Celebrity Chef Rocco DiSpirito’s Plant-Based Embrace

When it comes to food, we've been led to believe that healthy and delicious are mutually exclusive. When it comes to eating plant-based, forget about it. Most people can't imagine their palate can possibly be sated without animal products. I've worked hard to bust this myth. But I'm no chef. Good thing today's guest is. But Rocco DiSpirito is no ordinary chef. A James Beard award-winning culinary wizard, this guy is a straight up food genius. Named Food & Wine magazineʼs Best New Chef, People magazineʼs Sexiest Chef and the first chef to appear on Gourmet magazineʼs cover as Americaʼs Most Exciting Young Chef, Rocco is the author of 13 books (5 of which were NY Times bestsellers) who lorded over 3-Star restaurant Union Pacific, a New York City culinary landmark for many years (The New York Times deemed his dishes “pure genius”). Rocco skyrocketed to mainstream fame starring in a countless array of food and celebrity chef television shows, including NBC's The Restaurant, ABC’s Extreme Weight Loss, Bravo's Top Chef and Rocco’s Dinner Party, Restaurant Divided on Food Network — and even Dancing With The Stars. But it hasn't been all roses. Along the way, Rocco faced much adversity. He's battled detractors. And eventually his fast-paced, rich food-laden life caught up with him. By 38, Rocco had become seriously ill, boasting the metabolic rate of a 64-year old with an extra 40 pounds around the mid-section. His doctor told him he had no choice but to go on a battery of medications. But Rocco declined, setting his focus on healing himself with healthier food and physical exercise. It's a path that forever altered his career and indeed his life — a re-imagination of great tasting food in service to well-being; to physical exercise and the world of triathlon; and more recently to exploring the healing benefits of a plant-based diet and the challenge of creating tantalizing recipes without meat and dairy. Ultimately, Rocco walked away from the cloistered sub-culture of New York City haute cuisine. It's a move that puzzled the restaurant world, but Rocco was committed to leveraging his prodigious kitchen talents to help others achieve the vital wellness he now enjoys. Instead of opening up another bistro, he started coaching people. He launched an all-natural food product line. He founded a meal delivery service called The Pound A Day Diet. And he spends his free-time as an Ambassador for HealthCorps, visiting schools across the country performing cooking demonstrations and encouraging thousands of youth to build healthier habits. Indeed, it's a laudable mission to prove that healthy and delicious can indeed coexist. Rocco's more recent embrace of plant-based cuisine is what piqued my interest in sitting down with him. It's also the thrust of his brand new cookbook, Rocco's Healthy & Delicious: More than 200 (Mostly) Plant-Based Recipes for Everyday Life* hitting bookstores everywhere October 17. I love a good character arc. Charismatic and engaging, Rocco delivers in this super fun conversation with one of the world's greatest chefs. 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?

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• 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

  Just give yourself 72 hours and try some of the stuff we're talking about. Just try my recipes, try your recipes, try making yourself shakes and smoothies for three days out of full fiber, no juicing, blended vegetables and fruits, and give up the gluten and the dairy and the sugar, and tell me how you feel. You'll feel a difference in about 12 hours. In 72 hours, you will definitely feel a difference.

• 1:27Rich Roll?

  That's Rocco Di Spirito, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:42Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. What's going on, you guys? How are you? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. Thanks for dropping in on my show, on my podcast. Podcast, the world of podcasting. It's such a funny word, isn't it? I guess it's finding its way into the vernacular of the mainstream, but I also think we still got a ways to go to really penetrate culture. I just got back from Austin last night. I was there all last week, and... On my way to the airport, I was talking to my Uber driver, who incidentally was listening to the radio when I got in the car. And in that moment, I realized I've probably taken hundreds of Ubers just in the last couple of years, and not once, not on one occasion,

• 2:24Rich Roll?

  have I gotten into an Uber and the driver was listening to a podcast. It's always the radio, not one time. So I'm talking to this guy and I start asking him, hey, have you ever listened to a podcast? He goes, yeah, I listen to one, once in a while, you know, I don't know, a couple here and there. And when I pressed him, when I asked him specifically what he liked, what shows did he subscribe to? He said he didn't subscribe to any of them. He couldn't remember the name of a single podcast. Then I said, hey, do you have an iPhone? He's like, yeah, he shows me his phone. I was like, give me that. I go, you know, this purple app that is right here on your home screen? It comes with the iPhone, it's built into your device? He's like, yeah, I never really saw that before. I've never pressed that, which I found amazing.

• 3:07Rich Roll?

  And so I subscribed him to my show, just because as a joke, and he thought that was funny, he said he was gonna listen. But my point is that it seems like podcasting is exploding. I know that it is, but I still think there's quite a bit of work to do to get this medium out to the masses. Anyway, yeah, man, that's the deal. This is a podcast, it's my podcast, welcome to it. The show where each week for the last five years, I go deep, I get intimate and probe some of the most compelling minds and personalities in wellness, fitness, nutrition, sports, technology, entrepreneurship. Basically, the most interesting people I can find. These are not interviews, they're conversations. And their conversations, I think, I hope at least, matter and make a difference. Did I mention I've got Rocco Di Spirito on? You know this guy, right?

• 3:52Rich Roll?

  James Beard, award-winning celebrity chef. The whole celeb chef thing, it's a weird phenomenon, isn't it? It's a fascinating, interesting cultural development that I think is fueled predominantly in large part by reality TV. People apparently love to watch people cook great food and...

• 4:13Rich Roll?

  I suppose they like the drama inherent in that subculture. And I think I always thought about Rocco solely in this context. But what I didn't realize until I started prepping for this conversation is just what an incredible savant Rocco is when it comes to cooking. There are great chefs and then there are those that are truly touched, like food wizards. And based on some things that I read about Rocco, he's just one of those guys. He's a guy who the New York Times praised as a prodigy from the start. They've called some of his dishes pure genius. But one thing I did know about Rocco is that after many years of chefing, fancy chefing, cooking, that he put on a bunch of weight. He got unhealthy.

• 4:56Rich Roll?

  He became sick and tired of being sick and tired. And then he started eating and more importantly, cooking healthier, which didn't exactly go over super well initially with the highfalutin world of haute cuisine. But he believed in what he was doing. He got personal results. He ended up doing a bunch of triathlons, which is, I think, when I became a little bit more aware of him and something I personally find to be pretty inspiring. And he started turning his focus away from the fancier, well-heeled aspects of great food and started helping others get healthier. He started refocusing his attention on health, which I think is laudable and sort of courageous, especially when you begin to really appreciate the social dynamics of the New York food scene, which is something that we get into at length.

• 5:41Rich Roll?

  But what really struck me and prompted me to reach out to him, to do this with him, do the podcast with him, is that more recently, Rocco has really embraced plant-based cuisine. In fact, that is the primary thrust of his new cookbook, Rocco's Healthy and Delicious. It's his 13th book. I think he's written five New York Times bestsellers, if I'm not mistaken. And I was super interested in this twist, in this evolution, what led him away from more traditional cuisine first, towards more traditional quote unquote, healthy cuisine, and now to the plant-based world. And that is something that we really dig into in depth in this conversation.

• 6:20Rich Roll?

  Look, I turned 51 in a week. Did you guys hear? October 20th is my birthday. In case you haven't heard, I'm using this occasion to try to do a little good by helping Charity Water build clean water projects for those in need. Why am I doing this? Because 663 million people live without clean water. That's nearly one out of every 10 people in the world. Diseases from dirty water kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war, and every day about 1,400 kids die from diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation. Think about that, every single day. It's a big, crazy problem, but it's also an entirely solvable problem, a problem that together I think we can help solve. In fact, you guys

• 7:03Rich Roll?

  already have. We've raised $28,000 so far, which is unreal, and I just wanted to thank you for that because that's amazing. You guys have reached into your pocketbooks and extended yourselves, and I thank you. Charity Water thanks you, but we're still short of my $51,000 goal. So I really need your help. It feels amazing to give. This is the giving season, and the work that Charity Water is doing, if you listen to my podcast with Scott Harrison, the Charity Water founder and CEO, you know, is amazing. So please visit my fundraising page at mycharitywater.org/richroll and consider a donation. And when the water projects are complete, Charity Water will send all of us tons of photos and GPS coordinates so we can

• 7:44Rich Roll?

  see up close the impact and the exact community that we helped, which is amazing. So again, mycharitywater.org/richroll, and thank you so much.

• 8:03Rich Roll?

  Okay, Rocco. For those unfamiliar, Rocco Dispirito is a guy who has starred in more cooking-related TV shows than I can possibly mention. He was named Food and Wine Magazine's Best New Chef, People Magazine's Sexiest Chef, and was the first chef to appear on Gourmet Magazine's cover as America's Most Exciting Young Chef. His three-star restaurant, Union Pacific, was a New York City culinary landmark for many years, and the accolades kind of go on and on and on. So in the course of this conversation, we cover a ton of stuff. We cover...

• 8:36Rich Roll?

  His growing up in Queens, New York, in a classic Italian-American household, how he learned to cook and appreciate the social applications of food from his mother, making people feel loved is the why behind the how. We talk about his career arc, which began with him studying at the Culinary Institute of America at the age of just 16, which is really young, and led to stints at some of the world's finest restaurants. We discuss his personal health journey, triathlons and cooking and eating healthier. We talk about his new, almost completely plant-based cookbook, Rocco's Healthy and Delicious, more than 200 mostly plant-based recipes for everyday life, as well as his newfound passion to really preach the gospel of eating an organic, whole-food, plant-based diet.

• 9:19Rich Roll?

  We talk about his work helping others achieve better health, both through one-on-one coaching, through his meal planner service, and his philanthropic work with Health Corps and others. We discuss the ramifications of the Western diet on the entire planet and all of its people, and how it's actually not super expensive to eat healthy. So, this one is really fun. Ultimately, if you know me, I love a good character arc, and Rocco really delivers. This is a guy who grew up very modestly to achieve success. He has had fame, but he has also met many obstacles and detractors along the way. And I really think that what he is doing now, where he is focusing his efforts, is, like I said, plausible, and it was great to spend a couple hours with him.

• 10:02Rich Roll?

  So, here's my conversation with Rocco. Cool, man, you ready to rock?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  I'm ready. Didn't we start already?

• 10:13Rich Roll?

  We're starting, dude. Rocco Di Spirito in the house. We're doing the podcast. Thanks for making the drive up here, man.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  I just think they developed the term podcast. What, how is this a pod of what?

• 10:23Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Peas?

• 10:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't know. But it's not a great word. I'm glad that it's finally catching on. I mean, I started this five years ago and no one was listening. And I was like, you know, what's, I mean, still, people are like, oh, I heard you have this podcast, but I don't even know like how to listen to it. And I'm like, do you have an iPhone?

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:41Rich Roll?

  They're like, yeah. And I'm like, see that purple thing? Comes with the phone? And they're like, oh, I've never, I've never touched that. So... There's still, you know, a little bit of a barrier, I think, but it's changed a lot. You know, it's changed a lot, but I think.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Most of the barriers are gone.

• 10:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  And people look forward to them now and they have their favorites and.

• 10:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and it's cool. Like now it's become like blogging. Everyone's got a podcast.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:02Rich Roll?

  So I was a little, I mean, I wasn't like an early adopter, but I definitely started mine before. I mean, it wasn't cool to have a podcast when I started mine. Um, but it's been, you know, it's been amazing. It gives me an opportunity to like get in touch with people like you. And convince you to come to my house and then I get to hold you hostage for a couple of hours.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  I'm like, done, done.

• 11:22Rich Roll?

  Have you ever been out to this area before?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Beautiful, beautiful out here.

• 11:26Rich Roll?

  So, welcome to LA.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you so much.

• 11:28Rich Roll?

  Congrats on the new book.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Thanks, man. Thanks.

• 11:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's great. So, um, you came across my radar because people were saying, oh, Rocket's got this new book and he's got all the, he's, he's, you know, exploring plant-based and he's got all these plant-based recipes. And I was like, wow, that's a development. Like I knew your general, you know, story, your kind of evolution from, you know, a more traditional way of cooking and cuisine and then, you know, sort of gaining weight and getting unhealthy. And then I knew that you had become a triathlete and lost all this kind of weight.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:58Rich Roll?

  And had become this kind of spokesperson or advocate for healthier living, but I didn't realize like that path had kind of continued and has now led you to dip your toe into the plant-based world, which is pretty cool.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Yes, and it's exactly what happened as my personal diet evolves. I'm realizing that, you know, we have to move to a gluten-free diet, dairy-free diet, you know, organic. Uh, all these things that, that I dared not bring up in the beginning of this journey. Because of the beginning, when I said healthy and cookbook, everyone thought it was insane.

