Rip Esselstyn Is PLANTSTRONG! (And Why You Should Be Too)

Friend, mentor and original Plantstrong pioneer Rip Esselstyn and I go way back. Both swimmers, we crossed paths at many a meet — as young teens and later as collegiate rivals (Rip was always far more accomplished than I). During the early stages of my transition to a plant-based diet, I vividly recall perusing Facebook when I stumbled upon Rip, who just happened to be on the precipice of publishing his first book on the very subject I was attempting to master. From that moment forward, Rip became a lighthouse — illuminating my path as a generous friend and cheerleader always available to share his knowledge, experience and inspiration. Today, Rip (finally) joins the podcast to share that knowledge, experience and inspiration with you — a hotly anticipated master course on the incredible power of a whole-food, plant-based diet to prevent and reverse disease, promote optimal health, and fuel your athletic dreams. Educated at the University of Texas at Austin, Rip was a three-time All-American swimmer before spending a decade as one of the premier professional triathletes in the world. He then joined the Austin Fire Department where he introduced his passion for a whole-food, plant-based diet to Austin’s Engine 2 Firehouse in order to rescue a firefighting brother’s health. To document his success he wrote the New York Times' bestselling book, The Engine 2 Diet, which demonstrates the irrefutable connection between a plant-based diet and good health. Rip left his job as a firefighter in 2009 to team up with Whole Foods Market as one of their Healthy Eating Partners to raise awareness for Whole Foods employees, customers and communities about the benefits of eating a plant-strong diet. As the founder of Engine 2, Rip develops and implements a range of programs and events geared toward education, inspiring and nurturing plant-strong living for individuals, families and organizations across the globe. A New York Times bestselling author of four books, Rip has appeared on hundreds of radio and national television shows, including the Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America and The Dr. Oz Show. Each year his family produces a series of all-inclusive, immersive events, culminating in Camp Plantstock — an extraordinary experience I highly recommend to anyone looking to reboot their lifestyle. Finally, Rip's newest book, The Engine 2 Cookbook hits bookstores everywhere on December 26, 2017. This is a conversation I’ve been anticipating since the first episode of this podcast Enjoy! Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

  Eating well rarely falls apart because of one big failure. It's the daily question that wears you down. Like, what am I actually gonna make tonight? What's in the fridge? And it's exactly why we built the Plant Power Meal Planner. It's a personalized, plant-based meal planning program that matches you with recipes based on your taste, your allergies, your cooking skills, and how much time you actually have. You build, through this program, a balanced, nutrient-dense plan for your entire household in a few minutes. Then it generates a grocery list for you with one click that plugs right into our delivery partners. All the recipes in the program are built by dietitians with culinary training. Plus, you get your own food coach to help you problem-solve along the way.

• 0:44Rich Roll?

  It's kind of an amazing thing. For listeners of the show, all you special people, we're offering an exclusive $20 off an annual subscription right now. To get it, go to meals.richroll.com, take your quick personalization quiz, and enter promo code RICHROLL20 at checkout.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  One of the things that I don't think people understand is that all protein, all the essential amino acids that are the building blocks for protein, originate in plants. That's where it all originates. That's where the true nutritional engine for all and anything that's beneficial and good in nutrition lives in plants. That's where it all originates from. So your proteins, right? If an animal has protein, it either directly or indirectly got it from plants, right? If it's got vitamins, it either directly or indirectly got it from plants. If it's got minerals, same thing, right? That's where it all starts.

• 1:43Rich Roll?

  That's Rip Esselstyn, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:00Rich Roll?

  Hey everybody, how's it going? Greetings. What is the latest? How are you feeling? Are you good? Are you grateful? Are you ready for the holidays? Are you ready to celebrate Christmas? Are you enjoying Hanukkah? Are you prepared for the new year? I hope so. I'm trying to get there myself. My name is Rich Roll. I'm your host. Welcome or welcome back to my podcast, the show where each week I go deep, I go long form with some of the most compelling, interesting, paradigm-breaking minds and personalities across all categories of health, wellness, fitness, diet, nutrition, athletics, what else? Creativity, spirituality, mindfulness, social advocacy, and so much more. Great show for you guys today. My buddy,

• 2:43Rich Roll?

  Rip Esselstyn, finally, finally on the podcast. Rip is a guy I've wanted to have on the show since day one, and I think timing is perfect because his message is such a great and powerful way to end 2017. This is my last long-form interview episode of the year. I have two more shows before 2018. That's a two-part best of anthology series that I'm going to be releasing, part one on Christmas Day, part two on New Year's Day, where I excerpted some of the best conversations of the year. But this conversation with Rip, last long-form

• 3:25Rich Roll?

  interview of the year. For those that don't know who Rip is, Rip is a former, three-time All-American swimmer from the University of Texas, an extraordinary talent. We're around the same age, and Rip and I would be at the same swim meets when we were kids growing up. And when I was swimming at Stanford, we swam against Texas. We kind of knew each other a little bit. Rip was always a much better swimmer than I. And then when Rip graduated from Texas, he became a pro triathlete, a very successful pro triathlete, something he pursued for about a decade before becoming...

• 4:00Rich Roll?

  A firefighter in Austin, Texas, and his tenure in the Engine 2 Firehouse in Austin presented his real first opportunity to introduce his passion for a whole food, plant-based diet to other people, to his fellow firefighters in the firehouse. It's a long story that we get into in the podcast. It's fascinating. But essentially, he ended up really restoring the health and vitality of a variety of his colleagues. And this was something that got picked up in the press and got a lot of attention. And he ended up documenting this experience, this success that he had in this extraordinary national

• 4:44Rich Roll?

  bestselling book called The Engine 2 Diet, which just exploded. It really catalyzed this plant-strong revolution that Rip is behind and demonstrated the irrefutable connection between eating a plant-based diet and good health. So Rip is this plant-strong pioneer, a guy who has been advocating the benefits of a whole food, plant-based diet to prevent and reverse disease and also power even the craziest athletic feats. He's been doing this for a very long time. And he's really not only a good friend of mine, but somebody who was a source of inspiration and has been a mentor to me for many, many

• 5:24Rich Roll?

  years, like a big brother, the big brother that I never, ever had. And this Engine 2 Diet book was instrumental in my transition, my evolution. And it was succeeded by a whole series of books that Rip has written over the years, including a book called My Beef with Meat, which is fantastic, and two new books over the last year. The first of which is an accelerated Take No Prisoners 7-Day Detox called The Engine 2 7-Day Rescue Diet. That came out last January. And Rip's most recent book, The Engine 2 Cookbook, which is a true cookbook with over 130 super delicious, plant-strong recipes with gorgeous photography. And that hits bookstores everywhere the day after Christmas, December 26. You should

• 6:09Rich Roll?

  definitely pick that up. It's an amazing book. And I got a couple more things I want to say about Rip and our conversation to come, including a fan email that I'm very excited to read. But first,

• 6:27Rich Roll?

  All right. Can I read a fan mail? I'll read a fan mail. Read an email from a fan? Can I do that? It's been a couple of weeks. Let me do that. I'm going to keep this one anonymous, though, just for safety. It goes like this. Hey, Rich and Julie. I'm a mom and I'm also a clinical neuropsychologist in a neurology practice about one hour south of Chicago. I have always thought that I have been a healthy eater, as I have avoided beef and pork, but ate fowl and fish. My brother-in-law is a vegan and follows you and sent me a link to your podcast with the neurologists who discuss diet and Alzheimer's. This is my practice specialty, as I see patients with suspected dementia to assess. I also have

• 7:08Rich Roll?

  three generations of Alzheimer's looking me square in the face in my family history. I'm about two weeks in, and I'm holding out on fish, specifically wild-caught salmon. The chicken and turkey that I've been eating were easy to let go, as was the dairy, surprisingly. I cannot tell you how much better I feel and cannot thank you enough for your message, energy, and spirit. Your story is truly inspiring. I have your wife's cheese book, and it is fantastic. Watching my dad and aunt race to the finish line with the disease has been devastating. I have found new strength in dealing with it and eating clean, and have been incorporating much of this advice to my patients. In just two weeks, I've talked our hospital cafeteria into almond milk, parenthetical, soy sucks

• 7:52Rich Roll?

  and can't be drank by many cancer patients, and have shared Julie's book with two medical residents, one of whom is going into GI. This is huge, given her potential influence on the dietary habits of her patients in the future. Any advice that you have for me in taking the final step of stopping fish would be appreciated. I'm really proud of what I have already accomplished. I feel a shift in my perspective, not just in the nutrition aspect, but in the energy of my plate now. I begin yoga teacher training in January as well. I take great comfort and strength in listening to your podcasts and feel like that I am really included in conversations with like-minded people, which is scary, considering that I work in a hospital that more people don't think this way. Thanks for being such great human beings.

• 8:36Rich Roll?

  Okay, that's an amazing email to receive. I really appreciate it. It's just amazing to to get something like that and to understand that this podcast that's going out into the world is impacting people and that there's a cascade effect, like the fact that this person is now incorporating this into their neurology practice is changing the way that that patients are being treated, sharing the information and that having a ripple effect on other doctors and how they practice medicine. I mean, it's just inspiring and it's a tribute to the amazing work of Dr. Shirzai, who I had on the podcast, but also just thank you for for sharing that with me. And as far as the fish thing goes, the

• 9:18Rich Roll?

  only advice I can give you, well, the first thing I guess I would ask you is, why are you holding on to it? Is it because of the taste? Is it because you think it has nutrition that you think you can't get elsewhere that you need? In either aspect of it, just let it go. Don't overthink it. Look, did you have it today? Can you go a day without it? Do it one day at a time. That's one day. You did that. Maybe do another day. You know, take the time to pay attention to how you feel, chronicle it, and go from there. But I would say, overall, you've made an amazing shift, and I just want to validate and applaud that. That's an incredible shift in behavior and perspective in a very short period of time. And it just warms my heart that you would share that with me. So, thank you.

• 10:00Rich Roll?

  Okay, Rip Esselstyn. One of the amazing things about Rip is beyond the fact that we have a bunch of history and we kind of go way back. What I love about Rip is that his advocacy, the books that he writes, what he stands for, everything that he does, isn't just him, it's a family affair. It is carrying on the legacy of his amazing father, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, and the incredible work that he has been doing his whole life. It's work that also involves Rips. Sister, his mom, these incredible retreats that they host all over America, the annual plant stock event at the family farm. It's really an extraordinary expression of love and a true gift to humanity,

• 10:45Rich Roll?

  the expression of this incredible family. And I'm just pleased beyond to be able to sit down with Rip and to share his powerful message with you guys today. And this is a great conversation. Again, it's one that I've been wanting to have ever since I started the podcast and it's a conversation that covers a ton of ground. We talk about Rip's origin story, what it's like to be the son of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. We talk about his career as a swimmer, as a triathlete, as an athlete even to this day. We discuss a variety of other diets, paleo, Atkins and ketogenic. We talk about Rip's post athletic career as a firefighter, the origin of the Engine 2 program. We talk about his relationship with Whole Foods. What else did we talk about?

