Chipotle, E-coli, and Eating Dirt
Replay & Transcript of Episode 7

Health Seekers Radio January 16, 2016

Phil:
The truth you deserve. It’s not always easy to find. What easy to find is advertising and marketing and promises. And everybody’s telling you need something. You need detox. You need diet. You need, need, need, need, need and the truth lies somewhere else. Are there things you need? Absolutely. But are they necessarily what the advertisers are telling you you need? I don’t think so. Matter of fact, I’m going to go farther. No. The answer is no. Would you agree, Dr. Pompa?

Dr. Pompa:
I would agree.

Phil:
Dr. Pompa, I want you to imagine a speck of dirt. Got it, a speck, just a speck of dirt?

Dr. Pompa:
Got it.

Phil:
A tiny little speck of dirt and the speck of dirt lives a very simple life. It just hangs out among other specks of dirt. They don’t do a whole lot. Every once in a while, they get rained on, and they dry out, and then a bug crawls across it every once in a while. Maybe moves it a little bit. Something with a whole lot of legs just walks across it. Sometimes the bug stops, sits on top of it for a minute, and that’s kind of the life of this speck of dirt. And the speck of dirt lives in a backyard, and let’s say this backyard is owned by a woman named Lucy. Okay?

So we got speck of dirt living its simple life in Lucy’s backyard. And Lucy has a daughter, and the daughter is 4. And the daughter says, “Mom, can we get a puppy?” And Lucy says, “All right,” and they go, and they get a puppy. Now the puppy is trained to poop and pee right in the vicinity of the speck of dirt, and every once in a while, it actually poops right on that speck of dirt. You with me?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I’m with you. I don’t know where you’re going with it, but I’m with you, I guess.

Phil:
I’ll tell you where I’m going. So Lucy starts listening to the radio and reading some articles, and she starts to learn about GMOs and all the bad stuff. So she decides she’s going to start her own organic garden. Not a bad idea, right?

Dr. Pompa:
Uh-huh.

Phil:
So she plants some peppers, and she plants some onions, and she plants cabbage, and she plants tomatoes. And she plants them right around that speck of dirt. And one day, Lucy’s outside, and there’s a tomato, and it just looks like something she should take a bite of. So she pulls that tomato off of the little tomato plant and drops it right on the speck of dirt; the speck of dirt that has had bugs on it and around it. That has been pooped on and peed on. The tomato falls on top of that speck of dirt, and when she picks up the tomato, the speck of dirt comes with it. And for the moment, the speck of dirt’s going, whoa, I’m escaping. It doesn’t realize Lucy’s about to eat. So she takes a bite out of that tomato, and she eats the speck of dirt. What happens to Lucy or to her daughter?

Dr. Pompa:
It depends on your perspective.

Phil:
Well, what do you think? Is it a need to call 911? Is there a panic? Oh, my god, she ate a speck of dirt. Let me give you the real life opposite that I witness. Okay? I was in Panera, which is—there’s a Panera right near my house, so I go there frequently. What I love about Panera is the people. I mean, there’s just always conversations and stuff going on. But I get to watch people order their food, and eat their food, and make their choices that they sometimes think are healthy, and they’re not always healthy.

And there’s a little girl, and she’s with—I don’t know if it’s her older sister or her babysitter, and the mom is inside, and the mom orders. And there’s some bread. There’s a little bread bowl and some macaroni and cheese. And the girl comes in from outside with the babysitter or the sister ready to eat, and the mom goes, “Oh, my god, look at your hands. What were you doing? Playing in the dirt?” And she reaches in her purse and pulls out a wipe.

Dr. Pompa:
Ahh.

Phil:
And she wipes her hand. Now she takes the wipe, crumples it up, puts it on the table, grabs another one, and wipes her hands again. Now you’d think she’d be done, but she’s not done. Now she pulls out the little—what do you call the liquid, the lotion, the disinfectant?

Dr. Pompa:
Hand sanitizer.

Phil:
Hand Sanitizer.

Dr. Pompa:
Oh, gosh.

