 Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. Well if you've been following the Plant Paradox program for a while now, there's a good chance you've been spending more and more time in your kitchen. And of course that's great because the truth is it's nearly impossible to find healthy lectin-free meals dining out or ordering from your favorite restaurants. So even the thought of healthy options such as salad, soups, or veggie dishes usually contain hidden dangerous ingredients like omega-6 oils or lectin bomb ingredients. And while you might occasionally come across a truly lectin-free option, cooking at home is your best tool for finding success with my program. And my guest today knows just what I'm talking about. In a moment I'll speak with Jesse, a.k.a. the sensitive vegan after struggling with some pretty serious health issues, Jesse's been able to successfully turn his health around for the most part by following my Plant Paradox program. He now has his very own lectin-free cooking channel on YouTube which is how I discovered him where he shares his creative recipes in a step-by-step easy-to-follow and may I say often very humorous manner. On today's episode Jesse will share his impressive journey to health, tips for vegans on the Plant Paradox program, and professional cooking advice to help you cook your way to better health. Jesse, it's great to have you on the show. You sensitive vegan you. Thank you. It's good to meet you. Nice to have you here. So why don't we start, give everybody listening a little bit of your health background and health journey. What was going on in your life? So I considered myself a lactose-ovo-vegetarian for the longest time, since I guess since 2010 I don't know how long that is, but I made the conversion to veganism and I was really into the weightlifting and working out all the time and I just found after a while on the diet that I was on I started experiencing body pain. First was like my right shoulder and I thought, oh yeah, I overdid it at the gym, lifting too much weight trying to show off and within a couple of weeks the left shoulder got sore and then it moved to my right knee and then my left knee and I obviously had no idea what was going on and I saw all the doctors and specialists, you know I checked with naturopaths, Chinese medicine and I just had no assistance whatsoever for I guess looking at about three years and yeah I ended up losing, I probably lost over 40 pounds, I became pretty immobile and I just didn't have any answers. That's not cool. So when you were, and you know this is a very common experience, when you were seeing all the specialists, the naturopaths, I mean what were they telling you, what was the diagnosis, did they want you to go on immunosuppressive meds, blah blah blah. It was so frustrating, it was something different with each one. Obviously now I know how sensitive I am to these different compounds, corn and corn starts being one of them, so I'd go see the naturopath and they go you know you've got some you've got some some flare-ups around your body, we don't not sure what's going to really cause it but let's get you on some turmeric or whatever it is that they used us to sort of quell that sensitivity and it's in a capsule made of corn starch, so I'm popping these every day and not getting better and then with the doctors they wanted to rule out bone cancer so I got all these expensive tests done and all the time between visits, talk about maybe six months Canadian medical system waiting between visits and just really wasted time as far as I was concerned because I was in pain this whole time and I was complaining about what I was experiencing, it felt like it felt like injuries all over my body and I was just you know seeking help and yeah all the testing that I was getting all the elaborate sort of stuff that they were doing wasn't really helping. Now you've referred to yourself as a recovering soy boy I love that. What was your diet like back then? Okay so I it was awesome I loved my diet back then I would get up in the morning before I go to work I'd make myself a six shot espresso just kind of put that on the side and I get some breakfast tacos going they'd have chipotle homemade habanero sauce just kind of just a mix of just non-pressure cooked beans and the hottest peppers I could get with a lot of vegetable fats too and it was awesome I mean I probably had breakfast tacos for breakfast lunch then I'd come home and make a stir fry you know white rice stir fry sort of thing and yeah it tasted really good it was fun to eat that much I was also the kind of person I would eat all through the night before before I ended up listening to you or reading your books I'd have a banana next to the bed and I would eat 24 hours as far as I was concerned I'd wake up every couple hours and eat again and put on the pounds and yeah it wasn't good for my stomach for starters so while I had all these flare ups around my body and and sore everything I also had a really a lot of stomach aches and a lot of yeah soreness down there. So all right so you're eating 24 hours a day you heard all over the Canadian healthcare system has been failing you and you're going six months between appointments and not getting anywhere so how did you come across the plant paradox? Well a really nice guy in a health food store told me about