Why Your "Healthy" Foods Are Making You Sick | Michael Pollan

Summary

The School of Greatness — Episode Summary

Podcast: The School of Greatness
Host: Lewis Howes
Guest: Michael Pollan
Episode Title: Why Your "Healthy" Foods Are Making You Sick
Release Date: April 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features renowned author and food expert Michael Pollan, who explores the often confusing landscape of nutrition, focusing on why many foods marketed as “healthy” can actually be detrimental. The conversation covers the dangers of ultra-processed foods, food marketing’s influence on our choices, evolving science around nutrition, the importance of intentional eating, and emotional health—including trauma, depression, and the emerging potential of psychedelic-assisted therapy. Pollan shares science-backed advice while Lewis leads with curiosity and personal experience, making the episode both insightful and relatable.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The Myth of “Healthy” Foods

Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs)

• Pollan defines UPFs as foods with ingredients you couldn’t find in a home kitchen (e.g., emulsifiers, methylcellulose), requiring a factory to produce.
• “The best definition of ultra processed food is it’s made with ingredient[s]…you couldn’t make at home.” — Michael Pollan [04:48]
• Examples: Plant-based meat substitutes (Impossible/Beyond Burgers), frozen pizzas, heavily marketed “healthy” snacks.

Plant-Based Doesn’t Always Mean Healthy

• Pollan warns that the term “plant-based” creates a health halo, but many such foods are ultra-processed.
• “Why plant-based? Why not just plant?” — Michael Pollan [03:19]

2. Sugar: Hidden and Harmful

• Hidden sugars are prevalent in foods not typically considered sweet (ketchup, bread, tomato sauce).
• “The industry has discovered that if you add sugar to anything, you will sell more of it.” — Michael Pollan [06:29]
• Even “diet” products with artificial sweeteners can cause the body to crave more sugar elsewhere, sometimes negating any weight loss benefits.

3. Food Science vs. Evolution

• Our evolutionary wiring to seek sweetness, fat, and umami is exploited by food science to create addictive foods (craveability).
• Artificially engineered flavors and nutrition “trick” the brain, leading to overconsumption and addiction.
• “Flavor is…the brain system for evaluating nutrition in nature. It works really well until you learn how to fool it.” — Michael Pollan [07:17]

4. Michael Pollan’s Eating Philosophy

• His famous seven-word mantra: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” [12:01]
• Real food = what your grandmother would recognize, with ingredients a third-grader can pronounce.
• Eating mostly plants benefits health via nutrients, antioxidants, and especially fiber for gut health.

The Microbiome Revolution

• The gut microbiome is crucial for health, even affecting mental well-being.
• “There are 10 trillion microbes in your gut, and they have such a powerful effect on our health.” — Michael Pollan [14:06]
• Recommendation: Eat 30 different plants per week for a diverse microbiome.

5. Protein, Muscle, and Longevity

• Protein is vital for muscle repair and maintenance, especially with aging, but meat isn’t strictly necessary; plant sources (legumes, tofu) suffice if well-planned.
• “There are some very high performing vegan athletes which kind of gives the lie that you need meat.” — Michael Pollan [17:13]
• Longevity is less about avoiding death and more about compressing morbidity—staying healthy as long as possible, then having a short period of illness.

6. Overeating & Mindful Consumption

• American culture pushes us to eat until we’re “full”—Pollan urges eating until “satisfied."
• Many non-U.S. cultures instill rules about stopping before fullness (e.g., Japan’s hara hachi bu: “eat until you’re 80% full” [20:55]).
• Portion sizes and marketing heavily influence overeating in the U.S.

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The Food Industry: Marketing and Policy

• The food industry spends ~$40 billion per year on marketing, dwarfing public health campaigns ([23:00], [26:35]).
• Health claims are predominantly found on processed foods; the healthiest foods—fruits and vegetables—remain unadvertised and quietly displayed in the produce section.
• Most chronic diseases (cancer, heart disease, diabetes) are traced back to diet.
• “The standard American diet is what is killing most of us. That is what most people die of.” — Michael Pollan [29:44]
• Health insurance companies lack incentive to promote prevention due to customer churn and short contract periods ([31:32]).

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Emotional Health, Depression, and Healing

Exercise and Diet as Mental Health Tools

• Exercise and a real-food diet—along with sunlight and social connection—are powerful for reducing depression.
• “I would say exercise. It’s huge. And eating real food.” — Michael Pollan [33:05]

Addressing Trauma

• Lewis shares his journey healing from childhood trauma and stresses the necessity of emotional processing on top of physical health ([49:43]).
• Pollan affirms that not all healing is nutritional—addressing psychological wounds is necessary for holistic health.

Psychedelics for Mental Health

• Pollan discusses new evidence for psychedelic-assisted therapy, especially using MDMA for PTSD recovery.
• “There are now two phase three studies…showing that about 2/3 of the people…who have guided MDMA trips…lose that diagnosis [PTSD].” — Michael Pollan [56:59]
• Safety concerns exist (e.g., psychotic breaks), but most classic psychedelics (psilocybin, LSD) have no lethal dose and are non-addictive compared to SSRIs ([59:02]).
• The current mental health system provides limited solutions; SSRIs often have marginal effects and challenging side effects ([70:14]).

Social Connection

• Meals are a crucial institution for fostering connection and well-being.
• “Eat with other people, don’t eat alone. Find somebody, invite someone out to have a meal with or cook and invite people into your home.” — Michael Pollan [72:24]

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Science, Trends, and Food Values

Changing Science and Advice

• The main game-changer in nutrition science: realizing the processing level—not just nutrient content—determines health risk ([81:17]).
• Ultra-processed food promotes overeating even when calories and macronutrients are matched ([82:58]).
• The traditional wisdom—eat real food, mostly plants, not too much—remains sound and likely will stand the test of time ([85:04]).

Developing Food Values

• Pollan encourages aligning one’s diet with personal values (health, environment, justice, ethics).
• Informed consumers can “vote” with their purchases for a better food system ([92:01]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On food labels: “If you look at the label and you see stuff you don’t have in your pantry…that’s an ultra processed food. Stay away.” — Michael Pollan [04:48]
• On food rules: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” — Michael Pollan [12:01]
• On portion distortion: "We tend to think that the amount of food put in front of us is the proper amount to eat." — Michael Pollan [37:27]
• On food marketing’s effect: “The food industry is trying to addict you with food.” — Michael Pollan [27:15]
• On the core of greatness: “It is your willingness to give it away to help other people, to help people transform their lives.” — Michael Pollan [105:27]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:35] — What’s wrong with “healthy” ultra-processed foods
• [06:20] — Sugar hidden in unexpected foods
• [12:01] — Pollan’s 7-word food philosophy
• [15:25] — 30 different plants per week for microbiome health
• [23:00] — Food marketing’s power ($40B/year)
• [29:44] — Diet as the main cause of chronic disease
• [33:05] — Exercise and real food as top tools against depression
• [62:25] — Pollan on psychedelic therapy: risks, benefits, and appropriate use
• [70:14] — SSRIs: minimal benefit, real drawbacks
• [72:24] — Meals for tackling loneliness
• [81:17] — The processing, not just macronutrients, is the problem
• [105:27] — Michael Pollan’s definition of greatness

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Actionable Takeaways

• Focus on real, minimally processed foods; prioritize whole plants, and watch for hidden sugars and additives.
• Be wary of food marketing—if a food screams about health benefits, it’s likely not healthy.
• Eat mindfully and socially—slow down, share meals, and listen for satisfaction, not fullness.
• Support your mental health through exercise, sunlight, real food, social connection, and, if needed, trauma-healing practices.
• Develop clarity on your personal food values (environmental, ethical, nutritional) and align your diet accordingly.

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Resources Mentioned

• Michael Pollan’s Masterclass on Food and Eating: masterclass.com
• Michael Pollan’s website & articles: michaelpollan.com
• Notable books: How to Change Your Mind, This Is Your Mind on Plants, The Omnivore’s Dilemma
• Research on the microbiome, ultra-processed foods, and MDMA-assisted therapy

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Final Three Truths from Michael Pollan

1. Honor the plants.
2. Honor your family and loved ones.
3. Overcome your fears.

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Closing Message

This episode motivates listeners to see food as a set of relationships—connecting us to nature, culture, community, and ourselves—and to act with intention and awareness. Pollan encourages us to cut through confusion, honor our values, and embrace simplicity for both personal and planetary health.

Transcript

[Lewis Howes]

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[Michael Pollan]

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[Lewis Howes]

I think nutrition and this idea of wanting to extend our life, our lifespan, living a healthier life, living longer is something that people are taking note of specifically in recent times after just all the different physical ailments, stresses, diseases that people are accumulating in life. And I want to start with a question that I think anyone could resonate with. Which is the worst foods that you think so many people are consuming that they think are healthy, which are actually really, really unhealthy for us. Food Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. If you had a list of three to five foods that you think people think are healthy, but actually the research, the studies are showing it's actually hurting you.

[Michael Pollan]

Well, I mean, I think the least healthy category of foods are what are called ultra processed foods, sometimes UPFs. These are foods that are heavily processed. The reason they use the word ultra is because lots of healthy foods are processed. Cheese is processed, yogurt is processed, processed white flour has been processed. So there's a degree of processing that's just kind of fine. But when you get into ultra processed foods, which often carry health claims, I mean I'll give you an example. The Impossible Burger or the Beyond Burger. Right.

[Lewis Howes]

It's super processed though, right?

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. Like 21 ingredients, some of them never before in the human diet.

[Lewis Howes]

Really.

[Michael Pollan]

And they're sold as plant based. And I would always watch out for that phrase because it sounds really good, it has an aura of health around it. But how about just plant? Why plant based?

[Lewis Howes]

One ingredient.

[Michael Pollan]

One ingredient.

[Lewis Howes]

Carrot.

[Michael Pollan]

Exactly.

[Lewis Howes]

One ingredient. Food.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

That's a plant based root.

[Michael Pollan]

But in fact, it's got these 21 ingredients and lots of novel things and emulsifiers and bonding. Yeah. Methylcellulose is the glue that holds it together. I mean, I like them, I have to say. They're tasty. They're a pretty good synthesis of meat like experience. But it's an ultra processed food. And we do know that ultra processed foods as a category, which now represent more than 60% of the American diet, which is astonishing, are bad for us in many ways. And we have really good research suggesting that. And I'm not speaking any specific one, there's no research that the Beyond Burger or Impossible Burger is bad for you. But the class that it is a part of is. And so you've got people eating great amounts of this and not even knowing the difference. A frozen pizza versus a real pizza, it looks the same. But to make it last as long as it lasts in your grocer's freezer, you have to add all sorts of chemicals to it.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting.

[Michael Pollan]

And products. Now the best definition of ultra processed food is it's made with ingredient. It's something you couldn't make at home. You don't own methylcellulose. It's not in your pantry. You don't have emulsifiers, you don't have. And you need a factory to make these foods. So if you look at the label and you see stuff you don't have in your pantry or a normal person wouldn't have in their pantry, that's an ultra processed food. Stay away. So I would say that's the big category, the plant based ultra processed food. Because plant based has this aura about it.

[Lewis Howes]

Is there, you know, meat based processed foods that are worse than plant based processed, or does it really not matter?