Phil:
And then she rubs it all over her hands. Okay, so now we have two opposite scenarios, right? We have the little girl who ate the dirt, and we have the girl who didn’t eat the dirt. And here’s the weird question that you’re going to answer.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Phil:
Who is more likely to be healthy if that’s typical of the way they live their lives?

Dr. Pompa:
Now remember, I said it’s all about your perspective, right?

Phil:
Right.

Dr. Pompa:
I mean, the girl that ate the dirt actually was blessed with a little particle of vitamin, if you will, of health. The little girl who took the hand sanitizer all over her hands, I was cringing as I heard it. I have battled schools and churches because of hand sanitizers. So, obviously, I think the girl who was blessed with the particle of dirt is the one who is healthier. The hand sanitizer containing all the chemicals killing the good bacteria, which we call the microbiome, was the one who was the most insulted, I guess, or assaulted by her mother. I’m not sure. But, yeah, so my perspective I’m sure is different than most people listening, Phil.

Phil:
I see a lot of people on airplanes now wearing the masks. Not like a Bart Simpson mask. I mean, they wear like…

Dr. Pompa:
Is it mostly Americans though? I mean, I see that, but it’s typically not Americans. At least from what I see.

Phil:
I see it more and more. I mean, as I travel more and more. And at first, I used to think like, oh, maybe these people are sick, but they don’t seem sick, most of them. They just—they put it on because they don’t want to breathe the airplane air.

Dr. Pompa:
And I see those people, and I go by and go achoo. That’s typically what I do.

Phil:
They don’t like you. They don’t like you at all.

Dr. Pompa:
No. Well, because then I can see, you know? Let’s see why—their response.

Phil:
Here’s what “they” say. They say that we live in a toxic world, and I think sometimes what they do is “they” mix lies with the truth, right? So some of the things they say are honest, and then they throw a lie in there. They throw a curve ball. So do we live in a toxic world? Absolutely we do, right?

Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm.

Phil:
There are more toxins today than ever in history. And we’re breathing them in, and we’re putting them on our skin, and they are, in fact, in our foods. But I think people are misdirected as to what they have to avoid. Now I’m not saying airplane air is safe. It certainly is not. And I’m not saying we should all sit in our backyard, and just dig scoops of dirt, and eat it. But I am saying that until people really understand where optimal health comes from, they’re going to be victimized by advertisers, and sellers, and marketers, and people who want to tell them false truths or mixed truths to get them to behave a certain way. And that’s why it’s good we’re here to share a little reality. So you said something about the good bacteria. Why is it a good idea to let your kids play in the dirt and sometimes eat it?

Dr. Pompa:
Look, they said years ago that—matter of fact, there was a name for it. Basically, the—I used to call it the cleanly hypothesis. But really, it was known as the hygiene theory where we wanted to kill every bacteria. I think somewhere after the World War II it became very popular to try to kill all bacteria. Fast forward now until this time, and we know something known as the microbiome, which means these bacteria that exists on us and in us that has this amazing balance. And matter of fact, we’re finding out every day—literally, studies come across my Google alerts all the time just how—what they discovered about this microbiome. How it interacts with our immune system. How our brain works. How we need this microbiome that we’ve been trying to kill since the antibiotics were the—going to be the answer for every health problem. So what’s changed? I guess knowledge.

Phil:
Knowledge, and the environment, and the food, and this is where it gets really confusing. Because there’s no question people want to be healthy. When you look at the organic foods industry, I mean, it probably more than doubles every three years in terms of volume because more and more people want it. And now they sell it in Target, and they sell it in Walmart. So organic food is accessible but it’s—still, I just think until people really understand how to make the best health choices, they’re going to be manipulated and confused. That brings up a restaurant chain that I happen to love, Chipotle.

Dr. Pompa:
My kids love it more.

Phil:
Yeah, and I want to talk about what’s going on there because, again, people might not fully understand. When we come back, Health Seekers Radio will be back right after this.