• 12:29Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  My publishers were like, you know, you're the flavor guy. You can't do healthy, but that's hospital food.

• 12:34Rich Roll?

  Right. It's like telling an actor, like you do comedies, you can't do drama.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Exactly.

• 12:39Rich Roll?

  But we're all, we're all constantly evolving and, you know, and I think. You know, I was reading the introductory introductory sections in the new book like you're very frank about that. You're like, look, this is how I started. These are the books that I wrote and they did very well. This is how I, you know, this is how I learned how to cook and that's what I was sharing and now I've changed and you know, I look back on some of those recipes and I don't eat that way.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 13:01Rich Roll?

  And I'm sure they're amazing. Of course they are, you know, James Beard Award winning book Flavor. I mean, you know, it's like, how many books have you written? 13 books?

• 13:09Speaker 01

  This is 13 now, yeah.

• 13:10Rich Roll?

  Do that. But like, I appreciated your acknowledgement of that evolutionary path and it's brought you to here and us talking together.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  For sure. Yeah. I mean, you have to keep changing, have to be dynamic, have to react to what's going on around you. As you fine tune your personal health regimen, you're going to learn that things will change all the time. As you get older, things will change.

• 13:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  You'll tolerate less and less garbage and the cleaner you want to eat them, the more you seem to have to get rid of. But I don't like to talk about this in terms of deprivation, getting rid of things, because if you choose healthy, it seems like there's a whole world of indulgence that's available to you.

• 13:50Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  When you get rid of all the packaged garbage and all the, you know, gluten containing foods that are your typically packaged foods, you're all of a sudden open up to this world of fresh food.

• 14:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  And that's a big world of options. You know, it's like, it's how my grandma, grandma ate and it's the life she provided for us. She grew fruits and vegetables in her garden. She had, you know, her own chickens and rabbits and made her own wine, made her own bread, preserved her own tomatoes. And I lived that way for a long time. But because of ethnic self loathing, you know, I rejected that a hundred percent. I went to France to learn how to cook like French people and lived there for two years and now I realize that my thoughts like this is the, this is the best thing that ever happened to me growing up with all these wonderful Italian, you know, these, this lifestyle that is traditional Contadina style living, you know, farmer.

• 14:42Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Farmer living.

• 14:43Rich Roll?

  We, I think that's right. Like, we tend to think of it as being new, but it's really kind of like tracing us back to the old, like, a lot of plant based eating is very, it's peasant food, you know, at its core.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  For sure, for sure.

• 14:55Rich Roll?

  And I like the idea of approaching it, you know, having a perspective of what you're bringing into your life, what you're inviting into your life and treating that like a new adventure as opposed to focusing on, okay, these are the things we're, we're cutting out, you know, because that's what we do as humans. We look at, we look at it from a deprivation point, oh, what, what if I don't eat this and how am I going to live? Or how am I going to enjoy my food? And, you know, for somebody who is so extraordinarily skilled in the kitchen to develop an appreciation for what can be done in that world, I think is very cool. Because I think the plant-based world is full of people who kind of enter

• 15:37Rich Roll?

  it from, you know, strictly kind of medical health perspective or an advocacy perspective. But it's not very many trained chefs, you know, that are willing to, there's a few, you know, we have the Matthew Kennys and those guys.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a planner and I mentioned him in the book.

• 15:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I noticed that. I noticed that. He's been on the podcast. He's friends.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Oh, good. Great. He's, he's done an amazing job of bringing awareness to this world and both he ahead of his time.

• 16:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  And, and the results are there. He looks so good.

• 16:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know. He's like, I'm like, every time I see him, I'm like, you're, I can't believe how, how vital and young. And I mean, he's been eating essentially raw forever, you know, and he's like preserved in a vacuum, that guy. Cause I think he's like 53 or 54 now. You're 50, right?

• 16:25Speaker 01

  51, yeah.

• 16:26Rich Roll?

  51? Yeah, I'm 50. I'm about to turn 51. So we're about the same age.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:31Rich Roll?

  Cool. And we've had kind of similar, in very different ways, but kind of similar journeys through our relationship to food. So, uh, so I want to track it back, but I had one final thought on that.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  I also want to bring up the New Yorker cartoon. Did you see the New York cartoon?

• 16:45Rich Roll?

  No, what was that?

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Oh, it's two people talking and, and one says to the other, hey, I want to stop a podcast today. Is that great?

• 16:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  You should have that plastered.

• 16:55Rich Roll?

  I know. There's so many podcasts now. Don't even get me started. That's a whole other podcast that we should stop doing right now.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Trashin' podcasters.

• 17:05Rich Roll?

  But I had.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  You had a question.

• 17:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no, I was gonna tell you this quick story, which is, do you know Seamus Mullen?

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Yes, of course.

• 17:12Rich Roll?

  Okay, so Seamus is a friend. And he's been on the podcast too. And when I was in New York, maybe a year ago, he's like, come, come down to Tertulia, I'll cook you, I'll cook you a plant-based meal. I was like, great. So I went down there and he made this incredible multi-course, you know, delight of a dinner for a friend of mine and I. And I was amazed. And I was like, this is better than almost anything I've ever had at any vegan restaurant, or any other kind of like plant-based meal ever. I'm like, how did, how did you do this? And he said something very interesting was that, he's like, listen, it was kind of relates back to the point I just made a minute ago, which is that people who open vegan restaurants, or get involved in this movement, they are, you know.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Coming from an advocacy point of view, not from a trained chef.

• 17:57Rich Roll?

  They weren't, they're not, they're not trained in the way that guys like you and Seamus are. So he's approaching food and flavor and texture from a very specific culinary point of view. And so he's able to do things that most people like, you know, can't, other than people like yourself. And I was like, we need more people like that to be entering this world, because that's really gonna change people's perspectives on what this can be, like the potential in here.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's why I call the book Healthy and Delicious. And I think it's a chef's perspective that uniquely prepares us to create foods that are healthy and delicious, because for a long time, healthy meant not delicious. And for a long time, delicious meant not healthy.

• 18:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, these are mutually exclusive.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  Right. And my very first book, my tagline is no longer mutually exclusive. And I finally just said, let me call a book Healthy and Delicious, because that's really what I'm trying to convey here. Common sense, healthy and delicious, right? There's no reason to give one up for the other, especially if you let a chef like me use my 30 years of experience and culinary bag of tricks to figure out how to do that for you. And that's, and that's what I do every day. I'm sort of in a lab every day figuring out how to hack foods, or not even hack foods, just cook them from the base up to be delicious and healthy. And it's like, when I worked kosher catering for a long time. So I got through college doing kosher catering.

• 19:10Rich Roll?

  Right, we're gonna, we're gonna track it back in a minute.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  I did kosher catering.

• 19:14Rich Roll?

  Well, you did a little dancing too.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, just never got paid for it, unfortunately. Didn't have the right G-string. You know, the one that holds the dollar bills really well? I didn't have that.

• 19:23Rich Roll?

  You didn't have that? Well, next time.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Working on it. So when I did kosher catering, me and chef, two chef friends who started Terra Chips, were working for this caterer and he would ask us to innovate because he was really interested in pushing the envelope and moving kosher catering forward. And this is mid eighties, right? And we all had worked for Jean Georges at La Fat.

• 19:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  And we're like, it's easy. We just don't have to use, just don't use dairy. There's all this other stuff left when you cut out dairy. There's thousands of choices, but you can't see that if you're not trained to use every ingredient on the planet and know what to do with them and how to cook them and how to prepare them. So we were able to move this caterer from, you know, the fifties to current, you know, trending 1986 food, which at that time was fried vegetable chips and basil oil and that kind of thing, stuff that Jean Georges was innovating. And he was amazed, you know, and that was like my first lesson. And they're really, the parameters don't matter, right? If you know how to, if you have the basic skillset, parameters are nothing. You know, I just did a competition

• 20:32Speaker 01

  where all we had were parameters. It's called Guys Grocery Game. So the game is do everything I can to make it impossible for you to cook this food, but no matter what he does, you figure it out.

• 20:42Rich Roll?

  Figure out how to do it. Right. Well, I think, I would imagine your training and your experience teaches you what all the rules are.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  And how to break them.

• 20:52Rich Roll?

  And then you learn how to break them.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:54Rich Roll?

  But you know what rule you're breaking when you're breaking it and why you're breaking it in that way, right?

• 20:59Speaker 01

  And what you hope to get as a result. And deliciousness is obviously a number one priority for me, even though I'm writing, even though I started writing healthy books, flavor was still the number one goal, right? Flavor and then.

• 21:14Rich Roll?

  It ain't flavorful. It doesn't matter. You know, no one's gonna eat it. So yeah, that's the thing. So what is the daily, like, what is your daily routine in the kitchen? Like, how, you said, like, I'm in my lab and I'm doing, like, what does that look like?

• 21:27Speaker 01

  So I have a, I have a kitchen in New York City and I have a small.

• 21:31Rich Roll?

  Commercial kitchen outside of where you live?

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Commercial kitchen. Yep, exactly. And I have a food. Delivery service. It's called the pound a day diet. It's born from my book, The Pound a Day Diet. And when I wrote that book, it was the first book that was like a real diet book, very strong diet promise. And it promised on the cover, five pounds, five days, right? That's a huge promise to make. So of course publishers want you to prove that you can accomplish that with your diet. So they asked me to do a clinical trial. I did it with 12 people. I put them on the diet. I sent them the food. I made the food that was in the book. I created the calorie restriction and everything that needed to happen for them to lose a pound a day. And at the end of the week, it of course worked with everybody, right? Well, I say of course not because that was six years ago. I didn't know it was going to work when I wrote the book, but I ended up proving that you could, you could create a calorie

• 22:17Speaker 01

  deficit of 3,500 per day and you'd lose weight. And then those people said, we don't want to stop. Don't, we know that, you know, it's over, but we love this. This is amazing. It's life changing. And I still have some of those clients. So every day I'm innovating new products, new foods for my clients and delivering six to eight meals a day that helped them achieve their health, health goals. For some people, it's losing weight. For some people, it's reversing diabetes, reversing heart disease, metabolic syndrome, all kinds of things. So I'm always in the lab, working on these dishes. And everyone gets a custom plan because if you don't like the food, you're not going to eat it. So even though I'm cutting calories and carb correcting and removing sugars and, you know,

• 22:59Speaker 01

  making carb, empty calorie carb dishes, protein heavy, so, so that people can lose weight, they have to be delicious, right? So I'm basically in an R and D environment every day.

• 23:14Rich Roll?

  It's unique. I don't know that there's anybody else with your skillset who's approaching food from a health perspective in, in the way that you are.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're frightened to death to do it. We're all being made fun of. We're finally being embraced by the, the community and the community of chefs.

• 23:31Rich Roll?

  You should be doing this. Yeah. Well, yeah, he's got a very powerful message that's, you know, consistent with your own.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. For sure. And he's doing it in restaurants and he's, and there's acceptance. And it gives me actually a lot of hope because I've been looking for the next opportunity. Opportunity to maybe get back in the restaurant business and I keep telling people who come to me and ask what are you going to do? I'm like, you know, if I do what I did in the nineties, it's been done. What I'm really passionate about is healthy and no one's ready for it. But I think people are finally ready for it.

• 24:00Rich Roll?

  People are getting ready for it. I think people are getting ready for it. And just walking around New York City and seeing the proliferation of, you know, plant-based focused restaurants. It's kind of amazing. Like, I just love going there and every time I go, there's new places all over the place. And, you know, new organic, fresh pressed juice. I mean, this is like everywhere there, right? All within walking distance. So, you know, maybe it's not as penetrated into, you know, certain areas of America as it could be. There's still tons of work to be done. And we're going to get into kind of what that work looks like and some of the things that you're doing in that space. But, but in terms of New York City, come on, dude, it's time, right?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  It's definitely.

• 24:40Rich Roll?

  You gotta step back into this, I think. So I'm excited to see you, you know. It's timing. It's the right, I know it's the right people and partners and all that kind of stuff. But I think the world, I think the world would be excited if you, if you could figure that out.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Well, I'd like, I'd like to think I could agree with you on that. Um, I think the, the issue for me is how to make it commercial and, and broad enough so that a lot of people can participate. And for some reason, that's always the expectation of me from others.

• 25:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  I'm very happy doing something super small and, you know, making it available to a very tiny, you know, population. But that's not interesting to other people. You know, investors and, and big restaurant chains, you know, obviously they want, they want stuff that they can scale.

• 25:24Rich Roll?