plant paradox have you read the plant paradox and I was immediately dismissed it because I'd heard so many things that I was like oh that's a diet thing no no no I'm vegan I have the perfect diet you can't fix my diet so it's definitely not that it's something else I was pretty desperate at that point so in any event I picked up the book and within I think I even it was on audible and I just forwarded to the diet part because I really wanted to know what I had to change within a week the pain was gone and I could feel that my body was actually healing so I was sold right there. Aha all right yeah you know it's you bring up an interesting story that I talk about in one of my books Deepak Chopra's representative for Japan is a young woman who had a severe rheumatoid arthritis had two hip replacements in her 20s had a knee replacement it was basically bedridden and a friend from Canada said you know I want to send you the plant paradox and you know try it you know it's because whatever you know she was literally doing an arubatic brown rice you know soy diet and literally within weeks her pain went away and she actually a few years ago flew to Palm Springs to meet me and thank me walked in her rheumatoid arthritis is gone and yeah so you're telling me thank you for saying that story because you know it's it's hard to believe but it does happen yeah it's tricky because of course I saw a rheumatologist and then you get tested for these things and they're like no there's there's no there's no arthritis there is some inflammation but yeah so frustrating until you actually get on the diet so what did you did you go cold turkey did you dive right in I mean obviously I have vegan options for you know every one of my recipes or did you just gradually do it or what you do so I jumped right in because I was inadvertently already doing one of your I guess the five-day vegan cleanse that was extending about a month I was just doing broth and I had legumes in there that was that was the bad part but since I was kind of already doing I was already vegan so yeah it it wasn't tough to just introduce these things that like sweet potatoes and yucca and stuff like that that I knew were okay according to your theory and yeah it worked right away so I do it right so okay so you know so you've done kind of in the way of the hard part you were a vegan already yeah let's let's let's talk about your experience being a vegan on this program so let's back up you were a lacto-ovo vegetarian why did you make the jump to vegan I'm not sure whether it was influences like maybe dating vegan girls I don't know what it whether it was that one too many documentaries that I watched like I think it is for a lot of people and it's just like okay I can do this I know I can do this I probably the first one was more more important you were dating a vegan girl or something like that yeah I think that rubs off on a few people but this so this wasn't I mean you want to save the planet or not you know not destroy animals but it just seemed like a good idea all of the above once you you're kind of interested like you know I've heard this is good for health and then you hear some of the arguments and you see some of the some of the nasty stuff that happens with the factory farming and you're like you know I don't want to support this so I think it's a positive thing okay so what was it what was the biggest struggle about being a vegan on the plant paradox program or what is continuing to be the biggest struggle yeah absolutely the the two hardest things is vegan food so all the all the prepackaged vegan food products that you have in the grocery store that looks so good and tastes so good are so not good for you because it's all the same I don't know three ingredients and it's they all it's the same thing once it gets in you it's just gonna cause the inflammation and it's just not healthy you have that plus the vegan restaurants that you want to go to and there's absolutely nothing you can order there so you just have to go for the salad at a restaurant maybe you can go okay can I have the fries today it's been like a month since I've had nightshades so I think we're gonna try the fries and then I'll taking a gamble with the ketchup and yeah so the trickiest part of being a vegan is just the vegan food is not compatible with the diet which is why I came up with my own recipes yeah I have I have a friend in the in the Palm Springs area who has some vegan restaurants and she's wonderful and I adore her and there's probably only two things that I can eat in her restaurants and she actually asked me to do a forward for cookbook and you know I you know I go I adore you and you know good for you but you know I can't even eat in your in your restaurant yeah so yeah so this is you know it's very frustrating and as I've said on my podcast and I've written about I take care of a large number of vegan and vegetarians because of my experience at Loma Linda which is you know a vegetarian and vegan Adventist health system and quite frankly some of the vegans when I first meet them are some of my sickest people they they are rampant with autoimmune diseases and you know when I like your experience when I take away so many of their you know almost sacred foods it's when they start getting better it's funny you talk about sacred foods because I so when I started