• 11:28Rich Roll?

  Basically, we talk about, in essence, the power of plants to heal and empower you. That's it. That's all you need to know. So without further ado, I love this guy. I love this conversation and let's just do it. Let's get into it. Here is my conversation with Rip Esselstyn. So finally, after five years of doing the podcast, I'm finally getting the opportunity to sit down and talk to you. From the moment I started this podcast, you were, you know, number one, top of the list guy that I wanted to get with and it's taken this long to make it happen, but I'm super stoked to be sitting here to unpack your story, Rip.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Me too. Me too. Here we are.

• 12:14Rich Roll?

  I know. It's amazing. We had a great swim this morning. You had to kick my butt up and down the pool, show me what's what. That felt good.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  You were doing awesome considering, yeah, listen, you've been, you've been traveling a lot. You haven't been swimming much.

• 12:26Rich Roll?

  I don't travel like you.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  It was fun to get in the water and just shake it up a little bit.

• 12:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was fun. It was cool.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:33Rich Roll?

  So I should say at the outset that, just to kind of create a little bit of context, when I began my plant-based journey, I stumbled across your Facebook page. This must've been 2000, sometime in 2006. When did Engine 2 come out?

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Engine 2 officially came out in February 25, 2009.

• 12:57Rich Roll?

  2009, okay. So when I, so maybe it was a little bit later, maybe 2007, but I know that you were like working on it, I believe, at the time, and it hadn't come out.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:08Rich Roll?

  And we didn't really know each other, but I knew your name from swimming. And we had been at the same meets growing up as kids. You went to Mercer'sburg where my sister swam, you know, and I had followed your career at Texas and we had had dual meets against each other and the like. And I just remember, I very vividly recall, looking at your Facebook. At some point, I must have sought you out to be a friend and you accepted it, even though we didn't, I was like, you know, following old swimmers or whatever. And I can't remember exactly what you were posting about, but it had to do with the book and kind of this movement that you're in and what you were working on. And it was right at the time when I was stepping into this and I was like, wow, this guy, he swam and he's doing this. And I think out of the blue, I sent you a message on Facebook and you responded and

• 13:51Rich Roll?

  we started a little bit of a dialogue at that point. And here we are.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:56Rich Roll?

  It's so crazy to sit back and look at what you've built and the number of lives that you have impacted with your work and your books and your advocacy. And what your family as a collective unit has been able to accomplish is really nothing short of extraordinary.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Well, thanks a lot, Rich. I mean, yeah, it's been an amazing, uh, it's been an amazing journey. It's been an amazing path. And, uh, you know, I think we've, we've both been on our own amazing journey, uh, being, being advocates for, for, for plant-based nutrition. And, um, yeah, I mean, you know, my, my journey started in 19, really 1987 is when I kind of plunged into this and in large part because of my, I shouldn't say in large part, but really because of my father's research at the Cleveland Clinic.

• 14:51Rich Roll?

  Right, so explain that a little bit for people that don't know.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, uh, for any listener that doesn't know who my father is, he, um,

• 15:01Speaker 01

  He wrote a book called Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease and really it's based upon his work at the Cleveland Clinic going back to 1984. And he got really just sick and tired of surgery as a means of trying to address a lot of breast cancer. And so he was like, you know what, in my lifetime it will be probably pretty hard to show that we can prevent and reverse breast cancer biting this way, but I know that you can do it, I'm betting that you can do it with heart disease. And so by eating to save your heart, you're also saving your breasts and your prostate and you know, all these other things.

• 15:41Rich Roll?

  But what gave him that idea to begin with? Like, when did he begin his own journey with this way of eating and living?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know what, so I think he started looking at a lot of the epidemiological studies that were out there. He saw this research that had been done on green monkeys where they were able to reverse the heart disease in green monkeys. So they basically fed them food that gave them these atherosclerotic plaques. And then they would give them a primarily a whole food plant-based diet. And then they were able to reverse it. So he's like, wow, it can be done in green monkeys. And we have cultures on the planet that for the most part have no heart disease, very little cancer, obesity, I bet you we can do it. So he took, he asked the cardiology department at the Cleveland Clinic to send him the bottom

• 16:31Speaker 01

  of the barrel patients that had been turned down for another bypass or angioplasty, stent, all those things. And over the course of like a year and a half, he got 22 patients. And five years later, they're still alive, 10 years later, they're still alive, 15 years later, they're still alive, 20 years later, they're still alive. And these are, remember, these are the walking dead.

• 16:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  And now all of a sudden, they're the walk, you know, they're the walking alive, they're like, they're, they're, they're having very amazing fruitful lives again.

• 17:05Rich Roll?

  And this was back in the late 70s?

• 17:08Speaker 01

  So this is, no, this, this all started in 1984.

• 17:11Rich Roll?

  Oh, 84, okay.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  1984 at the Cleveland Clinic. And so I got to see what he was doing from 1984 to 1987.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  I graduated from UT in December of 1986. And that's when I was off the athletic training table fare of steaks and burgers and chicken and pizzas and all that, you know, crazy stuff. And I immediately started eating this way and, you know, and one of my heroes in the sport of triathlon, Dave Scott, six-time winner of the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon, had been following this particular way of eating and so I'm, to me, it was like a slam dunk. I'm in, I'm sold, health performance, I don't, I don't need any more, any more, you know, data or convincing, I'm sold.

• 17:58Rich Roll?

  And when your dad began doing this, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I read somewhere that this wasn't exactly a popular protocol at the Cleveland Clinic because they make their money on surgery, right? And suddenly he's helping all these people and they don't have to go under the knife anymore.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Right. No, that's, you bring up a very, a very good point there. So 60%, roughly 60% of the Cleveland Clinic's revenue comes from the cardiology department, right?

• 18:28Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  From doing all these, you know, surgeries, stents, angioplasties, it's crazy. And so he, he was not looked upon very favorably at the Cleveland Clinic, but, you know, luckily, he, he, he's pretty self-confident when he's found the truth and he's gonna like, you know, have that be his, his guiding light. And he didn't care, I mean, people were calling him Doctor Sprouts. In the mail, he would get envelopes that had, you know, tree bark in it, you know, with no return address.

• 19:02Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  I mean, it's crazy what people were doing, but he held, he held fast to his guns, he knew he was, you know, barking up the right tree. And, you know, lo and behold, I think it was within three, four years, he had proof of concept that yes, this is, this disease is reversible. And then he's been doing this now, this is the longest-running study of its kind, I mean, it's still ongoing and it's now, you know, 35 years later.

• 19:30Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  And he's been written up and... You know, probably close to eight or nine different medical journals. His latest that came out in 2014 was the American, was in the American Journal of, I think it was Family Practice, where he went back and he looked at 200 patients that he had, that he had counseled to find out what the compliance was, compliance rate was like, four years later. Guess what, guess what? Guess what it was?

• 19:58Rich Roll?

  I don't know. High, right?

• 19:59Speaker 01

  It was 90%.

• 20:00Rich Roll?

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  90%.

• 20:02Rich Roll?

  90% of the people still maintaining this program.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Still maintaining that program, like hitting it out of the park. And of the remaining 10% that didn't follow the program, what's interesting is 67% of those, 10%, 20, roughly 22, 23 people, had either passed away, had another heart attack, stroke, surgery, and of the 167 that stayed with the protocol, one male had a small stroke. So, pretty incredible.

• 20:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, that high rate does not surprise me. You know, I've met so many of these people by participating in, you know, some of your events, and I've met a lot of these people who have literally, literally been brought back from the brink, and they're so evangelical because their health has turned around so dramatically and unexpectedly, and they're just all about it. Like, there's no way they're going back.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, some of these people were so bad off, imagine that you're in a wheelchair, you're, you're getting cardiac disability, because you can't go to work because you're so far gone that you're now in a wheelchair because your angina is so bad that you can't even stand up. Some of these, some of these, these men, their angina was so bad, just to shave in the morning, just this motion right here, right, was so severe that they had to put basically, um...

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Nitric oxide paste, nitroglycerin paste on their, on their, right around here, right? Just so they could shave in the morning.

• 21:32Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't think anybody realizes how far gone and how bad off these patients were. Half of them, almost half of them were given what's called a diagnosis of end-stage heart disease, which means you have less than a year to live.

• 21:44Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  You know, and the doctors' order, marching orders were, "Go home and get all your affairs in order."

• 21:51Rich Roll?

  And it's one thing to talk about prevention, and it's another thing entirely to talk about reversal, but when you see the before and after angiograms in your dad's book, it's, it's shocking, you know, to see that reversal of what happens when you go on this protocol and you can actually, you know, open up those arteries again, and the plaque clears up, and suddenly the blood is flowing in a way that it hasn't in many years.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:15Rich Roll?

  It's just unbelievable.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Profusing the heart, and that's why, you know, people are like, 90%, how could he have that kind of compliance? Like, imagine if your life has been basically whittled down to the point to where you're in a wheelchair, you have no life whatsoever, you can't even walk without, you know, pain, discomfort, and now you're also have erectile dysfunction, and now, a year, six months into the program, you're like, you have no more chest pain, you're walking, you're playing tennis, you're dancing with your wife, you're having sex with your wife, you're going to be intimate again. I mean, wow. I mean, you can't put a price tag on that stuff.

• 22:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's unbelievable.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:56Rich Roll?

  So he's doing this back in 1984, it was a very different time, the receptivity certainly wasn't what it was, you know, what it is today, and it's gotta be so gratifying, you know, for him and for all of you and your family to see kind of culture catch up and embrace this.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Oh, it's, it's, uh, it's amazing, because I, I know when he started this in 1984, it was a completely different world as far as, like, embracing this, and now, 2017, um, you know, we've got, everywhere I turn now, I see a book about eating, you know, plant-based, you've got all these documentaries that are out there, um, he, and he's, and he and Colin, it's Colin Campbell, you know, and Forks Over Knives.

• 23:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  You know, in their own right, they now have been elevated to the status of almost, you know, celebrities in the plant-based world. And again, to me, it's a testament of these two, you know, one clinician, one kind of scientist that stuck to their guns. They knew that they were doing the right thing. And they've both made such an impact on people's health and this whole movement.

• 24:06Rich Roll?