Phil:
We’re talking about getting healthier. We’re talking about eating better. We’re talking about living a life that is supportive of the best you, and we’re also talking about how confused people are in hopes of un-confusing them, in hopes of un-confusing you. And we started out by speaking about how a child eating dirt is not necessarily the worst thing in the world. As a matter of fact, it may be better from a health perspective than the paranoia about germs. And right before we went to break, I said where this is going to lead us into a discussion about a restaurant that I love, and Dr. Pompa said his kids love more. And it is Chipotle Mexican Grill, and they’ve been in the news.

And I’ll tell you this. I looked at Chipotle’s stock months ago, and I thought, wow, I missed the boat on this one. I should’ve bought this stock because it was up high. And what’s interesting is they went a route that not a lot of restaurants have done successfully, and that is they took a stand and said we’re not going to serve genetically modified foods. We’re going to deliver food to the best of our ability the way food is supposed to be. And I’m going to say this. When you deliver food the way food is supposed to be, it’s sort of dirtier. I mean, if you think about food growing, if you think about plants growing outside, they’re growing in dirt, right? So it’s a little bit dirtier. And if you take foods, and you protect them, and you package them, and you process them, and you get rid of all of the naturally present bacteria and germs and bugs, and you replace it with what we can now call Frankenfood, something that has no resemblance to anything in nature, we clearly move away from health.

So I think we have to applaud Chipotle for taking a stand, but even more so, we have to be happy that people recognize the virtue of this and started to buy stock in the company. And when I go to Chipotle, and there are two in particular near my house that I go to, there’s always a line. I’ve never walked in that there isn’t a line, and they also do a very good job of moving people through that line. So the food is good. The food is as healthy as you’re going to get in a fast food restaurant. Dan, you can embellish or contradict anything I’m saying. Because I know I’m on a little bit of a soapbox here.

But what’s happened lately is E.coli, and man, nothing destroys business more than E.coli. So some patrons found themselves with E.coli. It’s scary. It’s dangerous. It made them very sick. And the Centers for Disease Control got involved, and Chipotle, whose stock was soaring, dropped about 40%. And you look at that, and you go, okay, this is the beginning of the end, right? This is a plummet. I believe they’re going to recover, but I want to talk about how difficult it is to take that stand in a world where everything’s working against you. So Dr. Pompa, what was your impression when you first heard that Chipotle is going non-GMO? Because I didn’t know it was possible to do that, make money, and survive in the fast food marketplace.

Dr. Pompa:
Well, I was actually one of the people who actually wrote the president. I wrote one person who connected me to another person. He actually wrote me back, and I was very impressed. This was at the time I was angry that they weren’t GMO-free because of their stance that they take, right? And I actually had researched a lot of their products, and found that many of them had GMO. So, of course, I was thrilled.

Matter of fact, his response to me then was, hey, I’m—we’re—I agree with you, and I’m doing the best I can right now. I just can’t get enough product that’s not GMO. And so it was about a year later, maybe a little more, that he wrote—literally, contacted and said, hey, we have some things. We’re working on some things. I mean, that was pretty impressive. And then, sure enough, probably three months after that, they went GMO-free, so I was the happiest guy in the world.

Phil:
So how do you feel about what’s going on now? Let me ask you this question first. Did it deter you?

Dr. Pompa:
No. When? When? Before GM…

Phil:
Now.

Dr. Pompa:
Oh, now.

Phil:
No, no, now, when you heard about the E.coli.

Dr. Pompa:
Not at all. Not at all. Yeah, my kids still go all the time.

Phil:
Can you explain why because that flies in the face of conventional belief? E.coli sends a panic, and all of a sudden, they go, oh, people are dying from Chipotle, right?

Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm.

Phil:
And that becomes the word on the street. Now, I still see the line. I do. When I go there, anecdotally, I go it doesn’t look like their business is suffering, but when you look at their stock prices and you look at their revenues, clearly, it has had a—taken a hit.

Dr. Pompa:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’m sure. I’m sure most people are afraid. Again, knowledge changes your perspective. Look, there’s way more than the—I mean, how many people were infected? Do you recall?

Phil:
Fifty-three.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay. Well, you know how many more people were exposed to that E.coli, thousands?

