102 How We Learned to Think and Eat Is Killing Us (and THIS is the Solution) with Tim Ryan

"It's people on the outside that move the political process." - Rep. Tim Ryan If you enjoyed this episode, find show notes and more at www.lewishowes.com/102. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 102 with Congressman Tim Ryan.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  What is up everyone? Thank you so much for joining me today on the School of Greatness podcast. We've got a fellow Ohioan on today. His name is Mr. Tim Ryan. He is a congressman. And he's the author of a new book that just came out called The Real Food Revolution. Healthy Eating, Green Groceries, and the Return of the American Family Farm. Now, this is an interesting conversation because one, he's from Ohio. So we've got some good connections there. We have also a lot of mutual friends. And this is the first time I've connected with Tim. So was able to connect with a fellow Ohioan and talk about two topics that I'm actually extremely passionate about.

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  One, which is mindfulness and bringing mindfulness into the school system for kids to really practice and learn and be available to, but also eating healthier and understanding why as a nation, as a country, specifically in the US, we are not living as long as our parents and grandparents did. And why we're the first generation to actually live shorter lives than our parents and grandparents. It's kind of crazy and it's because of the food that we're eating and the medication we have to take to supplement our health. So we dive into those topics. I'm very excited about this. Let's go ahead and dive in now with The Real Food Revolution with Congressman Tim Ryan.

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Super pumped about this one. We've got Congressman Tim Ryan on. What's going on, Tim?

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Not too much. Very excited to be with you.

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  Very excited. We were just connecting a little bit before and we have many mutual friends and I'm glad we're able to finally connect. And Nick Ortner told me about you and told me about your book and said, I've got to have you on the show. And so I said, well, let's get the book first and see if it's worthy. And I didn't know anything about you. Then I realized you're from Ohio and I said, okay, I've got to have him on the show. So very excited to see what you're up to. And the more I learn about you, the more I'm fascinated that you're actually a congressman and what you're up to. Because you're focusing on, I guess the last few years of your life, you've been focusing on, based on these books and the kind of the programs that you've been implementing in

• 3:06Lewis Howes?

  Ohio specifically, is all about mindfulness and really like emotional intelligence in the schools and eating healthier. Two things that I've been focusing on in my life over the last four years, as I saw myself gain about 35 pounds and kind of have like this like, you know, gut after playing football and then really diving into mindfulness and meditation and emotional intelligence myself and understanding the value of that practice and what it's done for my life, my relationships. To see that a congressman is doing this, I'm proud to know that you're from Ohio, my friend.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Hey, man. Well, it's good to meet up. I mean, the most exciting part about doing this, and I've had a lot of people say, are you sure you're a congressman? Because there's a lot of people involved in this, but not a lot of people in the political process involved in it. And really, the most exciting thing for me has been meeting people like you, people like Nick Ortner, Chris Carr, you know, the whole team, and figuring out how we can build this movement out. Because really, it's people on the outside that move the political process. You know, it's the pressure from the outside that moved the needle in one direction or the other. And we've seen it happen in our country a lot. And I think the things that you're talking about and that we'll talk about in this podcast

• 4:25Speaker 01

  are the things that I think really need to happen to improve the lives of people in our country. And it's not necessarily a Democrat or Republican thing, but it's kind of a common sense way to try to solve some of the challenges that we have.

• 4:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, definitely. And before we dive into kind of like the healthy eating, you know, you wrote this book called The Real Food Revolution. It's all about healthy eating, green groceries, and the return of the American family farm. Before we get into that, because I think it's a huge topic that I cover a lot on this show. We bring on a lot of health experts. You wrote a book before called A Mindful Nation, and it was really about reducing stress and improving performance. And I think I read somewhere that you've applied this in schools, in elementary schools or high schools. Is that correct? Or you're trying to do some type of programs or are testing this? Is that, what have you done with that?

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, well, there are schools around the country that do different forms of meditation practice. Some do mindfulness-based, some do transnational meditation, some do other things. But we were able in 2009 to get a grant for Youngstown City Schools and Warren City Schools in Ohio, where they teach mindfulness and social and emotional learning.

• 5:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  And to me, this is very fundamental. You know, you'll go, and Warren and Youngstown are both older industrial towns, you know. Poor, um, you know, a lot of cultural diversity, uh, tough neighborhoods, high crime rates. And I just to say, hey, do this, you know, let's do it, you know, where these real challenges are. And it's really been amazing. I just talked to the superintendent of Warren City Schools a few days ago. And he said, really, the program's taken off a rocket ship. He said, actually, two principals were in an argument because the one principal hasn't reported any discipline incidents yet this year. No way. And the other principal thought that she was trying to cook the books.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  And, and, and she said, I swear to God, I mean, this is, we haven't had any problems. And he said, that's, that's the best SEL mindfulness school that we have in the district. He said, it's taken off like a rocket ship. And because of the success that they're having in this school, you know, the other schools are taking it a lot more seriously and really ramping it up. And so, you know, it goes to the philosophy that, you know, um, if we want kids to learn, uh, we need to base how we teach them and, and what we teach them on the latest brain science. And there's much science coming online now with how the brain reacts to meditation. Yeah.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  And it allows you to move out of fight or flight, you know? And if you think of some of these kids in tough neighborhoods with domestic violence issues in their families, you know, they basically have traumatic stress, you know, and they have it at a very, very young age where their brain's still developing. And so what I learned through the Mindful Nation process of writing that book was we've got two parts of our brain. We got the fight or flight part, which is in our, our amygdala. So, you know, there's a bear around the corner. Boom, we go in the fight or flight. Our amygdala gets really cranked up. And it takes over our brain and signal into our body how best we can survive.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  The problem with that is that it takes away our ability to use our prefrontal cortex up by our forehead. That's where we have our decision making, our attention span, our working memory. It's the CEO of the brain. So you can imagine these young kids who live in these violent neighborhoods and have all these issues that they have to deal with. Their amygdala is in a constant state of being activated and they're in almost a constant state of fight or flight.