  So, let's talk about the specifics of what the diet actually is for those who might be new to the show or, you know, less familiar. We're talking about plant-based, but this is a very specific version of plant-based.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, well, for the Engine 2, Engine 2 Diet or Prevent/Reverse?

• 24:25Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, so those are even two gradations of, you know, even more. But, you know, we could start with Engine 2.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, Engine 2, um, so for the people that don't know, you know, Engine 2 basically is called Engine 2 because I was able to get a bunch of firefighters in Austin, Texas to drop the...

• 24:47Rich Roll?

  Because you were a firefighter. We're gonna track your story. You're getting ahead of me, but like, it's okay.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:54Rich Roll?

  So, yeah, you are a firefighter and you're at Engine 2 here in Austin.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Firefighter, Engine 2, helped save a fellow firefighter's basically, uh, destiny with a heart attack by eating Plant Strong, following the Engine 2 program.

• 25:08Rich Roll?

  But you had a contest, right? Like, you made it fun for all of these guys that you were working with.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. No, we, yeah, I mean, we had a little bar bet sitting out on the porch, said, "Hey, guys, let's, you know, who we thought was the healthiest." And we decided, you know what, to follow through on this bet, we're gonna go down to the lab and we're gonna get our cholesterals checked and see who's got the lowest cholesterol. And that was when one of my firefighting brothers, his cholesterol came back at 344 at the age of 33. And, you know, most humans, or most Americans, rather, have a cholesterol between 200 and 225. JR was 344. His father had triple bypass at 50. His grandfather died before the age of 50. His great-grandfather died before the age of 51.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  And so, he was, uh, he was just following down, right? That family path there. And so JR was and the team and the crew there, they were like game to jump on board and try this. And so in 2003, we started eating a lot of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, limited amounts of nuts and seeds, you know, no, no extracted oils, you know, so we're not doing olive oil, canola oil, safflower, any of these oils. And within 28 days, JR's cholesterol came down 148 points.

• 26:35Rich Roll?

  It's unbelievable.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, 148 points, dropped, dropped about 14 pounds, increase in energy, you know, all the things that happened, acid reflux, indigestion, bowel movement function, all that stuff. So.

• 26:50Rich Roll?

  And that caught the attention of the media, right? So suddenly there's newspaper articles being written about this. What's this guy doing at the fire department? Like, he's got these guys, you know, on this crazy diet and their cholesterol's dropping and people start paying attention to what you're doing.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, people started paying attention. The crowning blow was the New York Times did a, did a front page piece in like 2006. And then that's when it was like Katy bar the door. I mean, we got, we got inundated with, with letters, emails, phone calls, postcards, just from people saying, wow, you guys are an inspiration, you know, keep it up. And then that's when, when I got a lot of offers from literary agents and publishing houses to write a book. And I decided at some point after, probably it was three months after getting some, a lot of these, these, these phone calls and letters

• 27:49Speaker 01

  that, you know what, maybe I can write a book. Cause forever I was like, who am I to write a book? I got no business writing a book. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a health coach. I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not a dietitian. I'm an ex, ex, you know, professional triathlete that's now a firefighter. But at some point I was like, you know what? Maybe there's somebody out there that would benefit from hearing this from a firefighter, and I got a decent platform.

• 28:11Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  And so, you know what? Let's give this the old, you know, college try. So, yeah, I spent two years writing the book. Decided to call it Engine 2, because that's where the whole thing, you know, originated from. That was the genesis of it. And did a pilot study to show the efficacy of eating this way with 62 guinea pigs. And, yeah, so then the book came out in February 2009, and that's how it all started.

• 28:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah. That book blew up. That was, it was a New York Times bestseller, yeah?

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Yep. It was a New York Times bestseller, and I was fortunate enough to be in a lot of the morning shows and stuff like that. And, yeah, and then a couple of months later, you know, John Mackey read it and became a fan, and he asked me if I would consider coming on board with Whole Foods to be a healthy eating advocate and partner, and I said, you know, twist my rubber arm, right?

• 29:12Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah. And here we are at the Whole Foods headquarters right now.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 29:17Rich Roll?

  And you just showed me your office. I mean, I, obviously, I know you have a product line with Whole Foods, the Engine 2 line, and I'm familiar with some of those products, but I didn't realize that you have 50 SKUs.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, close to 50. I think it's 47 exactly right now. We're coming out with seven new SKUs here, just in probably a month or two. But, yeah, it's, you know, so, and for the listeners that don't know what a SKU is, because I didn't know, you know, when I got into this business, what's a SKU. Basically, for example, I've got cereals, and I've got three different types of cereals, right? Got the ripped big bowl cereal, got the banana walnut, the triple berry, and the original that's got raisins in it. So each one of those is a SKU. Each one of those is askew within the cold cereal category.

• 30:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  And so we've got hot cereals, we've got granolas, we've got hummuses, we've got crispbread crackers, we've got soups, pasta sauces, pizza crusts, veggie broth, we've got two different types of soup, we got a firehouse chili, we have a Moroccan stew. And soon we're coming out with some insane, insane raviolis and some amazing burritos.

• 30:34Rich Roll?

  It's great, and they're all no oil, super low fat, right?

• 30:38Speaker 01

  And they all follow, they all follow all the criteria of engine two, which is basically you gotta be 100% plant strong, right? You're not gonna find any animal products or any animal byproducts in there. Everything's gotta be low fat, so 25% of the calories or less coming from fat, and it's gotta be all naturally occurring fat.

• 30:58Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  That's in the food, right? And then everything's gotta be low salt, and what that means is, if you look at the number of calories per serving, let's say it's 220, like for the soup, ideally the milligrams of sodium have to be equal to that or less.

• 31:16Rich Roll?

  Lower.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  So for example, most soups that are out there, you'll see that there's 220 calories per serving, and the milligrams of sodium are like 600, almost three times the amount. And by following that one-to-one ratio or less, you're pretty much gonna guarantee that your daily sodium intake is less than 2,200, which is kinda the upper limit according to the Institute of Medicine.

• 31:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  So we wanna pay attention to that, especially considering that, you know, what is it, close to a quarter of the American adults are now on some sort of hypertension medication. I just read an article this morning, the...

• 31:54Speaker 01

  It was in CNN talking about how now we have more obese Americans than ever before. Forty percent, forty percent of adults, nineteen percent of children.

• 32:04Rich Roll?

  It's insane.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  It's insane.

• 32:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's insane. You know, heart disease, number one killer, one out, is it still one out of every three Americans will die, one out of every two will contract some form of heart disease. Diabetes, fifty percent of Americans by 2030, they're predicting will be diabetic or prediabetic.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 32:25Rich Roll?

  You know, I say it all the time, these are the epidemics of our era. And when you really, like, sit and ponder those statistics, it's insane.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Well, what's the most insane thing about it to me is that I think you know, and I know, that we could abolish all this, literally in a matter of a year and a half, two years, if everybody kind of had this knowledge, knew the power of a whole food plant-based diet to not only to prevent, but also to reverse these diseases. But instead, you know, we're, we're, uh, we're looking for procedures, we're looking for diets that don't work, we're looking, we're barking up the wrong tree everywhere we go. And it's just making it worse, people are more confused than ever. And, um, it's, it's an absolute crying shame.

• 33:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 33:23Rich Roll?

  Well, on the confusion piece, it's a weird time because we've never had more immediate access to information than ever.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:32Rich Roll?

  And part of that is amazing, and another part of that is, you know, creates that confusion, especially in the health and nutrition space where there's so much conflicting information. And people don't have time to read all this stuff, and they're gonna look at the headline, they're gonna move on. Nobody's reading these studies, nobody's taking the time to see how the studies were performed, or who paid for them.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:54Rich Roll?

  And they're just trying to get through the day, right? And so how do you cut through that morass and get the truth out?

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:01Rich Roll?

  It's not as easy as it sounds.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  No, or they're gonna look at the headlines, maybe skim it, and then just look for some takeaways that allow them, right? To have their butter, to have their-

• 34:10Rich Roll?

  Feel good about what they're doing.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Their bacon, or whatever it is. I mean, the latest cousin to the paleo that's just tearing it up right now is the whole ketogenic diet.

• 34:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so tell me, I'm interested in your perspective on that, because that is on center stage right now.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  Oh, it is. Well, I mean, basically what they're saying is you can have your bacon, you can have your eggs, you can have your sausage, you can have your butter, and as long as you kind of get your body to go into this state where you're burning fat, you're doing minimal to no carbohydrates, you put your body basically into this starvation state, you can lose weight and you can fight cancer. And I think it's, I think it's one of the most dangerous things that's out there. And, you know, I had a woman at one of our immersions that we just did in Sedona, Arizona. She hadn't had a piece of fruit in a year because her personal trainer basically told

• 35:08Speaker 01

  her that it's just gonna add pounds like nobody's business. So here's somebody that's eating bacon and eggs and butter and cream cheese and all this stuff, but she's not even touching a fruit because she's under the mistaken belief that it's gonna go right to her thighs. You know, she's 90 pounds overweight and, you know, it's crazy. But the whole keto thing, it's amazing how the whole Atkins thing just won't go away, right? As McDougal always says, right, you love to hear, you know, good things about your bad habits, but, you know, it was Atkins, and then it was South Beach, and then it was, you know, paleo, and now it's keto. It's like, just, you know-

• 35:48Rich Roll?

  It's interesting how the focal point and the conversation has pivoted. Like, you don't hear so much about paleo anymore. It's all kind of moved towards keto and low carb. And it's fascinating, certainly at the crux of that, is the fact that people want to hear good news about their bad habits. Because who doesn't want to be told that, like, they should be baking for breakfast? It's like, I get it. But I think it's something more than that, too. Like, I think there's something about the way that that silo, that camp communicates to the public. And I think they understand, they're maybe a little bit more internet savvy and fluent

• 36:29Rich Roll?

  in how we communicate in this modern age than perhaps our plant-based community is. And I think there's something to be learned from that.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 36:37Rich Roll?

  About how we can improve. Because I feel like we're challenged in really connecting with people in a way that I think we're capable of. And I don't know what the answer to that is.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:52Rich Roll?

  But we have some work to do, I think.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like, for example, just last week, ABC Good Morning America did a segment on this new keto book that's out there. And this beautiful news anchor was saying how, "Yeah, I've lost weight, and, you know, I had breast cancer, and now I'm fighting my breast cancer, and look what I can eat. I can eat sausage and bacon and eggs." And they actually showed her putting butter into her coffee. And I can tell you right now, in the era that we're living in now, that thing has gotten, basically, you know, forwarded on to that little five-minute segment to more people. That book was number one on Amazon. I mean, it's just like, it's crazy.

• 37:34Rich Roll?