[Michael Pollan]

I don't know that it matters. I don't think it's an important distinction.

[Lewis Howes]

Gotcha.

[Michael Pollan]

You know, a lot of the ingredients in processed food, if you look at the label on a Twinkie, you know, they're like, oh man, I don't know. There are a lot of ingredients, a very high number of them are Derived from a plant, specifically from corn. A lot of the American food system consists of growing huge amounts of corn. And this is commodity corn. This is not corn on the cob, and then using those kernels, breaking them down into its chemical constituents, and then putting them back together as processed food. So all that crap is plant based. Technically that's where it starts. But it's so far removed from a plant as to not be healthy.

[Lewis Howes]

So ultra processed foods is the number one category. What would be the next category of unhealthy foods that seem to be healthy?

[Michael Pollan]

Sugar. I mean, I think one of the things people should pay attention to is how sugar has infiltrated foods that never used to have sugar in them.

[Lewis Howes]

Like which types of foods?

[Michael Pollan]

Oh, ketchup, tomato sauce, bread. Bread. You know, historically, no. It's flour, water and yeast or a sourdough starter. That's all you need to make bread. What is sugar doing there? The industry has discovered that if you add sugar to anything, you will sell more of it. It's magic in the marketplace. And we are hardwired by evolution to like sweetness. Sweetness in nature is a sign of nutritious food, of energy. It's ripe fruit. And so the problem with a lot of the modern food industry is that it takes these, you know, inborn qualities. We have like, we like sweetness, we like fat, the sensation of fat. Because these are, you know, flavor is, is the brain system for making, you know, evaluating nutrition in nature. And it works really well until you learn how to fool it. And that's essentially what food science does. We can make you think you're eating a strawberry when you're eating cardboard, candy bar or something.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Michael Pollan]

And we can think you're eating sugar, drinking sugar when you're drinking a diet soda. One of the really interesting facts about diet sodas, a zero calorie soda, is that people don't lose weight. Why is that? Well, one of the theories is that your body, experiencing sweetness, prepares for sugar, releases insulin and gets all ready and then doesn't get the sugar. So you crave it and you will get it somewhere else. You'll get it in a piece of white bread or you'll reach for a pastry or something like that. So you end up consuming just as much sugar, just not in that diet soda.

[Lewis Howes]

So what's worse, the diet soda or the regular soda?

[Michael Pollan]

I would. If you're going to drink soda and soda, you know, you probably shouldn't drink or make a very special occasion food. I really don't like saying don't eat anything. I Think the key distinction is, is this a D routine food that you should eat whenever, or is this a special occasion food? I would put soda in the special occasion.

[Lewis Howes]

Sure. And if you were gonna do it, then would you do the diet soda or the regular soda?

[Michael Pollan]

I would do the regular soda. Why screw around? No, I mean, there's a recent study out about erythritol, which is an alcohol that's very sweet and that's going into a lot of processed foods. And they've just recently found that there are various health problems associated with it. I mean, you know, our bod understand sugar, our species understands sugar. Let's stick with what we have a long history with and not go with these novelties.

[Lewis Howes]

So why does our body think we're having something nutritious when we have something sweet, even though it's high fructose corn syrup, as opposed to a fruit or a strawberry or a blueberry? Why does it think this is nutritious just because it tastes good?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, because we have this. I mean, we inherited this. It's not one gene, but a liking for sweetness. Just because, let's say you're in nature and there's a lot of berries out there and you taste some and one is like really sour or bitter. That's a sign of an alkaloid, which can be a poison. Whereas sweet is usually a sign that it's something safe to eat and will give you some energy. So in the state of nature, our senses are very well tuned to the environment and our bodies and can negotiate between the two. But. But once you start creating synthetic flavor, we're lost. Our bodies don't know. Now it's interesting, we're fooling our bodies into thinking they're eating meat with some of these plant based burgers. And what are the implications of that?

[Lewis Howes]

What are those? I don't know.

[Michael Pollan]

We haven't studied that yet.

[Lewis Howes]

So we've studied it with two now. We've studied it with diets that are artificial sweeteners, I guess. Right.

[Michael Pollan]

Well, there's a very interesting study that was done at Yale where a scientist looked at the relationship of expected sweetness and actual sweetness. When the amount of sugar in a drink matched the expectation that we had, you were better off. And when it was off, either the soda, they did it with a drink. I don't know if it was a soda, if the sweetness was greater than it would be if it were sugar or less than it would be with sugar. Things went wrong in the body. In the body? Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

So it's almost like Match the amount of sugar to the sensation that you have. Make sure it's pretty close.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. If you want your metabolism to work correctly. Because we have this very highly attuned insulin metabolism and that's what goes awry when people get overweight. It's just not working right. So we shouldn't lie to our bodies. We shouldn't let our food lie to our bodies.

[Lewis Howes]

I'll trick it and say this is really healthy. Even though it tastes really sweet. Yeah, maybe it's not the right thing. So how do we, I mean, we're so addicted to pleasure sensations, it seems like physically, as human beings. How do we learn to intentionally eat for pleasure and also for nutritional value, but not get caught up in eating so much sugar or processed foods that give us this heightened sense of pleasure quickly and easily?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, you know, I came up with my seven word mantra when I was trying to figure out how I should eat, eat food. By which I mean real food, food that isn't synthetic, that isn't lying to your body, that people have, you know, that people have been eating for a long time that your grandmother would recognize as food that you know, contains ingredients that a third grader can pronounce. I mean, I have all these, you know, food rules. And then the second part of the mantra is not too much. And that's the hard part for people and mostly plants and not all plants. I don't think meat is bad for you. I think it's perfectly nutritious food. But the more plants in your diet, the healthier you will be. Why? Well, plants have, first of all, we've been eating plants for 300,000 years. As long as we've been around as a species, it's the main thing we eat. We would get lucky when we hunted or caught animals to eat meat. But the mainstay for most diets has been plants. Plants are full of nutrients that we need. Phytochemicals of various kinds, antioxidants, the most famous, and they're really important. And you get those. All plants produce antioxidants. They have to, to survive. It's how they deal with all the solar radiation they're getting. And that is cancer preventative, does all sorts of things. But the other thing that we're now understanding is so about plants is that their cell walls we know as fiber and fiber is essential. We're learning the two biggest discoveries I think in food is this research around ultra processed foods and the other is this research around the microbiome and that there are 10 trillion organisms you share your body with. They have the majority. Actually, there are more of them than there are cells of you.

[Lewis Howes]

And.

[Michael Pollan]

And that microbiome turns out to be critical to our health.

[Lewis Howes]

10 trillion.

[Michael Pollan]

10 trillion microbes in your gut.

[Lewis Howes]

Microbes in the gut, yeah.

[Michael Pollan]

And they have such a powerful effect on our health and they to be healthy and diverse because you want a diverse number of species of these microbiomes. What they eat is fiber. They eat plants, they're not interested in other things. They don't deal with sugar, they don't deal all the kind of immediate gratification. Processed foods are absorbed in the small intestine very quickly. They're designed for that purpose. Ultra processed food has little or no fiber, but fiber is what these microbes need to be healthy. And when they're healthy, they're producing lots of chemicals, byproducts, some of which are important to mental health too. I don't think the link between the microbiome and your mind is only recently been established, but it has been established. And for example, most of the serotonin in your body is produced in your gut, and we need that for a whole lot of different reasons. So that's the best argument for eating lots of plants and a variety of plants, because there are many different types of fiber and many different types of antioxidants. So the recommendation is you eat 30 different plants a week.

[Lewis Howes]

30 different.

[Michael Pollan]

It's not as hard as it sounds, really. Coffee is one of them.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay, yeah, that's one. You got one plan there.

[Michael Pollan]

But, I mean, there are lots of plants that you're eating without thinking about it.

[Lewis Howes]

Sure.

[Michael Pollan]

But if you think about varying your diet, you had some strawberries or blueberries this morning. You're gonna have. There's lettuce on your sandwich at lunch. There's plants in the bread of your sandwich. I mean, it's not that hard to hit 30, I think, unless you're eating a lot of processed food right now.

[Lewis Howes]

In terms of the story of longevity, living a healthy, longer life, how important is it to have meat in your diet in order to maintain muscle mass and strength as we continue to age? How important is meat for building muscle?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, I think protein is important for building muscle, and protein is important for healing. You know, the reason that athletes consume a lot of protein after they've had a big performance is that they're rebuilding muscles that have been torn down. Torn down, yeah. But you can get protein from plants, and people overlook the importance of that. You can get it from legumes or beans and tofu and things like that. And it's just harder. You have to put more thought into it. I don't know that meat is necessary for longevity. I don't know that. I haven't seen research to that effect. It's a very convenient way of getting a lot of protein, but other things

[Lewis Howes]

come with it, I guess not for longevity, but building muscle for longevity so that you have the strength to get back off the ground if you fall over when you're older or have stronger.

[Michael Pollan]

We've been reading about and hearing from vegan athletes. I mean there are some very high performing vegan athletes which kind of gives the lie that you need meat to do this. I just think you have to be. I mean, I've had periods where I've only eaten plants and I did crave protein sometimes and so I added back in fish. Sure, sure. So I think it depends on you and your metabolism. Some people thrive on an all plant diet and some people simply don't. They don't feel they have enough energy. Sure, I felt I had enough energy. I just. Something in me needed more protein and I was eating lots of tofu and.

[Lewis Howes]

But it wasn't enough.

[Michael Pollan]

Apparently not. Or my mind didn't think it was enough. So you have to listen to those signals when you get them. But I think if you're interested in, if longevity is your focus, and that's never been my focus. My focus has always been be as healthy as you can for as long as possible and then have a. What is the term? Compressed morbidity or something. The shortest possible period of illness before death.

[Lewis Howes]

That's the key. That's what Dr. Sinclair talks about. Oh yeah, Yeah. I don't know if you're familiar with his work, David Sinclair, but he talked about how his mom suffered like, I can't remember, something like a 10 year unhealthy death.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. And that's typical in America.

[Lewis Howes]

And he was like, I want it to be, you know, I'm sick and I die within a couple of days type of thing. And I live a healthy life until it's over as opposed to how do I keep myself alive in an unhealthy way for as long as possible? That's not a good thing.

[Michael Pollan]

And we have a medical system that's pretty good at that too. But so, you know, my focus is chronic disease. I mean, just the kinds of things where people have 40 years of diabetes or something. Which is not a great way to live half of your life. No.

[Lewis Howes]

Is there a way to reverse diabetes?

[Michael Pollan]

Type 2 diabetes can be reversed. With diet and exercise, people really can put themselves on a regime and their numbers will go down and their blood glucose will improve. So in the case of type 2, type 1 is genetic, and I don't know that. I think diet's very important to maintaining yourself, but. But I don't know that you can reverse it.

[Lewis Howes]

How do you navigate the pleasure signals in, I guess, your gut or your brain telling you or that might tell you. That tells a lot of people. Here's a candy bar. Here's a cookie. Here's a milkshake. I want to eat this now. How have you trained your mind and your gut microbiome to not be tempted and want it and crave it consistently? Or is the craving there? But you've just created standards and food rules to support yourself in minimizing those temptations?