publishing my recipes I started to call them in the the local newspaper and I was writing about the diet and I was publishing a new recipe every week I think and some of the biggest critics I had were vegans and it's vegan food that I'm producing here some of them even suggesting that you know the diet was dangerous and I should have warnings and I'm like I don't need warnings for healthy food so it's just funny because they do vegan seem to have these sacred foods or sacred food product where you tell them it's not exactly as healthy as they thought and they became quite angry about it but you know with with you I find the two biggest arguments for veganism with plant paradox is the IGF-1 levels that you can control by limiting or just outright getting rid of meat products and also just that inadvertent grains that you're gonna you're gonna ingest if you eat animal products and getting rid of those things is a huge health benefit so it's funny that vegans tend to be so so critical of the plant paradox diet to begin with yeah I mean we I certainly have my my vegan critics but you know recently we had actually one of my formerly biggest critics on our podcast Joel Furman who I'm actually a big fan of and got him to admit that he pressure cooks his beans and I went well you know why aren't you telling people about that because you know I last week I had beans twice and they were pressure cooked and you know I'm not I'm not anti legumes I just got a treat them with respect yeah so yeah so it is kind of funny people saying you know I'm I'm anti bean well no I'm not I'm I'm anti the bean trying to kill me and as long as I can you know defuse it it's a it's a it's a great potential part of the diet although I do I do have a few people that even pressure cook beans gets them they they can absolutely tell but you brought up a very interesting point and I don't want to take away from your time but your point is very well taken I think we miss and vegans maybe maybe know this so when we feed animals corn and soybeans or other grains you are what you eat but you are what the thing you're eating ate and years ago when I first started doing this I really didn't want to believe that until I had some people with autoimmune diseases where the final straw that solved their autoimmune problem was getting rid of organic chicken in their diet and they didn't realize that organic chickens were fed organic corn and soybeans and when we took those healthy organic chickens away from them that's when things resolved and recently we had one of my followers because of a nutritionist telling her that she really needed to get more animal protein in her diet she contacted a farmer and started eating what they thought was grass fed beef and pastured chicken and the more she added this to her diet the more pain just like yourself she began experiencing more joint pain more headaches and she got so desperate she finally contacted me and said I don't get it I'm doing everything right so what's your farmer feeding his animals and she said well they're grass fed and I said are you sure so she called him up he said well you know we have to supplement their diet and she said well what are you supplementing with well you know corn and soybeans and grains and she said but wait a minute you know you said that they were grass fed he said oh you know that we have to give them stuff so I said wait there you go yeah and she in five days 70% of her pain was gone when she stopped eating that that healthy food so your point is very well taken and to be honest I tried the the egg thing myself um you know you get pretty desperate even on vegan diet you get desperate you want to try something else when things just aren't working for you and I tried the egg thing and yeah within 30 days of it I had this swollen left knee for no reason and I just I just the egg so I just cut it out and of course you know they're they're supplementing the diet with these things all right so uh how did you how did you come up with your youtube channel how did you get so funny are you a natural comedian are you a performer well thanks for thanks for saying that uh so I think what I do is I wanted to bring value to people I want to bring uh these these recipes but I want it to be fun so number one I'm always going to put the joke ahead of the ahead of even the product so it's going to be goofy all the time it's going to be an idiot I'm going to say stupid stuff I'm going to be arguing with my wife and that's all going in the videos number one it has to be entertaining because there's too many cooking shows out there where you're just watching the person maybe the overhead of the stirring the thing in there and it's just so boring so much of it out there so I want to do something that's very different and uh I glad that you agree that I'm funny I hope your viewers will think so when you check out my videos and uh yeah I just the point is that I want to bring value to people that are going through or have gone through the same thing that I did and you know it's so difficult when you start to limit what you can actually eat and if you're passionate about food like I am I want to I don't want to not have pizza I want to have lasagna I want to have spring rolls I you know I want flat bread and uh I so and I want cheese and I want it to melt the cheese has to be vegan and