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Food Is Medicine: How Prescription Produce Is Healing Chronic Disease | Erin W. Martin
01:16:40
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A
On today's episode of the Real Foodology.
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Podcast, we want to have purpose. We want to be able to live long, healthy, happy lives. And that's really what drives all my work I'm doing today.
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Hi friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. Today I sit down with aging expert and FreshRx Oklahoma co founder Erin Martin. She joins me to challenge the idea that disease is an inevitable part of getting older and to explain why reconnecting with nature, local food systems, and generational wisdom is the real path to longevity. Erin breaks down how her Pros Produce Prescription program has reversed type 2 diabetes, rebuilt local regenerative agriculture, and proven that healthy communities are economically stronger communities. We also dive into Oklahoma's groundbreaking Food Is Medicine Bill, how it prioritizes local growers and nutritions for populations across the state. If you've ever wondered how to get involved in your state's food policy or support programs like Fresh rx, Erin shares exactly where to start and why it matters. This is so such an awesome episode you guys. We keep hearing about all these doom and gloom stats, how they're cutting SNAP benefits and they're cutting funding to Medicaid and Medicare, but this whole episode Aaron talks about all of the amazing programs that we have in place that are actually really taking care of lower income families and how we're getting real organic regenerative food into those families so that they can heal their bodies with their food. It's I loved this episode. I hope that you love it as much as I do. If you could take a moment and rate and review. I know I ask every week. It really does mean a lot. It is so easy. It takes five seconds and it really does help the show. And I hope that you're loving the episode. Tag me ealfoodology and I will hopefully see it and repost it. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that you love the episode. 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However, turmeric tea can have a harsh bitter taste that does not appeal to everyone. Furthermore, without black pepper, its range of beneficial compounds may not be fully used by the body, which is why they created a blend of slightly spicy and sweet ingredients that your body can recognize and use efficiently to support healthy levels of inflammation, brain and immune health and overall wellness all in one deliciously creamy drink. To try the superfood Golden Milk today go to paleovalley.com Real Foodology and you will save 15% off when you use code Real Foodology. Again, that's paleovaly.com Real Foodology this cold and flu season I am determined to stay healthy. So I'm stocking my medicine cabinet proactively with non toxic doctor formulated essentials from Beekeepers Naturals to support my immune system every single day. If you don't know what Propolis is, it's basically the defender of the beehive, a powerful blend of plant and tree resins and enzymes made by bees. 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Beekeepers Naturals products are also available at Target, Whole Foods, Amazon, CVS and Walgreens. I've been really intrigued about this for the last couple years because we keep hearing the world's overpopulated, the world's overpopulated and the birth rates are actually declining so much that we're now concerned that we're not going to have enough old people or young people to take care of the older generations.
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Right? That's exactly right. And a lot of people think that we're aging longer in the US and we're actually declining.
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A
That's so crazy.
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And we're spending the most money per capita in the world on health care, but our longevity is declining. Other countries, people are aging a lot longer.
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Yeah. Yeah. You look at the blue zones. United States, right? Not a blue zone.
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B
No. There is one in the US Though.
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Yeah. There's one there.
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Right there is Loma Linda, California.
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A
That's right.
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Lots of sense of community activity, focused on eating healthy. There's also a quasi blue zone in Pennsylvania that was really interesting. The blue zones is that even though maybe they don't have a great diet in some, they smoke and drink in some of these blue zones. Quasi blue zones. But they have this really close connection of community.
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Yeah.
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And that seems to be what's at the core of these blue zones, which is really interesting.
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A
Yes. I think that is the number one thing, is the community more than anything else. That and the eating of real food is another really big one that a lot of these blue zones also have in common. Yes. Local food, which we're going to go into.
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B
Yes.
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Well, Erin, thank you so much for making the trip out here, because I know you flew in for this. I'm so excited about this episode. You're doing really cool stuff right now, and we've been needing to do this conversation for a while. So thank you so much for coming on.
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B
Thank you so much, Courtney, for talking about truth on your platform and doing everything that you're doing. I really appreciate being here with you.
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A
Thank you. Same. You, too. You're doing similar work, too. It's so awesome. It's so cool to see what you're doing. So I want to dive into first. You are a gerontologist. I said that, right? Yes, you did. You got it.
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Good job.
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We were talking about before recording, and I was like. I don't actually know how to say that term because it's something I had never heard before. So can you explain to my audience? Because I'm assuming they probably don't know what that is either.
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Yeah, they don't. So aarp, which a lot of people know, which is an older adult advocacy group, they formed the center first for Gerontology at the University of Southern California. And they knew that the baby boomer generation was aging rapidly. And actually, if you're 50 or older in the US you have at least one chronic condition. And if you're 65 or older in the US specifically, you're on an average of 15 or more prescription drugs. And we have 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every single day. And so the founders of AARP really saw this as an issue and knew that we would need older adult advocates, people trained in issues of aging. So in the school of gerontology, we studied the social impacts of aging, the cultural impacts of aging, the psychological impacts of aging, and the physical impacts on aging. And I learned a lot from that. It's actually the only freestanding school of gerontology in the world, and it was the first. But now other schools are starting to have these specialties. So I'm not a physician, but physicians come and get trained in gerontology and other types of professionals, people going into policy. I was really being trained to be a long term care administrator. I started working in a retirement community when I was 15 years old and really fell in love with older people.
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A
Oh, I love that. That's so cool. So in, in your time working with older people, what have you found is the most important when it comes to aging? Whether it's, and I guess in a way of a lot of the conversation now that people are having is we're concerned about longevity and lifespan, which is not only living to an older age, but your quality of life as you age.
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Yes.
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What are some of the markers that you have found are the most impactful.
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In that people say lifespan and there's also another term called health span. And people would rather not. They rather live well longer than just waste away, which is what we're facing. I actually saw in working in all levels of long term care, by the time, from the time I was 15 till I was 25, I saw people on 15 to 32 prescription drugs at a time with 5 to 6 comorbidities, chronic diseases.
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Oh, and most of those are preventable, by the way.
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Yes, yes, most of them are preventable with lifestyle. And so I started learning that. And one of the things I learned in gerontology school was all these myths about aging. One thing I learned was that disease is actually not a natural part of aging.
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We need to talk about that. Yeah, absolutely.
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And so I realized that some of the core things that we were kind of talking about with the blue zones is good quality food. That food has a huge ripple effect on someone's health span, their longevity, their quality of life, their mental health, their physical health, their spiritual Health, all these things. And then really the core. Core of that and what happens around more local food, focused communities is community is connection with community and really having a purpose. And one thing we've really destroyed for older people, and we'll be old one day too.
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Yeah.
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Is we've destroyed their purpose in our society. And, you know, a lot of people, A lot of people really dismiss elders and they think, oh, they're, they're worn out, they're not in touch with us. But really, why even Native American cultures value and think that elders and children should be together is because actually they're closest to the Creator. They're just. Children are just coming from the Creator, and elders are about to go back to the Creator. And so it's something that I've tried to help my peers understand that one day that's going to be us. And we want to have purpose. We want to be able to live long, healthy, happy lives. And that's really what drives all my work I'm doing today.
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A
So how do we cultivate a society where we can help elders have a purpose? Because, I mean, there is that concern of as you get older. I mean, I remember. So my grandparents are a great example of this. Actually. I was always in awe of this. My parents and I would always talk about how my mom's parents were. I mean, into their 90s, they were still having dinner parties with their friends. They were still very active, very social, very, you know, in their communities. But, you know, there did hit a point where my grandma couldn't drive anymore, and there was like, certain barriers there where it made it harder for them to have community. So how. How could we recultivate that?