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, well, I don't know that I've worked it out completely. I mean, I have my cravings. If you ask my wife, who, you know, if there's a bag of potato chips, she'll finish it if it's open. I am fairly disciplined. And some of it is just being mindful. You know, I've thought a lot about food and nutrition, and I have researched it in great. You know, so asking yourself a set of questions, you know, am I still hungry or am I just enjoying eating? That's a big one. You know, Americans are socialized. I mean, think about what your mom said to you. She said, are you full when she fed you? Right. She didn't say, are you satisfied? That's the right question. Or are you no longer hungry? Because the moment you're no longer hungry is many bites before you're full.

[Lewis Howes]

Right? Just stop eating.

[Michael Pollan]

Exactly. And so I often will ask myself, so am I still hungry or am I just eating because there's more on the plate? And then I enjoy the process. And in other countries, I talk about this in my masterclass. There are sayings. In Japan, they say, hara hachi bu, which means, eat until you're 80% full. That's interesting. And in the Arab world, they say you should eat till you're 3/4 full. In France, they don't say, parents don't say to kids, are you full? They say, do you still have hunger? And so it's a different way of socializing appetite.

[Lewis Howes]

In America, it's like, eat until you cannot eat anymore. Way past hunger.

[Michael Pollan]

Way past hunger.

[Lewis Howes]

And there's two more courses to come, so we gotta finish them.

[Michael Pollan]

So the goal is satisfaction. It's not making yourself full.

[Lewis Howes]

Start Your day with Quaker Protein Instant Oatmeal. The instant oatmeal. Ready to help you tackle whatever your day brings. Like wrangling your toddler into their car seat. That was fun. Coaching your sixth grader soccer team. Go girls. And carrying all the groceries in one trip. Try Quaker Protein Instant Oatmeal granola and bars. Great taste and a good source of protein. Quaker bring out the good.

[Michael Pollan]

Before we had AT&T business wireless coverage, our delivery GPS wasn't the most reliable. Once our driver had to do a 14 point turn to get back on route. A 14 point turn. An influencer, even livestream the whole thing. Not good for business. Now with AT&T business Wireless, routes are updating on the fly and deliveries are on time. And the influencer did get us 53 new followers though. AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.

[Lewis Howes]

How do we, how do we get to satisfaction when people have been training and conditioning themselves for decades?

[Michael Pollan]

We are up against satisfaction. We are up a powerful industry. I mean, I can't overestimate how important food marketing is. I mean, the industry spends like $40 billion getting us to eat more.

[Lewis Howes]

It's in every commercial. It seems like it's either drugs or food.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

In every candy commercial.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, I bet you can't eat just one. You know, the old lay's potato chip commercial. And in fact, food scientists talk about craveability as something they're designing into the food. And they can do that. They know how to do that. And, and we're being manipulated by the food science and the marketing. So it's a struggle because in other countries, America's somewhat unique in food because we don't have a single old traditional food culture. In most cultures, you would eat the way your parents ate growing up, the way their parents ate growing up. And people knew what food was, what wasn't food. This is what we traditionally eat in America, since we're, you know, a mongrel nation drawn from so many different cultures, immigrant nation. We don't have a single dominant food culture. And I think that has left us vulnerable to marketing and to fads. And so America will change the way it eats overnight. You know, I remember the low fat craze. You know, that was like when I was growing up, you know, fat was the evil nutrient. You shouldn't eat fat. And then suddenly in 2002, I know exactly when it happened. It was like, it's not fat that makes you fat, it's sugar that makes you fat. Carbs. So then we had the campaign against carbs and overnight in 2002, and it was one article published in Atkins, or was that. Well, Atkins was behind it, but it was a writer named Gary Taubes. And it was like, what if it's all a big fat lie? That was a cover story in the Times. Good times.

[Lewis Howes]

Good headline.

[Michael Pollan]

Good headline. And suddenly, like, donut companies were going out of business and bread companies were going out of business because everybody was demonizing carbohydrates.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Michael Pollan]

And we're still kind of in that world and celebrating protein. Protein now is the good nutrient. Carbs are the evil nutrient. Fat is depending on what world you're in. If you're in the keto world, fat's fine. If you're in the right. So, you know, we're crazy about food. We really are confused. Fashion conscious, fashion driven. And it's no wonder, because we're getting these messages. You know, the grocery store is full of foods being sold on the basis of health that aren't healthy. So no wonder we're confused. You know, the food in the supermarket that screams loudest about its virtues is all in the middle aisles. It's all processed food with packages. The healthiest food is the produce section, where the food is, like, sitting there quietly because it doesn't have packages by the corner. Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

There's no packaging.

[Michael Pollan]

It's intimidating.

[Lewis Howes]

You're starting to see some, like, I don't know, Apple companies putting a plastic, you know, wrapping bags. And here's some marketing behind this.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, but I mean, the real health claims should go on that stuff. Yes, but of course, you know, they don't. Farmers don't have money to.

[Lewis Howes]

They don't do that.

[Michael Pollan]

Research the health claims.

[Lewis Howes]

I'm curious. It's, you know, I don't know the statistics, but you mentioned about marketing. Would you say 40 billion a year? Is that what you said in the food industry in terms of marketing and ad spend?

[Michael Pollan]

Compare that to how much the government spends informing us about health and food. The food pyramid or whatever. MyPlate. And it's the equivalent of a single sku, a single product from Frito Lay. Oh, my gosh. And so the message, any kind of health message about food is drowned out by the marketing message.

[Lewis Howes]

That's crazy. So 40 billion a year on the food industry to market you products that probably 99% aren't actually healthy and that are formulated to scientifically get you hooked,

[Michael Pollan]

get you to eat more, and play on your dopamine system and give you those kind of satisfaction.

[Lewis Howes]

I want this now.

[Michael Pollan]

And people might say, well, your parents Cooking for you. They're also trying to get you to eat, but they're not trying to get you to overeat. Your parents are, are trying to satisfy you with food and the food industry is trying to addict you with food. That's very different approaches.

[Lewis Howes]

Where do you think? Do you know how much the medical world, the drug industry spends a year in advertising?

[Michael Pollan]

I don't know that number.

[Lewis Howes]

I'm curious what that is, but I'm curious your thoughts. If there was a law that banned all food marketing and all drug marketing, because I believe these food marketing and the drug marketing is making us sicker. It's not helping us get to the root of healing intuitively and organically. It's masking, it's putting over layers and confusing you. It's telling you you're going to get healthier. But it's not the case. If there was a ban against all food marketing and all drug marketing on everywhere, tv, podcast, everywhere, do you think the country would get healthier or what do you think would happen if there was no marketing for food, food or drugs?

[Michael Pollan]

It's a great question. I think we'd be a lot healthier. I think we would. I think culture would step into that gap. And culture has a lot of wisdom about food and we don't listen to it nearly enough. Or science would step into the gap too, and we'd get our scientific information not from pharmaceutical companies as we do now. The other interesting phenomenon though is how much of those pharmaceutical products you see advertised on TV are expressly designed to undo the effects of a diet, right? Yeah. And it's a lot of them. Everything for diabetes is about dealing with type 2. Diabetes is a product of the food system. Right. I mean, rates have gone up with obesity and that we are spending. So we spend about 3/4 of all spending in healthcare goes to treat chronic diseases of that.

[Lewis Howes]

How much is that related to food?

[Michael Pollan]

Smoking. Some of it's smoking and alcohol.

[Lewis Howes]

If you take out alcohol and smoking, how much is related to food?

[Michael Pollan]

It's something like $500 billion out of $750 billion.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh my gosh.

[Michael Pollan]

It's a huge number.

[Lewis Howes]

But how much of chronic disease is related to food and nutrition?

[Michael Pollan]

Most of it.

[Lewis Howes]

Most of it versus smoking or drugs or alcohol?

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, most of it.

[Lewis Howes]

80, 90%?

[Michael Pollan]

No. The American diet, the standard American diet is what is killing most of us. That is what most people die of. And I'm talking about several types of cancer that are linked to it. Heart disease obviously linked to diet. And diabetes, which has become A really big killer. It is the way we're eating that is doing this to us and that we could save a fortune by changing the way we eat in healthcare spending. And no doubt we could improve longevity as well. It's the elephant in the room is the American food system. And we all take it to be as like normal. And the food still looks the same. Pizza looks like pizza. And these convenient frozen dishes in the grocer's freezer. But it's not the same. That packaged ravioli or tomato sauce is not what those things were or should be. So in a way, it's an easy fix and it's a hard fix. I remember I was giving a speech to a group of health insurance executives and I was trying to enlist their support for reform of the food system, which is one of my causes.

[Lewis Howes]

They don't want that, though.

[Michael Pollan]

Well, the reason was very interesting. And I was saying you guys should be allies of the food reform movement because every case of type 2 diabetes you prevent is $400,000 to your bottom line. That's how much it costs to treat each case over the life of that person.

[Lewis Howes]

400,000.

[Michael Pollan]

$400,000 for something that can be completely prevented. And one of the presidents of these organizations came up to me after and says, you don't understand. We don't have a long term interest in your health. Because the churn.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh my gosh.

[Michael Pollan]

Because the churn. Because medical contracts for medical insurance are only one year and people are constantly switching plans and companies are constantly switching plans. So we don't, you know, you're talking about something that is going to benefit you over years and we don't care about that. And I realized there, there's a simple fix. How about 5 year contracts for health insurance that would completely change the, the, the incentives for the insurance company and they would start talking to us about prevention.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting. Because they don't. They benefit when we are sick?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, I don't know that they benefit, but they don't benefit when we, when we prevent.

[Lewis Howes]

When we're super healthy.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, yeah. So they're not invested in preventive medicine

[Lewis Howes]

and the drug companies aren't.

[Michael Pollan]

Oh, they don't. Enormously chronic disease. Sure.

[Lewis Howes]

That's the only way they make money.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. Ozempic. I mean, right. Everybody's taking Ozempic for diabetes and weight loss now.

[Lewis Howes]

How much money are these drug companies making?

[Michael Pollan]

I don't have any figures. It's a huge industry.

[Lewis Howes]

Huge.

[Michael Pollan]

And you know, their business model too is some drug you have to take every day of the rest of your life.

[Lewis Howes]

But that doesn't cure the illness.

[Michael Pollan]

No, they're not cures for the illness. They're just dealing with the symptoms. And that's true for mental health drugs, too. SSRIs don't cure depression. I mean, they tamp down symptoms when they work.

[Lewis Howes]

What is the greatest cure for depression without any drugs?

[Michael Pollan]

I would say exercise. It's huge. And eating real food, I think you do those two things now, it's not going to work for everybody. Some people have depression caused by trauma and all sorts of different factors, but those two things can make a huge difference. I don't think we fully recognize the mental health impacts of the way we're eating. When you're eating a diet that, for example, has lots of sugar in it, you're going to be on an emotional roller coaster. I mean, watch kids with sugar, you know, and they think that chocolate or this kind of sweetened cereal makes them happy. And it does for a little while,

[Lewis Howes]

but they crash and then chaos.

[Michael Pollan]

And then that's true for us, too. We have these ups and downs during the day that have a lot to do with our sugar intake. And then we get this spike and it has to do with glucose release and things like that, and then we crash. And the solution to that is more, more sugar. So snacking is another thing, too. Meals are like a really good human institution. Snacking. We're eating all day long.

