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May 24, 2022 • 69 mins

Lynne Bowman was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes more than thirty years ago, and offers herself as living proof that you can cook, eat, sleep and walk your way out of type 2 diabetes, along with other chronic ailments.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Arwen Bardsley (00:00):
Welcome, everybody. Today I am delighted

(00:03):
to be speaking with author LynneBowman. Lynne has had a
wonderfully varied career. She'sworked in marketing and
advertising for many years fromwhat I can gather from her
information. And she's workedacross different industries in
that profession. She's alsoworked a lot in the

(00:24):
entertainment industry as anactress and makeup artist, a
screenwriter and a journalist.
More than 30 years ago, though,Lynne was diagnosed with type
two diabetes, and she is livingproof that you can cook, eat,
sleep and walk your way out ofthis disease and other chronic
conditions. Lynne's new book

"Brownies for breakfast (00:48):
a cookbook for diabetics and the
people who love them" is a cool,fun and beautiful guide book for
anybody who wants to eathealthy. And I can't wait to
hear about that brownie recipe,Lynne but let's start with if
you can tell us a bit about youabout your background, about

(01:08):
your why why are you doing thework that you're doing now. But
I'd love to, you know, hear thestory for for the audience about
Lynne?

Lynne Bowman (01:20):
Well, I have to start with the fact that I'm
really old. I love that I wantedto get old, I didn't want to
check out early. And I plan onanother I'm 76 now and I'm
hoping for another 25 or 30years or whatever, of good life.
And that's what I want foreverybody. And the why of it. I

(01:44):
think, Arwen, goes way back, mymother had a chronic disease and
she died when I was 18. So Istarted my life really as a
young adult with this deepunderstanding of what chronic
disease does to a family and notonly to an individual but your

(02:04):
children, your friends, yourhusband, your everything, I I
pretty much lost everything.
When she died, my dog the house,you know, my dad started another
life, my older siblings weregone. So so in that brief period
of time, my whole life changed.
And that kind of became the waythose things do determined the

(02:28):
way so much of the rest of mylife went. I wanted to have
children too and a home. But I Iyou know, it was sort of a
frightening prospect for me. Butas time went on, I'm going to
skip some of the details. Butwecan go back to those later if

(02:49):
you want. But I I found myselfthe mother happily, the mother
of three small ones that werevery close in age, but in a
marriage that had to end. And itwas abusive and difficult. He
was a vet. That's a whole otherstory that had come back from
Vietnam and was damaged and andsuffering from it. And so to

(03:17):
make sure that I survived and mykids did, I ran with them and
started a new life back inCalifornia where I had been
And so my resume is this funnykind of, you know, patchwork of
born.
things because I was on the WestCoast and I was on the East
Coast and I was back on the westcoast. But I landed in Silicon

(03:38):
Valley in 1980, then single momwith these three little kids.
And I needed to make a livingbecause I was the sole support
of my kids. So when I wasdiagnosed with type two
diabetes, I my determination wasI was gonna do whatever I had to
do to survive it and to be therefor my kids. I just it was like

(04:01):
the idea that maybe I would begone or not able to was just no,
we're not doing that. Whateverit takes, I'm going to do it.
And so I tried hard to educatemyself about the food. And in
those days, all they would tellyou about type two diabetes was
pretty much well watch yourcarbs. And you should lose some

(04:23):
weight. Even though you're notreally particularly overweight,
it's good to lose some weight.
And what watch your carbs, youknow, sugar, you know, try not
to eat sugar.
And so, and I you know, I tookthe classes that were offered
when they were offered and Iread whatever book, but I was

(04:44):
not convinced that any of it wasreally good information. And so
time went on, I managed to keepmyself in reasonable control my
blood glucose was in reasonablerange and I didn't test all the
time or anything, but I wasactive and you know, I ate well,

(05:06):
but I learned in the process ofmaking this kind of stumbling
around exploration of it, that,and I was always a cook. I mean,
I knew how to get a meal on thetable fast. But I learned how to
do it in a pretty healthy way.
And, of course, the crazy thingabout this is that I was just

(05:27):
stumbling upon and discoveringthe same way of eating, that
everybody should be eating. Thesecret is, and I hope it's not
going to be a secret after awhile, if you have heart
disease, if you you know, haveother chronic problems, if you
are suffering from inflammation,I mean, the list is a mile long,

(05:51):
the answer is eat whole food,plant based, not too much. But
if you're eating whole food,plant based, it's almost
impossible to eat too much.
Because you're you're not eatingbig food, packaged food. And in

(06:13):
America, and I don't know ifAustralia is as bad but I think
our diets are very similar. Yes,every bit of packaged food that
you eat has a ton of sugar andsalt in it. And there's nothing
wrong with salt, I sprinklesalt, salt on everything that I
eat. But the kind that the theamount of salt that's in

(06:35):
packaged foods is unhealthy.
It's a tremendous, it's large,it's big. So it's just a matter
of being suspicious of anythingin a bag or a box. Anything with
a label of ingredients, youknow, if there's more than three
ingredients, like okay, what'sin that. And this is not, you
know, this is not real news topeople, I think most people have

(07:01):
a concept of this or have heardabout this or know that. But
making the step to actuallydoing it is the big stumbling
block is that you have to cook,you have to go in the kitchen,
you have to start with goodfresh ingredients, whole food,
plant based food doesn't come ina box. It comes at a farmer's

(07:27):
market or in a communityservice, agriculture basket or
in your own garden. It's anactual orange or peach, or, you
know, head of lettuce. It's notin a box or a bag, and a big
one. It's not in a drive thrurestaurant.