  And all that IGF-1, and casein, and animal protein. Like, what's gonna happen?

• 37:39Speaker 01

  And carnitine, and lecithin.

• 37:41Rich Roll?

  The cancer.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  And insidiously destructive animal protein, and cholesterol, and trans fats, and saturated fats. It's just, the list goes on and on and on.

• 37:52Rich Roll?

  So what happens when someone comes up to you and says, "Yeah, but saturated fat is not..." Like, I read this. That's been debunked. Saturated fat does not lead to elevated serum cholesterol. It's not that bad for you. We've been duped. That was propaganda by the sugar industry, or whatever vested interest. What is your response to that? Because I'm sure you feel that all the time.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Well, I would actually disagree. I'd say if you look at the preponderance of the scientific literature, when it comes to saturated fat, you'll actually see that it actually does promote heart disease, that it promotes type 2 diabetic insulin resistance, that it actually does fuel cancers. But, you know, really, to me, the bottom line is is that you're not going to find saturated fat in any plants. I mean, it doesn't exist in plants. Yeah, in some nuts and some seeds.

• 38:47Rich Roll?

  Right, a little avocado, coconut.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Coconut, right. Right. But fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, it doesn't exist. So, to me, saturated fat, it's the lifeblood. It's really the lifeblood of the paleo keto program. And so if we were to say scientifically definitively saturated fat contributes to all these things and it is a bad, mad pajama, they wouldn't have a program anymore. So they've got to stand up and scream and shout and say, "No, there's nothing wrong with saturated fat." But look at what...

• 39:20Rich Roll?

  But they're better at shouting, because that ends up on the cover of Time Magazine, or what have you, and what you just said gets lost in the shuffle.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, and then look at the friends that saturated fat keeps. Right? That whole laundry list that you and I just rattled off there, right? The IGF, right? The quarantine, the lecithin, the wrong kind of destructive animal protein, the cholesterol. I mean, it's just like, that's what you're also getting with saturated fat. Right? So let's just give them the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with saturated fat. But everything else that saturated fat lives with in the red meat, the chicken, the fish, the eggs, the milk, the cheese, the butter, the yogurt, you can't get away from it. All those things.

• 40:11Rich Roll?

  But sugar. It's about sugar, Rep.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Well, some people believe it's about sugar. I don't, I don't think it's a, uh, uh, sugar's not the culprit. No. That, people like to deflect a little bit.

• 40:26Rich Roll?

  What about the idea that all sugar is the same, whether it's a fruit or a Coca-Cola?

• 40:31Speaker 01

  No, it's not.

• 40:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  It's not. No, cause like the fruit, so the, I mean, um, the sugar that you're getting, for example, in a banana, or an apple, or an orange, right, it comes attached to the fiber. And that's the main difference. When it's attached to the fiber, it can act as a nice, slow release of energy over an extended period of time. Um, but when it's just like pure, you know, white sugar, brown sugar, molasses, or something like that, um, it leads to the, the sugar highs, and then the lows, and, and then, uh, it leads to increasing triglycerides, and potentially even, you know, elevating cholesterol levels. So, um, but no, eating,

• 41:16Speaker 01

  eating sugar, fructose, sucrose, when it's attached to fruit, is like supremely healthy. And you know, I mean, you and I, as, as athletes, what's our, our body's main source of fuel? It's, it's carbohydrates.

• 41:29Rich Roll?

  Carbohydrates.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  It's not protein, it's not fat, it's carbohydrates.

• 41:32Rich Roll?

  And yet, everyone is so fixated on the protein thing, right? I've been doing this 10 years, you've been doing it much longer. We swam together this morning, you kicked my butt, you were the fastest guy in the pool, you're 54 now?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Fifty-four, almost 55.

• 41:47Rich Roll?

  You're rocking it. Fifty-five. You're killing it. So, so what about this, you know, let's just clarify things for, for people who are listening, this issue of protein, and, and maybe even get a little bit more detailed about this idea that, okay, well, you can get protein from plants, but it's not of the same caliber or quality as the protein that you would get from an animal source.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  No, you're right. I would say it's even better. Right, it's a lot better. So, uh, when I'm talking to my kids, three, eight, and ten, I let them know that, you know, in this house, we eat strong food. So, we're eating foods that are strong. They're gonna basically make you bulletproof to chronic western disease. They're gonna give you an immune system like a Canadian mousse, so you basically very rarely if ever get sick. And, uh, in this house, we're just not gonna eat weak foods. And so, that's why we're not gonna do red meat, chicken, fish, or eggs. And I let them know that it's a weak source of protein. Everybody thinks, it's funny, because it's almost like a 180 from what we learned growing up. So, traditionally,

• 42:51Speaker 01

  we thought that, you know, red meat and chicken and fish were strong, really healthy sources of protein. But the reality is, is that they're really insidiously destructive. They have a proportion and composition of the, uh, essential amino acids, really eight, or nine, depending upon what you think, that, um, that actually wreak havoc on our systems. They're very pro-inflammatory in nature. They actually raise cholesterol levels. Um, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about IGF-1, uh, animal protein, especially those, the animal protein in dairy products can actually, uh, turn on cancer, cancer

• 43:33Speaker 01

  cells, initiate and propagate cancer cells. And, um, and then, uh, you know, if you're a female, it also contributes to, uh, leaching calcium from the bones, because it creates a state of metabolic acidosis. Right. So, uh, I tell my kids, like, listen, so the strongest form of protein that you're gonna get comes from, whether it comes from fruits, vegetables, whole grains, or beans, that it's very friendly in nature. It's not gonna promote inflammation. It's not gonna leach calcium from your bones. It's not gonna bash, you know, like, your kidneys, or your liver. You talk to somebody that's having, uh, you know, kidney issues, your doctor will have you go on a low-protein diet, because that animal protein bashes the living shit

• 44:15Speaker 01

  out of your, out of your, out of your kidneys. So, um, you know, and one of the things that I don't think people understand is that all protein, all the essential amino acids that are the building blocks for protein, originate in plants. That's where all originates. That's where, like, the true nutritional engine for all and anything that's beneficial and good. In nutrition, lives in plants. That's where it all originates from. So your proteins, right? If an animal has protein, it either directly or indirectly got it from plants, right? If it's got vitamins, it either directly or indirectly got it from plants. If it's got minerals, same thing, right? That's where it all starts.

• 44:58Rich Roll?

  One of the things that you hear consistently from athletes on a plant-based diet, or athletes that transition to a plant-based diet, is that suddenly their recovery is enhanced. Right? You kind of touched on it a minute ago, and I think it has to do, and I'm interested in your thoughts on this, it has to do with, you're eating much more anti-inflammatory foods, right? So you're not eating all these inflammation-provoking foods. You're getting your protein, but you're doing it in an anti-inflammatory way, and that allows the body to recover more rapidly, more quickly. You bounce back more quickly. You're less likely to get sick. You can go harder. You can go faster. You can go longer.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 45:36Rich Roll?

  You know, it's like, you know, nature's EPO, and then protract that out over a course of a season or a number of years, and that translates into you becoming a better athlete.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:48Rich Roll?

  It's not that eating plants makes you a better athlete, but it sets you up to pursue a better trajectory for success.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, brilliant. You just said it beautifully. And the other thing, you know, I don't think people realize, I mean, the cleanest burning fuel out there you're gonna get is from plants. And as an athlete, one of the things that is crucially important for us, as far as our athletic performance, is being hydrated, right? I mean, you get a little dehydrated, your performance can drop, you know, 5% just like immediately. And it takes eight times more water to digest meat than it does plant-based products. And plus, look at, look at all the inherent water that's in plants. I mean, fruits and veggies are roughly, what, 70, 80% water?

• 46:36Rich Roll?

  In addition to that, just the energy it takes to break down all those foods versus plant foods, like you have to exert yourself. That's why you get these food comas and these lulls in energy because your body has to metabolize all these foods and they're difficult to break down.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, totally. No, I mean, uh, yeah, as far as recovery, as far as stamina, as far as, you know, reaching, reaching your ideal weight. I mean, you look, you look across, you know, all the, the pro sports that are out there these days, basketball, football, uh, baseball. It's amazing how, to me, how many of these athletes are overweight, right? They're overweight. Here they are. This is their profession, right? This is what they're getting paid typically wonderful, wonderful money to do and they can't get it right when it comes to their, their diet and what to eat.

• 47:24Rich Roll?

  Have you worked with professional athletes directly? I mean, there's a lot of them. I mean, every day, my Twitter feed, somebody sends me, oh, so-and-so's going, you know, plant-based, this person and that. It's like, it's interesting, you know, it's an interesting moment in time where a lot of these athletes are, are testing it out and giving it a try.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  No, it's fascinating. I, I personally am, am not working, uh, with anyone. I mean, I did get

• 47:47Rich Roll?

  But I know people reach out to you behind the scenes. You talk to people.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Well, for, like, yeah, I, I, yes. Uh, for example, not too long ago, uh, the, the GM for the Atlanta Falcons, right? We've, we've had several phone calls back and forth about me pop, you know, going in there and, and talking to the guys. Uh, Tony, um, wide receiver.

• 48:09Rich Roll?

  Gonzalez?

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Tony Gonzalez. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He got kind of exposed to it with Tony Gonzalez back, uh, you know, several years ago. Um, but, and for those of you that don't know, Tony, Tony Gonzalez is the all-time reception, has more receptions of any tight end. And I think it was like with three years to go in his career, he read the China study and started going, going plant-based. Um, but yeah, everyone, you know, Griff Whalen, you know, wide receiver. Reached out to me a little bit, but um, yeah, here and there.

• 48:40Rich Roll?

  It's cool. So during your swimming career though, you were just eating the average, whatever, like at the training table at UT.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  It was pitiful.

• 48:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  It was absolutely pitiful. But you know what? It's kind of one of those things when you're 18, 19, 20, 21, you can almost get away with anything.

• 48:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  You know, I mean.

• 48:55Rich Roll?

  It's just you're burning so hot. And when you're swimming four or five hours, there's nothing like swimming to create an appetite.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Oh, it's crazy.

• 49:02Rich Roll?

  It's nothing like, like running, cycling, forget it, but swimming.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. But let's clear something up because just, but you can't, it doesn't matter how hot the engine burns, you're, you know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna burn off, right? Those atherosclerotic plaques, the cholesterol, the fatty lesions, you know, whatever, whatever you're doing to start, you know, some sort of cascade of, of cancer cells. That, you can't, you can't do that.

• 49:28Rich Roll?

