The worlds leading voices on Holistic Health. Hes a graduate of harvard medical school. Hes also widely known for establishing the field of Integrative Medicine. If you dont know already thats the combination of the best tenets of conventional and alternative medicine to create a more holistic treatment plan for patients. Dr. Weil is the founder and director of the center for Integrative Medicine at the university of arizona. Hes authored 10 books that have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. One of the cornerstones of his philosophy on Better Health is diet. Hes recreated the food pyramid to emphasize antiinflammatory foods, including organic fruits and vegetables. Hes also a fan of seafood and healthy fats. Dr. Weil believes reducing chronic inflammation within the body can offset many health problems. I recently sat down with dr. Andrew weil in washington, d. C. To get his insights on the connection between food and Better Health and discuss his new role as a restaurateur. Let me. Let mestart off by saying, when i set out to get into my career, i wanted to be a broadcaster. Um, i dont think people generally wake up one morning and say, i want to be a guru, which is what youve become. How do you get from, you know, the kid to where youre sitting here today . Weil well, i think ive really followed my bliss and my truth. Uh, i was always a maverick. When i finished my medical studies, i knew that i hadnt learned how to keep people healthy. I thought there was more to medicine than what id been taught. And, uh, i began traveling around the world and meeting other kinds of practitioners and thinking, and gradually put together my own blend ofof medical theory and practice that i came to call Integrative Medicine. And i was just putting out what i thought was right. And, increasingly i got a following in the public. Mike talk to me about that because initially, um, youre just this thinker. Weil yup. Mike and you come up with this concept, but then you started to get like a parade of people that came forward and then the books and. Weil right, but interestingly for up through the first decades of my work, i had a larger and larger following in the general public, but none of my medical colleagues paid any attention to me. It was really only in the 1990s when the economics of health care began to sour that medical colleagues and institutions began to Pay Attention to what id been saying. And now, Integrative Medicine is really becoming a mainstream phenomenon. Mike but there was pushback then; theres still pushback weil theres still pushback and there probably always will be. But, clearly this is the way of the future. This is what people want. They want medicine thats costeffective, that emphasizes health and healing, that makes use of natural therapies, not just pharmaceutical drugs. And, um, i think whats really driving this movement now is economics because our Current Health care system is clearly not sustainable, and Integrative Medicine offers the promise of lowering costs while preserving or enhancing outcomes. Mike Integrative Medicine for those who arent familiar how would you describe weil the short answer is its the intelligent combination of conventional and alternative medicine, but its really much more than that. Its medicine thats focused on the bodys innate healing mechanisms, that looks at people as whole persons, not just physical bodies, that looks at all aspects of lifestyle, and therefore is really able to offer preventive advice, that values the practitionerpatient relationship, and then, you know, makes use of all available methods of managing disease. Mike breathing, uh, meditation. Weil breathing, dietary adjustment, exercise, uh. Taking advantage of the mindbody connection as well as conventional medicine. Integrative medicine does not reject conventional medicine. We build on that and enlarge it. Mike you were named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005. How did that change your life . [weil chuckles] weil uh, well, you know our society is very celebritydriven, and um. That cuts both ways in my life. My celebrity has really enabled me to do what i do in academic medicine. You know, i direct a center of excellence at the university of Arizona College of medicine, which trains physicians in Integrative Medicine. I dont think id have been able to do that if, you know, i had not had the, uh, celebrity that comes with things like that. Mike and then Television Appearances . Weil yeah. Mike so now when you go into the airport, people are like there he is. Weil yes, everybody watches what i eat, for example. Ha ha mike do you eat bad every once in a while . Weil im pretty good. You know, i pretty much follow what i preach. Mike well, speaking of eating were in an eating establishment. Um, its interesting you say you follow your bliss but somehow you followed into the restaurant business, which i suspect, it was not on your agenda early on. Howd that come about . Weil im a very good home cook. Uh, and over the years, many people who have eaten my food have said, you know, you ought to open a restaurant. I was smart enough to know that i knew nothing about the restaurant business, and it looked like a very tough business. So i was never tempted by that. But about 7, 8 years ago i was introduced to a very successful restaurateur, sam fox, in arizona, and i proposed to him the concept of a new kind of restaurant that would bring together the worlds of Good Nutrition and fine dining. He didnt get it. He said, health food doesnt sell. And i think he thought i meant tofu and sprouts. Uh so i invited him and his wife to my home. I cooked for them. He liked the food. His wheels began turning. And he said he was willing to try it, but he was very skeptical. So we opened this first one in phoenix about 6 years ago just as the economy tanked. Mike thats always good. Weil always good from the moment it opened its doors, it wasit was a stunning success. And sam initially said, well, cant tell anything about a new restaurant because everybodys going to come. But after 6 months, he said hed never seen anything like this, hed never had people come up on the street and hug him for opening a restaurant. Hed never had people from all over the country begging him to open one of these. Uh, hed never had a restaurant where people would come in and eat dinner 4 and 5 times a week, the same people. So i think weve hit on a really good concept that people like. And its been great fun for me. I do not have to do much on the business side. You know, i get to design menus and create recipes and oversee the food philosophy. And thats, for me, the