it has to melt and uh I just want to experience all those things just like everyone else so um that's that's kind of where I'm coming from with my youtube all right so how do you get melting vegan cheese come on help help us out here I mean do we have to go to your youtube video right now or can you can you give us a tip well I think it's only fair that you go to my youtube maybe just watch this first but you know it's only a few ingredients uh it's my main cheese that I use is a coconut mozzarella and it does melt uh I I have a few thickening agents that I use arrowroot powder tapioca agar and these are things that most people aren't familiar with mostly people are going to go to cornstarch or what they're used to or flour and there's so many other options out there that are so much better for your health do you have any do you have any go-to foods um years ago when I started studying people's food habits people in general uh actually have five main dishes or main meals that they just repeat over and over and over again and so you got any go-to things that you know you just repeat all all the time yeah that's that's really true uh I'd have to say that uh cassava flour flatbread is my go-to even when I'm not planning that that's going to be breakfast or lunch it just is and when you have some sort of spread I can show you if you check out my youtube I can show you a uh brazil nut uh sour cream a vegan sour cream with brazil nuts that you can spread on there or maybe just do the olive oil and balsamic vinegar and it's so good and it's so easy that I eat every day wow are you making me hungry we're we're gonna pause here we're gonna be right back I'm I'm gonna go to his youtube channel I'm gonna find out and make it oh okay we're back no oh there we are we're just joking all right everybody talks about b12 in vegans what say you okay so I supplement that stuff uh with plant paradox uh if you are as sensitive as I am uh what you want to do is get the capsule and open it up into some cranberry juice and yeah don't just take the contents not the capsule and I supplement it it's that simple I think there's a little bit in mushrooms and uh to be perfectly honest I I you know some of your past guests including you talk about having a biodiversity in your gut um with the microbiome and I every now and again I'll do the shellfish thing I'll do the halibut thing uh just to make sure that I'm healthy in my stomach I don't want to be running into IBS because there's only one type of bacteria in there or it's just not working for me so uh yes I do I do cheat on veganism every now and again and I'm totally comfortable with that. Aha okay that was going to be my next question um we measure what's called the omega-3 index uh in our patients which basically looks at two months of fish oil in in your system and there are of course now plenty of vegan sources for DHA and the vast majority of vegans that I see early on are very very deficient in DHA and EPA and they used to drink flaxseed oil like you know I don't know champagne and they still have no DHA and EPA because they just don't convert it into long chain fatty acids. Where do you get your do you take a vegan DHA or where do you get your long chain fat omega-3 fat? I I'm not that skilled in this one um let's see avocados olive oil, MCT oil, nuts um am I hitting anything there? No there's no omega-3 fats in that. Wow um I don't know it just works out for me maybe is it the piece of halibut that I eat every couple of weeks? Yeah it's the piece of halibut that you eat uh shellfish are actually very rich in in those things so yeah I do the scallop thing. Yeah you could have Prince Edward Island mussels from time to time. From time to time I could. Yeah from time to time. All right so let's get to your YouTube channel. What was your inspiration for even starting it? Like I say you're great at it and I hope when people leave this podcast they you know they jump to your YouTube channel and get as entertained as I am watching it so but what started it? Well I wanted a side project uh I just wanted something extra to work on and to be honest what word can I use uh I was depressed and disappointed angry that everybody else got to eat good food and I didn't so I wanted to I wanted to experiment my background I I worked as a chef I came up with features for the menu it's something that I you know I did regularly and I kind of missed that about it so being able to share those ideas and come up with stuff and and really I I want people to be jealous of the vegan plant paradox rather than me being jealous of oh you get to eat pizza you know you maybe you walk by at work and somebody's got a pizza or a pizza pop or something like that in the microwave it smells so good I want that or you walk by or you walk by uh McDonald's or something and they've got the exhaust fan you can smell the french fries I just wanted to yeah I want to experience something just as good or not better than everyone else so I think that's that's where it comes from and just the ability to you know when I started I didn't know how it would go I didn't even know how I'd be on camera um but when I started to hear from people who thank you for you know for creating this for sharing this I cooked it for my family my kids or they can't eat anything and hearing that from the community was amazing to me so