Phil:
I’ve been—I have probably been in a Chipotle where there were 53 people in the restaurant at the time, in one restaurant during one hour in time.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. So look, the bottom line is thousands and thousands ate from the same things. Whether it was the lettuce or whatever had the E.coli, why didn’t they get sick? Obviously, there’s another factor. The factor is what we—what I said at the top of the show. It’s a microbiome, which is your set of bacterias. Is it good? Is it bad? People with a stronger healthier microbiome, more diverse, have a better immunity, and so E.coli gets beat up. It gets beat down. So once again, it’s more about the opportunistic bacterias that we’re exposed to and the strength of our immune system.

Phil:
I haven’t done this. I haven’t researched it, but I would really be curious because you raise a good point. Fifty-three people out of how many, how many customers? I wonder if you looked at the mainstream fast food restaurants, if you looked at the people who had claimed food poisoning or anything, what the numbers would be. And you have to believe at some level that because Chipotle took a stand, they’re being held, perhaps, to a different standard. I mean, really? It’s only 53 people.

Now the other thing is we don’t know how that E.coli bug actually made it onto the food and into somebody’s digestive track, and I think a part of the challenge is if you’re really delivering fresh food, then more hands are going to touch the food, right? In other words, if something is put into a package in California and then shipped to the restaurant, it stays in the package until it’s put in the microwave, and then sliced open and put on a plate, not a lot of hands touch it.

But when you’re cutting up fresh cilantro, somebody’s hands are going to be on that. So where did it come from? Did it come from poor hygienic practices in the restaurant, or was it perhaps an individual who touched something on his hands, didn’t wear gloves? We don’t know. But when you look at the number—I would like to do that. I would like to explore. Typical fast food restaurants, what is the number of people who get sick in a year? Because my guess is it is far more than 53. Wouldn’t you think so?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah, there’s no doubt about it. There’s actually suspicion that it was an inside job. That someone actually put it there. Now I don’t know if that’s true or not. However, you’re right. I mean, how did it get there?

But I know this. A lot more people were exposed than the ones that got sick, and folks, it’s not so easy. You don’t just get E.coli, swallow E.coli, and get sick. It’s just—it just doesn’t work that way. But the average person, Phil, does think it works that way, so therefore, they think, God forbid I get exposed to that at any level, and then they’re doomed. It’s not true.

Phil:
So what I’d like to do on today’s show is give people some guidance. Because think of the person who said I want to eat healthier this year, right? I want to do better. I want to take better care of myself. So I’m going to switch from the regular fast food restaurants to Chipotle, right? And by the way, it taste good. So they start going there, and now they here this, and they go, oh, can’t go there anymore.

And I think that’s representative of what happens when people make decisions without a full understanding. Because they’ll say I’m going to try this, and then they hear something, that’s bad, and they go, oh, okay, let me try something else. So when we come back, can you give them some guidelines and tips so they can eat better in a world where it’s more difficult than ever?

Dr. Pompa:
Only—did you buy stock in Chipotle lately, recently?

Phil:
I did not.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay, yeah, then we’ll give the tips then.

Phil:
We’ll be back after this.

Phil:
How do you eat healthy? It’s an important question. Everybody wants to eat healthier, but people are very confused as to how, and that’s what we’ve been talking about. And Dr. Pompa, before we went on that break, I said I really wish—because we were talking about Chipotle, and how 53 people were infected by E.coli. And all of a sudden, the company took a major hit and they were criticized. When, in reality, they’re the only fast food chain that’s on a large scale, that I know of, that has really made a commitment to serving non-GMO food, which we know has to be healthier, and we’re looking at an isolated instance, 53 people got sick. I ask the question. I wonder how many people get sick from the main, the most popular fast food restaurants, and just in that—over that break, I started researching it, and it’s unbelievable.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Phil:
I mean, I can prepare this for a future show. But right here, McDonald’s class action lawsuit filed after over 1,000 exposed to Hepatitis A. This is one of probably 25 that I just found on Google. Class action lawsuits and it goes on and on and on. How come we didn’t hear about that one?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, right.

