#216: PLANTSTRONG Legacy: 12 Years of Wellness with Jeff Nelson and Dr. Liz George
Watch the film at plantstrongmovie.com
Twelve years ago, on the tail of the success of his book The Engine 2 Diet, Rip visited small-town America - Mercersburg, Pennsylvania - with the good news about plants.
Dr. Elizabeth George, a local doctor in Mercersburg, was
on a mission to help the residents of her small dairyland town make healthier food and lifestyle choices. She heard about Engine 2 and invited Rip to come to town and speak at restaurants, churches, and even the local high school - challenging them to the Engine 2 28-Day Challenge.
Not surprisingly, he was met with mixed reactions and a healthy dose of farm-raised skepticism.
For the people who took part, the results were explosive.
Luckily, Rip brought along a film crew to capture it all. And…last year, this same crew followed up with Dr. Liz and some of those residents to see how they were doing 12 years later. The result is this new film, PLANTSTRONG Legacy: 12 Years of Wellness.
So, today, we bring you a wonderful interview with Dr. Liz George and the filmmaker, Jeff Nelson, as we celebrate the release of this movie and catch up on those days when we were driving around Mercersburg spreading the good news about plants!
Share The Message!
Wondering how you might inspire your friends and neighbors to join you in eating more plants? This film is the perfect bite-sized documentary to share with groups or meetups.
The transformations ignite conversation and....action! You're welcome to host a free screening of the PLANTSTRONG Movie, and then invite participants to join you in taking the Seven-Day Challenge. We'll provide all the resources and recipes, you get to lead the kale-powered charge with your community! Some ideas for your screening night include:
• Print and handout copies of our Seven-Day Challenge Guide (linked on this site).
• Host a cooking demo after the film to share your favorite plant-based recipes, tips and tricks.
• Ask participants to share hurdles they're facing, then brainstorm solutions as a group.
• Have you experienced the benefits of the lifestyle? Share your story with the audience!
• Offer to support your friends and family with a weekly or monthly potluck.
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• Share your events inside our Facebook Group and tag us in your photos on social media so we can reshare them.
Want more ideas? Post your questions inside our community group and we'll be glad to help. Let's ignite a leafy green revolution!
About Jeff Nelson
Jeff Nelson is a writer, producer, director, and founder of vegsource.com. Almost 30 years ago, Jeff and his wife Sabrina became vegetarian after reading Diet for a New America, by John Robbins. A few years later, Sabrina was diagnosed with Relapsing Polychondritis (RP), an often fatal autoimmune disease.
About a year after her diagnosis, while experiencing a flare-up, Sabrina read a book someone had given her a year earlier, called The McDougall Program, by John McDougall MD. In the book, Dr. McDougall discussed how a lowfat, plant-based diet could be effective to stop autoimmune diseases like lupus. She and Jeff went all-in and, within months, her RP was in remission.
Since then, it has been their mission to spread the good news about plants through films, events, and their site vegsource.com. He and Sabrina have raised three plantstrong children.
About Dr. Elizabeth George
Family Physician Dr. Elizabeth George spearheaded the development of Healthy Eating Adventures in 2010 as part of MACWell. She leads program planning and creates the research-based kick-off presentation. She reviews participant blood test results in order to monitor the benefits of the healthy eating program and adds to our outcomes database. Her “Ask the Doc” potluck evening answers medical questions from participants as they take hold of their own health. “I thrive on attending the HEA evenings and hearing about the amazing health results people are experiencing!”
Dr. Liz has always emphasized healthy eating in her Family Practice office in Mercersburg Pennsylvania. She earned her medical degree from Brown University School of Medicine, Providence RI, and always knew she wanted to treat “the whole patient” and encourage wellness. A Fellow of the American Academy of Family Practice, Dr. Liz has also been an Assistant Director of the York Hospital Family Practice tasked with the development of their Family Centered Maternity Care. She notes that emphasizing a plant-based diet in pregnancy plays a key role in maternal as well as newborn health.
Episode Resources
PLANTSTRONG Legacy: 12 Years of Wellness
Healthy Eating Adventure - Learn more about Dr. Liz and her work
Vegsource.com - Jeff Nelson’s site covering news in the plant-based space
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Full episode transcript via AI Transcription Service
[0:01] I'm Rip Esselstyn and welcome to the Plant Strong Podcast. The mission at Plant Strong is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement.
We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands, promotes, and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with.
We welcome you wherever you are on your PlantStrong journey, and I hope that you enjoy the show.
I am pumped for today's episode of the PlantStrong podcast because it is a long, long overdue reunion of sorts.
[0:52] Let me start today's episode with two questions for you. If I go into small town America and I take a group, of normal people who are suffering with typical health problems like heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and I show them exactly how to get rid of their problems by changing their diet for just a few weeks, will it work?
And the second question is, when I do that, what will that group of people look like a dozen years later?
Will what I have taught them, will have stuck?
Or was it just a temporary blip? Or will they be eating well and eating that way many years later.
[1:37] These are the questions that I pose at the beginning of my brand new film, Plant Strong Legacy, 12 Years of Wellness, that's available to view for free at plantstrongmovie.com.
So after the launch of my first book, The Engine 2 Diet, I was invited to a small town, Mercesburg, Pennsylvania, by a local physician there. Her name was Dr. Elizabeth George, and she was on a mission to help her town get more healthy.
[2:09] And so she invited me to speak at restaurants, churches, the local high school, bars, and even booked me on radio station interviews, to get the town ready to take on my 28 day challenge.
And man, were they in for a surprise when I showed up.
I also decided to bring along a film crew to capture everything and last year, this same crew followed up with Dr. Liz and some of these participants to see, how they were doing 12 years later. And the result is this new film, PlantStrong Legacy 12 Years of Wellness. And today I bring you a wonderful, very overdue interview with Dr. Liz George and filmmaker Jeff Nelson as we celebrate the release of this movie and catch up on those days when we were driving around Mercesburg in the heart of dairy country talking about getting people to eat more plants. Enjoy!
[3:24] So we're just gonna kind of have a free-flowing conversation today.
And before I introduce my guests, I want you to know that we just came out with this movie.
It's called The PlantStrong Legacy, 12 Years of Wellness.
And it basically is what happens after the before and after.
And these two people are the reason that this whole movie came to fruition and then came to life.
And so I wanna check in with these guys.
We did this over 12 years ago and I wanna see how Dr. Liz George is doing.
I wanna catch up with Jeff Nelson, who's got an extraordinary career in the kind of the plant-based movement.
And we're just gonna let it kind of run its course. So for starters, Jeff, I wanna start with you, Jeff.
Will you let everybody know kind of a little bit about your pedigree and your background in the plant-based movement and how you truly were one of the first to start throwing, well, I'm kind of talking for you, but you had the first website, you had the first events.
I mean, you were really a pioneer.