fun part. Mike what about china or spreading outside the United States . Weil actually, weve had requests to open, um, these in canada, in china, in japan, uh in dubai, but i think for the moment, our focus is on the u. S. And, uh, you know, we want to get up to a certain number of restaurants here, but then i would be certainly open to looking into foreign markets. Mike lets talk about some of the stuff that you, uh, talk aboutchronic inflammation. Can you talk to us about what that is and what it can produce . Weil yeah. We all know inflammation on the surface of the body. Its local redness, heat, swelling, and pain in an area thats been injured or under attack. And inflammation is the cornerstone of the bodys healing response. Its how the body gets more nourishment and more immune activity to an area that needs it. But inflammation is so powerful. And its so potentially destructive that its very important that it stay where its supposed to stay and end when its supposed to end. If inflammation persists, if it serves no purpose, it becomes productive of disease. And it now looksand this is a relatively new idea in medicine, that chronic lowlevel imperceptible inflammation is the root cause of all of the major diseases of agingthings like cardiovascular disease alzheimers disease, even cancer. Um, and, therefore, containing inappropriate inflammation seems to be the best overall strategy for maximum longevity and health. There are a lot of influences on inflammation uh, genetics, stress, exposure to environmental toxins, but diet has a huge influence. And i think theres no question that the mainstream diet in north america favors inflammation. It gives us the wrong kinds of fats, the wrong kinds of carbohydrates, and not enough of the protective elements that are found mostly in fruits and vegetables and herbs and spices. So i designed about 10, 12 years ago an antiinflammatory diet. I based it on the mediterranean diet because we have very strong Scientific Evidence that thats the way of eating thats best correlated with overall General Health and longevity. But i tweaked that to make it more powerful by adding asian influences. Ive spent a lot of time in asia; im familiar with asian ingredients. Um, so ive come up with this antiinflammatory diet and antiinflammatory diet pyramid. And that really is the basis of the menu thats at true food kitchen. Mike uh, you had talked earlier about some of the criticism and we do have kind of a silobased medical profession where you might be in one silo and the others are. But one critic wrote this about you, and i want to get your thoughts on it. And im sure youve heard all the criticism, so this wont come as a surprise. He looks like an aging 1960s rock star. Hes quite charismatic. No physician that i can think of has over the course of his lifetime done more to promote the rise of quackamedic medicine. um, when they say quack or quackamedic, um, it has to sting, doesnt it . Weil no, because i know that what i do is right and based in Scientific Evidence. First of all, a great deal thats done in conventional medicine does not have a good Scientific Evidence base. Uh secondly, statements like that are really ignorant because a lot of, um, what is dismissed as quackery, in fact has very strong evidence. For instance, im trained as a botanist as well as a physician. And medical botany is one of my career interests. Theres an awful lot of good Scientific Evidence for the efficacy and safety of many plant medicines. And this is all dismissed, you know, in one sentence by people like this. I saw an article recently in which all of chinese medicine was equated with, uh crystal healing. Thats just ignorant. You know, that chinese medicine includes acupuncture, which has been validated for conditions like, um, back pain. And it also includes very sophisticated herbal treatments. Um, in many cases, these plants produce effects for which we dont have pharmaceutical drugs. Mike tell me about, uh, your thoughts on traditional chinese medicine because you just talked a little bit on it. Uh, there are a lot of people who are turning to that as welland for many of the reasons you just said. Weil its made great inroads in our culture, and i think its a mixture of ideas and practices that are sensible and some that arent. But ill tell you one aspect of chinese medical philosophy that i find very appealing. I have a colleague in new york uh, dr. Zhang, whos trained in china, has an m. D. A very smart man. And i had him out to arizona to lecture to our physicians. And he said that if he could summarize all of chinese medical philosophy in one sentence, it would be to dispel evil and support the good. Western medicines whole thrust is on dispelling evil. You know, we identify germs and develop weapons against germs. We do very little to support the good, which is the bodys natural Defense Mechanisms its natural resistance. So i think both of those approaches are necessary. And, uh, to me, an integration of that chinese and western philosophy produces the best medicine. Mike fruits and veggies. Youre a big proponent of those, but you also say you should take the supplements. If i get enough, why do i need them . Weil thats a good question. I mean, i think ideally, if youre eating a balanced diet every day, you should be able to cover all your nutritional bases. But, you know i grow a lot of my own food. Im a very careful shopper. I cook for myself. And i take a daily multivitamin, multimineral supplement because there are days, like two days ago when i traveled here from arizona when for one reason or another i dont eat the fruits and vegetables that i should be eating. So i think that these things can be useful as insurance against gaps in the diet. And some, like vitamin d um, i think have specific therapeutic or preventive effects that you really cant get enough from the diet. Mike how many marriages do you think youve impacted . Because i already pointed out to you my wife gets an email from you every day. Shes Walking Around in your shoes. Shes telling me how to live my life. Weil well, its interesting. You know, women really have been the leaders in this movement. Um, theyre the greatest readers of health magazines. Theyre the chief buyers of books on health. One interesting phenomenon is thatyou know, our Center Offers twoyear intensive fellowships to doctors who want to get up to speed in all the things they didnt learn in medical school. A lot of them have been sent there by their wives who read my books and told them they have to go. Mike will you send her a note one of these days saying im ok and im trying to stay good . Weil ha