  Well, it's a conundrum for you because as somebody who, I mean, look, you're a legitimate celebrity. You have a very high profile and that gives you the power to communicate with a massive number of people. And if you're in the kitchen, you're focusing on serving a very, you know, just a select, small number of people. I think that aspect of what you do and who you are is important, but trying to figure out how you balance those two ways of, of kind of, um, you know, serving people with your talents is a tricky equation to solve.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Seems that way. It seems like it's been tricky. Um, I'm very happy doing my small client, my private client business and, you know, definitely changing lives there. We've, I've had people lose a hundred pounds, get off, you know, loads of medicine. That are 72 years old, that no longer need their diabetes medicine. One client, uh, his blood pressure dropped so, so fast that his doctor couldn't titrate his medicine quick enough to keep up with it.

• 26:23Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  And so he ended up, um, passing out and he'd go out.

• 26:26Rich Roll?

  Right, he's like, yeah, that's, that happens with people.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  He was over medicated. He thought it was the food. He thought, oh, you're not feeding me enough food. You're not giving me, I was like, no, you, you're getting a hundred grams of protein. You're getting this amount of healthy fats, this amount of, I know the macronutrition down. I have, I have every client's macronutrition memorized, down to phytonutrients sometimes. And, uh, I'm like, no, you should check with your doctor. You probably don't need to take that medicine anymore. And lo and behold, he checked with the doctor and this guy's like, you don't need this anymore. And, you know, I'm getting goosebumps thinking about that. It was 90 days after he started.

• 26:55Rich Roll?

  That's crazy. I, I hear so many stories like that and people go to their doctor and their doctor's like, what are you doing? Like, I don't, I've never seen this before. Like, how is this happening? Like, it's, this is a miracle, you know? And they, they can't even believe that this is actually occurring.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Poor doctors, poor doctors. They're, unless you're working with an integrated.

• 27:11Rich Roll?

  There's a lot of good doctors out there, but like, yeah, there, there's a, there's a big curve there, I think. That needs to be, um, that needs to be addressed.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Obviously, I'm a big fan of doctors. I've, I've been relying on them to take care of my parents my whole life and myself. Um, but the ones that are starting to become integrative medicine doctors and use, you know, functional nutrition and, uh, food are the ones who I think are the, laying the path for the future. You know, they're laying the path for the future.

• 27:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and they're, they're creating those protocols, you know, that you're, that you're working on. So when you work, so you're actually working with people like on a one-on-one basis?

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Yes, I, it's, it's more than one-on-one. It's 24, it's very close. So I'm, I end up being their health coach by design. This is a 360 degree, fully integrated program. You get, um, a customized menu plan. I have you wear Fitbits and use a smart scale. So I'm, I'm remotely monitoring how much, how many calories you're burning, how many steps, you know, what your BMR is.

• 28:06Rich Roll?

  Sitting in bed at night going online, like, what's he doing right now? I know exactly what he's doing.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  It's not that bad, it's not that bad. And some people are afraid, uh, you know, they don't know how much information their scales would give me. So, but if you use like a WYTHING scale, it'll give me their, you know, BMR, body fat percent, which is of course the most important metric for me, the body fat percent. Cause the total weight is, is meaningless without knowing the body fat percent. Um, so, so I have small data from wearables and smart scales.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  That allow me to be predictive and prescriptive with their menus. So if they did a lot of cardio today, I know they need more carbs tomorrow. Typically, I'm on a lower carb keto kind of plan for most people because most people have eaten way too many carbs in their lives. And yeah, so, um, so that's one part of it. And then I'm available 24/7 for my clients to, to coach them and, and talk them out of buying a pound of Skittles at CVS at 2 a.m.

• 28:57Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Which has had, that's a true story.

• 28:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So therapist, chef.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, they call me their prebiot.

• 29:03Rich Roll?

  I know, like you're like, yeah, usually like somebody who would be doing that, there's like, okay, the doctor handles this and then we outsource the food to this person or whatever. But like to take all of it, just shoulder all of that for people. That's a lot.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  It's, you know what, it's a lot or not a lot. I'm not sure. I, I am the most fulfilled I've ever been in my life. I feel like I spent all my, my, all those years of my life, most of my life, learning how to cook to do this now. I feel like that was the preamble to this phase of my life because without those cooking skills, I could not do this, as we discussed already, without having the deep background in the culinary world that I have. I couldn't make these foods so that they were, you know, 78% or 80% less calorically dense. And, you know, no sugar and it would be impossible to figure those things out.

• 29:53Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Well, that's an interesting arc because I would imagine when you're immersed in the world of, you know, celebrity chefdom, that's a very ego inflating, you know, kind of in certain respects, like, you know, self-involved kind of universe, right? And then to be kind of in this more service role. Like, yeah, well, I don't know. Like, I want to get into what that's like, but, but, you know, then to be kind of in service to these people who, who really, you know, not only need, you know, what it is that you're providing them, but whose lives are being so profoundly affected by that is like, that's, there's nothing better than that.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  I'm so grateful for it. And, you know, it all happened by accident. I didn't, you know, Create a deck one night and say, hey, I got a great idea for a business. Let me go fund it. And let me go do, you know, it just happened organically. And the Pound a Day Diet book was the beginning of that. And it's still going six years later. I still have many of the same clients. And they tell their friends and it's all worked out really well, word of mouth. What I would love to do more than anything is be able to get this wisdom and know how and program and food to the masses because it would solve so many of our problems, you know? I'm sure you've talked extensively about how eating a plant-based diet would solve the healthcare crisis that we have in the United States.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  It would solve the Middle East peace issues that we have, the dependence on foreign oil. I mean, it's literally the solution to almost every problem we talk about on CNN every day.

• 31:20Rich Roll?

  It checks every box. It really does.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Environment, climate change. I mean, just keep going. I don't think people realize the tentacles and how far-reaching they are. That the Western diet is destroying the world and our lives and creating all these problems that we don't need to have.

• 31:37Rich Roll?

  And we're exporting it all over the world. Like I've traveled all over the place. I've been in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, like crazy places. I've given talks and I meet with these people, parents, whose kids are obese and they're experiencing these kinds of health issues, you know, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, for the first time in the history of mankind. Because you drive down the street, like, it's too hot, they're at malls all day and there's just fast food outlets there. They're playing video games. Yeah, and that's what they're eating. And they're like, why is everyone all of a sudden fat? And they're like, and they don't, they don't know how to deal with it in the way that we're learning how to deal with it now. And so this is a global issue on the health front and of course, on the environmental front and economic front.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Literally on every front, right? This is the source of so many problems. If cheap processed food wasn't in such high demand, we wouldn't have the Monsanto issue. We wouldn't have the pesticide issue. I mean, it's it just it boggles the mind, right?

• 32:36Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  And you and I are thinking, we live like this. This is the solution. If everyone would just do this, it would be so simple, right?

• 32:43Rich Roll?

  But you've taken the red pill in The Matrix, right?

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:45Rich Roll?

  Is it the blue pill or the red pill?

• 32:47Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 32:47Rich Roll?

  I don't know. I can't remember.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  The right one, the right pill.

• 32:48Rich Roll?

  Whatever one, yeah. You took it and then but then it's but but if you haven't taken it, it's it's difficult.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  To convince.

• 32:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:56Rich Roll?

  Because everybody's got to kind of arrive on that on their.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, and your example can only serve so so much, right?

• 33:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  The example is very strong, though. We shouldn't underestimate the power of the example.

• 33:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but I think I think it it it begs the question of how you communicate with the world, right? And and the way in which, like, how do you deliver this message in a way that it can be received and is palatable? And, you know, just in reading the the forward materials in your new book, it's like you're it's very clear you're speaking to mainstream America, the average person, like, look, here's the story. You know, I'm not telling you this. I'm not telling you that. Here's a couple of things that I've learned. Maybe, you know, broaden your perspective a little bit, like, take a take a baby step here. And there's a trust, like, if you do this, like, you're you'll see results. And then you're going to want to take that extra step, but you're not you're not pushing people. You're not judging anyone.

• 33:46Rich Roll?

  So I think it's really important to be conscious and aware and mindful about the words that we choose and the manner in which we try to spread this healthy message. Because it comes off, it can come off as preachy or judgmental or, you know, and that's just that's working at cross purposes with what you want to achieve, right?

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Right, right. I mean, you want you want to get on your soapbox and shout as loud as you can and be evangelical, but.

• 34:10Rich Roll?

  And there are people that do that. And I think you need all those voices. You need every kind of voice. But I think because you have, you know, this audience of people that spans, you know, every demographic, like, there's a responsibility that comes with that, like, okay, how am I going to, you know, how how am I choosing to communicate with these people?

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Or deep desire. It's not not as much of a responsibility. It's like, I've I got the red pill. I want to give you the red pill, you know? I figured it out. This is so cool. I can't believe that you can go from having the metabolic age of a 68 year old man when you're 38 to an 18 year old. And that I did that in a year. You know, I went from. You know, uh, being seriously ill and getting serious advisories from my doctor who have Dr. Michael Hammer, I'll never forget the day. He's like, okay, after all these years of you coming in here and telling me you've got problems and me telling you, you're paranoid and you're healthy and you're young, you finally have problems. You're, you've got things to worry about. You're gonna be in big trouble, right? I know your family history, there's heart disease

• 35:10Speaker 01

  on both sides. I'm like, I am? Really? What? You know, I was 40 pounds heavier, I was all fat. Uh, I was, you know, eating the foie gras, drinking the red wine, living the life of a chef. You know, it's a super indulgent world and but we're eating organic food from the market, right? I went to Union Square Market the entire time I ran Union Pacific. We bought the best ingredients. It's just that turns out that those are, you know, typically high in sugar and the dishes, the resulting dishes are typically not, not good for you.

• 35:41Rich Roll?

  But I think all across America and the world, doctors are having those kind of conversations with 38-year-old men and women or 40, whatever. And it's only the rare individual that has that light bulb moment that wakes up and really fundamentally changes their relationship with food and lifestyle. I had that experience, you had that experience, but a lot of people are, you know, there's a lot of people who will just say, well, this is genetic, I'll go on these statins, I'll try to like do a little bit better, but they don't really alter their lifestyle that much. So, you know, was it, what was it with you? Like, were you just, did you scare the shit out of you? Or like, what happened?

• 36:19Speaker 01

  So I remember it so clearly. He, he, he told me I would have to take three medications and he gave me the prescriptions. And he also said, as a throwaway, of course, you can change your diet and lifestyle and be more active and eat better and this will all be, this will all go away. I tell all my clients that, but no one ever listens. And I was like, oh, this will go, all I heard was this could go away. And I thought, all right, well, tell me about the medicine. So there were some statins and some, you know, blood pressure meds that cause all kinds of side effects. And he started to tell me, you know, about the side effects. And when he got to, you know, certain side effects, I was like, okay, the sudden death, the depression, uh, suicidal thoughts, uh, you know, the anal leakage, those are all fine. But, you know,

• 37:02Speaker 01

  there are some other ones that I just cannot accept. And you got, I'll leave it up to your imagination to figure out which one I'm talking about, but, uh, I was like, at thirty-eight, I don't want to be faced with imp. That's just mind-boggling, right? And I'm like, I can change this? Let me, let me go try to do that. I said, give me six months. Let me, let me try to change this. And I've been working with a trainer, really nice guy. And just coincidentally, right around in the same six-month period, my chiropractor, I have scoliosis, I've been working with a chiropractor forever, asked me to help him with a charity. He said, can you help me with the, with this charity I'm doing? It's called the Greenwich Cup. I'm like, sure, yeah, no problem. I'm thanking five hundred portions of tuna at some catering event where, you know, a grazing event where

• 37:46Speaker 01

  they invite a thousand people. So a few months later, he's like, are you ready for the triathlon? Like, what's, what's that? What's a triathlon?

• 37:51Rich Roll?

  He stuck that in?

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's like, yeah, you signed up for that, remember? The Greenwich Cup. It's a triathlon. It's a sprint. I was like, well, tell me about that. What is that? He's like, oh, you got a, you know, you got a swim, bike, run. I'm like, okay. And my trainer, who's never done a triathlon, was a really big, muscly guy, not triathlon.

• 38:11Rich Roll?

  Right, not like a lean, like a runner type dude?

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Not like you. We were like, okay, let's do this, right? So we started training, and we both did it. Fast forward a few months later, we finished last and next to last. Yeah, I won't tell you who was last and who was next last. And we got, you know, the Athena group swam by me in the water like I was standing still. You know, the swimming over sixty, right? And the pink caps. And I was one of the first waves to go. So in Try Speak, we're talking about waves.

• 38:38Rich Roll?

  Is this like in the Hudson, or where?

• 38:40Speaker 01

  No, it's in Todd's Pond in Greenwich, Connecticut. Yeah. I did, I did New York as well. One swim in that Hudson River is enough. It's enough. Have you done that?