• 8:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  We see kids like this all the time.

• 8:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  So we sit here and wonder why they can't learn. And the reason is their brain's been hijacked by their fight or flight response. And these techniques are being shown to teach kids how to self-regulate. What a, what a life skill.

• 8:36Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  For them. Right? How to, how to calm their amygdala down, re-engage their prefrontal cortex, and then we start seeing test scores go up and then everything else. And, and behavior goes down, as I said earlier. And so to me, like, you know, we're banging our head against the wall saying, how are we going to be a competitive country? Why can't some of these kids learn? Why are we spending so much in some of these tough districts? And the districts we spend most on come away with the worst test scores. Well, they're also the districts with the highest crime rates, the highest poverty rates, and these kids, their brains are hijacked. So if we're going to transform education, to me, this is like the basic building block that we need to send these kids out into a very chaotic world, but to be able to learn

• 9:21Speaker 01

  and have a skill and be a functioning civilized human being. I think mindfulness and these other practices and meditation practices are really fundamental.

• 9:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it shocks me now today, looking back at my childhood and, you know, the school, schooling that I had. Uh, you know, I'm super grateful for my teachers and everything and, and what I learned, but at the same time, the most, probably the most valuable things that we could have learned as students and, and children growing up is how to understand ourselves and understand our emotions and. How to react to certain situations or not react or letting our ego take over or not take over. And you know, those are the things that makes us competitive and compelling in business, in life, in relationships, you know, as a country, whatever it may be, it's not like

• 10:10Lewis Howes?

  how smart we are, you know, or how much, you know, although it's important to have this information that we learn in math and science and everything, but to be innovative, but really, if we can't understand other human beings and understand ourselves, how we how we work under certain stressful situations, then what is the value in knowing the other information? I think it's just as equally important, if not more important, in my opinion, based on what I've learned in my experience and being, you know, getting to the next level in my life, understanding mindfulness has been powerful.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  I think most people would agree with you, you know, most if we if we sat down in a room full of parents and we talked about, okay, what are the essential skills you have that allowed you to be a success? And most people would say, you know, my ability to connect to other people, the fact that I listen, the fact, you know, I care, I'm empathetic, the fact that I don't say everything that I want to say, you know, the fact that I'm able to get mad and then kind of calm down and then deal with the situation. And the question really is, if those are the, if that's the 80 or 90% of the things in our daily life that we need to be successful, you know, why in the hell aren't we teaching

• 11:25Speaker 01

  that in our schools? Yeah, because like you said, the the skill set, whether you're going to learn a skill with the building trades, to be a plumber or an electrician, or you're going to go on to be a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, those skills can be learned. Yes, but the essential things that make us a civilization really are these other skills. And I think there's been a fraying of that. And we've gotten so driven into test scores and and it's just kind of odd that the more we focus on math and science and test scores, the further we drop in the international rankings.

• 12:01Lewis Howes?

  Why? I mean, I don't understand this, though. How come we are never, we never have a class on this, at least I never did, until after I graduated college, when I started to, you know, really until my late twenties, really, now I'm thirty one, until I started to realize what's not working for me as a human. Like, you know, there's a lot working, but what is making me angry still? Why is my ego getting in the way? Why am I resentful to people or to situations? And why have I not let go of certain things that aren't serving me? And I, it's, it was frustrating when I had to seek out the information and start, you know, doing my own research, as it looks like you did as well, in the whole Mindful Nation

• 12:40Lewis Howes?

  process. How come, you know, it took me thirty years until I was able to then seek it out because it was just so frustrating, as opposed to it's something that we learn in school? Why hasn't schools developed this and brought it on as at least being one class, you know, that people can take or something?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just, I think there's a lot of inertia in the current system. And, you know, it's, it's, a lot of times, it's blaming, blame the parents, blame the teachers, there's a lot of, you know, whose fault it is, these kids aren't working hard enough, so give them more homework, more discipline, more this, more that.

• 13:18Lewis Howes?

  More drugs.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  And really, none of, none of that has worked. And it's funny that you say, you know, you turn thirty or whatever, and then you start kind of figuring things out for yourself in a mindful nation. And I talk about, I went on a five day meditation retreat, and more and more silence throughout the retreat. And then at the end of the retreat, there was a thirty six hour period of silence. And I remember, you know, doing a walking meditation at the end, and I really, you know, my mind and my body were synchronized. It very much resembled being in the zone as an athlete.