[Lewis Howes]

How bad is snacking for our gut microbiome, for our brain, and for our overall just metabolism? If we're eating meals and then snacking a little bit here and there in

[Michael Pollan]

between, I mean, I don't think snacking is like evil or anything. And I think a lot depends on what you have. I snack. I'm a writer. So, you know, I'm at my desk, I'm supposed to get up. That's the other. That's the competing value, right? You should stand every half hour, move a little bit. And where do you go? You go to the front, you go to the kitchen and grab a little, and you heat up your coffee or pour a cup of tea. And then you have, you know, some

[Lewis Howes]

nuts or something else.

[Michael Pollan]

A handful of nuts or dried fruit. Yeah, definitely. And I'm not like Obama. I don't count my almonds as he allegedly did. So I think snacking, you kind of lose. You lose sight of how much you're eating. It just becomes kind of invisible. So, I mean, I think it's something that people have to be careful about. But I don't believe in being punitive about it. But I think eating meals with other people, you know, we're talking about food as if it's this transaction between us and this stuff. But meals eating with other people affects how you eat. You know, when you're eating with other people, you put down the fork and talk, and then you pick it up and there's more time. And the more time you spend eating, the more likely you are to know when you're full. It takes 20 minutes for the body to send you the news. Like, enough, we're full.

[Lewis Howes]

20 minutes.

[Michael Pollan]

20 minutes. So if you're eating really fast, you're defeating that signal, and so you're eating too much. But if you have a leisurely meal, you're much more likely to realize, you know, I think I've had enough.

[Lewis Howes]

It's interesting because I was just having a breakfast meeting this morning, and it probably went for about an hour and a half. It was a great meeting and meal because I noticed that I did not finish my plate.

[Michael Pollan]

So you were engaged.

[Lewis Howes]

I was talking, and then I'd eat a little bit when they were talking, you know, and have a few bites. And then I would have my fork here with food and be like, talking to them and just like, okay, let me listen, engage. And it got to the point, and I didn't have a lot. I had two eggs, scrambled eggs, I had a couple pieces of bacon, and I had some potatoes. Kind of the standard breakfast. Yeah, exactly right. And I was eating the potatoes, and I was like, huh, okay, I'm getting pretty full. And I just left the last potato. And I was just like, let me just experiment. I left it on the table and I could have eaten it easily, but I left it because I was like, I actually feel pretty satisfied.

[Michael Pollan]

Well, that clean plate ethic is really bad. I mean, why? I mean, when you're done eating and it's okay if you leave something on the plate, and in fact, it's a good practice. Just make a point. I'm not going to eat the last thing on my plate just as an exercise.

[Lewis Howes]

Now, what if you're like, well, I don't want to waste food?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, yeah, I know. And that's what we were brought up. People are starving in Korea or whatever. The thing you heard from your parents, it's not going to help them if you leave a potato. Maybe you should take less at the beginning. Or maybe portion size is a huge problem. Huge.

[Lewis Howes]

Don't get the appetizers, don't get the desserts.

[Michael Pollan]

We tend to think that the Amount of food put in front of us is the proper amount to eat.

[Lewis Howes]

It's usually probably double what we're supposed to eat.

[Michael Pollan]

And for food for restaurants, they've learned that we appreciate ampleness and the cost of the food is one of their lowest costs. And so they give us portions that are too big. And we compliment a restaurant for having big portions.

[Lewis Howes]

You feel like you're getting more for your value.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. You feel you're getting good value. And the economics definitely work for the restaurants, but it doesn't work for us. So we end up big portions are definitely part of our problem.

[Lewis Howes]

So you mentioned before, two great ways to minimize or decrease depression for a human being is healthy nutrition and exercise. Those two things.

[Michael Pollan]

If someone is getting some sunlight is really good too.

[Lewis Howes]

Sunlight, probably quality sleep as well. Really?

[Michael Pollan]

Oh, yeah. I mean, people are depressed, often have trouble sleeping. But one of the ways to fix your circadian rhythms is make sure every morning you look at the sun, you go outside, even if it's cloudy, just look at where it should be, and that information comes through your eyes to your brain and kind of sets your clock, and it will improve your sleep.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. Dr. Andrew Huberman has done a lot of research on that and preaches it almost every day about the research and breathing.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. He says that's the number. His number one health tip is get outside and look at the sun first

[Lewis Howes]

thing in the morning. Right. Not when it's already up. And look at it.

[Michael Pollan]

And it's okay if you didn't get up at dawn, but you know, before midday.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. Get up for 10, 15 minutes and look towards the sun. Right. Just allow your eyes to gaze towards

[Michael Pollan]

it and you'll be getting outside and you'll be getting some vitamin D. Nature, you spend way too much time inside.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Michael Pollan]

Being outside is, you know, I mean, exercising outside I think is better for us than inside.

[Lewis Howes]

What do you think is the root cause of depression, why someone could get depressed or chronic depression? Because we all go through sadness and grief and loss and heartache and relationships and deaths and career ending, things like that, where there might be a season of sadness, but the chronic depression, what is the root cause of that?

[Michael Pollan]

I don't think we know. There are people looking for genes implicated in depression. They have not had success finding them. There is depression caused by events. People with a cancer diagnosis get depressed. We understand exactly why. And if they're healed or cured, their depression might lift. But then you have other people, and I've interviewed them in my. In my research on psychedelics who've been depressed for 30 years without a break. And I don't think we really understand that.

[Lewis Howes]

It's exhausting. On the nervous system.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, it's insane.

[Lewis Howes]

On the brain, on the heart.

[Michael Pollan]

Every system. Every system. But I don't think we have a real understanding of what's going on. I mean, one of the things I've learned about mental health is that there's a lot we don't understand. We don't even know if depression, anxiety, addiction, and, say, OCD are separate diseases or are they four different symptoms of the same underlying disease, which is to say, a mind that is too rigidly bound up and stuck in patterns of rumination. They're all characterized by rigidity and strong habits.

[Lewis Howes]

Controlling nature.

[Michael Pollan]

Almost.

[Lewis Howes]

Right. It doesn't have the flexibility.

[Michael Pollan]

They attempt to control nature. And they're also characterized by these destructive narratives that people tell about themselves. So, you know, they're in the dsm, you know, the bible of diagnoses. They're listed as separate things. But I've talked to psychiatrists who say no, they may. They may all be the same thing.

[Lewis Howes]

Susan David talks about emotional agility, having the ability to be flexible with our emotions and not be so rigid and controlling it.

[Michael Pollan]

Habits. Yeah, habits get us into trouble with food, certainly, and with our mental health. And habits are really valuable. I mean, they can organize your life. They can save you from having to run the algorithm every time a new situation comes up. It's like, okay, this is a conversation with my boss. This is the kind of thing that works. You have a habit, but they also are straight jackets. And the older we get, the harder it is to break habits. And that's one of the really interesting things about psychedelic medicine. I'm not talking about psychedelics used recreationally, but when they're used in a therapeutic context, people seem to be able to break habits.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting.

[Michael Pollan]

And behavior.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting.

[Michael Pollan]

And that's really powerful.

[Lewis Howes]

And that allows you to start taking different, consistent actions which get you different emotional results.

[Michael Pollan]

Exactly. And you can basically lay down the, you know, the pathways of new habits, which, you know, becomes more and more important as we age.

[Lewis Howes]

Have you ever felt extreme depression in your life?

[Michael Pollan]

I have had periods. I don't know that they were extreme, but I've definitely had periods that I can remember where I was depressed or anxious. I had periods as a teenager. I was a very anxious teenager and then experienced some depression in my. I would say, in my 20s and not so much since then.

[Lewis Howes]

And why do you think you have a pretty harmonious emotional environment internally?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, you're assuming that's the case, but thank you.

[Lewis Howes]

Well, if you're not in depressed states, then you have to be at least neutral.

[Michael Pollan]

Definitely not in depressed states. And I'm definitely not in an anxious state. And I think a lot of it owes to the fact that I'm mindful about my health, which means exercise. And I mean, I do a couple things. I have a whole regime. So I eat real food. Not too much, mostly plants. I struggle with it. Not too much because I love to eat. But if you're eating real food, it's less of an issue. You know, overeating. You know, a vegetable stir fry is not going to get you in trouble the way overeating a pizza is.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. Or a whole cake or something.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. A big sweet tooth.

[Lewis Howes]

Luckily, that's not. I wish I had that disease.

[Michael Pollan]

So I don't crave dessert. And I often. I rarely do have dessert.

[Lewis Howes]

It's a gift. Okay, so eat real food.

[Michael Pollan]

So food. Eating real food. Exercising at least 30 minutes a day. And I do aerobic exercise and I do, you know, floor and weight work.

[Lewis Howes]

I mean, it's amazing, the benefits of moving 30 minutes a day on how much more joy. Excited. Excited you can be, how much more peaceful, how much more gratify. It just makes you feel better. So if you don't feel good, move.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. You know, you need fiber for a healthy gut, but do you actually know how to get it?

[Lewis Howes]

Quaker's been serving UP fiber since 1877

[Michael Pollan]

with over a hundred great tasting, good source of fiber options to choose from. Whether you like old fashioned oats, instant oatmeal granola, or oatmeal squares, Quaker makes it delicious.

[Lewis Howes]

Mmm.

[Michael Pollan]

So good. Get your fiber with Quaker Shop Quaker's good source of fiber products at a store near you. Day or night.

[Lewis Howes]

VRBO Care is here 247 to help make every part of your stay seamless.

[Michael Pollan]

If anything comes up or you simply

[Lewis Howes]

need a little guidance, support is ready

[Michael Pollan]

whenever you reach out.

[Lewis Howes]

From the moment you book to the

[Michael Pollan]

moment you head home. We're here to help things run smoothly because a great trip starts with the right support. And hey, a good playlist doesn't hurt either. It's so important. There was a study that came out just a couple weeks ago that said 11 minutes of walking will improve your longevity and improve your health in general. 11 minutes. So it doesn't have to be a lot. It doesn't have to be. You don't have to be running, walking. So exercise, eat real food. And the last thing is I meditate and I meditate about 25 minutes a day, preceded by some breathing exercises. And, you know, that's stress reduction. You know, the other thing people don't talk about and it's very hard to quantify, is social connection. Huge. And loneliness. The Surgeon General, Vivek Murphy, has really made this his cause. He wrote a really good book on loneliness and that people without social connection or who are mediating their social connection through social media, which isn't the same thing, you're not connected, you're not really connected. You have faux friends, you have faux connection, but that's really important. And having some sort of social group that supports you in some ways. And so those four things I think are so important. So cultivating your friendships is huge.

[Lewis Howes]

How many people have you studied or worked with who have been in emotionally depressed states that started doing these four things? Essentially the three things, plus deepening their intimate relationships saw improvement.

