 And yet commercial dog food, you know, I've looked back in the history of commercial dog food and really the main thing was to make nice form poops that are easy to pick up and aren't very messy. And a scientist years ago figured out if you grind up a bunch of soybeans, that'll actually make a nicely formed poop and everybody will be happy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's where the first, you know, kibble came from. So I want a nice form poop out of my dog. And yet I want my dog to live a very long time. So help me out here. So first of all, you are absolutely correct. We feed little brown crunchy balls, the vast majority. In fact, we just read a stat this morning that's still about 96% of 94%. 94% of dogs in North America still eating kibble, which is super convenient. No one's knocking that you open the pantry, dump the kibble in the bowl and you're done. Super convenient, no doubt. The question is, how is that making gut biome diversity? How are we nourishing an animal's gut? What exact nutrients are in that bag that are feeding cognitive well-being? How many amino acids coming from meat? Dogs are scavenging carnivores and cats are obligate carnivores. They need meat. When you do the carb equation on the average bag of dog food, they're eating anywhere between 30% and 60% starch. So the vast majority of calories are coming from refined carbs. So we have a biological appropriateness issue with the food that we're feeding. We have certainly it's convenient, but other than sustaining life and meeting minimum vitamin mineral requirements from synthetic vitamins and minerals, we're not doing much besides sustaining life. And so when we open the conversation to, okay, well, what can we do? We have to start with, of course, the conversation about the gut. And if you've only ever fed your dog one food for two and a half years, it's really important your dog's microbiome is incredibly narrow and incredibly unhealthy. And I will venture to go out on a limb and say that dogs only eating one food their entire life. They all have dysbiosis. They all have a very undiversified unhealthy gut. And not suspiciously, one of the number one reasons we see dogs in veterinary medicine is GI problems. Everything from gastritis, enteritis, chronic colitis, IBS, IBD, puke dogs, farty dogs, belchy dogs. It's just what we see. Out of that then we see a lot of skin conditions, a lot of chronic allergies, a lot of too many carbs are causing diabetes and of course excessive weight problems. All of these things are wrapped up in the fact that we're feeding this one monotonous diet all along. So there is a stepwise process and that's one of the things that we work really hard in the book in terms of dispelling these myths. You don't just up and decide to change foods tomorrow, but you can begin diversifying your dog's gut with fresh foods from your fridge and very small amounts. And of course you use poop as the barometer of how fast or slow you should begin introducing these new goodies to help diversify the microbiome. The ultimate question is, and what everyone will ask, whether human world or in dog world, what is the best food to eat? What is the best diet to eat, right? And I mean, we're finding out more and more, especially when it comes to nutrition, that there's sort of tailored packages for the individual. Yes, everybody wants to see a great poop. And for us, when we started to travel out, we started to ask these hard questions, Dr. Gundry, to some of these experts. First, when you look at the oldest lived dogs in the world, that's the first place that one should probably start. You've got a 30-year-old dog, you have a 27-year-old dog, Bushki from Hungary, you have a 25-year-old dog in the United Kingdom named Bramble, and you have a whole bunch of 20-year-old dogs in the United States. What were these owners feeding? And straight across the board, it was very evident that these owners were feeding a lot of fresh, whole, live foods. There may have been some processed food in those diets, but there was at least a 50-50 blend of fresh, whole, live food. So in a black-and-white version, you have your fresh and you have your processed. But that's not going to hold very well with the scientists. So then we went to talk to the top microbiologists. We went to San Diego, where we saw it with Dr. Holly Gantz, who's a PhD microbiologist. And they will tell you those microbiologists without the shadow of a doubt, if you look inside the GI system of a pet, and a lot of people are aware today that diversity in the gut biome is very important, that hands down, these microbiologists can look inside the gut and they can tell you exactly which dogs have been eating fresh, whole, live foods and which dogs have been eating processed foods. It's very evident that the ones that are eating fresh foods have a more diverse, healthier GI system. And I was speaking with Robert Mondavi Jr. and I'm sorry, Michael Mondavi and Al Gore. And Michael Mondavi said, we were actually addicted to chemicals and it actually took us personally in our wines 10 years to withdraw from the addiction to chemicals in our wine. And I thought that was a rather impressive comment to make from a leading winemaker about how prevalent, even in the growing of grapes and the making of wine, chemicals pervade the industry. I'm sure you can elucidate on it. Well, it begins with farming. And this is an important distinction. So it begins with farming. Chemicals are readily used. Roundup, as you mentioned earlier, glyphosate is the number one applied herbicide to U.S. vineyards. And you can usually tell, you can look at a vineyard and tell if it's been treated with glyphosate. Because the surface of the soil looks like lava. It looks almost like the moon. It's a very, very hard surface and there's absolutely nothing growing below