• 13:50Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Not that I was, you know, enough. If I was in the lot, I probably would be talking to you right now. But I, I did have that experience.

• 13:57Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  And the, the minute that happened, and I really had that experience, I thought, why didn't anyone teach me this in school?

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Why? Why did that happen? And um, and so my mission at that point in my life really was, you know, we've got to learn how to teach this in our schools. And it's got to be fundamental.

• 14:21Lewis Howes?

  Amazing, yeah. Oh, this is exciting. I'm like so in shock that you're still a congressman and that you've like talked about these topics and it's like part of your daily practice. So it's again, really proud you're from Ohio, Tim.

• 14:36Lewis Howes?

  Um, so, okay, let's, let's transition.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, I need, I need your help. I need your help. I mean, we've got to figure out how to do this, you know?

• 14:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  And how to do it together and really build this movement out.

• 14:49Lewis Howes?

  Sure, yeah. Well, hopefully we can support with this, uh, you know, as a, as a piece of the puzzle with this podcast and this interview. So again, thank you for sharing with that. And I wanna, you know, I could talk about that for hours and hours because I'm a, I'm still an athlete myself today. I'm competing on a, on a international level with the USA national team with team handball, trying to go to the Olympics in the next couple of years. So I'm all about mindfulness, meditation, uh, you know, tapping into being in the zone as often as possible when I compete. So I could talk about that forever, but I want to talk about as well, the real food revolution. And a few years ago, I live in Los Angeles now, I moved from Columbus, Ohio to New York about four and a half years ago, early 2010.

• 15:34Lewis Howes?

  And when I moved there, it was about three or four years after, about three years after I'd done playing, I used to play arena football when I got injured. And I played with the Columbus Destroyers for a little bit. And um, I kept eating the crap that I was eating from college football and playing arena football. You know, just eating whatever to get enough calories in. I kept eating that for about three years after I was done. And it got to the point where I've mentioned this on the podcast before, for those who've listened a lot before, that I, I got over 250 pounds. And I'm six, four, and I could never get to that weight when I was playing football. So I finally got to 250 and uh, and my underwear started rolling.

• 16:17Lewis Howes?

  Over my like, it started rolling over itself, like folding over. And my siblings started calling me Fluis for Fat Louis. Cause I was just like getting this gut and chubby cheeks. And they were like, you're getting fat, you need to start eating better. And I realized, once my underwear started folding over, I was like, okay, this is unacceptable. I can't, I can't keep doing this myself. So I started to really assess, what is it I'm doing? What am I eating? And I realized that I was addicted to sugar. And the thing that I like about you and your book is you mentioned how you love ice cream and chicken wings. And you know, you're not perfect. You're not like only eating leafy greens and organic beef every day. That you love, you have your, your vice as well of food. But I realized that I was addicted to sugar and I need to at least cut it back a lot.

• 17:01Lewis Howes?

  So I went off sugar for 30 days and I lost 30 pounds in 30 days, just getting off sugar. And I was amazed what, you know, my, the way my body responded. And you talk a lot about foods and the food system. Can you just tell me why you decided to write this book? And why this is such an important topic for you about healthy eating? And you know, there's lots of different things you cover here, but what's the main reason you got into this in the first place?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Well, I, as a member of Congress and I sit on the House of Representatives Committee. And we fund the government, you know, and just started over time. I've been in now 12 years. And over time, you know, pay more and more attention and learn more and more. And I started really, you know, looking at the data, looking at the trajectory of what's going to happen to our healthcare system and the health of our country over the next decade or so. And realized that, you know, about half of the country in the next few years is going to have either diabetes or pre-diabetes.

• 18:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  And you try to, you try to fathom a healthcare system where half the country is sick. And that's sick, I mean, that's sick.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  In addition to obesity and heart disease and high blood pressure and all the rest, it cost us a lot of money. You know, we need to fix it. And you know, as I was writing A Mindful Nation 2, I was learning a lot about stress response and how bad that is for, for our bodies, but there was always this other element floating around out there and that was diet. And, and so, once I, it just kind of clicked. I was like, oh my God, this is like, this is so fundamental. I mean, these kids in the school. You know, they're they're eating a fruit roll up and a bag of Doritos and a pop.

• 18:50Lewis Howes?

  Pizza square.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's breakfast or that's lunch. And then we send them to the classroom and and we say, hey, can you sit down and learn algebra now?

• 19:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  You know, and it's really setting them up to fail. And so, you know, kind of seeing the policy side, I really wanted to help people connect the dots. And so basically what happens is we subsidize with with taxpayer money. Uh, we subsidize the current food system that that helps support growing really big crops that end up in cheap, highly processed food.