ha yeah. Mike um, if i were to, uh, go to the store and buy essentials, uh, and you were to make out my Shopping List for me, what should i have in my kitchen . Weil well, first of all, what you should not haveyou really want to try to not have refined, processed, and manufactured food. Thats really the source of all the trouble. Id say youd want to have good extra Virgin Olive Oil. You want to have a variety of herbs and spices. Certainly garlic, which is a nutritional powerhouse. Um, you want to have good quality produce. Um, im a great believer in eating greens of one sort or another, whether its kale or spinach or collards. I think these are very good to have. I think its good to have oily fish in the diet, which are sources of omega 3 fatty acids. And very inexpensive ones that you can get in any supermarket are sardines or. Or smoked kippers in cans. Theyre cheap. Theyre very good sources of omega3 fatty acids. Mike you like asian mushrooms, too . Weil i love asian mushrooms. Uh, you know this is everything shiitake maitake, enokis, oyster mushrooms. These have, uh, many unique medicinal properties. They lower cholesterol. They help our bodies fight infection, and they increase our defenses against cancer. Mike will you take us on a little tour of your kitchen . Weil sure. Mike all right. Thanks so much. Ok, so we transitioned into the kitchen, and its busy here. Its busy out here, i might add, as well. What are you going to make for us . Weil well, one of our Signature Dishes is tuscan kale salad. Mike sounds good. Weil uh, this is black kale. Its an italian heirloom variety. Mike wow. Weil easily gettable. So you remove the stalks on this. Its been chopped up. And now im going to put over this a dressing thats extra Virgin Olive Oil fresh lemon juice, salt, red pepper flakes, and garlic. Mike looks good. Weil now the secret of this salad is that the leaves have to sit in the dressing ideally for 30 minutes. And the salt and lemon juice soften the kale and take the bitterness out of it. If you just try to eat raw kale, its not so pleasant. [laughter] mike so you have to experiment to get to this stage, i guess. Weil yeah. So you want to theni would say normally let it sit now for 30 minutes. And then to this we put on a sprinkling of toasted breadcrumbs and some, uh grated parmesan. And thats our salad. But, you know, youyoure not going to like it so much right now because it hasnt. Well, ill give you some finished to try, but you can take a bite. Mike ill take a little shot at it. Youve already prepped me that it may not be the best thing. Let me ask you about, uh eating practices. I know you said mediterranean. You like that style. Weil yes. Mike um, the american style of diet, i mean, you just look aroundit seems everybodys obese. Weil well, the huge problem is that most people are eating great amounts of refined processed, and manufactured food. Thats the big change thats happened in our culture. Mike what about, uh moving from mediterranean any other, uh, healthy, uh, diet lifestyles . Weil well, im a big fan of asian cooking. Uh, i spent a lot of time in japan. I think japanese food is very healthy; chinese food, if its well prepared; vietnamese food, all of that. So you like it, even though it hasnt. . Mike i know you warned me but that tastes very, very good. Weil ok, good. Mike ill even go in for another bite. Hows that . Weil all right. Mike how often do you put this together . This isnt very complicated, is it . Weil its easy and its something that a home cook can do. And one of the other advantages of this is that itll keep. You can keep this for several days in the refrigerator, so you make a large quantity, and it remains good. Mike so i may take it with me. Weil yes please do. Mike let me put this back. Its been a delight. Weil a pleasure. Mike thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Well be back in just a moment. Its good stuff. When we come back, the hightech engineering of the perfect bite. Do you know whats really in some of your Favorite Foods . Mike sadly, the american obesity epidemic is spreading around the globe. Why . Because the socalled western diet is replacing traditional meals in many emerging nations. The average american eats 33 pounds of cheese and 70 pounds of sugar annually. They also take in twice the recommended daily allowance of salt. Indeed, everything is bigger in america. As full frame contributor Sandra Hughes found out, making healthy food choices requires consumers to decode what is really in their Favorite Foods. Sandra niki tehranchi started eatz l. A. Cooking courses to share her love for freshly made food with people who are not always comfortable in the kitchen. Niki how do you make a scrambled egg . A lot of people are like i dont even know how to fry an egg. Oh, my god. You know, i dont know how to do anything but open a bar or open a box of cereal. Take your knife. See how im protecting my thumb . Student mmhmm. Niki take your knife. When you get to the end, just lift off your hand and then do the mincing technique. All right . Sandra she starts with the basics, but has a greater goal in mind. Niki set up. Sandra niki wants her students to stop eating so much processed food. Niki if im helping people to learn how to cook, hopefully that will translate to them buying fresh ingredients and putting something together at home. You know, i hope im helping them not to microwave and go to that easy fix. Sandra 70 of the american diet is made up of processed foods, often packed with sugar fat, sodium, or all three. These students, who paid 100 each to learn to cook fresh food, confess theyre hooked on processed treats. Larry Peanut Butter chocolate, ice cream, cheese. Brenda cereal, ice cream phillip yeah, a bunch of junk food. Yeah. Brenda chips. Phillip yeah. Ha ha brenda probably 80 processed food, 20 fresh food. We dont cook a lot. [both chuckle] sandra but the chemical compounds that fill the Ingredient List on many of those processed favorites keeps cindy lee away. Cindy if we dont really understand what the name of the ingredient is, uh, for me personally, i wouldnt necessarily be inclined to purchase it. Sandra instead, she tries to shop for items with simple ingredients. Cindy um, i know im there looking atlike, comparing labels to see, well, how many grams or exactly what kind of whole grains are in there . So, you know, i really try to look at the labels to see what im getting. Sandra but niki worries that too many people dont Pay Attention to what is really in their food. Niki i dont think people look at labels. I think they look at the front of the package and it says you know, fat free