it. When you go to a natural vineyard, when you go to, we'll talk about what natural wine is and why we call it natural and what defines natural wine. But when you go to a natural vineyard where no chemicals are used, well, let me take it one step back. You go to an organic, you have organic farming and then you have natural farming. All natural farming is always organic. Not all organic farming is natural. So organic farming has some leeway, right? But natural farming is always organic. When you go to a natural vineyard, in fact, not only will you see things growing below the vines, it looks almost like forestation. The weeds and the plant material can be waist high just below where the grapes are trellised because the natural farmer wants insects in his vineyard because nature has a balance. Nature's been figuring this out for a couple billion years, right? So everything in nature, the natural farmer believes that everything is connected in nature. And so that there's a biodiverse ecosystem there that allows for plant materials to coexist along with insects. We have this farmer in Italy. He describes insects in the soil as little animals. That's how he translates it in English. But see, the natural farmer doesn't plow because the natural farmer believes that plowing disrupts the ecosystem that exists just below the mulch in the topsoil where there are millions of organisms living. And the moment that you plow, what you do is you turn up that soil and you expose it to the sun and you kill the soil, right? So because the sun, the heat of the sun kills all of the organisms, so you don't see plowing in natural great growing. You actually see flowers and a lot of intentionally planted flowers to attract butterflies and other insects to the vineyard because the natural farmer believes that everything is connected and that nature will solve its own problems. But when you see a glyphosate treated, I live in Napa Valley and when you drive by vineyards, most of them have been sprayed and you can tell that because there's absolutely nothing alive anywhere near the vineyard, right? There might be a little patch of grass or plant material between the rows, but just underneath the vines, it's just bare. It's black. It's like a lava looking so hard, the surface is terrifically hardened because there's no living soil there to break it up. There's no living organisms. It just becomes very, very hard, particularly with the California sun. It just becomes terrifically hard. So also the other problem, we think that maybe glyphosate is getting in wine through irrigation. This is one of the, because we know that glyphosate is present in many wines and even organic wines and we don't really know why, but we do know that more than 99% of U.S. vineyards are irrigated. The name of my company is Dry Farm Wines. We don't allow irrigation on any of our vines. Now, we also don't sell domestic wine. I don't drink domestic wine. No domestic wines meet all of our criteria. But dry farming is one of those criteria. So when you irrigate, you create a whole other host of problems. Not only is it bad for the planet. We don't have enough water now. So not only is it bad for the planet, but it also makes for a lazy vine. Lazy vines produce lazy fruit of lower quality, which is reasoned wine. Most of Europe is illegal to irrigate a grapevine. Let me go back to what a natural wine is because I think this will tie everything together a bit. So natural wine is a very confusing term to consumers because I tell people I sell natural wine. They're like, well, aren't all wines natural? And so it's very confusing. In fact, they're not. Natural wine is a very specific wine growing and fermentation protocol. It's not complicated. In fact, it's quite simple. It's way more simple than your conventional wines, which are not natural. So there are two types of wine in the world. There's natural and conventional. There's just nothing really in between. Now, before we get all the way down that path, I want to mention for a second about organic wine. So organic wine is not always natural, but all natural wines are always organic. So just because a wine says it's organic doesn't mean that it's natural. And this whole confusion is what leads to, well, one of the reasons for our success is that we're the largest buyer and seller of natural wines in the world. And we really think of ourselves as a health company, not as a wine company. And our audience are people who care about what they put in their body. And so, and of course, we are trusted in this world of health because it's kind of our lifestyle is the way we live, right? And so we're not here for some marketing pitch. In fact, we'll talk about this in a moment, but alcohol is super toxic. And one of the most dangerous neurotoxins on the planet that ruins millions of people's lives every year. And so, and some people shouldn't drink at all. So, right. And so I'm not here to advocate for people to drink. What I do is I educate people if you're going to drink, then this is what you should drink and this is why, whether you get it from me or not. All right. So what the heck is this delicious looking casserole which looks like something that should be on the table for the holidays? What have you come up with? It definitely should be on the table for the holidays. Like you said, everyone loves their green bean casserole. So I took the basics of that creamy veggies, crispy topping. And I did a spinach and kale casserole with curried coconut milk inside it to really boost the flavor, topped it with a lot of high quality Parmesan cheese and baked it. It's not going to be the prettiest girl dance, but it's going to be the most delicious. So if you want to go ahead and try it. I do. Is this my spoon? This is your spoon and go, dig in. Since I put the cheese on it, I'm going to avoid it