(08:32):
And then, after World War Two,the 50s moms were so thrilled
that they can just go to thestore and buy stuff, you know,
the Campbell's soup in a can andbox of cereal and stuff. And
that's how, then again, I'm inmy 70s. And so people my age,
that's how we were brought up.
If I ate wonder bread, whitebread and bologna sandwiches

(08:53):
every day, you know, for years,and we ate the Wheaties in the
cereal box. And so we're justnow seeing this big resurgence,
I think of interest in realfood. And part of it is because
in addition to something like88% of us having, I mean I've

(09:17):
seen statistics that go from 85to 98. But huge number of an
overwhelming number of us havechronic disease now. And the
implications of that are notonly we're gonna die and we're
gonna suffer, but economically,it's a mess. You know, the the
health care expenses in the US.

(09:41):
It's it takes people down.
Huge number and the last numberI saw on that was that 85% of
the bankruptcies in the UnitedStates are health related.
Doesn't surprise me at all. Butpeople kind of don't make that
connection that it's your healthreally, truly is your wealth.

(10:06):
And without your health, you areat risk of losing everything may
already have or never, neveracquiring what you feel you
need. So, and we were talkingearlier, Arwen, about how it's
all connected. Because the otherthing is that if you're eating

(10:29):
out of a box, or eating beef,let's say from the grocery
store, you are contributing in amajor way to the pollution that
is gonna kill us all. Here I'mgranny buzzkill today, and I'm
sorry about that. But I think ifyou're a sentient human being by

(10:49):
now you've heard the messagethat we have a problem with the
atmosphere with pollution withlosing our trees with with
grinding up all of our topsoiland having a go out into the
universe.
And that all comes back to thekitchen table. It all comes back
to what we're eating or noteating.

Arwen Bardsley (11:13):
So is that what I saw you had a phrase about
kitchen table culture? Yeah. Sowould you say anything more
about that other than whatyou've said about what you mean

Lynne Bowman (11:27):
I love talking about it. Because I think it's
by that.
where we learn the mostimportant things in our life
that we learn. And I may bespeaking here only from the
perspective of my generation, orthe generation behind me, I can
speak for my kids and I andmyself, I was the youngest. So I

(11:48):
could hardly get a word inedgewise at my table at home.
But, and of course, my dad wasking of the universe. And so it
was we listened to him. But Igot this kind of graduate
education in marketing at mydinner table every night, which
at the time, I'm gonna, why wasshe? But that's how valuable is

(12:09):
that? I mean, I went out intothe world, having listened to my
dad, and of course, my mom wouldpitch in from time to time. But
he he was a managementconsultant. And so that's what
he talked about. And that's whatI learned. But I also learned
how to argue how to defendmyself how to eat with a knife

(12:30):
and fork and a spoon and wherethings went on a table. I
learned how to share food, howto pass food around the table. I
I mean, think about all thethings that are a result of just
sitting down properly at atable. Where do you put your
napkin? You know, what is yournapkin? Is it paper? Is it
cloth, whatever? What are theimplements that are on the

(12:52):
table, and we have a generationof kids now, Arwen, who have
never used utensils, becausethey have inner. You know? It's
true. There are a ton of kidswho have eaten from a bag
takeout food, they've eatenchicken bits, hamburgers,

(13:15):
pizzas, fish thingys. That's allthey've eaten.
Because Mom was too busy. Thiswas a way that families have
outsourced their food to ColonelSanders. You know, or Mickey D.

(13:35):
And yeah, it's yummy.You knowit, but none of it is good for
you. I mean, it's, it's really,I'm sorry, it's really awful
food. It's fried.

Arwen Bardsley (13:50):
It's not even food a lot of the time is it
really?

Lynne Bowman (13:53):
Not even food and and the animals that are
crunched up, in the chickenthingies and hamburgers. You
know, if you really thought atall about the lives or lack of
lives that those critters havehad, or the people who who
process them, the people who areprocessing the chicken. So it's

(14:15):
not just the chickens that aresuffering and the dirt that
suffer you know, the runoff fromthe chicken farm "farm" in
quotes, chicken factory, and thepeople who are being treated
badly who are making thatchicken as cheap as it needs to
be to be. I mean, the wholebusiness needs to go needs to be

(14:39):
rethought needs needs to beupgraded or whatever we want to
call it but my answer grannyhere it's like, come on in my
kitchen and sit down. And so thecookbook that I did is is
because I know it needs to befast. I know it needs to be
simple. I raised three kids bymyself. But we sat at the table

(15:04):
at least once a day.
Typically for supper, I arrangedmy life that way, especially
even though it was not easy. Iknow it's not easy. But also, I
want you to think I want parentsto think about what they're
giving up when they're doing onemore martial arts class, or

(15:26):
soccer, or whatever, is thatreally more important than
knowing how to be at a tablewith your family? Knowing what
your mom thinks about stuff,knowing what your big sister
thinks about stuff, knowing howto have that conversation, there
are so many young people now whoare not comfortable initiating a

(15:48):
conversation, or carrying on.
And I just, I find this reallyshocking, because, you know, I'm
old and crusty, but and my momwas articulate. And so, you
know, we had a situation whereshe spoke and then my brother
and sister were always arguing.