or it says sugar free or organic or reduced fat, and then they dont even bother. Sandra nutritionists say the american processed food habit is a major cause of the nations obesity epidemic. The problem is literally at the center of any given Grocery Store, those middle aisles packed with processed items designed for taste and convenience. Experts say one way to steer toward a healthy diet is to shop the perimeter of the Grocery Store, starting in the produce department where you buy a rainbow of colorful fruits and vegetables, hitting fresh meats, ending in the dairy aisle, leaving very little room in your cart for processed and packaged foods. But in those Center Aisles more and more processed food makers are marketing their products with prominent labels that boast healthy benefits. Those claims leave many shoppers more confused than informed. Beth were going to start with whats new and good. Then were going to go into some challenges, and then. Sandra Holistic Health consultant beth woodard works oneonone with clients who want to make Healthy Eating a priority and hire her to help them cut through the confusion. Beth have you ever tried to read food labels . Client i have. Beth whats that been like for you . Client like reading a Foreign Language. Theres so many. Sandra a Foreign Language that beth can translate. Beth tripotassium phosphate. Do you even know what that is . Sandra couldnt pronounce it, no. Beth right. So a general rule of thumb that i stick to is if you cant understand it, your body cant understand it. Sandra beth advises her clients to stock their shelves with greens and lean proteins, drink a lemon water in the morning to give their system a shower, and stay away from genetically modified food. She doesnt shop in the processed food aisle, but we took her there. Sandra i know as a mom, cereal is a staple in pretty much every pantry. But can it be deceiving overall, cereal . Beth yes, it is. Its very brightly deceiving. You would think because of all of these vitamins it says that youre getting like vitamin a, vitamin ci mean, you dont even need a multivitamin it has in your cheerios. However, um, you can see its all synthetic vitamins, meaning itswhat you call enriched flour. Sandra so they add that later . Its not part of the cereal . Beth exactly. Sandra and what about the frozen lowfat dinners that advertise a healthy meal for under 400 calories . Sandra so this is another diet product. Um theyre saying 26 grams of protein, no sugar added, 330 calories, 5 carbs. Ok, im saying, im putting this in my cart. This sounds good. Beth right. So lets turn this around and look at the sodium. Thats 1,070 milligrams. Sandra wow beth of sodium in just your dinner. Sandra how many teaspoons do you think that would be, like, of salt . Beth i mean, im sure we can put that in jars. Like, im sure we can put that in. Sandra its just eating salt basically. Beth its just eating salt. Like, you might as well just eat salt with a little bit of your chicken. Sandra professor Michael Roberts studies International Food labeling practices at ucla law school. Roberts i always, uh, joke a bit by saying that a Consumer Needs to take to the Grocery Store with him a food scientist, a nutritionist, and a lawyer just to get through the label. Sandra professor roberts travels the world talking about food and the implications of eating processed and fast food. Roberts uh, so the western diet for better or for worse is being exported into other countries, uh, generally in the form of fastfood restaurants, oftentimes in, uh, mom and pop corner shops that now carry westernstyle soda, potato chips uh, a lot of sugar products. And these Food Products are becoming, unfortunately, staples, or increasingly important parts, of peoples diets. Niki and then what youre going to do with the bread is just cut it into oneinch cubes. Sandra but niki is still working at reversing that trend by offering one simple solution to solve the processed food puzzle. Niki so i think a processed food is a processed food is a processed food. At the end of the day, its still processed, which means its not as good for you as going and getting a real onion a real tomato, and brown rice and real chicken and cooking it yourself. Sandra it may seem like more work, but filling your diet with simple, Healthy Foods will make it worth cleaning your plate. For full frame, this is Sandra Hughes in los angeles. Mike michel moss is a New York Times bestselling author, investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner. His book, sugar, fat, salt how the food giants hooked us, takes readers inside the Food Industry to reveal how weve become addicted to and affected by processed food. Michael moss claims that food manufacturers are complicit in creating a Catastrophic Health crisis. How . Well, they spend billions to engineer the perfect balance of salt, sugar, and fat in every bite of our Favorite Foods, ensuring that well keep coming back for more and more. And more. I recently sat down with michael moss in new york city to discuss his findings and get his thoughts about the future of food. Michael, lets start by just talking about the family jewels. How did you find the family jewels, because the industry certainly knows about them . How did you get kind of on to this story and then what did you find that surprised you the most . Moss well, the whole book came about because i was lucky to come across a trove of documents that put me inside the Largest Food Companies as theyre formulating, marketing, selling their products. And it was in those documents that i came across this meeting, 1999, the heads of the Largest Food Companies in north america getting together for a very rare and private meeting. Normally, these guys are at each others throats for space in the Grocery Store, but they get together to talk about none other than the emerging obesity problem in this country the world. And theyre brought together by none other than these cabals of insiders in these companies who are growing alarmed and concerned about their culpability in that emerging epidemic. And its just a fascinating meeting because up before them stands not some whitecoated researcher or a Public Health advocate, but one of their own a senior official at the Largest Company of all, kraft, who stands up and hes armed with dozens of slides. And he lays at their feet responsibility in large part not just for obesity, not just for diabetes. He starts linking highly processed foods to several types of cancer, and he pleads with them to start turning the corner and make some attempts to make their products healthier. He sits down, and up stands