Health
Ep. 6 From 31 Flavors to One Mission: Ocean Robbins on Food, Family and Change
In this episode, Ocean Robbins shares his journey from the legacy of Baskin Robbins to advocating for a plant-based lifestyle. He discusses the profound impact of his father's book, 'Diet fo...
Ep. 6 From 31 Flavors to One Mission: Ocean Robbins on Food, Family and Change
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So my grandpa founded an ice cream company. It's called Baskin Robbins and it became the world's largest ice cream company
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and my dad John grew up with an ice cream cone shaped swimming pool in the backyard.
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He was groomed to one day joy in in running the family business but when he was in his early 20s
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he was offered that chance and he said no when he walked away from a path that was practically
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paved with gold to as we jokingly put it in our family follow his own rocky road.
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Welcome to Plant the Change. I'm Michelle Fasnot founder of Solid Rock Florida.
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An innovative non-profit that includes Solid Rock Community School providing K-12 education
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and the sanctuary at Solid Rock offering lifelong care for animals in need.
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We're a forward thinking eco-advanced organization dedicated to compassionate humane education.
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Hello friends welcome to Plant the Change. Today we have a special guest who fostered societal change
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through education about plant-based healthy living. Ocean Robbins is an American entrepreneur
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and author best known for his role as the co-founder of the Food Revolution Network.
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With more than a million members and with the collaboration of many of the top food revolutionary
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leaders of our times food revolution network aims to change the way the world eats.
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Ocean Robbins is the son of John Robbins author of Diet for a New America. When this book came out
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in 1987 it was one of the first blockbuster best selling books about the benefits of the whole
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foods plant-based diet. Ocean Robbins is also the grandson of Baskin Robbins co-founder
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Irvin Robbins. Ocean spent much of his early life advocating for environmental change.
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At the age of only 15 he co-founded the Creating Our Future Speaking Tour which aimed to empower
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students for environmental change and included presentations at the United Nations. In 1990
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Robbins founded the nonprofit organization Youth for Environmental Sanity. Yes to continue his
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mission of advocating for sustainability and social justice. In 2012 Ocean Robbins co-founded
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Food Revolution Network alongside his father and in 2020 his book 31 Day Food Revolution debuted
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as a bestseller. Walk a motion to plant the change. We want to know how you became so inspired to
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help others at such a young age so we would love for you to tell us about how you grew up
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and he influenced your grandfather and your father had on you. So basically it's like a little
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bit of your life story. All right well let's go back a couple generations. So my grandpa founded an
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ice cream company. It's called Baskin Robbins and it became the world's largest ice cream company
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and my dad John grew up with an ice cream cone shaped swimming pool in the backyard and 31 flavors
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of ice cream in the freezer. He was groomed to one day join in running the family business but
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when he was in his early 20s he was offered that chance and he said no when he walked away from a
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path that was practically paved with gold and with ice cream to as we jokingly put it in our family
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following his own rocky road and he ended up moving with my mom to a little island off the
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coast of Canada. They built a one-room log cabin grew most of their own food, practiced yoga and
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meditation for several hours a day and named their kid ocean. That was me and they almost named me
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kale by the way and this is way before kale was cool but we did eat a lot of kale and cabbage and
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carrots and other veggies from the garden and as I got a little older my dad researched the food
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industry in which he'd grown up and wound up coming out in 1987 with a book called Diet for a
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New America which became this runaway best seller and inspired millions of people to look at their
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food choices as a chance to make a difference for their health and for the planet and one of his
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readers ended up being my grandpa herb. He had lost his brother-in-law and business partner
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Bert Basque into heart disease when my dad's uncle Bert was 54 years old and now my grandpa
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around the age of 70 was facing serious diabetes heart disease weight issues his doctors told him
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he didn't have long to live unless he made some big changes they gave him a copy of the book Diet
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for New America written by his renegade son my grandpa was still pretty mad about my dad's choice
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to leave the company but he wanted to live so he read the book wound up following its advice
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and he cut way down on sugar and processed foods cut way down on animal products started 80 way
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marble plant foods gave up ice cream wound up reversing his diabetes reversing his heart disease
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losing a bunch of weight his favorite part was that his golf game improved seven strokes
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my favorite part was that he lived 19 more healthy years and that we got to have some precious time
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together and so we've really seen in our family how powerful food can be to harm us or to heal us
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and what a difference it can make when we make conscious food choices while your dad really took
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on a pivotal change in life that most people wouldn't do I mean that's really pretty amazing
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and it's amazing how he's inspired you I love that what would you say was your biggest connection
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and learning experiences from your father well early on living in this one room log cabin my