[Michael Pollan]

Oh, many, many people. I mean, I've seen this over and over again. I'm not a scientist, so I haven't researched it and obviously haven't done a control, but I've seen it in my friends, I've seen it in relatives. It can do a lot for people. And by the way, we have evidence that the regime I'm just describing has very positive effects on people's cardiovascular health. Dean Ornish has done a lot of research using pretty much that regime, those four things, although he insists on a. A totally plant based diet, and I think it should be substantially plant based. And he has also done that with men with prostate cancer and has found prostate cancer is a very interesting case because many people are not treated for it since it often doesn't advance. So it's one of the rare cancers that people live with for years and can be studied while they're being surveilled for it. So we can look at lifestyle interventions and see if they make a difference. So UCSF put several thousand men on this regime with a control to see if it would have an effect. And indeed, it slowed the progression of their disease and lowered their PSA scores, which is a marker of prostate cancer. Wow. So. And Dean Ornish is now trialing this with a group of people just diagnosed with Alzheimer's to see if it has an effect on the progression of their disease

[Lewis Howes]

with eating real food, exercise and meditation, or with some kind of.

[Michael Pollan]

It doesn't have to be meditation, some kind of stress reduction. It could be yoga, Breath work. Breath work. It's all those techniques we have to essentially lower stress.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. I think I love this prescription, this organic, intuitive prescription.

[Michael Pollan]

It's too bad doctors don't talk about it more too.

[Lewis Howes]

And I think the other elephant in the room that we kind of hit on a little bit is the trauma. Because I think you can eat well, you can exercise, you can meditate, you can have social connections, but if there's still trauma stored in our memories or in our bodies, in our bodies it can take us farther, but we can still be pulled back into the trauma. And I think because I did all these things for many years, but I still hadn't faced certain traumatic memories. I hadn't created new meaning from those memories. I hadn't processed them, I hadn't fully addressed them, I didn't fully unpack and talk about them and have catharsis and emote in those feelings and grieve and go through the wide range of emotions of traumatic moments in my life.

[Michael Pollan]

How did you end up doing that?

[Lewis Howes]

I did that in the last couple years. It's been a 10 year journey of healing traumatic experiences. 10 years ago, I opened up about being sexually abused as a kid. When I was five. It's one of my first memories, actually. And for most of my life, that emotional and psychological wound was a memory playing in my mind almost daily. You know, it just kind of come up and I would just push it away and work really hard. So I used so it was present.

[Michael Pollan]

It wasn't a suppressed, it was constantly present.

[Lewis Howes]

But I would try to run away from it. I tried to outwork it. I would try to be a workaholic in sports and achieve and succeed to validate. I'm worthy, lovable and enough. But it wasn't until I hit 30, when I had lots of breakdowns in my life, that I realized I had never addressed it or told anyone. So I went down a process. And I've talked about this many times on my show and publicly. But I went down a process of facing the trauma, you know, with the help of therapists. I did it in an emotional intelligence workshop initially, so kind of a safer environment in a group setting, and then worked with therapists to unpack it more and process that healing. And then I ended up writing about it. In a previous book on the mask of masculinity, I talked about where I feel like a lot of men suffer from trauma that they never express, they never talk about in a healthy way. And so I was able to unpack that. But then there were more things over the last 10 years that I needed to face that I was unwilling to or I Thought maybe I'd done all the work in the last couple years. It was really kind of healing the pain in my heart in other ways through emotional coaching sessions, but very intense, you know, three to five hour sessions every Saturday for months because I wanted peace and freedom in my heart again. I ate well, I exercised well, I'm healthy. But emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, there was wounds that I hadn't yet mended, I hadn't yet healed and created new meaning as Viktor Frankl talks about, it's creating that meaning behind these traumatic events. And I think the healing of the trauma for me has brought me so much peace psychologically, emotionally and spiritually and physically. There was physical pain in my chest and my throat that would come and go that now I haven't felt in almost two years. And for most of my life, you know, 38 years, I felt pain palpitations off and on depending on life's circumstances. And now with some of the most chaotic events in life, a book launch, moving into a new home, buying a home, you know, I just turned 40, like all these kind of like events, life events, I feel peaceful. And the only way that I could attribute now it doesn't mean I don't have moments of stress and overwhelmed, but the way I feel peaceful is because I've been doing so much of the healing trauma work but been willing to say I'll do anything, I'll say anything, I'll try things, whatever type of emotional experiences you want me to go through, healing the inner child wound, having spiritual experiences with my 5 year old self, my 12 year old self, whatever it is, having those conversations, I've been doing that and that has given me a sense of peace and freedom that I've never felt in my life. And that's why I was interested about, you know, psychedelics and the topic of psychedelics because I have lots of friends but I swear by it. I've been in ceremonies, I've sat in ceremonies and watched people, I've seen everything been passed around. I've seen people like go, you know, hallucinate. I've seen people throwing up, I've seen people crying, I've seen people releasing. I've seen these things and I've been curious about them, but I've always been weary of recommending or suggesting these things because I've one never done it and I don't want to recommend something, but I'm also curious about the long term potential side effects of an external drug putting into the body and how that affects the brain, the heart, the Emotions and all these different things. And I love your example of having these breakthrough moments for people to change their habits, which I think is necessary for healing and shifting our behavior. And my thought is, is there a way to do that emotionally, spiritually and psychologically and try everything else first before doing psychedelics, or should people go right into therapeutic psychedelics without trying all the other types of therapeutic experiences first?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, I don't think there's. It's a one size fits all. I mean, different. You know, it takes a lot of courage to do what you did.

[Lewis Howes]

It was painful and scary and you feel like you're gonna die emotionally.

[Michael Pollan]

And so some people are not gonna be able to do that. They're not gonna have the commitment or fear is gonna get in the way of doing it. I've been researching psychedelic therapy since 2014. I too, had never used psychedelics and was really afraid of them. I had a series of experiences for my books on psychedelics. How to Change youe Mind, and then this is yous Mind on Plants. The night before every one of those experiences, I was terrified. I was up all night. I was, you know. Cause, you know, the self, the inner self, is a really scary place to go.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Michael Pollan]

Right.

[Lewis Howes]

Terrifying. Yeah. There's a darkness in there and you're

[Michael Pollan]

opening a door and you don't know what's going to be on the other side of that door.

[Lewis Howes]

It's terrifying.

[Michael Pollan]

I found, in the event that they were powerful and really interesting experiences. And I have not yet on psychedelics, had the experience of. I've had some dark experiences and kind of wrestling matches with certain things, but I haven't had the experience. Some people do, which is a trauma that they were not aware of. Comes up.

[Lewis Howes]

Come up. Yeah.

[Michael Pollan]

And that can be really destabilizing if you're not being held in a therapeutic relationship. In other words, if you're not with a facilitator or guide who can help you, it can be incredibly productive when it comes up. Because now, you know, oh, there's a problem.

[Lewis Howes]

Let's deal with.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, you're aware.

[Lewis Howes]

But if you don't have an ongoing integrative therapeutic process afterwards, you could downward spiral.

[Michael Pollan]

You could. And it's really important, I think, to. If people are going to explore psychedelics, to deal with their mental difficulties, that they do it with somebody who is well trained. And in the specific case of trauma, which I think is much more widespread in our society than we realize, because

[Lewis Howes]

there's big T's and little T trauma, there's traumatic events and Then there's just the feeling of abandonment by your parents.

[Michael Pollan]

Like you had an alcoholic parent and you can't point to one event, but it's.

[Lewis Howes]

They weren't abusing you, but it was an abusive experience.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. So what has proven most effective is MDMA in the treatment of trauma.

[Lewis Howes]

What does that stand for?

[Michael Pollan]

Again, I don't know.

[Lewis Howes]

I'm sorry, that's a short.

[Michael Pollan]

I should know that. But it's also known as ecstasy or molly. That's the street name, but it's MDMA. It's a drug that's been around since the 30s. People don't realize it was used in psychotherapy in the 70s and early 80s until it was banned in 1985. And that's when it became a very popular rave drug. And the DEA just cracked down on it and said, we're not going to. But it was, you know, it was being used effectively in therapy. There are now two phase three studies, that's the last phase before approval, showing that about 2/3 of the people who have been diagnosed with PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, who have guided MDMA trips, usually 2, lose that diagnosis. In other words, they don't qualify for a diagnosis of PTSD anymore. That's an astonishing result. Two thirds. So that I think is going to be a powerful tool and it is going to be approved by the FDA in the next couple years. Some people say next year because the data is in and the data is very strong. So that's an encouraging thing because the kind of, you know, we have soldiers who have been traumatized, we have women who've been traumatized by sexual abuse, we have racial trauma in this country and we may have a powerful new tool to treat it on the risk of taking in these foreign substances.

[Lewis Howes]

Right. And how that affects the brain chemistry and, you know, long term effects.

[Michael Pollan]

I don't think people realize this, but most drugs have what's called an LD50, the amount of the drug you take where 50% of the rats or whatever it is die. The lethal dose. Okay, LD stands for lethal dose. There is no lethal dose of psilocybin or LSD or dmt. That's astonishing. You can't overdose. You can get crazy.

[Lewis Howes]

You can't die.

[Michael Pollan]

You can't die.

[Lewis Howes]

Well, maybe you could, I mean, who knows? Maybe there's a certain amount your brain just.

[Michael Pollan]

There is one, one reported case of, and this is a horrible story of shooting up an elephant with LSD with huge amounts of LSD and it died. But it also had received huge amounts of tranquilizer so it's not really useful information. But there's a lot of safety data on these drugs. And I don't think people know or realize that there are over the counter drugs that can be lethal, that it's only about 17 or 20 pills of Tylenol and you can kill yourself.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Michael Pollan]

Okay. The equivalent amount of LSD is not going to do that. So brain toxicity, you know, unless we're missing something and it's going to take, you know. But people have been using LSD for a long time. They've been using Ayahuasca, which has DMT in it, and they've been using psilocybin for thousands of years.

[Lewis Howes]

But just because they've been doing it for thousands of years, does that mean it's good for the brain and your emotional state long term?

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. Well, no, but I think that if it were having consistent patterns of damage of some kind, we would have picked it up. Sure. MDMA is a little more toxic, but the thing to understand about psychedelic therapy is like, I mean, we should be asking the same questions of SSRIs and all the antipsychotic drugs. 100%, all drugs, all people take every day.

[Lewis Howes]

Now, I have friends who have been, you know, doing shrooms and Ayahuasca and all these different things for years and some of them swear by it. They say, like, this is the answer, this is helpful. This is like giving me clarity. It's showing me visions, it's helping me, like face traumas, things like that, which I'm all for those things. But my curiosity comes in when someone needs to do these things over and over and over again, as opposed to, okay, I've got the awareness, which is what I need. It's pulling out the stuff from the past that I wasn't even aware of or the things that I needed to face. Now I've had these moments of clarity, darkness, visioning, all these different things that allowed me to open my heart, express these things, release. I'm all for that. It's when people need to do it over and over again, every month or every six months and go back to some psychedelic retreat. Which gets me wondering, why. Why do you need to continue to do it every six months, every year, consistently, when you've started to face it? Is there other emotional or psychological therapies they can do to process and integrate healing without having external chemicals entering the body and the brain?

[Michael Pollan]

Right, right.

[Lewis Howes]

That's my thoughts.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, there are people who. I mean, it depends on why people are Using it. Okay. You talk about healing and that should be have an arc. Right. And you get the message and you hang up the phone. As Ram Dass or somebody like that said when he stopped using psychedelics. And then there are other people who get into. I mean, you could call it a habit. They don't use them every day, they don't use them every week. The experience is you don't feel like using it again. I mean, when you have a big psychedelic experience, your first thought, this isn't like using a drug like cocaine or something. Your first thought is not, where can I get some more? Your first thought is, do I ever have to do this again? Because it's really hard work.