one of the most powerful people in the room. He was the head of General Mills at the time, and he makes a couple of points. He says, look. Were already working to make our products healthier. Were adding grains. We have versions that are lowfat, lowsugar. If people want those, they are in the store. Were offering choice. But were alsoyou have to rememberbeholden to our shareholders. And there is no way we are going to put products out there unless they are designed to be sold and purchased and loved. And he referred to, according to people in the room, sort of theres no way were going to mess around with the company jewels, referring to that unholy trinity of salt, sugar, fat on which the processed Food Industry relies so much to make their products powerfully attractive. Mike as you were working on this, how did it change your diet and how did it change you as a shopper going to the store . Moss you know, i actually believe it or not, felt empowered by what i was learning from the food engineers. Just kind of listening to them describe their efforts to maximize, you know, using salt and talking about the flavor burst of salt and fat they described as the mouth feel, which its not even a taste. Its a sensation you get when you bite into, like a warm, toasted, melted cheese sandwich. You can tell im kind of a salt and fat guy because the Pleasure Center of my brain is lighting up just thinking about that. Or sugar, of course. Just listening to them talk about their efforts, i felt, was empowering because i can now walk into the Grocery Store, and its not this lala land of soft music or bright neon colors. I see battles going on in every one of these products on the shelfhow theyre perfectly designed and shaped and built to get us to buy them and put them in the cart. And, hey, if we cant resist overeating, so be it. So for me, the bookand i hope it is for readers, is empowering in that sense. Because ultimately, were the ones making the decision about what to buy, how much to eat. And thats a position of power that i hope we can we can use more often. Mike well, you mentioned perfectly designed. I mean its engineered in such a scientific, uh, degree. I mean, you were talking about sugar. Too much sugar, ew. Moss yeah. Mike but they hit the right note every time, dont they . Moss one of my favorite characters in the book is howard moskowitz, a legend in the industry, trained in experimental psychology at harvard. Invented many of the biggest icons in the Grocery Store. He walked me through his recent creation of a new soda flavor for dr pepper. And howard was the person who coined the term the bliss point for the perfect amount of sweetness in the product that would send us over the moon not too little, not too much. He started out with some 52 different versions of sweetness of the flavor, subjected those to his 3,000 consumer taste tests, took the data, threw it in his computer, did his high math regression analysis thing. And out comes these bellshaped curves where at the top of the curve is the optimum amount of sweetness. Again, not too little, not too much. And the bliss point is just such a perfect encapsulation of that feeling you get when you eat these products. Mike addictionuh, what does it do to our brain . Is it how would you compare it to cocaine . Moss you know, there is no word that the Food Industry hates more than the aword. I mean, they will argue left and right and up and down that you cant compare even the junkiest food to cocaine or heroin, but. And in some ways, you dont have to use the aword because, you know, when they talk about maximizing the allure of their products, they use this great lingo like craveability, snackability. One of my favorite words is moreishness as in building in moreishness. But i was able to spend time with experts on addiction whove studied both drugs and food, and theyre convinced that for many of us, the sweetest, fattest, most palatable foods will cause what they call patterns of overconsumption, indulgence. The foodespecially the salt, sugar, fatit interacts with your saliva. It sends an electrical signal to the reward center of your brain, which sends back this feeling of pleasure which is basically saying michael, i love that. Eat more. Go for it. And when you think about it, theres nothing nefarious about that because we need pleasure from food in order to eat. Otherwise, we wouldnt eat, wed get bored and that would be the end of us, right . So. But its their ability to sort of max out that reward system for their products that makes them so powerful. Or if youre trying to lose weight or maintain weight, so potentially treacherous. Mike transparency labels. Uh, what needs to be in the labels now thats missing . And how would that change the landscape, do you think . Moss i mean, i feel that consumers should know whats in the product, starting with the amounts of the biggest thingssalt sugar, fatthe good stuff as well. But even, sort of, some of these lesser ingredients that people dont know about. And, you know, it boggles me that the industry would be scared of putting some of their things on the label. If theyre proud of their work put it on the label and let people choose. Mike a couple of quick final questions. Um. The exporting of the western diet. I mean, we know about all the issues in this country, you know with diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. But were seeing if anything, were seeing it spread elsewhere and perhaps in cultures where people ate pretty healthy. They ate a lot of vegetables and that sort of thing. Is that another thing that we can look at say, jeez, this is in a continuation of pushing that envelope, trying to gain market share, get more money. Moss you know, ironically as americans have become more concerned about their diet and havebeen looking at processed foods and been trying to find ways to sort of control them in their own lives, these companies have moved overseas, sending american style processed foods into developing countries like brazil where theres emerging middle class, into the heart of europe. I gave a talk recently in vienna to the Health Ministers of a few dozen countries. And theyre all sitting there with grim faces because not only do they now have lots of american style processed foods, they have huge amounts of obesity and diabetes that are just killing the finances of their health care budgets. So its becoming not just a health issue but a financial problem for other countries, not to mention the loss of the culture of their own sort of native foods. And thats the real tragedy there. Mike michael moss, well leave it there. Thanks so much. This