• 19:28Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  And there's a reason it's cheap. It's cheap because it's subsidized by the taxpayer. So, um, that makes it, you know, uh, more cheap and more readily available. And then the real kicker is then we subsidize healthcare for our citizens. Uh, with the Medicaid program, Medicare, and then also private insurance, now with the Affordable Care Act to help middle-class people afford health insurance. The public subsidizes that. So we subsidize the crops that go to highly processed food that got the country ready to have, uh, half the country to have diabetes or prediabetes. And then we subsidize the healthcare in which we're going to need to take care of the people who have diabetes or prediabetes.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  So to me, it's like, shoot me, you know, like, are we really doing this? And I want the American people to see the connection of why these so cheap? And how we can, with just a minor shift in these subsidies, start to encourage farmers to grow kind of fruits and vegetables that are going to make us healthy. And it can be a team effort with the farmers, with the consumers, with mag people, you know, um, with the schools of agriculture, together with the integrative health folks and the the healthcare community to say, all right, this is the direction we need to go in. And this is ultimately how we're going to drive down healthcare costs

• 20:52Speaker 01

  so that we can reinvest into innovation and education and, you know, the kind of things we need in our schools to really be competitive. The, you know, mindfulness programs, the social and emotional learning programs, those things that we know work. So if we save money on healthcare. You know, those are investments we could make in the things that are really going to make us competitive. And then the real food revolution kind of lays that all out to the average person. Kind of pull the curtain back on what's happening in DC and see how this is all going down.

• 21:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow, interesting. Yeah, it just seems like if we ate healthy and meditated once a day, we would solve a lot more problems and have a lot better lives. It seems simple, right?

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  You talk about, you talk about early in the book about-

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Our brains, when you think about it, you know, our brains, our bodies, our nervous systems, we're not meant to deal with fake food. And the high, high levels of, you know, information that are coming down on us day in and day out, the high levels of stress that we're all under. Our nervous systems aren't ready for this, you know? I mean, this, this food that we're eating now, you know, our species is 60,000 years old. Or so, we just started eating fake food in the last, you know, three or four decades. So it's taken that time for us to go, oh my God, this is what happens when, you know, we, we eat fake food for a while, we all get sick, we all get diabetes.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Our body was meant to be real food that kept us around for 60,000 years. But here today, eating fake food, and it's a real experiment on seeing what goes wrong. And what goes wrong is you get diabetes, you get high blood pressure, you get heart disease, you get ulcers, you get all these other issues. And the same with the technology and the information. Our nervous system is not meant to handle these high levels of, you know, the, the information, the constant bombardment of what's on our phone. And wake from the first time we wake up in the morning till we go to bed. We're on this, and we're looking at this lit screen. And there's all this data coming at us, and we're not sure what to even do with it.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  So the mindfulness and these other, this is really with good food or an opportunity for us to just say, okay, we're going to take control back of our environment and we're going to control it.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, yeah. What are, you know, you're talking about this fake food. Are you talking about, you know, genetically engineered seeds as part of that?

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Well, part of it, you know, the whole, the science really isn't in on GMO. But my big thing is you label it and let people have a shot at knowing that they don't want to eat it.

• 23:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  And right now, that's the big fight. Is to at least label it, but the highly processed stuff, you know, that goes from corn to corn syrup, you know, and it goes from soy to soy oil and then, you know, you look on the back of a box of some of this stuff and you, there's how many names are on there that you have no clue

• 23:56Lewis Howes?

  dozens.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  even what's in there, you know, and it's like, well, what's in a tomato? Well, a tomato, you know, there's sugar in there, but it's natural and it's got, you know, these, it's got fiber and other things that help you digest the sugar. So it's just, it's crazy. I mean, it really is. And my thing is, you know, people in Youngstown, Ohio, they're going paycheck to paycheck, you know, and it's hard for them to go shopping three times a week and get fresh fruits and vegetables. So they're almost forced to buy the things that are, couldn't stay in the cupboard. And so there's a lot of challenges here economically as the very least, I'd say, why wouldn't we make it easier for them to buy

• 24:39Speaker 01

  fresh fruits and vegetables? Why are those priced so much differently than all the subsidized garbage that we're eating?

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  So what are some ways to make it easier for people on low income, uh, you know, families, uh, that live in places that don't have fresh produce readily, you know, easily nearby? Um, what are some things that you talk about in the book that we can do to, to solve this? Or solutions that we can do ourselves?

• 25:04Speaker 01

  I think first you shift, you shift the subsidies and you try to create some markets for the farmer. So you're from, you're from Delaware County, you're from Columbus, Ohio. So imagine if we took the Ohio State University and we said, uh, okay, the next year, Ohio State is going to spend 2% of their food budget for all 60,000 kids that are there, their entire campus, to buy fresh local whole foods from central Ohio farmers. Following year it's gonna be four percent, following year it's gonna be six percent, following year it's gonna be eight percent. All of a sudden, the farmers in that region are gonna say, wow, I got a real market developing here. Instead of growing corn that's gonna