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Again, it's really about showing the value and providing respect to them and really nurturing, like, make sure your children are exposed to your folks. Make sure, you know, we're really the only culture in the world that doesn't live intergenerationally. It is cultural for people to take care of their elders and to respect that and be more in touch spiritually with that. And what's really unfortunate is, you know, things like you and I are really passionate about, like food, it's really separating us where it really can connect us and heal us. And so I'm really just trying to nurture a culture around community. And I think that respecting elders and including them in that culture, it just comes with that territory.
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A
Talking about this actually makes me really sad because I. The way that you're talking about how we kind of as a society, we dismiss elders and I Think you made such a great point about. My husband and I have been talking about this recently, just as we're seeing our parents start to age more and we're trying to figure out. I mean, both our parents are in great health and super active, so we don't have to worry about this now. But I'm just saying we're starting to kind of talk about, okay, what will we do when that time comes? Because neither of us feel like we wanna put our parents in a nursing home. But, you know, then there's this barrier where it's like, okay, you know, we also wanna have kids. Are we gonna have to have a house with, like, six bedrooms so we can have our parents live with us? Or, like, how, you know, like, we're just starting to think about that and navigate that. And I do have hope. I feel like a lot of our generation is starting to look at this in a different way, because I think we watched our parents. And this is not an attack on our parents generation. I think that they were just doing the best that they could. But I think a lot of us watched our grandparents go into nursing homes, feel really sad about it, feel like they were kind of neglected in a way that we don't want to do the same to our parents. That's right.
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And it. And it makes a lot of sense. The baby boomer generation, there's different aspects to it. Like, they have different benefits from the time period they grew up than we do. And we have different problems that we have to face just with skyrocketing land prices and food and inflation and all these things. This is something that was handed down to us because those problems weren't fixed. They were exacerbated during that time. And so, yeah, we have a lot to clean up and a lot to do. And it's great that you all are thinking about that because we are going to have to rethink how we do community. I mean, Social Security was brought about and at the time, great idea, but actually allowed older adults to live on their own for the first time, which can be seen as good or bad. And then people really just wanted just their nuclear family, Just the parents and the children and their white picket fence. But they totally left out the elders in that kind of picture of what it looks like to be this American family. And now we really have to rethink that and rethink community instead of separating. And this is mine, this is yours, what's ours together. And that's really what we're facing and having to think about and have those hard conversations.
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A
Yeah. And I can't help but wonder, you know, it, it's no shock to anyone to know that our society is not going in the best direction right now in many different ways. You know, godless, it feels like lawless in some places. You know, they're just. It's kind of going to hell in a handbasket. Yeah. And I can't help but, but to wonder if part of that is because we have this disconnect now from our elders, because we, it's like we have this disconnect from wisdom that has always been passed down for generations. And I think we're also seeing this with our food, for example. You know, it's like moms are not teaching their daughters how to cook anymore. And you know, it's like these little things that we pass down from our elders and we're not really doing that anymore because we're not living with them. They maybe are in a nursing home. And I get it. Like, we're busy, society is different, life is different. But I can't help but to wonder if that's also part of what is causing our society to go downhill right now.
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Yes, the wisdom is super important. And there's things that you can't just learn on a YouTube video. There's nuances to life and there's also things that never actually change about life.
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There's.
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There's lessons in their wisdom. Even though they're not growing up in like the technological society that we've grown up in, there are still good and true values that are applicable for generations and eons that we want to learn from. When I was 15, growing up in this retirement community, working there, I really wanted to learn from my elders mistakes so that I could grow. And that's really what they're there for, is to stand on the shoulders of them. And they've done a lot of work to get us here. So let's not repeat these same mistakes and learn from this wisdom. And, and because we've really become detached, our lives have become busier. We're not slowing down to do the things that are good and true, like growing our own food, which is just one of the many examples. So I think you're right. I think it has a lot to do is that by detaching from elders and wisdom, we're really detaching from ourselves because we're really all connected.
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Can we talk about the holiday season? Because it's both wonderful and it's completely overwhelming and exhausting. Your regular life continues. Work, family, the daily stuff. But now there are gatherings, big meals, gift shopping and it's all holiday memorable. But but you get a little bit out of your routine. Maybe you're eating new foods that you're not normally eating. Maybe you're overeating a little bit because you're going to all these holiday parties. And the result? Your body feels it. That heavy bloated feeling after dinner. The food coma after eating foods that your body is not normally used to. Maybe you're eating more sugar than normal and that uncomfortable fullness and feeling that lasts for hours. Here's why. Stress and maybe a diet that you're not normally eating slows down your digestive system. You produce fewer enzymes to break down all that rich food. And this is why I take take Mass Zymes. It's a full spectrum enzyme formula with four times more proteins than the leaning brands and 18 different enzymes to help break down proteins, fats and carbs so your body can actually process those holiday meals. Which means better digestion, less bloating and more energy to actually enjoy the holiday celebrations and you can be with your family. Now here's what you get as a Listener. Go to bioptimizers.com realfoodology. You'll see a limited time special on their best selling Master. This exclusive offer gives you 30% off mask times on your first subscription. A free 30 count bottle of magnesium Breakthrough for sleep support the Biological Optimization Blueprint for free and the regular price of this offer is $72, but for a limited time you can get it for just $28. That is a total savings of over $44 when you use Code Real Foodology. If you're there during the 12 days of wellness sale, you can also grab select daily deals on other products with savings up to 32% off while you shop. If the promo is passed, you're still covered with my exclusive code Real Foodology that always gets you at least 15% off. Lock in your sleep, support your body. Go to bioptimizers.com real foodology and get your mass times today in the limited time Free gifts. Two of the most powerful supplements for women's health are whey protein and creatine and they're often misunderstood and seriously underrated. Studies show that women have about about 70 to 80% lower natural creatine stores than men, which impacts muscle function, brain energy and even mood puree. Creatine plus combines pure creatine monohydrate with taurine to support strength, performance and cognitive health. It's especially beneficial for both Pre and postmenopausal women. Like everything Puree makes, each batch of creatine plus is third party tested for over 200 harmful contaminants and clean certified by the Clean Label Project. You're not only getting clean safe ingredients, the test results are published online. For complete transparency just scan the QR code on every product to see your exact batches results. I use the Creatine plus in a couple different ways. One way is I will make a whey protein shake in the morning and I'll add in some fruit and some coconut milk and then a scoop of the Creatine plus. Or I love making these protein yogurt bowls with coconut yogurt, the Creatine plus and whey protein and then I add a little bit of either grain free granola on top, maybe some fruit and that's it. Puree checks all the boxes. Purity, potency and peace of mind. So feel the difference for yourself. And go to puri.com real foodology and use the code real foodology at checkout for 20 off. The code even works on their already discounted subscriptions giving you almost a third off the regular price. Don't wait. Try Creatine plus today. Clean science backed supplements that you can actually trust. So go to P-U-O-R-I.com real foodology and use the code Real Foodology. Yes, exactly. And we're forgetting that people have come before us and they've made mistakes and they've learned from their mistakes and we can actually learn from them. Like yes.
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B
And that's what we're really going through I think in the agricultural community.
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A
Yeah.
