything.
Pedram Shojai: No, from education to health care to food to politics, everything is falling on itself because these old systems no longer work. We’ve changed, we’ve adapted and people can really bemoan all this. It’s just mulching for the new systems that are coming and so for me it’s fine. People just resist change. It’s time for change and what I’ve been doing is following positive examples of people doing it better and it’s like what Mother Theresa said it best “ I don’t go to an anti-war rally, I go to pro-peace ones.”
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, I remember when Dennis Kucinich was in congress and he kept talking about creating a peace, a department of peace rather than a department of war. What do we really want to focus on?
Pedram Shojai: Yes that’s it and so the incentives are stacked in other directions right now and what’s funny is the people of the world don’t want war. The people of the world don’t want race riots, the people of the world don’t want to be sick but these things are here because there’s certain economic and financial play that keeps them alive and it’s just time to re-examine some of this stuff.
Caryn Hartglass: I like to point the finger at capitalism because I find capitalism as we have it today is strongly based on exploitation of people, animals, and the environment. So you have a new film out and it’s demonstrating that we can have a profit but also have a purpose. We can have social benefit and still make money and live comfortably and it’s exciting and inspiring to hear that because capitalism is something that needs to change.
Pedram Shojai: Yes and if and so full disclosure I’m not an economist guy. I’m a doctor priest guy.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes.
Pedram Shojai: So I started looking at this with just open eyes and being like what is this? If money is the root of all this stuff what are we doing? Why are we driving off a cliff? Why are the worlds…if business keeps growing and the world’s problems keep growing then what’s wrong with this system and how do we shift it so we don’t kill ourselves. I mean it’s pretty simple math. I’ve got kids. I don’t want that to be a part of our future and so we start looking at it. I started looking at examples of people that are maybe doing it differently and I found a lot. I found a lot. There are some really cool people. There are some great examples.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, so that’s what we’re seeing in this film. Now it comes out in October this week.
Pedram Shojai: This week in theaters! Yay.
Caryn Hartglass: How exciting. It’s in New York?
Pedram Shojai: Yes, it’s in New York. The IFC in New York, it’s at the LAEMMLE in LA, it’s in 26 other markets; The Studio Movie Grill and we’re going to go from there but in October we’re going to release it online for free to the world for the month.
Caryn Hartglass: Oh wow.
Pedram Shojai: Yes.
Caryn Hartglass: Look at that everybody, we all like free don’t we? (Laughing)
Pedram Shojai: Yes, that’s part of it. I’ve spent 18 months of my life and spent a lot of money and did this the right way. It’s a beautiful film, but the message is so dang important that we’re like look you know what let’s just spend the month of October sharing this and allowing people to share with everyone they can. It’s already being translated into Spanish, German, French and we are working on more languages but it’s just time and money. We’re just trying to move as fast as we can and it’s already influencing. A few people that have seen it; the press and stuff like that like “wow! I left there feeling enthusiastic, I left this movie feeling like there’s hope.” And that’s what I want, I mean it’s really easy to say the sky is falling and were screwed, that doesn’t really help my children’s children and so everyone is in this shocked panicked frenzy and they’ve been shocked into inaction well that certainly isn’t going to help so what can I do right now to be a part of something that is positive and that could make a difference that’s what the movie is all about.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, I saw it and it definitely is very positive, very inspiring and I think we all love to see it happening right in front of us that it’s not something that we’re talking about that we can do. It’s happening. There are companies that are making the effort to do it and some of the stories were really quite lovely and there’s even a happy ending.
Pedram Shojai: (Chuckles).
Caryn Hartglass: (Laughing).
Pedram Shojai: What’s a Hollywood tale without a happy ending. Yes but something really cool happened in the making of the film.
Caryn Hartglass: Very! Yes.
Pedram Shojai: I’m not going to disclose it. If you just see a problem in front of you and you just start moving in the direction of solving the stuff in front of you the entire universe conspires to help those things happen but it’s all determined by whether or not we put in our intent, whether or not we put in our energy and step up to do anything. My whole thing is if you are waiting for Washington to fix your problems you are in trouble.
Caryn Hartglass: The government is always the slowest behind everything so we talk about food on the show all the time. I have all the experts that know the latest science and the best foods that we should be eating and what our food system is doing to our environment and to our health and to people all around the world and the government they’re just like in another century, they’re not even in the 21st century. You can’t expect them to create any policy to support what’s in our best interest.