being able to make a difference and actually provide that value is is I think where it comes from uh you know you call yourself the sensitive vegan and I I just thought you were you know a sensitive individual but you know food sensitivities are are very very real they are not in people's heads I can assure our listeners that and you just mentioned that a lot of people you know watch your videos and then write you and say you know thanks for doing this because my kid can't eat anything um are you finding there's this vast community out there that's underserved or maybe the better word is not believed in terms of their sensitivities to foods not believed I would say and it's so tricky because people will get put on I think the wrong path and it's like so I'm I'm just going through your your new book the energy paradox and you break down some of the myths about what people think they're dealing with and I think it's adrenal fatigue I think it's this and they'll go to the doctor with that and they're now in their head they're part of the adrenal fatigue group so you're only gonna if you're that you're only gonna reach out for resources that that are that um coming to kind of learn more about this it's it's more I think it's more for everyone I think it's the lectin thing I I really do so people are gonna come from different sort of schools of thought for what they're looking for and it's difficult to reach everyone because they all have a different idea of what they think's wrong and there's so few resources out there so um so that's I think what's difficult if you I mean I do not have the biggest YouTube following I don't have the biggest Instagram following if you look and it's really difficult to try to connect with these people because I don't think they even know what the problem is well we're going to try to change that like I say you know good for you you are entertaining uh well I so I didn't actually realize that you were a chef and so how you know how do you what's your creative process and you know you make coconut bacon you know okay how the heck do you make bacon out of coconut because you know everybody has to have bacon I mean come on be be honest so it's with that one I can't take credit a vegan chef knows that that one is in the community is swirling around there there's a few variations of it it's something I had to share on the channel because I want to be the vegan chef that is for everyone I'm the people's vegan basically and I don't want I don't want people to feel like oh it's one of those vegan channels some of those vegans be very judgmental I don't really like that attitude I don't want to be judged or feel critical so they kind of shy away from the vegan cooking channels and I just want to be the one that can reach everyone there's no judgment here and my foods for everyone as far as my creative process I don't know I'm a chef I pay attention to when I eat something or when I see something new I wonder how they make that I spend the whole day in the kitchen I just you know leave to eat or lay down have a nap and I'm back in the kitchen so I'm always dealing with this stuff well good for you one of my sayings is I want you to eat food you love but food that loves you back and it sounds like that's really your mantra because I've found that if you know if people like what they're eating they're more likely to stick with this and it's certainly my my experience as a professor at Loma Linda for many many years the Adventists were were experts at making mystery meats that out of out of plants that actually acted as if you were eating you know animal based meats and in fact one of one of my funniest stories my my late partner Leonard Bailey who was chairman of the department of surgery we had a Christmas party every year at a local hotel and it was in general all vegetarian food and you know the the hospital was very good at making fake shrimp out of yeah fake shrimp and so we were at this party and he comes back from the buffet table and he's got this big pile of shrimp and he turns to his wife he says gosh he says you know the chefs are getting better and better at this these are the best fake shrimp I've ever had and he looked at me says you idiot those are real shrimp oh well no wonder so yeah but but it's it's fun people you know really do want these foods these flavors that they miss and you know I was I was a raw vegan for about nine months and actually had superb health although it was completely impractical completely impractical but one of the arguments that I learned was we're really after flavors and seasonings and it's these flavors and seasonings these flavors that we're looking for and not and you know that the piece of chicken was just these spices that it was cooked in that was really what you were after and talk to that I think you would you as a chef would say absolutely yeah like I'm interested in replicating what the non vegan the non plant paradox product so if you if you check out my food it's a lot I mean there's ravioli in there there's there's lasagna there's spring rolls um and I just try to replicate like for instance with the spices um how does how does cheese taste like cheese like how does mozzarella taste like mozzarella so a little spoiler there's some in my product there's a little bit of lemon juice a little bit of coconut vinegar just that