Phil:
And this is recent, by the way. This is November 2015 so over a thousand exposed to Hepatitis A. Why did Chipotle get singled out? Again, maybe there’s some conspiracy theory discussion here, but the reality is, before people just make random kneejerk decisions, they have to better understand. So before the break I asked if when we come back you can give people some guidelines because they do want to eat healthier. They just don’t understand what it means, and a lot of what we’ve spoken about before, they’ve always said butter is bad. Now they hear butter is good. At one time, margarine was the way to go, and now margarine is the enemy, it’s hydrogenated.

So it’s very difficult for people because these kneejerk reactions are the only outcome when we have such a reactive media that suddenly goes, oh, this thing you thought was good now is bad. So I think people really need a foundation of understanding. Because things don’t change that quickly, right? Something doesn’t go overnight from being good to being bad.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Phil:
So let’s start with some real simple guidelines. What can people do just to find the peace of mind to know they’re making some better food choices? Because I’ll conclude with this; it’s really hard. It’s really hard to eat healthfully all of the time if you live in 21st century America, and do not grow or catch your own food. It’s really hard. The question is, is it worth it? So let’s talk about some steps you can take.

Dr. Pompa:
Well, step one, do a 180 degrees opposite of everything you hear in the media, watching TV, magazines, newspapers, whatever it is, about health. Just simply do the opposite. So when they tell you to make sure all the dirt is off your food, 180 degrees opposite would maybe we need a little bit of dirt. According to today’s topic, we do. But, yeah, Phil, I mean, honestly, we joke about the 180 degree thing, but it is true. I mean, one of the first things that I tell people is, hey, look, just look at how many times people are eating in a day. Just eat three meals a day. That’s a simple thing. Because people are just used to having to eat, eat, eat, eat all the time. I mean, there’s a simple thing.

But I think, Phil, that when we look at the packages in the ingredient list, one thing that I said here years ago is “if you can’t read it, don’t eat it.” You look at these chemicals in the food. I mean, come on. We don’t have to be eating organic even to be making better choices. When you see that long list of ingredients, Phil, chances are there’s bad stuff in there, right? Chances are there’s more chemicals and pesticides, herbicides that you’re going to get in an average day just eating un—non-organic fruits and vegetables. So avoiding these big long ingredient lists with fancy words that you can’t read. Just change it.

Phil:
And people are reactive. So when they hear high-fructose corn syrup is bad, without understanding fructose, again, they react, and they go, oh, okay, that’s a terrible thing if it’s on a label. They put it back. They hear trans fats are bad, hydrogenated fats are bad. So they start to recognize certain words, but you make a good point. Because there are many words that they’re not going to understand and sometimes it’s tricky. Sodium acid pyrophosphate, right, now if you know something about nutrition, if you learned, you’re going to go, oh, that’s salt, right, sodium. You see the word sodium. But what is sodium acid pyrophosphate? Well, I will tell you this. It’s in fast food fries.

Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm.

Phil:
Do you remember, I don’t know when it was, but they had a study where they took McDonald’s French fries, I believe, and some other company’s French fries. And they put them in these mason jars for four years, and the McDonald’s fries looked exactly the same.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Hey, listen, no, I had a patient who had a McDonald’s hamburger that he had for seven years. He brought it up on stage. I gave a lecture years ago, and he was nice enough to bring it in, and there it was. I mean, it looked like a day-old burger. I’m telling you, Phil, it didn’t have mold on it. How could it not have mold? It looked like a day-old burger. I mean, if that would—that can—all the words that I said when I would lecture to people about eating fast food did nothing. But when they saw that, Phil, that was it. They didn’t—I promise you. They stopped eating. At least for a period of time, they stopped eating fast food. Hopefully, some of them stopped completely.

Phil:
Can I tell you…

Dr. Pompa:
That’s how many chemicals, I mean, right?

Phil:
Yeah, Can I tell you what sodium acid pyrophosphate really is? My suspicion is, because I don’t know for sure, but I think it has something to do with the preservation of the food, kind of fossilizing it.

Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm.