(16:10):
I think that whatever yourfamily is, all of you deserve to
know each other. I mean,

Arwen Bardsley (16:19):
You're stuck with each other anyway, you
might as well get to knoweachother.
Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, do youreally want your kids going off
to university or whereverthey're gonna go without that
background without theknowledge, without knowing how
to sit at a table and have aconversation and, and appreciate

(16:39):
their food and know what theirfood is, and value their food
and understand where the foodcame from? I think that's such
an essential life skill.
I totally agree. And it'ssomething I've always it's
always been a given in myhousehold as well, that we, it's

(17:05):
and like you, it's probably onlyfor I would call it dinner, our
you know, meal at the end of theday where we all sit down
together. But you know,occasionally if we're all around
at other times, as well. But Iagree, it's just so important to
to have that ritual. Becausethere are so many benefits that

(17:27):
you get from doing that. Thatpeople have just abandoned,
haven't they?
So, I mean, I think a lot of itas well is about I agree that
parents are running kids aroundto so many activities. And that

(17:49):
doesn't help. And it's and Itotally agree with you. It's
probably too many activities alot of the time. And I also
think, you know, there's a lot alot of the problem comes from
women being the ones who do mostof this work on top of their
paid work.

Lynne Bowman (18:06):
Yep. And the housework

Arwen Bardsley (18:09):
and the housework. Exactly. That's what
I mean, like they're doing,still the bulk of it. And and
data shows us that, that that'sthe case. And, you know, it's
about rethinking how all of thatworks. But that is not for this
podcast. That is a very bigtopic. Yeah, yeah. But you know,
it's, it's, it's just a massiveproblem with with how our

(18:31):
society runs. And we've just gotto learn to slow down as well,
like yet, that shouldn't be, youknow, going from this to that to
the other thing for for the fourhours after school every day,
it's just about being beingstill and being together and
appreciating everything aboutthat and the food that we're

(18:52):
eating.

Lynne Bowman (18:53):
It's also, Arwen, I think it's about joy. I would
love to think that people canreally bring joy to the table
with them can have a joyful timeat the table and a joyful
relationship with food. Youknow, in the health business, we

(19:16):
talk a lot about ourrelationship with food. And when
that breaks down for some reasonor other, I don't like the
thought that some people reallysuffer with their relationship
with food that food is dangerousand difficult and threatening in

(19:36):
some way. I think that's true inmany cases, so I know when what
I write and what I produce isabout making it simple and
joyful. If there's a way to dothat, that's what I want for
folks.

Arwen Bardsley (19:53):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So with your, you
kind of briefly mentioned that,you know, you did all the things
that you could possibly do tohelp yourself overcome the
diabetes Type Two diagnosis. Canyou just give us a bit more

(20:14):
detail about that? I mean, yousaid you were active, and

Lynne Bowman (20:18):
well, I will. And the thing is that they, in the
back of the day, they would say,this is a progressive disease,
it's a chronic disease, that isnot going to get better, it's
going to get worse. Okay? Whowants to hear that message?
Right. And so I just, I thinkpart of me just went no, I'm not

(20:38):
doing it. But but in fact,what's happened and, and a
turning point for me, Arwen, wasin 2019, I went to a conference,
the Plantritions conference. Andthese were medical doctors from
all over the world, who are kindof outliers in their field,

(20:59):
because they believed in healingwith food. And these were people
the names you will know, T,Colin Campbell, big name and in
nutrition history. And DeanOrnish, who has been out there
for a long time, reversing heartdisease, and no one believed he
was doing it or could do it. Sothere was this gathering that

(21:22):
was not too far from me. And I'mwent I'm just gonna go to that I
really need to go to that. And Ihad my book about half started,
and I thought, I'm going to seeif any of these folks would
agree that this was a tool thatthey might use in their
practice. So I went to thisconference, which, and it was at
a big conference center, and foreight hours a day, well, more

(21:45):
than that, because it was fromeight in the morning until eight
o'clock at night, the thePowerPoints, more PowerPoints,
more data, and more data andslides and slides, and
overwhelming science basedevidence that
we know how not to have heartdisease. And we know what really

(22:10):
causes diabetes. And it wasn'twhat I thought I had been eating
a diet that was almost entirelymeat and vegetables for years.
And now these guys are saying,you know, it's the meat. It's
the meat, it's the fat in themeat that is actually

(22:31):
interfering with metabolizingthe glucose in your body. And so
of course, I sat there andlistened to this and went, wait,
what? You know, because it wasso not what I had been hearing
and reading for so many years.
And what I had been doing waspartially good, because I wasn't

(22:52):
eating a lot of crap. And youknow, I was eating a lot of
vegetables and so on. But I wasalso eating a lot of meat. And,
like everyone, I had alwaysheard that you know, chicken or
chicken breast, not too fattyand... Well, according to these
guys, the worst thing you couldpossibly eat was chicken the