[Lewis Howes]

It's intense.

[Michael Pollan]

But there are people who have a regular journey and sometimes there are people who are using psychedelics not for healing, but for, say, spiritual development.

[Lewis Howes]

Sure.

[Michael Pollan]

And spiritual exploration. And I think that's legit too. I really do. You know, I would be nervous about somebody who is using psychedelics every month and wondering why is there something missing from their lives that they should be attending to? Is that becoming its own problem? But they're very strange substances. They can have many different identities depending on the context in which they're used. So, you know, there is a powerful religious context. For most of history, that's how they were used. They were sacraments, they were used to be in touch with the divine. And that's very different than the healing context. And then there are people who take them just for thrills. And, you know, that seems to me the least interesting. You know, you need fiber for a healthy gut, but do you actually know how to get it?

[Lewis Howes]

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[Michael Pollan]

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[Lewis Howes]

Mmm.

[Michael Pollan]

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[Lewis Howes]

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[Michael Pollan]

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[Lewis Howes]

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[Michael Pollan]

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[Lewis Howes]

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[Michael Pollan]

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[Michael Pollan]

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[Lewis Howes]

Visit textnow.com for terms and conditions.

[Michael Pollan]

But we use this word recreational use of a Drug. What's wrong with recreation? Why did that get such a negative connotation?

[Lewis Howes]

So I still don't think it's, you know, I'm trying not to judge because I'm trying to see what is most beneficial to our health. And so if there's massive benefits to our immediate and long term health, then I'm all open to exploring that.

[Michael Pollan]

And I think it's too soon to say.

[Lewis Howes]

And that's the thing. I grew up rarely taking any drugs, you know, and the belief was the mind, we have the power to heal ourselves with our thoughts, our mind. And the body's pharmacy has so many healing components. And I'm sure as a meditator you've gone through some beautiful visioning and some beautiful spiritual experiences by closing your eyes, meditating and breathing intently as well. And so my thought is, is, are there ways to do this without recreational drugs, therapeutic drugs, drugs in general, to heal versus doing it from inside out?

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. So there are, I mean, there's an interesting question whether a drug produced by the body, like endorphins after you exercise is superior to a drug that comes from outside. Aldous Huxley wrote about this in Doors of Perception. They're all chemical events, right. Whatever's happening. So endogenous versus exogenous chemicals, how significant is that? But there are other ways to get there. I mean, meditators, really experienced meditators get into a psychedelic state. There are breathing exercises. There's something called holotropic breath work, which is a form of breathing based on yogic techniques that I've done it and will give you a psychedelic experience. Not everybody, but a high percentage of people. It's kind of uncanny how this works. You are doing something to your blood chemistry though, when you hyperventilate, that's what's happening. I think either the acidity or alkalinity is increasing as you reduce the carbon dioxide. I don't know the physiology of it. Fasting can get you there. Isolation tanks for some people can get you there. Dark spaces, yeah, if you remove all sensory input. People who go on vision quests and, you know, they're alone in nature for a long time and they're not eating. They will have psychedelic experiences. So, you know, we're wired for these experiences and there are other ways to get there. And psychedelics is one way. But I would, you know, I would press against this idea of, you know, toxicity though, because there's not a lot of evidence or addictive potential. They've been shown not to be addictive. There are Absolute risks. People at any risk for schizophrenia or personality disorders are not allowed in the current drug trials. And people can have terrifying experiences.

[Lewis Howes]

And what happens if you have a, you know, maybe you're not, maybe you haven't been clinically diagnosed as bipolar, but you might have some bipolar tendencies. Or maybe you're not diagnosed as narcissistic, but you have narcissistic tendencies or, you know, extreme mood swings or depressive states, people like that. Could it get them off the track?

[Michael Pollan]

It could. People have had psychotic breaks on LSD trips. I mean, we saw that in the 60s there were, you know, admissions to psychiatric, you know, hospitals and things.

[Lewis Howes]

And it's really hard to come back from that.

[Michael Pollan]

Right, yeah. Although there's some debate over whether these are people who would have eventually had a break and that. You know, it's not like incidents of schizophrenia went up when people started using lsd. Any kind of mental shock can put people over and LSD is a big shock to the system. So that can definitely happen. And, you know, look, people should approach this with great care. It's very consequential. It's momentous to decide I'm going to have a high dose psychedelic experience. You should be with someone who knows the territory, who can prepare you properly. Scary things can happen, but if you know how to deal with it, you can navigate those things. And often the results at the end make it worth it. So I'm loath to recommend anybody do anything, but I also think that people should know how many people are being healed by this and that. The thing we have to keep in mind is that mental health treatment is just not very good in this country. You know, I mean, you know, even with, I mean, the access issues and insurance and all that, there's that problem. But the problem is, and I've heard this from psychiatrists who I've interviewed, it's like they'll tell you we don't have very good tools. If you compare mental health treatment to any other branch of medicine, oncology, cardiology, infectious disease, they have all prolonged human life and relieved loss of suffering in the last 50 years. You can't say that about mental health treatment. We're kind of where we were. We have SSRIs, which we throw at everything.

[Lewis Howes]

What are those?

[Michael Pollan]

There's selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antidepressants, Paxil.

[Lewis Howes]

But those antidepressants, do they have any benefit? Because I feel like people who are on antidepressants don't have, like, it doesn't actually work or Maybe it's like they feel for a few weeks or a month like something, some benefit, but then it's like you're still depressed.

[Michael Pollan]

Well, it gets people out of crises. Very often if someone's having a suicidal crisis, but the evidence, they don't work very well. I mean there's some people they help. When they were approved in the early 80s, late 70s, they did 2 percentage points better than placebo. I mean trivial benefit, but we didn't have anything else and they got hyped by the industry.

[Lewis Howes]

But it's not a huge healing the

[Michael Pollan]

root cause, it doesn't affect the root cause.

[Lewis Howes]

So it's minimizing some of the.

[Michael Pollan]

It's lowering symptoms for some people, not for everybody. But over time the effect goes down

[Lewis Howes]

and then you need more and more, you need some other drugs or you

[Michael Pollan]

switch to another one. The other problems with it is that it decreases your libido. You put on weight and they're very hard to get off. They're addictive in effect. So if you want to talk about toxicity to the body, I mean that's a bigger issue than LSD or psilocybin.

[Lewis Howes]

Sure. What would you recommend or suggest before people get on some type of antidepressant that they try on, that they experiment with, that they apply for a 30 day window before, say, okay, I'm just going to jump into, well, that regime

[Michael Pollan]

we talked about, eat real food, get half hour of exercise a day, some sort of stress reduction technique, Sunlight and social connection. And the problem with people who are depressed is they tend to lose their social connections.

[Lewis Howes]

They don't have the connections.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, they're lonely. Yeah, yeah. But I think that's the first line of defense. And right now it's important to understand too that even though psilocybin is being trialed, doing drug trials for depression, it hasn't been approved yet, so it's still illegal. And that's something you have to take into account.

[Lewis Howes]

Gotcha.

[Michael Pollan]

You have to work with someone underground and that has its own set of risks.

[Lewis Howes]

Sure. Speaking of people feeling lonely, it seems like there's more social anxiety and loneliness than ever. Even though they're more connected or seemingly false connected with social media. What would you suggest for people to overcome the feeling of loneliness?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, it takes us back to food meals, the institution of meals. Eat with other people, don't eat alone. Find somebody, invite someone out to have a meal with or cook and invite people into your home. So much happens at the table that isn't about fueling your body and that There is a kind of connection that happens when we eat together that's really wonderful. It's deeper than a lot of other connections we have, you know, and when we share something, when we share food out of the same common dish, we're connecting. That's a connection. Sharing food is a very powerful bond between people. It has been for like thousands of years. And we, you know, we learn things about other people. You know, why do world leaders always have banquets? Right. It's because going back a thousand years, it's a time where, you know, you don't shoot someone over a banquet table. You put down your arms and you pick up your fork and knife.

[Lewis Howes]

You connect. Yeah, you connect.

[Michael Pollan]

And I just think the meal is one of the great institutions and it helps us deal not only with healthier eating, because you're not going to eat junk food. You're not going to eat a microwavable food in front of someone else. You're going to cook something or order in and eat the same thing. And that sharing puts us on the same mental wavelength. It's almost like in training ourselves to someone else else that we're eating the same thing together. And so I think putting yourself, you know, way too many of us eat alone now, and I think it's really destructive to eat alone. When you eat alone, you eat mindlessly. You're in front of the TV or you're reading something and you just don't know what you're doing. I mean, think about, you know, you're in front of the TV with a bag of potato chips, like you don't even realize you've eaten a bag. It's just so mindless. Also, manners automatically helps people control their appetites. People don't want to act like pigs at a table.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Michael Pollan]

Whereas when you eat alone, you do act like a pig. So getting away from solitary, eating crumbs

[Lewis Howes]

all over your belly, you're just like, ah, just eating it.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, exactly. You know, in this class I did for masterclass, we're looking at not just the health effects of food, although those are very important. But there are all these other effects and that there are ways to align your eating with your values. And we all have different values. And some people, food is just going to be about health, but for other people, it's about their relationship to nature. For example, are they eating organically or sustainably? Is that what matters to them? And for others, it's about ethics. Is this a way, Do I feel comfortable eating animals or these animals? So there are moral and ethical Questions that come. So much happens at the table. And so where I came out thinking about this and preparing the class is there's no one right way to eat. There's probably a right way to eat if health is your only concern. But if you're thinking about these other things and eating for pleasure is the perfectly legitimate reason, it argues for slightly different kinds of food. Sure.

[Lewis Howes]

How does someone come up with their eating values?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, that's a process of kind of self inquiry. I mean, and we go through that in the class about like. So what really matters to you when you think about food? You know, are you someone who thinks a lot about nature and climate change? There's a way to eat if you really want to make your contribution to reduce climate change. There are foods that have a big climate footprint and foods that don't. Beef is of course the worst offender and milk, that's a huge part of your climate footprint if you're a beef eater. But maybe you're concerned about the health of the soil. And what about social justice, the health of the workers in the food system? That argues for slightly different choices too. What's great about food though, is that we're not stuck with one choice. We now we're very lucky because there are now, you know, there's organic food, there's conventional food, there's what's called regenerative food grown on very healthy soils that we can, we have an opportunity to express our values by our food choices. That's a great vote to have. You know, we're really lucky to have that vote because in many parts of life we don't have that vote to make.

[Lewis Howes]

Right. What are your food values?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, I think a lot about the environment. I started out as a writer writing about nature and gardening and I'm very concerned about climate change. And I don't know how you cannot be, but a lot of us are not. And so that I think a lot about the environmental impact of what I eat. So I don't eat beef. I eat very little meat. I mostly eat fish and I'm careful about that too, because some fish is really unsustainably produced. Some farm salmon is just horrible the way it's produced, not just for the fish, but for the environment with lots of antibiotics. I will choose organic when I'm buying plant foods. Organic is not a perfect label, but it's one of the only labels that's monitored by the government. And so you know that if you buy organic food, it has not been grown with synthetic pesticides. I'm Particularly insistent on buying organic wheat products, whether that's pasta or bread. The reason being that it's become common practice in America to spray wheat fields with glyphosate, which is an herbicide that has been linked to lymphoma. The farmers do. It's not allowed in Europe. Farmers, farmers, farmers do it for the express purpose. They spray it on the wheat fields right before harvest to kill the wheat because the weed has to be dry before you can harvest it. So it speeds up that process. It's a really irresponsible use of a pesticide.