Pedram Shojai: it’s regressive. If you just look at how the financial incentives are stacked, the governments gotten really bad and this entire kind of thing with Trump coming in and talking about draining the swamp. He wasn’t wrong about that, the way lobbies work in Washington are egregiously tilted towards people just paying the play and buying the politicians and all that kind of stuff and fortunately since he’s come in there’s been other regressive moves. For me I actually think it’s a great wake-up call on both sides because it’s like everyone is waiting for someone to fix problems in front of them instead of picking up a shovel and getting to work and so we’ve all got to dig ourselves out of this hole, how do we do it?
Caryn Hartglass: Yup, all right I like focusing on food (Chuckles) because this show is called It’s All About Food and I could always find a way to connect everything through food. The movie does touch on food in a number of different ways. Where is food in your life other than nourishing yourself and your family? How far are you taking where you go with the food that you eat?
Pedram Shojai: If you think about what the difference is between needs and wants in humans; what we need is food, water, shelter, love. What we want is a Mercedes Benz, what we want is trips and flights, this shirt vs that shirt.
Caryn Hartglass: Cake! (Laughing).
Pedram Shojai: Yes, and we want cake and so what the advertising industry is all predicated on is making you feel like you’re not whole and what you really need is to wear this perfume that this celebrity wears and then you’re going to beautiful and attractive and then you’re going to get taken care of and down the line, down the line; and so it’s all predicated on these wants not these needs. Food is an actual need, you don’t get to far without eating.
Caryn Hartglass: I’ve heard about breatharians, I’ve never met one.
Pedram Shojai: I’ve never met one that I actually believed.
Caryn Hartglass: That’s a lie (Laughing).
Pedram Shojai: Yes exactly (Chuckles). I’m a breatharian right now but I’m actually hungry (Laughing) and so there’s a lot of talk out there but at the end of the day food makes up your cells. Food is what you become. The food you eat is the person you become in the next few days, months, and years and so it’s the fundamental relationship you have with reality and nature is all grounded in the food that you eat and the food chain has been usurped. The supply chain of food has been compromised in a lot of ways and there’s no wonder why people are sick. My last movie we explored this you start looking at why everyone is sick and not feeling well and moody and cranky and all of it and you start looking at the inputs through the food also the inputs through the environment and if you take your kid to the park [12:09-voice unclear] all of this and then you wonder why autisms on the rise and cancer rates are still up and everyone is getting diabetes out of nowhere and none of this is arbitrary. Smoking guns are there. I’ve already done 2 health films. I’ve gone there and food becomes also the most powerful way of radically transforming all of this because we do have organics, we do have non-gmo, we do have options that say a lot about everything. So if you’re supporting a food that comes from a farm that takes care of the bees that doesn’t poison the environment that uses environmental stewardship to sequester carbon in the soil and all sorts of wonderful things that can happen through organic farming. You’re voting for the world you want to see and so mindlessly buying food that comes from a supply chain that’s poisonous is also a vote.
Caryn Hartglass: Right, so there’s a group of people, I’d say it’s small, maybe it’s growing that are concerned. They want to vote with their dollar. They want to support businesses that they feel are doing something good and buy products that they feel are good for them and their families but there’s a big bunch of people, the majority, especially in the United States that are very into convenience, they’re into low cost and they don’t care about the future which blows my mind. I don’t have kids but anybody who does have kids; don’t you care about your kids’ future? Apparently not.
Pedram Shojai: But if you ask them they would say they absolutely do.
Caryn Hartglass: Oh, they do.
Pedram Shojai: But you hippie liberals want to take away all my liberty and so there’s everyone has been brainwashed in a different direction. I’ve never met a mother who didn’t actually care for their kids, they’ve just been brainwashed into thinking all that stuff is nonsense and this stuff is just fine or it costs too much and I’m poor and I can’t. There are a lot of other narratives that are infecting a very simple decision.
Caryn Hartglass: That’s a good word “infecting” because it is in some ways a disease.
Pedram Shojai: Yes, everything is.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes.
Pedram Shojai: Yes, everything, psychological, spiritual disease of not seeing clearly.
Caryn Hartglass: (Chuckles)
Pedram Shojai: Just not seeing clearly.
Caryn Hartglass: Yup.
Pedram Shojai: And the sooner we wake up and look at things clearly the sooner we can make better decisions towards a future that we can all enjoy together.
Caryn Hartglass: Now were you always awake?
Pedram Shojai: I was asleep last night. (Laughing)
Caryn Hartglass: (Laughing)
Pedram Shojai: I was actually asleep on the flight over.years
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, good.