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dad had walked away from a life of a mince wealth you know any trust fund any access to the
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family wealth to become a hermit and a hippie you know with my mom hi friends your support can
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help make the difference by liking commenting subscribing and sharing the plant the change
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podcast you can also visit us at solidrockflorta.org to learn more about solid rock community school
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one of the core values that he used to share with me he used to quote the row I make myself rich
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by making my wants few you know we live in a consumerist society where so many of us feel like
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we need to have more stuff to fill empty gaps and holes inside us and at the end of the day I think
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love relationships self awareness these are all things that can't be bought or sold
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and they are truly the the cornerstones of happiness and so is health you know and you can't buy
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health from a drugstore you know health comes from the choices we make and the actions we take
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and the ways that we live so my dad used to also say food is nourishment not just entertainment
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you know when we look at food as a way to get a titillating moment of a distraction from our
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suffering or a bit of pleasure in a bleak day you know that's that's meaningful and beautiful in
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its own way but I think that in a deeper way food nourishes us in a way that helps us to have
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less bleak days to have more vitality and pleasure enjoy and there's a lot more pleasure in simple
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foods that that make us healthy and vibrant and alive that help our taste buds come to life that
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help our our energy to be vibrant and fulfill us to fulfill the purposes for which we took birth
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then just to have a moment of pleasure followed by a day of suffering and bloating and so
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I'm really interested to this day in how we can make food a true expression of our integrity our
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values and our love of life and also how we can reclaim our priorities so that instead of focusing
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on getting more of what we don't have we focus on making a difference with what we do have
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and gosh everything you just said was so amazing I love it it was just it was so perfect
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just what your dad did the choices he made and the way that he raised you was so amazing that is just
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it's it's so important for people to hear those things because people are making decisions
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every day that don't necessarily align with what they really believe and your dad did that
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and I think that is so inspirational and influential so I really I love that and I love hearing
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you speak about it you know you know it feels like as a society we've made money more important
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than health then the survival of the planet then our basic integrity we we talk about making a killing
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um but I'm interested in making a living I'm interested in you know but money is awesome we need
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it right it can do wonderful things and it's a tool towards a greater end not an end in itself
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and uh I think similarly with food like food is awesome let's have as much pleasure and culinary
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deliciousness as possible in our lives and it's for a purpose is to nourish us it's to help us
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to thrive and when you give your body the right fuel everything gets better yeah for sure
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absolutely what would you say the impact of diet for a new America had on the country and you
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personally so in the five years after diet for a new America came out in 1987 beef consumption in
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the United States dropped by about 20% and it was part of a cultural zeitgeist of the time where
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people were realizing uh how impactful food could be on the planet as well as on their own health
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and there was this kind of awakening spreading and you know things have gone through their ebbs and
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flows since then you know when diet for numericic came out the word vegan nobody knew what it was
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in the US it was as it came from Britain and people called them vegans and you know it since become
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a lot more popularized um but uh and at that time there was no uh like regenerative wasn't even
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in the language of our times grass fed beef wasn't even a thing so a lot of what it did was expose
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the horrors of factory farms and that created a whole new range of people looking at how do we produce
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food differently um but also a lot of people said I don't want to be a part of this industry at all
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and um you know the meat industry was quite upset um and there was a campaign at one point
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my family's um address was published and we were receiving manure packets uh from farmers
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across the US in the mail we of course just put them in our compost pile took it as a little
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contribution to the organic matter in our garden um but uh obviously the intent wasn't wasn't
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kind and there were death threats and you know um I learned later there were death threats against me
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I didn't know that at the time um my dad didn't tell me but but I can remember writing my bus
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writing the bus to uh to school and um composing in my mind and imagining a press release uh if my
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if my father's life was taken uh being very clear that our family was passionate about a movement
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and it was bigger than any one person and um and so that sense of purpose and conviction
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has has really carried to my life ever since then that uh you know the George Bernard Shaw talked
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about being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one and I really believe that
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as as I became aware at a young age of the power of food can have to harm or heal us
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that felt like a purpose that was bigger than me and that my life has been given over to that