[4:42] Well, it all started, I guess, in 1990 when I heard John Robbins on the radio.
You know John. So, yeah. He... Excellent.
He was talking about his book and about the relationship between food and health.
And I stopped somewhere, I bought the book, I read the book and it made a lot of sense to me.
I had already been sort of a chickenitarian because I had a job producing TV commercials and we'd have people from the advertising agency come up from New York and they were on vacation.
So they wanted to go to Wolfgang Puck and they wanted to go to Morton's Steakhouse.
They wanted to go have all this rich food and- Sacrilege.
So it was my job to take them out.
Everybody else like, no, no, no.
So in my twenties, I was eating like a lot of rich food and I realized that this is not good.
So I sort of left off red meat. So I'm reading this book by John Robbins.
I said, this makes a lot of sense.
I'm gonna go vegetarian. I gave it to my wife next.
She wasn't my wife yet, but she read it, Sabrina.
And really the animal kind of argument was what impacted her.
She'd had chickens as a kid and they were pets and they had names and personalities and they'd wait for her to come home from school before they lay their egg.
And so she always thought the chickens that she ate were different from the chickens who were her pets.
But when she read John Robbins' book, she realized, no, they're really the same.
They're just kind of terrorized and have terrible lives, the ones we eat.
So she didn't wanna be any part of that.
And for that reason, she went vegetarian.
[6:11] About five years later, she had an episode where her ears got red and started bubbling up, It looked like a really bad sunburn, quite painful.
She bounced around to different doctors, ended up in the office of a rheumatologist who diagnosed her with a thing called relapsing polychondritis.
That's an autoimmune disease where your immune system attacks the cartilage.
You've got cartilage in your ears, your nose, your throat, around your heart.
[6:37] And so she had that for about a year. She kept having these relapses and she was on very serious medications, something like protease inhibitors, steroids, and so on.
Someone had given her a book by a doctor named John McDougall that she let sit on the shelf for a year.
And she decided to read it at one point when she was having one of these relapses.
And when she had these relapses, she basically just had to go to bed for a few days and could do nothing.
And in the book, John talked about lupus and dairy and how dairy products can sometimes be a trigger and eliminating them.
And so she came downstairs and read this passage to me and relapsing polychondritis is in the lupus family.
So it was like, wait a sec, maybe we need to improve our diet.
And she decided to try McDougall's diet, which is a vegan, a plant-based diet.
And I said, well, I guess if you're gonna do that, and you know, I'll do that.
[7:29] Her next appointment was three weeks later with the rheumatologist.
She had this monthly appointments.
And for the first time in a year, her SED rate was normal. It had been above 50, now it was below five.
And the anti-nuclear antibodies, which is an indirect measure of how active the disease is, were not present.
So after three months of going back and getting those same results each month, the rheumatologist said, you're in remission.
And your cholesterol is 135. your dietary strategy is working, is what he said.
And she'd gone in when she first saw this guy and she said, no, I'm vegetarian.
And he's like taking notes, he said, oh, vegan is best. This is what he had said to her.
That kind of went in one ear and out the other because we didn't even kind of know what vegan was back in the 90s there.
And afterwards she was like, wow, I didn't, this is great, my diet.
[8:23] I didn't realize that this could work. And the doctor said, yeah, diet can have a profound effect, but most people, you know, they're not interested. They want a pill, they want something.
And Sabrina was thinking, you know, my God, I would have eaten cardboard to get rid of that disease.
You know, why, you never told me.
So anyhow, that was back 27 years ago.
And we kind of haven't looked back since then. She's been well.
And this is a disease where it's got a mortality rate of like 50% in five years or something like that.
A very serious disease, disfiguring and the drugs that you have to take can be as bad as a disease. So we felt like we dodged a bullet.
The internet was kind of coming into being, it was around 95, 96, and we went on and looked around to see where's this information out there. We didn't see a lot of it, there were vegan websites and so on.
So we decided to make a website and then we made a point of trying to mink and befriend as many different people in this segment who were trying to present the many good reasons for shifting towards a plant-based diet.
And we ended up making websites for people who weren't on the internet yet, like John McDougall, like Farm Sanctuary, PCRM, all these people.
We made their first websites for them and had a server and all that.
And that's kind of, we grew from there.
[9:49] I could go on and on, but that's kind of how I know you could.
And I just want to add a couple more things before we before we go to Liz. And that is, but you started one of the first vegetarian websites, right?
Right. Yep. There were a few out there before us, but we we started veg source. And that was in 96, I guess. And that was right around the time, as I say, we're trying to help other people who had books and who had followings get on the internet as well. And we tried to make VegShorts sort of the hub and all these spokes out to all these other places. So if you came to VegShorts, then you could discover a lot of different doctors who were doing this or nutritionists or recipe chefs and animal rights and just all the hopeful spectrum. And when did you start throwing your live events where you invited people like Furman and then McDougal and Colin Campbell and my father.
[10:45] Actually in 2001, you know, we had a busy website and we thought let's have a party.
Let's have a party on a Friday night and see who shows up. So we put up a kind of a signup sheet and we got this Buddhist restaurant, vegan restaurant. We were gonna, that had a room that could hold about 80 people.
So we did a signup and within a week we had like 120 people signed up ended up to being a couple of hundred people.
So we moved it to a hotel and we decided let's, It was just gonna be on a Friday night.
He said, well, let's make it for more of the weekend. And we got, we invited McDougal and Howard Lyman and Colin Campbell and all that, as they say, your dad in the second year.
And every year we just started repeating. This was actually a couple of weeks after 9-11, the first one, we thought we were gonna have to cancel it.
But I think we had only like one person canceled. Everybody else still showed up.
And so that's when we started doing that, it's 2001.
And I can remember my first time going, when was it called? Like, what was it called?
It's called the Healthy Lifestyle Expo. Healthy Lifestyle Expo.
I remember going in 2006.
[11:48] And I was like a kid in a candy shop, just looking at all these Brock stars that were there.
I was just like, so in heaven. I was, you know, I had actually just gotten an offer to write a book, you know, about the guys at Fire Station Two.
Right. And then a couple of years later, you honored me by asking me to be one of the keynote speakers on the Friday night kickoff in 2009.
[12:23] And it was, at that point in my life, it was one of the high points, you know, just so exciting for me. And I am so grateful for you for inviting me and the opportunity that you gave me and the confidence that then ensued after that.
Well, you were amazing. Yeah, you hit it out of the park. People were raving for years after that.
Yeah. So, all right, Dr. Liz, let's move on to you for a sec.
[12:49] So like, I feel like I haven't seen you in years and years and years.
You look absolutely incredible. And for people that don't know, when we did this film, the PlantStrong Legacy, back in 2010, your hair was dark, like so was mine.
And now we're both white.
But will you tell me like, so I spoke at Jeff's Healthy Lifestyle Expo in 2009.
My first book, The Engine 2 Diet had just come out in February of 2009.