has been great fun. Moss like likewise for me. Thank you. Mike when we come back, the grammar of cuisine and how language influences what and how we eat. No matter the culture or country theres no denying that food plays a pivotal role in shaping a regions history and traditions. But we rarely have an opportunity to truly delve into a dish and to explore its origin and evolution. That is, until right now. In his new book, the language of food a linguist reads the menu, Stanford University Linguistics Department chairman and professor dan jurafsky explores the complex relationship between food and language. From ancient recipes to contemporary cuisine, he looks beyond ingredients and dissects the language that describes the food and influences how and what we eat. And we want to welcome him to the broadcast. Thank you, dan, for coming in. Dan mike, its a pleasure to be here. Mike how did you get interested in doing this book and what was the spark . Dan well, the original, uh, storyi was living in hong kong. I was a, you know, linguists like to learn languages. And i was in hong kong learning cantonese. And everybody in hong kong knew that the word ketchup was a chinese word. It was just obvious to them. And, of course, im the american living in china, and its, you know, i just couldnt believe this could possibly be true. So i set out to do the research to show that ketchup is, of course, american, and i was wrong. Ketchup is, in fact, from china. The word ketsiap was the original word. It originally meant a fish sauce. And the story of how it became our tomato sauce, its a fascinating story. Mike it is a fascinating story. And what i liked most about your book is thatit went here. They added some sugar. It went here. They added more sugar. I mean, how you tell it is very, very funny. But theres a lot of funny stories like that in there. So how about if i just throw a couple of words, and you can startyou can just kind of take off and tell us some stories about it . Dan sounds good. Mike we all do this. A toast, right . And then theres toast, breakfast toast. Tell us about that because you write about that as well. Dan yeah, you might imagine those are just coincidences that its the same pronunciation, but no. In fact, uh, they come from the same word. Toast originally meant the grilled bread. And in the middle ages, we drank wine with grilled bread in it. So theyd grill the bread and add spicesso these great medieval spicesso ginger and galangal. It was quite tastysounding. And theyd put them in the wine. And wine was drankuh, wine was drunk . See, now, the linguistics of that wine was drunk spiced. Um. And. So this was very common. Shakespeare talks about it. So falstaff used to have toast in his sack. A very common thing. And then right around the 17th century, this habit began to die out. People began to. Were less likely to put the toast in the wine but right at the same time, they began to drink to health of people at parties very commonly. So they would drink the health of the lady of the evening and they called her the toast of the evening because she flavored the party like the spice toast flavored the wine. And so the idea of calling a person a toast, and then that developed into the verb toasting. Mike its also interesting as i was reading your book uh, you know, its not just id say its not even just linguistics. Its almost the psychology of menus. And you talk about the different kinds of menus that you might find in a highend and perhaps a restaurant where maybe you shouldnt be going to eat and how things are described. Talk to us about that. Dan yeah, so we looked with some collaborators at Carnegie Mellon university. We looked at 6,500 online menus. Thats a lot of menus. And we looked at how inexpensive restaurants describe their dishes differently than expensive restaurants. So, for example, the cheaper the restaurant, the more likely they are to use the pronoun you. So theyll say your way, any way you like it, your choice. Its all about you whereas the expensive restaurants, its all about the chef. Its the chefs choice, the chefs selection. So really, you know, the expensive restaurants, its kind of like theater. Youre going to see the chef what the chefs coming up with. The cheap restaurants, its really your daytoday desires are really what matters. We also found, like, a huge difference in adjectives. So you could imagine, oh, the expensive restaurants, theyd be talking about how crispy and delicious and golden brown everything is. Not true. Its the cheap restaurants. So the cheaper the restaurant, the more likely they are to talk about something as fluffy. You know, your pancakes are fluffy. The fancy restaurants, they want you to assume its going to be fluffy. So theyre not going to say the word fluffy. Mike and sex and drugs, theres a correlation there, too, right . Dan oh, yeah, this was in reviews. So we looked at yelp reviews. So the reviewers were reviewing these same 6,500 restaurants. How do everyday people talk about the food . So the more expensive the restaurant the more likely the reviewer is to talk about sex. So theyll say, oh, a seductively seared foie gras or a very naughty deepfried pork belly. So it sounds kind of delicious. But the cheap restaurants, theyll say things like oh, i lust after those french fries or the chocolate donuts are like crack. So, you know, by talking about these cheap foods as drugs its like saying, well, its not really my fault that i ate that. You know, im addicted to it. The drug really forced me to do it. So it makes us feel a little less guilty for eating these unHealthy Foods. Mike uh, one of the funniest parts in the book, i found, was potato chips, which are incredibly healthy for you which obviously theyre not but you were writing about how theyre portrayed to the buyer. Dan oh, this is a great story. And i should say it came about in a great way. So i teach this freshman seminar called the language of food. And in universities in general, you know, students have these huge lecture classes. You know, hundreds of kids in a class. So all the universities are trying to find ways to let kids bond more, get more oneonone attention from professors. So we have these freshman seminars 12 kids and a professor. And i was teaching the language of food. And one of my freshman, josh freedman, had this idea of looking at the language on the back of potato chips. So being a college freshman, he has no money. He goes to the safeway, and he just takes pictures of the back of the potato chip bags. And he brings on his phoneand he brings the pictures into class. So all of us analyze the language on the back of