• 25:48Speaker 01

  end up feeding some hog halfway around the world, um, I can make the same money because we shift the subsidies and we help them convert their farm over to a more sustainable farm. And we can drive the truck five or 10 miles and, and make a profit and make a living feeding people at Ohio State. That will build the market out. And Ohio State's not gonna go anywhere. And if you do the same with prisons in central Ohio and schools in central Ohio and military bases in central Ohio, you take all this public money and you start rewarding the farmers for growing the kind of food that's gonna keep us healthy. And I think that's one way to do it by building the market out and then those foods would be more accessible.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  And then in our urban areas, I think we need a total urban agricultural, urban farming initiative in the country where we take down dilapidated, let's take Youngstown, Ohio, for example, we used to be a hundred and sixty thousand people. You know, now we're sixty or seventy thousand. Wow. So we're, we're starting to take down a lot of those homes, but we need to do it a lot quicker and we could build out, um, a huge urban ag support system in the middle of food deserts. And food deserts are with, are where, you know, families live outside of a mile or two from a grocery store and they don't have any transportation. Hmm.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  So grow the food in the city. And so instead of having neighborhoods that are neighborhoods of consumption, you start putting people to work in the cities to grow fresh fruits and vegetables and food for their own communities and make them neighborhoods of production. So you get investment in the city, you put people to work. Most of the folks in these urban areas are on Medicaid and driving up Medicaid costs because of the unhealthy eating. So you're gonna help the Medicaid program by bending the cost curve and making sure that people, um, are healthier. And then you get rid of that, the food desert issue and accessibility. So all of these things, um, can really help build out an urban farming

• 27:54Speaker 01

  system. And I think you do the same thing with the schools. I think you, you should have a garden in every school, a kitchen in every schoolhouse where you're actually teaching kids how to plant, grow. And cook food like a home ec 2.0 and then you have a salad bar in every school cafeteria. And so you start to teach young people exactly how you're supposed to be eating. Tie it to the healthcare curriculum, tie it to your math curriculum and teach fractions when you're cutting up the vegetables and fruit and those kinds of things. But that's, this is why I think it's a revolution because you build out the entire system. You build out the rural piece by helping the farmers transition. You redirect this public money to reward and incentivize healthy food and whole food.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  You build out the urban ag piece so that you take care of these food deserts and you get people in our inner cities healthy and eating properly. And then you do it with the schools. So you get kids that are in school. What are you there for? They're there to learn how to live, right? How to have, live a successful life. So a part of that needs to be, here's how you eat.

• 28:56Lewis Howes?

  Right. Wow. Yeah. What are, what are some ways that, you know, if we're, say you live in the city, you're in New York City. What are some ways to develop your own, uh, you know, I guess, urban farming in your apartment, in your, in an apartment or an apartment building? Are there, are there some tips or some, some good systems to apply that you know of?

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Well, you, you can start growing, you know, herbs in your, uh, window seal and those kinds of things. But I think when you're in those kinds of urban areas, you know, really you want to support those people in your neighborhoods that are bringing the fresh fruits and vegetables in the farmers markets and the different co-ops that, that bring food into those areas and will bring you bags of fresh fruits and vegetables, you know, a few times a week.

• 29:45Lewis Howes?

  So it's not necessarily doing it yourself, but it's more supporting the local farmers to bring it in to the urban areas is what you're saying. Got you.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:53Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Interesting. Man, this is such a powerful concept and I'm so appreciative that you're, again, writing about this and, and pushing for it all. Um, are there other, so are you, are you able to apply some of these, um, food initiatives in Ohio right now? Or have you already started doing that along with the mindful practices? Or is it something you're working towards next?

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Um, we're doing a little bit in Akron. There are some gardens in the schools. There's a great program with the American Heart Association. Um, and the American Heart Association is really starting to take the lead on this, which is fantastic, of putting these gardens in the schools. There's a couple of those out in, uh, out in Akron. Um, we have, uh, in Youngstown, Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, where they're, uh, in the city of Youngstown, building out, uh, with hoop houses and they're planting root vegetables and they're making a profit off it. And that's what's cool too, is when you see these folks that really can start making a profit. And so it's not always funded by government or

• 30:57Speaker 01

  funded by foundations where they can, you know, get some seed money early, get people up and running, but then start making money off the thing, you know, that they can reinvest back into, uh, their urban farm or into their neighborhoods and figure out ways. I, I think there's a huge public good and that this is a, these are good public investments, but, you know, if you can supplement that with people who start making profits. So they're doing that right in Youngstown and you'd be surprised. I write about Will Allen in Milwaukee. He started, um, a great, uh, program, uh, of building out urban farms and it's called Growing Power and he's a former athlete too. And he, uh, played basketball at the University

• 31:37Speaker 01

  of Miami and came back and, and started doing this in Milwaukee and it's really transforming neighborhoods and teaching inner-city kids how to, you know, grow food and, and he gets all into the whole process of doing it. It's really super cool. So, you know, Milwaukee and Chicago and Cleveland and Youngstown and Akron. I mean, this is happening in some of these older cities and it's exactly what needs to happen, but we better get on the stick. Cause like I said, we're not moving the needle yet and these are cool to have out there and it's cool for me to write about, but the reality is if we don't have people voting for or against their members of Congress based on where they're, where they stand on food, then we're not going to move the needle. And if we don't have people running

• 32:22Speaker 01

  for school board and, you know, school districts all over the country saying, hey, we gotta get, start with getting this crap out of our schools that we're feeding to our kids or poisoning them. And how do we get good food in there so that they can be at the highest level of performance that we need them to be, to be successful? That's ultimately what the, what the real goal is, is to, you know, move the needle here politically.