• 38:49Rich Roll?

  Get your immunization shots?

• 38:50Speaker 01

  I did. I got hepatitis immunization. I got-

• 38:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you have to get a whole battery of shots. I haven't, but I've had friends that have done-

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Well, don't.

• 38:58Rich Roll?

  The Manhattan Marathon Islands, they go all the way around, like twenty-eight miles all the way around the thing.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 39:03Rich Roll?

  And I remember, this is when I was living in New York, like, early, like, eighty-nine, ninety, my roommate, who swam with me in college, he wanted to do it. And they give you this handbook, and it has all the dangers, what it's like. It's like, when you're up in the Harlem River, and you have to get like twenty shots and all this kind of stuff. And apparently, there was some- Like by the George Washington Bridge, there's some giant suck hole like

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, that's right.

• 39:24Rich Roll?

  You have to be aware of and like all this insanity.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  It's a riptide that comes from

• 39:27Rich Roll?

  And then he got like a infection, he got some like urinary infection afterwards and he refused to believe that was because he spent, you know, 12 hours like swimming in that water. So.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, only one infection. He was very lucky. So luckily for us on the New York City try, it's only 800 meters and it's downstream and it's very fast and you're out of the water in 18 minutes. It was the first time I had mouthwash in my transition kit. Yeah. And I used the whole bottle.

• 39:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  And I couldn't get that taste out of my mouth. Anyway, try war, try triathlon war stories. So I did my first triathlon and it was the best day of my life. I got, I crossed the finish line. It took me three hours to do a sprint, which is insane, obviously, as you know, and but it was, it was a happy state. I never had felt more accomplished and I had to walk most of the three miles, but we finished.

• 40:14Rich Roll?

  You got it done, man.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  I got it done, right? You're only in competition against yourself in triathlon, even though it's a team sport. And then of course I fell in love with the gear. The gear is so compelling, right? I mean, the gear is so much fun.

• 40:25Rich Roll?

  You can go down the rabbit hole with that forever.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm still in that rabbit hole.

• 40:28Rich Roll?

  Right. And then every year there's new.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  How many grams I can eliminate off my kit today. And, and then someone mentioned St. Croix, Ironman St. Croix 70.2, the, the steepest hill in all of triathlon, you know, it's 21%.

• 40:45Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  The beast. I'm like, I have to do that. That is for me.

• 40:49Rich Roll?

  Beautiful course too.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Gorgeous. Yeah. Great, great course. The hill is so punishing, you know, that half the, the, half the people just get off their bike and walk up. And you can barely walk up the hill because it's, you know, switchbacks.

• 41:02Rich Roll?

  Sliding and yeah.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  So I started training for that. And then at the same time, it seemed just like all the forces in my life were pushing me down this path. Same time, my friend Ben Silverman, who doesn't look far from here, actually.

• 41:13Rich Roll?

  Right. The TV guy.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Producing The Base Loser said, Hey, we'd like you to come on and teach our contestants how to make healthy food. And I was like, great. Okay. Well, I'll do that. And I did a few seasons of that. And so, so between my chiropractor and the triathlon and my doctor and Ben and it's, everyone was pushing me down this path and I just sold my restaurant. And.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  I really enjoyed being able to take care of myself again and having the time to do that because it does require a certain amount of time, right? Especially when you're transforming from a fat frat boy to a dude who can do a triathlon, right?

• 41:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and if you're in the kitchen at the restaurant that you own, you ain't doing any triathlons probably, right?

• 41:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:53Rich Roll?

  Seamus makes it work. He gets out and rides almost every day.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Different world right now. It really is a different world.

• 41:58Rich Roll?

  How's he do that?

• 41:59Speaker 01

  He makes it a priority and he's really talented, you know, super talented and he's able to energize and motivate people and he's telling his story really well and people are believing it, you know, and the times are different. In 2005, this story was, you know, fell on deaf ears when I would tell people the story, their eyes would roll back in their head and they'd be like, okay, when are you going to get back in the restaurant, Bazooka? Who cares about this healthy stuff?

• 42:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  I could barely sell my first healthy book. No one wanted it. Took two years to sell. I said, this is what I learned training for triathlons, that you can transform all these lovely dishes into healthier versions of their former selves and they'll still be delicious, in many cases more delicious. Lobster bisque was my first one.

• 42:39Rich Roll?

  It seems like such an easy sell to me because there's plenty of people writing books about, you know, healthy diet cookbooks, but there aren't too many people that have the skills.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  They were doctors and they were trainers.

• 42:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly. And they find some chef to like supplement their book with recipes, but that's very different from, you know, the world that you're coming from.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. If that, now usually it's some, it's some awesome hippie who's growing their own food somewhere. I say hippie as a term of endearment. I mean, I love.

• 43:08Rich Roll?

  I gotcha.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  They got that.

• 43:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  In the 60s, they understood how life should be lived. Communes growing their own food, organic, right? Remember that?

• 43:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  We were very young, obviously, at the time, but my sister's, who's 11 years older than me, was a hippie by my definition. And if we just continue to live like that, we'd probably all be in better shape. But I think the world is more ready for a guy like Seamus and a guy like me and he's, you know, luckily he has a restaurant where he can offer indulgent food, still use dairy and gluten, but also offer all these other foods that a lot of people are interested in. So when someone like you comes, it's not like, you know, which bad choice do I make tonight? Which is the least of the bad choices?

• 43:48Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 43:56Rich Roll?

  So let's track it back, man. Let's take it back to Queens.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Queens, sure.

• 43:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  So, growing up in the 60s and 70s in Jamaica, Queens, the, um, the cultural center of America.

• 44:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Kidding.

• 44:08Rich Roll?

  It is.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Well, in some way it was.

• 44:10Rich Roll?

  Well, it's incredibly diverse.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Queens is one of the most diverse parts of the United States. There's thousands of nationalities, there's millions of people. Um, I did grow up where hip-hop was born, so I'm pretty proud of that, you know, run DMCs from there, 50 Cent's from there, um, lots of Russell Simmons, uh, lots of important figures in hip-hop.

• 44:28Rich Roll?

  I have Russell on the podcast.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, cool. Yeah, and he's all about living green and healthy and yoga.

• 44:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was that like growing up there?

• 44:36Speaker 01

  It was, it was, um, such a delight.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  I was the Catholic school kid who had the maroon blazer and the tie that said "Presentation of the Holy Virgin" or something on it. And I had to walk through a very dangerous park that was next to a methadone clinic. Hmm. You know, so either you're, you're with meth heads or heroin addicts or, I mean, it was like, pick your danger. Which, which one do you want, who, who do you want to beat you up today?

• 45:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  The druggies, the, the gangs, um, it was wild, man. It was wild. I can't, I still can't believe I grew up there.

• 45:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's, I mean...

• 45:13Speaker 01

  It was the center of the crack epidemic. I mean, uh, it was wild. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? And I had this wonderful family and my mom would make this amazing food every day at home. And so, um, you know, I'd be out in this world where we could eat Jamaican beef patties and taste great Chinese food and Japanese food and other foods from the Caribbean. So in terms of my palate, my worldview was very expanded by the time I was 14, just from eating stuff in the neighborhood.

• 45:40Rich Roll?

  And you just, and you learned how to cook from your mom?

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. She's, she's no question the person who helped, helped me recognize that cooking was an important skill. And watching her, uh, be this wonderful human being and have this great social life and always using food to, to help facilitate it. Uh, I mean, she used food in like... Quite literally to facilitate social, uh, her social life on buses, she would take out food from her purse and give it to strangers.

• 46:08Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah. Wow.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  It was usually chunks of Parmesan Reggiano and homemade bread and they were like, you know, they thought she was crazy, but then they would taste it and be like, whoa.

• 46:15Rich Roll?

  That's like an only in New York thing, you know?

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. On the bus, perfect strangers. My mom's like, hi, honey. How are you? Hungry?

• 46:21Rich Roll?

  Right. That's amazing.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  They would look at her like, Mom, is it okay to talk to this crazy lady? And, you know, she was a sweet old Italian woman, so she didn't look threatening and she'd give them like a hunk of Parmesan Reggiano out of her bag. Not joking. And so she made friends. I watched her make friends her whole life. And, um, so what she taught me was the most important lesson of the hospitality industry, right, is that it's the space between people, the magic that occurs in that space. That's what we do for a living in hospitality business, in the restaurant business. We, we attempt to make people happy and enrich their day and provide them with some loving gesture that makes them feel special, right?

• 46:56Rich Roll?

  Creates connection between people.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  We don't cook. That's secondary, tertiary to what, what the real job of a person in the hospitality, hospitality industry is, which is to make people feel loved and happy and, and cared for. And, uh, you know, old school Italian mom from Italy who came here when she was 30, she was raised on that, you know, and that was just natural to her. Um, so that was the most important lesson that I learned from her. And like, to the day she died, I learned it from her and she, you know, re-taught it and re-taught and re-taught it with her actions. Um, and you have to, it's very important to have that because if you don't have that, uh, a passion for that, you can't do the difficult stuff, which is the cooking and the learning and the slaving way at the stove.

• 47:36Rich Roll?

  It's the why behind the, the how, right? And the what?

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 47:39Rich Roll?

  So you gotta have that, you gotta have that why. So when did it lock?

• 47:42Speaker 01

  It's just too hard without a bigger purpose, right? It's just too hard. There's just too many hours and too many cuts and burns and scrapes and falls and, uh, you know, uh, pitfalls and successes and failures and, and it's too hard to get the skills. We didn't have YouTube. I didn't, you know, if I want to learn how to make ice cream with liquid nitrogen, I couldn't look it up on Google.

• 48:02Rich Roll?

  You'd go to France.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. I had to go to Spain and work with Ferran Adria and beg him to let me work with him for two years.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  So, so Queens was interesting. We lived there until it was about 12, 13, and then we moved to Long Island where I went to, I immediately got into cooking very seriously. My first job was in a pizzeria. My second job was in a pizzeria. My third was in a bagel noche. So I was always in food. Didn't-

• 48:27Rich Roll?

  Did you know though, early on, that this was gonna be your path?

• 48:30Speaker 01

  At 14 I did, not at 11. Yeah. At 11, I just wanted to buy Love Gun by Kiss. And that's why I got the job.

• 48:36Rich Roll?

  There's a great story with that, right? Like, what's the story with you, like, wanting to get this album from Kiss?

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Oh, you read the story? Okay. So, assuming your listeners aren't gonna be bored to tears by this, I'll tell it. So, Love Gun came out. I was a huge fan of Kiss. My mother thought they were literally devils, right? So, think, you know, 50-year-old Italian woman, 1977.

• 48:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I remember that. I mean, we're the same age. I remember that time.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Right?

• 48:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It was, it was like, uh, subversive to be like a kid and be in Kiss.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  And I had, my room was covered in Kiss posters, like, literally on the ceiling, on all four walls. I had played, I played Kiss albums all day long, Detroit Rock City, loud as possible. I would chive the makeup. My mom thought I was losing my mind, you know? I wanted to go to the concerts. I remember someone took, I bought, I saved up money for the first time they appeared in Madison Square Garden, and my ticket disappeared. To this day, I think it's my mom who took it from me, so I didn't go to that concert. So she said, "I'm not gonna give you money to buy this record from these devils. You wanted this record, you gotta go to work and make the money yourself."

• 49:45Speaker 01

  And I thought, "I, I, that's amazing. I can do that. I can go to work and make my own money. That's so cool." I don't have to beg you for money anymore, so-

• 49:52Rich Roll?

  So that's what got you into the pizzeria?

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the next day, we went out looking for work. We went to Jamaica Avenue and Queens, and Hillside Avenue, these big avenues that had millions of shops, and I walked in and out of every store with her, and like, by the 10th store, a guy named Sal said, "Well, I'll hire you. No problem. You'll work here. You'll scoop Italian ice. You'll grate mozzarella. You'll open cans of tomato sauce, help me make pizza, serve fountain soda at the counter, pay you 50 cents an hour, work 60 hours a week." He's like, "Bingo! This is great. That's 30 bucks." You know, and at that time, having a dollar fifty in your pocket was a lot of money. So making 30 bucks was, was huge. So I worked that first week. I made my 30 bucks. I bought Some Girls by the Stones, Love Gun, The Down in Jamaica.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Album, can't remember the.

• 50:39Rich Roll?

  No, no, that is.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Down in Jamaica, they got lots of pretty women.

• 50:45Rich Roll?

  Is that, uh, that's not Jimmy Buffett, is it?

• 50:48Speaker 01

  No, it's close, though.