the potato chips. And then later, he and i continued this research for a couple of years and ended up writing it up. So heres what we found the morefirst of all, as you say all potato chips are covered with health food language, you know. It turns out, you know secretly, potato chips are a health food. Everythings about, you know, no trans fats and no msg and healthier than lots of healthier thans. Um, everythings healthy. But it turns out, the more expensive the chip is, just if you measure price per ounce, the more they talk about health. So they alsothe healthier the chip is, the more they talk about whats not in it. So the really expensive chips, then, they talk about, um, no no this, no greasy not fluorescent, never fried. All these nots. The cheaper chips sort of tell you whats there. The expensive chips, you know, what it is to be an expensive chip is, were not like those cheap chips. You know, were different. Mike but we all know that theyre not healthy. But is it does it seduce us . I mean, are people buying it because of that . I mean, what arehow do the words influence us, the consumers, would you say . Dan now, thats a great question. I mean thats really a question for madison avenue. You know presumably, i just as a linguist, im assuming you know, language is logical and people are logical. So if advertisers are using this language, it must work at least somewhat. Or at least they think it works. So i guess so. But as a consumer, you know, my advice is, just like on the menus, you know its the cheap restaurants that have to say its fluffy, so that should make you suspicious. If they have to tell you its fluffy, maybe its because you assume it might not be fluffy. And the same with the potato chips. If they have to talk about how healthy it is, well, its probably not healthy. Mike what does, uh, the linguistics tell us about a society, do you think . Dan oh, thats a good question. Um, you know, linguists tend to believe that most cultures are pretty similar, um linguistically, that language that although languages differ in lots of individual details, they also have a lot in common. So its very hard to see, um big cultural differences in the languages people use, but its certainly the case that different languages do focus on different things. So, for example, lots of languages dont have lots of words for smells of things. So, um, its very common in a language to have lots of words for colors. I mean, think of all the different words we have for colors. But of all the sensations, theres just less words for smell. And this is true across lots of languages. But, for example, cantonese has lots of different words for smell. Theres words like hong that mean a particularly kind of rancid smell. Um. So languages do differ in sort of what they focus on. Mike you mentioned cantonese. Um, i have colleagues whove come over from china. And one of the first nights i went out. And we were kind of celebrating the start of the organization here in washington, d. C. And, you know, there were liquid refreshment and then some food. And then, of course, people started to order dessert, and i had a dessert. And a couple of my colleagues pointed and they, are you really going to eat that . Its too sweet. Uh, dessert is a concept thats pretty much universal in the west, and yet to china that and salad and you also talk about water. I mean, theres huge differences. Dan there are cultural differences. Like, i like to call this the grammar of cuisine. Cuisines have a grammar just like a language has a grammar. So, for example, you know, dessert is such a natural concept, uh, to america or to western europe. You know a meal has a sequence of courses, and you end with the sweet one. But we didnt used to eat that way. This is you know, in the middle ages you might have, uh, all sorts of sweet dishes. You might have rabbits with sugar or mutton with lemon and sugar as a normal main course. So this idea that sweet things come at the end, actually you know, england borrowed it from france, who borrowed it from spain, who got it from the moors, who got it all the way back to baghdad. I like to tell the story about herodotus, the greek historian 500 b. C. He talks about how the persians really loved desserts and how interesting it was that persians had all these different desserts. So this idea that sweet things belong at the end as a special course, really, we sort of borrowed it, and its really a new concept for the west. China just doesnt have that. Theres words that mean sweet thing, so tian dian in mandarin means a sweet thing but you could eat that anytime. It could be a snack with tea. It doesnt necessarily mean the last course of a meal. That idea just doesnt exist there. Mike let me ask was there anything as you compiled this, because the books can always be this big or this big. And obviously they need it to be more like thiswas there anything that you really wanted to put in there, one little aside story, anecdote that you didnt get to put in there . Dan i neveri didnt get the history of tea into there. Tea is a good one. Sososo just in one sentence languages of the world are split in whether the word for tea starts with a t or it starts with a ch. So chai, which we think of as masala chai, this indian drink, chai is the word for tea in russian and in mongolian and in hindi and all these languages. But lots of languages like english and french and dutch have a word starting with a t. And it turns out, languages that traded with china by sea, their languages start with a t. Languages that traded with china by land, they got the word, uh, from the dialects that have a ch at the beginning and their words for tea start with a ch. So you can tell the history of how countries interacted with china just by the first letter of their word for tea. Mike fascinating. Well, dan, thanks for sharing that. And well look for that in the sequel. Dan great. Thanks so much for having me. Mike thank you. Coming up next, this weeks full frame closeup on one mans mission to turn trash into a sociallyconscious gourmet feast. Yes, i did just say trash. Mike these are sad and startling statistics. According to the washington post, 40 of all food in the u. S. Goes uneaten. And households Grocery Stores, and restaurants discard 165 billion worth of food annually. Those numbers become even more alarming when you consider that about 50 million americans are food insecure, meaning they dont have a reliable source of nutritious and affordable food. Activist rob greenfield is determined to change those numbers and to help create a world thats happier and healthier. Rob knows firsthand the sustenance that