• 32:45Lewis Howes?

  I mean, how do we ma- move the needle when it seems like it's such a big needle to move? You know, it's like this, it's a system that's so big all around the country. How, you know, how long will that actually take until we start to see any movement at all? That is meaningful or that makes a difference?

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Well, it depends, you know, on how good of a job I do and you do by, you know, uh, you know, coaching everybody up and, and really, you know, uh, teaching them what we need to do and that they can't ignore the political process. I think that's, you know, I used to have fun with all the meditators and yogis when I went on my book tour with the mindful nation. It's like you guys sit on your cushion or you get on your mat. You want to become one with the universe, except for the Washington DC. You know, it's like you, you gotta engage everything, even the dark side sometimes, you know, because it's all life. You know, this is all part of the process and you've got to engage it.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  And so, you know, I, I think about you and all the people that listen to your podcasts, you know, all the people that Nick Ortner and Jessica Ortner are, are in contact with two New York Times bestsellers. I think of Chris Carr, I think of Mark Hyman, who's, you know, Dr. Mark Hyman, who has like eight New York Times bestsellers. You know, I think Wayne Dyer is big on this and all the millions of books that he sold over his career and years of people that, that he, um, is interested in and Deepak Chopra and all these folks, we all have networks, you know? And, and if we all say in unison, this is how we do it. We've got to be involved in the process. You, you guys gotta, somebody gotta run for school board in Delaware County.

• 34:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  You know, and say, this is the future and here's the science. I mean, I look at a place like Delaware County and you know it much, much better than I do. But this concept to people in Delaware County, I don't think would be that foreign.

• 34:37Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, it's like if you go and you explain to the folks down there, like here's why, here's how the brain works, here's, here's diabetes, here's this, here's that, lay it out for them. They're intelligent people.

• 34:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  They're gonna say, yeah, this is what we need. Maybe this is the kind of shift that we need. You just gotta talk to people like they're adults and not try to run political campaigns based on a bumper sticker and scare the crap out of somebody so they vote, vote for you and not the other guy.

• 35:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  So I'm, I think the more we activate people, the quicker it's gonna happen.

• 35:08Lewis Howes?

  And are there grants out there that, uh, you know, communities can receive for their schools or how does this actually work?

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, there are some grants, um, with the Department of Agriculture has some grants and Tom Bilsek, who's the Secretary of Agriculture, has really been doing a good job of trying to build this thing out. You know, it's not at the level, obviously, that we need it to be, but you know, we were able to get a grant for Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation for them to continue to build out their process. Um, you know, I know the Department of Health and Human Services, they have grants that, uh, able to help schools build out these things. There's some great foundations like the Whole Boots Foundation for Kids. They do a lot of work in schools where they teach teachers how to, you know, learn about health themselves. So they do like a two hour seminar for teachers and then they do salad bars in the schools

• 36:02Speaker 01

  and they do, um, gardens in schools as well. And so that's, that's a great program. The American Heart Association too, um, they try to coordinate with corporate sponsors. So that would be a great place to start as well. Um, there's just so many, uh, places out there if you just wanna get started.

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  That you can and in, in the Real Food Revolution, we provide a resource section where we suggest other groups that you can partner up with.

• 36:30Lewis Howes?

  Nice, okay, cool. Yeah, you know, the sad thing is that the, I, I think this is the, the first generation that we will live shorter than our parents. Is that a correct statistic or did I hear that from you? And

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  So this

• 36:45Speaker 01

  In the book, first generation, you have to live, to live not as, not as long as their parents and live an unhealthier life than their parents.

• 36:53Lewis Howes?

  I mean, as sad as it sounds, it may take more people getting sick and dying younger for the shift to happen, which is really unfortunate, or it may take until, you know, a certain time of that happening.

• 37:06Lewis Howes?

  But it's, it's just really sad that, you know, people, you know, I had to do this. And when I was 29, 30 years old, I had to like, go and look for information because I was never taught it. You know, and my parents didn't know the specific information. You know, they taught me, you know, we were eating, you know, grilled cheese and pizza and, and I thought I was healthy, you know, it's like, because we weren't educated. So I'm not blaming my parents or family, you know, it's ultimately my responsibility to live a healthy lifestyle. But when we're taught certain things every day, or we're not provided information for us to make choices, um, based on information, it's, it's a lot more challenging. So what are some, you know, some of these may be obvious, obviously, but can you give listeners some nutrition related recommendations?

• 37:52Lewis Howes?

  You know, already that you have?

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, um, as I start the book out with my fetish for chicken wings and ice cream.

• 38:01Lewis Howes?

  I love that, how you start that too.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, you know, I just, I don't want, I'm not a vegan, I'm not a vegetarian, I'm not, you know, um, and those are fine and, you know, whatever, whatever works for you. But I don't, I'm not trying to tell people what to eat. I just want to say, hey, here's kind of like why we're having these problems and the direction we need to move in and everybody can do a little bit better, uh, in order to help us build this system out. Um, I just, I think you try to eat real food, you know, you try to eat, uh, fruits and vegetables and you try to, you know, limit the, I try to limit the carbs. Um, and I grew up Italian, so you know, that is super, super hard, you know, when you smell, you know, home cooked bread and, and, um, and, you know, try to eat lean meats.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  And really, you know, that kind of thing, you know, we do a shake in the morning uh that Dr. Hyman recommends in in some of his books with, you know, frozen berries and uh chia seeds and flax seeds and stuff that, you know, keep you moving and almond milk and just try to limit that stuff. But, you know, my stepson last night, we we went around town looking for ice cream, you know, he he he's doing a good job in school and he wanted a little ice cream. So, you know, we didn't find it. Fortunately, everything was closed. But but, you know, you you you know, it's it's hard to just completely cut it off, but I think it's important that, you know, everything done in moderation. And I like, you know, kind of what Michael Pollan says about, you know, eating

• 39:32Speaker 01

  plants and uh eating real food. And then the thing I cite in the book is if you if you are getting your dinner through your car window, it's probably not real food.

• 39:42Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Interesting. Very interesting. I I have a note here that I wanted to ask you about. I might be backtracking a little bit, but is it true we are developing robo bees?

• 39:55Lewis Howes?

  And I I saw this in your book. And I love I love to learn more about what is a robo bee? And why are they be why are they being created? And what's, you know, is it true that it's actually happening?

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Well, one of the one of the problems with um plowing of land to, you know, farm more and more is we are eliminating the plants. I think it's like milkweed, plants that are essential for um bees. And the pesticides that we're putting on our crops are killing a lot of bee colonies. And so we are seeing a huge reduction and in bee colonies. There's always some reduction in winter times. Um but there's significantly more the last few years and they're really starting to kind of. Come to the understanding that it might be all of the pesticides that we're using.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  And so instead of stopping the current system of getting rid of our bee colonies, you know, Harvard's researching robo bees that could maybe be set to do the cross pollination that bees do. Now, so, you know, we're, I'd make a joke in the book. It's like we're, we're ruining the dirt too. You know, what are we going to come up with robo dirt? You know, it's like, let's fix the problem that's causing this, you know, and, and not go try to figure out robo bees. Let's figure out how to stop plowing the plants and spraying the bees with, with poison that's killing the colonies. So, you know, you gotta, you gotta stay semi lighthearted on this or you get depressed.

• 41:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. That's so funny. Well, what's your vision for this over the next, you know, five, 10 years? What would you love to see happen? Obviously it's one year at a time, one school at a time, one family at a time type of mentality. But what's, what's your vision for 10 years? You've been in Congress for, for how long now?

• 41:53Speaker 01

  12 years.

• 41:53Lewis Howes?

  12 years. And, uh, you know, what do you want to see in the next 10 years?

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Well, I, I think a growing awareness first and foremost of this being an issue and people really starting to understand. You know, I saw John Oliver, uh, clip of him making this huge seven minute joke about sugar and Halloween. And it was so educational about like how much sugar we eat, about 75 pounds a year. And I think when you start seeing it, you know, we, we saw McDonald's was down about 30% uh, in the last quarter, uh, for profits. So that kind of growing awareness really is what I'm looking at because once people become more and more aware, once soccer moms in Delaware County become more and more aware,

• 42:41Speaker 01

  that's when you really start shifting the needle on, uh, on being able to make the change. And then I think we need a, a national initiative, like we built national highways. We need to say, okay, you know, we've got all of these cities like Youngstown. We're very, very big and now have a lot of dilapidated homes. Let's put people to work and take down these homes and build out an urban egg. Uh, program in the government and you know, in, in all of these cities. I mean, how great would that be if we took all of these cities that are having crime infested and everything else? And just knock down the crappy houses and put up guards. You know, and got kids at a very young age involved in growing things instead of killing things.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  And I think that to me is really what's going to be transformational, but ultimately in the next few years, we've got to raise awareness. And connect the dots for people that. It's going to be very hard to change the system if, if these products are subsidized by the government. And, and then, you know, get those people out and involved in the process. And in 10 years, I hope that, you know, we're driving through downtowns where. You know, these old buildings are filled with gardens, you know, they're 10, 20, 30 stories high and they're filled with. You know, uh, you know, solar panels and. Water irrigation systems and they're growing food right in the heart of our downtowns and distributing to, you know, people and putting people to work in our downtowns and.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Get people moving back into the downtowns, centers of art and culture. And I think this is what people want, you know, and that's the other thing in Ohio, we have 88 counties. And in every county, there's a beautiful downtown square, there's a courthouse, you know, there's an old movie theater. I think people are ready for that kind of connection again.

• 44:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  And uh, it's going to take, you know, the government can't do everything and I don't want it to do everything, but it should catalyze. Some of these things and bring private investment and help us build the system out.

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Yeah, I love it. I've got a, I've got two final questions for you that, uh, I want to ask, but I just wanted to let people know to make sure to go check out this book. The Real Food Revolution, Healthy Eating, Green Groceries and the Return of the American Family Farm. Lots of great resources in here, stories, statistics, um, ways you can take action at the end of each chapter, there's actionable items and. What you can do to take action. So it's a great book, a lot of great endorsements in here. Um, so make sure everyone goes and checks this out. The Real Food Revolution by Congressman Tim Ryan. And we'll make sure to have everything linked up in the show notes where people can get, can get the book and check out your website as well. And you're on Twitter also, right? Twitter and Facebook and all the places online.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:28Lewis Howes?

  Cool. So we'll link everything up there. Couple of final questions. Uh, one is, what are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 45:37Speaker 01

  That's easy, man. I just had a baby. We just had a baby. Yeah. So I've got a four month old, um, Brady. And, uh, he's just rocked my world, man. He's just been, uh, he's been phenomenal and I have two great stepkids and I didn't really know them till they were five or six. So I've got a baby, you know, that looks up at me and, you know, and spits up on me, you know?

• 46:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  And it's been, I'm just super, super grateful for, for him.

• 46:06Lewis Howes?

  So this is your first child?

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, my wife and I together. Yeah, it's our first one. Yeah. So it's been great. I've got a guy, I got a great wife. Thank you. I've got a beautiful wife who's super supportive and, you know, she's doing just a great job with the kids and, you know, I could, I'd run around and talk about this stuff and I come home and she's, you know, putting together, you know, uh, healthy food and healthy dinners and trying to really, you know, help us live this kind of life that we want to give to our kids. So I'm just super appreciative for my entire family, really.

• 46:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. That's awesome. Uh, final question, and before I ask you the final question, which is a question I ask everyone. Uh, I just want to acknowledge you, Tim, for all of the incredible work you're doing. Again, it's, it's kind of shocking to know you're a congressman and I'm proud to know that you're from Ohio. Even though you're not from Delaware County where I grew up, it's all, it's all good because you're from the same, same state, the heart of it all. And, um, I want to acknowledge you for what you're doing to your efforts and your energy to educate, you know, all of us and to educate school systems. Families, children on mindfulness, which again, I'm like shocked that you wrote a book about this, but it's so awesome that you did because it's something that's been so

• 47:27Lewis Howes?

  powerful in my life recently and also healthy eating, two very important topics and distinctions in life for living a great life in my mind. If we're not aware of our feelings and able to understand ourselves in certain situations and be able to react in situations and connect with people and understand their feelings, then we're missing a big part of life. And if we're not eating healthy and educating the ones we love on how to live a healthy lifestyle with the foods we put in our body, then we're breaking down our bodies and we're going to be very uncomfortable and unhappy with what we're creating inside of ourselves from both things, our emotions and our physical bodies. So, so proud to know you're from Ohio

• 48:11Lewis Howes?

  and that you're doing all that you can to make this more prominent information and public to the world. So, thank you for that. And I want to ask you the final question. It's what is your definition of greatness?

• 48:29Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a good one. I would say increasing love in the world.

• 48:35Lewis Howes?

  Perfect.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  If you've increased love in the world, you are great, you know? And I think that's why you think of your grandparents and or parents or someone that you know who wasn't on TV and didn't have podcasts and didn't write books and why were they so special to you? And they taught you about love, you know? And so if you've increased love in the world, you're great.

• 48:58Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Well, thank you for that definition, Tim, and thank you for again, all that you're up to and all you're doing. And hopefully we'll get to meet someday in Ohio.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  That'd be awesome. Thank you so much.

• 49:11Lewis Howes?

  Thank you, Tim. Appreciate it.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Go Buckeyes.

• 49:13Lewis Howes?

  Go Bucks.

• 49:23Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did enjoy it, make sure to go back to LewisHowes.com/102 for episode 102 and leave me a comment on what you thought about this interview, this episode. Also, make sure to check out The Real Food Revolution. We're gonna have that book linked up at the show notes at LewisHowes.com/102 and how you can connect with Tim and all the resources that he talked about in this interview. So make sure to check it out, share it with your friends, spread this message because it's important for us to live healthy lives. We've had a lot of episodes on here with health coaches and nutritionists and elite athletes who live healthy lifestyles and it's important for us

• 50:06Lewis Howes?

  to serve our bodies and our minds with good foods. If we're not doing that, we're setting ourselves up to fail in our lives, in our relationships, in the careers we want, in creating great things. So you've really gotta work on fine tuning your body and your mind so that you have optimal levels of performance running when you want to create something in the world. So again, make sure to check this out. Give a shout out to Tim. Let him know that you liked it as well. And I appreciate you guys so much for being here, so much for listening, for subscribing. If you have yet to be a subscriber, please go to iTunes.com/SchoolOfGreatness and click on the little subscribe button so you can get updated each week. We're posting twice a week

• 50:51Lewis Howes?

  right now on the School of Greatness podcast and I'm gonna continue to have some mega, huge, awesome, inspiring guests on. So again, subscribe, leave us a review over there on iTunes as well. Subscribe on SoundCloud and over at my website, LewisHowes.com, so you can get notified each week with the latest freebies, goodies, insights, and tips. Again, thank you guys so much for being here on the School of Greatness podcast. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.