[Lewis Howes]

Why are there so many things in the American food system that don't happen in Europe that are legal in other countries, but here?

[Michael Pollan]

Hormones in beef, for example. I mean, every non organic beef animal gets a hormone implant in its neck. And then we wonder why girls are going through puberty early. I mean, we are exposing ourselves to lots of hormones through our meat. And that's not allowed in Europe either. Europe has tougher environmental rules, especially around food and cosmetics. Believe it or not, there are chemicals in our cosmetics that you can't, you can't put in European cosmetics. It's the power of the American food industry. It is dominant. They control Congress, they control the agricultural committees. So there have been efforts to ban glyphosate. There have been efforts to get hormones out of beef, and the industry has stopped it. Wow. And the reason for that is we've allowed these industries to get so powerful and monopolistic that we had a great example during the pandemic when there were outbreaks of COVID in the meat plants in the high plains. Tyson's meat plants. The local public health authorities, so many people were dying on those lines and they were bringing Covid into their communities. The local health authorities wanted to close down the lines for two weeks and just quiet. This is right at the beginning of the pandemic. John Tyson, the president of Tyson, takes out an ad in a full page ad in the New York Times. Dear Mr. President, you need to invoke the Defense Production act, which is designed to get companies to do things they don't want to do to help the war effort. We want you to invoke the Defense Production act to force our workers back on the line.

[Lewis Howes]

Come on.

[Michael Pollan]

And within days, President Trump signed an executive order opening up the Tyson production lines. So when a company can force a president to do its bidding, you know an industry's gotten too powerful. Wow. Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

This is crazy. What is? The things that you've seen 10 years ago in the nutritional Food world that people thought was the way science, society thought. This was the way that we now have new evidence and new science showing that that's not the way. And there's something different that is the way. Is there anything that's changed in the last 10 or 20 years?

[Michael Pollan]

The biggest thing is something we talked about right at the beginning is ultra processed food. And we didn't, you know, we'd heard for years that junk food was bad for us. And we thought the reason was there was, was too much sugar, too much fat, too much salt. It turns out it's not about the nutrients, it's about the processing itself and all the chemicals that are used and that this is what's making us fat.

[Lewis Howes]

The processing itself, not the actual sugar.

[Michael Pollan]

There was a really cool experiment done at the National Institute of Health by a scientist who was very skeptical of this theory that processed food was uniquely bad. And he was a great believer that no, if you get the nutrients right, you'll be healthy. He got a group together, they lived in a facility. So he fed them for 30 days and divided them into two groups, control and not. And created two meals for every meal. One was substantially whole foods, the other was substantially ultra processed food. Like 80% ultra processed food matched for calories, matched for protein, salt, sugar, everything. And people in each group said, eat as much as you want or as little as you want. Up to you. No control on caloric consumption. Yeah, the people in the group with the ultra processed food ate 500 more calories a day. So the way you prepare the food dictates how much you're going to eat. And that blew his mind. And he came around to the thesis that there is. We don't know exactly what it is, but there's something uniquely bad about that kind of food.

[Lewis Howes]

Does it not make you feel full or does it make you still hungry or craving more?

[Michael Pollan]

It could be that because it has so little fiber, it doesn't fill you up in the same way. It could be the fact that it's absorbed really quickly in the body and not going through this long microbiome processing in your body. I mean, when you process food, you're essentially externalizing digestion. In other words, instead of eating things like plants or even real meat that hasn't been overly processed or turned into hamburger, your body has to work hard to break it down. You burn calories digesting is burning calories digesting. Yeah. But as soon as you start doing this high level processing and removing the fiber, you're creating food that your body can be very lazy about digesting. And so it's absorbed through the small intestine rather than the large intestine. And that may explain it. It could also just be the science, this idea of lying to the body about what you're getting, fooling the body. And it could be other effects in the microbiome. There's some evidence that emulsifiers, which we use to keep food, basically keep the oils and the waters from separating in processed food. Processed food would look even uglier than it does if not for these chemicals. Emulsifiers have damaged the lining of the gut and allow for large particles to get into the bloodstream, which leads to an immune reaction. So it may be that processed food inflames our bodies in ways that are destructive. So the science is still out on the cause, but we know the effect. The effect is you will eat a lot more food if you're eating ultra processed food and you will increase your risk of all sorts of chronic diseases. That's really clear.

[Lewis Howes]

Where do you feel like in 10, 15 years will be the new science that comes out? Because it seems like there's always something new being discovered or revealed. Where do you see the nutritional health world moving into in the next 10, 15 years of these other discoveries?

[Michael Pollan]

I think we will continue to accumulate evidence that it's really simple. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. I think that's going to hold up. I'll put money down on that. Mostly means. Doesn't mean no meat means some meat. That word that adverb pissed off everybody because the vegetarians are like, why don't you go all the way and just say eat plants? And the meat eaters were like, why don't you talk about meat? No, mostly. Let's be reasonable about that. I think we are going to learn that a traditional diet of real food is the best way to eat. And it's going to be really simple. And I think we have over complicated food. And there's so many reasons to do it right? I mean, you know, scientists want funding, companies want to have a health claim. They need to churn. You know, there are 14,000 new food products every year and a lot of them carry health claims. Isn't it amazing?

[Lewis Howes]

14,000 new food products.

[Michael Pollan]

14,000 new food products every year. And most of them are like ridiculous extensions of something we have. You know, it's like an Oreo in the shape of a straw. You know, that's innovation.

[Lewis Howes]

And there's always an investor who wants to make money a return on creating this product. Or this business or this company.

[Michael Pollan]

And the other economic incentive is that it's not profitable selling simple food that comes off the farm. You make more money processing the food, the more value add. It's the package, it's the health claim, but it's also the tricking it up and giving it new flavors and new colors. I mean, think about how many different check out next time you're in the super supermarket, how many pop tarts there are. And pop tart like products. It's just brand extension. So this is capitalism. Capitalism depends on novelty. The idea that you're going to eat simple foods that you prepare yourself. Who makes money on that?

[Lewis Howes]

I don't know. You got to be. The egg business has got to be making money, right? I don't know, like eggs and, you know, apples are making business.

[Michael Pollan]

But it's not as much though, to give you an example, I think it's 14 cents of your food dollar goes back to the farmer. It's all the people in the middle who make the money. And farmers will tell you this, or people in the food industry, I'm sorry, not farmers will tell you that if you want to make money in food, it's not from growing it, it's from processing it. So we have a strong incentive to process food as much as possible. Plus you get something you can put a brand name on, right. You have ip, you have all this value added and the farmers get screwed.

[Lewis Howes]

Crazy.

[Michael Pollan]

You know, you need fiber for a healthy gut, but do you actually know how to get it?

[Lewis Howes]

Quaker's been serving UP fiber since 1877

[Michael Pollan]

with over a hundred great tasting, good source of fiber options to choose from. Whether you like old fashioned oats, instant

[Lewis Howes]

oatmeal granola, or oatmeal squares.

[Michael Pollan]

Quaker makes it delicious.

[Lewis Howes]

Mmm.

[Michael Pollan]

So good. Get your fiber with Quaker Shop, Quaker's good source of fiber products at a store near you.

[Lewis Howes]

Now, what is the main, the masterclass that you have? What is the main benefit within the master class that people will get out of that when they go through it?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, my hope is, I mean, the reason I did it, I had a couple reasons I wanted to do it. One was because one of the great things about masterclass is you get a lot of time. It's like a. I forget how long it is, but it's two and a half or three hour class, so you can really go deep.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Michael Pollan]

And you don't always get to do that writing articles. So I really appreciated that. And the production values are amazing.

[Lewis Howes]

I mean, seeing some of the clips looks Amazing.

[Michael Pollan]

Well, they sent, you know, they send a crew of like 60 people.

[Lewis Howes]

I know, it's crazy, right? It's like a full screen production.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, it is. And it looks like it. They make you look great. But I just, I'm hyper aware because I get asked questions. I do a lot of public speaking of how confused people are about food. And they'll say to me, so should I buy the organic or the conventional or the regenerative or the humane? And you know, there are all these labels in the store and we're tying ourselves up in knots about what should be a very simple transaction. And you know, for most of human history, people have like known what to eat. They learn from their parents and learn from what was available. They didn't have to run all these complex algorithms to figure out what product to buy. So I saw this as an effort to cut through a lot of nonsense about food, whether it's coming from the nutritionists or the marketers. And just like, let's look at this, let's take a fresh look. Look, let's figure out what you care about, because I'm not going to tell you how to eat. It doesn't have that kind of message. My message really is, tell me what you care about and I'll tell you what to eat. And so we go through the various different.

[Lewis Howes]

Getting clear on your food values? Getting them.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. Figure out what your food values are, and then here's how you might align them with what you're actually eating. And so I'm hoping it'll relax people about food. I want people to come out of it, like with their stress level around when they go to the supermarket down. I don't want them to have to read labels and do this all the time. Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

You talk a lot about intentional eating. It's not just about mindless eating, but being very intentional about these food rules, these values that we create together. And I really love the idea of getting back to the, the dinner table or getting back to the commune table with at least one person so that we can connect, we can slow it down, we can have more fulfilling conversations, feel more fulfilled spiritually and emotionally, but also nutritionally fulfilled in that process.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. And I think that we've reduced food to this transaction between us and the stuff. But in fact, food is not a thing. It's a set of relationships. Food connects you to other people as it has for all of human history. It's a communal act, but it also connects you to nature. Right. It's your most important connection to the natural world. You affect nature more through your eating than anything else you do. If you think about what agriculture does to nature. Right. It's the way we change the landscape more than anything else. It's the way we change the composition of species on the planet. The reason there are 50 million head of cattle in the US and only 5,000 wolves, it's because we like one and we don't like the other, or the other's a threat to the one we like. And we affect the atmosphere. You know, greenhouse gas production from the food system is about 33%.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. So there's a lot at stake when you sit down to eat. But I want that to feel empowering, that you can actually vote. It's not a burden. It's an opportunity. So that's what I want to inspire people with, to take their food choices as an opportunity to express their values.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. They can go to masterclass.com and check that out. If they search your name, they can get [e-mail]. you've also got a number of. What do you have, seven, eight New York Times bestsellers now. What are you at, 12? Something like that. Something crazy. How to Change youe Mind has been a phenomenon that's gone all over the world, talking about the psychedelics and the studies that you've done there. But the recent book is more about your mind on plants.

[Michael Pollan]

This is your mind on plants where I look at three different psychoactive. One of which we're all involved with caffeine, almost all of us. And people don't think about that as a drug, but it is a drug, and I think it's a very good drug in many ways. It's had a lot of positive effects for people. The people, like all drugs, people can get in trouble on that. You talk about bringing chemicals into our body. We're doing it all the time.

[Lewis Howes]

All the time.