discarded food provides. In 2013, he consumed some 280 pounds of food from Grocery Store dumpsters, and he continues to rescue wasted food day in and day out. Determined to lead by his own sustainable lifestyle, we joined greenfield as he took a dive in the name of ending hunger and food waste. [sea gulls calling] rob 99 of all consumer goods that are produced are in the landfill after 6 months, if you can believe that. So what that means is were filling our landfills, were filling holes in the ground. A lot of it ends up in the ocean and the environments. Animals eat it. It pollutes our oceans. Um. So the bottom line solution is create only what needs to be created and use what the earth can provide thats naturally produced. Ive decided that i just really want to simplify my life so that i can dedicate my time to being of benefit to the earth and benefit to myself, really, not bogging myself down with all this stuff i dont need. So i canceled most of my bills. It took some time. And now, the only bill i have is my cell phone, which is 60 a month, and the only possessions i have are my bike. I have some solar panels, a water purifier some clothes, enough that fit into a box. Um, ive just found that the more simply i live, the more freely i live. Well, last year i was biking across america to raise awareness about sustainability, and i had rules for the resources i could use. And my rule was for food i could eat local, organic unpackaged food. So basically food straight from the farms, but as many people know, theres food deserts all across america, which means theres not good quality healthy food. So my exception was i could eat out of dumpsters. So i started to look into americas dumpsters. And what i found after a short amount of time was that dumpster after dumpster after dumpster, theyre all full of perfectly good food. Hunts pasta sauce, unopened. Theres stuff down here. That ones fine. So ive been in over 800 dumpsters across america, and ive probably eaten out of 300 to 500 of them myself. And ive never been sick off of dumpster food once. Milk. Cold. Lets find out. Thats perfectly good milk. Wow. And i think a big part of that is that i take care of myself with healthy food and with proper sleep and diet. And by doing that, my immune system is very strong. Whoa. Well, i personally stick to a plantbased diet. So lots of fruits, vegetables, grains nuts and seeds. And i avoid all animal products, so meat, dairy, eggs. So in the dumpster, i personally just mostly eat fruits and vegetables and grains. One squished one. The rest are good. Organically grown. You can tell when somethings bad when its bulgy. Uh, visually if somethings bloated, if a package is bloated, then theres been fermentation so stay away from that. Goodlooking cheese. If its looking offcolored, stay away from that. November 19th. The dates on packages, they mean nothing. Its whether the food is still good and you can look at it and you can see that. These are perfectly good apples. Halfway into my first trip across the country, i learned, oh, wow theres the Good Samaritan food act, which was signed in 1996, which actually protects Grocery Stores and caterers and restaurants if they donate the food to, uh a nonprofit. Theyre actually encouraged to donate the food to nonprofits. Giant bags of bread. Then i found a study by the university of arkansas which shows that not a single Grocery Store or distributor of food has ever been sued after donating food to a nonprofit. Its pretty much a nobrainer to donate the food as long as its still good and that is if you care about more than profit. My goal isnt to empty one dumpster at a time here and there. My goal is to prevent millions of pounds of food from ever ending up in the dumpsters. So, of course, this is way more food than i can eat. The reason im collecting it is because im hosting a public demonstration for the people to come see how much perfectly good food is going to waste. For example, i can rattle off the numbers. 165 billion worth of food is thrown away per year. But for most people, those mean very little. Seeing a trunk full of bread or seeing a park full of food thats how people understand it and thats what im showing america. So a food waste fiasco is where i collect a huge bounty of perfectly good food and then i set it up at a public place where anybody can come and see it. And i invite the media so that they can spread the word even more. After leaving it out on display for a little while, if people want to take it home and eat it, they can. Do you have maybe a couple of tomatoes . Rob oh, yeah. Sure. Tomatoes, apples. Id be a little sad if my work comes to the point where theres no food left in the dumpsters. Id be sad for the dumpster divers, putting them out of business, but id be extremely happy because that would mean we wouldnt be wasting all the water, the energy, the transportation the time, the love thats going into this food and then ending up in the dumpsters. So what i want to see is i want to see no food in the dumpsters, and i really believe thats going to happen in my youth. Obviously, i do a lot of really crazy stuff. Ive biked across america on a bamboo bike twice; ive gone a year with taking a shower; got a vasectomy at the age of 25 uh. Have eaten out of 800 dumpsters across america. Ive done a lot of pretty extreme things. But my message isnt be extreme and do extreme things. Its take what you can out of this. Take the Little Things that you can out of this to adapt into your own life as you see fit. So imim eating out of dumpsters so that you can simply learn to not waste food or to shop at your local farmers market. So my message is simple. Im the crazy guy. You dont have to be. Ha ha mike thats it for this week. Join the conversation with us on social media. We are cctv america on twitter facebook, and youtube. All of tonights interviews can be found online at cctvamerica. Com. And let us know where youd like us to take full frame next. Email us at fullframe cctvamerica. Com. Until then, im mike walter in los angeles. Well see you next time. Did progress take priority over humankind . How could the desire for a modern way of life that threatens our future be considered a way of life . Could it be we are connected to all things in the universe, not the center of it . That suburbs in los angeles affect the melting ice caps of antarctica . Deforestation in the congo affects the typhoons of japan . Now, we must face the insurmountable challenges for what they really are opportunities to reinvent and redesign. E2, the economies of being environmentally conscious
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