Pedram Shojai: No, I was just a normal kid and then I ended up having some kind of mystical experiences going into my college years and I didn’t know how to deal with it; couldn’t really explain it and was fortunate/wise enough at that young age to realize that I needed help so I found a Kung-Fu master who then became an elder lineage that pulled me in and contained this monkey. It really helped me find my way inside a lineage so that I wasn’t untethered and spiritual. (Chuckles)
Caryn Hartglass: (Laughing) You have children, how old are they?
Pedram Shojai: My eldest is 3 and a half, my baby is turning 2 in November.
Caryn Hartglass: Oh they are little babies.
Pedram Shojai: They’re little babies.
Caryn Hartglass: Yup.
Pedram Shojai: We waited, we waited.
Caryn Hartglass: So, what is your plan for educating and raising them so that they can be awake in life except during sleep and nap times? (Chuckles) When they are supposed to be sleeping.
Pedram Shojai: (Heavy Sigh) if I’m saying this on the air, my wife’s going to kill me but here we go.
Caryn Hartglass: (Laughing) no one’s ever asked you?
Pedram Shojai: No, no, no, no, I actually have a very specific plan that’s hatching now.
Caryn Hartglass: Yup.
Pedram Shojai: We’re planning on moving to Puerto Rico even with all the storms and stuff that are happening. We’re planning on (with a number of families) opening a biodynamic farm that feeds our families, uses local labour. We’re planning on moving the elder leadership of the Forest School that a couple of our friends kid’s go to and I can explain what that is for the kids and then the kids that are in the Forest School who will rotate onto the farm and understand how to grow their own food the whole time and all of it and we plan on the kids being in Spain, France, and Germany and Japan and homeschooling based on their own strengths but also learning how to learn and learning how to be in different cultures but I will not subject my kids to a life [16:51-unclear] at the public parks, I will nor subject my kids to the poison of TV and the Disney channel making them think that they need to buy these toys and asking for superheroes and this and that. I’ve just been watching the whole thing and this is really early stage brainwashing and this is biological warfare and it’s aimed at my children at a very young age, No! I choose differently.
Caryn Hartglass: Well, I applaud you. Yes, did you have this plan before the Puerto Rican floods?
Pedram Shojai: Yes and in despite it, now myself and one of the families we are double downing and being like “ok these people need our help the most, these people need us to step in and help support this island even more so let’s show up with buckets.” There is a lot behind it, these are people and they are suffering. I want to show up and be a part of something especially if you go there, there is tax breaks and all sorts of stuff. I want to earn it, I don’t want anything I don’t earn. I want to go there and stimulate there economy and help them and “ok if there power grid is down then why don’t we just start over and start with solar.”
Caryn Hartglass: You know that’s exactly what I was thinking of and it’s horrible all the things that we’re heard about but I’m think ok here’s an opportunity to start over and make it all localize in every place.
Pedram Shojai: You got it.
Caryn Hartglass: Why do we need one of these crazy big giant inefficient grids.
Pedram Shojai: No!
Caryn Hartglass: I mean we have the technology now.
Pedram Shojai: We have the technology it’s a reset. The federal funds are going there, we as people of America are paying for it. Why don’t we go do it right and you look at what happened, Salt Lake City was a dump before the Olympics and then the Olympics came and they revitalized, they got new roads, they got internet, they got all this stuff and now all of a sudden it’s now blossoming so let’s re-think how this thing happens, decentralize it and make it more resilient. Global warming is happening. Climate change is happening it turns out it’s not a hoax and it turns out that the Caribbean is more susceptible to it so how do we build resilience into systems and I almost want to set up a center for the awareness of climate change in Puerto Rico on the ashes or the puddles left of this hurricane to be like no we are going to take our cameras, this is an awareness campaign that builds out from here. We’re going to work on new tech and resilience to try to change this in our lifetimes.
Caryn Hartglass: Back to your children, you mentioned the Forest School what is that?
Pedram Shojai: So a few of our friends do this, we don’t have one where we live so we’re jealous.
Caryn Hartglass: (Chuckles)
Pedram Shojai: But basically the kids get dropped off, the entire class the curriculum, everything is based out in the woods. The kids rain or shine are in the woods all day, they’re learning math in the woods, they’re reading in the woods and they’re playing in the woods. They’re discovering and that pinecone over there, let’s go look it up and so these kids are developing incredible resilience. Their rhizosphere and their microbiota are way healthier and they are just well adjusted and adapted. They look you in the eyes like little human kids used to.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, instead of…I’m looking at my hand like I’m looking at my phone.