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Is that it's a remembering. It's a remembering of what was good and true. And you know humans love to over complicate, to come back to simplification. We go down these rabbit holes that we realize oh the simple things were actually made sense. Oh okay. And so I think that's what we're really coming back to and I hope we can get there quicker.
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A
Girls, Same. I know. I mean you and I talk about this all the time. We need to be getting back to nature, putting our feet in the soil, eating real food, cultivating local food systems, getting sunlight, getting sleep. It's all the like really basic, like nobody wants to talk about it. None of it goes viral because it's like, like boring.
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B
Yeah.
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But it's the stuff that actually really matters and works.
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B
Yes. I think it's sexy to grow your own. I agree.
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We need to make this a trend again on instagram yes. Well, and what's the. Do you know the statistic? This one always blows my mind. When our grandparents were children, this, there was a certain percentage of households that had a backyard garden. Do you know, I don't remember.
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B
It was a lot, but I don't know the exact statistics.
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I don't know the exact statistic, but it was really high. And then obviously now, I mean, I don't know anyone or actually that's not true. I think I have two friends that have little backyard gardens, but most of them are not eating majority of their food from it.
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B
And During World War II, we had the victory gardens where people started growing food for themselves and for the community. And I really think that we're going through like a modern day movement, like the Victory Gardens, where this is the opportunity where the Victory gardens really went across party lines and everybody was chipping in to do this. And that's what we need so bad today is like, this can be the modern victory garden mission of our time is like we got to get back to these local food systems because that's what's resilient. That's what we can depend on in a crisis. And you know, that's what we saw with COVID too, is how important that was. If we didn't have trucks coming in our city for 72 hours, we were literally going to starve. And that makes no sense. Especially in Oklahoma where there's land and everywhere. It doesn't make sense. Like the math doesn't math on that. Let's pitch in and do this. And we have to prioritize it.
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A
I know, I know. That'd be so cool. I keep hoping that there's going to be a movement where we all start focusing on growing our own food. I just, it's so hard. I'm such an advocate for it. And then I sit here going, oh my God. Well, I personally don't have a place I can plant right now and I don't really have a lot of time. So it's hard and I'm such an advocate for it.
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B
But it is, it's.
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A
It's hard to find the time, the resources, the actual land to do it. But it is something in my forefront.
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B
And even if you don't grow your own food, I think for all of the listeners out there, support the ones that are growing the food. Support the food hub and the food aggregators that are doing that and in bigger cities. Just search it, just Google it. You can find food hubs, local food hubs. Make sure they're buying direct from farms. There's pretty much farmers markets everywhere and if you don't have time to go there farmers market. A lot of people don't want to get up Saturday at 7am don't blame them. A lot of them like the Tulsa Farmers Market in Oklahoma, they're doing a CSA to go and CSAs can our community supported agriculture and it just means really kind of like a weekly subscription to a farm and you can get them shipped. Our friends at Sovereignty Ranch, right. They have a CSA and so when you can and you don't always have to, it doesn't have to be 100% but really any dollar matters to this community and investing and voting with your doll this So I just encourage people when you can buy local even at like grocery stores, like natural grocers, there's organic regenerative stuff. There's Alexander Family Farms, A2 Dairy. I mean there's some really good family farms that are being sold in stores. So even when you can't make it to buy local food, you can try to make better choices if you can afford it, if you can get there. And there's also great ways to afford it it if you don't have a lot of money. And we can talk about that too. But there's lots of options.
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A
Yeah, there's lots of options. And actually I talk about this often. You know, so many people ask me well how can I help? How can I get involved? I want to be a part of this food movement. And I always tell them supporting your local farmer is literally the easy, not only the easiest because you have to buy food, but it's also one of the most impactful things you can do. You getting your maybe a couple friends and a couple family members together to buy from local farm could be the difference between this farm not being able to stay open anymore versus keeping them afloat.
- [24:56]
B
Exactly.
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A
And it's not even a lot of grunt work for you. And then you also get to benefit by getting all this amazing locally grown, hopefully regenerative organic food.
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B
Yeah. And even though there you can, we can talk about the ripple effects of this and the environmental ripple effects, but even just the economic ripple effect on its own, most of the businesses and things in our cities now it's an extractive model. Your dollar is not staying in your community. And a lot of people say there's like a local food calculator out there. There's lots of different figures but people say $1 spent in your community is like spending $3. Yes, that's a Huge multiplier, not to mention the multiplier on your health, the ecological benefits of that, protecting your watershed. I mean, we go on and on and on. But providing jobs in your community, support, they need that. They need that support and you need them too.
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A
Exactly, exactly. It's a symbiotic relationship.
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B
Yes.
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A
So one of the things that you have been working on in your community is. Well, there's two things. So there's the FreshRx, which I want to talk about, and then also a recent policy that you just pushed through. But let's talk about. So what is, what is FreshRx and what is it doing for your community?
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B
So FreshRx Oklahoma is a produce prescription program. We get referrals from primary care providers and endocrinologists and dietitians and case managers and social workers for people who have chronic disease. We have focused most on type 2 diabetes and we provide a year long program for these people. They get, they get free food for an entire year every other week, about $50 worth of, of locally and regeneratively grown fruits and vegetables along with correlating recipes. And then they get education every month. So we have very in depth education, very well rounded, very lifestyle medicine pillar type education around sleep, mental health, eating healthy, like understanding their medications. We've done breath work and meditation, really treating the whole person. And then every quarter we measure outcomes so we get baseline metrics. And then every quarter we're measuring their A1C weight and blood pressure. And then we measure a lot more things kind of pre and post program. And we provide this program 100% for free for people. It's not another shot, it's not another pill. And at the same time, we're scaling our local food system on the backs of making health outcomes and many times reversing type 2 diabetes.
- [27:34]
A
Have you seen instances where people have reversed their type 2 diabetes?
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B
Yes, we've seen it actually a lot. People would say, oh, there's just an outlier. But our biggest outlier, last year a woman lost 132 pounds. She had had type 2 diabetes for a decade. She reversed her diabetes in eight months and came off of all of her prescription drugs.
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A
That is so cool. Wow. Just by following this Fresh Rx program.
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B
Just with, with just with vegetables and education. Imagine that.
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A
I know. I mean we could make such a difference if we could, if we could change our food system and have people eating whole real fresh foods from organic regenerative farms. We're trying. We're trying.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So how does that work? How is it free for people and how do they sign up? Do you have to be in a certain age bracket and is it through like an HSA or.
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B
Very good question. So most of the people that we serve as actually are low income on snap. Okay. And so how the program began is there was a doctor in north Tulsa and for people that don't know, Tulsa's north Tulsa area is a predominantly black and low income area because of the Tulsa race massacre that happened in the 1920s. A lot of people were displaced there and there's actually the highest mortality rate of diabetes in our county in this area. They didn't have a grocery store for 14 years and they were compliant with going to the doctor's office, taking their medications, showing up to their appointments, but they were getting worse and it was the food. And so this physician came to me and he had heard about me and he said, could you help me prescribe food? And I said, I would love to do that. And so this was actually during the pandemic where a lot of people were concerned about food shortages and a lot of the cracks in our society was really showing and I had some free time. So I fundraised over four months, months over Zoom, and raised $185,000 for 52 patients to start. And we had such great success. So it's been, it's been funded by grant dollars and in 2022 we were also funded by the USDA through the produce prescription grant, through the farm bill. And now we've been serving, We've served about 500 people and now we get referrals from 22 primary care providers in Tulsa across six health systems. Now we're in this big transition and we'll talk about the bill in a second. But the big transition, and even federally there's programs like this all over the country. And not just produce prescription, there's medically tailored meals, there's medically tailored grocery, so there's different types of programs, but all creating these incredible outcomes. And so they've been funded by philanthropy for a long time. They've been around since the 80s. But now we're going through this transition to say, shouldn't healthcare pay for this?