And then I get this phone call sometime in early 2010 from you, and you were soliciting me to come out to small town, you know, Mercersburg and to do this crazy, you know, 28 day challenge.
How did you?
Being in Mercesburg even come upon this information about me writing a book and all that jazz?
[14:02] Well, I was keeping my eye open for something to do for our town.
Cause I had always been trying to keep the people healthy with healthy eating.
And it was just going, the health in the area, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, just like in the rest of the country was crazy.
And I was looking for ideas and the Mercersburg Academy Alumni Magazine, as you know, you went there, it did an article on your book and it said, he taught the firemen in Austin how to eat healthily and demos and stuff like that.
And I go, oh, wow, that would be great for Mercersburg.
We could do a little, how to eat healthily. And so I called you, I was so excited that you go, game on.
It was so rude, but it was really funny.
So I bought your book for a bunch of people in the community, you know, sort of people that wanted to be game changers.
And we got you out there. And one of our local chefs that I knew, he made a recipe from your, made our meal from your book.
And a friend walked in and she goes, Liz, did you know that this book has, there's no dairy, there's no meat, there's no eggs. I went.
[15:27] Oh, I thought it was just teaching people firemen to be healthy eaters. Right, right.
And then I thought, well, my golly, if those firemen could take this on, they love the food. It tasted great. I said, game on, Mercersburg.
And and you know what? It really, really did make a big difference.
[15:49] You do. Do you remember when you then came back for the couple of days where we ran around town and.
Oh, my gosh. How could I not? Yes. If for anybody that's listening, you know, um, and we'll, I'll be mentioning this a couple of times, but go to, go to, um, plantstrong movie.com.
And that's a great place to, is that the best place, Jeff, in your opinion? Yeah, absolutely.
Plantstrong movie.com and you can see the film and then there's even more stuff after you've watched the film. If you're wanting to learn more.
Yeah. Yeah. But so, you know, exactly what we're talking about here. And we'll, We'll dive into it, Liz.
Tell me, Liz, what is your background as a physician? What kind of physician are you?
So I'm a family physician.
In medical school, I really liked all the areas, but like I thought, no, I like the whole picture.
So I went into family medicine and I also was really focused on lifestyle changes to treat hypertension and diabetes.
And so I worked very hard on that. And I worked hard on not necessarily having on everybody on medication, but it really wasn't until along came the whole whole foods plant-based eating that one can make a big difference.
[17:14] So that's my background. And in the community, we had started working on other areas of health, like building trails, walkability, bikeability.
We were, we had taken on revitalizing a stream. So it was a whole holistic wellness type approach.
Yeah. And so how long were you, were you living in Mercersburg and a physician there?
Oh, let's see. We set up practice in 1980. Wow. So, so if I'm not mistaken, You and your husband, who's also a physician.
[17:55] So you were the physicians at the Mercersburg Academy, is that right?
Right, right. Okay, so then you, I don't think I ever remember seeing you, but we definitely overlapped there for about two years.
Really? I was there from 80 to 80, 80 and 81. I was there going to school.
Oh no, you must have been well-behaved and not, you know. You get sick.
No, you know, I, yeah, no, I've, well. That's funny. Yeah, and even back then I was, I was eating, you know, everything and.
Yeah. Yeah, oh gosh.
So, but so anyway, so 1980 until how long were you in Mercesburg?
Just a couple of years ago, we retired from, from Mercesburg.
And where are you now? So now I'm in, um, Washington state Ritzville in the high desert and down in Florida, I have, I have a daughter in both areas and my son is in Canada.
I know, of course, the grandkids, the grandkids are the real pole.
[18:55] Well, so you were, I mean, so you were in Mercesburg for a good, over 30, probably 35, almost 40 years.
[19:03] Yeah. So, I mean, do you miss it? Um, I still go back.
Um, I played in a orchestra there and I go back for their, um, it's a choral and really good orchestra go back.
And then I meet up with people and we go visit the trails and see what we've done and keep in touch.
Um, but I'm always like open to new things. No, are you still practicing?
No, we retired. I'm practicing my flute, is that what you meant?
How long ago did you retire? Just right before COVID hit.
Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. So let's go back, let's go back.
So Jeff, do you remember, so Liz, let's backtrack.
Liz basically calls me, asks me if I'd be willing to come to Mercesburg and do this 28 day challenge for basically the whole town.
And I, you know, you're a very, very good persuader.
And so I said, yes, even though I had two young kids, I had all kinds of commitments, but I said, yes.
And then I was like, you know what?
[20:21] Jeff Nelson just might be interested in tagging along and getting video footage of what we're gonna try and accomplish here.
And Liz, this was your dream as to try and make this blueprint.
[20:36] For small town Americas all across the country. And it was such a beautiful idea on your part.
And so Jeff was like, I'm in, and you brought your son, Will.
It's so great.
[20:53] Talk a little bit about what you were thinking about this whole proposal and this whole, you know, kind of cockamamie idea that Liz had.
Yeah, well, at the time, I recall we were working together already.
We were doing a, preparing to do an intervention in a food bank in Sacramento.
And you came in for that weekend when we did that, we brought a bunch of people in where we took people in a food bank and put them on this program and they got incredibly much healthier.
And we hadn't done that yet, but this came up. And so, yeah, I was absolutely game.
I remember my son who was, how old was he then?
He's 26, that was 2010. So do the math, 13 years. He was 13, I guess, yeah.
And he and I flew in and of course we stayed with you, Rip and with Dr. Liz and Dr. Liz's gorgeous country home.
It was like a farm and a barn but this beautiful Victorian house.
And I remember the day we got there, Rip, you just had like the first cut of forks over knives and you showed it to us, you know, that night.
You had just gotten it or something. So we sat down and watched an early cut.
[22:04] Which was great. And then we hopped in Dr. Liz's jacuzzi out the side there and we're having until about one in the morning.
That's how we ended every night in that jacuzzi. Downloading about the day and all the adventures that we went on. Oh my gosh, that was so fun. Yeah, and what a place.
She had a horse there and those dogs. My son loved, there's one dog, I forget.
You still got the dogs, Liz? Or that was- Frodo.
Frodo was Willie's favorite. Yeah.
And so we just had a ball. And I remember, you know, we got in a van, We all drove around and just whipped from one place to the next, grabbing a quick lunch.
And it was a lot of fun.
It was. And you, I mean, you had, up to that point, you'd made several different films, hadn't you?
[22:51] Well, I mean, that's what I used to do for a living, but yeah, so I did Process People before that.
That was 2008, where I interviewed, you know, your dad and all the different speakers we have and so on.
And yeah, I was getting into doing some YouTube stuff here and there.
And so, yeah, so this was like a natural when you called up and said, hey, I'm going to this town, you wanna come? You wanna film it?
And it was like, absolutely.
And so Liz, to your incredible credit, so Jeff and I arrived, so the film crew and Rip arrived.