Phil:
And also the color, because when it is unnatural, it doesn’t look like the way it is in nature. So sometimes they have to use science to color it correctly.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Phil:
But when you look it up, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, sodium acid pyrophosphate reduces the levels of the carcinogen acrylamide in French fries. Okay, so we look at that, and we go, oh, oh, it’s a good thing. Because there’s apparently this cancer causing substance that would be present in French fries, and now they put in this sodium stuff so that we don’t get cancer from it.

Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm, yeah. I mean, it’s a—it sounds like a great idea. It sounds like a good…

Phil:
I found another reference for it, and this is by the National Institute of Cancer. And I see found that the levels of acrylamide in foods posing major concern. The NIC considers sodium acid pyrophosphate to be a questionable substance, a probable human carcinogen.

Dr. Pompa:
Probable.

Phil:
Yeah. So let’s understand this. They’re saying we’re putting this in so you don’t get cancer, but the thing that we’re putting in might give you cancer.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Phil:
So the science eludes people. The reality eludes people, and they’re buying food that looks to them pretty. So you’re saying read the labels, and if you see ingredients that you don’t recognize, don’t eat it.

Dr. Pompa:
Can’t read it, don’t eat it. Can’t read it, don’t eat it. Well, let’s give people another one. How about this? How about an oil change? Exchange the oils that you’re eating, you and your family. I’ll give you one simple one. Because, again, I’m not—in a book I’ve called “The Cellular Healing Diet” that I wrote, I gave a whole list of oils and fats that are good, fats that are bad because it gets very confusing. These you can heat. These you can’t, right, because you can damage oils when you heat them. But look, even when you go to a healthy place to eat, whether it be Whole Foods or some healthy store, you still have to be aware of one fat that you could easily exchange out of your diet, vegetable oils. It sounds healthy. Doesn’t it, Phil?

Phil:
Yeah.

Dr. Pompa:
Vegetable oil, sounds really healthy, actually. I mean, these are oils that come from vegetables, and isn’t everybody telling us to eat more vegetables? So surely, the oil is good. Well, the problem is is vegetable oils are a polyunsaturated fatty acid, and I don’t care that you know that. But know this. That it’s very unstable, meaning that it goes rancid. So Phil, years ago, I think that even all of our listeners would say, oh, yeah, they know that trans fats are bad, right, and these fats are really bad, and they cause heart disease, cancer. I mean, all these things have been linked to them.

So yeah, of course, we can sell product by saying, hey, this is trans-fat-free. But what about these vegetable oils because, really, they’re just as bad? I mean, they do the same thing that trans fats do in the body. They stick to your cells, gunk it up, cause all kinds of problems: hormone problems, heart disease, inflammation. I mean, everything we know that is bad. Vegetable oils, there’s studies showing that it is, but it’s in everything. Folks, get it out of your food. Don’t eat vegetable oils.

Canola oil, oh, my gosh, it’s a horrible—it’s rapeseed oil. It’s a bad one. So just get rid of vegetable oils. Exchange them. Buy products without them, and you’re going to do better.

Phil:
Can’t read it, don’t eat it. Get an oil change, and we’ve got more when we come back, Phil Kaplan, Dr. Daniel Pompa, Health Seekers Radio. 

Phil:
Hey, welcome back. Time has flown as it always does in this hour. This is Phil Kaplan being joined by my good friend, Dr. Daniel Pompa. Helping to shed some light on how you live healthier in a world that is at some level working against you, and we’ve been talking about food. And I just—I want to clarify something. Because on the last break, and Dr. Pompa and I were talking a little bit and going back and forth, and the number of shows we could do about all of the deception and all the confusion. And I was researching something because I’d pulled this up by accident. And I was talking about what they abbreviate as SAPP, sodium acid pyrophosphate, and I did find something that said it’s dangerous, and I referenced that earlier.

But now I’m looking at the number of articles debating whether it is safe or whether it is dangerous, and here is really what is known to be a carcinogen. The acrylamide, and I’m not sure if I’m saying that correctly, that is found in fast food French fries is proven to be a carcinogen. So there’s over—there’s a lot of agreement here that this is dangerous. So the sodium compound SAPP is supposed to protect us from it. But is it in itself dangerous? And that’s the debate. So even in areas like this when you say if you can’t read it, don’t eat it. If you can read it and you research it, you still don’t know.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s right. That’s why you just don’t eat it.