  Starts early. Yeah. I mean, I think we, we tend to believe like, oh, I'm young, I'll deal with this later. But you really start, you know, heart disease starts when you're very young. You know, as soon as you start eating those foods, that's when it begins.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Yep. No, we, there's, there's, there's, we know from studies, right? Uh, poor, you know, poor kids who have died in automobile accidents or whatever, usually starts three, four, five, six years of age.

• 49:54Rich Roll?

  That's crazy. So after your swimming career, so you swam at University of Texas, you were, I mean, you were All-American NCAA finalist, Hunter Back?

• 50:03Speaker 01

  No, no, you know, no, I was, I was an All-American, but it was on relays. So I was, I was on, I was 400 freestyle relay.

• 50:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Three, three years, three different years. And we were, we were top three, three years. But in.

• 50:17Rich Roll?

  And you went, do you win NCAA's?

• 50:19Speaker 01

  No, it's kind of painful. No, no. So the four years that I was there, we got two seconds and two thirds.

• 50:25Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I think one of those years we lost to Stanford.

• 50:28Rich Roll?

  I think that might be true.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  One was Florida, one was, I think, and then two were Cal Berkeley when Beyond he was there.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and all of them are painful. You look back and you're like, oh my god, you know, what happened? If this wouldn't have happened, you know, we would have won by, you know, four points, you know.

• 50:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  It's just crazy.

• 50:48Rich Roll?

  And after, so after the conclusion of that, you decide you're gonna dip your toe and end up becoming a triathlete, you become a pro triathlete.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:56Rich Roll?

  And you had some good success, and that's right around the time when you switched your diet?

• 51:01Speaker 01

  That's right when I switched my diet, right. Yeah, 1987. 1987 is when I started, you know, what would be a 10-year career as a full-time triathlete. And, uh, yeah, it was, I mean, it was, looking back, it was, it was quite a time, you know, I was just really, I was training, I was sleeping, I was eating healthily.

• 51:25Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Um, I was looking for sponsorships.

• 51:28Rich Roll?

  It's a tough life, man. It's a nomadic backpack kind of way of living.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  It was, yeah, no, it was, it was, I was at the right age to do it, right, my early twenties, but, uh, looking back, I'm like, god, I can't believe.

• 51:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  You know, what I, what I put up with, what I went through, you know, sleeping on couches, lugging my bike-carrying case everywhere.

• 51:52Rich Roll?

  And what's Papa E. thinking at this time?

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Well, that's interesting. So, uh...

• 51:58Rich Roll?

  I mean, gold medal, Olympic gold medalist in rowing.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 52:02Rich Roll?

  So...

• 52:02Speaker 01

  It's a tough act to follow. Well, an impossible act to follow, right? So, uh, but, so for the first, I would say, five years, my father was my biggest fan. Biggest fan, like, you know, would fly all over the world, basically, you know, watch me compete. It was incredible. And then at some point, I felt like, well, I shouldn't say I felt, he felt like, um, it was time for me to move on, right? Move on with my life, get a real job, you know, um, grow

• 52:39Speaker 01

  up, and, uh, and kind of stop this child's play. And, you know, he wrote me this really, um...

• 52:50Speaker 01

  From his heart, just in looking back now that I have kids, just very loving letter that where he basically thought that I was chasing after something that was impossible for me to attain and it was like a fool's mistress and that he could not support me any longer, not financially, because he wasn't, but just could not support me emotionally and all that stuff. That's, that's a rough one. Oh, it was intense. It was intense. And so from that point on, around him, I was a closet triathlete, right?

• 53:31Speaker 01

  So you still continue to do it, you just have to, you're doing it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I did it for another, another almost five years. And then it was perfect because at that, in 1997, I was like, I was almost 34 years old and it was, it was a great transition. It was time, I was like, it was time for me to get out. I'd had enough. I'd had enough of that. You had success along the way. Weren't you the first out of the water in Kona? Like led the race out one year? Yeah, no, but listen, I was, you know, over the course of that 10 years, I became the, one of the premier swimmers in the sport, came out of the water, whether it was Alcatraz, whether it was Kona, you know, whether it was all these USTS races, typically first, if not first, second.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  And escaped from Alcatraz, I was out of the water, six years in a row, first, led the bike, would usually get passed on the run by, you know, guys like Mike Pig, Wes Hobson, Scott Tinley, some of those guys. I could throw down, on a good day, I could throw down a 33, 10K and some of these guys, you know, 31, 32. Yeah, so I had some good success. I mean, I was considered one of the top 10 triathletes at the short court distance, the international distance, 1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run. I was never a, an ultra distance guy, right? I didn't do the Ironmans. I did them twice just to do it, right?

• 54:56Speaker 01

  I went to Kona and my first year there, 1994, I came out of the water first. I led the bike for probably... Forty miles, you know, I had the helicopters overhead. I had the, I had, I had the, you know, the motorcycles. I had the, the cars. I had, you know, ABC, Y, World of Sports. I, I wasn't pacing myself. I wasn't drinking. I wasn't fueling myself. You know, my longest, my longest, I think, ride run going into that might have been, you know, an 80 mile ride and a three mile ride. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna flame out, like, but I'm gonna enjoy this until it. For the most part, for the most part. And it's so funny, because, you know, my, the first person to pass me was, was Dave Scott. Uh huh. And he passed me about, probably mile forty, right before you, you know, climb,

• 55:41Speaker 01

  make the climb up to Havi. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, oh, he looked, he, he looked amazing, you know, and the back of his, his, his hamstrings were just like a stallions. And I'm like, there he is, man. There's my man. And, uh, and he ended up getting, I think he got second that year to Greg Welch. Uh huh. Uh, and I think he threw down like a two forty-five, you know, marathon there. But incredible. But yeah, I, I, you know, I just, I never really had the mentality to do that, the training that was necessary to, to be good at the Ironman. Yeah, to make, to make the leap to the longer distance. Yeah. I mean, that's a whole, it's a whole different beast. It's a different sport. It's a different sport. Yeah. Two hours versus eight and a half. Right. Nine. Yeah, yeah.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  So you do that, you get the letter, you're underground for a while. And then you're like, alright, what's next? Yeah, yeah. So I, you know, I, I continued doing my thing. I'm, you know, I'm living in, I'm living in Austin and, um, that I absolutely, you know, love and adore. And then at some point, I was like, you know, it's time for me to make the transition. And I'm like, alright, what do I want to do? You know, I, I know I don't want to do a nine to five desk job and, you know, what's my skill sets? And, and I had some age group triathlete, triathlete buddies. They were like, you know what? You should like, consider being a firefighter. It's like, an amazing profession. No two shifts are ever the same.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, it's, uh, usually we go out and 10 or 15 times a shift, we're doing these amazing deeds and helping people and saving lives. And so I went to Fire Station One, which is the animal house of the Austin Fire Department. And I went on a ride out just to kind of see what it was about. And I was like, oh, this is. This is like amazing, amazing, you know, getting on the fire engine code three, lights and sirens, you know, going to an emergency, your adrenaline is pumping, your heart is racing, you know, you're helping people, and you're doing it with a bunch, you know, three or four other guys that you become, that become your brothers and sisters so fast.

• 57:48Rich Roll?

  The camaraderie that you experienced swimming at UT, right? You get to like reconnect with that.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  Get to relive it, but in a completely different environment. And so, you know, that's the thing I miss most about firefighting, because I've been gone now eight years, is that camaraderie, you know, that, that kind of fraternal bond that happens.

• 58:09Rich Roll?

  I remember one time you said to me, it was on the cusp of, you know, you really like breaking out with all the things that you're doing now, all these opportunities, and you're like, it's great, it's amazing, but, you know, I'm gonna have to like walk away from being a firefighter, like you were torn up about it, like, that's an embarrassment of riches, like that's a quality decision problem to have, but, you know, I just remember the consternation, like the emotion that you had around that, like, that you were gonna have to let that go in order to grow.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Well, it's funny you say that, because what happened is, you know, John Mackey, after I wrote the book, kind of, you know, pulled me into his office and said, hey, you're, you know, I'd like for you to consider being a health eating partner, and I said, you know, let me think about it, and I went home and I talked to my wife Jill, and decided, you know what, this is really probably a once in a lifetime opportunity, and, and I was having dinner at John's house, and we walked out onto the porch, and I told him, you know, that I was just kind of wrestling with this decision, because it would mean me having to retire from firefighting that I've been doing now for, for almost eight years, no,

• 59:21Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, 12 years, and, and I remember saying, you know, Rip, sometimes in life, you know, you just gotta... You gotta burn to ships to really fully commit. And, uh, and yeah, and so I went home and decided, you know what? I'm, I'm gonna retire. I'm gonna, I'm gonna retire from firefighting after 12 years and I'm gonna commit to do this thing with, with, with Whole Foods and, uh, yeah. I mean, it's been.

• 59:47Rich Roll?

  You go back to the firehouse all the time?

• 59:50Speaker 01

  Uh, you know what?

• 59:51Rich Roll?

  For a while at least? Or in the wake of that?

• 59:54Speaker 01

  I go, I go back to the fire. I mean, when I like, for example, for UT football games,

• 59:58Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  I'll go there and I'll, I'll use the parking lot and go in and say hi to the guys. It's a whole new stable of guys now than when I was there. Um, and it's fun going to different firehouses and, and visiting and stepping into that environment again. But probably six to 12 times a year, I go, go back and visit.

• 1:00:17Rich Roll?

  I would imagine that, I mean, I think people have this idea that firefighting involves fighting fires all the time, but a lot of it is making these house calls on people who are having heart attacks and stuff, right? So it's, is that true? Like you're, you're dealing with a lot of people that you're kind of dealing with now in a different way.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Rich Roll?

  So it's sort of an extension of that same kind of work.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  It is, it is. Yeah. Um, so I always tell people typically in my talks that, you know, when I joined the fire department, I mistakenly thought that the majority of our calls would be these big old, you know, house fires and we'd be going in and I'd be fighting the dragon and slaying the dragon and, you know, rescuing, you know, kids and grandmas, you know, out of the house. And that's not the case at all. For the most part, 80 to 90% of our call volume as firefighters uh, across the country are medical emergencies. So we're going in and we're helping somebody with a diabetic emergency because their fasting glucose or their glucose has gotten too low.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  Somebody that's got having difficulty breathing, somebody that's got chest pain, somebody that's had a heart attack. And they are actually not breathing. They're pulseless, breathless. And we have to, you know, start thumping on their chest and try and bring them back to life. Lifting assistance calls where we're helping people that are morbidly obese get out to the ambulance, typically eight or nine of us, putting them on some sort of a... Well, they have this device now called a Mega Mover.

• 1:01:48Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:01:50Rich Roll?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  And a Mega Mover where you, you know, and it can hold up to a thousand pounds.