Pedram Shojai: Yes, instead of some dumb device that’s sucking the life force right out of your kid’s consciousness.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, we were just talking about at home how social media is really an oxymoron. (Chuckles)
Pedram Shojai: It’s not social at all.
Caryn Hartglass: It’s not at all.
Pedram Shojai: I’ve got to tell you stories; my wife’s cousin’s kids, 15 years old and he was going and packing up. We were over there and he was packing up due to a birthday party of his friend and he’s packing his huge computer I’m like “what are you doing?” he’s like “oh we’re going to go and sit around a table and play these video games with each other” and what you’re 15. When I was 15 I used to play basketball and go chase girls. What is a 15 years old boy supposed to do? I was furious, I was fuming. Who are these morons, I was yelling and the mom “why are you letting him do this?”
Caryn Hartglass: Exactly because it’s easier.
Pedram Shojai: He’s a zombie, “oh well kids today, they all do this.”
Caryn Hartglass: No they don’t.
Pedram Shojai: That like what the prison guards in Nazi Germany say “Well the guards today they all do this” It’s just like you’re walking like a lemming off a cliff.
Caryn Hartglass: (Heavy Sigh)
Pedram Shojai: No not my kids! No thanks!
Caryn Hartglass: Yup, have you seen the film Captain America?
Pedram Shojai: No.
Caryn Hartglass: Have you heard about it?
Pedram Shojai: Oh Yes, I’ve heard about it but I haven’t watched it.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, oh wait am I thinking of…Captain… No, I’ve got the wrong film. It’s Captain, help me everybody, it’s Captain Something. This man who raises his children in the woods, it’s oh well you know what I’m talking about, (Laughing) it’ll come to me in a minute; not Captain America the comic superhero.
Pedram Shojai: Yes.
Caryn Hartglass: No, no, no, no with the big wheel no.
Pedram Shojai: Yes.
Caryn Hartglass: This guy raises his children in the woods with his wife but his wife has some mental issues and she’s tried to commit suicide. It has a dark side but then he has to bring the family to…Captain Fantastic…
Pedram Shojai: Captain Fantastic.
Caryn Hartglass: And he brings the children back into society to go to her funeral and it’s just an amazing film.
Pedram Shojai: So for me I’m not interested in also being a…[22:00-didn’t catch word]. My kids are in town, we’ll live in a house with fast internet and all that and just shielded at nights and if my wife wants to go dancing we’ll grab the dancing shoes and go to Miami or New York and travel, go to Paris and London. I want the best of what the world offers but having your kids be in toxic exposure all the time just doesn’t work. I mean I’ve seen the data, it doesn’t work and everyone is like but I need this Chanel, I need the purse. Everyone is willing to subsidize the apocalypse because fashion dictates it. It just doesn’t make sense.
Caryn Hartglass: No nothing makes sense today.
Pedram Shojai: Right.
Caryn Hartglass: Nothing makes sense.
Pedram Shojai: You know what hugs makes sense.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes.
Pedram Shojai: Good food makes sense.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes you’re right, I shouldn’t say nothing, it’s not that.
Pedram Shojai: But Yes that’s my point what if the answer to all our complexities was actually simplicity. Sunsets make sense, beaches make sense.
Caryn Hartglass: Oh absolutely.
Pedram Shojai: If this one’s dirty let’s clean it up and so I think we could take a lot from nature.
Caryn Hartglass: Okay, so I’m curious about, you put out a lot of material, you do a lot of stuff and it’s amazing and it’s all great and you have a book out about stopping time which I’m really curious about. You’re at home, you’re with your children what’s a meal look like for you? Where does the food come from?
Pedram Shojai: We have our own garden which subsidizes at best because we are not farmers. We get tomatoes and basil and stuff like that. We have a CSA box delivered every other week and then we supplement with vegetables from Whole Foods and some stuff from Trader Joe’s and it’s mostly like…
Caryn Hartglass: Okay, you’re like regular people.
Pedram Shojai: Yup like normal people. Yes, Yes it’s not like I’m carving bark and chewing on sticks. There’s ways to get healthy supply, I’m not Farmer Smurf.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes.
Pedram Shojai: I’m Movie Smurf and that’s fine but I rely on ethical Farmer Smurf to get me something that’s not going to poison my children so I just make sure I choose wisely how I shop.
Caryn Hartglass: Well I like to see how people live who are promoting an idea and walking the walk. I like to see how people who are promoting things that I like how they walk.