(23:13):
most tainted meat on the marketwas chicken and they had all the
receipts they explained all ofit and showed the pictures and
and talked about the kids thatthey were doing surgery on who
had plaque in their veins at theage of eight and 10. So on so it
was it was mind blowing for meto hear and see all this and

(23:33):
these were highly reputablepeople, surgeons, you know,
practitioners of all differentkinds from all over. This wasn't
like three quacky guys fromDetroit. This was this was a
really reputable, august bunchof people. So and by the way,

(23:54):
and the food that we're servingwas vegetarian, vegan. And I
kept thinking boy, this is notgreat food. It's really not the
best I've ever had. They coulddo much better here. So when we
finished and I got in the car,my husband came to pick me up I
said guess what? I'm a veganThe car was quiet for a while

(24:18):
but after a while he said okay,now.
I'm in. So I we ran anexperiment in our home with my
one subject you know who'scooperative always with with my
husband. That's two. He's prettygood about it. But for I had

(24:40):
just had my bloodwork done. Andso for six months, I did not eat
one bite of meat, no animal foodat all. No cheese. I went vegan
completely. And I didn't throwout my leather shoes, but food
wise, I was completely vegan.
And at the end of six months Igot Got my bloodwork done. And
my physician, same one I'd hadfor a long time said, Wow. I, my

(25:03):
hemoglobin a one C. And if anyof you don't know what that is,
you need to find out becauseit's a test that everybody needs
to take when they're there 40 orso to get a baseline for where
your blood glucose is, it's anaverage over a period of three
months. And it's a prettyreliable test, it's important to

(25:24):
know that and if your number'sgood, great, don't worry about
it for a while. If your number'snot too good, then you know, you
need to start watching and beingmore careful than you're being.
So my hemoglobin A1C had droppedthree points. And she said, My

(25:45):
physician said, you know, Lynne,in women your age, that just
doesn't happen. And I thought,yeah, okay. Well, it just did.
You know. So by now, myhemoglobin a one C is down a
full 10 points. From what I saw,and it was not bad to begin

(26:07):
with, for an old lady diabetic.
And so that's exciting. It'sexciting to think that not only
can people like me, reversetheir numbers, and I mean, I'm
getting I'm bumping right downon normal, not diabetic range.
Now, after having been indiabetic range since my 40s. So,

(26:28):
if you believe me, there'sevidence right there. I mean,
that's a, it's a party of one.
But I'm not the only one. Thereare lots of people out there who
are getting these kinds ofresults from eating good food

(26:54):
from moving, and I'm Yes, I workout three times a week.
And I do TRX and I do pilates ina little gym up the street with
my girlfriends. So it's reallyfun. It's social, which is
another aspect of this, it'simportant. I have a little
treadmill that I can do somecardio on, and I have a big

(27:15):
garden and so it's I'm active,up and down the stairs. Very
important. But you you have toeat well, and you have to eat
whole food. And you can't eat. Iyou know I if you want to eat
meat, you can eat meat, but onlytruly grass fed and finished

(27:40):
meat because it's a wholedifferent animal, literally than
a farm. factory farm raised cowor pig. You know, I think what
happens is you really stopwanting meat.
Your body can people always askme about the sugar thing. How

(28:03):
don't you crave sugar? And theanswer is no, I don't. Because
when you quit sugar, your bodychemistry changes. And your
saliva actually the compositionof your saliva changes and your
taste changes. So you truly, andI know this is hard to believe

(28:25):
if you're chomping on you knowcookies and eating ice cream at
night. But you really do get tothe place pretty quickly where
you don't want it anymore. Andno one can be more surprised
than me that I stopped wantingmeat. I was a huge meat eater.
And it just doesn't sound goodanymore. It doesn't smell good

(28:50):
anymore. I do eat some salmon,some fish some shrimp.

Arwen Bardsley (28:57):
And, are you totally vegan still like do you
use you know, butter orwhatever? Or?

Lynne Bowman (29:03):
Well, it does. I do eat some fish, I'm
pescatarian or whatever you callit. i i salmon is particularly
you know, the fatty fish arereally important nutritionally
because of the vitamin D. But Ialso that's what I crave. That's
what sounds good to me andtastes good to me. And I have a

(29:24):
way of preparing it. It's in thebook. It's simple. It's not
messy, and you don't add fat toit. So yes, I use vegan butter.
There's some wonderful productsout there now that are plant
based and more all the time. Allkinds of really good
substitutes. I talk in the book,I keep waving at it, it's behind

(29:48):
me, but I talk in the book aboutsugar substitutes, because I
think sugar is a difficult issuefor a lot of people and people
don't know how great food canbe. Because we're kind of going
on old information. There havebeen some sugar substitutes out

(30:09):
on the market in years past thatwere like, yeah, no, aspartame
and then the news comes out likeno it's bad and so, so everybody
kind of has this bad feelingabout them. But there are foods
like monkfruit, which is a wholefood. It's a great sweetener,
chicory root, whole food, greatsweetener. allulose. It's

(30:31):
slightly processed from,actually I think they make it
from sugar cane, but it's a nocalorie sweetener that doesn't
spike your blood glucose tastesgreat.
And people still, when you put asign on something, and it says
sugar free, the typical reactionis Oh, no, thank you. You know,

(30:55):
like, really! I promise you itand I wish I could just hand you
one of my brownies. They'remade, Arwen, with pumpkin.
Which, in Australia, y'all likeyour pumpkin like we do here.
They're made with just and Ijust use canned pumpkin

(31:18):
typically. And, and also nutbutter. I use an almond butter,
you can use a different kind ofnut butter but almond butter
works great. And the combinationof almond butter and pumpkin
means you don't need any flour.
And you don't need any oil.