- [30:27]
A
Most people have no idea that traditional non stick cookware is loaded with forever chemicals. A study from the Ecology center found that 80% of nonstick pans contain Teflon, which are also known as pfas, also otherwise known as forever chemicals that can leach into your food and your home. And a brand new study in the Science of the Total Environment found that one scratch is on a nonstick pan can release about 9,100 plastic particles into your food. This is why switching to toxin free cookware is one of the most important choices you can make for your health. Our Place makes high performance toxin free cookware completely free of PFAs and PTFEs so you never have to wonder what's ending up in your food. And their four piece cookware set is the easiest way to overhaul your entire kitchen. You get two always pans and two perfect pots in mini and full sizes. Replacing a whole cabinet of bulky outdated cookware. You can saute, sear, fry, bake, boil, steam everything with just four pieces and buying the full set saves you $150. Personally I love how their non stick surface performs. Eggs glide out, cleanup takes seconds and everything matches in those iconic Our Place colors. It genuinely upgraded my kitchen. And also if you are looking for a great non toxic air fryer, I highly recommend checking out their Wonder Oven or their new Wonder Oven Pro. They are amazing. I love them. I use mine every single day. Our Place is having their biggest sale of the year right now. Save up to 35% site wide now through January 12th. Head to fromourplace.com realfoodology to see why more than a million people have made the switch to Our Place kitchenware and with their 100 day risk free trial, free shipping and free returns you can shop with total confidence. Shop the Our Place holiday sale right now. No code needed, just go to fromourplace.com real foodology something that I struggle with is staying focused and I found out a couple years ago that probably the reason why that is is I have lower levels of BDNF in my brain which is brain derived neurotropic factor. Now one of the things that can actually help promote and stimulate more BDNF is Lion's mane mushroom which happens to be in my favorite coffee everyday dose. Something else I really struggle with is not having enough time in the morning. I'm really busy. I feel like I'm always on the go, I'm traveling and my everyday dose coffee is coffee plus benefits. They combine high quality coffee with powerful ingredients like lion's mane and Chaga collagen protein and neurotropics to fuel your brain. Brain boost focus and give you clean sustained energy all day long. It tastes just like coffee because it is without the downside. No crash, no jitters, just clean sustained Energy. You can get 61 off your first coffee starter kit, a free A2 probiotic creamer with over a hundred dollars in free gifts by going to everydaydose.com real foodology or entering Real Foodology at checkout. That's Everyday Dose. Everyday.com Real Foodology for 61% off your first order. Everyday Dose is also available at your local target. Yes. Yes. That's awesome. It should be. It should have always been this way. This is what I don't understand about our health care system is we just throw everything at it's so reactive. We throw everything at it after it's already become a problem. Band aids and then. Exactly. And then we're paying four times, sometimes 10 times the amount that we would have paid if we had just prevented it in the first place. And I don't understand why healthcare is not more inclined to go to a more preventative model. It would save them trillions.
- [33:58]
B
I know and I really wish even food is medicine was in a more preventative stage. It's really waiting till someone has horrible uncontrolled chronic disease because it's easier to measure the cost savings from that. We've saved our state probably close to $10 million in healthcare cost savings savings and it's obvious that they should be doing this. But the problem has been that healthcare is in this fee for service model and it's been going through a change for some time. But it just means every time you want to go to the doctor, even if they fix something or not, they get paid. And now we're really switching over to a value based care model. Ideally it's not a perfect transition, but hospitals started getting fined for readmission. And so I really believe that food is medicine programs should be aligned in a value based care type contract with health payers that it holds everyone accountable for outcomes. It's not about just giving people free food. It's treating this as a real healthcare intervention driven by outcomes. I'm held accountable to say that I'm making sure people are being educated, that that's required, that that's really the biggest piece. And the, the food is a great teaching tool and having those two elements together. People want to get better, people want to know. There's a lot of people that think oh people are just there for the free food or you know, these people on SNAP don't want to get better. And that's actually not true. People have been were begging to get in this program. And the commitment we do screen for people who are ready to do this. It is a commitment. But the vast majority of people, when you give them the right tools, they do it and when they start losing weight, when they start having more energy, when they can keep up with their grandkids, they just keep going. And they're not going to look back once you feel better. They don't know how bad they feel until they start feeling better. And really, when they enroll in this program, it's the first time that anyone's ever told them that food could heal this. Food could heal the pain, it could heal anxiety and depression, it could heal their type 2 diabetes, it could put them in cancer remission. It's the first time that anyone's told them this. And they've had these chronic diseases for decades. And so that's how this is free. We don't think that consumers should have to pay for it. We don't think farmers should have to reduce their price for it or donate food. We pay them well and we raised the money to do this and now we're going to get the contracts with her health insurance to continue paying for this as a healthcare intervention.
- [36:32]
A
This is so awesome. Okay, so you've mentioned that this is through the Farm bill. Does that mean that every state in the US has some sort of iteration of this?
- [36:43]
B
Yes, almost all states have. About 46 states have received this funding to do different pilot demonstration programs for produce prescription through the Farm Bill. And there's.
- [36:52]
A
Are they being utilized? Sorry to interrupt.
- [36:54]
B
Oh, they are, yeah.
- [36:55]
A
Okay.
- [36:55]
B
Yeah, they are. And this has been being funded for quite some time, almost 10 years. And so they're learning lots of things. What they're actually finding is people in these programs actually eat more fruits and vegetables than the average American. And these are people on SNAP and low income. And so these programs are doing really well. But the thing is, the Farm Bill has been footing the bill for these health outcomes. And so the argument is healthcare is way bigger than the Farm bill and they are losing money hand over fist. The hospitals actually want to pay for food as medicine because they're losing money on people with chronic disease. They were not designed for these types of frequent flyers, as they call them. They weren't designed for this. Healthcare was designed for emergency medicine. And so even hospitals want to see these programs happen. And so we have a little ways to go, but I think we have a lot of alignment on this. This. We're starting to see these bills pass in states all over the country. And so I'm really hopeful that this could get federalized at some point and that every insurance will be paying for this. Not just Medicaid and low income, but Medicare, commercial employer insurance. I Mean, why wouldn't they? It saves them a ton of money.
- [38:09]
A
I know. Well, my fear, I was just sitting here thinking, okay, big pharma is going to be lost lobbying against this super hard.
- [38:17]
B
Yeah. And actually like a lot of us in the food is medicine space, it's really important for people to know we want. There's a, there's a kind of a mixed bag of people. A lot of people want. They think if we're talking about helping the most vulnerable with the most chronic diseases, wouldn't we want them to have the best quality food available and wouldn't we want to scale a food food system that we can trust on the backs of this food is medicine movement? Yeah, but of course, big agriculture wants a piece of the movement and so there's a lot of fragmentation. And so I think it's really important for people in the regenerative movement, in the health movement, lots of people on your show or that watch it to understand those dynamics and to be at these tables. And what's really great is in several people, pieces of legislation and maybe some coming, there is some requirements around sourcing. You'd be surprised that I would say and I might being be generous here, 90 of the food is medicine movement, they don't know anything about where the food comes from.