Phil:
You don’t eat it. And also, if they’re putting in something, even if it is in fact safe or generally regarded as safe, if they’re putting it in a food to nullify something that is dangerous in that food, maybe we’re better off not eating that food, right?

Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm.

Phil:
All right, so we were sharing some tips, and one was can’t read it, don’t eat it. The other was oil change. Take it from there, Dr. Pompa.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. How about exchange your grains. I mean, hey, look, there’s a lot about—out there about gluten, and look, we talked about it on a past show. The gluten fad, what is it? Is it real? Look, gluten is absolutely something that can be very toxic for some people. These people that have leaky guts, that means that you eat and things cross right across your gut into your bloodstream. Making antibodies and making you feel bad, even hours later, sometimes delayed even up to a day.

So how do you know if you’re gluten sensitive? Well, take it out of your diet, and see how you feel. But if you’re one of these people with leaky gut, typically, the leaky gut’s caused, according to Stephanie Seneff, leading scientist at MIT, says that the glyphosate, it’s the chemical that’s sprayed on almost all the food we’re eating. Especially grain, by the way, opens up the gut, causes leaky gut, and then we eat the gluten, and the gluten becomes the problem. So what came first, Phil, the chicken or the egg?

Phil:
The chicken.

Dr. Pompa:
You always say the chicken.

Phil:
The chicken.

Dr. Pompa:
I know. You love the chicken. You always say it’s first. So that would be the glyphosate came first, the spray, causes the—opens up the leaky gut and the gluten becomes a part of it. But look, they say there’s estimates that 95% of America has leaky gut. So that means getting rid of these glutinous grains could be a good thing. But there’s a lot of other problems with grains, and I just said it; that they’re sprayed. They’re loaded up now, even before harvest, with this chemical called glyphosate that causes leaky gut.

So look, exchange your grains. Just eat organic grains. They’re a lot—they’re not as expensive as the organic fruits and vegetables, so you can just make that change. You’re going to limit more of the chemicals you eat by eliminating grains, exchanging them for organic grains. And you could exchange them for non-gluten grains if you don’t know, right? Things—there’s—you just go on the internet. Because people are going to ask what grains are glutinous? Just say what grains have gluten? Simple as that, folks, there’s Google these days.

So exchange your grains. Go organic. Exchange your grains. You don’t have to eat gluten because it may be causing an allergy, driving autoimmune. How you feel. Your headaches, whatever it is. So there you go, simple. Listen, Phil, I’ve taken—when I was sick, you know that I had my battle for years. I took all grains out of my diet, and by the way, folks, that is something that many people have to do just to downregulate inflammation but, look, just start by making those couple exchanges, pretty simple.

Phil:
Yeah, what is this sudden popularity of farro wheat?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it’s interesting because it’s a great point. Because you say, well, wait a minute. Wheat has gluten. It sure does, but see, in the 1970s—and I spoke a little bit about this on another show. There was a guy named Norman Borlaug who won a Nobel Prize for developing something called dwarf wheat. He took farro grain and these ancient wheats, and he made a grain that resists environmental pressure, drought, etc., winds, easier to harvest, fed more of the world population. Sounds like he deserved his Nobel Prize, but poor old Norman, he developed a gluten strain really wasn’t recognizable by the human body, aka modern wheat. So that happened in the 1970s.

So Phil, we grew up on a different wheat. So the wheat today, most of it in this country, if not all, unless you buy farro wheat or einkorn is another ancient wheat, they have gluten, but they’re not this denatured gluten. When he hybridized, is what it’s called, regular wheat into dwarf wheat, it has this gluten that our bodies don’t recognize. So once again, is gluten the problem or is it what man has done to it? And Phil, that’s another thing I always say. I say, look, hey, if you can’t read it, don’t eat it. But what about when we look at things that man has altered? So if man has altered it, don’t eat it either. So typically, if man’s touched it or changed it, it’s bad. So going to an ancient grain, farro is better than eating the standard wheat today, which is what good old Norman developed.