[Michael Pollan]

So I look at caffeine, I look at opium. We have such a big problem around opium. And I look at mescaline, which is a psychedelic that you don't hear as much about, but it's a really interesting substance that Native Americans have been using to heal themselves for a very long time.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. What is the pros and cons of coffee that you talk about that you've researched that can truly benefit current health, lifespans, cognitive health, and also, what are the cons of caffeine or coffee?

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. So caffeine is a powerful drug. I don't think people realize it, but most of us have an addiction to it. And I Got off caffeine for three months. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. No caffeine, no chocolate, no tea, no coffee. And I didn't feel myself for that whole time. You know, I got through the withdrawal, which.

[Lewis Howes]

You didn't feel grounded or you didn't feel connected to yourself? Yourself or.

[Michael Pollan]

I felt like I was someone else, really. And it made me realize that being caffeinated was my default state. It's like that was my normal. And I've been drinking coffee since I was 10. I started early.

[Lewis Howes]

So about like 10 years, right? 10, 20 years.

[Michael Pollan]

A lot more than that. Like 50 years.

[Lewis Howes]

50 years drinking coffee?

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Since you were 10. How did you start at 10? You know, I started like 35. You know, I know I started early.

[Michael Pollan]

Everybody, everybody said it would stunt my growth. It apparently didn't.

[Lewis Howes]

You tall?

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. Maybe I would have been seven foot without it, but. So I felt, you know, it was hard to do. I felt like I had acquired attention deficit disorder. I normally have very good focus. I can concentrate and like, block things out. You need to. To write. I couldn't write without the coffee. Without the coffee, I just was. I found things came in from the periphery, you know, I got easily distracted. And that's why we take amphetamines to deal with that. They give us like caffeine stimulants, give us a focus, and I needed it. So it was really hard. And the first cup, after three months, I was amazed. It was incredible.

[Lewis Howes]

It was delicious.

[Michael Pollan]

It was the best. It may have been the best drug experience I've ever had.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

I was.

[Michael Pollan]

Euphoric benefits.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Michael Pollan]

So I looked into this. There are a lot of health benefits to caffeine.

[Lewis Howes]

Caffeine or coffee?

[Michael Pollan]

Yes, it's. Coffee and tea have the health benefits. It may not be the caffeine. And the reason is that coffee and tea, believe it or not, are the biggest source of antioxidants in the American diet. That's pathetic, actually, but it's true. And so we don't know caffeine. We do know improves performance. Athletes will tell you that on test taking. It improves performance. If you study for a test and drink caffeine after that, after you've studied, you will remember the material and do better on the test.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Michael Pollan]

So it really does enhance mental function. It has some physical benefits too. It reduces risk of certain kinds of cancers, reduces risk of cardiovascular disease, Parkinson's disease, and reduces risk of dementia. So it has a lot of benefits. The negatives are if it makes you really jumpy. Some people react badly to it or drink too much. It reduces risks of suicide and depression up to seven or eight cups. If you're drinking seven or eight cups a day, your risk of suicide and depression go way.

[Lewis Howes]

Seven cups a day is a lot.

[Michael Pollan]

But people do. I know people who, like, are sipping it all day long.

[Lewis Howes]

That's too much, though, right? Seven cups a day. Come on.

[Michael Pollan]

The big negative on caffeine is it does interfere with good sleep. Even if you stop drinking it at noon, which is my practice, a quarter of the caffeine in your body is still circulating at midnight. It lasts in your body a long time.

[Lewis Howes]

So when should you stop coffee by?

[Michael Pollan]

Well, at least by noon, but hopefully earlier.

[Lewis Howes]

10:00am Maybe.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah, yeah, if you can. I mean, I go to noon because I sip it while I'm writing in the morning. What happens with even people who can fall asleep? And there are people who can have an espresso at night and fall asleep, it's changing the quality of their sleep. They're losing what's called slow wave sleep. You know, there's REM sleep, which is when you dream, but there's a kind of very deep sleep called. Called slow wave sleep, which is very important for your health. And caffeine reduces the amount of it you have. So I interviewed a bunch of sleep experts for the chapter on caffeine, and none of them use caffeine.

[Lewis Howes]

Was it Michael Walker?

[Michael Pollan]

Matthew Walker?

[Lewis Howes]

Walker.

[Michael Pollan]

I don't know if he does now, but he. Yeah, and he did a masterclass, actually, about sleep. That's definitely worth checking out.

[Lewis Howes]

And he said, no caffeine.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. And he's like, against caffeine, but he. He's softened a little bit.

[Lewis Howes]

Huberman talks about. He has a cup of coffee, I think early in the morning, but he's like, try to finish it as soon as you can. Earlier in the day.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah. Every day when you wake up, you are undergoing withdrawal. That's why you crave coffee. The people who say, I can't talk to you until I have a cup of coffee. The reason is that for most of us, we're drinking coffee to head off those withdrawal effects. The caffeine just lasts long enough during the night that you don't wake up to want coffee, but as soon as you get up in the morning, you want it. So, you know, we are addicted. But addiction, you know, if you have a steady legal supply is not a terrible thing.

[Lewis Howes]

Sure, sure. Yeah. Not too much of it. This is amazing. You've got a. You know, your website has so much research and articles and information.

[Michael Pollan]

I posted every article I've ever written there and it's available for free to

[Lewis Howes]

anybody who wants michaelpaul.com michaelpaul.com so make sure and make sure you go sign up for your newsletter and be subscribed to everything you have there. What's the social media place you spend time on the most? Is there a platform of choice?

[Michael Pollan]

I use Twitter, I use Instagram, but just in a kind of personal way. I just post pictures. I like that I've taken Twitter's more

[Lewis Howes]

the research than the information you have.

[Michael Pollan]

Twitter's very useful for journalists. I mean, and so I'll, if I read something interesting and it could be about health, it could be about food, it could be about psychedelics, I'll post it, you know, sometimes without comment, just, hey, you should read, check it out. Yeah, yeah. So I use it that way. I don't hold forth. I don't offer a lot of opinions, but I just find it's a great way to share information.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. What are you most excited about in your life right now?

[Michael Pollan]

What am I most excited? Well, it's spring and we're about to start gardening. I'm a passionate gardener and, and you know, we've had so much rain in California.

[Lewis Howes]

So much today. It's raining, you know, it's insane.

[Michael Pollan]

And the earth has been saturated and you can't, you don't want to mess with the earth when it's that wet. It's bad for it. So I'm really looking forward to starting to plant and get my garden going. I grow vegetables and flowers and various psychoactives.

[Lewis Howes]

So that's cool, that's exciting.

[Michael Pollan]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Michaelpaul.com, themasterclass.com, check you out there. The books, they can get it all at your website as well for the books. And again, you've got a number of New York Times bestsellers. So get multiple books if you want to dive in more. This is a couple questions that I have left. This is a question I ask everyone at the end called the Three Truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. You've written a lot, you've researched a lot, you've had a ton of experiences. And imagine you get to live as long as you want, but eventually it's your last day. It's not that long drawn out death. It's a quick, healthy, quick, painless death. And imagine you continue to live your life the way you want, achieving your dreams and connecting to people you care about and healthy. But it's the last day, for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you. Every article, every book, every message. The masterclass is gone. Everything has to go to some other place when you pass on. So for whatever reason, we don't have access to your content, your information, your wisdom, but you get to leave behind three final truths, three lessons from all of your experiences that you've learned that you would leave behind as kind of like here are these wisdom, this wisdom. What would be those three truths for you to leave behind?

[Michael Pollan]

Yikes. I told you I didn't like to hear questions in advance.

[Lewis Howes]

Gotta put you on the spot.

[Michael Pollan]

Well, the first one would be to honor the plants. My whole career I have been learning from plants about how to eat, about the mind. It's amazing what they have to teach us. And you know, they don't speak loudly, but if you listen and you're curious. So honor the plants. That could mean growing them, certainly mean eating them. This is a cliche. People often say that no one goes to their deathbeds thinking, God, I wish I'd spend more time at work. So honor your family, your loved ones, your sisters. I don't have brothers, although I have brothers in law, your partner, your child. I think that we get caught up in things and those are the relationships that matter at the end and the other stuff doesn't. Third truth. I think one of the biggest problems we have is fear. I think we are closed off because we're afraid. We're afraid of trying new things, we're afraid of saying things. We're afraid of exposing our weakness and overcoming fear. I would say that's so important. My father, who was a very wise person, he got wise. He wasn't always. He was a lawyer, but he hated the law. But he liked helping people. And he had a clientele of people your age who he would help help with their money issues. But their money issues were always really family issues or self worth issues. I mean, all these kind of questions. And he would always say, your biggest problem is between your ears, he would say, and it's your fear. And he was very good at getting people to have faith in themselves. Make the big move, change your career, quit that job, buy that house, marry that person. And he was a kind of just do it person. And it usually worked out. And people spend a long time procrastinating because they're afraid of change. And so embracing change and overcoming fear. I would put number three, I love those. I don't know about the order. I haven't Thought about the order, but those are the three that came about.

[Lewis Howes]

Honor plants, honor your family, overcome your fears. I love it. I'm a big believer that self doubt is the killer of all dreams. We can have all the talent, but if we doubt ourselves, we're not going to act courageously, we're not going to take the risk, we're not going to say what we need to say, like you said. So we've got to learn what are those fears that cause us to take out?

[Michael Pollan]

Self doubt is very much the root of fear.

[Lewis Howes]

Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Michael, for your continuous journey to seeking wisdom, truth, knowledge, lessons to help people. You know, you've been on this journey for a long time and you keep showing up. You keep showing up in service to the process, to the journey of discovery, and to sharing the process with us so that we can try to understand this world in a more harmonious, integrous way.

[Michael Pollan]

Thank you.

[Lewis Howes]

So I really acknowledge you for your humility, your service, your commitment to being of service with your mission. It's really inspiring. My final question for you is, what's your definition of greatness?

[Michael Pollan]

I should have seen that coming. I think you've just given a. I think it is your willingness to give it away to help other people, to help people transform their lives. I think transformation is like so key and we get so stuck. So for me, my work, I didn't set out with a mission to heal people or to change their minds. I set out with a mission to follow my curiosity. And then I found stuff that, oh, people need to know about this. This is not what they thought. And that's exciting to me when I find that out. When I spent a year studying nutrition and realized, oh, I can. All you need are these seven words. And I just wanted to give them to everybody. So I think that idea of putting your work in the service of other people is very powerful to me. It makes me feel like I'm not being self indulgent when I'm sitting there alone, writing all the day long, that maybe it will have an effect on the world. I feel very lucky that I've had two phases in my writing life where I produce books that change the conversation. If you do that once in a lifetime, you feel pretty good. But this happened with food and it's happening now with psychedelics. And I don't know what the next one will be, but. And I don't know why that is because I'm saying things that other people know and that in some ways are pretty obvious when it comes to food, but sometimes the obvious is very powerful.

[Lewis Howes]

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support, support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. Start your day with Quaker Protein Instant Oatmeal. The Instant Oatmeal ready to help you tackle whatever your day brings. Like wrangling your toddler into their car seat. That was Fun. Coaching your 6th graders, soccer team Go Girls and carrying all the groceries in one trip. Try Quaker Protein Instant Oatmeal Granola and Bars. Great taste and a good source of protein. Quaker Bring out the good.