tang mixed with a little salt oh it tastes like mozzarella and it's it's that easy to kind of replicate these flavors so why am I putting the bad for me product in me just because someone's marketing it to me when there's the sensitive vegan who can show me how to make it from scratch in my house for you know in a short amount of time what what do you find in general what was the hardest thing for you to give up and what do you what do your listeners say are the hardest things for them to give up well that's a very sad Dr. Gundry um the saddest thing oh sorry there the saddest thing that I've given up is coffee and uh every time I smell it I'm jealous I'll actually sniff my wife's coffee she lets me um so what happens is I build up a strong uh microbiome the mucus in there is really healthy with all the probiotics and then I'm okay I'm good now I feel I feel like I don't really have to be on plant paradox right now and I'll go ahead make myself a coffee I won't pressure cook it I'll just make myself an espresso and it's totally fine I feel totally fine I feel great because there's caffeine in me and then the next day I'm okay everything's fine I'm just gonna have another coffee and then it doesn't go so well and then I'm in pain and I have stomach pain and I have to go and sit for work and uh yeah that definitely coffee is the hardest thing to give up especially when you smell it interesting well we we do have a few people that definitely test positive you know for coffee as a food sensitivity we we have a few people that cacao um they they they test positive as a food sensitivity let me ask you do you are you sensitive to black pepper I'm not at the moment but I think I was interesting okay yeah all right so um you got any coffee replacements that you like no I've tried like I've tried them all I tried the dandelion coffee which is really good but it's got some grains in it um no I just haven't had luck with a good coffee replacement and actually all caffeine is giving me some sort of issues so I can't even do the matcha tea anymore interesting truly sad yeah all right uh give me three staples that your listeners my listeners should always keep in their kitchen okay so you got to have the cassava flour uh to make the flat bread and also to bread deep fried vegetables when you want so you got the the cassava flour olive oil and a nut that you like whether it's almonds brazil nuts macadamias with that you can make the flat bread the nuts spreads uh you can use the nuts and the olive oil in your shake and there's so many things you can do with the cassava flour so those are my top three uh do you have a pressure cooker I do have a pressure cooker and I only pressure cook beans at the moment and it's the only way that I can eat beans so thank you for that tip because I do love them especially lime up beans yeah you know it's interesting I have I have a number of patients who are originally from brazil uh or india and so many of them uh tell me that you know pressure cooking beans is as old a tradition as pressure cookers existed and that their mothers and their grandmothers had always taught them you have to pressure cook beans um and in fact how did we lose this well because you know and I talk about this we've lost uh we've lost actually chefs know this we've lost the oral tradition of grandparents teaching parents parents teaching their children of you know here's what we do uh last year pre-covid I was at biodynamic winery in tuscany and they have a biodynamic garden and they had huge numbers of gorgeous roma tomatoes and I was walking with the wine maker and I said so oh you know you grow tomatoes you know what do you use it for he says oh we make tomato sauce I said well how do you make tomato sauce and he says what do you mean I said well you know you just throw the tomatoes in a pot he said oh my gosh we wouldn't ever do that we peel and deseed the tomatoes you can't make sauce with the peels and seeds they're dangerous I said really I mean I said where did you learn that he says what do you mean where did I learn that my mother taught me that where'd your mother learn that my grandmother taught her that and we've lost all these traditions yeah I mean you just go to the supermarket and there's your tomato sauce that's what you get whatever's on the shelf nobody really talks about it yeah it's like I remind anyone who'll listen the Incas ate a lot of quinoa but they fermented their quinoa they let it rot before they cook it and it's not in the package directions please for it blows my mind that they came up with this yeah you know it's one thing to say you know here's this here's this food that these people lived on and not investigate well what did they do to that food that they were able to you know make use of it so yeah and it's sad because the most of this stuff is plant-based products that vegans flock to and then they think they're on their healthy vegan diet and it doesn't work out for one reason or another a lot of it is just these food products that they're eating in the way they're eating them that's very true okay what about dessert you got any trick for satisfying sweet tooth okay so with plant paradox tell me if this is you know you you dissuade people from eating sugar and I two things that happened is now I don't crave sugar at all after being on the diet and I don't like I