• 1:01:56Rich Roll?

  Wow. That's a device we didn't need 20, 30 years ago.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  No. No, the stretchers, the stretchers themselves now, there are these hydraulic stretchers that hold up to, I think it's 1,200 pounds, because so many firefighters and EMS personnel were throwing out their backs, you know, getting these patients up onto the stretchers. So, yes, we see...

• 1:02:19Rich Roll?

  You get to go, yeah, the acute...

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  Up close and personal.

• 1:02:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the acute version of the preventative side that you now focus on.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  See, the devastation is caused by the fork, the spoon, and the knife.

• 1:02:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's amazing.

• 1:02:39Rich Roll?

  Now, one of the main things that you do with Whole Foods is you spend half the year traveling around doing these immersion programs with the employees of all these stores all over the country, right? Like, how many of these stores have you visited?

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  Well, that's not quite right. So, what it is, so...

• 1:02:56Rich Roll?

  The immersions versus just the events, right?

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Right. So, the seven-day immersion program, we usually do two of those a year, and one of those is designated for Whole Foods team members...

• 1:03:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  That are really, you know, that are sick and have to medically qualify to go. The other, and so that's one week out of the year, and then another week is for the public. But I'd say six to seven months out of the year, probably close to 100 to 120 days a year. I'm on the road, I'm going to Whole Foods stores, I'm doing customer-facing events, basically shouting from the rooftops, you know, "Get plant strong," right? You know, "Stop the red meat, the chicken, the fish, the eggs, the dairy products," and instead start substituting all these healthy, plant-based foods, plant-strong foods. And then I'm also...

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  In the back of the house with the team members, I'm also giving them a little like, you know, "Hey, guys, this is one of our core values as a company, right, is to promote healthy eating to all Whole Foods shareholders. And, you know, I was brought on board in 2009. Here's my story. You know, if any of you are hurting, if anybody in your lives are hurting, think about it. And we also have this product line that basically is a Whole Foods Market exclusive brand, and this is what it stands for, you know, X, Y, Z, right? Low-fat, plant-strong. And then I show them, I compare like, you know, a can of the Engine 2 pasta sauce versus

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  a typical can of pasta sauce and the difference in sugars and sodium and cheeses and animal products and all that stuff. So it's me educating.

• 1:04:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  The, and there's now, there's almost 100,000 Whole Foods team members across the country.

• 1:04:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's amazing. Wow.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's, it's a never-ending stream of trying to educate people.

• 1:04:48Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  It really is. So, yeah, so what, you know, and I am forever thankful because, because of John Mackey, I now have this bully pulpit and this platform to basically take the message from my original book, The Engine 2 Diet Book, and, uh, and I'm sharing it with people, it seems like almost every single day of my life. Nothing. I could, I could not have imagined a more kind of a purpose-driven, fulfilling, you know, life.

• 1:05:20Rich Roll?

  Right. So Papa E's all good now.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  (laughing).

• 1:05:23Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  That's actually very brilliant. You know what? So, things with my dad are fantastic. And it, one of the beautiful things is that my dad and I now, uh, you know, you know, you've, you've attended and you've been a guest speaker at a lot of our events. I asked my dad and my mom and my sister to be speakers at a lot of the Engine 2 events, I should say all the Engine 2 events, the immersion programs, our weekend events, plant stock. And so it's like, it's really, it's a family affair now.

• 1:05:51Rich Roll?

  It really is.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:52Rich Roll?

  It really is. And... You know, for the listener, every year you do this event called Plant Stock. It's at your family farm. And this is, this farm is insane. It dates back generations and generations.

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  1675.

• 1:06:04Rich Roll?

  Was it the largest, single-family owned farm in the eastern seaboard or something like that at some point?

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  Close, close. It's one of two family farms in the state of New York that have been owned and operated by the same family for over 300 years.

• 1:06:17Rich Roll?

  It's unbelievable. It's beautiful. And you invite all these people to come and you have this amazing speaker lineup. But the point I'm trying to make is that this is a family affair. And it's like, every single person in your family is involved and participates and contributes, not just to this event, but to this message. And to see that cohesion, it's really, it's really a powerful thing. It's unbelievable. Like, I can't imagine when you were, you know, a 19-year-old swimmer at University of Texas, this is what you thought you were going to be doing, right? But it's really beautiful.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks, Rich. No, it's, it is really beautiful. And I know you didn't come to this, this year's Plant Stock, but it was, they're all amazing and wonderful and special.

• 1:07:00Rich Roll?

  Everyone's talking about how this past year's was the best.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  It was, it was really magical. I mean, the weather was idyllic. We, we had two, two of the Jumbotron screens instead of one, because we had almost 600 people. And there wasn't one bad seat in the house. We arranged it, big, wide aisles, didn't matter where you were, you know, you didn't have a bad, a bad seat. You know, the meals, the food was, was off the charts. We had really good gender parity when it came to, you know, men and women speakers this year. It was almost half and half, which was, which was really important for me this year. And nothing like, nothing likes having two and a half days. We had a, we did a big Friday night event this year.

• 1:07:46Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  So we had an ice cream social and my dad told the story of winning his Olympic gold medal.

• 1:07:51Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow. That's a story I would like to hear.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  And we actually showed footage of it. Yeah. So if you ever get my dad on the podcast.

• 1:07:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I gotta make that happen.

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  Ask, ask him to share that story with you.

• 1:08:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I will.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  But, and then here you are, you know, for two, almost two and a half days. And what do you have underneath your feet? Grass. Amazing, lush, you're firmly planted on earth, right? You know, and, uh, yeah. And everything's, it's such a tight, contained environment there. And one of the things that's always made it special to me is that the speakers, for the most part, they always hang out. They hang out. And so everybody-

• 1:08:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, a lot of these conferences, you buzz in, you do your thing, you blow out, you know, you're not really participating in the event.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:08:32Rich Roll?

  But we're all hanging out in your kitchen, you know, staying up till 2:00 in the morning talking or whatever.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the participants also have access-

• 1:08:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  -to you, to John, to, you know, Eric Adams, whoever it is, because they're there and they're accessible. And it's like, wow, you know, this is really cool. Interestingly enough, we're not having Plant Stock 2018 at the family farm.

• 1:08:54Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow. Why not?

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know what? We just decided it was time to kind of shake things up a little bit. You know, we've been there six years in a row now. And so for the seventh one, we're moving to this, it's gonna be just as magical, in a different way. It's the Blue Ridge Assembly. It's this, uh, it's this 1,500 acre campus in the Black Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. And everybody can stay on site. And there's different levels, if you want, you know, deluxe accommodations, economy, or dormitory style. And so, you know, Plant Stock, it was like $5.95, you know, just to come. And you had to also do your-

• 1:09:36Rich Roll?

  Right, and then drive.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Find a B and B, and drive, and rental car and all that. You fly into Asheville, take your Uber there, and then you stay on site. And it's like, you know, you can do economy, $4.25, all in. It includes everything, right? I mean-

• 1:09:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  -food, talks, every session, and room and board. I mean, it's like crazy.

• 1:09:56Rich Roll?

  I think the economy piece is really important. And when we talk about, you know, oh, you should go plant-based, and we're talking about Whole Foods, you know, it's easy to start getting lulled into this idea that this is a lifestyle for the well-heeled only, that this is an unaffordable thing for most people. I can't afford to shop at Whole Foods. I can't afford to go to Plant Stock. You know, how am I gonna be able to do this? So how do you, how do you think about and communicate around that issue?

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  Well, um-

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  It's funny, you know, I was, I was, uh, I was in Boston not too long ago and I had an Uber driver that was 300 plus pounds, was telling me how he's got young kids, he's got type 2 diabetes, and how he, you know, he wished he had the energy to play with his kids. And, so, I told him, he said, "What do you do?" And I said, "Well, I'm actually, I'm a healthy eating advocate, and I teach people, you know, how to reverse their diabetes, and how to get, you know, how to find their ideal weight, and all these things." And he's like, "Oh, tell me, how do I do it?" And I said, "Well, this is what you want to do. You want to avoid animal products, dairy, you want to start focusing in on plant-strong foods." And he immediately, well, one of his objections, he had many, but was, you know, you can't, I can't- You hit him hard.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  I, he's like, "I can't afford to eat healthy." And I said, "Well, let me stop you right there." I go, "What you need to understand is this is peasant food, right? As soon as you understand this is peasant food, we're talking about rice, and beans, and potatoes, and bananas, and you can do frozen, that is like, just as nutritiously sound, you know, buck ninety-nine a pound, never goes bad, you just take what you need out of the freezer, and you're good to go. But, you kind of saying that it's too expensive to eat healthy would be like you saying, "Well, uh, I can't, I can't afford, I can't, I can't drive because I can't afford a Porsche, right? Uh, I can't eat healthy because, you

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  know, a, a yellow bell pepper's four ninety-nine a pound, an organic, you know." And so, you know, you, you take that out of the equation, you, you, I say, "Listen, oatmeal, how much is oatmeal? Oatmeal's like, drop dead cheap. Sweet potatoes, uh, you know, pasta with a nice, you know, little, little marinara sauce on top. If I had to, I could, I could live on probably about eleven, eleven bucks a day eating this way, easily, easily. And that's not even, you know, buying in bulk, and I bet you I could probably make it for under four bucks a day if I really was trying.

• 1:12:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the conversation about wellness gets conflated with superfoods and all these sort of, you know, essential oil, whatever it is, like all of these expensive, you know, top of the pyramid items. And the truth is wellness is, you know, being hydrated, getting a good night's sleep, and eating the foods that fuel you best and heal your body. And it doesn't have to be, it's not exotic. It's simple.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:12:54Rich Roll?

  But as human beings, we want to overcomplicate it. We want to know, okay, you're telling me that, but take me beyond the velvet rope. Where's the VIP room? You know, like, we want to make it harder than it is. And when you say, it's right, I mean, I could eat rice and beans with like hot sauce like every day, and there are plenty of times I do, that's exactly what I do, you know, on a salad or whatever, like, I'm fine with that, you know? But a lot of people want to make it harder. And there's like this weird psychological resistance to just accepting like, it can be this easy.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it can.

• 1:13:27Rich Roll?

  And it can be cheap.