Phil:
I think we probably have time for one more, one more tip, and…

Dr. Pompa:
Well, go ahead.

Phil:
I’m asking you. Because I know you have hundreds.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Phil:
Because when we do seminars, I mean, you just keep one after the other. And I want to leave listeners with enough because it’s not just about avoiding. It’s what you choose, right?

Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm.

Phil:
I mean, if you just make the list of what’s bad, you’re left with nothing to eat, unless somebody tells you how to make better choices. So I think that you’ve given three really good ones. Let’s get one more.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah.

Phil: So off or your list, what’s the one that is most important for people to understand that’s left? Other than the three you shared.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think exchanging your sugars. I think it’s a real easy thing to do. I mean, I—look, sugar is sugar. Your blood’s glucose is going to rise whether you eat honey, or whether you eat molasses, or whether you eat maple syrup, or good old white sugar. It still will raise glucose and there’s, obviously, problems with that potentially, right? But there are better choices. I mean, honey does have some—there is some minerals there. There are some other benefits there, and it’s—you tend to eat less honey.

Okay, so I would argue that that could be better. But what about even something that doesn’t raise glucose? What if you just took sugar out of your diet and used Stevia? Listen, I know. I know. You don’t like the bitter taste. It tastes different. It doesn’t taste like your sugar. Yeah, I know.

Everybody said that with all the replacements like saccharine and all the artificial stuff, NutraSweet. Yeah, it has that taste. We don’t like it, but they ended up liking it eventually. Well, it is addictive, so that’s another story. However, what about Stevia? What if you just kept—guess what? My family, my kids, when they eat regular sugar, they don’t like it. They like the Stevia because there’s a certain taste that their brain likes now. You get used to it, folks. If you just get some good Stevia extract, and you can buy it everywhere now, your taste buds will like it more. Just give it some time.

But if you just took out your—these sugars and replaced it with Stevia, gosh, your blood sugar lowers. I mean, a simple thing, really, a really simple thing that you can do for you and your family that will make a massive difference in your health. And stay away from the corn syrups because those are worse than regular sugar. They are loaded with mercury, actually, and studies show they actually cause something called fatty liver, Phil. Can you believe this? Kids today have fatty liver because the amount of fructose they’re taking in, because of the amount of corn syrup they’re taking in. So literally, we have non-alcoholic fatty liver in kids today. First time in the history of man we see this.

This didn’t happen when we were kids, Phil. Why? It’s linked to fructose. Fructose is alcohol without the buzz. That’s what it is. So of course, we can eat some fructose in our diet, but kids today, in everything, every drink, Phil. Look at all the things they drink. If you look at all the vitamin things and what are all these drinks, Phil? Name some.

Phil:
Dr. Pompa, This is a really good example because fructose is not inherently bad.

Dr. Pompa:
It’s not.

Phil:
And we spoke about this on a prior show.

Dr. Pompa:
It’s not.

Phil:
But the volume of fructose that overwhelms the liver because it is beyond what the human being is designed to process, that’s where the problem comes in.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s right. Fructose can only be processed in the liver. Just like alcohol. I said it’s alcohol without the buzz. That’s why it causes fatty liver. Just like drinking alcohol. And again, Phil, you’re right. A little bit of alcohol, it’s not so bad. Studies show that. A little bit of fructose. Not so bad. Studies show that. Eat an apple. Eat a banana. There’s fructose. Fructose, there’s a lot in fruit. However, drink a glass of juice, the vitamin water, the Bull. I don’t even know the names of these things. My kids don’t drink them. But whatever they are, they contain fructose and all the fructose. Kids today, I don’t know the number, Phil. Google it, but it’s a hundredfold today what kids are drinking fructose. No wonder they’re getting fatty liver.

Phil:
Man, I got so much I want to share, and I know you do too, and we’re out of time, which means we’ll be back next week with more. Helping you understand how to be fit, how to be lean, how to be healthy, how to make better choices. Dr. Pompa, love you. Talk to you next week.

Dr. Pompa:
You got it.