don't crave eating at night either or early in the morning so I don't personally have a sweet tooth but my wife does and I have you can see on my instagram very down there is a pudding that's like three layers you got your strawberry vanilla chocolate pudding custard and I have that one as a go-to and I'm sure I'll do a video showing people how to make it but I don't tend to I I more crave the savory food that's what I don't want to miss out on all right um let me ask uh have you tried basil seeds yet oh I didn't that I've been meaning to I heard about it on your podcast I want I want you to give them a try and you got the energy paradox book there's some basil seeds in there for you all right uh so sensitive vegan what a great name it's been great having you on the show but before I let you go I understand that you actually have some questions for me so instead of doing the audience question today let's have at it okay I do have some questions okay so yeah you were mentioning in the longevity paradox that 15 years ago you would have dismissed leaky gut theory as fanciful thinking what is it with doctors that they want to dismiss a theory faster than anyone else it's hard to explain plant paradox or have them anyone believe it but doctors don't want to believe this stuff at all can you tell me from your experience what it is about doctors that they're impossible to dissuade with new information well of course you know in our training we're literally kind of told that we are the authoritarian figure and that you know you you have to project that authority for the patient to trust in you but a number of years ago there was a wonderful organization out of Boston called the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and it was set up by a physician a pediatrician that his research showed that the practicing physician is 20 years behind the current research knowledge in what he practices in his office and so a bunch of us in various fields were invited to actually look in our respective fields and literally even in universities look at where the level of practice was where the rubber met the road versus you know cutting edge knowledge and it turns out that in all fields it was about 20 years behind the times and I personally saw that I was I trained a lot of Japanese surgeons through my career young surgeons and I was invited to Japan to operate many times and they had a hierarchy of the the super senior surgeon and believe it or not he'd stand on on three steps to operate and as the as the more senior surgeon arrived the table went up and the steps went up and there was a saying that things didn't advance until the senior surgeon either died or retired and then the next guy took his place and his his level of training was about 10 years more advanced and so it slowly would advance as the older guys would die off and so there's a lot of that that I still see so many times doctors they don't see because their eyes aren't open and I've written about that I see it all the time and you know one of the great things that happened to me with big ed is luckily I had my eyes open when you know I could I looked and saw that big ed had cleaned out his coronary arteries with a diet and supplements and I got how'd he do that you know and I spent my last 20 plus years figuring out how big ed did that and asking patients to teach me how they do that so this is still very very ingrained in our medical culture the good news is that in functional medicine or restorative medicine we're we're beginning to see healthcare practitioners who are willing to look a little bit deeper and not just pair it party line and luckily we now know there's great science particularly from Dr. Fazzano who's now at Harvard that leaky gut is not only real but we know how it happens and the good news is we know pretty much how to how to fix it so it's it's going to be a very long process okay so question number two as I follow the plant paradox diet my personal concern is that for some reason there's foods not on the the no list that still trigger my autoimmune response personally I've got caffeine thing is something and then bulbs like garlic and onions I'm just wondering um what your experience is with with people who have that and what might cause it yeah so um in recent years particularly some of my troublemakers about 90% of people with autoimmune disease uh go into remission on the plant paradox just straight out of the book the S and no foods but about 10% of my patients despite being perfect swearing that they never cheat still have markers of autoimmune or leaky gut and we can measure these markers in those people starting a few years ago and we did a much more bigger in-depth look at food sensitivities not food allergies that's a totally different subject but food sensitivities and many times a lot of these foods that most people can tolerate were triggers and garlic and onions for instance often come up sweet potatoes and cassava certain people react to and the good news is I think the more you get the major triggers out of your diet then you can actually become a very finely tuned consumer and then you go okay uh you know now I notice that for instance caffeine is a trigger for me I wouldn't never notice it because there were so many other things in in the mix but now you know oh you know now when I introduce this there it