The Plant Yourself Podcast

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. In June, 2019, Dr Milton Mills gave testimony before the USDA Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee about their persistent recommendation to include dairy in our diets. Dr Mills short presentation was not what I was expecting to hear. Instead of just repeating the overwhelming body of evidence showing that cow's milk is not a healthy or suitable food for...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Lenore Braford is founder, volunteer interim Executive Director, and volunteer Shelter Manager at the Piedmont Farm Animal Refuge, located in Pittsboro, North Carolina. Which makes her (and the sanctuary) my neighbor! Click to subscribe to the Mindset Mastery Memo. Support the show

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. James Wilks is a producer, as well as narrator and chief instigator of The Game Changers, already the bestselling documentary of all time on iTunes. He got his nickname "Lightning" during his career as a mixed martial artist (which, as far as I can tell, means that he can kill me in at least a dozen ways using just a box of toothpicks and a birthday...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Is time linear, or cyclical? According to analog watches, time goes around in circles. According to calendars and planners and most of Western culture, time moves ever forward. And few of us take seriously the cycles of nature when we contemplate time and how we move through it. Brian Tourville has been thinking about time, and how our disconnection from the r...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Wendy Wood, PhD, knows more about the science of habit formation - and habit breaking - than just about anyone. While popular writers share their opinions about habits, Wood does the research. More than 30 years worth, as a research psychologist first at Duke University and now at the University of Southern California. Wood has published over 100 peer-reviewed...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Ron Tibbs is a wellness coach, plant-based advocate, and all-around great guy. He's part of the core team at WellStart Health, where he coaches, guides, and cheerleads clients to make significant positive changes in their lives. Ron is perfectly situated to do this, because he's created his own massive changes in the face of very strong opposing forc...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Melanie Joy, PhD is a social psychologist, vegan activist, political strategist vs all the oppressive "archys" out there, organizational consultant, and relationship coach. She joins the podcast to talk about her book Beyond Beliefs - essentially a merging of the political and relational. How can we advocate for human health, environmental sanity, an...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Brittany Sade is a vegan entrepreneur and health coach. Her company, Prosperiteez Clothing, devotes part of its profits to combatting food insecurity in impoverished communities. Brittany wasn't always a paragon of healthy living. Thanks to meat three times a day, along with a serious cheese addiction, she suffered from skin problems, arterial blockages,...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Karen Smith is a plant-based registered dietitian, runner (sub-3 hours in the Boston Marathon, baby!), and all around good person. At Progressive Health of Delaware, which includes my Ultimate Frisbee buddy and podcast guest and lifestyle medicine superhero Dave Donohue, MD, Karen counsels patients on improving their diets and their health with a combo of skil...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Kim Campbell is the culinary force behind PlantPure Nation and PlantPure Foods. She kindly agreed to visit the Plant Yourself test kitchen (which is just the kitchen in my home, cleaned up sufficiently for video) and make some delicious food for me, my wife, and my sister who was visiting from NYC.She also introduced us to nifty kitchen gadgets, one of which I...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Margot Freitag is a coach who helps people transition to a plant-based diet successfully and sustainably. Growing up in Northwest Ontario (cue "Helpless" by Neil Young), she suffered from asthma, and made constant trips to the ER throughout her childhood. As a teen, she became a yoyo dieter, trying every variation she stumbled across in an attempt to...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Danny and Katherine Dreyer are the co-authors of three of the most valuable books ever on human bipedal locomotion: Chi Running, Chi Walking, and Chi Marathon. The promise of their methodology is that you can walk or run a lot farther and faster, without pain or injury. I can personally testify to its effectiveness, AND to my own ability to learn something gre...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. I interviewed Elizabeth Bell in order to record a testimonial for WellStart Health, and ended up having a conversation so compelling and instructive and inspiring that I decided - with Elizabeth's blessing - to share the whole thing. When Elizabeth first joined the WellStart program, she was more or less house-bound. A mysterious malady had taken her bala...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Caroline Webb is the author of the wonderfully entertaining and useful How to Have a Good Day, which is basically a cookbook on how to be an effective human in the world. She is an executive coach, economist, and speaker, and the book comes out of her extensive knowledge of behavioral science and its application in the real world. How to Have a Good Day has in...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Juan-Carlos "Carly" Asse is a fitness trainer and documentarian. His first film, Unsupersize Me, has been viewed over 3 million times, and has inspired and guided countless people to embark on their own journeys of healthy weight loss. Carly was a guest on one of the earliest Plant Yourself Podcasts. We talked about his prison transformation: his com...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Benjamin Alter, ND, treats his patients as if they actually have the power to heal themselves. This power introduces a wonderful and frustrating messiness into the scientific pursuit of truth. It's hard to control for. It's hard to randomize for. And it's hard to replicate. In fact, science has dealt with this messiness by, at best, pretending i...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Gwyn Whittaker is a change-maker, and for the past several years she's deployed her considerable "get-it-done" skills to the plant-based movement. Whittaker is CEO of Greenfare Cafe in Herndon, Virginia, which is the only 100% whole-food, plant-based (WFPB), organic restaurant either of us has ever heard of. Click to subscribe to the Mindset Mas...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. For my money, Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory has done more to improve our ability to heal and grow and thrive as a civilization than any other scientific breakthrough of the past 50 years. Its advances over prior understandings of the human nervous system, psychology, and experiences of states like well-being, happiness, and love - are profound. Paradig...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Ray Martin, aka "Old Man Skin and Bones," is on a mission to save others from what he went through: heart disease, expensive and unnecessary and potentially harmful medical care, and a bad case of the "If only I'd knowns."I met Ray through the Missing Chins Run Club (first rule of the Missing Chins Run Club: tell everybody in the Missi...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Amber Antonelli and Anthony Esposito run the Awaken Your Soul iboga retreat center in Costa Rica. Iboga is the name of a plant native to Gabon and neighboring West African countries that acts as a psychedelic, or as Amber and Anthony put it, a "teacher plant."Iboga, along with its better-known (in the US) cousins, Ayahuasca and psilocybin-containing...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Jud Brewer is Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center at Brown University, and a second-time guest on Plant Yourself. When we first talked, two years ago, Jud had just published his groundbreaking book, The Craving Mind, and was in the process of releasing mindfulness apps, Eat Right Now (for dealing with food cravings),  Craving to Quit...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Yeah, them's fighting words in the title of today's episode. And Garth David, MD, my lead author of Proteinaholic and co-conspirator in a mission to tell the world that chronic disease and obesity are preventable and reversible, is a fighter. He's mixed it up on national TV, giving and taking punches on The Doctors. He's scrapped with Z-Dog...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Jody Esselstyn is a registered nurse at the Charlottesville, VA, city schools, and docent at the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia. An unusual combo, perhaps, but Jody combines her two interests - medicine and art - in some innovative and lifesaving ways. She leads programs that help medicine students make better diagnoses, display more empath...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. Joe Cross was, in the words of his first film, "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" when he embarked on a 60-day experiment to escape the pain and discomfort of a lifestyle-induced auto-immune disease. His transformation story, chronicled in that 2010 documentary, has inspired millions of people to start juicing, and to add more plants to their diets. His se...

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know. I had the best time talking with New York Times' bestselling author and love goddess adrienne maree brown! I stumbled upon her work through a sidebar article about her most recent book, Pleasure Activism, and was sufficiently intrigued to reach out to her publisher for a copy of the book and a request for an interview. Once the book arrived, I knew I was...