- [39:22]
A
That's pretty wild. Yeah, it is wild. How?
- [39:26]
B
I don't know. I know. Well, a lot of this, a lot of these movements came up kind of through food food insecurity and kind of through food banks. And food banks really aren't agricultural entities. Some do, some are better than others, but they're really handing out a lot of commodity stuff. And so they don't have a lot of connections with farmers. That's not to say all of them don't, but so that's kind of where that movement has come up. But now that we're seeing all this movement around regenerative ag, I really think the sweet spot, the sweet sweet spot is between food is medicine and regenerative ag. And it's a really beautiful thing to watch people come together around that. And the. We come from all different walks of life on any sides of the aisle and we really agree on this. The nutrient density capabilities of regenerative ag, it's mind blowing. And I think there's going to be a lot more data to support this. And I think as that becomes more evolved, healthcare is actually going to care about this. Because if they're prescribing, wouldn't they want it to have a lot of nutrients in it? And create outcomes.
- [40:32]
A
Exactly. You'd think they want the best outcomes. Yeah. This is wild. We should talk about this because I've actually been diving into this more because I'm working on a personal project right now that I can't fully share about yet, which I could tell you about after. But I've been looking into the nutrient density and what the studies are actually showing as far as what conventional agriculture produce looks like nutrient dense wise versus the region agriculture. And it is stark. It's crazy. It's mind blowing.
- [41:05]
B
It is.
- [41:05]
A
And it makes sense though. I think about this from a common sense standpoint. When you look at the way that we farm regeneratively and how we put so much focus on the soil and the soil and its ecosystem in there is what creates the food for the produce. So of course if we're destroying that ecosystem, it's not going to have as much nutrients in there.
- [41:24]
B
Yeah. And a lot of people don't understand that soil has anything to do with food. I didn't. I knew I had connected food as medicine in the gerontology school and my studies in the blue zones and I went to Italy and got to see all of this kind of stuff, but I still hadn't connected it to the soil or to farmers. And so it makes taking a long time. It takes a long time. And then I was fortunate to get trained by the nonprofit Kiss the Ground in Los Angeles and really learn about the soil science. But once I started reading it, I was mind blown. I didn't realize how depleted our food was, but how much more we could restore and how quickly we could restore the nutrients in our food. I think it's a critical thing that once you see it, once you see the science of it and there's going to be more coming out, people are going to be mind blown by that. That.
- [42:13]
A
I know, I know it's cool. I love region Agriculture is my favorite thing to talk about.
- [42:18]
B
It's the best.
- [42:18]
A
And my friend Kelly and I talk about this all the time. We're just like, we want to make it cool again. Because for some reason like farming and agriculture is not like cool to people. And I don't know why, because to me it's my favorite subject to talk about. I think that what is more important than actually going to the source, working with nature, going to the farmers that, that are growing our food, that's literally keeping us alive on this planet. It can be the difference between being very sick and having type 2 diabetes and being overweight versus thriving. To me, it Is like, how do, how does, how, how do most people not care about agriculture at all?
- [42:56]
B
Yeah.
- [42:56]
A
And I, I get it.
- [42:57]
B
But we still think something comes from a package because we've been so, I know, so taken away from that and we don't understand it. And I think even our institutions, like our university agronomists, like, they've been very trained in chemical agriculture and there's a pervading belief that we have to have it or we'll starve.
- [43:19]
A
Yeah.
- [43:19]
B
And that comes from an old type of thinking that, and when we know something and we, we did what the best we could with what we knew at the time, but now we know more. There's new science is relatively new. A lot of the science that Kiss the ground was teaching happened in the 1990s, 90s, and so it takes time for that to come into critical mass and for people to understand that. And so it's so entrenched and there's a lot of money in it that people are so detached and there's a lot of propaganda confusing people on many fronts, but one of them being agriculture. And so many people, even many leaders in general, people, that's what they believe. They don't understand regenerative agriculture. And I'm hoping more people will soon. And the more we talk about it, I'm glad it's your favorite.
- [44:07]
A
Oh, I love it. I could pop it. I do so many podcasts about region agriculture. Just because I, I can't even explain it. I don't even fully understand why I'm so obsessed with it. It just makes me feel like it's part of my purpose on this planet because I have like such an obsession with it that it's kind of almost weird, but I just love it. And I think once you start experiencing what it feels like to eat food from regenerative farms, and when you actually go out there and you meet the farmers and you put your hands and your feet in the soil, there's just a different feeling that I can't explain to someone without experiencing it yourself.
- [44:42]
B
Yeah.
- [44:43]
A
And I think that there's just this. We have been so disconnected from our food, from our soil, from what actually gives us real life. And when you start getting connected to that again, you go, oh, it's. This is the source of life.
- [44:56]
B
Right. And it gives you, it gave me hope. Everywhere I looked in long term care and healthcare, there were more problems and more problems. And I was like, where am I going to put all this passion and fire in? And so I was just. It gave me Hope. I thought, man, we are so doomed. People are on all these drugs, there's all these chronic disease. What's the problem? What's at the root of it? And it just gave me hope for the first time in a long time. It's like, like I didn't realize that there was literally barely any nutrients left in. You know, you think you're eating healthy, you think you're eating amazing if you're buying organic at Whole Foods and you realize that even the USDA says it loses 10% of its nutrients every single day. And the average age of a fruit or vegetable in a grocery store is 14 days old.
- [45:44]
A
Oh, that's crazy.
- [45:45]
B
So do the math there. Like, what's left in the food? Not a whole lot. And so the, the nutrient variations in food by how it's grown is stark. And a lot of people just assume a grape's a grape, a carrot's a carrot. But we know from new studies that Spinach can vary 365 to 1, which means you'd have to eat 365 pieces of spinach that you could eat in one the same nutrients. That's crazy. Think about how much calories you'd have to eat. And your, your taste buds know the difference. And I think like, that's part of the thing you experience when you eat that food is it tastes so much better and it doesn't have all the toxins on it. Toxins on it at the same time. So those are things that people like, don't even understand. Are leaders making decisions and policies like they don't understand. And so, you know, we work really hard to make sure that people understand that and are reconnected to that. Some people have never heard these statistics before.
- [46:50]
A
I know, it's wild. Yeah. So speaking of the lawmakers. So you were a part of passing a bill called the Food is Medicine bill in Oklahoma. When does that actually come into fruition and what does it entail?
- [47:03]
B
Yes, the Food is Medicine act of Oklahoma was passed on May 1 the this year. Super exciting. The end of 2023, we formed the Food is Medicine Coalition of Oklahoma. There are Food is Medicine coalitions in many other states as well. We're actually, I think about the 17th state that has passed some type of legislation on this. So Oklahoma's first of some, first of 25 of something which doesn't happen often. This requires the healthcare authority, the, that governs Medicaid, which is state Medicaid for low income folks. It requires them and the managed care organization. So the health Insurance contractors that provide the service. So that's Aetna, Humana and Centene in Oklahoma. It requires them to provide these services. So implementation takes a little longer than just the bill going into effect is actually was expedited in effect on July 1st. And they're working out the details. We're a part of those conversations. And so we're hoping that this can get launched as soon as possible. But it takes a little bit of time. There's multiple different pathways the state can go through. They can even unlock federal dollars, which is a little bit longer of a process. New York just started theirs. Massachusetts has had one since the beginning. And North Carolina did one of the largest demonstrations and they showed an $85 savings per member per month. One thing that really helped us in passing this was the state was asking us when we were talking about this, what's the ROI on this? You know, what's the return on investment? When are we going to see our money for this, Aaron? You know, and so one thing we did is we took our data from the first three years of FreshRx, our outcomes. We got an actuary firm, they took actual claims data from state Medicaid of Oklahoma. And we're small there. There's 118,000 people with type 2 diabetes on state Medicaid. They said if we served 5% of those people, that's a little under 6,000 people. And we had a 75% success rate like we've had. We've saved the state up to $28.5 million net savings.