• 50:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  So about three, three records, took my mom to Coney Island, uh, which was, you know, a big deal for us. And, uh, had a Chinese food lunch out, which was a big deal for us, cause we weren't really allowed to eat out. And my dad thought restaurants were, you know, he wisely thought restaurants were not a good place to go get food. Especially when we had wonderful food at home. So that started me working in restaurants and the next summer I worked in another restaurant. And then at 14, I started working full time after school.

• 51:15Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. And, and what, was there like a, a light switch that went off where you're like, this is, this is gonna be my life? Or was it just a slow acclimation to like being in this world or it just seemed like a foregone?

• 51:25Speaker 01

  There was an absolute moment where I made a decision. So I was on the wrestling team, I wrestled 145 in high school and I cooked after school. I decided I wanted to not just work weekends and not just work summers. So I was at a place called the New Hyde Park Inn and, um, you know, making like close to minimum wage. Back then you can get away with not paying people minimum wage and, uh, I was working at a proper restaurant. It wasn't just a pizzeria that they had, you know, a real meal service, real banquet hall. And, and it was run by these old school German dudes and they made head cheese from scratch, you know, stuff like, I was learning real cuisine. And there was a guy there who was at the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  He happened to work there at the same time and, um, he was always telling me about it and, you know, going on and bragging about being at the CIA. It was such a big deal back then to be in the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America. It was the only school of its kind, really, at the time. There weren't thousands of cooking schools back then. And this was like the Harvard of cooking schools, impossible to get into. I had to wait a year on a waiting list to get into that school.

• 52:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you still ended up there when you were 16, right?

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did somehow.

• 52:31Rich Roll?

  Like, you had to be the youngest person there.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Definitely one of the youngest students.

• 52:34Rich Roll?

  But you were trying to get in there when you were 15.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  I was, yeah. So I, so once I decided, so one day my coach in wrestling said, you have to make a choice. You can't cook and wrestle because you know, we work out before school, after school, and on the weekends. And that's when I was going to work. And I tried to do both for a few weeks, a few months. And I was missing wrestling practice. I was late for work. And it seemed like, I remember it as the same day, it was probably a few days apart. But my chef said, you have to make a choice. It's got to be cooking or wrestling. You can't do both. And my coach said, it's got to be cooking or wrestling. You can't do both. And, and I remember thinking, it's going to be cooking. I'm much more excited by cooking. And so I quit wrestling. And that was the day I decided to become a professional cook. I was about 14. And then I started talking to the guy who was at the CIA and

• 53:21Speaker 01

  learning about how to enroll there and getting accepted there. And I learned that you needed, you know, documented 1600 hours of documented experience. You need to recommendation letters. So I started to do all that. And in 1986, I attended the CIA. Yeah. And I was 16, turning 17. And it was, you know, incredibly life altering, the discipline and just the amount of information we were, that was thrown at us was just, for me, like heaven, heaven.

• 53:50Rich Roll?

  Right. And so did you have to leave high school to do that?

• 53:53Speaker 01

  So I didn't have to drop out. What I did is I went to summer school so I could accelerate.

• 53:58Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I graduated early in order to get into the CIA earlier.

• 54:01Rich Roll?

  So you were, you were committed big time.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  I was 100% committed. I should have been committed, actually, because no 14 year old should be working that hard. It's insane.

• 54:08Rich Roll?

  It's almost like a crazy, like, that level of commitment at that young of an age, it's almost like you're channeling some crazy past life, you know, like, this is like, this is what, I mean, you've, like, this is what you've been doing ever since that time. So, you know, that's amazing to.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  I never did anything else. Yeah, I mean, at 14, when you're enjoying getting, you know, arthritic hands from peeling shrimp under cold water for many hours a day and burning and cutting yourself. And you want more. And you're asking to work more. And like, you're begging them to let you peel onions. You're committed. You're in. And you walk into a room, on my first day, I walked in, they were making head cheese. So this, imagine a big wooden table with pigs heads that had just been boiled to. To the point where they fall apart, being picked of all their bones and hair and teeth and wild stuff, right? Put into terrains as a vegan, you're probably your stomach's turning right now.

• 54:58Rich Roll?

  And also the vegan audience is gonna be like, their stomachs are turning right now.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  So we've traveled a long way since then.

• 55:03Rich Roll?

  But this is part of the world of haute cuisine. This is like what you learn when you're in this, when you're.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if you're a fortio, you walk into that and you're like, cool, this is awesome. You're, it was meant to be, right? It was meant to be.

• 55:16Rich Roll?

  So what do you, you know, for people that, that don't have any familiarity with like the skillset that you learn as a result of, you know, undertaking that kind of experience, like what is it that you learned that most people don't understand? About what it means to like be a chef at that level? Like what is, you know?

• 55:35Speaker 01

  That's a big question. There's so many answers I could give you. I mean, I think, I think one important answer that I should offer you is an understanding of flavor. So flavor is basically science. We have flavor receptors on our palates. We have papillae that recognize certain flavors, sour, salt, sweet, bitter being the main four. Of course, umami is a fifth now. When I wrote my book, Flavor, the first book I wrote, I talked about how umami was an emerging, you know, concept, but now it's established. So learning how to balance those four flavors in food after preparing food, creating tension and resolution in that dish. So that when people eat your food, they're excited, there's tension.

• 56:19Rich Roll?

  Tension meaning?

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Meaning like, is this gonna work? Is this gonna be delicious? There's, is there enough sour or salt? You know, just like sweet and sour food, you know how it creates tension? And then when it, if it works well, there's a resolution, just like a beautiful piece of music or even art or anything that's crafted from your hands. You want, at least, if you're going to be a chef, that's going to give, create dishes that give people pause, there's got to be tension and resolution in food for it to be interesting. If I didn't have tension and resolution, I would have been a very good craftsman and made very good, solid food, but it wouldn't have enabled me to have a restaurant where people came to eat my food, right?

• 57:00Speaker 01

  It would, or Seamus wouldn't be able to do what he does because when you ate that dinner, you were blown away, right?

• 57:07Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  His mastery of the senses is what enables him to do that. So ultimately, after cutting myself a thousand times and cutting my nails off and burning myself and, you know, uh, you know, we, we, when you're learning how to use all those tools, you're hurting yourself a lot for the first few years. And so if you're willing to go through that, um, you end up with a set of hand skills that are incredibly important. You understand how to cut and prepare every ingredient, every piece of meat, fish, vegetable. Those are basic skills a lot of people just skip nowadays because they saw how to make the ice cream with liquid nitrogen on Google.

• 57:42Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Um, but those, having a deep understanding of, of the craft, puts you in a place where when you're challenged to make something that has no sugar and no empty calorie carbs and is high in good fat and high in protein, uh, that typically requires sugar, you know how to do it.

• 58:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you have this toolbox.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can work around it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I make pasta today, I, uh, you know, I'll get a plant-based protein and I'll mix it with fiber. I know that psyllium fiber gels with, in contact with water, so I've already got a paste there and I'll add some protein powder and I'll create this mixture that when I dehydrate will become a sheet of pasta.

• 58:25Rich Roll?

  And you'll know, you know that it's going to have the right consistency and texture and flavor palette and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's wild.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  Or if it doesn't, I'll know what to do.

• 58:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  I'll know that something has to happen for it to get to that point and I'll keep working on it until I get to that point. I've got a vegan donut now that I'm very proud of, I've been working on for more than a year.

• 58:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  It's one gram of sugar, it's got seven grams of protein, it's made, you know, with five vegan ingredients, and I think it has the potential to change the world. I mean, it's...

• 58:53Rich Roll?

  That's great, because I think one thing that's interesting with the kind of explosion of interest in, in plant-based eating and vegan cuisine, is that you have the, you have the sort of concomitant explosion of like, super unhealthy vegan foods. Like, they finally figured out the desserts. You know, there's tons of like, amazing ice creams and cupcakes and like, that stuff's great once in a while, but, you know, taste-wise, some of it is indistinguishable from the real thing, and you're like, whoa, this is vegan, so I'll just eat it. And it's like, actually, there's like, a ton of sugar. You know, it's like, just because it's made out of plants and not animals...

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Doesn't mean it's healthy.

• 59:30Rich Roll?

  Doesn't mean it's necessarily gonna be healthy, but, but I think, you know, it gets people to a certain place, but I think it also is, is, you know, redirecting people down the wrong path.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 59:40Rich Roll?

  So, the idea of coming up with a donut, a vegan donut, that actually, you know, satisfies those, you know, the flavor desire and is not...

• 59:48Speaker 01

  The donut crazy craving?

• 59:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  The whole planet seems to be obsessed with right now?

• 59:52Rich Roll?

  I know. Figure that out. Like, there's the key. Like, you're gonna unlock the universe with that.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, this is a donut that has a nutritional profile that you could, that you could live on this donut. You could eat this donut all day long, and you'll get enough fat, carbs, and protein in perfect balance, you know? What, I mean, what donut does that?

• 1:00:09Rich Roll?

  Hurry up with that, man.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  No, I've got it done. I just, I need, I need to get to the next step. I, I have to send you some, and you'll have to let me know if you like it.

• 1:00:15Rich Roll?

  I'd love to try those out.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  And then I, you know, I glaze it, I call them dirt donuts. I glaze it with, glaze it with, um, yacon syrup, which is, um, this great, I'm sure you're familiar with it, and probably all your listeners are, but for the four people that come to this podcast because I'm on it, that aren't, aren't already in your world...

• 1:00:31Rich Roll?

  No, explain it.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  It's a tuber, like it originates from Peru and it's a tuber that produces this syrup that looks a lot like molasses and it's got a glycemic index of one. One. One is almost the lowest glycemic index, right? Stevia has a glycemic index of zero and it's a non-nutritive sweetener. But yacon syrup is a nutritive sweetener, it has calories, but these are good calories. These are really good calories. So how do you get a vegan donut to look and feel like a glazed donut? You use, you know, very popular in the raw vegan world, yacon syrup or coconut nectar. Raw, of course, I'm really a big fan of raw products. And then I top it with goji berries and pistachios and all this wonderful stuff that's in this world. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it should be, it should hopefully end up being the healthiest donut ever created.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  But I love taking the, you know, everyone's favorite top 10 list junk foods and just flipping them into something that's actually good for you, you know? And I think that's what chefs like Seamus and I need to be doing, just to prove to people, it's healthy and delicious, you can live on this, you should live on this. There's no reason for you to, to go to Krispy Kreme and have 10 of those donuts.

• 1:01:43Rich Roll?

  So you complete your tenure at CIA and then you go off and you're in France?

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I go to France.

• 1:01:50Rich Roll?

  Amazing chefs like all over the world.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  A month after graduating, yeah, worked with Dominique Sessillon for two years. Had to work in an American burger joint to pay my bills.

• 1:02:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I also didn't have a visa. That's a whole other story, but.

• 1:02:05Rich Roll?

  So, I mean, when you were in Paris?

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:07Rich Roll?

  So you're, you're, you're.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Working at Cactus Charlie's. I'm talking about.

• 1:02:12Rich Roll?

  Like, the polarity of those two things.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Right? Avenue Raymond Pontu. It had western swinging doors. That was the entrance of the restaurant in Paris. I went there to work with great French chefs, Joel Robuchon, one of my heroes at the time, who I got to meet and actually work with a little bit because my chef worked for him. You know, fulfilling a lifelong dream of working with the great European chefs, which is what you had to do back then in the early eighties. You had to do that because we didn't have the amount of great chefs that we do now in America. Now you can go to any town, just about anywhere, and there's probably going to be a pretty good chef cooking really good food. But back then you had to travel and get your creds, right? Those are your creds and going to Europe was an important cred.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  So I ended up working at Cactus Charlie's to make my 6,000 franc minimum wage, 6,000 francs a month. And I worked for free for Dominic Sessillon.

• 1:03:07Rich Roll?

  And what did you, you know, what do you learn when you work underneath, you know, a guy like that?

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Mostly shut your mouth and do a lot of looking and observing and, yeah, doing what you're told. I mean, there's, those days, the rules were absolute. There was a king and you were a subject. And you know what? I was totally fine with that because the education that I was given as a result of willing, being a willing participant in that ridiculous scenario was so valuable and hard to obtain otherwise, impossible to obtain otherwise. Now, again, of course, you can, you can learn these things on Google and YouTube and you don't have to go through that torture.

• 1:03:47Rich Roll?

  But there's probably something about going through that, that, you know, when you burn in that flame, you're coming out the other side like pretty well fortified for anything that's going to come out in your direction.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  The unburnt, right? To use a Game of Thrones reference. Yeah, when you come out the unburnt and learn the superpowers. Because part of what we do is dealing with, you know, complete chaos and having a stomach for adversity is a really important skill and character trait. If you're in the restaurant business and you can't figure out how to jump over hurdle after hurdle after hurdle, you're done. You're dead on day one.