is so I think the benefit for most people is you become for like it like it or not exquisitely sensitive to certain things now personally try pressure cooking your garlic and onions and you know get back to me that usually diffuses them for the most part oh that's interesting okay I'll definitely do that okay um okay so um by the way I enjoy your podcast and I like the sort of variety of guests that you have on um with some of the different treatments that are out there we have energy tapping Chinese medicine cold therapy like the ice man um I'm just wondering do we know that that autoimmune always starts in your stomach I know there's external factors talked about like stress and and trauma and I'm just wondering I don't know if that's connected to does it mean that there's other ways to treat it other than than with your diet yeah I mean there's there's certainly lots of triggers most of these triggers actually trigger leaky gut there's more and more evidence that viral infections may be one of the real underlying triggers of the start of leaky gut COVID has certainly brought that out COVID actually is a really good cause of leaky gut and I'm convinced and others are beginning to get convinced that the long-haul syndrome of COVID is persistent leaky gut that started with COVID causing leaky gut and we'll we'll we'll see certainly a lot of my autoimmune patients can point to a cold or the flu that or a GI food poisoning was the start of their autoimmune disease certainly my experience has been that once we seal leaky gut and we can measure it once we seal it the vast majority over 95 percent of autoimmune diseases subside go away now can you flare it quickly yes I've I've done that on myself and I've written about that you you always have to have your guard up let's put it that way are you yeah yeah interesting the iceman and Chinese medicine tapping my next book is which I'm just finishing up goes into how all these various modalities may play through a common factor but if I told you what it is now I'd have to kill you okay fair enough I won't take that one but that's a teaser for the next book folks all right well Jesse I'll tell you I'll say your name one more time but I know you're the sensitive vegan all right how do they find you where's the cooking channel what what name do they use I bet you it's sensitive vegan yeah just don't forget to put the capital the on there so the sensitive vegan on YouTube please and thank you please uh please subscribe please like please comment I want to hear from you uh check out my instagram too uh there's at least links to the recipes in there if they aren't in them themselves and a lot of cool photos so check out the sensitive vegan on YouTube and Instagram for a start uh Facebook also uh and I appreciate that uh what's next for you any exciting projects that's tricky well I've got my backyard garden project going at the moment and if you check out the channel it's a lot of chainsaws it's a lot of building a garden uh I have a plant paradox garden that I'm that I'm currently growing it's coming along nicely and I've learned that I really like chainsaws so I'm uh I've been using them frequently and the next video is going to be a serious chainsaw video and a very dangerous video actually I can see a whole new YouTube channel the chainsaw vegan and if you use that I want full credit okay no all right we'll see we'll see sensitive vegan so great to have you please folks check out his YouTube videos and Instagram believe me you need to be entertained particularly with what we've been through the last year and a half and the guy's great I mean it and you know I don't uh give praise lightly so get to his YouTube channel and you'll thoroughly enjoy it all right thanks very much good luck thanks Dr. Gundry and keep entertaining us okay you got it all right now it's time for the review of the week this week's review comes from Melissa Arnotovic sorry I probably fractured it on YouTube who says everything that Dr. Gundry recommends in terms of nutrition and foods to eat has benefited my life and has the opportunity to benefit yours I was already a healthy eater yet Dr. Gundry's teachings expanded my awareness further I have been following the plant paradox for a year and every day I wake up full of energy and my physical and intellectual health are soaring also the food tastes great your taste buds will change as you adjust so if you're just starting out keep it up it's worth it thank you Dr. Gundry for everything you do and I will continue to support your messages and share them well thank you very much Melissa you know that's kind of been the subject of this actually entire podcast you will notice changes and initially you may have to work at it a little bit but literally sometimes within days you notice changes sometimes it may take weeks but the longer you keep at this this is this is not a diet this is a lifestyle and Melissa it's notes from you that keep me doing this and please if you're if you're listening and you like what you hear and you're watching give us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your reviews because we're going to get this message out to the world with your help so thank you again because I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you we'll see you next week 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