(31:38):
Whole Food and what else is init cocoa, just whole cocoa with
nothing in it and then Isweetened it with one of my
preferred sweeteners, whateverI've got in stock at the time.
And some baking soda and whatelse hardly anything. It's just

(31:58):
a simple one bowl.
Put it in the oven, and you gotbrownies when they're absolutely
delicious and and then I put afrosting on it there. We have,
do you have Trader Joe's whereyou are. Well I use a candy bar
that I get from Trader Joe's youcan find equivalents I'm sure

(32:18):
it's a good dark chocolate candybar that is sweetened with this
one is maltitol, which somepeople you just have to watch
the amount of it that you eatthe sugar alcohols, which are
non caloric. And I melt it I puta little bit of soy milk in with
it. And it makes a beautifulfrosting. glossy and pretty and

(32:39):
I put it on the brownies.
Nothing could be simpler. It'sso easy. And if you don't tell
people they will never know.
Yeah, that it's good foodhealthy foods sugar free. Oh,
and eggs. And I use eggs. Youcan certainly use egg

(33:00):
substitutes. Which are made outof flax seeds, and they work
fine. But I do eat eggs. And Ithink eggs are actually if you
know the chickens name, if youknow where the chicken came
from, if you know that thatchicken is healthy and happy and
eating worms and grass andthings. And the and the yolk is

(33:21):
that gorgeous? deep orange,yellow that healthy eggs are
eggs are really good food. Andif you're strictly vegan, okay,
that's okay. You don't need toeat them. But if you're if your
issue is health, eggs are areally great food. There's
nothing wrong with them if theyare not factory farmed. If

(33:44):
they're good backyard orneighborhood eggs, they're fine.

Arwen Bardsley (33:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I think there's alot to be said for any animal
products where the, I mean, tome, one of the main things is
that the animals are treatedwell, and that they're living as
they as nature intended forthem. And I think our factory
farming thing with meat here.

(34:13):
I'm not sure that it's quite asbad as the US but it's still
bad. Yeah, so I mean, like Iwill only buy organic biodynamic
meat now and I'm like you aswell that I don't. When, so I
share care of my boys with theirdad and when they're not with

(34:34):
me, I don't eat meat. Really?
Because I don't need it. I don'tparticularly want to Yeah, I
don't.

Lynne Bowman (34:42):
It keeps your kitchen cleaner too.

Arwen Bardsley (34:44):
Yeah, it does, it does actually.

Lynne Bowman (34:46):
Your house smells better.

Arwen Bardsley (34:48):
Yeah, yeah. So true. But yeah, but with teenage
boys. They do like their meatand I know that that Yep, they
can and they were both very intotheir sport. And so my my older
one, as we talked about before,is living overseas. So I don't
have to worry about him feedinghim at the moment. But my

(35:09):
younger one is extremelyathletic does hours and hours of
sport every day. And, you know,it's easier to get the iron and
a number of other nutrients thatyou need if you're eating meat.
So he does want to eat meat, andthat's fine. I'm happy to eat

(35:29):
some meat with him, but I don'tneed it. And I only buy really

Lynne Bowman (35:32):
Well it's interesting to to see that there
good quality meat.
are so many athletes now, youknow elite athletes at the very
top of their sport, who areproving to everyone that the old
saw about needing steak andneeding meat, it's not true.
These guys and gals are beatingthe meat eaters their

(35:55):
performance, they areoutperforming the people who eat
meat. And we don't need to gointo all the chemical reasons
why. But anyone who feels likethey would be jeopardizing their
strength. By not eating meat isjust there's there's no evidence

(36:15):
of that at all. And in fact,there's a lot of evidence of the
opposite that that you are doingsome damage long term if you are
eating a lot of meat regularly.

Arwen Bardsley (36:30):
Yeah, totally.
Yeah, there was that "Gamechangers" documentary.

Lynne Bowman (36:35):
Yeah. And then people came out and wanted to
debunk it and everything, butthere. Now we know with every
month that goes by new stuffbubbles out because people are
kinda getting it. They'reunderstanding that as a
civilization, if we can stillcall ourselves that I'm not sure
some days, but human beings dogreat on a diet of whole plant

(37:04):
based foods. And no only thatbut the Earth does way better
when we eat that way. And weneed to start thinking about
that seriously. If anyone who'slistening to this, who doesn't
yet think about that we youreally have to include it in
your formula. I mean, it'simportant, it's extremely

(37:26):
important that

Arwen Bardsley (37:27):
Yeah, we are not going to have a planet that
humans can survive on for muchlonger if we don't turn that
around now. Yeah, yeah. So justin case anybody out there is not
clear on what you mean, when yousay Whole Foods. Can you give us

(37:48):
your words around that?