• 1:04:25Rich Roll?

  Well, also, I would imagine, even though it is a, you know, it's a kingdom and there's a king, like, there's still, it's still contingent upon, you know, how, how developed your people skills are, right? Because if you can't run your team... In a functional way, you're in trouble, right? So you can be as talented as anybody with what you put together on that plate. But if you don't know how to communicate and like work with others, like it's not going to last very long, right?

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  So yeah, it's interesting that you say that. So it's very true today. Back then, the way, the form of communication that was most prevalent was simply example. So you, you watched, you had to watch, you had to watch. You weren't allowed to ask questions, really. You had to learn from watching and trying. And if you messed up, you'd, you'd hear about it. But if you did right, you wouldn't hear a word. And that was not being spoken to or yelled at was a great thing. Silence was perfect. Yeah. No news is good news back in those days. Now there's a lot of catering and, you know, catering to people's needs and, you know,

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  traditional mentor, mentee relationships where you're nurturing and teaching and handholding people through the processes. But back then, just wasn't enough time and you just had to quietly observe for years.

• 1:05:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  You know, for years. And if you could, when your time came up and the guy who did the fish station was sick and they asked you to step in, if you could do it, you're golden. If you couldn't and you weren't, weren't watching this whole time.

• 1:05:49Rich Roll?

  You're out.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Goodbye, good luck, go elsewhere or stay in the dish room, keep peeling carrots or whatever it is you're doing. But there's something beautiful about that process. And I think you're, you're about to speak to that. Understanding what it takes to learn these deeply important skills and that sacrifice is a part of it. But the rewards are so worth it, you know, because these are skills that are so deeply ingrained now. You know, I can, I can access them so easily and it helps me every day, you know? And I see people who don't have the skill, didn't do this process, struggle too, you know? And, and come to people like me and Seamus and say, well, how do you do these things?

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  And I think it's going to be, I think what's going to finally make what you do and I do mainstream is.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Enough chefs and medical doctors getting into the business and collaborating to create medically sound, and I'm talking about real, real integrative medicine, not traditional western medicine, medically sound examples of food that will reverse the problems and the disease that we develop from the western diet. Chefs and doctors, I think, are the key.

• 1:07:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think there would be, I feel like there needs to be bridges built. Those two worlds like don't, they live in, they live in different universes, right? These people are not talking to each other.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  Less and less, by the way, less and less.

• 1:07:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think there could...

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  I work with an integrative doctor that I use with my clients and, you know, he's really into the food and, you know, the Mark Hyman's of the world are out there now.

• 1:07:30Rich Roll?

  Frank Littman.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Littman, of course, yeah. Mine is Jeffrey Morrison. And, you know, they're starting to bring these worlds together. And I think that's going to be super important. Because I think as a chef, if you need the credibility of someone in medicine almost to convince the person who's dabbling in healthy...

• 1:07:50Rich Roll?

  Well, it's symbiotic. You know, the doctor needs the guy who knows how to make this stuff amazing, you know? So, these two things can mutually benefit from being more deeply embedded with each other, I think.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  For sure, yeah.

• 1:08:03Rich Roll?

  Well, let's talk a little bit about, you know, I want to...

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, what have you been wanting to talk about?

• 1:08:08Rich Roll?

  There's lots of stuff I want to talk about. I mean, you know...

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  How about the fact that I have your wife's book?

• 1:08:13Rich Roll?

  We can, I know, that's a super, she's here, so I want you to meet her. I saw her before.

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  Was she in New York a few months ago doing an event?

• 1:08:19Rich Roll?

  She was.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wanted to go to that event.

• 1:08:21Rich Roll?

  Cool. She'll be delighted. Yeah, she's super excited. And she's finishing up...

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  Not cheeses.

• 1:08:27Rich Roll?

  She, well, our first book was Plant Power, The Plant Power Way, but she's just delivering The Plant Power Italia. So, she's doing an Italian plant-based cookbook, so I'm sure...

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Amazing. That's the next one I'm working on is a Mediterranean-based diet. Because, you know, they've been doing this for a long time.

• 1:08:43Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:45Rich Roll?

  Of course, man. So, yeah, that was our first one.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Are these your children's?

• 1:08:47Rich Roll?

  So, uh-huh.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:08:49Rich Roll?

  Some of them are hanging around here. Some of them are at school. I don't know where they are. Yeah, four kids.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Nice job, my friend.

• 1:08:54Rich Roll?

  Our nephew lives here as well, so.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  And they're all vegan?

• 1:08:57Rich Roll?

  Everybody's vegan.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 1:08:59Rich Roll?

  Plant-based household man.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  Is that the rule?

• 1:09:01Rich Roll?

  It's not really the rule. It just, that's how it evolved, like.

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  Did you have to, at some point, like, advocate for your position when they got old enough to learn that they could argue with you?

• 1:09:10Rich Roll?

  It wasn't really kinda like that. It was more like, well, like you, like I was 50 pounds overweight and I was stuffing my face with, with fast food. And Julie wasn't totally plant-based, but she was super healthy and her relationship with food is in check. And then I made my changes and I went totally plant-based and then Julie kinda got on board with that over time. And then we just, we never made an announcement. It was just, we, we got rid of all the junk in our house and started replacing it with healthy stuff. And Julie's an amazing cook.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  Was that prior to them coming to the planet?

• 1:09:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, well, well, our two older boys are 21 and 22.

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:09:45Rich Roll?

  So they, uh, you know, they had been eating and they're, like, they're my stepsons. So they're, they would go to their dad's house and eat differently and then they would come here and we would eat plant-based. But we didn't say, like, you can't, whatever. Like, she, Julie just made amazing food. And then over time, that's just what they preferred. And then before they knew it, like, oh, I guess this is how we're eating, you know?

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  Sort of indoctrination.

• 1:10:04Rich Roll?

  And we never, like, when they go to their friend's house, it's not like, oh, you can't eat this. Like, eat whatever you want. Like, we're, this is the way we're eating here.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:10Rich Roll?

  And just over time, it just became, that's.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Clear to them this was the better path.

• 1:10:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's better and I feel better and I prefer it. And that's just kinda how it's happened. And every kid has had their own different version of that story. And some have taken longer or whatever and have their, you know, different kinds of, uh, you know, different kinda learning curve. But that's, that's what we do now.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  So you're not having those moments where they're bugging you to take, you know, take me to McDonald's?

• 1:10:33Rich Roll?

  No, no, no, never. Like, our, our two, our, our girls who are 13 and 10 have never had McDonald's.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Great.

• 1:10:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, never having gone. So, yeah, and they've been, they've been vegan their, their whole lives.

• 1:10:45Speaker 01

  Very cool.

• 1:10:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And that, I mean, they've had, you know, they've gone to a birthday party and had cake or pizza. It's not like that, but it's just basically this is the lifestyle that we, that we lead and they're totally on board.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  And are they advocates now too? Do they realize they're in a position to be advocates and?

• 1:10:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think that's slowly.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Gospel of plant.

• 1:11:01Rich Roll?

  Starting to come along with our 13 year old. I mean, they go to the school around the corner called Muse and it's plant based.

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  Oh, terrific.

• 1:11:07Rich Roll?

  James Cameron and Julia Cameron, Julia, not Julia Cameron. Suzie, James's wife, started it with her sister Rebecca. And, you know, they're ardent plant based environmentalist or whatever. So that's plant based lunch. Made at the school, amazing food.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:11:22Rich Roll?

  And so basically, it's like every kid that goes there, that's what, that's the way it is. And so, and they teach environmentalism. And so they're, you know, they're, they're being, you know, kind of educated from that perspective.

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:34Rich Roll?

  And I think that naturally will instill in them as they age, like a sense of, you know, advocacy and responsibility.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  Obviously you picked the school and that was a very surprised choice. So having that obviously makes it, makes it much easier. Cause that's, isn't that the big problem when kids start going to school and seeing other things?

• 1:11:50Rich Roll?

  Of course.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  They come home and like.

• 1:11:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, school lunch is a disaster. And that's one thing I want to talk to you about. Cause you know, a lot of what you do is in this advocacy space.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  Sure, sure, sure. I mean.

• 1:11:59Rich Roll?

  You know, dealing with, you know, how can we get our kids healthy, healthier? Like, how can we change the food paradigm in the schools? And, and how can we address this massive problem of food deserts and unhealthy foods? In, you know, the socio economically challenged, you know, communities that, that, you know, proliferate across the world. I mean, you're from Jamaica, like, so, you know, there's a lot of people that I would imagine you see on a daily basis and they're getting their food from bodegas. And that's pretty much it, right? And this is like driving.

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, but bodegas still sell plantano, right?

• 1:12:35Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  And they sell yuca and they sell lots of vegetables.

• 1:12:38Rich Roll?

  Do they? A lot of them sell just crap though too. They're liquor stores, basically. A lot of them.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm not, I'm not maligning a bodega. I'm just saying like.

• 1:12:46Rich Roll?

  The corner 7-Eleven.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:12:48Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  They definitely don't sell anything fresh.

• 1:12:50Rich Roll?

  This is where, you know, farm subsidies are, you know, keep the cost low on these snack foods and these processed foods and sodas and fast food and the like. And when you're tight on a budget and you've got a bunch of kids, like you're gonna eat the cheapest thing, so you're gonna be the quickest to be the most unhealthy, you're gonna have the highest incidence of these chronic lifestyle illnesses, and it's a vicious cycle that is further driving the economic divide between the haves and the have-nots. And at the core of this, the very center of this, is food.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:20Rich Roll?

  Right? And so I know you've done a lot of work in this space, like how do you think about the food issues?

• 1:13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I definitely am spending a lot of my time advocating for better food policies in schools with several charities, Health Corps, Wellness in Schools, Feeding America, Food Bank. Charity and charitable work has always been a part of my life, from, again, my mom's example, at the Rosary Society, my Catholic school, and fundraising that she participated in. It was always something we did. So it wasn't something I got into as an adult. I've always thought that this is a part of a human's life, right? Doing charitable work. And about 15 years ago, I had to sort of pick, because as a chef, you're asked to do lots of charitable work, and it's an easy ask, right? You donate a dinner, you donate something, you can help people raise money very easily,

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  very quickly, and it's fun, you know? People get to experience a dinner cooked by a chef, or come into a restaurant or whatever. So, and we're giving by nature, right? We're chefs, we feed people, we wanna give everything away. None of us wanna charge. We'd give everything away if we could in a heartbeat. And many of us do, much as the sugar in our partners. So, I don't know, when you went to Seamus's place, did he give you 15 things you didn't order?

• 1:14:37Rich Roll?

  Probably.

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  Of course, of course. Because that's how we are.

• 1:14:39Rich Roll?

  I can't even remember whether he charged me. He might have not even, like, he might have not even let me pay for it.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  I'm sure he either comped you, or comped half the bill, or something.

• 1:14:47Rich Roll?

  I'm sure.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  Hopefully his partner is not listening. But, so...

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  I had to make a choice and my choices were to focus on food insecurity and advocacy and education regarding food and so that's how I ended up really laser focused on Health Corps, which is Dr. Oz's foundation where they bring healthy to high school students and Wellness in the Schools, who's partnered with the DOE of New York City, which took them 10 years to do and now that they've partnered up, they're in 30, they're in front of 30,000 kids a day, I think, in New York City and they're now in like five states and they're growing very quickly. Seamus is involved with them as well. So what they do, it's very, very, seems innocent but super sneaky. They were, the deal they made was

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  they would create the salad bar menu. Every New York City school has a salad bar and you get $1 a day per student. And that sounds like nothing, right?

• 1:15:45Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  But a dollar is actually a lot if you spend it properly and you buy local seasonal food, which we can do in New York City because we do have eight months of growing and a great farmer's market. So in the salad, in their salad bar, they sneak in all this healthy plant-based food and kids just like it because kids are not stupid. Kids see a pear and if you can get them to try it, they'll recognize that this, this fresh local pear tastes really good. And part of being an ambassador for Health Corps is visiting schools. I've visited hundreds of schools, met thousands of kids. I used to bring my food truck to the school and they're receptive and they're into it and they got, they get this. They're frightened to death that their parents are going to die of diabetes. You know, so these kids

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  are like, the analog might be you and I in the 70s worried about our parents smoking. I don't know if that was an issue for you, but it was for me.

• 1:16:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  And so I used to hide my dad's cigarettes and put snaps in them so they exploded when he smoked them and we did everything we could to get him to stop smoking. Now, kids are trying to get their parents to eat, you know, less sugar so their diabetic syndrome, you know, the, the disease and the symptoms aren't affecting the families much. Because when you have serious diabetes, type 2 diabetes, you know, your whole family's feeling this, right? You're, you have symptoms that are, you know, basically causing disturbances in everyday life.