And wouldn't you know it, Liz is like, okay, so this is the schedule.
On Tuesday morning at 9.30 a.m., we're gonna go meet with Dan Fisher, the CEO of D.L. Martin.
Then after that, you're gonna go by the- The bank. The local bank.
Then we're going to Flannerty's Bar and Grill, and then we're going to the high school, and then you're gonna go to the Mercesburg and talk to the kids, and then you're gonna go talk to the kitchen staff. I mean, you had the most.
[23:56] Full schedule for me and Jeff knows this better than anybody because he was driving me around. For every group, I would kind of make or I would kind of alter my presentation to kind of fit the needs of who I was talking to, to try and sell this, because Liz is like, we're trying to get as many people as possible to take this.
No, it was interesting to watch you tailor your presentation for each group. You had sort of a similar message each time. But if you were talking to the guys in the shop, you were using, you know, rough language and they're like, yeah, they relate.
When you're talking to the kids, you're talking about, you know, funny stuff there and all the pushups and so on.
And so it was cool. I wondered, you know, what kind of flack Dr. Liz was getting, because we were in the middle of Dairy Town and here Rip was talking to a thousand, whatever, 500 high school students about dairy and the problems.
And I'm thinking their parents are like, that's how they're making their living.
Liz, did you get any feedback or?
[24:57] You know, at first, everything was really well received and people thought it was like really great.
And then I hear, I heard that the Dairy Council showed up at the high school.
During Rip's presentation, he had said, dairy is bad.
And apparently the kids went home and they talked to their parents about it.
And that area of Pennsylvania is dairy central.
And they got upset, so they called the Dairy Council. And the Dairy Council went to the high school, and made them do a presentation on dairy and made them put up posters all over.
Like Cal Ripken poker, got real, you know? And so it was interesting.
And it created a little, you know, it made something we had to work with over the years in terms of community ruffles.
But, you know, it's a reality.
People, people have, you know, people do react intensely.
[26:05] When you talk- You know, I interviewed people when we came back after, you know, in the after, after people had done it, taken the four week program and had all this success.
Excuse me, I interviewed a handful of people over at your house, Liz, that came over to talk about their experience.
I remember one, not everybody made it in the film, what described herself as a, excuse me, a third generation dairy farmer, and she was vegan. She was somebody who, this is their family business that they're doing.
And it was interesting that she'd been, she'd lost this weight and brought her numbers down.
And she was down for the program. She was committed to it and believed in it.
And it was kind of an interesting cognitive dissonance for her, I think.
Well, it was really interesting, and she was really...
[26:53] I, she never said to me, oh, it caused a lot of family stress or anything.
So I, it's very interesting that she did. And there was a wife of a dairy farmer.
I think there were a couple of people.
I never dwelled on it with them, but it was very, I was always curious, oh, how would your family react?
But they weren't ostracized from the family, but they did follow through.
It was pretty cool. I mean, I think it's what, kind of what that guy at D.L. Martin said that you mentioned, Rip, that you can't argue with the numbers, that people can have whatever predisposition they have towards it or whatever opinions and so on.
But when they get off cholesterol medicine or when their blood pressure goes way down, who can argue with that?
You can't like argue against that. So, and that's where the programmer, Rip going in and Liz was the genius of it was to let people prove it to themselves.
You went in, Rip gave him a very entertaining presentation, fact filled like a fire hose full of information that was almost too much, but it was compelling and really felt scientific in the information.
[28:04] But once people go home and do it and they get it, they prove it to themselves.
You come back and they think, oh, thank you. Thank you for what you did.
It's like, no, you did it. You just stopped eating this and started eating this.
And now you're much healthier.
And we didn't really do anything except share what we'd learned.
But that's the genius of it is you prove it to people.
And when they prove it to themselves, then they're convinced if they're still a dairy farmer, they don't want high blood pressure. So that's okay, they'll just, you know, eat this way to preserve their health.
Yeah. The program is really, really cool though, that we set up because it was actually a four week program, but it started with a kickoff like RIPs. That's how we continue to do it.
And then a kitchen makeover. And then every week we met in a potluck and people, because they had to bring food to the potluck, so that made them kind of do what they needed to do and practice and learn.
And they'd bring it and there'd be this whole spread of fabulous food.
[29:09] And they could taste it, they could talk to each other and say, hey, it wasn't that hard to make and how'd you do this and how are you doing?
And they heard from each other how well they were doing. It was like this real community support.
It's so much easier to make changes with other people around you making changes.
So it was a really, it worked out really well for them to hear how the, hear the science even behind it and then to learn how to do it and then to take- I think you cannot overestimate the value of the social aspect of it.
People getting together, eating together, sharing food together, as you say, oh, this is really good.
Can you give me the recipe? And so on, just having other people doing it.
And especially, you know, in some of these immersion programs, people all come to travel to one place and they spend the time together and then they go back and they're all packed, living in, you know, separately.
But in somewhere like Mercersburg, where, you know, it's the same in these churches or food banks where people are seeing each other every week or many times there's like a much stronger, I know you just can't overestimate how powerful that social connection is and eating together.
And I will say, and this is what I did. So, you know, for my book, The Injun 2 Diet, I kind of followed my father's recipe.
And so with the 64 guinea pigs that I had that agreed to do this for six weeks, the first time we had weekly potlucks.
[30:33] You know, I went over, I went over each one of their food logs every day, actually, to make sure they were doing it correctly.
And so Liz, the fact that you, before I came out there and we wrangled up, you know, these initial participants to take the Mercersburg 28-Day Challenge, you had already like started these weekly potlucks.
[30:58] You had tapped different people to be food coaches, right? And so what I love about what you did is that you almost made it impossible for the people that agreed to do it to fail. You really were setting them up for success, which was really, really brilliant. And speaking of that, so can you remember, Jeff or Liz, because I can't, how many people did we have enrolled in that 28-day challenge?
We had 78 people.
[31:27] Wow. We had 78 people, and yeah, it was amazing. It was incredible.
And Jeff, in looking at the film, and I know you just chose about maybe 10 or 12 people, but it's incredible to me how the testimonials are so, you powerful and so consistent with the weight loss money because all those things yeah, Because cutting cutting this together you're right. I had a lot of people of course we, Photograph filmed that full evening the graduation evening so we have basically everybody on stage we came up to get their, graduation certificate and told their own story and.
[32:10] When I first cut it that sequence was probably six minutes long or something like that and to which which Sabrina, my wife, when she saw it, she said, this is way too long.
This is just going on and on.
And, but it's true. I mean, I initially did that because it's so, it becomes so apparent how powerful the program has been when you see just person after person telling essentially the same story with whatever their diabetes has gone, their blood pressure is normalized, they'd had a heart attack.
Now they're, you know, off their medications and, you know, on and on.
And suddenly their bones didn't hurt anymore. their skin cleared up.
And as a movie, it would have been overkill to sit there. People like, okay, I get the point.
Why are we watching this?
But in real life, it's a profound thing to see.
And you've seen it again and again.
Yeah, Liz, totally. Liz, let me ask you, as a physician.
[33:08] What do you think is going on here at a cellular and molecular level with the body, when you take away the meat and the dairy and the processed and refined foods and you substitute whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and legumes?
Well, it's really complex. I know. But you're putting in what your body needs, the different, the phytochemicals and the antioxidants. you're actually putting in the things.
Like you can go, okay, you can look at the Krebs cycle.
The body naturally makes some free radicals. That's part of the cycle.
So you need antioxidants.
Well, if you're not eating them, and then you're not gonna balance that out.
So you have free radicals running around.
Or if you're putting in food that creates reactions, like the dairy does and the meat does and creates antibodies.
If you're putting that in, your body's got a mess to deal with.
So you've taken out what's causing the issues and you're putting in the foods that your body actually needs to complete its own molecular cycles and balance.
Beautiful. And I think what's at the foundation of all these chronic Western diseases is a word, it's a one word, inflammation.
Yeah, that's incredible.
Yeah, and so there's this inflammatory response when you're eating these kind of.
[34:37] Let's just call them weak foods, the meat and the dairy and the processed refined foods.
Whereas when you lean towards the strong foods, they're very anti-inflammatory and the body loves that.
So Liz and Jeff, I just watched the movie again.
[34:57] Because I had to watch it for the 15th time. And I wrote down, so.
Amongst those, did you say 78 participants that we had, Liz? 78.
So we, 78 participants, and I can't remember, you know, how many were men and how many were women.
I think it was pretty evenly matched, but the average weight loss was 15 pounds.
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, 15 pounds, and this is like four weeks. I remember one gentleman lost 34 pounds. Right, right.
Yeah. The average drop in total cholesterol was 39 milligrams per deciliter, like hooray.
The average drop in LDL, and Liz, is the LDL the good or the bad cholesterol? That's the bad.
There you go, it's the lethal, right?
It was 32 points, and the average drop in triglycerides, which is how much fat's in your blood, was right around 25 points.
So, I mean, those are just the numbers that just tell a little bit of the story, right?
And then of course the other part of the story is all the intangibles, how clear-minded people are, how much better they're sleeping, as Jeff, as you alluded to, how their bones don't ache.
[36:14] Yeah. Better mood, energy. Yeah.
So many people started exercising. It was interesting.
They took on, they felt good and could take on walking, biking, hiking more than they had before.
It was really interesting.
And you know what else was cool? Do you ever notice how their skin starts to glow?
The first week they're sort of pasty looking and then within two weeks, they're like, they're glowing.
It's because you're putting in all those wonderful vitamins.
It gives, makes your skin glow and everything.
The carotene, the carotenes and everything. But it's really neat.
Yeah, it's incredible. Well, it is amazing how many people, and Jeff, you've heard this, Liz, you've heard this, when they start doing this after a month or two, they'll say, I don't know what's going on, but everybody says you're glowing. You look so much better.
You're radiating health.
[37:06] And you're bouncing. Yeah. Yeah, they do. It's really, really interesting. It's something else.
Yeah.
So, like I said, I literally just watched it again. And I gotta tell you that so many of the scenes, Jeff, that you put together and how you put them together are just so, and I know we're overusing this word a little bit, but I just say brilliant.
So for example, I'll just give you an example.
At Flannery's Bar and Grill. Did you ever eat there at all, Liz, when you were at Mercerburg?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Adorable little Irish pub.
[37:50] I gave a talk during lunch, and Jeff, the way you set up the camera angle, you had me, and right behind me, you had maybe a 76-year-old female, and I was just talking about how the artery to the penis is 1 5th the size of the arteries to the heart, and how it's kind of the canary in the coal mine when it comes to heart disease with men.
So it's this underperforming penis.
And so you've got me talking about this and how, you know, the great thing about going plantstrong is, you know, you don't have to take the little blue pill, you eat the leafy greens and now you get the four hour erections and you don't have to call your doctor.
And this woman the whole time is just like got the straightest face and occasionally she's like smiling.
Oh my gosh, it is so entertaining.
Oh yeah, she was into it, she was into it. She enjoyed that.
She loved it. I didn't feel like the crowd was upset.
[38:51] And then, Jeff, would you describe what happened at the high school with the smokers and athletes and the challenge that I gave them?
Yeah, yeah, as I recall going in there, we talked about that there was a fair number of smokers, I don't know, am I remembering that right or not?
That's how that- Oh, somebody told me that 50% of the student body were smokers and I was appalled.
There's something like that, which is why you mentioned it when you had that little challenge, you get you were in there and giving them lots of facts and figures and they were into it for the most part.
I think they were really listening carefully And then you decided to show them, I think that a guy in here who was whatever you were then, 50 years old or something.
[39:42] Who's eating nothing but plants for 30 years could get up on the stage and kick their ass more or less in a pushup contest.
But, and that's really what happened. And they were into it and the place just kind of came alive.
It was one of the grabs when people, and then someone said, should we take our shirts off?
And then the people were shrieking.
Then the audience really came alive. That's right, yeah, yeah.
So that was a lot of fun. You definitely connected. And I remember we had two different groups.
We had like the younger group and then you repeated it and we had the older group and so on.
I think that some of the teachers came in for both to watch both performances, but yeah, that was quite a memorable afternoon. That was, that was. and as we're pulling in, literally.
Like within like eyesight of the high school is like the second largest dairy farm in Southern Pennsylvania.
And so, you know, Liz, I totally understand the blowback.
And after my presentation, I had at least three guys that came up to me, and were basically arguing with me about the benefits of dairy. And they told me that their fathers all worked at the dairy.
[41:01] And so they didn't want to believe what I had just espoused to them.
And that's why the dairy council showed up the following week demanding equal time to put their message out or whatever happened.
You know, we shot so much stuff and I really have to give credit to my son, Willie, because Willie has gone on to be a video editor among other things.
[41:23] And he's the one who this footage was sitting there and decided I wanted to see in the last year, let's see what we can make out of this. And I gave it all to him.
And then he came back with the first couple of cuts of it.
And that's why, because he did that, I was like, okay, there's a film here, we can do this.
I mean, he wrote voiceover and really assembled the thing.
And that got me excited. And that's when I contacted you, Rip, to say, hey, look, look what Willie did.
Let's finish this thing. And in the process, you know, we shot a huge amount of footage because you went to a lot of places and we didn't really know exactly what was gonna happen.
So we were shooting.
And as we've gone through and cut it, we've kept cutting it and cutting it and debating how much we need to cut.
It's too long, it needs to be shorter and shorter. And some of the scenes that we took out, which I agree with and understand, but I miss them just because they're, you know, had certain messages, things in them that I appreciated and that I thought were good.
And I even, I brought a clip I want to show a couple of.
Fantastic, that would be a lot of fun.
Yeah, and one of the clips that I just set it up here that we took out all together.
[42:37] We took it out, actually we turned it into like 15 seconds of the film.
But originally what was in there was a few minutes long as you're gonna see.
And this is when Willie and I came to Austin, Texas, not related to what we did with Dr. Liz in Pennsylvania.
We came there to see what you did. And what we found is, my God, these immersions, these programs that you put on are like first cabin, just first-class events, both with the caliber of the people that are presenting it, but just how you.
[43:08] So many bases. So I wanna play this scene here so that people can see a little bit, get a little taste for what it's like when you put on one of these events.
Can we play that first one?
You got it. Ultimately, I left my job as a firefighter and started a company to help large groups of people, regain and maintain their lost health.
So it was normal a dozen years ago for me to be taking groups of 100, Whole Food Market team members for a six-day, medically supervised retreat, and to show them how to become Plant Strong.
This particular retreat was in a resort near Austin, Texas. We fed them spectacular Plant Strong food all week long, and our team of experts taught them how to easily improve their diet to become super healthy.
Each participant got a series of tests at the beginning and the end of the week, And this was so they could see these improvements.
Now, Whole Foods Market invests in this type of intervention because they recognize the benefit of helping employees get off their meds for good and making it so they no longer need bypass or other interventions.
[44:24] This saves Whole Food Market millions of dollars a year. It's a win-win because most employees, don't wanna have type 2 diabetes or a heart attack or other medical problems that might be plaguing them.
The improvements are often dramatic and can happen super quickly.
For example, Jackie was diagnosed eight years ago with type two diabetes.
When I went to the doctor that day, my blood sugar was so off the charts, they thought they would have to rush me to the hospital and they were surprised I wasn't in a coma.
My blood sugar has not been normal since I've been on medication.
No matter what I did, it never came back to normal. Three days into our PlanStrong immersion, Jackie had a breakthrough.
Well, when I checked my blood sugar today, it actually went down to normal. Woo!
[45:21] Jackie also normalized her blood pressure and was able to get off several meds that she thought that she would be on for the rest of her life.
End of seven days we have a graduation where many participants are eager to share their success. As far as I'm concerned you saved my life and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna save other people's lives too. Thank you so much.
When I went to go get my blood drawn and stuff this morning I lost like six pounds since I've been here that's like a pound a day and my blood pressure went down and everything and I stayed full and I still lost weight so I mean I'm a believer you know. Managed to decrease my blood pressure I dropped five pounds, Number three, no insulin for two days.
The first day we were doing introductions, and I have a feeling for my 50s.
[46:09] I'm gonna do better than my 20s.
I just want to say I truly believe in knowledge is power, and I'm eternally grateful to the E2 crew, for empowering me with the knowledge to go into the kitchen and make the right decisions.
And I wanted to get one big rip, rip, hooray if I could from you guys.
Rip, rip! Thank you very much, much appreciated.
While I was helping companies bring their health care system into the future. So there it is.
That was that little three minute clip that we turned into 15 or 20 seconds in the film, but I just was so impressed, Willie and I, when we went with the operation that you put together, Rip.
You came to my event in whatever 2006 and saw it, and then you went and put it on steroids and added 30 dimensions to it. And when people go to one of those things, they just get a hell of an experience.
Well, that's very nice of you. Thanks, Jeff.
Yeah. Now, so Liz.
Are you and your husband still plant strong? Are you guys still getting after it?
Yeah, so Rip, that event set off 12 years.
[47:26] Of Whole Foods plant-based eating events. We called them healthy eating adventures, but like three times a year. At the end of the one that you were there, the coaches came up and said, Liz, we've gotta keep this going.
And so I've had volunteers to, and we ran the program very similarly with the factual presentation, kitchen makeover and the potlucks. We've been doing it now.
Congratulations, that's your real legacy.
[47:56] We've kept it going. And it's not just Mercersburg, it's all around the county.
And we've also done it at an army depot, Carlisle army depot.
We've done it at a Harrisburg Senior Center, Yuma, Arizona did one.
So it's very reproducible and can be done anywhere.
But yeah, we've had all these events going for ever since then.
And it's- Well, I think it's so cool that you were able to take that and then because of some of the food coaches were like, hey, we can't let this just wither on the vine.
Let's, and so all over Franklin County, I think in the film, you mentioned that since the first one at Mercesburg in 2010, you've done now 24.
Yeah, I mean, that's almost like, you know, two, two plus a year.
[48:56] And that's that's I love how reproducible.
I mean, I interviewed I interviewed some of the people and they said that thousands of people have been in the surrounding counties and so on that you've spread this out, have been impacted and had their health dramatically improved.
So really, one other scene that got pulled for length from the film was your husband, Dr. Bob.
[49:19] Who also participated and helped in this thing, gets up at one point and talks about the role that Liz has had in this and other health things that she's tried to do for the community. It's a short scene. Why don't we play that second one and hear what Dr. Bob had to I think Dr. Liz had the right idea to bring the PlantStrong message to her town.
I remember 20 years ago when we'd been in that area about 10 years, at that point doctors were still smoking, patients were still smoking in the hospital, everybody was smoking everywhere.
And Liz was one of the first people to start the discussion about not smoking in hospitals, and how she turned everybody, I don't know what the correct word is, but everybody started getting on board and it took 20 years to get that straightened out.
And still people smoke, but certainly much fewer than they did 20 years ago.
And now we're starting this, and I hope that 20 years from now, as other people have said, our grandchildren, our children will be eating better, and as Marlon said, we won't have junk food will have healthy food or just food and we won't have to separate out what's good and bad but just food. So yeah it'll be interesting 20 years from now to see where this is all gone and it's so great that you started it in a, little town here so.
[50:44] Music.
[50:49] That is so absolutely beautiful, and the music that you chose for that made me just tear up watching that.
Last night, one of the grandkids are over.
We pulled out tofu.
She wanted to make her special sauce, which is soy sauce, and she takes the ginger and she goes like this, and she's only six years old, and she does the ginger and the onion And then we soak it, and we made this really simple stir fry, of course, no oil, and put steamed broccoli in it.
And she's totally enjoying it. It was so much fun. And she knows how to do it.
It's great. You start them young, and...
[51:34] Yeah, it's really, it's neat. And it's been exciting.
Can I pitch in here? I'm writing a book about it, or we've written a book.
A chef and I, a chef joined us midway.
His fatty liver went away in less than six months. His gout, his hypertension, his hypercholesterolemia, his obesity, so many things cleared up.
Oh, his restless legs, I find that fascinating. So he's totally on board in creating recipes.
So we've taken our results from the past 12 years and written a book about it.
And also kind of wrote about what we, the book's called, A Conversation Between a Doctor and a Chef, What We Didn't Learn in Medical School and Culinary School.
Wow. Yeah. So it's kind of trying to encourage people to see where it's been, where it's, you know, what's happened to the health in the country and the foods, trying to encourage doctors, chefs, restaurants, manufacturers to kind of help be part of this shift and see what results can happen.
So, yeah, so Rick, part of your legacy. Yeah, isn't that such a smart idea for a book?
[52:57] That is wonderful, that is great. I mean, yeah, yeah. I mean, the two professions that really should be getting it right.
And I hear that train, baby.
[53:13] The Pacific Sunliner, the Surfliner going out. All right, all right. Out my window.
But yeah, the chefs, if they were cooking and making these meals as delicious as we know they could, and then physicians, if they would have this as their first line of offense against chronic Western disease, I think it's a great idea for a book.
When's it gonna be out?
Well, we've reached to the point of reaching out to publishers and agents.
I understand now that's the harder part than writing a book. But so, I hope so.
How long does it take, Rip, once you start reaching out to publishers?
How long does that take?
Well, it's definitely a process and there's lots of different ways of kind of dipping your foot in the water when it comes to writing a book, as Jeff knows as well.
[54:07] Yeah, let's talk offline about that. The tape. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
So Jeff, what are you up to right now that's kind of got you excited?
Anything you want to share with the audience? I'm also working on a book project, that I can't really talk about, but I've got a couple of book projects, one of them that I'm writing for somebody who's like a famous person, and I'm excited about that one.
And then, so I've got a couple of book projects are what are keeping me busy these days.
Okay, good. And pickleball, pickleball. We really got into pickleball, Sabrina, starting in June with the kids. That was right around the time you were here, I think, Rip, when you were here last and you were playing with my daughters.
And then they came over and said, oh, you know, mom, dad. So now we got the bug.
We were in Mexico for July and we played pickleball three times a week.
We've been back, we're taking lessons, we're getting serious.
[55:12] Well, and for people, if you don't know, let me just briefly get you caught up to speed here.
So Jeff has, in addition to Will, who went with him to Mercesburg and helped with that whole project, you've also got identical twin daughters.
I think they're in their late 20s now, Nina and Randa.
And they are just two of the most beautiful, sweet.
[55:42] Women you could ever meet. And they actually came down with some really severe, almost what cystic acne in their early 20s, right, Jeff?
Yeah, yeah, it was very devastating. They had kind of skated by it all of their teen years.
And then when they were about 20 or so, I remember we were, Sabrina and I were in Hawaii doing something and they were getting acne and sending pictures to Sabrina.
And they, you know, did the whole number of going to the dermatologist and trying everything and just about, and nothing worked or would work temporarily.
And long story short, they, once again, Dr. McDougall to the rescue, he had some articles about acne and they decided to adopt his very low fat program.
[56:31] And were able to stop their acne just in a short few months and went on to write a book about it.
And- The Clear Skin Diet. The Clear Skin Diet, yeah.
How profound they did their own little, just, you know, Rip, you were such an inspiration and had great suggestions.
We did a little pilot study and ended up expanding on the internet.
Had about 118 people enrolled in that and just fantastic results people got.
And then that turned into, as I say, the Clear Skin Diet book.
And today they are coming back, Randa's coming back from, well, they're both in Europe, so I'm gonna go pick one of them up shortly. I think it's important for people to know.
[57:16] Nina and Randa were lifelong vegans, lifelong plant-based, but what Dr. McDougall had them do was really make sure they weren't doing any of the high fat and processed plant-based foods. That's exactly it.
That's exactly it. When they were desperate, they were depressed, they didn't wanna go out in public, their skin, they had such severe problems.
And they've got pictures, they documented that.
And yeah, McDougall basically said, It's not enough to be plant-based or vegan.
You have to, when you're battling these hormones, you've got to go the extra step.
So they had, when they thought back, when they first got this, their major breakout while we were in Hawaii, they were not feeling well and they were just eating nothing but peanut butter toast, you know, peanut butter on toast, and their acne was getting worse and worse and so on.
So yeah, they really cleaned up their act, and that was just the best thing that could have happened for them.
You know, that's not to say you can't have peanut butter, you can't have avocados, you can't have some oil here and there, but if you're battling acne, no.
Those are the things you need to really get on top of.
[58:26] Overt fats. And when I, just to illustrate to everybody listening, how hardcore your family was during this time, I came, when I'm in LA, When I have the invitation, I always stay at the Nelson's house.
[58:47] And we see who can stay in the cold plunge for more than two minutes.
But literally, there in the kitchen, they had three Insta pots.
One had beans, one had oats, one had rice. And then in a bowl, they had, I'm not exaggerating, Probably 40 bananas.
And it was just clean, low-fat, whole food, plant-based living.
And Nina and Rana were just knocking it out of the park. And I'm just, I'm so proud of what they were able to do and achieve and writing this book.
This was probably now what, eight years ago the book came out?
2016, maybe six years ago. Okay, yeah, six years ago.
And how many people, especially teenagers, are suffering from severe acne that causes them suicidal thoughts, deep depression, all these things. And so what an amazing lifeline that they have cast out to so many people.
[59:55] And so if you know anybody that has acne, I highly recommend that you get this book as a present because it will be a lesson. I mean, the key is the empowerment that they had because they felt And as a parent, you know, you see your kids suffering, they've got acne and you're thinking, what can I do?
I can buy all the dermatologists, spend money, but no matter the money you throw at it, you can't really do anything about it.
When they got control of it, but through their diet, and really they changed their diet.
And probably within four or five days, they were really noticing, oh, there's no new breakouts.
You know, they're like, cause you're very aware when you have acne, I guess, where this one is, where that one is, and so on.
But just the power that they had, the personal ability to say, I can stop this, I can actually control this, is a huge thing when you have out of control acne.
You know, it's just enormous to have that personal power to stop it.
Did you wanna say something, Liz?
Well, I was gonna say, we've seen this over the years in our program, and we had a gentleman who was in his 60s say, I have never been free of acne.
[1:01:05] And he, and going on Whole Foods plant-based low, low fat, well, his acne went away.
And if, if teenagers show up in the program, I can say, and they'll say, has my skin going to clean up?
I said, I think it's going to.
And, and we've had, I had this woman with seborrheic dermatitis all over.
And I kept saying, you've, you've got to do this Whole Foods plant-based.
She goes, I'm from Wisconsin. I can't give up cheese. And then one year she comes in, it's gone.
[1:01:31] She said, I gave up the cheese. I mean, it is a psoriasis, it's amazing.
I mean, it is really incredible.
And then the book is so powerful to reinforce that, but you can, I've said sometimes in airports, I see someone with really bad acne.
If I find the opportunity and I go, you know, it's a really terrible thing to do.
I know it's hard to not share it. You know what they're going through. Yeah.
Well, and I know we've kind of gone in a little different direction here, with the acne, but Jeff, I can remember.
[1:02:07] And you guys were sitting down, you're writing the book. And I can remember sending you an article or two that I found about some cultures that basically eat, like as close to food that's grown as is as possible.
I can't remember where this one culture was. And they don't even, I mean, not one pimple on, they just don't have acne in these cultures.
It might've been Papua New Guinea. There's a few cultures that are acne free in South America, in the South Seas.
And yeah, and they're eating, you know, their natural diet is like this.
It's, you know, just very close to the ground. It's fiber and starch and, you know, not rich food.
So many problems are just the richness of the food that people are eating, whether it's obesity, whether it's heart disease or whatever. You eat a bunch of rich food, it tastes good.
Everybody's eating that way, but here come the problems.
Yeah, and instead of getting the glow, you get the outbreaks that we were talking about.
But it's like the three sisters, right? Like in 19, no, in 2005, I.
[1:03:20] To the Copper Canyon in Central Mexico. And I got to see how the Tarahumara Indians.
And you know, they, you know, they're the running people, these people, they basically do 50, 100 mile runs, you know, and they do it wearing these moccasins made out of tires, I should say sandals made out of tires.
And they're still living in caves in the side of the mountain.
They walk down to get their water from the stream.
And then they, it's called the three sisters. It's basically, it's corn, it's squash and it's beans.
And that's the, what they basically, their sustenance.
So we- And Pritikin studied the Tarahumara. They were the cornerstone, the 80, 10, 10, you know, 80% carbs, 10% fat, 10% protein.
That's where that came from, was studying the Tarahumara Indians, who of course don't have heart disease in their population. It's virtually non-existent.
Right. What was that? As well as acne. When they grow that, it grows really, they grow the corn.
So you have this cornstalk to support things and the beans grow up them and the squash helps shades them.
Like it's also a way that they, it's so cool. And it's called three sisters.
It's a wonderful, it's wonderful. It is. So they all support one another, don't they? Yeah.
Wow. Just like we're doing right now.
[1:04:44] Let me ask you this, Liz. So when I was there visiting you in 2010, the mayor was James, I think, Zeger.
Yeah. You know, is he still alive? Is he still there? Oh, he passed away a couple, two years ago, yeah.
But wasn't he a great supporter? He sure was.
He was wonderful. And I remember him saying, and it's in the film, He said, Mersesburg doesn't know the word can't, and that's it.
I love that, that mindset that there's nothing that we can't do. We just have to put our minds to it and we got to figure it out and, uh, and we'll conquer it. Um, so yeah, so he was, he was very supportive, had a lot of nice things to say, um, and even gave me some sort of a proclamation. Yeah, we had a proclamation for them the month of bringing on health. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just kind of keep.
[1:05:49] So, well, wait. Yeah, go ahead. Comes in, buddy.
Somewhere someone mentioned what we're doing or something.
But, and so I was hiking, I was trekking in the Himalayas this spring.
Oh. And, you know, I was the oldest person.
Wow. The other ones were like 20, 30 years younger than me. But it was really cool because I didn't get altitude sickness.
When I got up in the morning, I didn't have sore knees, stiff ankles.
I didn't have all that stuff.
It's what your plant power do. So by the end of the time, people were going, tell me when your book's going to be out.
And they were taking on more plant-based. And it was neat. But it is amazing the difference it makes and how your whole body functions every day.
You're a walking advertisement for your own program there, Liz. Look at that.
Isn't she though? People want to follow you when they see what you're trekking up the mountain there in the Himalayas past all the dead hikers right now.
Liz, you know what Liz reminds me of? So I am a huge fan of Lord of the Rings.
I don't know if you guys are. Right.
[1:07:04] And so you've got Gandalf the Great, and then he falls into this pit.
This fiery, I don't know what kind of evil spirit this thing was, but he survives it and he comes out and he's now Gandalf the Great.
And his hair is no longer gray. It is just white as white.
Liz, you are now Liz the White.
But with all the power and the wisdom and the beauty that comes with that, it's incredible.
When she sees Derry, she says, you shall not pass. That's exactly right.
[1:07:48] Yeah, that's right.
But Liz, if you haven't seen the Lord of the Rings, I highly recommend it.
There's three of them.
I'll have to pull it out. I think it was a ways back. It was, it definitely was.
Well, you know what, you two, this has been a blast. It's been a blast reconnecting and talking about this, really, Liz, what I think was an experiment that turned out to really, you know, catch hold.
It had some legs. You created something.
[1:08:27] Out of nothing. And, and if anybody in the audience is listening, you want to take a deeper dive, go to Plantstronmovie.com. You can check it out. Jeff, how long is it?
Roughly four minutes, 24 minutes. And it is so it is entertaining. It is educational. It's inspiring. And I think you'll get a lot out of it, for sure.
So Liz, Jeff, you guys, it's so great again, after 12 years, I wish as a tribute to what we've all been able to accomplish over the last 12 plus years, we could take a walk back in time and sit in that hot tub for a good hour and just kind of decompress and download on life.
And look at the stars in the sky. They are so beautiful, absolutely.
They were, they were.
Well, any last words from either one of you?
[1:09:34] Rip, thanks for bringing your energy that just empowered us for years.
I mean, it really made a difference, Rip. And thanks for just going game on.
Yeah, thanks Rip for involving Willie and me in this.
We had a lot of fun with that. It was so great that you were there, Jeff.
I mean, it's just- Great to watch it all come together. You should have videoed the hot tub.
No, totally. I think that was before I had an iPhone, so I wasn't taking photos.
Otherwise, I would have had that.
True, yeah, it was early days of the phone. Early days.
All right, you guys, love you both. Love what we were able to do together.
Thank you. Can you give me a virtual plantstrong fist bump on the way out? Boom.
Liz, a little higher, Liz, a little higher. Right, right. Boom.
All right. See ya!
[1:10:31] You can view the film for free at planstrongmovie.com and know that that site is also packed with lots of resources that will allow you to host your own viewing followed by discussions. There's also recipe guides and a booklet so that you can take the 28-day challenge just like the one that we did back in Mercesburg, Pennsylvania. If you're interested in learning more about about Dr. Elizabeth George and her great work, simply visit healthyeatingadventure.org.
Until then, enjoy these valuable tools and resources to help you on your own journey, wherever that may be.
Mercesburg welcomed us into their home, and I hope that you will too.
Until then, keep it Plant Strong.
[1:11:28] Thank you for listening to the Plant Strong Podcast. You can support the show by taking a quick minute to follow us wherever you listen to, your favorite podcasts.
Leaving us a positive review and sharing the show with your network is another great way to help us reach as many people as possible with the exciting news about plants.
Thank you in advance for your support. It means everything.
The Plant Strong Podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick, Gavin, and Wade Clark.
This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth.
Most notably, my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. and Anne Crile Esselstyn.
Thanks for listening.