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and I love that all we can do is give information and gosh the the resistance and hate that comes
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from that is pretty pretty shocking you know anytime you try to change a status quo you're
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upsetting the interests of those who are profiting from or invested in or attached to the norms
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that that makes sense to them and we all have an incredible capacity to justify and organize
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around what makes sense to us so challenging that is difficult you know my dad used to say when
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he was on tour he used to say I it's something to think that I'd have it encounter less resistance
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if instead of encouraging people to go plant-based I was encouraging them to have sex change operations
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because like it's so personal right there's so much like you know like this is who I am what we
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eat our culture our values our our norms and so challenging that is really upsetting to some people
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and yet this is a toxic food culture that's killing us and at the end of the day you've experienced
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suffering that comes when you don't feed your body what it needs I love the sense of being a part
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of a movement that's helping galvanize and inspire others and now the whole food plant-based
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movement is the terminology we use now it's so widespread and so potent and all over the world
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people are rising up and speaking out and standing up and reinventing our definition of what's
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food can be you know food 1.0 I think is about survival if you can get enough calories to
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fill your belly that is success and for many people in the world that's the central goal of food
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food 2.0 is about commerce it's about the buying and selling of goods and it's brought us huge
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range of options consumerist king but it has no moral compass and it's killing us and so at 3.0
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I think is about health health bodies and health for our planet and there's healthy profits in food
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3.0 it's just that they come from healthy food now that that's all amazing I love that food
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2.0 where you said there's no moral compass yeah I really I think I talk about that all the time
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there should be a moral compass and it is definitely something that we see missing in society
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in many different areas and now when you originally co-founded the food revolution network alongside
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of your father and that was in 2012 I believe yep what were you hoping to accomplish at that point
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I mean when we first started food revolution network our mission then as it is now is healthy
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ethical sustainable suits for all you know honestly we want to change the way the world eats I
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didn't know at that time that we'd grow to now have over a million members and put on programs
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there reach hundreds of thousands of people I just hoped we could do some good the movement has
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grown and food revolution network has grown and I'm humbled and honored to be able to work with
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an incredible team we have 27 staff all over the world but our mission is the same so tell us
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about the documentary films that food revolution has been involved with and are your documentaries
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as effective today as they were previously I think a good movie really can change the world
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because a good movie touches the heart as well as the mind there's the saying that people don't
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remember what you tell them they remember what you make them feel and I think that a good movie
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makes people feel something and that feeling is critical to creating change you know because
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very rarely do we do something just because we know we should we do something because we feel
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motivated from the inside out especially it change a habit change especially a habit change is
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deep is changing what you eat there's so many headwinds in a toxic food culture that push us
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in a in a direction where you know junk food is normalized and advertised and subsidized and
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mainstreamized and in that context it feels like fighting an uphill battle just to eat a healthy meal
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sometimes but I think that a good film can can help inspire us at a deeper level of being
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this it lends in our body in a certain way and that's where ultimately choices often come from
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I think food revolution network our biggest media production is our annual food revolution
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summit where we interview leading food experts and create a documentary series like a 12 hour
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or so docu series and share that every year with the world but we also are involved in working
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in collaboration with various filmmakers and there's a number of films that we've created
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what are called online funnels around real people can enter their name and email and watch it
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for a limited time for free and then there's like a next step impact kit or upgrade kit if people want
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to go deeper with the message of the film with recipes and courses and other resources to really
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implement what they've learned and take action in their lives so there's a film called Then Need To Grow
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that looks at regenerative agriculture and sort of alternative solutions for healing the planet
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through the lens of three very different stories of people who are up to something big in the world
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there's a film called From Food to Freedom that look focuses on reversing type 2 diabetes and looks
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at a specific intervention a group of people who spent a week they were all really sick and they see
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if they could learn how to get healthy and that's the kind of the centerpiece for the story and
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eating for tomorrow which looks at the environmental impact of food in a really big
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devastating and inspiring way it shows you what's at stake and what's possible.
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It's fantastic fun guys another one which we just saw and we were like this is an incredible movie
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let's build a whole online launch remand so we can get it out to more people it looks at mushrooms
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and the power of mushrooms to heal lives and heal ecosystems and help heal the planet and
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so these are all films that we've been involved with and we help to bring out and from our website
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folks can you know watch any of them for free for a limited time and we brought an impact kits
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because I think a good movie doesn't just leave you with good feelings but it helps you change your
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life so in every case there's an impact kit to kind of implement. Your book is titled 31-Day Food
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Revolution, heal your body feel great and transform your world what are the takeaway lessons you
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really hope that readers will take from it. 31-Day Food Revolution has four parts so part one is
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detoxify focus on getting rid of the bad stuff. Part two is nourish it's like really how do you
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nourish your body optimally and wonderfully with the good stuff. Part three is gather we look at
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the community side how do we build a healthy food culture they can sustain us and support us and
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then part four is transform it's how to be an agent of change on the planet and so those are really
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the the the essential pieces is like put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others
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and then for goodness sakes help others you know because I think that's how we build a food
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revolution that's that's restorative and honestly when you help others eat better you also create
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a social support network for yourself too so it it's positive feedback loop so that's kind of the
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thesis of it and every chapter ends with three simple action steps you can take kind of a beginner
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intermediate and advanced there's 31 chapters the 31 chapters is based on the notion that you know
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again I started the 31 flavors ice cream and you know I'm saying in the long run these 31 steps to
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help can bring you more pleasure and more joy even than 31 flavors of ice cream ever could
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so that's kind of the thesis of it and 31 day food revolution was it had a great time writing
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and I've also got a new book out just just out powered by plants nutrient load at 30 minute
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meals to help you thrive and this goes into deep into plant powered nutrition but it's also
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a recipe book so the recipes are all ones you can make in 30 minutes or less and they're super
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nutrient dense so we're looking at how you can get your nutritional needs met from foods and from
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whole plant foods and which are the ones to feature and then we show you how to love it so you can
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really fall in love with foods that love you back your story is great and listening to you talk
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about your dad and what he did to you as a family I just want to like sit down over lunch with you
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and just talk about that for hours I just I just want to listen to you talk that people just don't
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do things like that I assume you realize that now right what your dad did was really different it
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was very risky absolutely absolutely and of course I did like anybody I didn't have a perfect childhood
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and we had our our challenges and I feel like my dad was blazing a trail sometimes trail blazing is
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messy but it's also how we get to a new place and you know his his trail has always been guided by
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you know a passion for service and for help and for the well-being of all and I'm deeply grateful to
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that you know I've been thinking a lot about the sort of the legacy that that he's left me that
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that that I want to leave for my kids like what is it that we stand for what are we value you know in
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life and what do we pass on you know and at a core level I feel like he's always sought to be an
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evolutionary passed on the best of what he learned to me and and hopefully didn't pass on the worst
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you know trial and error experimentation discovery absolutely and you know our family was taking
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cold plunges fill up a child's waiting pool and put it outside and jump in and after a shower
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we didn't know about the science that's coming out now it shows how pharmacists can be beneficial
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for human health my parents just felt more alive when they did that and they felt like that had to
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be good for us even in the Canadian winter and there's so many things that that I grew up in like
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love of fitness and exercise that were more about like what made sense we didn't have the research
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than that we do now all food diets it wasn't because it was a research-backed thing back then it was
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because it just made sense at some intuitive level and it turns out now the science is backing
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it up and showing us the incredible potency of some of these practices yeah I know it is interesting
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because you were you were going on gut feelings and what you believed and now we have the science
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and proof to show that this is best and we really hope that people are listening to those things
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and where do people find that information from you you got a revolution dot org you can find our
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various resources yeah and then get on our email list and we share we have so many resources we
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have master classes and paid courses and free resources and hundreds of articles on our website
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and of course our annual summit and I've coaching certification for folks who are interested in
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being plant-based coaches if you go to certification.foodrevolution.org you can find out about that
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that's an incredible program we want to help mobilize a grassroots army of food revolutionaries
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to help help people actually implement powerful results in their lives you know because there's a
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difference between knowing what to do and doing what you know and sometimes coaching can can
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raise that gap for people. Thank you so much Ocean and everyone have a wonderful day.
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