• 1:17:05Rich Roll?

  Of course. The ripple effects of that are unbelievable and, you know, it's difficult to change the habits of... 55 year old man or woman who's been doing a certain thing in a certain way their entire life, but kids.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  Not if I can get them the donut.

• 1:17:18Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:17:19Speaker 01

  Not if I can get them that donut.

• 1:17:20Rich Roll?

  And what you do, I'm not saying it's impossible, you and I both change, but you know, for a lot of people, this is hard, but kids, you know, they're, they're, they're dialed in, man. They're interested in sustainability.

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:17:32Rich Roll?

  They understand organic, like they get, they get it. It's not a hard, it's not a hard sell.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  So even in New York City, not the West Coast, where you're hyper aware of all this, and there's a really big difference, by the way.

• 1:17:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  I'm not sure if you're aware of that, but there, it's, it's, even though New York City is super progressive, we, we're not talking about this stuff as much as you guys are, and there aren't plant-based schools to send your children to.

• 1:17:55Rich Roll?

  There is one in Queens.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  Is there?

• 1:17:57Rich Roll?

  I went there and did a, early on in my podcast, I forget, P S.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  Oh, that's.

• 1:18:01Rich Roll?

  Forget the number.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  Brilliant to know.

• 1:18:03Rich Roll?

  First vegetarian public school in the country.

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  That's incredible.

• 1:18:07Rich Roll?

  I think I call it vegetarian, but it essentially is plant-based. There's a, there's an organization called, I'm forgetting it right now, I'll put it in the show notes, Healthy School Lunch for Kids in New York, Healthy, I forget.

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 1:18:18Rich Roll?

  There's a woman named Anne, her name is escaping me right now, but they're doing amazing work trying to shift the school lunch, you know, sort of, uh, systemically. And this school, they were, they had hanging gardens in the, in the, um, on the athletic, on the basketball court, you have vertical gardens hanging in the classrooms and in the library and like, it was kind of integrated into the whole culture.

• 1:18:39Speaker 01

  So cool.

• 1:18:40Rich Roll?

  Um, but that's the outlier, you know what I mean? Like, that's the example. We all aspire to that, but we're dealing with bureaucracy and lobbying and, you know, regulatory policy and all of these things that are driving these decisions and there's a lot of money to be made. Uh, you know, these contracts that get signed for whatever.

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  From keeping the system the way it is, yeah.

• 1:18:59Rich Roll?

  Provider is providing that food, like there's, there's, you know. People in the state and federal legislatures that are trying to make sure that they get that contract and that contract stays and a lot of that is shit food. So.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  But it's changing. It's changing. Our nonstop blabbering is working. This talking and talking and talking with people who are not interested is starting to have an effect. People are starting to see the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Forget about just plant-based, but a healthy lifestyle. They're seeing it in the behavior of their children. They're seeing it in their copays of prescriptions on a monthly basis. You know, those costs start to add up after a while. And you know, when people tell me, I have a big family, I can't afford to feed them healthy. I always say, well, what does it cost you when you lose the, you know, your top income earner at 50 years old? What does that cost your family over 30 years?

• 1:19:47Rich Roll?

  It's tough to get people.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  You have to think of all the costs.

• 1:19:50Rich Roll?

  I know. It's tough to get people to motivate themselves that like, oh, well, you're going to pay for it now. You're going to pay for it later because you're going to be sick. But people are like, yeah, yeah, well, I'll deal with that.

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  Well, they're paying for it sooner because type 2 diabetes didn't exist in the 60s. When we were kids, that was extremely rare. I think it was called early onset, right?

• 1:20:07Rich Roll?

  Early onset, yeah.

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  It's a disease we essentially recreate.

• 1:20:09Rich Roll?

  Juvenile and adult, whatever. Right, yeah.

• 1:20:14Speaker 01

  And it's now more and more prevalent and people are realizing that you can fix it with food. And we've got guys like Dr. Oz on TV every day advocating for this stuff and other people like him. And I think the message is finally getting around. I think what we need to do is work on providing people with the actual food, you know, like get the.

• 1:20:34Rich Roll?

  How do we make it more affordable? I mean, there is, you know, to kind of preface this, there is a sense or an idea that, you know, healthy living wellness, you know, like wellness.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  It's expensive for rich people.

• 1:20:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's like an elitist thing. You know, you're talking, we're talking about spirulina and cordyceps and crazy, you know, super expensive, super foods and all kinds of stuff. It's like, how can we make just simple, healthy eating, you know, predominantly plant-based, plant-based, whatever. Like, how can we get people who really need it the most and can't afford it, access to these things?

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  So I don't know what people are seeing that I must be missing, but when I go to the farmer's market in New York City, they're taking SNAP. They're discounting.

• 1:21:18Rich Roll?

  Oh, they take SNAP?

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  They take SNAP at every market in New York City. They're doubling the dollar sometimes. They're doing offers where every SNAP dollar is worth $2.

• 1:21:26Rich Roll?

  And just for the listener, SNAP is essentially food stamps.

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah, it's nutrition assistance programs. That's a federal program for people who can't afford to buy food for their family. So they're making it very, very compelling to use their SNAP funds at the farmer's market versus the bodega where you would typically buy a bottle of Fanta, right? With your SNAP money. So there are places and there are opportunities. You just need to hear this stuff from guys like us or learn about it at the market. But when I'm at the market, I see a lot of people from communities that we think of as the ones that are typically affected most by the notion that healthy is only for wealthy people. And they're buying smart, they're buying smartly. They're buying vegetables and they're coming at the end of the day, sometimes when the

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  farmers are giving away the food, basically, because they don't want to go home with all their food. They have these one dollar bags at the end of the day that are like five, 10 pounds of greens and tomatoes and whatever it is that they don't want to take home. So it's, you know, it's a change of routine, I think. I don't really believe that a pound of broccoli is more expensive than a pound of Hot Pockets. I just, if you do the math in terms of edible product.

• 1:22:37Rich Roll?

  Potatoes.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, plant, what I love, one thing I love about plant-based foods is that plants are much less expensive than meats. And I can make these donuts for little to nothing, you know, using chickpea flour, right? And it's inexpensive stuff. So I need someone to make the case to me that living healthily is only for the wealthy and more expensive, because I just don't see it. It doesn't make sense.

• 1:23:04Rich Roll?

  Well, it does exist. It doesn't. It exists if you're going to Whole Foods in Aran and like.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  Whole Foods is the, it was the issue. Now everything's cheap at Whole Foods. So it's no longer gonna be the issue.

• 1:23:13Rich Roll?

  This is changing now with Amazon.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  But I think you're right. I think Whole Foods helped create this notion that that's how you live a healthy lifestyle. You have to go to Whole Foods, but it's just not the case. There are farmer's markets in every city in America. And if you live in a food desert, you're probably living in a desert of every kind. So you're probably driving around a lot, you know, to go to work or elsewhere. And you're passing opportunities, you know? It's really mindset and.

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  Learning how how how much damage you're doing to your children if you're not making the making a choice to feed them healthy foods. You're gonna pay pretty soon. It's not gonna be 50 years down the road.

• 1:23:54Rich Roll?

  No, these things are accelerating.

• 1:23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:23:57Rich Roll?

  It's crazy. I think I the stat that I saw that was by 2030, 30% of Americans are gonna be diabetic or pre diabetic. And I can't remember what the childhood rates are for that, but childhood obesity is insane.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  It's gonna be 1 in 4 by the end of the decade.

• 1:24:12Rich Roll?

  The obesity rates are unbelievable. You know, there was like, did you see, I think it was just last weekend, New York Times did a documentary on the impact of the impact on ultra processed foods on Brazil, like all these.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  Yes, I did, I did.

• 1:24:26Rich Roll?

  It was incredibly well done. Yeah, and you're just seeing like how it's just wreaking havoc on this culture, you know, because they're they're adopting our habits.

• 1:24:33Speaker 01

  Who typically would have eaten local food that their mothers or someone at home would have cooked. Yeah, when Mexico eclipsed America as the number one most obese country in the world, I almost cried because every time I've been to Mexico, I've eaten the most wonderful local food I've ever had in my life. I mean, they have a cuisine that is so rich and so delicious and all based on local ingredients, hyper local ingredients. And there are parts of Mexico that don't even know about the ingredients that are in other parts of Mexico. Same is true in Italy. Unfortunately, Europe is changing. You know, I talk about the Mediterranean diet a lot because it's, in my opinion, one of the best examples of a sustainable for life diet pattern that works, basically, and doesn't leave you feeling like you're deprived. But that's changing too, you know,

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  the Spain and Italy are starting to develop obesity issues. It's crazy.

• 1:25:22Rich Roll?

  It's even starting to encroach on blue zones, you know, where the people have lived, you know, it's like, it's a global issue and it's not a small thing.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Rich Roll?

  You know, we're talking about, this is the balance of of, you know, the well being of our species.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:38Rich Roll?

  And we're just propelling ourselves down this path that is just decimating our health.

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  Depleting our resources at a pace.

• 1:25:46Rich Roll?

  And with that, we kind of acclimate it, we acclimate to it as if it's just a new normal. You know, it's like, this is just the way the way human beings act and look and eat now. And it's not. We need to take a step back and really look at what we're doing. And I think it, you know.

• 1:26:03Rich Roll?

  Maybe it's uncomfortable for, you know, some people to have to look in the mirror and and and hold themselves accountable for their habits and their behaviors, but this is your life, man. And, you know, I think we all need to take greater personal responsibility for the choices that we are making. And, and to the extent that the problem seems so daunting and unsolvable, like we're just, who am I? You know, I'm just a dude. Uh, you know, everybody votes with their dollar and that dollar counts. And we live in a capitalist society. And if you start buying, you know, almond milk and not dairy, like the economy is going to shift around that. And we're already seeing that. Like, there's a lot of momentum and I'm excited. Are you optimistic? Like, how do you look at this? Like?

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  After this hurricane cycle and the wildfires this year and the earthquakes, I'm a little less optimistic. But it's been quite a season, but I'm definitely optimistic because I do see, I do see what I care about in food growing, not shrinking. And I do see, I do see and hear more people talking about it, more people interested in it. Um, you know, when I, when I pitch these books to publishers now, they want what I, what I used to have a hard time selling. They're looking for that now. And, um, when I talk about a vegan donut, people are excited, you know, it's not like eyes roll back in their head anymore. And like, oh, Rocco, enough with your hospital food. My, my chef friends thought I lost my mind and went off to make hospital food. That's how they described what I was doing.

• 1:27:24Rich Roll?

  What do they think now?

• 1:27:25Speaker 01

  Uh, I have to ask them, but I think based on the number of chef friends who are now in their 50s and asking me for help, uh, I think that their opinion has changed a little bit.

• 1:27:35Rich Roll?

  What do you think about the whole culture of celebrity chefs as, as somebody who's, you know, walked through that world?

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  So I think there are a lot of wonderful things that came out of that movement. One, chefs have been able to impact the collective American palate in positive ways, not always positive, but many and mostly, I would say positive. The fact that there are farmers markets everywhere. Again, you know, the ones that disappeared in the 60s that are all back, I think is a result of chefs, you know, looking for better local seasonal ingredients. Uh, you know, the fact that there's a Yuzu flavored Snapple. I even like to take a little credit for it because I was one of the first chefs to use Yuzu in the early 90s. Um, so I think we have, we have a voice and, um, people like to listen to us because we're fun. We, we cook food and we celebrate and we do it 24/7. And so I'm glad that we have

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  a voice. Um, I don't think we're celebrities in the sense of, you know, Real celebrities that go to the Emmys and do the red carpet and

• 1:28:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but there's a

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  We're people that are looked to for guidance.

• 1:28:37Rich Roll?

  First of all, you're you are a celebrity. So there's that. But like also, there was there was kind of like, I don't know what happened in the culture, but like suddenly, whether it's reality TV or whatever it is like, there was a thing where suddenly like these chefs who were doing amazing work, who were kind of doing it, you know, had their followings and had notoriety in that subculture, were suddenly, you know, sort of foisted on the public and and there was kind of a, you know, a fever around that, that I don't know if it's still like that. Maybe it's

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  I've been I've been asked since the 90s, when is this chef thing gonna end?

• 1:29:09Rich Roll?