- [49:17]
A
Wow. That's not a small number.
- [49:19]
B
And that's 5% of the people.
- [49:22]
A
Wow.
- [49:22]
B
And so I always say, like, this is a no brainer. This is a time I think we have alignment at the federal level, at state levels. I think this is actually something everybody agrees with. Actually. We had five unanimous votes on this bill in Oklahoma and The final was 76 to 8.
- [49:41]
A
Wow.
- [49:42]
B
We agreed. We agree on something. And this is something, I think I got so discouraged by all the fighting and everything going on. And I thought, I really want to pick something that's unifying. And so this has really been it. And I'm really grateful other states are looking to see how we implement this. We're hoping many other states will follow suit. And I'm hoping, well, why don't we just, let's just federalize, hey, Dr. Oz, let's just federalize this in Medicare for 67 million people. The data is there, these programs have been done. It's a no brainer. And it's got a five times roi.
- [50:23]
A
That's so cool. This is so exciting. This is one of those things that I remember when this got passed through, I was like screaming in my house. I was like, oh my God, this is huge. Like, huge, huge. It's huge because this is. Now it has created a blueprint for other states to, to also follow suit like you said. Hopefully we can get this in federally.
- [50:44]
B
Yes.
- [50:45]
A
So I'm curious because there has been so much conversation about Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP cuts and reforms and all this stuff. Have you seen any of this be affected by that?
- [50:57]
B
That's a really good question and people are asking that a lot. And what's great is we work with this team of lawyers at Harvard University. There's this center for Health Law and Policy and they actually help. Help form a lot of these laws and they help advise us when these new memos come out from CMS and people are making assumptions or reacting to them or this means food is medicine is going away. They help us ground back into what's the law. And they're actually saying that no, this is very much in alignment. These 1115 waivers that a lot of the food is Medicine programs are being funded through are still going to be approved case by case. Case basis cost savings is still important. From my conversations with HHS Health and Human Services at the federal level, they're supportive of this. There's a lot of, there's a lot of different things about health care, maybe paying for food and there's some things we need to iron out. But ultimately I don't think this is going to detract from this movement. I think it makes this movement more important than ever. I think that it also proves that people on SNAP can get better and want to make choices. It really affects all of us. We all need access to these programs. And I think the health insurance is going to want to pay for it more now than ever because they're losing money on this deal. And so I don't think that it's going to be affected. I think it does change who can qualify for Medicaid and so who would actually qualify for these programs that are still very much in the Medicaid. Medicaid space. But if we federalize this is more commercial insurance covers this and if people can use their HSA and fsa, there's all sorts of pathways that people can access this. And it doesn't take any money to go on our YouTube channel to FreshRx, Oklahoma and learn and change your behaviors. One of the best videos we have is how to Shop Smart at a Dollar General. If that's awesome, if that's what you have access to, there are smarter decisions. There's frozen vegetables at many of them now. And so there are better ways that you can. You can use your dollars, you can stretch dollars. When you actually know how to cook or preserve or store food, you can do better. And so people think, oh, local food's more expensive. I think that's a lot of propaganda. I think when you actually get down to it and you know how to make good decisions and you're empowered. My brain brother is on disability. They've been living on, like, $20,000 a year for a very long time on a fixed income, and they know how to do it. And so that's something that we have to remember that no matter what's happening at a federal level, at a policy level with Medicare or Medicaid, we can change our community and we can still change our behaviors. We may have to, you know, make the best decision with what we have right then, but there's always ways to make better, better decisions.
- [53:52]
A
Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of this, it comes down to education and learning how to cook and learning how to, like you said, preserve your food, extend your food as. As long as you possibly can, like, you know, getting creative with different recipes and different foods that you have on hand. And a lot of this does come down to education because, I mean, I've. I've talked about this so much already on the podcast, but because, you know, we hear so much, oh, it's so expensive and it's so hard, hard, and it's so unaccessible for people to eat healthy. And yes, while there's always going to be those certain scenarios where somebody is really, you know, in dire straits and they really don't have access to a grocery store, I get that. I'm not just diminishing that.
- [54:32]
B
Yeah.
- [54:32]
A
But when I was first learning about organic food, I was working three jobs and I was bare. I mean, barely making my rent, like, not doing well, and I figured out how to make it work, work, but I had to be real scrappy and learn how to cook every meal at home. I wasn't eating out. I certainly wasn't postmating or anything. So, yeah, a lot of it was. I had to teach myself how to make meals that I could really budget out and stretch out my dollars as much as possible. And I think that there is also a misconception that food. Because we're. We're always told, you know, oh, you know, we can deal with this later. And once you have a disease like type 2 diabetes, you're just gonna be on medication for life. There's nothing you can do about it. There's so many people, you said this earlier, where they don't actually know. Wait, so if I changed my diet and lifestyle, I wouldn't have to be on this medication anymore? I wouldn't actually have to suffer with this disease anymore? Again, there's always gonna be exceptions, but majority of the time, yeah, you actually don't have to anymore if you focus on eating real food. And so I think there's a large education piece there that really needs to get out to the general public of food can be medicine. And you can actually completely change your life based on your diet and your lifestyle. You just have to know what to do and you need the tools.
- [55:47]
B
Yes. And we should, that that education should be accessible like when we want to, you know, we're making decisions to limit what you can buy on snap. Fine, let's include also some education to support people. I'm 100% behind that. As long as there's support for people to make different choices, they just need some education and support to do that. That one thing a lot of people don't know about is people on snap. They have, a lot of states have double up which means they can double their SNAP benefits a lot of times, up to $20 a day if they're buying healthier food. And a lot of states have that. That's actually funded through the same fund as produce prescription through the farm bill. And those are very much farmers market based. Yeah. And that's really important that you can go the farmer's market and maybe, yeah, maybe some stuff is more expensive. But if you use SNAP and double up, it's going to be like the same cost or it's really cheaper when you think about it. From nutrient per dollar. Yes. Than calorie per dollar. I think people get that very confused too. And when your body is satiated, you might not even have to eat as much because you're getting all the nutrients. And I think once you really think about it that way too then it makes a lot more sense financially as well.
- [57:01]
A
Yeah, yeah. I actually, I talk about this a lot too. So there's gonna be a massive difference between if you buy like all these ultra processed foods are expensive now too. You know, all, all groceries are pretty expensive now and those especially those name brands. And I think about if you were to buy a big bag of Doritos and like maybe a family sized box of cereal. It's probably gonna be 15, $20 now for that same amount of money you could actually get a carton of eggs. Eggs and at least a packet, a pound of ground beef. And you're actually going to be more satisfied. You're gonna have more meals because you could have eggs for almost a week or depending on how many people you have in your family, maybe a couple days you're gonna have nutrient dense, higher protein, you're gonna feel fuller. Versus I think everybody knows the feeling of eating a whole bag of Doritos and being like, okay, what next? I'm still hungry.