Pedram Shojai: Sure and it’s not always easy. I travel a lot, airports and stuff.
Caryn Hartglass: Exactly.
Pedram Shojai: At a certain point you’re not “is that grass-fed” nowadays you can get away with that at certain places or you just get vegetables “are you sure those vegetables weren’t grown conventionally.” If you are in Omaha less likely if you’re in New York you might be able to get something like that and so that only happens and that only grows by people choosing the healthy vegetables, choosing the pasture-raised stuff. Depending on what your ethics are lined up with you can still choose the cleanest most sustainable source period but people don’t really even think about that so that’s a thing too. It’s a big thing.
Caryn Hartglass: I was talking to Eric Toensmeier a couple of weeks ago or maybe it was last week already on this show about Project Drawdown. I’m really fascinated with that book and all the solutions that they offer and I’m focusing on the top few. The first one I like to repeat because most people don’t even think about it and that’s refrigeration management and how refrigeration really is the most dramatic thing that we can do to reduce human induced greenhouse gasses and you think what? But refrigeration management is up that and that’s refrigerators, air conditioners and it’s putting them in landfills and not minding where all those refrigeration fluids are going because those are really dangerous. But then number 3 and number 4 the ones that I’m really passionate about and number 3 is waste and working on dealing with waste and we learned a long time ago reduce, reuse, recycle so the key is to reduce waste and there is so much food waste from when food is grown till the time you throw it away in your garbage can. There are so many places where the food is wasted. But one of the things I liked about in you movie is not just food waste but also waste, trash waste plastic waste but there are so many things that we can do that can help clean up and reuse it in a way that’s really wonderful. That’s inspirational because I keep thinking about all this crap all over the world. What are going to do with it what are we going do something with it.
Pedram Shojai: We don’t have to make it in the first place, probably a decent answer.
Caryn Hartglass: Right.
Pedram Shojai: There is also electronic waste which is a huge, huge thing.
Caryn Hartglass: What are we going to about that?
Pedram Shojai: Oh my god! There is a new iPhone.
Caryn Hartglass: But that’s not what we are going to do with it. What are we going to with all the waste.
Pedram Shojai: Yes, well I mean so we are looking at some solutions that came through film and I’ve continued. The movies over but the movement is just beginning kind of thing and now we’re looking at some stuff that we do with local tribes “why do we need to bring this here in plastic in the first place so that we have to take the plastic out.” So we’re looking at 3D fabricators and all sorts of interesting things to deliver raw materials and products, here fill up your gourd have a glass jar and there’s a lot of things that are coming that are making a lot of sense because of technology and the will to do it and plus to the consumer is just tired of it.
Caryn Hartglass: We’re tired of garbage.
Pedram Shojai: You can’t hide from it anymore and the landfills are fine but you get all these cruise liners dumping all this crap over in the oceans. You get this huge islands of plastic in the ocean and species of crabs that are now eating the plastic and turning into plastic animals and this is happening right now and so when you look at all that “wow that’s gross and creepy” well that bottle of water that you just chucked just added to that so how to you get clean portable water in a container that is something that doesn’t end up as trash? This is something we all have to ask ourselves.
Caryn Hartglass: Yup, I was just reading about some new invention that uses a certain kind of algae which naturally is strong and can hold fluid while it has fluid in it but as soon as it’s drained it shrivels up and they are thinking about using that it terms of bottling liquids.
Pedram Shojai: Great and to me that’s one of the things that really kind of turned a corner for me and allowed me to feel really enthusiastic about capitalism in that capacity is whoever invented that I hope they become a bajillionaire.
Caryn Hartglass: Exactly.
Pedram Shojai: Go get it dude.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes why not.
Pedram Shojai: Go get it go get it! Great idea, I love it, I’ll give you money.
Caryn Hartglass: (Chuckles) Okay, so let’s just wrap this up. Tell us about Prosperity and where we can find out more about it and where we can see it and how we can see it for free soon and all of that.
Pedram Shojai: www.prosperityfilm.com that will take you where you need to go. We are doing a global free screening through October and trying to just keep it open for as long as we can to share it with as many people so www.prosperityfilm.com is where that is.
Caryn Hartglass: That’s beautiful, well I wish everybody to go out there and watch Prosperity and learn how to help make the world more prosperous for everybody.
Pedram Shojai: Amen, thank you.
Caryn Hartglass: Yes, thank you Pedram for joining me on It’s All About Food now we are going to take a little break. We’ll be right back.
Transcribed by M. Eng, 10/27/2017