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  And that's, and that's why in the new book that I wrote, The Seven Day Rescue Diet, it's all about building these like really economical, really quick bowls. The whole concept is about bowls, the whole recipe section. And, and when I was writing the recipe section with my sister Jane, and we were doing our pilot studies, we did one in Mesquite, Texas and two in Cleveland with 180 people, we gave them down to the like letter, like, okay, this is what you, this is what you should have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We gave them accompanying grocery, grocery lists for everything, and nobody was following it.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  And it's because, you know what, people, they're, they're, they're super busy. They don't have time to go grocery shopping. They don't have time to make, you know, make these meals. And a lot of them were pretty darn simple. And so I said, Jane, we just have to, let's meet people where they are. And so we've now got four different bowl concepts, and for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and then kind of salads. And then, you know, you pick your foundational ingredients that you like, you pick, you know, your different like legumes that you like, your different toppings that you like, different sparks that you like. And then you're set. And so you do that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Find, you know, a core assortment of ingredients. And now, these are no recipe buildables.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  You don't have to follow one single recipe.

• 1:14:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  And people are loving it.

• 1:14:59Rich Roll?

  That's great.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  Loving it.

• 1:15:00Rich Roll?

  That's great.

• 1:15:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:02Rich Roll?

  So in the hundreds and thousands of people that you encounter, you know, during your travels and these events that you do, you know, I would imagine you have a pretty good sense, like I'm interested in some of the success stories, but I'm also interested in, you know, what you've learned about the psychology and the, you know, kind of emotional component that circulates around healthy eating habits. What works, what doesn't? Like, what is it that is tripping people up the most? Or creates the most challenge for people trying to, you know, live better and embrace this way of living?

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  Well, the biggest challenge is always yourself, right? You're always your biggest hurdle. And once you can, like, get past that, that's huge.

• 1:15:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, if you've had a heart attack, if you're in pain and you're up against the wall, that choice is easier. But what if you're just, you know what, I don't feel good. I'm like, I'm just, I'm heavy, I'm lethargic. But you're not quite at that pain point.

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  We, um, so I just, you know, I just did an immersion with eighty, eighty-two people in Sedona, Arizona. And most of these people are, they're overweight, they're sick, they're not doing well. And they've seen, you know, either Forks Over Knives, or What the Health, or one of these documentaries. And I think they realize that something about, you know, this, these documentaries, or they've read Prevent, Reverse, or one of my books, they're like, something about this resonates with me. But I gotta just figure out how to do it. And, um, and so that's what, I mean, that's what we try and do at these immersions. We try and basically show people that not only the, you know, why they want to do it, but also how to do it. And, uh, but, um...

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  I'm just trying to figure out, because I want to answer your question, but...

• 1:16:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but I think what I'm really getting at is just, you're meeting all of these people. There's a lot of success stories, but I'm sure you meet people that are sort of in that cycle of like, they do it for a while, they fall off, they do it, you know, they're getting back. It's kind of like that human thing of like, how can we just like, how can you just get it to click in with people and like, what works, what doesn't? I don't know that there's a magic bullet answer to that. I mean, if you talk to Dan Buettner, he'll say, "Well, you gotta make the healthy choice the convenient choice." You know, you can't try to get them to shift their mindset. You just gotta make sure it's within their reach at all times during the day, and make it that convenient and easy and accessible.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, that's all stuff that we, you know, we talk about as well. It's like, yeah, you gotta get rid of all the barriers, all the excuses, all the things that are going to wreak havoc on you. So, we don't want this to be about willpower, right? And so, we gotta create an environment, obviously, in our lives, in our houses, at work, in the car, that's not gonna have you like, reaching for that pile of pistachios, or, you know, reaching for the cashews. And I'd say one of the, you know, the most important principles

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  that we teach people at these immersion programs is calorie density. And so, within the actual plant-based world, what foods is it that you can learn to eat until you're comfortably full at breakfast, lunch, and dinner? And the disconnect a lot of times is people think that they can have a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter, that they can have, you know, an avocado, that they can have a little bit of oil, and these things add up in a hurry. And you do them repeatedly, again and again and again. And if you're, you know, you have a genetic predisposition to heart disease... You know, forget about it. You're not going to extinguish those little hotspots, right?

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  It's going to continue on, you know, and as my dad likes to say, he doesn't want his patients having one thimbleful of anything that's going to ignite their heart disease. So he plays, you know, he plays hardball. And with the seven day, the new book, the Andrew Seven Day Rescue Program, you know, we're playing hardball too. Because this is really for people that are trying to rescue their health. You know, you've got one of the big four, you know, chronic western diseases, and you're trying to address it. And we know, we know that if you follow this protocol, you can not only stop it, but you can reverse it. So you've got to create an environment in your life that's conducive to it. Ideally, you have

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  people around you that are supportive to it. You know, and if not, you've got to figure out a way to enlist them, so that they're not going to sabotage your best efforts with this. The whole human psychology.

• 1:20:00Rich Roll?

  Ultimately, you've got to want it. You know, it's like, you can't, you can't will somebody into wanting it for themselves. You can, you know, it's like, you can lead them to water, but you can't make them drink. You can drop an alcoholic off in rehab, but if he doesn't want to quit drinking, he ain't going to quit drinking.

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And so, it's amazing how some people, they're self-starters, right? They get the information, and they get it, it's no big problem. Other people's, other people, they, you know, they fight tooth and nail, and, you know, they're just, they, for whatever reason, they know that this is the way, the path to go down, but they just, for whatever reason, they have a hard time making it stick. You know, I mean, it's, it probably goes back to the whole pleasure trap, right? Doug Lyle, and, you know, we're looking, you know, for, we want to conserve energy, we're looking for the greatest amount of pleasure, and we're trying to avoid pain. And everything about...

• 1:20:59Speaker 01

  The environment we live in now in 2017 is, you know, I mean, look at, we're, we sit in our self-driving cars practically now and we go to the drive-through, we're not exercising one iota, all the food is super, super, you know, highly processed, no water, no fiber, a fraction of the vitamins and minerals, and it lights up our, our brains like a pinball machine, right? All that salt, all that sugar, all that fat, and so...

• 1:21:30Rich Roll?

  You're asking people to walk away from that.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  We're asking people, we've got to down-regulate all those receptors in our brain to those things, and now we have to develop new cravings and new likes, too, you know, steamed kale, broccoli with a, maybe, you know, a little smidgen of no-salt-added Benson's, you know, seasoning to it, a nice piece of, you know, marinated cauliflower steak, a tofu steak, a whole-grain, whole-grain crust pizza with sun-dried tomatoes and spinach and black beans and pineapples. I mean, this, this food can be so insanely delicious that, you know, it's just crazy.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  So that's, I think that's, you know, one of the things that, for people that don't know anything about this, is that ultimately, you're not, you don't have to give up anything, you just have to develop a whole new set of, you know, kind of taste buds, cravings, and, and then what, what opens up before you is a whole new world of health that you never dreamed was, was available to you.

• 1:22:35Rich Roll?

  One of the things that I hear fairly regularly, if you bring up Forks Over Knives or the China study, is this knee-jerk reaction, like, "Oh, that was debunked." I read that that was debunked, and it's dismissed, it's just out-of-hand dismissed, without, and to even further discuss it is to, is to, you know, be somebody who doesn't understand what's going on. So, do you hear that? Like, do you, how do you respond to that?

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  You know what? Uh, I don't.

• 1:23:06Rich Roll?

  You don't?

• 1:23:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:23:07Rich Roll?

  I hear that all the time.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  With fork, sever, and eyes, I don't. And maybe it's because, uh, you know, my dad was one of the,

• 1:23:14Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  the, uh, the main threads going through it, right? He and Colin, you know, I had a little cameo in it. But I don't have, I don't have people come up to me saying.

• 1:23:22Rich Roll?

  Well, they may not be saying it to you, they're not gonna say it to your face, but there's sort of this meme on the internet. Like, oh, that was, it probably began with Denise Minger's blog post, which I don't know if you're familiar with that or whatever. Which I think she recanted.

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  I think she did recant that whole thing.

• 1:23:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah. The recanting didn't get as much attention as.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  No, it didn't, of course it didn't.

• 1:23:41Rich Roll?

  Uh, but that, that's sort of a mindset that's sort of percolating out there, like, oh, yeah, like that. No, that wasn't true, or whatever.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, it's funny, I, I don't, I don't spend too much time, like, um, with all the naysayers and all the people that are trying to debunk whatever it is. I'm just, I find I'm too busy. I'm too busy. I'm just plowing forward, you know, um, doing my thing. And, um, uh, I mean, in my heart of hearts, it's like, this is it. Like, this is it. I mean, it's whole food, plant-based is, or at least plant-based. It's, it's the answer to so many things that are like, taking us down right now, right?

• 1:24:31Rich Roll?

  It checks every box.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  It checks, exactly.

• 1:24:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  It does. And, and I guess it's just amazing to me that, that, uh, other people don't see it as, as clearly as, as we do. Maybe it's almost like a Republican, you know, Democratic thing. It's like.

• 1:24:49Rich Roll?

  Well, I don't, I don't know that it's a, it's, it's not, it's not a per se Democratic, Republican thing, but in the way that our brains operate, like how we just, we silo ourselves. There's some, you know, idea of the world or worldview that becomes very difficult to unshackle us from.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:04Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:05Rich Roll?

  Whether it's religion or politics. I mean, food's right up there, you know, it really is. It's, it's a difficult nut to crack. But with you being, you know, on the front lines and, I mean, you're doing one-on-one. Like, you're face-to-face with these people all the time. And I can't imagine. Well, I can imagine, because I have experienced it on some level, but that when you see these people and you've, you know, some time has gone by and you see the change, or they give you a hug and they're crying and they're like, you know, "You changed my life." Like, this is, they have a new lease on life as a result of like this work that you're doing. There's, there's nothing more gratifying or more worthy. And for me, when I get those emails or I meet those people, it's like, I just want to shout it from the mountaintops.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:48Rich Roll?

  You know, it's like, I want everyone, I want everyone to experience what that person just expressed to me.

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, no, I, um, I sometimes wish that I had somebody filming, right? When I'm doing, you know, an event or book signing, whatever.

• 1:26:05Rich Roll?

  That can be arranged, Rob.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. But, but then the person that's sharing it probably wouldn't, you know, might feel a little self-conscious.

• 1:26:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:14Speaker 01

  But, but, um, just saying, you know, gosh, you know, you, I just want to thank you, you know, you, you and your father, your family, you know, saved my life. And then they tell me their story. And it's like, they're like, "Oh, you must get sick of hearing this." I'm like, "No, no, never, never get sick of hearing this." And then I let them know. I said, "Listen, you know, I appreciate you thanking me, but you know what? You did this. You did this. You took this information. You like, you owned it. And now look where you are. And it's, you know, congratulations. Big high five to you."

• 1:26:48Rich Roll?

  So, we got to wrap this up in a minute, but I would love to be able to leave people with, you know, some takeaways. If somebody's listening and they're stuck, maybe they've tried to go plant-based, but they lapsed, or they're interested, they just don't know how to begin. Like, how do you suggest that people embark on this journey?