Lynne Bowman (37:50):
I will. Okay, how do I define Whole Foods? It's
food that comes to you in theform that it was created by
nature. So an apple is a wholefood, a strawberry?A, some

(38:13):
rhubarb.Do you do do rhubarb inAustralia? I love it. The pink
vegetable, I call it celery indrag. You know, no calories. No,
it's so yummy. So good. Andfree. Usually, I mean, it just
grows like a weed once you getit going. It's fantastic. So

(38:36):
that's a whole food, somethingthat grows naturally out of the
dirt. Or, and of course, animalfoods can be whole foods too, if
they come to you in theirnatural state without being
mixed, or aged or anything. Andso the difference there would be

(39:02):
that, for example, a processedSalami is not a whole food. And
in fact, the processed meatslike salami and pepperoni, the
preserved meats. If you don'tknow this, I'm telling you now,
they really are implicated incancer.

(39:24):
There's no question now thatthat these meats are contain
carcinogens and are going tocause you a problem over time.
So the difference is that ananimal can be whole food if it's
if you haven't aged it or mix itup with stuff or processed it.

(39:47):
But essentially it's anything ina bag or a box with a list of
ingredients on it is not wholefood. So if you make your own
granola is cereal, for example,I give you the recipe, it's
great out of whole oats andwhole pieces of fruit that you

(40:09):
cut up or that you dry or thatsomeone you know has dried. Nuts
are Whole Foods. It's I don'tthink it's that hard to kind of
get the formula. A nut is a nutand oat is an oat, it's when you
have something in a box that youread the ingredients. And you

(40:30):
don't even know what half thethings in it are. That's not
whole food. And it's processedfood made by big food our short
name for... You know, I didn'tknow this a couple three years
ago, it came as in kind of arude shock to me to understand

(40:50):
that there were buildings fullof people in New Jersey, by the
way, Arwen, we talked earlierabout this,
who do nothing but engineer foodfor cravability. One one of
their favorite words. There aresome others, they are in
business to see that you trulycannot stop eating those chips

(41:15):
or those cookies or whateverthey are. It's an industry that
is designed to keep you eating.
Do they care about your health?
No. Do they care aboutshareholder value? Yes. Are you
being an idiot eating the crappyfood that is making them rich

(41:39):
and making you unhealthy? Yes,you are. I don't want you eating
that food anymore. It's wrong.

Arwen Bardsley (41:46):
Yeah, so true.
And yeah, like you said beforeabout sugar as well that all of
these things interfere with ourhormones through the gut through
your gut microbiome. And whatyou're eating is going to change
the makeup of that microbiomeand that unfortunately, the bad
critters, when they get into aposition of power, and they want

(42:08):
to keep growing and outnumberingthe good critters in your gut,
then they can they send messagesto your brain saying eat more
sugar or eat more whatever is inthese, you know, nasty food like
substances. So

Lynne Bowman (42:24):
I'm glad you're bringing up the microbiome
because this is another thingthat we've started paying so
much more attention to in recentyears. It's fascinating,
actually. And a lot of peoplehaven't received the news don't
understand that when you eatsugar, particularly, you are

(42:46):
feeding the bad guys to use yourlanguage. And in fact, if you
want to grow cancer cells inyour home lab, if you have one,
what you feed them is sugar.
That's what they like, that'swhat makes them grow. And I Why
would you want to do that, youknow, if you know you have

(43:10):
cancer, or if you don't want tohave cancer, that's a thing you
can do to improve your health isto stop feeding your cancer, the
sugar that it craves, because,yeah, it's we I mean, the whole
the mitochondria thing. We arejust learning about this whole

(43:31):
fascinating microscopic world ofour gut, and how much power it
has over our brain over our ourwhole system. We are nothing but
vehicles in a way for ourmicrobiome. It's running the
show, you know our our we areserving our gut we are this

(43:56):
creature carrying around thesecells that full of mitochondria
who are doing something we don'teven know what they're doing in
there. But yeah, it'sfascinating and I don't pretend
to have a deep understanding ofit but I'm trying studying and
reading because it's sointeresting is how

(44:21):
if taking it back to the kind ofgranny level in a way Granny's
have always known right thatthat if you keep your belly
happy, if you keep if you keepyour innards feeling truly good.
Everything works, you know,everything works better. And

(44:42):
especially if you start eatingreally carefully and eating a
whole food plant based, not toomuch. You feel so much better.
You stop having pain in yourbelly and you stop having acid
reflux, you know GERD whatever,and you stop hopefully taking

(45:02):
all those stupid medicationsthat you have to take, because
of your acid reflux, why notjust get rid of the acid reflux?
Why not just stop having it?
Because so many of these thingsare strictly a result of what's
going on in your microbiomebecause you're eating crap. Fast
food Excuse me?