for dairy reasons. And there's broccoli. There's broccoli, there's kale, there's onions, tiny bit of spinach. It works with all spinach if that's easier for people to... Oh my God. You can take that home with you. I'm taking it home. Can eat it on your commute. Just set it in the driver's seat next to you. I'll put it in the driver's seat. No, that's great. This is exactly what we're talking about. How to get in all these great things that are going to make people better. They're not going to leave the table going, oh, I can't believe I ate that stuff. Why did I do that? I feel so miserable. Yeah, you're sitting down with your loved ones. You may as well show them how much you love them. What do you say to your family or friends who don't eat this way if you're hosting the dinner? Oh, I just cook it and I don't tell them. No one's going to know unless you go, oh, I did these crazy things. They're just going, oh, this is a really good meal. It's different than what we usually have, but it's great. Or you tell them after. Yeah, I think that's what we usually do. We tell them afterwards, what? Once we had some friends over and I put lemon flavored cod liver oil mixed half and half with olive oil for the salad dressing. That's a choice. And they said, oh man, this is the best salad dressing. Great, we have the recipe. What's in it? And I go, cod liver oil. What? Well, don't they know Caesar salad is made with anchovies? It's not super different. That's exactly right. So they didn't know that they were actually having a really healthy salad. You could probably make a great Caesar dressing with cod liver oil. Yeah, let's try it. Okay, work on that. I'll get right on that after the holidays. Now, what do you do? Here's the biggest problem in the holidays. You're invited over for a party or for dinner and your friends don't see this way. What do you do? Well, if it's a potluck, I say bring one thing that you find especially satisfying and delicious. Share it, but give yourself a big ol' helping of that. And then pick and choose. Always go for the turkey if you eat meat, because it's not the worst thing on the table, even if it's the butter ball. And beyond that, pick and choose. And if it's a fully hosted dinner where you're expected to show up, load up on the salad, or if there's a veggie you can eat, or even the sweet potato casserole with the marshmallows scraped off. And just have a little bit of everything else. Like we said earlier, it's one day. It's not ideal, but it's not going to kill you. And you don't want to be rude if someone's having a really nice party and you're invited. Yeah, and what we do is we'll have a couple of handful of nuts before we head to those parties. Oh, that's smart. Which really helps us not eat as much or not sit there and go, I don't really want to eat that stuff. You can also fill up on the cheese plate, just skip the crackers. Exactly right, yeah. Cheese can be eaten without crackers. It can. All right. Many people are, I think, aware of what we call a beer belly. And that's actually visceral fat that's accumulating from excessive carbohydrate and alcohol intake. So it's a real thing. Correct? Oh, okay. You know what? In general, if the lower abdomen is convex or there is a lot of fat in thighs or buttocks, you know, it can be considered as a circuit tennis fat type. Of course, this is difficult to get rid of easily with just nutrition and exercise plan, especially in women. After childbirth or menopause, a lot of fat accumulates in the abdomen under the influence of hormones. These cases are more difficult to eliminate as they are deeply associated with circulatory disorders. In this case, you know, through aerobic exercise or core exercise, you might need to burn fat cells and promote blood circulation to create muscle to replace fat. On the other hand, you know, if the upper abdomen is convex, there are many cases of visceral fat again. This visceral fat is also not easy to remove. The best way to reduce it is to use that fat as an energy source through a proper exercise and diet. However, you know, there are people who have experienced the cases where our dear belly fat remains the same even after losing weight through good management. There also will be some people who have high body fat measurement despite their slim figure. This is usually called lean obesity or skinny obesity. And even in this case, you know, visceral fat types become more prominent. In order to get rid of visceral fat, it is important to not only diet and exercise, but also combine various methods such as lowering your blood sugar and insulin through, for example, fasting for more than 12 hours and allowing your fat to be more efficiently broken down. Obviously, you know, according to the advice of your paramedic doctor. Yeah, I think that's a really important point and I emphasize that in a lot of my books like the Energy Paradox that one of the best ways, particularly when diet and exercise don't necessarily address visceral fat, that intermittent fasting or time restricted eating really is where this really attacks the underlying problem. And, you know, I think you're right, there is such a thing as, you know, a skinny obesity that is actually more common than people might know. And I think that's one of the things I really like about your device is that people think about, well, I get on the scale and my weight is normal or I even, I look at my body mass index, BMI, and my body mass index is normal, but then when we start with very almost invasive means looking at body fat and where it's located, many of these people are shocked that even though they're skinny, they're actually obese in their abdomen and their visceral fat where it shouldn't be. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts because I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you.