  It's still going on.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  I don't think it's gonna end. I think we're part of the permanent fixture. You know, we're part of American pop culture or or culture in general. And that's a good thing because we're food advocates and we're we're people who are charitable and we're people who like to make people happy. So that's a really good thing.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  In terms of the celebrity alone aspect, there isn't a chef out there who really is known for being a celebrity. They all learned how to cook at some point, most of them, and they either had restaurants. We're working people, you know, we're not, we're different. We're different than

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  a YouTube star or, you know, that that ilk, do you know what I mean?

• 1:29:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  And I think it's great that I think it's great that we were given an opportunity in the 80s, starting with Wolfgang Puck and Emerald and to address America as as a as an audience. Because we have good things to say, important things to say. We're a positive force, you know?

• 1:30:08Rich Roll?

  We gotta wrap it up here, but let's

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  So many things I want to tell you. I feel like I just had deja vu.

• 1:30:13Rich Roll?

  We don't have to stop.

• 1:30:15Speaker 01

  So many things. Wow.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  Oh, the book. Yeah, I have a new book.

• 1:30:21Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  Shameless plug.

• 1:30:23Rich Roll?

  Talk about the book.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I have a new book.

• 1:30:25Rich Roll?

  We talked about it a little bit at the outset, but yeah, go into it, please.

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  It's over 200, the official subtitle is over 200, mostly plant-based recipes for everyday life. So I what I want to do with this book is not ply you with diet theory, not tell you about the keto diet, the Mediterranean diet, the paleo diet, the dash diet. My readers get it. They understand. There's lots of diet theory and lots of ways to biohack and, you know, break into the system and get your body to do crazy things. But really, what's sustainable over a long period of time is just cooking healthy food. And I'm talking about common sense healthy, right? We know that there's too much sugar in our diet, so I don't use any sugar or refined sugars in this book. I don't talk about it in the beginning very much, but I don't use gluten. I don't really

• 1:31:10Speaker 01

  use dairy in this book, except for I break for Parmesan Reggiano. And I find that for most people, when you're making pasta out of like pea protein, you have to have Parmesan Reggiano to get them to eat it. But your wife's version of Parmesan Reggiano is gonna save me.

• 1:31:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know. Well, I was gonna say, you gotta like, check that out. You might be revising that for your next book.

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  I do. So the book is actually 248 recipes, so it's a proper cookbook. It's the first proper cookbook in eight books. And I believe that there is something in that book for every single person who wants to cook at home and live a healthier lifestyle. And these are super simple recipes, and every recipe has a picture, which is super important. My readers keep telling me they want more recipes and more pictures. That's all they keep telling me. And so I'm delivering what you've been asking me for. And the pictures are hyper-focused on the food, extreme close-ups. It's food porn at its best.

• 1:32:02Rich Roll?

  Well, there's certainly no shortage of plant-based recipes in there, too, and I'm excited to try them out.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  That's 90%.

• 1:32:08Rich Roll?

  I think it's super cool, yeah, that you've stepped into that.

• 1:32:10Speaker 01

  There's a few meat dishes. Yeah, you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

• 1:32:13Rich Roll?

  I know. We'll get you there. We'll see what the next one. You know what I mean? Check in with me in a year, man. I'm gonna get you 100%.

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  Trust me, I pitched it. I pitched it.

• 1:32:19Rich Roll?

  They're like, you're a little resistant.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  They're like, don't lose your entire audience.

• 1:32:23Rich Roll?

  You're losing the thread completely. But it's cool, man.

• 1:32:27Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 1:32:28Rich Roll?

  And I appreciate the work you do, and it's been a cool journey to kind of watch from afar, and nice to meet you. I think it would be great to kind of round this out and let people go with, you know, some wisdom around trying to help people, like you work with these clients one-on-one. You're seeing it on the front lines, like people that are struggling with food and trying to find their way through it. You know, somebody who's listening and they're And they're like, I hear it all. Like, I understand it. Like, I just, you know, how do I take that first step? What do I do? Like, how do I, how do, you know, how do I put that, that first foot forward? Like, you know, help me, throw me the lifeline.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the prequel is the hard part. The prequel is always the hard part. And I, I talk about this a lot with my clients, getting to the point where you're making a conscious decision to change your life. Right? That's the struggle. Once you've made the conscious decision, it's usually fairly easy.

• 1:33:16Rich Roll?

  It has to be self motivated. It has to be a self driven thing. It has to be an internally, you know.

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  And hopefully not always motivated by something catastrophic your doctor tells you, right? Unfortunately, that's what happens most of the time. But you know what? Just give yourself 72 hours and try some of the stuff we're talking about. Just, you know, try my recipes, try your recipes, try, try, you know, making yourself shakes and smoothies for, for three days out of, you know, full fiber, no juicing, you know, blended vegetables and fruits and give up the gluten and the dairy and the sugar. And tell me how you feel, because you'll feel a difference in about 12 hours. And 72 hours, you will definitely feel a difference.

• 1:33:53Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  And you'll get to a point where when you add that stuff back, you feel a negative difference. You start to feel really bad. Uh, once your body's cleaned out and detoxed.

• 1:34:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So what you're doing is you're, you're, you're getting people to connect with how they feel physically. If you're just eating junk all the time, that you acclimate to that. That's your normal. You lose touch with how you can feel, right? So creating that connection.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if you're one of those people that's always tired and cranky and you're overweight and your clothes don't fit and, uh, you're super self-conscious and, you know, you're sick of that.

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  Give it a try. You have nothing to lose, you know, go to, go to negative calorie diet. Try my three day cleanse. It, it's a cleanse with food. So it's not one of those crazy juice cleanse where you eat nothing. Try, you know, I don't know, the first 10 pages of Plant Power Way, I'm sure has a great plan. Just try it and, and, and then tweet me and tell me you don't feel a difference. I dare you. I dare you to tell me you don't feel a difference because you will. One important thing is to drink a lot of water. Very important that people don't realize we need to be, our muscle is the only part of our body that burns calories and if it's not fully hydrated, it doesn't work. And so drinking a lot of water is super important through any of these processes as you detox. Water will keep you sane.

• 1:35:07Rich Roll?

  Rocco's healthy and delicious.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:08Rich Roll?

  Comes out October 10th.

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  Is that 17th?

• 1:35:11Rich Roll?

  17th, right on that.

• 1:35:12Speaker 01

  When will this air?

• 1:35:13Rich Roll?

  What's that?

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  When will this air?

• 1:35:15Rich Roll?

  Uh, I'll look at the calendar. I'll try to, I'll try to orient it around when it comes out.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, cool. No worries, man.

• 1:35:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but probably around that same time.

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  That'd be great.

• 1:35:23Rich Roll?

  Cool, man.

• 1:35:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. This is really wonderful.

• 1:35:25Rich Roll?

  Superman. Awesome. Good talking to you.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  High five.

• 1:35:28Rich Roll?

  High five. Cool. So you can find, Rocco's pretty easy to find on the internet. Rocco Dispirito on Twitter and Instagram.

• 1:35:35Speaker 01

  Whether you like it or not.

• 1:35:37Rich Roll?

  All good, man. You got any triathlons coming up? Are you, are you still?

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  So back surgery two years ago.

• 1:35:42Rich Roll?

  Oh, no.

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  Been, yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:44Rich Roll?

  The bike is in mothballs. Oh, man.

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So running is definitely out of the question. I can bike still, but it, I have to refit my bike now and.

• 1:35:51Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:35:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:52Rich Roll?

  You live in Manhattan?

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:54Rich Roll?

  You do?

• 1:35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:55Rich Roll?

  So where do you, where do you, uh, do you go, do you go up like, uh, up across the bridge in 9W?

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do that a lot. Yeah, I do up and down to the bridge from, I live all the way downtown, so Upper West Side. Yeah.

• 1:36:05Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  Uh, plus out in Long Island. Yeah.

• 1:36:07Rich Roll?

  All right. Nice dude.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  But if you're eating, you know, one thing, it's 90% food, right? You know this.

• 1:36:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  I think the game is 90% food. So if you're eating well, you don't have to, you know, do a triathlon to get into shape. You don't have to do any of them. It's wonderful to do and definitely something you should try if you're into it, but you don't have to go do bar class and do all these crazy things, uh, if you're, if, if you're just eating well, because you'll get to 90% of your goals with a, a change in diet, a profound change in diet for most people.

• 1:36:38Rich Roll?

  And if you are doing all of those things and you're not paying attention to how you're eating, it's not going to work.

• 1:36:43Speaker 01

  You're going to end up one of those people like my clients who say, I work out all the time. I can't lose weight. It's because you can't out-train a bad diet. You just can't. So.

• 1:36:51Rich Roll?

  Good talking to you, man.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:52Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:36:53Speaker 01

  Peace.

• 1:36:54Rich Roll?

  Blance.

• 1:36:59Rich Roll?

  All right, pretty cool. We did it. I dig that guy. Hope you guys enjoyed that conversation. You know what's funny? Rocco and I were talking before the podcast just about stuff and life and what I do, what he does and what Julie does. I was telling him about Julie and her food and her books. And he took a look at This Cheese is Nuts and he's like, "Oh, I have this book. I love this book." Which I thought was super duper cool. Julie was out at the time, at the beginning of the conversation, but she came home like right at the end, right when we were finishing our conversation. And she let him taste a couple of her cheeses that she was working on. And he tasted them and he just like lit up. The guy like just smiled from ear to ear and he gave her like this huge bear hug.

• 1:37:41Rich Roll?

  And I just thought that was kind of an amazing moment for Julie to be recognized by such a great, well-trained chef like Rocco was a really special moment. In any event, if you want to learn more about Rocco, roccodospirito.com. He's at Rocco Dispirito on all the Instagrams and the Twitters. He's easy to track down. So give him a shout. Let him know what you thought of the conversation. Please check out the show notes on the episode page at ritual.com. We've got tons of links to take your edification beyond the earbuds. So how's your plate looking? Are you guys eating more plants? Are you inspired to get more plant-based after listening to Rocco? But you don't know where to begin. You're not a big cookbook person. You don't know what to do in the kitchen. You're lacking the tools.

• 1:38:23Rich Roll?

  Or maybe just, I don't know, a little bit of a helping lending hand to get you started and to keep you inspired on this journey? Well, you might enjoy our new meal planner. When you sign up, you get thousands of plant-based recipes right at your fingertips. Unlimited meal plans and grocery lists. We're now metric system compliant. Everything's totally personalized and customized based on your goals and your food preferences and your allergies and your time constraints. It's very mobile friendly. We have an amazing customer support team, experts, not people who don't know what they're talking about. I'm talking about people with graduate degrees, athletes, moms, people who live and breathe this stuff, available to you to answer all your questions. We even have grocery delivery in some 60-odd metropolitan areas.

• 1:39:06Rich Roll?

  We're getting great feedback. People are really enjoying this. It's life-changing stuff, people. I'm really telling you that this is a great thing to explore if your plate has caused you consternation. You can learn more by going to meals.ritual.com. It's basically a dollar 90 a week when you sign up for a year. Totally affordable. And I just love it. I'm really proud of it. I think it's an amazing service. And yeah, check it out to learn more. Meals.richroll.com or click on the meal planner on the top menu at richroll.com. A final reminder, my 51st birthday is coming up. I really want to reach my $51,000 goal to build clean water projects on behalf of Charity Water.

• 1:39:46Rich Roll?

  So please visit my fundraising page at my.cheritywater.org/richroll. We've already raised 28,000. It's amazing. Thank you guys so much. It's incredible. We're going to be helping so many people and it feels great to give. It really does. It is the giving season. So I implore you to be generous, check out my fundraising page and consider a donation. Again, my.cheritywater.org/richroll. If you would like to support this show and my work, share it with your friends on on social media. No brainer. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe. Hit that subscribe button. Very important. We have a Patreon set up for those who want to financially contribute to what I'm doing and I really appreciate that. Up through my birthday, though, I would appreciate any considered

• 1:40:27Rich Roll?

  donation to go to Charity Water. I think that's a better source of those funds right now. If you would like to receive a free short weekly email from me, I send one out most weeks. I missed again this week because I was in Austin. It was just so crazy. Anyway, it's called Roll Call. I usually send it out Thursday, but I started sending it out on other days. In any event, it's pretty regular. Five or six things I've come across over the course of the week that I think are informative, inspiring, usually a couple articles, documentaries, videos, products, things like that. I now have a huge list of things I want to put in Roll Call. So I think next week's going to be pretty beefy. In any event, thank you to everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering and production, help on the show notes and for the interstitial

• 1:41:11Rich Roll?

  music. Sean Patterson for help on graphics. David Zammatt for his Photo portraits and video. We are preparing a video for this Rocco episode that I'm going to be sharing with you guys soon. And theme music, as always, by Analemma. Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here soon. We're going to do a midweek podcast this week, I believe. It's going to be great. So, check it out. And until then, be well, live well. Peace, plants, namaste.