Arwen Bardsley (45:24):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we have more bacteria
cells, or, you know, bacteriathan we do human cells, or at
least its equivalent. There'svarying things you hear about
that. But yeah, they we're, ashe said, we're carrying around
all these little critters, andthey really control us. So it's

(45:45):
super important, what you'reputting in your gut that is
going to feed them or starvethem and build up the good ones.
And you will feel a milliontimes better if that's what
you're doing. And, yeah, I justalways love to say as well, that
food is the energy that we putin our bodies. Now, that seems

(46:06):
obvious. But then so manypeople, you know, talk about how
they feel tired, and how theyjust don't feel great. They
don't sleep well. And, you know,it's all as you said, it's all
connected. It's all one thing.
And you've got to start payingattention to that you cannot
expect to feel great if theenergy that you are literally

(46:27):
putting into your body is crap.

Lynne Bowman (46:32):
And I don't know if we can say this about
Australia, maybe we can, but inthe United States, everybody is
feeding their Labrador Retrieverso carefully. They're buying the
best food for Sparky. You know,they're they're doing they're
giving him whatever he needs forhis health. And then they're

(46:53):
eating a hotdog.

Arwen Bardsley (46:54):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure it's the same here.

Lynne Bowman (46:57):
Yeah, I don't get.
I'm glad for Sparky, that theycare and that they're feeding
him carefully, and thinkingabout his future and his energy.
But how can you not have thisdeep understanding that you
should take that care ofyourself, too. And, you know,

(47:17):
and I know a lot of peoplethere's a there's a
relationship, you feel deprived,if you can't eat what you want,
when you want to eat it. Butthat, that can change if you
make a decision. If you're ableto just make that decision, a

(47:39):
commitment. And give yourself afew weeks to adjust. Then what
you let's talk about timing yourfood too, because I'm sure
you're hearing about this,Arwen, a lot but the
intermittent fasting idea it'sold, it's not fad. It's a very

(48:01):
old way of thinking about food,really. And I like to compare
people know about Paleo, youknow, and, and how did our
ancestors eat and we should eatthe way our great, great, you
know, grandparents ate and wellthink about it. They didn't eat
three meals a day, they didn'teat all day. What did they eat,

(48:24):
they ate when they could getfood
to great extent. And they couldthey ate when grandma went out
in the woods and foraged formushrooms and herbs and so on.
And maybe you pulled somethingout of the river, the guys

(48:45):
didn't pull down a big creaturefor meat very often, you know
that that was a once in a whilekind of thing. They ate plants,
a lot of plants, and they ateplants when they had plants, and
they ate fruit in season. That'sright. Which is a tricky thing

(49:06):
now because all of these thingsare in the grocery store all the
time. You know, you can getgrapes from Chile and apricot
from Turkey and all thesethings. And so, especially if
you are inclined as I am to haveblood sugar issues, fruit, even
whole fruit can be a little bitof an issue because you're not

(49:29):
meant to have all kinds of fruitall year long. I think it does
make sense to be somewhatcareful to eat fruit that's in
season for your microbes foryour microbiome. It seems
happier when you do that.

Arwen Bardsley (49:44):
Totally agree.
Totally agree. And also gettingback to what we've said a couple
of times about the health of theplanet. You know, having your
grapes flown from you know,somewhere else in the world.
That's not helping that either.
So it is absolutely eating localstuff that's local to you is
going to help you and the planet

Lynne Bowman (50:06):
and the timing issue. And I've found in, in my
own experience, and again, kindof relating it to diabetes. And
many of you out there who arehaving blood sugar issues, we
were told to eat all the time,you know that you should eat
small meals all day. And thatwas the way to keep your blood

(50:26):
sugar. And that's wrong. It'sjust not right. What really will
control your blood sugar is toskip a meal, frequently, and a
lot of us have arrived at aplace where we eat one or two
meals a day. That's it. And, andso it's called timed eating, or

(50:50):
intermittent fasting or timerestricted eating whatever you
want to call it, it's keepingyour eating kind of confined to
six, eight hours, something likethat, and the rest of the time,
don't eat. And if it sounds alittle harsh, I promise you,

(51:11):
it's not you would be surprisedif you haven't tried this. When
you do. You can drink tea, drinkcoffee, water, but don't eat,
particularly at night, try andstop eating in the afternoon for
five, six, whatever you canmanage to make your last meal.
So for example, if your lastmeal is going to be at six, then

(51:34):
you want to kind of keep youreating from about noon, till
about six at night in thatperiod of six hours. In my case,
I tend to eat earlier in theday, that's when I'm hungry. And
so I'll eat a breakfast at nineor 10. And then I'll eat a nice
meal at one or two. And I'mdone. That's all I need. That's

(51:58):
all I want. So I go to bed on anempty stomach, and I go to
sleep. And what happens is yousleep better. If you're having
sleep issues, it's quite likelythat it's because you're having
food issues. And if you alreadyknow that you need to have a
dark room, you electronics needto be turned off and you need to

(52:19):
do some sort of sleep ritual. Ifyou're having sleep problems,
I'm willing to bet you'veprobably read some of those
things. And you might be tryingto put those things in practice.
But if you want to add this toyour practice, it's going to
it's going to improve yoursleep. If you don't have food in
your belly, when you go tosleep, it's going to help you.

(52:41):
And this is I love showing offmy new favorite word autophagy
such a great word, but we lovethat word. And it means that
your body knows how to cleanseitself, the cells within your
body have the ability toactually recycle other cells

(53:04):
dead yucky pieces of cells, theyrecycle this stuff. But in order
to do it, you need to let themhave space and rest to do it.
They have to not be busydigesting that pizza that you
ate at 11 o'clock at night. Yep,you need to let your body rest.