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  Well, I would start by reading some books, reading, you know, watching some documentaries. If you specifically want to like, learn more about Engine 2, go to engintwo.com. We have an amazing... Amazing community and support group.

• 1:27:21Rich Roll?

  There's a ton of resources on that site, too.

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  A lot. And around the launch of the new book, The Seven Day Rescue, we created a private Facebook group and we've now got over 22,000 members on there. It's the most supportive, loving, nourishing.

• 1:27:40Rich Roll?

  I did a little thing. I did a little thing there.

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, you sure did.

• 1:27:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't know, it was like last year or something like that.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  You did January.

• 1:27:46Rich Roll?

  And the engagement was crazy. Like, people are so into it.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's a really beautiful community. But, you know, so as far as somebody that wants to like get involved with this, I would tell somebody, like, jump into my new book, The Seven Day Rescue, because to me, it's, I've taken, you know, all the data that I didn't have that is in this book since I wrote Engine 2. So since 2009, it's all these new studies, all this new data. I mean, it's just, it's incredible. I basically break it down into seven super simple pillars that I ask you to follow for seven days. And then you be the judge on day eight, what you want to do going forward.

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  And then, you know, do it. If you sign up to do it, you get an email from me every day for seven days with an encouraging, you know, word of advice. And then also a recipe, a simple buildable. And then, you know, if you go in and then join the private Facebook group, you've got, I mean, so you got the book, you got the emails, you got the recipes, you got the community. I mean, and...

• 1:29:02Rich Roll?

  Well, the community piece and the support is huge, especially for people that are trying to do this without that, you know, support in their own home.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  Yep, yep.

• 1:29:10Rich Roll?

  That's crucial.

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  Yep, yep. Huge. So, yeah. And there's so much cool stuff that's coming down the pike, you know, not only with me, but with just, you know, this movement, you know. I know you know about this flick coming out called The Game Changers in 2018. I think that'll like move the needle in a big, wonderful, amazing way, much like Forks Over Knives did. But hopefully this'll like... Really, really speak to the men that are out there.

• 1:29:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think it's gonna, I think it's gonna have a huge impact on people.

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's exciting.

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:29:51Rich Roll?

  It's good, man. And when are you gonna, when are you, when are you gonna, what's, what's your next athletic challenge? You gonna get back in the pool? Come on, man!

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. So, uh, we'll see about 2018, you know, so I, I miss getting the world record for 50 to 54 year olds in the 200 meter backstroke by, uh, by just a few seconds. And, uh, but if I would have done it for 55 to 59 year olds, I would have gotten

• 1:30:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  The world record. So I just have to hang in there basically.

• 1:30:23Rich Roll?

  You gotta hang in there.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  For, till January.

• 1:30:25Rich Roll?

  Till January. And then you gotta get it because when that movie comes out, you wanna be able to get up on stage and say you're a world record holder.

• 1:30:31Speaker 01

  Uh, wouldn't it? Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe.

• 1:30:34Rich Roll?

  Come on!

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  I know, I know. It's so funny how, you know, we, uh, I know, I, I feel like I put, I put so much pressure on myself, you know, or a fair amount i- i- in life, you know, with everything. It's like, do I really wanna add this, like, to the, to the list of things?

• 1:30:49Rich Roll?

  I think, yeah, but I think it can energize you and I think it gives you, it gives you a little structure and then it, it makes going to the pool easier because there's a purpose to it, you know, and it, it fundamentally, it serves the mission and the message that you're trying to get out there. Because those kind of actions speak louder than words. You can get up and say whatever, but like when you demonstrate that athletically and you're more than capable of doing that, it's powerful, man. And people pay attention to that. Like, I think it's important and I think, I think it's, you know, it's a worthy, it's a worthy thing. It's not, it's not like a silly whatever, like I, you know, and it's what you do, dude. I saw, I was in the pool with you this morning. You're tearing it up, you know? Let people know what that's all about.

• 1:31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but I also know the pain that's involved in, in.

• 1:31:33Rich Roll?

  Come on. Yeah, but you've known that pain your whole life.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  It's funny. I have known it my whole life, but it's, uh...

• 1:31:41Rich Roll?

  Ready to let it go, ready to let it go.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  I had been removed from it. To, I mean, like, tearing it up in a workout is one thing, but like, putting the gas to the, to the, to the

• 1:31:50Rich Roll?

  In a race.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  To the medal for a race that's almost two, two minutes and 20 seconds where... You know, halfway through, you feel like you're breathing out of your eyeballs and you know, your legs are stuck in cement. It's like, wow, I'm 55 and I'm, and I'm, do I still really want to like, do this? And yeah, I guess maybe I do, but the pain, it was a lot worse than I remember it when I was in my twenties and thirties.

• 1:32:19Rich Roll?

  Two minutes of pain for the Plant Strong Universe. Come on, man. You gotta take it for the team.

• 1:32:24Speaker 01

  I know. I know I do. I think I need to, I need to give you a call maybe once a week and have you pump me up.

• 1:32:30Rich Roll?

  I'm happy to do it, man. If I lived here, I'd be at the pool with you every morning, so.

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fun.

• 1:32:37Rich Roll?

  Awesome. Well, great talking to you. As I iterated at the, at the outset of the show, you know, you've been a, not only like, a personal inspiration to me, you've been an amazing mentor to me. And thank you for all of the guidance that you have thanklessly given me over the years. My life is indelibly impacted by your example and your work and your friendship, and I really appreciate it. And again, it's like, the service that you're doing to the world and that your family is actively engaged in is really quite remarkable. And I just wish you only win in your sales and great success with trying to impact as many people as possible on this, this mission that we share.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  Awesome. And before we go, let me just say too, that when I first met you at the Vegan World.

• 1:33:24Rich Roll?

  That's right.

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  Health.

• 1:33:26Rich Roll?

  It's like some tiny little thing in LA.

• 1:33:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was in LA. It was, it was, it was billed as something huge.

• 1:33:34Rich Roll?

  Right. You flew out.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  It wasn't all that.

• 1:33:36Rich Roll?

  You had a little table.

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  But, but no, but, and I met you and I met Julie there and you had just gotten into this bike accident and your lip, remember your lip? And, but we, I brought you up on stage and we had a little calf off to see who had the biggest calves. And I remember talking to you and I remember like saying, you know what? You got a book in you, dude. You got a book in you.

• 1:33:59Rich Roll?

  You were the first person to, to sort of give me that confidence. And I remember you introduced me to your book agent and I had a call and I just wasn't ready. Like I had no, I didn't know what to say to the guy. And he was like, yeah, you know, like rightfully, he was like, yeah, I don't think this guy's ready to write a book, which was a good lesson for me. Like I needed to spend time and really think about what I wanted to write. But when I finally did, you were the first person that I sent, you know, the manuscript to and you like, you called me back like within days. And, and you know, what you said to me, I'll never forget.

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  I read that thing in a matter of hours. And I was like, oh my God, this thing is like, I loved how you just, you bared it all. And I didn't know, I didn't know all that about, you know, about your personal story and your personal journey. And I was like, this is crazy, man. This is beautiful. It was a beautiful, beautiful book. And look, I mean, and so right back at you, man, like, look what you have done since, since I met you then, right? And that was, I think it was 2009.

• 1:35:05Rich Roll?

  I think that's right, yeah.

• 1:35:06Speaker 01

  I think it was summer of 2009.

• 1:35:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  And, you know, you, it's so beautiful to me to see what you have done in this movement with your podcast, with you and Julie, you know, with your, with your, with your events, your books. And that's one of those things where we can both look at each other and say, hey, you know, we knew each other when.

• 1:35:34Rich Roll?

  I know. It's cool. And yet, millions of people are suffering out there, man. And there's a lot of work to be done. And that's, that's what it's about.

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  And we're, yeah, yep. I mean, it'll be interesting to see where we are in a decade.

• 1:35:49Rich Roll?

  Well, come back and we'll reprise this conversation in five years. Or yeah, like, since it's been five years since I've been chasing you, maybe we could do it in five years from now. But, yeah, anyway, awesome, man. If you wanna, if you wanna connect with Rip, Engine 2, is it Engine2Diet.com or Engine2.com?

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  Engine 2.

• 1:36:09Rich Roll?

  You shortened it.

• 1:36:10Speaker 01

  Just Engine 2.

• 1:36:11Rich Roll?

  Engine 2.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  Engine2.com.

• 1:36:13Rich Roll?

  Add Engine 2 on all the social networks and all that kind of stuff.

• 1:36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:15Rich Roll?

  And check out one of his, check out Plant Stock, man. Plant Stock 2018. We already have 200 people signed up. Are you? So we're gonna cap it at probably 700. Uh huh. Alright, so get on that, people. Yeah. Alright, man. Thanks, brother. Thanks. Peace. Engine 2. Plants. Plants strong.

• 1:36:35Rich Roll?

  Awesome.

• 1:36:38Rich Roll?

  Alright, we did it. Super awesome. I hope it doesn't take another five years to get Rip back on the podcast. In any event, I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation as much as I enjoyed having it. Don't forget, pick up Rip's brand new book, The Engine 2 Cookbook: More Than 130 Lip-Macking, Rib-Sticking, Body-Slimming Recipes to Live Plant Strong. The book comes out the day after Christmas, December 26, available everywhere, but you can pick it up now on preorder. Makes a great gift. Check out the show notes for this week's show on the episode page at richroll.com. Lots of links, including links to the new book, to take your edification beyond the earbuds. Also, we've got a full video version of the podcast available on my YouTube channel,

• 1:37:19Rich Roll?

  youtube.com/richroll. Please subscribe if you're enjoying the video there. And if you would like to support this show and my work, share it with your friends on social media. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Leave a review there as well. And we have a Patreon set up for those of you who would like to support my work financially. Thank you so much, everybody who has done that. I do a monthly AMA, Ask Me Anything, video conference with my Patreon supporters. I just did that like 20 minutes ago. It went really well. I'll be making an announcement about next month's AMA soon. But if you contribute on Patreon, then you are then available for exclusive content, such as the video AMA. And I'm thinking about new ways of rewarding the Patreon community.

• 1:38:04Rich Roll?

  We talked about perhaps doing some fun runs in various cities when I travel, or even perhaps one here in Los Angeles, if there's enough interest, and other creative ideas to kind of create community around my Patreon supporters. So thank you so much. That's it. Next up, we have a two-part best of anthology series, some of the best conversations over the course of 2017. So you can look out for that in the following consecutive. Mondays, and until then, be well, enjoy the holidays, ground yourself, be grateful, give freely of yourself, and be joyful. And I'll see you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste.