Rodman Machado On Cooking As Nutritional Art

Today on the podcast we sit down with Rodman Machado– Executive Chef at the Garden Cafe at Common Ground in Kilauea, Hawaii — to talk food as medicine; cooking as nutritional art; plant-based superfoods; preventing & healing diabetes and other diseases with plants; and optimizing overall wellness. If you have been enjoying the show, we would greatly appreciate it if you could take a quick moment to leave a comment on the iTunes page for the podcast. Thanks for listening – we are beyond grateful for the early response. SHOW NOTES * 10 Uncommon “Superfoods” from the World of Ultra-Endurance * Papain Superfood: How Green Papaya Enzymes Help Digestion * MindBodyGreen: 25 Reasons Why Tumeric Can Heal You * Huffington Post: How To Massage Kale: Why a Rubdown Helps This Leafy Green * Natural News: Noni Fruit Superfood Thanks for stopping by. Thoughts? Let me know what you think in the comments section below. Peace + Plants, 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?

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• 1:13Speaker 01

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:17Rich Roll?

  Welcome to episode 5 of the podcast. It's been a great last week. Thank you so much for your support. We came out of the gate really strong. There's been such an amazing early response to the show and what we're doing, and we're really, really proud and grateful to have the audience that we have. And it really validates this message of health that we're trying to put out there, Julie and I together. So, we're welcoming you back for another addition. We're in week two of the podcast and already episode 5. We're loving it. It's been really, really fun. Again, we're out here at Common Ground, 50-acre organic farm on the north shore of Kauai,

• 2:00Rich Roll?

  where Julie and I and our family are living in a yurt village and experimenting with modes of sustainable lifestyle and learning more about food and how food is grown in a sort of farm-to-plate model.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  And we thought that it would make a lot of sense and would be great to have the marvelous Rodman Machado on the show. Rodman is the executive chef here at Common Ground at Garden Cafe. He is an artist with food. He knows a lot about not just food and nutrition, but organic farming and harvesting the best plants to nourish our bodies. He's a really cool guy. He's a fascinating guy.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  So I'm here today again with Julie.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  Hi, everyone.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Hello, everybody.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  The permanent co-host. And Rodman, man, how you doing, dude?

• 3:02Speaker 03

  I'm doing great. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Thanks for taking time out of your hectic, crazy, busy schedule to chill with us for a little bit.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  It's a creative process on a daily basis with the team and seeing what we're gonna do and what values are we gonna put into the specials. And it's just, every day is something new here.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you were to take a peek into the kitchen where Rodman's working, it's a pretty small kitchen that is churning out an unbelievable amount of food for the demand at this restaurant, which is growing by leaps and bounds because the word is out that Rodman's cooking is the bomb. So I kinda wanted to get into a little bit about your perspective on food and nutrition and get a little bit into your background and the path that you've taken that's led you to here. But first, I want to talk about your perspective on food and nourishing the customers that pass through here.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  I think what I've adopted, coming from a corporate background, I've spent 20 years into corporate and I've been blessed to land an awesome job here at Common Ground for us off. In a Garden Cafe. And my approach to this cuisine and Hawaiians are quite savvy here on the North Shore on their nutritional values, what they put in their bodies. We deal with a very, a variety of individuals from with different forms of of diet dietary needs. You know, we have vegans, we have vegetarians. We do all facets of vegetarian cuisines. We do a little bit of raw, but yet we do wholesome.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  We don't only do vegetarian cuisine because the market is, we have a well diverse market and we like to keep on that path. But as getting back to the nutritional value of what we do here at the Garden Cafe, we approach it in a very serious way. First off, I keep all my soups of the day, all my soups, all my sauces, all my dressings are all geared up for gluten free and vegan. We don't use anything that, we try and keep it simple in a way that it covers all clients that we come through, our family, our extended family, because we have people that eat here literally four times a week.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  So it's a, it's a real family oriented operation, but yet an intense operation to where the nutritional value is always in a forefront of what we do here in, in a cafe.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  And just so people know, is it, I would say almost all of the produce that you're using in the dishes is coming from the garden here. Yeah, I mean, you have to get some, that some stuff that we don't grow here, but a lot, you know, everything that we grow here goes, funnels right into the restaurant first.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Absolutely. In fact, right now is everything that comes out of the garden, we are, we use in every way that we can. We, right now, a lot of people, especially where the listeners are coming from in the middle of the United States, you guys are going through a winter right now, and Hawaii has a winter also. So a lot of people think because we're in Hawaii that we don't have seasons, but we do have seasons. And so we, fruit-wise, it's the end of the fruit season. It's getting into, basically, the only thing that's in our trees is papaya and citrus now is a big thing. So, um, we are, we use other farmers, other organic farms around too.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Uh, and other great, there's, in Kauai, there's a lot here on the North Shore. There's a tremendous amount of very savvy organic growers that are really passionate into what they do and are sincere about keeping to the label of organic. A lot of people take organic and, just to use it as a, as a front, but we live it here on, in, on Kauai here.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Right, I mean, I think that if you go into the grocery store, you know, here or in the mainland, there's a lot of things that are labeled organic that actually aren't organic. There's, there's certain rules about, um, what you can and can't say that are set by the FDA on food packaging. Um, and creative, uh, food, food companies always find a way to kind of sidestep those rules and kind of slip the word organic in, in a different context that makes the consumer believe that the product is organic when it actually isn't, because it doesn't have that sort of official organic label. And, and so, uh, I think it causes a lot of confusion with customers. They think they're buying one product and they're getting something else.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  And, and then there's a whole different thing when we're talking about food that's literally pulled out of the ground that day and is on the plate, you know, coming through your restaurant and on the, you know, on the plate of the customer at the restaurant the very same day.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  It's a, it's something that, I, I love it. I mean, like, again, I come from a whole different, um...

• 8:10Speaker 03

  A corporate approach to food, which is a whole different aspect as here. I mean, literally, if I pull out carrots, I'll have carrots that this morning. In fact, I have carrots that came in from this morning that we're using already. And that is an awesome approach and it's a, it makes me feel good. It makes my team feel good of what we're doing for people that actually rely on us for nutritional value in their food. Because there's really no other restaurant or no other venue on the entire island like what we have here at Common Ground. Not to, and that's a very humble, I'm humbled by it. And because it's, it's just an awesome feeling to know that it's genuine. There's nothing fake about what we do here.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  We use, a lot of our organics come from the mainland, but it's legit companies that we get. We get our oils, we get our grains, because Hawaii cannot grow grains. So, but the product and the quality that we use is all geared to ensure that the people that are in our family, extended family that's eating our food is, they're, they're solidified in what we're doing. It's not no joke, it's not fake, it's, it's the real deal.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're not trying to pull the wool over their eyes. And, and really what you're doing is you're closing the loop. I mean, and that's what sustainability is, right?

• 9:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  You know, a hundred yards from here, the carrots are pulled out, you know, they're washed off, they're brought into the restaurant, you do what you do with them, and then they get eaten by the customers who pay for the food. And that money goes back into the, into the farm to grow more. And, you know, that's, that's permaculture, that's sustainability.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  It's a really cool thing that we have going on here on Common Ground or the Garden Cafe. We have the ability to also employ people, take care of people, their livelihoods, but yet also get their creative juices going and be passionate about what we do. And that's the key. People always tell me, Rodman. We taste it in your food and that's a big part of what we do is to ensure that we're even grounded. Yeah, it gets hectic in a restaurant, don't get me wrong. But where the creative side and where are in, where are thought processes? It's important that everybody's on the same page so that the energy is transferred into the food.

• 10:33Speaker 03

  And it's, it's very important, it's a important part for me and it's important to my team to always keep that in a forefront because people can tell the difference of when and how the food is made. And whether you want to believe it or not, it's true.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is something that we talked about actually last episode. We were talking about the importance of the frequency of the food and who prepares your food. And how in ancient traditions, you know, it was always very important who was handling the food, who was putting their vibration into it. And, you know, everything that I've tasted here from you is just from such a pure creative space. And one of the beauties about the way that everything's set up is that, you know, you have the freedom to kind of move and flow within that. You know, by creating the menu as it's, as the moment arises, as the land provides you with the nutrients. And that I think is so extraordinary.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  And I know you made an extraordinary meal, crazy delicious meal for our, our event a few, actually last week where Rich gave a talk about his book Finding Ultra. And we had a vegan meal and it was funny because you and I met kind of ahead of time and sort of laid out a template of what we were, what you were going to make. And we kind of got together and we got really excited and came up with a menu. And then a lot of things just shifted in the moment. But, and I was so delighted to see you because I'm not a professional chef. You know, I'm an artist, I use food as art, you know. And part of what I was looking at is that maybe...

• 12:09Speaker 02

  You know, maybe my creativity was a little chaotic or a little, you know, a little crazy, you know, especially when we're doing the cookbooks and I never measure, you know, I'm always just doing it on, as I go, but I totally saw that in you when I got to see you get in your, get in your space, connect in, and then do your magic and what you do. And it was extraordinary. It was absolutely perfect and it was beautiful to see.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  Thank you. A lot of his people ask, vegetarian cuisine is an art in its own because there's a lot of things going on. There's a lot of balancing of nutrition. There's, there's things that you gotta ensure that people are, when they eat your food, your cuisine, the cuisine is balanced. That's the name of the game with vegan cuisine.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  So what do you, yeah, can you like-

• 12:55Speaker 03

  I should say, plant-based diets.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Right. So yeah, now extrapolate on that. Like what do you mean, so how do you, what do you mean balanced and how do you, what are the things that you do to create that balance?

• 13:06Speaker 03

  Um, making, ensuring that the protein content, what we're driving in beans and rice, grains, different facets of, of where to draw and how to balance the protein because every plant-based diet, everybody that's on a plant-based diet, needs to ensure that they're getting their, their protein through food, through plants. And it's just, that is a basic part of being a vegan. Now, as being on a plant-based diet, now, how you establish core flavors out of plants is a whole different thing because you're dealing with a plant that has beautiful flavors and how to extract the flavors and how to get

• 13:47Speaker 03

  the most flavors out of these vegetables. That's where my training in, in French cuisine has come. That's where my training came, comes into play because that's what I carry with me. It's just adapting to how to get core, true flavors out of the products that I have.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, and I want to get into your background in a couple of minutes, but just kind of sticking to this point, you know, there is this attitude out there or belief, false belief, that if you're eating a plant-based diet, that it's, it's just, you're just destined to a life of bland food and, and kind of eating the same thing day in and day out. And I can assure you that that's not true and- You know, part of that is because Julie's my wife and she makes amazing food for me. Left to my own devices, I just very well may eat the same thing every day. But Rodman really takes it to the next level. And I can tell you that his dishes are, whether you're vegan or not, or you know,

• 14:49Speaker 01

  even if you love meat, there's no denying that if you were to eat one of his vegan entrees or, you know, the blends that he makes, etc., they're just, they're beyond awesome.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  They're incredible. So, you know, I was wondering if you could speak to, you know, this sort of notion that eating a plant-based diet is bland and maybe give some tips to some people out there who would, you know, they'd like to take that leap or experiment with this, but they're afraid and they have that belief system and they're wanting to know, you know, what could I do that's easy at home that I could, you know, that would be something I could take with me that would be helpful in preparing my meals at home?

• 15:30Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I think the first thing that I want to address when you go and leap into this lifestyle and learning how to cook a plant-based diet is ensuring that your product is fresh, first off. Do your research in your grains. That's important. We use a lot of balanced grains like forbidden rice, lentils. We use brown, long grain rice. I'll mix it with different types of legumes. If that's, first off, is 101, is knowing how to balance your meal. As for flavors, we extract flavors through juicing. We extract flavors through reduction.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  And a lot of people will go, "Well, you're just killing all the vitamins." No, because then we take that concentrate, like for instance, I'll make a veggie stock, a vegetable stock. We don't use water here. We use water to cook rice and we use water to boil pasta and wash our hands and wash our dishes. Other than that, we do not use water to cook anything in my, in my, especially soups. So we take, extract flavors out of the products, then we reinforce it with fresh products to reestablish. Like I'll do a soup, yeah, we're gonna cook the vegetables out and then I'll add fresh kale, a balance of kale inside of there with flaxseed oil to ensure, or drizzle flaxseed oil to ensure that there's a overlapping of nutritional value involved in it. That's great.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  The way that you get flavors is through concentration. And that is through spices. Frontier is a great, not to mention any brands, but we use-

• 17:05Speaker 01

  You can mention whatever.

• 17:07Speaker 03

  We use Frontier. Frontier is a good, organic-based company that their focus is quality and they are everything what they put there. They say they do. We use Frontier-based spices. And it's just simple nowadays, there's infamous information on the web that you can look at cooking techniques. It's making sure, you know, you don't turn things on high. I mean, first off, it's the basics. Then it's knowing, keeping it simple. If you want to keep it simple, keep it simple. But if you want flavor, you gotta apply yourself and go get things that's gonna help you, like spices and good products. And then the rest is up to your imagination, how are you gonna do it?

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, I think that there is, yeah, again, there's this idea that it's really complicated too. And, you know, it doesn't have to be. If you're doing it your way, it probably gets pretty complicated when you're doing reductions and you're using your kind of background in French cuisine and applying it to plant-based dishes where you're creating these amazing pieces of art. But I still think that, you know, the average Joe can whip something up pretty quick that's pretty simple, that's still delicious. And when you're eating the plants close to their natural state and you start doing that, your taste buds kind of come alive, you know? When you get rid of eating the McDonald's and all that other kind of stuff, your palate shifts, your palate changes. And some of those foods that you would think might be bland, like a kale shake or whatever,

• 18:37Speaker 01

  start to taste delicious.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  Absolutely, that's what we do here too.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  We work in that area.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  And, you know, and we always say that if you want to experiment with kind of upping your life force in your diet and in your body, to just start adding a couple plant blends a day or even one a day. And your taste buds will shift and everything will start to change and your body will start to speak to you in a different way. And also, I mean, our whole approach with Jai Seed, with our cookbook, is, you know, the whole point was to give people the permission, or the space, or the care, I guess, to create their own. So it really is all about creativity and being in the moment because, you know, you don't know what someone in Iowa is going to have available based on what you have in Kwaai

• 19:25Speaker 02

  or we have in Malibu. So it's like, we can all share recipes and kind of look, and like you were saying the other day with me, like, we create a template, right? But then we see what happens in the day, and what's available, and what's fresh, and then from there, you're gonna, you're gonna take a leap and you're gonna create something totally unique, and, and it's gonna be beautiful.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, for the folks that are listening, you know, you need to stay tuned, because I'm sure you're gonna see some action coming from me and Julie in the future.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  I'm excited about that.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  What kind of action, what kind of action are we talking about here?

• 19:59Speaker 02

  At least.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  You never know, you might see it on the, on the web, on some cooking deal or something here, you know? It might come out.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  At least cooking.

• 20:07Speaker 03

  And that way, you can see what's up and, and see our, our faces and, you know, get to know us a little bit better. But actually, getting back to, to keeping it simple, you know, a liquid-based diet is also a good approach to get your nutritional value also. Just because it's in a blender doesn't mean it's gross. I wasn't a big believer in kale until I started working here and realized real fast how kale is a superfood in its own. We try and base our, our food off of a lot of superfoods, basic superfoods, like avocado, kale, we get ya'kon that is planted, turmeric, oleanna, or, or turmeric is something that is phenomenal.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  We use a tremendous amount of ni'oi peppers. We use noni. For those that don't know what noni is, look it up on the web. It is a, it is a superfood and beyond. It's something that is only now in the mainland, it's becoming a big thing because it is... is known in Hawaii to cure, it has more than 25 curing abilities that people can explain, doctors can't even explain why.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 21:19Speaker 03

  It's amazing.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Just to, yeah, yeah, yeah, just to extrapolate on that, I mean, noni is a, is a, it's a fruit, right?

• 21:25Speaker 03

  It's a fruit.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  And it literally just falls off the trees here and it's everywhere. And it looks like, when it falls on the ground, I threw, I put a picture up of one the other day on Instagram, but it kind of looks like a peeled potato. It's real soft and squishy and it has the most acrid, pungent odor of all time. It smells like a very, very strong blue cheese.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  Yes, and it is, I mean, it is not for the faint of heart.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  I've forewarned you right now, but for those that are suffering, and this is proven things that this, this fruit has done, curing, my father-in-law, for instance, and not to get off the subject, but this has to do with noni.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  No, this is, this is the subject. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

• 22:05Speaker 03

  Uh, he was taking medication for high blood pressure for years and someone, a homeopathic person, not a doctor, but an individual that studies homeopathic and herbalists, shifted him towards, an elder, and kupuna, as we call in Hawaii, shifted him towards noni and to take a shot. We take the fruit, put it in a jar, cover it up, put it in a roof, let the sun ferment it, let it break it down, let all the natural juices come out, and you take a turkey bacer, take the juice out of the jar, and you take a shot of that every day. In three months.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  How long do you let it ferment?

• 22:43Speaker 03

  It's about a month. It is wicked now, I'm not gonna joke, it's, it's not for you faint-hearted, so.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  It is, it is, I actually, I found a couple the other day and I brought them home for Julie because she loves them, and they, they smell, I mean, they're, they're, they're pretty gnarly people, like, it's, it's, like you said, it's not for the faint of heart at all, but hold on.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Don't mean to laugh, don't mean to laugh.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Y'all wanna talk about noni? I know, but Julie loves it, and so I was like, oh, she's gonna be psyched, so I brought this noni back, she's like, oh, I can't believe it, immediately put it in the mason jars, you know, I was like, I'm gonna ferment this, and what we did last year when we were, we spent some time in Hawaii and we were up in Hawaii. ...V living on that farm up there for about a month. After it had fermented, it wasn't a full month, but I think he let it ferment a couple of weeks.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Three weeks, yeah.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  She started using it as a skin oil, like rubbing it on her skin. And she's like, "This is the best skin oil I've ever experienced."

• 23:33Speaker 02

  No, what I love is the meat, actually. I actually drink the juice, but then I took the meat and it has this velvety kind of consistency. And it's not so smelly, like most of the smell has gone once the oil, once the fluid has dropped, the liquid has dropped. And I hope I'm not like, I don't know, I don't have experience with it. Like I just tried it that one time. But my skin felt amazing and I've been literally dreaming about it since we were on the Big Island last year. So I even sent Chris an email before I came, because he was like, "Send me a list of the superfoods you want." He was trying to hook me up with you. And he said, "You know, let me know, is there anything else you need?" And I said, "Yeah, could you have somebody throw some noni in a jar and put it in the sun for me?"

• 24:17Speaker 03

  I have a big jar I can have in the back of the restaurant. It's ready to go.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  It's ready to go, yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  And then just add, and just let it keep decomposing. But it's good for, you take the skin, like you're saying, and put it on top of ailments. It helps arthritis, it helps torn ligaments heal. It's amazing, it's amazing.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  And you were talking, was it your father, who were you mentioning? Your father-in-law?

• 24:41Speaker 03

  My father-in-law. Yeah, no, he doesn't take medication for high blood pressure no more.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  So he was, and how often was he, how often was he taking the noni?

• 24:49Speaker 03

  Um, he'd still take shots every now and then, but for, to, to help cure the high blood pressure, he was taking a shot every day for like three months. And just a shot a day, two ounce jigger. And we sell it here as wellness shots. Here, we do three different types of wellness shots that we do that, that is geared for different nutritional values for, for certain individuals.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, Rich and I had some yesterday. We felt that just someone in our Yurt village has been, you know, a little sick and so we're all in close quarters. And so in our meeting yesterday in the restaurant, we had a ginger shot with a chaser, a ginger shot with a ginger chaser.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  The Olenna, yes.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  There was a lot of, and a lot of turmeric in that too, right?

• 25:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, Olenna is turmeric and turmeric is the other awesome.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  I think it's, if it's not the, it's one of the most powerful antioxidants ever. And it's so easy to get and access. Like, we have some really pure turmeric at home. Just, we just put it in water and, you know, hot water and make like a tea out of it.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I love the fresh that you got grown here.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's amazing.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  I mean, that's just, I made some mung bean with some fresh kale, sauteed in coconut, and we added the fresh turmeric and it's just beautiful, amazing.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  We use it in everything here. My beans, my rice. I blend it in water. I blend it in coconut milk when I do my soups. Here we go, getting back to the techniques. I'll take coconut milk, put, say about, I don't know, two ounces of, take a blender, a quart, just about two ounces of turmeric, blend it up, and that's a great base for vegan soups. That's how I fortify, again, getting back into flavors in the cuisine. But turmeric, staying on track. Turmeric is incredible antioxidant. It's good for your body. It's good cooked, it's good as raw form. It is, it's just a superfood in its own element.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  It's big Ayurvedic herbs in everything.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, and if you like Indian food, I mean, it kind of gives it that kind of spicy flavor. So what are the other, what are some of the other superfoods that you cook with and like, and have had experience with? I want to talk, you know, if you have stories about the healing stories, I love those too, so.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  It'll come to me, the healing stories as we go, because this is like one of those moments where you're sitting down.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  And then all of the blue, it'll come to you.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Tomorrow.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 27:14Speaker 03

  We use, the other note we use a lot here is green papaya, which is papin, the enzyme. And why we use papin, papaya, green papaya, and the enzyme is called papin. And we use it in our, in our food a lot because it helps to break down, kale is a very, very rough and hard, sturdy green. It passes through your system like a Brillo pad. So we use papin, it's designed to help break that, it's an enzyme that has no, it will break down anything, proteins, vegetable matter.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  It's like a digestive enzyme, in other words, it helps break down the other foods that you're eating with it. It helps, so if you're taking this enzyme, it will help break down the other foods that are in your GI tract.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Absolutely, and that's why it's geared that way. We do a salad called the Mighty Green, and it's a kale-based salad, and it has shredded green papaya on it, and it's designed, it's there for reasons, and it's there to help break down the kale, so that your body has maximum nutritional, it absorbs the most nutrition out of the kale.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  That salad is insane.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Thank you, it rocks.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  It's amazing.

• 28:26Speaker 03

  And it has mac nuts on it, macadamia nuts, and it is so simple and so dynamic, and it was one that was created by accident, believe it or not.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Perfect, a perfect accident.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  It was a good accident, you know, I love when things happen.

• 28:39Speaker 02

  But I mean, we love that salad, and we've been talking about it, and it's one of my favorite things on your menu, and I didn't know that you had that superfood, and the papaya was in it, so it's even better.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  I have, and then, there's a story behind that salad, I gotta tell the story for your listeners. It's geared up with a ginger miso dressing, and for those that don't know, miso is filled with vitamin K. It's a balanced meal, and then it has mac nuts in it for your protein base. Kale already has components inside to help in making it a complete protein. It has a lot of micronutrients in kale, so the salad, you have your vitamin K from the miso, you have your iron, your zinc, your copper, your calcium, you have your papin, which breaks down all of this, it's basically like a milkshake in your nutritional, in

• 29:31Speaker 03

  your dietary tract, and you're good, it's an awesome salad.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  It's amazing.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, people don't realize, I mean, you know, we, in our culture, there's this notion that if we want to get our calcium, we're going to have to drink milk, you know, we have to get calcium from dairy.

• 29:49Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  And the truth is, is that, and I talk about this in my book, too, that if you're eating a lot of dairy, yes, there is calcium in dairy, for sure, but it's also a very acid-forming food. And so, when you eat it, it alters the pH of your system, and your body has to kind of go into hyperdrive to bring your pH back into balance. And when it goes into that hyperdrive, it has to leach minerals out of your bones to rebalance the pH. And so, it's actually pulling calcium out of your bones to counteract the acidic nature of the dairy. And so, in many instances, people that are eating a lot of dairy end up with osteoporosis. They think they're, they think that they're getting all this calcium, and in fact, they're

• 30:34Speaker 01

  creating a calcium deficiency by doing so. And kale is like the solution, right? It's incredibly high in all these micronutrients. It's a great, it's a great source of calcium.

• 30:44Speaker 03

  Iron and calcium.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  And it's very alkaline-forming, so, check it out, people.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, check it out.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  But kale and turmeric.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  It's not only for garnishing your salad bars, no. It's incredibly good for you. We massage it with our dressing as raw. You need to massage it to help break it down, and it'll stay. You can massage it with your favorite dressing, whatever you want, and put it in your fridge. Hours later, it's still good. It's a sturdy, awesome green to digest. Now, forewarning, no, it is on a gassier side, so for those that get caught off-guard, beware, that kale is like a cabbage. It releases a lot of gas, but, you know, it's one or the other, so.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Right, get used to it.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  Just a forewarning, y'all.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Get used to it.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  Just to let you know, be careful.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  And put them in your blenders, too, you know.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  Put them in your blender, absolutely.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  So let's talk about some of the blends and how you came up with some of these magical, amazing juice blends that you have here at the cafe.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  I use a, well, we do, I don't like to call them smoothies. I rather call them, you know, Elixir. It's basically a nutritional meal in a blender that is geared for people like me that are active, that don't want to get weighed down by eating a big meal. Well, then you come here to the Garden Cafe and we use maca. This is things that are not indigenous to Hawaii. These are other superfoods that we bring in because, let's face it, Hawaii is 3,000 miles away from any point of land. And there's only so much that we can derive here and we can grow here. But, you know, this is, we have the ability to bring in things and I take advantage of it. So we use maca.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  I use MSN powder. We use spirulina.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  What's MSN powder?

• 32:41Speaker 03

  MSN powder is used to help your joints and ligaments. It helps to keep your, it's those for, that, it basically lubricates your joints and helps your body to regulate water. Basically, that's what it does. We use-

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Spirulina.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  Spirulina. We use maca. I have, I use rice protein, vegetable proteins in my, during B-Poll and I use, we just hooked up with this herbalist in Makawal, Maui called Malik. And he has a superfood blends that we're experimenting with and it has goji berry, ginseng. It's derived from meals. And it'll light you up. It's awesome. It's such a good- A solid base of energy that is versus caffeine.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  It it'll get you going for day for a good half day. So that's what it's geared for. We stick try and stick to it in a blending version. You're also using cacao and mesquite. Thank you. Yes, cacao, mesquite. So I'm staring at this chalkboard going huh. But yes, we use mesquite, cacao. Uh, we have, uh, we use different forms of raw cacao, cacao butter. We use cocoa oils. We use a lot of different and flaxseed oil is one of them. Flaxseeds is what we put inside. Chia seed is what I use. Basically, the list goes on and on and on that we use in in different approaches for different things.

• 34:15Speaker 03

  Uh, to help people regulate what they want to do, whatever way you want to do for your body. I mean, we have. Whatever your choice, whatever your diet choice.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  These superfoods all have, you know, very specific purposes, right? So some boost your immune system. Some are will help you recover from a workout. Some will, you know, help you heal from your sore throat more quickly, you know, and some will energize you in the morning and they're all different. Uh, there's a lot of overlap or whatever, but can is there anything that you could say? Like if somebody just said, what's the people ask me this all the time. This is why I'm going to put it on you. They're like, what's your smoothie? Like, what's the what's the smoothie you have in the morning? Or what's what's the one you have before you work out or the one you have after you work out? And, you know, I don't really have a set answer. It's like you, I kind of flow with I look in the I see what we have. What's in what's in our fridge? What's in our kitchen that's fresh? Let me make do with what I have.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  And yeah, certainly like, you know, maca would be something I would put into a blend before I work out, not after. I mean, there are certain things with different purposes, but I think the point is to kind of be flexible and just make sure that you're using fresh ingredients. But if you could speak to kind of the different kind of intentions for your different blends.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  We got intentions are certain, really there's not a direct like a poster on the wall saying, "Okay, this smoothie is for this and this and this." It's more geared for flavor is first is one and then a nutritional value comes in it. I'll give you a good example. Our, um, our green dream is a green base coconut milk based, um, um, smoothie that we put in a blender has kale. It has yacone in it. Yacone, not to get off the subject, yacone is an awesome, uh, root, root. I call it the root fruit because it's like mixed between a colorabi and a radish,

• 36:14Speaker 03

  but yet still really sweet. It helps to regulate, uh, how your body uses natural insulin in your body. It's geared for diabetics and so, um, we have the green. We have a thriller vanilla that we use that we put cinnamon inside and cinnamon is also a great spice used for, uh, controlling insulin in your body. Uh, it's used for diabetics a lot. Um, we use vanilla in there, coconut milk. We use oat milk a little bit. Uh, we add papaya inside of that, right? Papaya, banana is a good base. Um, we also have blended chia, uh, chai, excuse me, a ginger chai that we base off

• 36:56Speaker 03

  of fresh ginger that is grown organically down the road. Um, and we use olenna inside of turmeric also inside of that to help, um, you know, whoever, basically we just make the menu and we'll let people decide how they're feeling and what they want to have that day. And if they want to customize something or can you add this inside, this inside, they're more than welcome. We're more than happy to take care of anybody that has an element that we can take care of for them or help them at least along the way.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there is, there's a lot of. Hype about superfoods and maybe in some instances overhype, you know, ah, superfoods, whatever, but I have to say like, I honestly believe in these foods. They're incredibly powerful. And if you start incorporating them into your, into your diet through, you know, the recipes you're making or the blends that you're making in the morning or in the afternoon, you will feel different. You will feel better. I think you're, personally, I think your life will change, but I think the problem comes in when people start talking about superfoods is they think there's some kind of panacea that if they start eating superfoods that all their health ailments will go away, when they're not looking at their overall diet. Like they're gonna, they're gonna still go to McDonald's and they're

• 38:12Speaker 01

  gonna still, you know, eat like a lousy diet and then eat superfoods. It's like, superfoods are like the tip of the iceberg, right? Like you gotta clean house first and make sure that you're eating good nutritious meals and then the superfoods can like do their job. But, you know, don't put the cart before the horse, I guess is what I'm saying.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I agree. I mean, I kinda think that if you get to superfoods, like you're not gonna be eating McDonald's anymore. They're gonna take over.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  If you eat french fries all day and then like drink turmeric tea at night, like, you know, that's not gonna do very much.

• 38:45Speaker 02

  I think your body would let you do that, maybe for like two weeks maximum, and then the turmeric would just take over and you would start eating well.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  I think once you go that way, you can't go back.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  You can't go back.

• 38:55Speaker 03

  You'll feel sick, I can tell you right now, because I, I have just out of being, you know, not thinking and got, slipped it like last week sometime I ate, what did I eat? I took a bite of one fry. Just to test it out. I'm gonna, I'm being honest. And I regret, I regret it. And not joking now, this is for real. Like I've been living this way. My wife and I have been living, eating healthy, watching our diet, watching what we eat. We don't drink soda. We don't drink juices. We don't drink refined sugars. And that has helped us tremendously because diabetes is a big thing and cancer, I have two big ones in my family.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  Now, there are, they, and we be very aware of your grandparents and your, your great-grandparents of what the ailments is in your family. You can help to shift your diet so that if you know that your grandma has cancer and her mom or dad has cancer, there's a good chance that the DNA has come along to you. And vice versa, diabetics, it's the same way. So if your mom is dying of diabetes, or your grandma is dying of diabetes, don't be eating a handful of candy.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  I mean, you gotta help yourself survive and live, and living is great. So that's what we do here at Common Ground and the Garden Cafe, is to offer offerings that people, we can get their, their, their sweet tooth out in a nutritional way by making healthy truffles with raw cacao and all these different spices in it to, to quench your, your, your, your appetite for, for sugar, or whatever you're, whatever you're craving, but in a healthier way. And I want to address that to the listeners, is that help yourself. It begins with you first, and we're not just sitting here making all of this stuff up. It is the way of life, and it starts with the individual.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  Just like how Rich started his deal and, and creating and realizing that he needed to make a change in his life. It's the same way. I'm not a 250-pound big boy chef. I'm a lean chef.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  And very proud of it, because I eat the way, I believe in what I do, and I eat the way that I cook. And that's, it starts with me first. I cannot be a 300-pound chef that's overweight and trying to feed people healthy. It's, it's ironic at that point. Right.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  That's amazing, and you, and you are extremely healthy.

• 41:20Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  Extremely vibrating in a really pure way, in a really great way. And it's funny that you brought up, I actually just shared in our last podcast that, that I tasted, I ate some fried french fries. You know, I took a bite, and I had a headache immediately after, after doing that. So, yeah, you get to a point where your body gets cleaner and gets used to these things, and then when you eat something toxic, you're gonna notice it right away. So, it's true.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  It's true. So, you know, I know that diabetes is an issue with your family and that's something that you care a lot about. And, you know, it's a problem in Hawaii. You know, I mean, it's a problem nationwide, but it's a big problem in Hawaii.

• 42:01Speaker 03

  It's really, really diabetes, even though it's DNA related, and it really is, it's passed on to, you know, your bloodline. You can help yourself by controlling what you eat. I mean, don't go to 7-Eleven and drink a big gulp every day. You're asking for it. You're pushing it. Because your body does not know the difference between fructose and sucrose. Sugar is sugar regardless of how people want to look at it. Even monitoring how much, how much natural sugars you put in your body is something that you want to do. But refined sugars is what we do not use here at Common Ground. We do not use

• 42:37Speaker 03

  a refined sugar. We use honey, we use agave, we use stevia. We use natural fructose, natural sugars, but in a controlled way. But we do not use like white sugar in any of our foods. And so, my bake side, what we do, we gear it specifically for celiac's and diabetics to help, like I said, people want a cookie. I mean, regardless of what, I don't care how healthy you are, a cookie's a cookie. But if I can help the individual eat a healthier version of a cookie, if that makes sense, then I think our message is getting across.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Well, absolutely. And I mean, when you make, this is the one thing, like our Mayan Thunder Shake that's in our cookbook, it's like I, I used to like to have ice cream after dinner, like a little bit, you know. And after becoming vegan, I started making up these shakes. But the difference is, you can have this amazing delicious shake that's made with, you know, mesquite and cacao and a banana and, you know, even, I always throw kale in. I throw kale in everything because you oftentimes can't even taste it if you do a cacao blend or, or something like that. But it's like to eat that chocolate and that sweet taste, or, you know, I love, I'm a, I'm a big advocate of raw honey and I know that that's not like, you know, Hardcore vegan, but again, we're talking about a plant power message and honey is a

• 44:01Speaker 02

  is a major superfood and we have so much to learn from the bees and bee pollen and so, you know, I'll always take honey as my number one sweetener in anything, but I do, I have a really, really strong sweet tooth. I'm not really more of a salty person, I'm more of a sweet person, but you can drink one of those shakes and your body just loves it. I mean, you feel amazing. You don't wake up feeling hungover, you don't put on weight. It's extraordinary. So, that's an amazing, you know, value that you bring in the restaurant.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  Great job.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  So now, what are we gonna talk about? No, you know what? I wanted to just go more into the diabetes, into the island.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I want to talk about.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's, let's talk about, you know, what's going on in the island and especially with the indigenous culture here and all these beautiful, you know, Hawaiians that have been here long before we showed up and what can we learn from them, where are the imbalances and how can we respectfully support and maybe give back in a way that's honoring to them and, you know, and aware?

• 45:08Speaker 03

  I want to do, it's a, it's a topic that is close to my heart because I'm Hawaiian by, in background and my grandparents, my uncles, I've lost about five members to diabetes and where, where a lot of it stems from is their diet and, and modern people tend to get lazy and the cheap way is economy in itself. It's hard times, people can look for the best deal around. McDonald's makes it incredibly challenging for someone to say no.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  It's the biggest problem. I mean, it is a socio-economic problem and how do you argue, you know, how can you resolve this issue when, you know, you can get... 200 tacos at Taco Bell for 10 cents each, or what, you know, the price is the same as it was in the 70s.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  But the thing that I tell-

• 46:06Speaker 01

  It is so cheap.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Yes, but I tell people this also, it doesn't mess, you don't have to have a wicked spread on your table. Simplicity is good, but you keep eating that way, you're gonna die. Let's face it, let's be real. So, shifting around your diet, like white rice, for instance, we don't eat white rice, so we don't even serve white rice in our restaurant. Why? Because white rice turns straight carbohydrates, straight sugar, too much of it, local people eat cups and loads of white rice. It doesn't help your diet at all. Spam is another one. You know, processed foods is a big thing with local people. Soda is another thing. Soda pop is a chronic, if you keep drinking tons of soda,

• 46:48Speaker 03

  there's a good chance, and you got DNA of diabetes in your body, in your family, there's a good chance that along the line, you will be stricken with diabetes because you're eating everything that, your body gotta go in overload because you're eating all this white rice, and then you drink a big soda, and then you eat all this processed foods, you're just, it's a slow death. And believe it or not, you might not just die like a bullet in your head, but slowly but surely, it'll creep up on you, and by that time, it's too late. Now, what local people gotta, have to start, and I've been pondering my mind going, how do I tell a family, a full-blooded family, Hawaiian family, that you need to stop eating what you're eating,

• 47:32Speaker 03

  and they've been eating that way for 20 years? How do you do that? I've been, it's been a challenge for me to get the message across from Common Ground, from the Gardner Cafe, and trying to teach people that, first off, eating healthy, a lot of people at the complex said it tastes, it doesn't taste good. That's so not true.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  It doesn't taste good, it's expensive, it's too difficult, I don't understand it. And where are you gonna get your protein? And, you know, how am I gonna eat in a restaurant? And what are my friends gonna think?

• 48:05Speaker 03

  Um, well, that's, you know, all these questions are like, all you have to do is switch to brown rice. There's no difference in price between brown rice and white rice. Why? Because brown rice is a complex carbo. It's way different. The way that your body absorbs complex carbs versus a simple carbohydrate is way different. And it stands, that's where a lot of the, uh, the problem is. And soda is the other one. That's something that a lot of local people love to drink. And across the United States is soda pop. And that is one thing that is so easily reversed. You can, you can change your diet really dramatically by just stop drinking soda.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Well, the brown rice is a great, I mean, that's an easy one. That's a, that's a really great idea. We should put that as one, number one on the list that we can do. But I'm interested to know is, um, what about the ancient Hawaiian? Like the way, the way we used to eat, you know, like, and, and that's been lost because of modernization came in and altered everything. So what would be a normal Hawaiian diet of the ancients?

• 49:15Speaker 03

  The normal diet will consist of kalo, which is taro, something raw from the ocean. There was always consists of different areas. In, in Hawaii, you had different people to different gatherers. You had the land gatherers, you had the ocean gatherers, and they would come together and share. And you would have your farmers that would bring in, they ate like green banana. We eat green banana all the time. You put it right in the fire, you treat it like a potato. Bread fruit is, is, I call bread fruit the gift from the gods. Because this is, this fruit can grow in the middle of an atoll in the Pacific Ocean with no fresh water, but still it has, it's almost a superfood in its own.

• 49:57Speaker 03

  And a lot of people in, in doctors and researchers don't know the value of bread fruit. And bread fruit is packed with serious micronutrients. It has calcium, it has a lot of potassium that you need for your body. It has things that can keep you alive. Now, bread fruit is, is a major component used. Kalo, which is taro, is what would be eaten, some raw fish, very little meat. A lot of vegetable-based diet, a lot of seafood, a lot of raw things. In Hawaii, we eat a lot of raw items because that's just how it is. That's our culture. And it was consisted of a heavy plant-based diet with a little bit of protein that they

• 50:38Speaker 03

  got. There was no cows here. There was no goats, no snakes, no nothing. So they ate everything from the ocean. And things in high iodine, which is good, things in high iron comes from the ocean. There's a lot of things in the ocean that is not due to overfishing. A lot of people have stopped eating that way. But again, it is based towards economic times where people just, they don't have the money to eat that way now, or have the time to eat that way.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  So it was predominantly plant-based with some fish, basically.

• 51:14Speaker 03

  Pretty much, yes.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  So mainlanders arrive, it starts to get developed, and that way of life starts to sort of weave its way into what's going on here, and disrupting that traditional way of life. And, you know, it becomes a more westernized.

• 51:30Speaker 03

  It's like every other native culture that has been stricken. The Eskimos have been stricken. The Hawaiians have been stricken. All these native cultures, diabetes is your number one killer. It'll kill all. And it's all diet-based, and it's easily controllable. It's up to the individual to make that decision whether or not, what you choose. You choose what loaded gun you want to play with. You know, if you want to choose life-loaded gun, then you choose that life. If you want a slow death, then you choose that way. If you're listening now, and you have a problem with it, try your hardest, and you'll see a big difference in your energy levels, the way you think, the way you go about your

• 52:13Speaker 03

  day. You know, I like to challenge some of you to try it. If you're out there listening, you know, go for it.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  There's no question about it. And, you know, diabetes is a, it's a food-borne illness. I mean, yes, some people are genetically predisposed to it, but it is a food and lifestyle-borne illness. And it can be prevented if you make these simple changes. It's really just as simple as that. I think Dr. Neil Barnard...

• 52:41Speaker 01

  From PCRM Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has a book coming out on this and he, I believe, I haven't read, I haven't read the book yet, I've just read some articles that he has this book in the works that I think is coming out pretty soon. And it's essentially not just treating diabetes with a plant-based diet, but reversing it.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  I believe you can reverse it. You know, I'm, I am what, getting close to my 40s now and I'm good because I watch what I eat. You know, my blood count is good, I'm active, you know, I don't, friends is getting back to my family and not only me. My son, we don't give my son that junk. I don't give my son candy. He doesn't drink soda. He drinks basically milk, organic milk, and that's the other thing. Stick with organic as best as you can. I know it's expensive, but let me tell you, it's, it's worth, trust the companies, do your research, do your homework before, not all companies are genuine. Just remember that.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Or just check out plant-based milks, you know, almond milk, rice milk, coconut milk.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  So, we, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no.

• 53:49Speaker 03

  I just wanted to point that, it starts from the beginning. It starts with helping, I gotta help my, my baby to stick in his mind that not always wanting juice, so we don't have it. I help him by not having it in my house.

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:05Speaker 03

  So, that's.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  And you set, you set an example and then he sees you.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  You have to, you're, you're, your dietary actions have to be in alignment with your words because if you, you can't tell your kid, you know, you can't drink Coke while you're, you know.

• 54:18Speaker 03

  Slipping on a big dog.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  Throwing back, yeah.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  Sorry, and the kids see that a mile away. They know that immediately.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  So, growing up in Hawaii, do you, do you have brothers and sisters?

• 54:28Speaker 03

  I do.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and are you like in the middle, oldest, youngest?

• 54:32Speaker 03

  I'm the baby.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  You're the baby, okay, right. And, and so I'm, I take it that sort of seeing this proliferation of diabetes or, you know,

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Health issues amongst, you know, family members and friends, et cetera, kind of planted that seed for you being so passionate about health and nutrition and food. I mean, where did this, where did this interest in cooking and your desire to go to culinary school and all that, where did that come from?

• 55:01Speaker 03

  In my family, we've been blessed with, there's several chefs in my family. I knew at a young age that I was geared for it. I was headed that direction. I knew by ninth grade in high school, I knew that was the direction. This is well before Food Network was even around. I had that passion. It was a part of me because food is a big thing in my family. It's always been around. My grandfather's incredible cook. My dad was a great cook. I was always around. Everybody in my family can cook. My aunties can cook. There's, I'm a chef, my cousin's a chef.

• 55:42Speaker 03

  There's like four or five chefs in my family, legit chefs, not, not, you know, not people, not the home cook. This is industry chefs. And so it's kind of, it's embedded, it's kind of ingrained, I should say, in me. It was a passion that I gravitated to. And I went to culinary school in 92, graduated in 93, almost 94.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Right, you went back to the mainland, right?

• 56:11Speaker 03

  I went to Oregon. I went to school in western culinary in Portland, Oregon. Coming from a small town in Haleiwa in Oahu, it was kind of hard for me to just bail. It's, it's interesting. Growing up in Hawaii, you get so used to, to your surroundings and you don't want to leave and I, it was the best decision that I've made. It was going to the mainland, getting educated, learning the basics. After that, I put myself in the forefront of many great chefs. I sought good chefs, the best chefs in Hawaii's industry, and I've worked for them. And I purposely put myself in

• 56:54Speaker 03

  In their midst, so that I can absorb their greatness. And I'll take their technique and take their technique and take this, that chef's technique. You meet great chefs, it's a incredible industry. And you know, after, this year is 22 years now, and I've been fortunate, like again, to be solidified here at the cafe and bring this wealth of knowledge and techniques and train my staff and be passionate about it. And that's where it all, it really began years and years ago by watching my family cook.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:37Speaker 03

  And the rest is history.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  So you go to culinary school, I mean, was there a temptation to stay on the mainland? Or did you always know, like, you're bringing it back to Hawaii?

• 57:46Speaker 03

  I got lost in love. And I want to kick myself now. You know, honestly, I should have stayed. I wanted to go and be a gypsy. I call them and go, you put a year here, a year there, a year there. But again, I got lost in love, came back in Hawaii. And Hawaii has a tremendous amount of chefs also. And the European chefs had a great influence here in Hawaii at that time. And that's basically what happened. I stayed locally, I worked on every indigenous island you can possibly work on, all six islands I've done things on.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 58:22Speaker 03

  Not eight now, there's eight islands, but there's two islands that you can't go on, so there's six islands, I'll take all six, so.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  That's great. And the big resorts, I mean, they pay big money for big chefs, right? I mean, their restaurants are important and it's a priority. And so, yeah, you know, we're out here in the middle of the Pacific, but I'm sure there's some extraordinary talent at some of the bigger places. And I want you to talk about that. I mean, what was that like, you know, working in these huge resorts and being part of that kitchen? And, because I think it's interesting that, you know, you could have stayed in that environment and grown within that or whatever and had that, you know, massive infrastructure and be serving tons of people. And instead, you know, at some point in your life, and I'd like to hear why and how that went down, you decided to really kind of scale it back and come to common ground and work in this, you know...

• 59:12Speaker 01

  You know, relatively small cafe compared to some of the other places you were working.

• 59:18Speaker 03

  I, that is a great, oh, good lord, that's a good story in its own. And I started, my first big hotel that I landed was at Four Seasons in Wailea. It was a five diamond, back then it was five diamond properties is where I shot for it because that was the best of the best. To even get into these properties, you needed to be good. You needed to pass an exam, a written exam, to get into these properties. These properties is what ingrained my quality and my passion for making sure that our quality, qualities in a forefront of what you do. My, my becoming pedigree is, it was my goal because I went to school. So I went to Four Seasons, I trained with, and Four Seasons is no joke.

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  They are the, one of the elites in the industry at that time. They're all five diamond. Then I went to the Grand Wailea, for those that know, that hotel was number one in the world at one point. It was five diamond also. And I put myself, and learned from tremendous amount of chefs. Then I worked for Roy Yamaguchi at that time. I came back and I worked for Roy and I helped, I worked in the flagship in Hawaii Kai.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  Who is Roy Yamaguchi?

• 1:00:32Speaker 03

  Roy Yamaguchi is probably is going down in Hawaii as one of Hawaii's most, he's the first millionaire chef from his restaurants in Hawaii.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  He has those chain of restaurants called Roy's.

• 1:00:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  There's even, there's one in Woodland Hills, right near where we live.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  I know exactly what you're talking about.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  And before he got big, he only had two restaurants and, and it was, he was intense, it was intense operation. And then I went to work for this little cafe, you know, just a quick bio, for a Japanese chef that was trained in Japan, trained in France for 10 years. And here comes the, the fortifying of the European techniques. And, and then I ended up, I bounced around and ended up at Princeville, now it's St. Regis. And I played the game really well and I put myself in good situations. Then I come here, I pull out of the industry because I did not like the direction of corporate. I did not like the values because it becomes, in a hotel, everything is room driven, not to get off the subject.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  No, that's the stuff I want to hear about.

• 1:01:36Speaker 03

  Culinary is a secondary base and a passionate guy like me, I do not like being second to rooms. It's a whole division where, you know, I felt that in the corporate world, the culinary has kind of lost its direction in a little bit, in the sense of quality. Everything has become convenience products, convenience products to cut down on labor.

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:01:59Speaker 03

  And that is what I was like, that's not how I was trained. So I come to, I've been blessed and ironically, put in for this job here at a cafe, came here, looked at this place and say, man, I love this place. It is non-corporate, it is an open field of creativity. I can do whatever I want to do and also make sure that the quality is in the forefront of what we do. And it's been our message and our motto here is nutritional value, quality is in the forefront of what we do and we'll always do that because quality speaks miles versus something that's slapped on a plate.

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  And that's what I bring to the Common Ground.

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  There's so much opportunity here too and it's like, you know, you see the, you saw the canvas and you came in and you, it's almost like, instead of saying, what is Common Ground going to give me, you came and said, this is what I have to offer at Common Ground.

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  I told Chris we're going to blow it up. And I told him.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  And you have.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  You did.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  I did. I told Chris, Chris, Jabe's the owner and he's an awesome individual and I love Jabe's dearly and they have been nothing but good, solid people, great boss to work for, great owner and much support he has given me. And it's taken us about four months to prove to him that I knew what the hell I was doing. And the rest is history. And we have taken this place and have got.

• 1:03:38Speaker 03

  A tremendous amount of attention by cheese in such a short amount of time and is very humbled by it. I mean, I have magazines that come here at least once a month wanting to do an article and we don't even stick it out there yet. We, a lot of people don't even know where we're at still yet.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  No, I mean, you're driving on the main highway. I mean, there's a little sign saying common ground, you know, Garden Cafe, open these times or whatever. But I mean, you could easily just drive right by it and not see it. And, and it's interesting because the restaurant's packed every day. It's not, you know, you guys haven't grown to the point where you're open for dinner yet. So it's, it's essentially breakfast and lunch and brunch on the weekends. And, and you're maxed out with that kitchen. I told Chris the other day, I was like, man, you gotta, you gotta double the size of that kitchen.

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're, we're headed in that direction. It's a beautiful thing of growth. Um, you know, we're headed that direction to expand the kitchen because I have one six burner and a two foot grill and one pantry and we rock. Over two weekends is 300 covers and, you know, we're gilded about 225 and, and, um, you know, we were, when it first took over, we were doing like 50 covers and we got excited when it got to 60 then we got excited, went to 80 and then we got excited, went to 100. Now we're doing 200 covers and 300.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  A cut just for people that are listening, a cover as a person.

• 1:04:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, as a covers is, what I mean, sorry. Um, the, it's, it's per head. You know, we did 50 people, then 180 and it just kept going and going and going. And, and all, now it's, it's to a point where we're, we're maxed out for now until we go for further growth. So if you come here, you're listening and you gotta wait a little bit, I'm sorry. But, uh, you know, it is what it is, man. We're a small little cafe.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  And if you, if you, if you live here, you know, though, I mean, the, the place is packed with the, the locals because they know, because it's the best restaurant.

• 1:05:27Speaker 02

  Absolutely. It's an amazing place to eat. And, uh, yeah, I know, I was, I was starting to whine a little bit about my electric stove in the yurt. And then I came and met you and saw what you're creating with, you know, magic out of thin air. I was like, okay, shut up, go back to the electric stand, don't say anything. No. So anyway, that's so, that's so amazing, so, so inspiring to hear your journey and where you've been and, and, uh, yeah, I mean, it's exciting times here and an amazing place. And if you guys haven't listened to the second podcast, Chris Jabe is on that, you should check it out, he's just extraordinary and his wife and family.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  He sets the stage for kind of explaining to you, you know, everything about common ground and what his vision for this place is and, and, you know, he's the sort of beacon that attracts people like Rodman to come here and do their thing, spread their wings.

• 1:06:20Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Um, again, you know, this place is a phenomenal, not because of me, it's because of people that have, I've been blessed with a good team and everything starts with a good team. And, um, I ensure that my, my team is well-equipped to take care of all facets of dietary needs here, especially celiac is, whether it's a fad, whether it's real. Um, it's all of a sudden, it seems that everybody's celiac nowadays. Sometimes I think it's a fad, if you really want to talk.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Right, well, there's a lot of, yeah, well, you, I mean, look, on the north, you're dealing, for people who don't know, the, the north shore of Kauai is, you know, there's some affluent pockets here. And so, when you have that, you have some very well-heeled people that, you know, have their peccadilloes and, you know, what they want to eat or not eat. And, and, you know, gluten and gluten sensitivity and it's sort of all the rage right now.

• 1:07:14Speaker 02

  It is.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  And, and, you know, I have a gluten sensitivity, you know, I don't, I'm not perfect in avoiding gluten in everything that I do, but I know that I feel better when I'm not eating gluten.

• 1:07:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, you definitely do better with your gluten.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  And for people that have celiac, you know, their, celiac is a serious thing.

• 1:07:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  That's, that's different from gluten sensitivity, just to be clear.

• 1:07:31Speaker 03

  Let's not forget about that.

• 1:07:32Speaker 02

  It is.

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  So, yeah, just to be clear, like, I, I'm not saying that, that celiac is imagined, that's a very real thing.

• 1:07:40Speaker 03

  A weak year.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  But I, but I think, you know, I think, I think, uh, gluten sensitivity, um...

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Is worth talking about and it kind of goes to, you know, what you were talking about with with white rice and refined grains and all of that and, you know, a lot of the wheat that finds its way into all the foods that we eat, all the processed foods and the snacks and all that kind of stuff is so stripped of any nutritional value and so processed that I think that that has, you know, something to do with, you know, the way that people feel when they eat that. And, and so, you know, I don't know, I just, I know that I feel better when I don't eat it.

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I've been experimenting with different kinds of flours and just, you know, looking for different options, you know, instead of just going, oh, well, that's the default. So like I'm trying, you know, some rice flours and sorghum flour and, and stuff like that.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, baking gluten free is, is tricky. And, you know, living in Los Angeles, you can get gluten free everywhere and you go to Whole Foods and they have a million gluten free products and they make it easy. But, you know, not everyone has that kind of stuff at their fingertips. So if someone wants to see, you know, what it would feel like to cut the gluten out of their diet and try to experiment with, you know, baking or making dishes that are gluten free, like what are some of the tips that you could give people?

• 1:08:57Speaker 03

  Um, the tips is, is in the flours. Obviously, the rice flours, we use almond flour. We have every facet of flours here at Common Ground because we gear strictly, celiac is in the forefront of what we do. We do not do, everything is gluten free that we do here. Nothing that we do has, well, there's a few things that we do. I take it, I take it back. Certain things we have, but we have options, like for instance, our tortilla is cut with wheat and corn. But we have rice tortillas that we have. But as for my dressings, the sauces, the soups, baked goods, majority of the menu, I would have to say is 90% gluten free. And why? Because people that are not celiac can enjoy the same meal. It just saves

• 1:09:42Speaker 03

  me a big headache of going, well, do you have?

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  Making two different versions.

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  Everything that we do is geared for it. And it makes it easy for us to take care of people that are or aren't celiac.

• 1:09:51Speaker 02

  Right. Well, the thing is too, I mean, celiac is like one, it's one gradation that you're at a pretty developed level. But I mean, I, I wonder how many of us have gluten allergies, even if it's minor, because I'm not sensitive to gluten, but you know, I have, I've had like a Sort of life condition with migraine type headaches, you know, I call them that. And, you know, sometimes they do better or worse, but I'm experimenting with actually removing wheat from my diet and seeing if that inflammation goes down, which for Rich, I mean, it's very apparent when he eats wheat, it's just, you know, he immediately, immediately is puffy. And also, you know, certain friends of mine that I've met, you know, that have like this pockets of like a swollenness under their eyes. And a client friend of mine, and

• 1:10:35Speaker 02

  he stopped eating wheat and they just went away. You know, you can either do that or you can go get your eyes cut and have surgery, which I don't recommend.

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  Well, probably most people would prefer that.

• 1:10:45Speaker 02

  No. Well, it's that thing into holistic healing.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Well, it's the same thing. It's like, you know, you could take Viagra or you can change your diet, you know?

• 1:10:54Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  You know, if...

• 1:10:56Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:10:57Speaker 02

  Exactly. It's a choice.

• 1:10:59Speaker 03

  You choose your poison.

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:11:01Speaker 03

  In life.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  It's treating symptoms versus addressing the causes of these issues.

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  Absolutely. That's true.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  That's what it's really about.

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  And preventive medicine. And, you know, whether it's diabetes or some other kind of congenital condition that you're dealing with, you know, our health system is set up that you go to the doctor, they look at it, and they prescribe a medication. And, you know, in, you know, a huge percentage of those cases, that medication treats the symptom of that condition. It doesn't get to the cause. And, and there isn't enough, if any, discussion about how to address that cause. Get to the underlying reason why you are suffering from this malady. Address that at its core so that you can overcome it.

• 1:11:43Speaker 03

  I have a juicer on that note. I have a juicer. Her name is Cass, and I love her dearly, and she is very talented. And we're...

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  You named your juicing machine Cass?

• 1:11:52Speaker 03

  We, no, we have a juicing machine. And also I have, yeah, that's right. We do our juices also. We offer...

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  You have an amazing juicer in the kitchen.

• 1:12:01Speaker 03

  Yes, we have amazing juice. And we do that juice, we offer that juicing, our fresh juices that we do. But also, for those people on an upper level of, because let's face, I cannot keep up in my day of, with the demand on juicing. So I have a friend that does my juicing also that brings the juices. She's working on, we're gonna start it probably in a month or so. She is very talented and very skilled and we're working, she has a tea that is based off of to help cancer patients, to help them with eliminating free radicals out of their bodies. And she is very, very skilled.

• 1:12:43Speaker 03

  And so that is, as we move and we grow in a cafe, that, those kind of issues are, are the issues that I wanna, I wanna grab and hang on to because those are the ones that helps direct where we're going with the cuisine. Not saying that we're, we're the proven or the heroes for cancer, but if I can help people to help with their, either their problems or, or helping people to stay cancer-free, I'm gonna try my best to, to do that and get that point across, you know, so it's not just a joke. It's, it's a, it's a lifestyle that we practice here, so.

• 1:13:21Speaker 02

  Absolutely, and I mean, and that's so beautifully supporting, you know, a perfect, perfect expression of food as medicine. I mean, really, what you've created at the cafe at Common Ground is food as medicine.

• 1:13:32Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:13:33Speaker 02

  And it's incredible.

• 1:13:34Speaker 03

  It's hidden, it's hidden, and, and that's why we do vegan desserts that I, I give to people, I don't say.

• 1:13:41Speaker 02

  They don't know.

• 1:13:41Speaker 03

  No idea. We do a lot of nut cheeses here, and we'd have nut cheeses on a regular basis, you know, we, we spike it, whatever is coming out of the garden, we do a pasto, we do a garlic one, we'll do a turmeric one, we'll do all kinds of nut cheeses flavor-wise for those that are on a plant-based diet. But, you know, it's always gonna be geared for a purpose, for some kind of dietary need for whoever walks in our door. We, we try and cover as much as we can to, again, help people with their lifestyle or even with people that wants to get involved or try it out for a little bit, you know.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  So it doesn't really matter who you are, what your diet is. If you come to Common Ground, you're gonna get some meal that feeds your, your body and uplifts you.

• 1:14:32Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:32Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:33Speaker 03

  And especially the baked goods side is geared for diabetics and celiac's. I gotta throw that out there, cuz it's important, it's important for us to keep that, especially keep my baker in, in, on the, on that path. And I think we're headed in a good direction to help people with their sweet foods not digest tons of sugar, refined sugars, I should say.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  Where would you like to see this go, like if you fast forwarded five years from now with the cafe and what you're doing here?

• 1:15:04Speaker 03

  I would like to see our products, I would like to see our products get out into the nation, our after products, whether we're going through beverage, whether we're going through beverage, I would like to see this cafe expand, I would like to take the show on the road a little bit, honestly, and to help people educate, help educate people on all the topics that we just talked about now. I know this place is going to be solidified, I know the cafes, it's not going to be an issue whether, you know, a lot of people go, are you guys going to be around in two years or three years? Yes. Why?

• 1:15:45Speaker 03

  Because if we stick to the mission statement of what we're about, and we're genuine about it, and we're producing good quality nutritional products, you have no, because a lot of people are shifting their diets nowadays, not fast enough, but a lot of people are realizing that, huh, maybe I should start to eat healthier, so I can live a few more years, or live another 10 years. And that's where I want to see the cafe. I want to see the cafe rocking, but also I want to take the message out with the different topics that we talked about, the diabetes and the cancer, and how I can help people shift their mindset into good eating. That's where I want to see it in five years.

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's beautiful.

• 1:16:28Speaker 02

  That's beautiful.

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  That's a fantastic mission, that's our mission too.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  And we share that, is why we're here.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely, you know, absolutely.

• 1:16:38Speaker 02

  And we really hope to, in sooner than later, is to Have some fun together and I'd love to be able to cook with you and create some new exciting things together.

• 1:16:51Speaker 03

  That's what I say, stay tuned.

• 1:16:53Speaker 02

  That's right, and I want to learn from you, definitely. It would be an honor and a blessing to do that. And then also, you know, we share this focus and this awareness of the children, you know, just children's health and wellness.

• 1:17:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:17:06Speaker 02

  And, you know, I think what we were talking about, about something to bring to the island, just in a respect and honoring of the island and the indigenous people and the people that, you know, originated here, you know, to do some maybe ancient menu, maybe ancient and ancient, you know, spread.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Traditional Hawaiian.

• 1:17:24Speaker 03

  That is really easy to do, but also if your kids want something, make them a good smoothie, simple as that.

• 1:17:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:29Speaker 03

  Like, do what you were saying, just do, do a good, healthy smoothie versus soda. It takes a little bit of effort, but let me tell you, it's so worth it. It's so worth it. My son eats, drinks a smoothie every single day because he doesn't ask for soda because it's not in his brain. It's not in his memory to go, "Oh, Dad, can I get a soda?" No, I want a, he says, "moody, I want a moody." You know, he's two years old. So, you know, that's, that's something that, you know, my, my wife and I are proud of, that he's not asking for candy. You know, he wants some fruit.

• 1:18:02Speaker 02

  So great.

• 1:18:03Speaker 03

  Or we give him nuts, or just change around the diet a little bit, shift up. You know, it all starts with the parents and it trickles down to the children.

• 1:18:10Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  No question about it.

• 1:18:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  And just to put everything in perspective here, this guy Rodman, he is literally, I think you're feeding Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reese like almost every day.

• 1:18:25Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  I see them down in the cafe with their family eating. Every time I turn around, they're sitting there eating and, and, you know, if it's good enough for Laird and Gabby, it's good enough for you, right?

• 1:18:36Speaker 03

  Laird and Gabby is good friends of mine and they are, Laird is gonna be, if not one of the most legendary big wave surfers on the planet. He is directed, he's a guy that I grew up admiring as a surfer, growing up on the North Shore of Oahu. Surfing is in my blood. But watching Laird, not, you know, to speak of his popularity, he's a genuine guy that believes in health. He works out like an animal. So does Gabriella, who is probably the greatest beach volleyball player of her time, or even the greatest volleyball player to come out of the beach circuit. But yes, they do. And we take care of tremendous amount of athletes here. And, you know, it's awesome.

• 1:19:21Speaker 03

  It's an awesome feeling to know that they trust me and trust my team to eat a balanced meal, that they can come here as simple as huevos rancheros, but it's a tweak huevos rancheros. It's not your average huevos rancheros. And so, that, you know, like what Richard's saying, it's an honor for me to make friends. And like I said, it's a big extended family. I feed billionaire, millionaires, athletes, common people as myself, as everybody else. And we're, and the beautiful part about this cafe is it doesn't matter of what you do for a living or what your status is. When you come into my cafe, you're just Laird, or you're just Rodman.

• 1:20:04Speaker 03

  Because we don't look at what you do for a living. You're here to eat a good meal, and you have a good day, and I'll see you again. And that's the theory that we have. We've had actresses and famous actors to come in our door. And I'm not going to mention names. But we've had our fair share of them, and we get our fair share. And everybody's treated the same. Because everybody, everybody's body is a temple, regardless of what you do for a living. I don't care what. And that's the approach. That's where corporate has driven me. I've cooked for Michael Jordan, Mark McGuire. I've cooked for the most richest family from Saudi Arabia. I've done it in these hotels. I've cooked for, in every, and what that has taught me,

• 1:20:48Speaker 03

  and many actors in my time, and very humbly speaking, it doesn't matter what you do again for a living. You can be the most famous person on earth, but... Always, always, these people know, they wanna live. And so they make that decision to eat healthy.

• 1:21:08Speaker 02

  That's right, and health is a common denominator, right?

• 1:21:11Speaker 03

  It is.

• 1:21:12Speaker 02

  So it's the same, doesn't matter if you don't have your health.

• 1:21:15Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:21:16Speaker 02

  So we all need to be healthy.

• 1:21:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Try your best, and like I said, it doesn't matter who you are, but you come to the cafe, you're just what you are. And put aside, put aside your wealth, and put aside what you do, and come in here and have a great meal. And we're not gonna look at you any differently because you're just, you're just part of the family. That's how it is here.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  Because it's Common Ground.

• 1:21:42Speaker 02

  It's a common ground.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Uncommon ground, except for you.

• 1:21:47Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:21:48Speaker 01

  So I think that that's a, that's a great place to end for today.

• 1:21:52Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, man. It was an honor to have you. Appreciate your time, man.

• 1:21:57Speaker 02

  It's great to spend the time with you, and thanks for welcoming us so graciously into the family. And we're really excited about what we're gonna create together.

• 1:22:05Speaker 03

  Yay.

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, very cool. We're working on, yeah, we're working on some cool projects, some video projects. Julie and Rodman are gonna mix it up in the kitchen a little bit and have some fun. And, you know, we'll go from there. We'll keep you posted on what that's gonna look like. So Rodman, again, thank you so much for being here.

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  I'll let you go now.

• 1:22:24Speaker 03

  And as we say in Hawaii, aloha. Aloha, thank you very much. And mahalo.

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  All right. Later, dude.

• 1:22:32Speaker 03

  Later.

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  All right, that was awesome. He's a cool dude, right?

• 1:22:36Speaker 02

  He's awesome. He's lovely.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  He is the kind. He's the goods.

• 1:22:40Speaker 02

  He is.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  So we're lucky, we're lucky to be eating his cuisine here at Common Ground. So, anyway, let's wrap it up for today. Thank you so much for your support. We're over the moon with the early response on the podcast. We're really thrilled about it. If you're enjoying the podcast, it would mean the world to us if you could stop by the iTunes page for the podcast and leave a nice comment. If you don't like the show, then maybe you don't wanna do that.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  I'm not trolling for, you know, positive reviews, but you know, if you happen to be there and you've got five seconds to spare, you know.

• 1:23:20Speaker 02

  We have a lot of really nice reviews.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  I wouldn't mind it.

• 1:23:23Speaker 02

  We didn't ask for it, which is very, very sweet.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, we haven't asked for any and we've got a bunch.

• 1:23:26Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  So I appreciate that. Anybody who put a review up on iTunes already, thank you, you guys rock. So let's take it out. We've been doing this for like an hour and a half, right?

• 1:23:36Speaker 02

  About that.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, alright.

• 1:23:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. So come on, so give them the links. Okay, so you can check us out at Jai Lifestyle. I think I'm just feeling, I'm in a flow with it.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  You want to do it?

• 1:23:46Speaker 02

  No, why not?

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  You go for it.

• 1:23:48Speaker 02

  It's going, so, anyway, this podcast was sponsored by Jai Lifestyle.

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  We sponsor ourselves.

• 1:23:54Speaker 02

  We do, but just...

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  That's how in-demand we are.

• 1:23:56Speaker 02

  That's right. It's awesome. It's great. I feel so good to be sponsoring ourselves. So it's Jai Lifestyle, J-A-I-L-I-F-E-S-T-Y-L-E dot com. JaiLifestyle dot com.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  I think they got it.

• 1:24:11Speaker 02

  I think they got it. Anyway, Jai means victory, or hail, or praise in Sanskrit loosely translated. And anyway, we wish that, wish you that in your life and in your pursuit of plants. So anyway, so let's give them the links. What are the links?

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  Well, just go to JaiLifestyle dot com. Why don't you talk about what they might find when you go there?

• 1:24:32Speaker 02

  Oh, you might find Rich's Jai Repair Recovery Powder there, which is this extraordinary...

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  What is that all about, Julie?

• 1:24:38Speaker 02

  Oh, it's this amazing superfood blend of nutrients.

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  We talked a lot about superfoods today, so...

• 1:24:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's got cordyceps, it's got hemp, a few different kinds of protein, hemp, pea, and what else is in there?

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Sprouted brown rice.

• 1:24:52Speaker 02

  Sprouted brown rice.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  Sprouted, you always want the sprout, the sprouted version of the grain.

• 1:24:57Speaker 02

  It's much better that way. But what else is in there? Some really good stuff.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  Maybe I should handle this part of it.

• 1:25:04Speaker 02

  You should handle that.

• 1:25:06Speaker 01

  Jirapar is a combination of three plant-based proteins: sprouted brown rice, pea, and hemp. It's very tasty and delicious. It's very digestible. The proteins are very bioavailable. It is the highest grade of hemp protein available. And sprouted brown rice is the highest caliber of brown rice protein. So it's top end. It also contains some primo antioxidants like a very pure resveratrol and grape skin extracts and cordyceps mushroom extract. So these are all superfoods: resveratrol, cordyceps. Very, very powerful superfoods, which was kind of the theme and the subject of today.

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  The resveratrol and the grape skin extracts are extremely potent antioxidants, just like turmeric we were talking about earlier. The cordyceps is actually a very interesting superfood. It was first discovered eons ago in very high-altitude areas of remote China. And it is this bizarre... They call it mushrooms, but it's not really a mushroom. It's a fungus. And it's a fungus that grows on the back of these caterpillars that are up at like super-high altitude in China. And so these Chinese herbalists and in Chinese medicine, they've been using these for years, which begs the question of how did this first come into being?

• 1:26:33Speaker 01

  Like, who is the first guy to like, look at some fungus on the back of this caterpillar and say, "I'm gonna eat that"?

• 1:26:41Speaker 02

  No, but I'm telling you, like, that just blows me away. And it's also...

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  It's not a mushroom that grows out of the ground in the traditional sense of what you might think.

• 1:26:49Speaker 02

  It's crazy, though. And so if you look at it as a metaphor of like, the whole planet shifting, right? And we're caterpillars becoming butterflies. And that would mean we all should be eating this right now.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Well, that's a whole other take on this.

• 1:27:02Speaker 02

  That's crazy. Caterpillars, like, of everything in the world that grows on caterpillars?

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  It's like a fungus that has a symbiotic relationship with a caterpillar, as I understand it.

• 1:27:13Speaker 02

  I'm on it. I mean, I take it anyway, but I'm upping my dose now.

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:17Speaker 02

  I didn't know that. I didn't know it was on a category.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  But what you shouldn't do is Google images of cordyceps because you will be disgusted at what you might find.

• 1:27:27Speaker 02

  Well, it's all broken down.

• 1:27:28Speaker 01

  So this is a very potent superfood, right? It's been used in Chinese medicine for quite a long time. It kind of came into the forefront when some Chinese athletes started using it. Actually, some, I think it was a female Chinese track and field team started exhibiting tremendous results and it was attributed to this, to the incorporation of using cordyceps mushroom extracts in their diet. Now, you know, maybe they were doing something else. Maybe they were on steroids. I don't know. But that's how, that's what, the point being that this is how they were first noticed and they've kind of become, you know, popular

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  in the United States, really only in the last year. There's only a few other companies that are using them in supplements. You know, Onnit uses, they have a product called Shroom Tech and it's the same, it's basically the same thing that's in my product and studies have demonstrated that cordyceps mushroom extracts, it's called Cordyceps Sinensis, has been linked to an increase in oxygen uptake and lung capacity in endurance athletes. So when I read about that, that's when I first started checking it out and I actually did notice a difference. And so I've been taking them ever since. So when it came time to sort of formulate this athletic recovery product, it was like, well, what do I want

• 1:28:54Speaker 01

  on it? Like, what do you need when you're done training? Well, you need to repair your muscles with protein. You need to combat the free radical damage that is the result of the exercise-induced oxidative stress. And you want to sort of increase the blood flow to get the oxygen to where it needs to go to expedite the repair. So cordyceps actually work as a recovery superfood. They also work for a pre-workout too. You can use that as pre, pre and post.

• 1:29:25Speaker 02

  That's extraordinary.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, Jai Repair is a very high-end product. It's not your typical like GNC, you know, protein powder that you're going to grab off the shelf.

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  Oh, no. Oh, no, not that.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  Which is why it's a little bit more expensive. It's available exclusively at Jai Lifestyle right now. We are looking into retail outlets. But with our price point, it's a little bit tricky because we don't want to, if we go to like a Whole Foods, for example, they're going to want a huge discount. You know, they demand these discounts because they say, well, we can sell a lot of volume. And although the Jai Repair is expensive, it retails for $75, the margins are incredibly low. So, you know, we're not, we're not getting rich off this. Like, we're barely making any money, but it's just a product that I wanted to put out there. So, that's why it's not in

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  retail stores. Because, for example, if Whole Foods wanted to carry it, I don't think that, I think that I would actually lose money if I offered them the price that they would demand to do it. Or I would have to charge such an exorbitant rate that it would be ridiculous. So, that's why it's like, hey, you know what? Let's just have it on the website. And people who want to buy it can buy it there. And

• 1:30:38Speaker 02

  It's a great product. It's a very, very high-quality product. And for that, we're very happy.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, anyway, check it out. And, you know, people who have been using it have been loving it. They post on Facebook and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, generally, almost everybody who gets it reorders it. If you have any questions about the product, you can leave a comment on richroll.com below this podcast episode, and I'd be happy to take a look at that. So, what else do we have on Jai Lifestyle?

• 1:31:07Speaker 02

  We have an e-cookbook.

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  This is a very long ad.

• 1:31:10Speaker 02

  Well, you just went off into the depths of the

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  I know, but I, well, I, because we were talking about superfoods today. So, today was the day to kind of get into that a little bit more. And actually, you know what I'm also going to do in the show links? I wrote a blog post for Tim Ferriss's blog. He was nice enough to let me guest post on his website around the time that my book Finding Ultra came out. And I wrote up a post on 10 uncommon superfoods. And cordyceps was one of the ones that I listed amongst some others. So, you can check that out on Tim's blog, or I'll put a link on my site to that.

• 1:31:46Speaker 02

  That's great. That's a great post. So, we have a cookbook. We have Jai Seed Cookbook. It's an e-cookbook. It's a download. It's under $10. If you don't have it yet, you can snag it. And it's beautiful because it's a very sustainable way to

• 1:32:05Speaker 02

  Get a cookbook and have it on your laptop or your iPad. It's not meant to print. Please don't print it. It has a bunch of my color photographs and tree photographs and family photographs. And it would be very expensive to print it in color. So, anyway, we have it available as a download. We've been doing really well with it. It's been a wonderful experience for us to share our family and share our recipes that transformed our way of eating. And also, it's a really easy thing to gift to people. It's a wonderful price point and you can just email it to them and it works out great. So, anyway, I know the holidays are coming up and we're all trying to figure out how to be more sustainable, be more conscious. I always say, give things that can be consumed.

• 1:32:50Speaker 01

  Right. And also, it's only nine bucks or $9.99 on the website, but if that's a little too steep for you, what you should do is go to Chi Lifestyle and just, if you put in your email address or you might get a pop-up window the first time you go to the website asking you to enter your email address if you want to be on the newsletter, and you'll get a free seven recipe download.

• 1:33:13Speaker 02

  You can have that anyway. If you buy it or you don't, it's available for everybody.

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  So, check that out.

• 1:33:18Speaker 02

  And then, if you want to hear some awesome music and connect with me in that medium, you can go to my website. It's srimatimusic.com. S-R-I-M-A-T-I music.com. You can listen to my whole album and download via Bandcamp on that site. Read all about my story, my extraordinary experience with my sons. I actually just received a long email from a gentleman today I don't know, requesting that we do an entire show on my music.

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 1:33:48Speaker 02

  And so, I hope Rich says okay. Rich says okay. And so, hopefully, we'll do that and play some more music for you and just really share that experience that came to me as a result of the humming meditation. Oh, that also reminds me. So, also, the music's also available on iTunes, Srimati Music, if you check it out. And then, we have a meditation program for those of you who have never meditated before or those of you who are looking for... Some new meditation juju. We have a program that's called Jai Release. It's approximately 30-minute guided meditation, which leads you through different steps of accessing the deeper communication of your heart.

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  Right, it's a series of MP3s and then also a PDF that kind of explains how it works and how to do it.

• 1:34:39Speaker 02

  All right, beautiful.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  But you do have to do it, right? Just like I said the other day.

• 1:34:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have to do it. That's the thing.

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  You could put it on your iPod and walk around, or your iPhone, and walk around with it and not play it, but that's not gonna really work.

• 1:34:53Speaker 02

  No, you can't do that. No, so, but the thing is, you can do it any time of day. I mean, it's best to do it in the morning, or sunset time, or before you go to bed. But you can really do it any time, and I really recommend that you just make a commitment to do it for 40 days. Just say, "I'm gonna do it for 40 days. It's 30 minutes a day." And at the end of 40 days, email me and tell me what shifted in your life. Please share.

• 1:35:15Speaker 01

  Right. It's the holiday season. You've got the new year coming up. It's time to make those changes. Make that list, those resolutions. I hate that word, "new year's resolution," though.

• 1:35:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  It's sort of like, "Oh, it's the new year, so I guess I gotta make that list," and blah, blah, blah. Because it goes to what we were talking about the other day. You change when you're ready. You change when, you know, that moment occurs.

• 1:35:38Speaker 02

  It's true, it's true, but, you know, in the cycle of life.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  But you do always have that, you do always have the power to change at any moment. You don't have to wait until the new year.

• 1:35:45Speaker 02

  You can decide now. You could do it today if you wanted. But actually, the...

• 1:35:49Speaker 01

  That sounds like an infomercial.

• 1:35:51Speaker 02

  Actually, the...

• 1:35:52Speaker 01

  Act now!

• 1:35:53Speaker 02

  The planetary cycles, though, when you, when you look at just the year and the seasons and the way things flow just naturally, is, yeah, this is sort of a culmination. You know, everything sort of comes to a death, the winter solstice. And, you know, we have the Mayan calendar actually coming to completion on the 21st of December. There will be no end of the world. Everyone relax. But there is definitely a death of the old way of living and the birth of a new one, which is why we are so blessed and honored to be sharing this kind of new paradigm and excited to connect with all of you who are experiencing the same thing and contributing your own version of...

• 1:36:34Speaker 02

  Rising up and shifting into a higher way of being.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and cool stuff on the horizon too. We have the vitamin B12 supplement that's getting ready to rock and then that should be out soon. And we're going to be putting together some pretty cool premium video content and free video content. We're working on, I'm getting a lot of emails from people about the cleanse. They read Finding Ultra. And in that I talk about the juice cleanse that I did. And I put in the, in the book and in the appendix, like see this link on Jai Lifestyle for our detox cleansing program. Because at the time that I was writing the book, I was intent upon having a program

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  and some products available for people who want to do, you know, have that experience that I had. What I underestimated is just how tricky and challenging it would be to get a product like that to market, particularly the way that we wanted to do it with some herbs and all these sort of stuff. And there's a lot of like regulatory stuff that comes in and it just became, I got so busy with traveling around with the book and the marketing before the book coming out that I couldn't devote my full attention to it. And it was just, it became this Byzantine thing and it just didn't happen. So for all the people that are emailing me like, what about the cleanse? You know, you said that you were going to have this cleanse or whatever. And it didn't come to fruition.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  Well, we are finally addressing that. And what, what we're going to do, what we're getting ready to do is to actually film a whole series of videos that will take you through one of these fruit and vegetable juice cleanse procedures over a six day period.

• 1:38:22Speaker 02

  And they're going to be able to do the cleanse with us, right?

• 1:38:24Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 1:38:25Speaker 02

  They're going to do it at the same time.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  So we're going to do it.

• 1:38:27Speaker 02

  So we're going to support and we're going to experience with you.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  So it's going to take you through and tell you everything you need, all the products you need, all the ingredients and, you know, what you do throughout like basically each hour of every day and what you can expect to feel and how to help navigate all that and all that kind of stuff. We're just putting it all together now, but it's pretty exciting. I think it's going to be really cool. And I think this is a better way of kind of addressing that need. Than just, hey, you know, buy this canister of whatever.

• 1:38:52Speaker 02

  No, we wanted to do something that was very conscious and, you know, very safe and very, you know, kind of like you're, you know, go slow to go fast, basically. Okay, there's a lot of stuff that needs to be rebalanced and it doesn't matter which system you have, but the other thing is, is if you're, if you've already gone plant strong and you've been plant strong, you know, we all know that cleansing, you know, a few times a year is extremely healing. So, you know, you can do it whether you're a first timer or whether you're already, you know, you're already living the lifestyle. So, anyway, we're just, we're excited to do it with you. It'll be really supportive and I think really interactive and, you know, we want to hear all your stories and how it is for you and we can all support each other.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  Right, I think the idea is that, you know, along with these video pieces, we want to create community around it and community that we can interact with and mutually support, you know, we can support you and then you guys who decide to do it can support each other in a, you know, safe and kind of productive, positive way. So, we're getting ready to kind of move forward on getting all of that together. It's a big project, it's actually a bigger project than, than I thought. I was like, well, what's the big deal? Let's get the camera and start rocking it.

• 1:40:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of more complicated.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  But like, in order to do this right, yeah, I'm realizing there's some complicated things to this. So, I'm always impatient, you know, and I'm always like, let's just get it done. But I'd rather do it right and deliver like a really high caliber, quality product than just rush something out.

• 1:40:17Speaker 02

  That's jai, in the jai way.

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  That is jai.

• 1:40:20Speaker 02

  That is the way jai is.

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  All right, that's enough.

• 1:40:22Speaker 02

  Okay, so, anything else?

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  Is there anything else? Oh, um, let me think.

• 1:40:28Speaker 02

  Common Ground, please go to the Common Ground website.

• 1:40:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, check out CommonGroundCGKauai.net is the website for Common Ground. Rodman's got his, you know, little bio about him here and if you happen to be in the islands, it's a must stop.

• 1:40:45Speaker 02

  You gotta come here, definitely.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, you gotta come here and check it out.

• 1:40:47Speaker 02

  Okay, cool.

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's it. Subscribe on iTunes, you know, if you enjoy the show, tell a friend, that's it, right?

• 1:40:54Speaker 02

  That's right, spread the word. We're enjoying this and we're gonna have another episode coming at you really soon. We're... We're gonna figure out about what?

• 1:41:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah, I finally figured out how to do the Skype thing.

• 1:41:05Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 1:41:06Speaker 01

  So, I woke up at like 3 a.m.

• 1:41:09Speaker 02

  So, am I getting bumped for Sasha Jevosi?

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 1:41:15Speaker 02

  The director of Hitchcock?

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  No. What I want to do is, you know, I'm thinking of people that I could interview that don't live in Los Angeles, you know, because the people that live in L.A., like, well, I'll just interview them.

• 1:41:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're gonna go back, we're gonna be back in January, we're gonna get a bunch of episodes up.

• 1:41:30Speaker 01

  So, I'll get those people down, but it's people that, you know, I'd probably have to Skype in anyway because they live in Washington, D.C., or they live in New York, or someplace that I don't anticipate being anytime soon. So, that way, I can start bringing you some dynamic, compelling people from wherever, whenever.

• 1:41:46Speaker 02

  That's exciting. And I just want to say thanks again to everyone who sent us an email, or a message, or gave us a great review, or just checked in, and, you know, we're reading everything, and it's been amazing, and, you know, we feel you, and we're with you, and we just appreciate it. So, thanks.

• 1:42:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Awesome, awesome. Got so many great emails and messages on the social networks and all of that, and if I didn't get back to you directly, I apologize, but I did read everything. Julie and I read everything together, and it really touches us, so thanks. All right?

• 1:42:18Speaker 02

  Okay. It's getting loud in here.

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Peace.

• 1:42:22Speaker 02

  Peace.

• 1:42:23Speaker 01

  Plants.