- [57:51]
B
Yeah, that's why you keep eating.
- [57:52]
A
Exactly. It doesn't actually satisfy you.
- [57:54]
B
It doesn't.
- [57:55]
A
And so there is, there needs to be a larger discussion and conversation around, you know, if I'm gonna have a bowl cereal in the morning, I mean I'm hungry an hour later and I need more versus if I was to do bacon and eggs, I'm gonna feel full and satisfied for a lot longer.
- [58:09]
B
Yeah. It really does come down to education and there's so much confusing narratives out there. And what people don't understand is there's a lot of companies that have spent a lot of dollars to confuse us, to think that sugar's not that bad for you, that all these things are really all that not bad and things that actually have nutrients in them are bad for this and that. And it's really hard to make decisions. And I always say just don't give your authority over, do your own research, read about it and try to make better decisions. And if you just need easy ways, like on our website freshrxok.org, we have our recipes listed there. They're done in with respect to affordability and accessibility. And you can go on the YouTube channel and watch classes and learn and make it work for you. And every situation is different. Yes, everything is expensive right now. There's better ways, there's better decisions you can make just in the situation you're in. And we just have to do the best we can do but know that you are not stuck with the disease. But that is not just. You don't just get a disease and die. There's people that die of old age on zero prescription drugs. And you can have that too. You just have to, you really have to say no. And you really just have to have the courage a lot of us have had to have that courage that, you know, I'm not going to eat that thing. I'm not Going to use that shampoo. I'm not going to do that because these things are harmful and I hate that. It's so confusing for people. And that's why these food is medicine. Medicine programs are great. They provide all that education. They provide access, they take, they. They provide dignity to people empowerment. Like it's not just some handout. It's. It's these incredible programs. And so I think these programs are vital. I think we have to integrate them fully into healthcare. I think we have to prioritize sourcing local food. Michigan included that. They actually included 30% procurement of local food. Hawaii made it a mandate that they would source all local food for their food as medicine programs. And as we do that, we're going to start to see that people can access this that aren't even in the programs. Like even in Tulsa with our little group of farmers, more variety is available to people. They've been able to scale their production because of this. So more people have access to this food than just our, than just our participants. The community does. And they didn't even know these farms existed or how they could get them or how they could afford them. With their snap and double up, they can actually buy organic regenerative and it's not more expensive. You know, I think that don't stay small, don't believe that you can't find a way because it's worth it. I think also the other thing is when you're healthy, when people are healthy, I actually think that benefits the economy. I think that if you're feeling well, you'll be more productive, you'll choose better relationships. Just think of all the things and all the ripple effects that could happen to your life. It's worth doing. It's worth. There's so much education at our fingertips, albeit lots of confusing stuff. But search it out, like, look at it, try different things, eat more whole foods. It's actually not more expensive. That processed stuff is absolutely junk.
- [61:34]
A
Junk.
- [61:34]
B
You don't want it. Keep listening to real foodology and learn a ton of real stuff. Find those people. Really speaking truth, I'm sure most of the people you've had, if not all, are, you know, incredible people to learn from and probably all have tools that people can find. Let's just. We can do it. We just got to do it together.
- [61:56]
A
Yes, yes. And we need to help our communities and also give people resources on how to do that. And actually I was thinking about this. I'm not sure if we've entirely answered this yet. So in order to be A participant in this. Do you already have to be diagnosed with something or can somebody that's just on SNAP sign up for or do you have to sign up for it? How does that work?
- [62:19]
B
Yeah, great question. So our program, you have to have type 2 diabetes. In our program, many about 60 to 70% of our folks are on SNAP. But you'd be amazed that actually people even on commercial insurance are saying they're food insecure or what I'd like to call nutrition insecurity more specifically. But there are programs we where you can qualify just for being food insecure or having any type of chronic disease. And even our partner Muscogee Creek Nation, we're home in Oklahoma to 39 tribes. Muscogee Creek Nation has a federal pilot for produce prescription through Indian Health Services and they're serving both pre diabetes and diabetes. So getting it a little bit more in that prevention realm. I hate that people have to have that. I would argue we want to keep people healthy, that there's a lot of cost savings there. USDA did just first fund their first cancer produce prescription program. There's programs for people with pcos. There's great maternal health programs that prevent preterm labor. They have healthier birth weight because imagine that just food. So we've seen people in our program who were partially blind not be blind anymore because of all the inflammation that happens with diabetes around your veins, which includes your eyes. We've seen people on walkers go off of walkers because they don't have inflammation anymore. So on our program, yes they are particularly low income and have type 2 diabetes. But there are programs all over the nation that our employer insured programs where you just are an employee of and you may have some type of chronic disease. We would love to expand all metabolic disease. And we really believe that our education is malleable to all different types of diseases. People always ask, well what's the one vegetable people should eat with type 2 diabetes? And I think people don't understand. It's like a well rounded diet for anyone really heals people. Yes, there's nuances with different things, but they're seeing incredible things. Lifestyle medicine, American College of Lifestyle Medicine. They're seeing people, some people come off of kidney dialysis. I mean anything is probably possible. I think we don't know the real limits of that ceiling. I think there's a lot more to know. But yeah, so many of these programs they're low income. How ours are referred is we get an actual. We made a prescription form for doctors that actually write prescriptions. For fruits and vegetables and send that to us. Now we're a little bit more sophisticated. We have a system. If you go on to our website, you can see a tab for providers or patients. Patients can even self refer and then we have physicians that make referrals too. But it works in many different ways. Some organizations, they screen them for food insecurity and a chronic disease and they give them like a voucher to the farmer's market or there's even debit cards for food is medicine programs that they can use at retail stores. Ours is a multi farm CSA model so we buy direct from farmers. We didn't go the farmer's market route just because we wanted to be able to provide education right there. And we wanted to be able to also select the certain farmers. And there's a lot of farmers that grow for our program that aren't at the farmers market. We have a few that are. And so we really created this coalition of growers to provide to the patient. So it's free. Once we get healthcare contracts, we'll continue to offer it for free and hope people can come heal themselves.
- [65:51]
A
That's so awesome. So if someone so obviously if, if they are in Oklahoma, they can just go to your website?
- [65:57]
B
Yes.
- [65:58]
A
Do you know or have any resources for people that are outside of Oklahoma that would want to participate in one of these programs?
- [66:04]
B
Yes, there is one of the sites that actually has a map of all the programs funded through the farm bill through the USDA is called the center for Nutrition. The Gretchen Gretchen Swanson center for Nutrition out of Omaha, Nebraska. They go by, by a few names. Nutrition Incentive Hub is also their other name. So you can look them up. There's actually a map and you can see what programs are in your state. Now that's not a comprehensive list list. There's some programs that are funded privately. There's some that are funded through insurance as well. So you can always ask your insurance and I think the more people are asking about that, the better. I love that. So you can, you can find it and then you can actually just search in your state. Georgia Food is Medicine, you know, Atlanta Food is medicine or Texas, there's some programs in Houston by the way. So we, you can really search and find those programs. You can ask them if they, they are qualified if you, if they're, if they're currently enrolling and get enrolled. Find those programs if you can. The one of the best programs in the nation is in, is in California called Recipe for health. They source 100 organic regenerative and they've served 9,000 patients. So they're like us on steroids. There's a great group in Kentucky called Need More Acres. They aggregate from multiple, multiple local farms. They have multiple food as medicine programs. There's a beautiful medically tailored grocery and medically tailored meal plan called Community Servings in Boston, Massachusetts. They serve almost all over the state in Massachusetts and they have incredible like chef quality food for people with all sorts of chronic diseases. So find your program. If you're a farmer, get a hold of them, see if they'll buy from you. Be at these tables if there's a Food is Medicine coalition in your state. Search Food is Medicine Coalition in your state or find advocates and you can always reach out to that Harvard University center for Health Law and Policy. They will also connect you with people who are advocates in your state. This year there were 40 states at this convening we had there. So there's 40 states at least working on this, if not more, more. There's also a group called National Produce Prescription Collaborative. They have state working groups that are working on. Almost all 50 states are represented. So you can find who's your advocate and a lot of time, someone working on policy, a lot of times is also providing these programs so you can find them. Just go out there and look.
- [68:39]
A
This is awesome. Well, I get so many questions from people and I don't always know where to direct them. So I feel like this is a great start. We're going to put on those links in the show notes for everybody too.
- [68:47]
B
Okay.
- [68:48]
A
If somebody's wanting to get more involved on the policy side of things like the work that you do, what is your advice on how to get involved?
- [68:56]
B
Yeah, so that same group at Harvard University center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, they have a ton of policy documents on how this is getting integrated into healthcare. What are the policy pathways, what other states have passed the these bills. So they're a great work, great site. So it would be chilpy chlpi.org also just super easy. If you go to my website, aaron wmartin.com there's a free Food is Medicine guide and I have all those resources that I've talked about and many more listed on this guide. So you just put your email in. Don't worry. I don't, I don't give out a lot of emails or send a bunch of emails, but you can download that guide and if you're interested in, in starting a program in your community, I have kind of steps on how to do that. I Have free resources on if you want to start a program, if you want to get involved with policy, if you want to find programs in your area, all of that is on there and there's tons of free resources. But if you want to save a lot of time and energy, you can also. I also offer consulting and I have helped people set up programs all over the nation and even one in the Netherlands. I can save you a lot of time and money on a lot of mistakes and things we've learned. But that is a free resource on aaron wmartin.com with all of those additional resources listed there. So you can figure out everybody's got a role to play. I think just having people know, like being on your show today, I think having people just know in different movements, environmental movements, in the Maha movement and the regenerative act ag movement and the food is medicine movement and health care and long term care. I mean this really touches everything. And I think be aware that these programs exist if there's a way you can partner with them. I think we just need to have more people knowing that these programs actually exist. They work, they have an ROI and we're reversing chronic disease with them. And let's just make this so they're everywhere.
- [70:59]
A
Yes. Oh my God, I love that. I feel like this is a great place to end because that was perfect. Unless if you feel like there's anything else that people haven't heard that you wanted to say.
- [71:07]
B
No, I think there's plenty to dive into. Check out those resources. I think, you know, the thing I like to tell people is the only person you really can change is yourself. And you be an example to that. It's so hard. I mean, I watched my dad get diabetes, die from pancreatic cancer and I'm like the biggest food is medicine advocate. Like it's really hard. And especially with your close family and friends, it's hard. You and I have gone through that. When you start standing up for truth about health and changing your life, it's hard, but it's worth doing. Your family, your soul family out there. Who really believes this? We're out there. Come to conferences, come connect with people. Connect with us online. Feel free to follow me on Instagram. Expert on aging. I'm sure we'll put on that on there and tick tock. Food is medicine. And connect with me, whatever your your choice of social media. Poison is on YouTube too. Just get out there and find out what you can do. We all have a role to play, but start with yourself. That's the hardest person to fix. And it is the biggest reward. It's the most gold you can do. And you being example, example to your family and to future generations. And really, what you eat now and what your mother ate and your grandmother ate, it affects the people to come. And we've got to grow strong, kiddos. And that's why this movement is so, so important.
- [72:36]
A
Yes. And when you make the changes in your own life, I've experienced this myself. It's so much better just to be a living example and let people come to you.
- [72:44]
B
Exactly.
- [72:45]
A
Because eventually people will start coming to you and saying, oh my gosh, what are you doing? You seem like you feel so good and you're, you know, have vitality and, and people will start asking you. And so being an example for that in your own community will be enough to also help other people. You know, you need to help yourself first and then that's how you can help other people is showing by example and leading by example. Living that way.
- [73:08]
B
Exactly. It's like if I was obese, telling people to eat vegetables, like, what kind of example is that? Yeah. And so I have to work on myself. I had to change my diet. I had to come off prescription drugs. I had to deal with mental health challenges. And it's so much better today. And now people come to me. They know maybe they don't want to say it publicly or ask me on social media, but they come to me privately and ask me all sorts of questions. That is the most beautiful thing you can do, is heal yourself first. And, and you can do it. And you can heal so many people by starting with yourself first.
- [73:44]
A
Yes. I love that so much. And Aaron, I just want to say. And just honor you for the work that you're doing because it really is incredible. We have a big mess to clean up in this country and we need all hands on deck.
- [73:56]
B
All hands on deck.
- [73:56]
A
And you are doing really amazing work and you're really helping the underserved, lower income communities that really are getting hit hard by this right now.
- [74:05]
B
Yes.
- [74:06]
A
And you're providing real resources and real food for them, which is so cool. So thank you so much for what you're doing and I hope that this will inspire other people to, to want to get into this work also. And maybe we can start. Let's get this federally funded.
- [74:22]
B
Yes.
- [74:22]
A
Food is Medicine act federally funded, where we can help everybody across the nation because we need it so badly.
- [74:28]
B
Yeah. Amen to that. And thank you for saying that. And thank you for all your work too. People deserve the best. We can get the best food we can get. And we are the wealthiest country in the nation. We don't really have an excuse.
- [74:42]
A
So let's get to work.
- [74:44]
B
Federalization of Food is Medicine Act.
- [74:46]
A
Yes. Okay, I know you basically already said this, but one more time, will you just plug everything where people can find you?
- [74:51]
B
Sure. Okay, so if you want to learn just about the FreshRx Oklahoma program, fresher X is our website. You can find us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, FreshRx. Okay. And our YouTube channel for free cooking classes, free meditation classes, free nutrition classes. If you want to follow me specifically and all the work I'm doing across the country, you can follow me at Expert on Aging on Instagram. Food is Medicine on TikTok. Aaron Martin. Aaron W. Martin on YouTube, on Facebook, all the places you can find me, I'm on. Yes, I'm on X as well. And then you can go to my website for that free Food is Medicine guide with all of those resources about how to start a food as medicine program where you can find food as medicine programs in your area and get involved with policy@aaron wmartin.com awesome.
- [75:42]
A
Thank you so much for coming on. This was really fun.
- [75:45]
B
Thanks, Courtney.
- [75:46]
A
Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Lab production produced by Drake Peterson. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com see you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider pay patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.
- [76:26]
B
Are you ready to rock middle age? I'm Dr. Tina Moore, Gen X truth teller and holistic physician. On the Dr. Tina show, one of Apple podcast Top alternative health shows. I share what actually works for metabolic health, hormones and strength backed by decades of clinical results, not trends. From loving the gym and hitting your protein goals to peptides and microdosing GLP1s. It's all done the right way, not the hype way. Because menopause doesn't have to suck if you're fit.
- [76:51]
A
New episodes every Thursday produced by Drake.
- [76:54]
B
Peterson and Wellness Loud.