(53:28):
And then all the little cleaningthings that need to happen. Go
to work. And that's what keepsyour body running. Well, that's
what keeps you healthy into yourold age, is if you've had this
autophagy process working wellfor you that that it's like your

(53:49):
closets, right? You gotta cleanit out, you can't just let this
stuff build up and ignore it.
Your body has stuff in it thatneeds to be cleaned out and not
just in your, your digestivesystem in your gut, but all
through your body. Your cellsneed to be cleaned and refreshed
and they know how to do it andthey will do it if you just
leave him alone. If you juststop with pizza at 11 o'clock at

(54:11):
night, they will do it. So thiswas a fairly new concept to me
in the last couple of years andand I find that interesting and
exciting. And I want to be goodto myself and I want you to be
good to yourself. Because it iteach of these things that you
add to your practice help theymake you feel better.

Arwen Bardsley (54:36):
Yeah, they do.
Yeah. And I think for people whothat is a really brand new
concept of time restrictedeating. My suggestion would be
to just gradually wind youreating window back you know
starting with if you havebreakfast currently at eight
o'clock then can you push it outto nine o'clock or whatever it
is. But I yeah, I do. out aswell, myself and you do you

(55:00):
don't? It's not a problem youdon't it's not that you can't
fall asleep

Lynne Bowman (55:07):
It's easier than you think it is.

Arwen Bardsley (55:08):
Yeah, it is easier than you think. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. And, and you,you know, you can do all the
things you would normally dowithout eating, you know, I'll
go and do a big workout at thegym with you know, and I haven't
eaten since, you know, 730 thenight before. And you know, it's
not going to be till midnightwhen midnight, midday when I

(55:29):
eat, and that's fine. I can doit. And it doesn't affect my
performance. It's yeah, you andit's and

Lynne Bowman (55:35):
And we all are individual about this. So you
need to find what works for you.
And what you know, I'm, I'm alark, right? I'm a morning
person. And, and so that's whenI want my energy. And I, you
know, the food makes sense forme and so on. But there are
people who don't want to go tobed until midnight, one, two.
And that's different, and youhave to find what works for you.

(55:59):
But the people that I've talkedto about this, and a lot of the
people that are teaching meabout this, it's remarkable how
easy it is. It's a habit, likeso many other things, we have
been in a habit of three meals aday or four in some cases, you
know, the snack at 10. And theStarbucks at four in the

(56:21):
afternoon, with a donut andyeah, whatever. These things are
habits, they are not necessarilymust do behaviour.

Arwen Bardsley (56:31):
In fact they're bad. They're there. They're
don't do really, yeah, yeah,absolutely. So true.

Lynne Bowman (56:38):
and and when you think about how our ancestors
ate and what we're hardwiredfor, what we're hardwired for,
is to survive, not eating justfine.

Arwen Bardsley (56:50):
Yeah, that's right,

Lynne Bowman (56:51):
you know, we were not created to sit down to the
table and eat three or fourmeals a day. No.

Arwen Bardsley (57:00):
So true. So we are just about out of time,
Lynne. So a bit more about yourbook. So tell us about that
whatever you want us to knowwhere we can get it. And

Lynne Bowman (57:13):
well, and I have it right here. And, and I have
it bookmarked for things that Ikeep looking at myself. I, it's
a simple book, which is I'm nota chef, I'm a grandma. And I
think it's important for peopleto have really doable things,

(57:34):
you know, kind of go to recipesthat are forgiving, that are
made out of the things that youhave in your cupboard. And, and
in the book, I talk about how tostock your cupboards and what to
take out when we get rid of andwhat to have. Because there are
a few ingredients that when youhave them in your kitchen you
go, I'll tell you about one ofmy secret sauces is truffle

(57:56):
salt. It makes everything tasteamazing. It's so good. It sounds
a little expensive, a littlepricey, but just a few sprinkles
of this and all of a sudden youreggs or whatever you're making
your vegetables are like wow. SoI have some ideas there. But
it's all designed to be supereasy and fast for people to do

(58:21):
because I don't know most of usreally don't want to spend our
day in the kitchen, or even acouple of hours before a meal. I
mean, I'm I don't have that kindof patience. So it's made for
people who maybe don't love tocook but love to eat, that's the
idea. And, and so yes, there'spies, cakes, brownies, sweets,

(58:44):
but there's also just regularmeals that are the kinds of
things that are a good strategyto have in your fridge. So you
come in the door and instead ofgoing wrong, you will go into
the fridge and pull this out andeat this thing. One of the
things comes to my mind iscoleslaw. It's a great, great go

(59:07):
to food that works in alldifferent kinds of ways. And it
just gets better after a day ortwo in the fridge and then it's
there and you can pull it outand eat it. It's so easy. And
the recipes are designed forkids. Eight years old, or
grandpa 85 grumpy, he can do ittoo. It's simple. It's easy and

(59:28):
get it on Amazon its comes inPaperback or hardback or you can
download it but I really wantyou to have it on your sink in
hardback if you can on yourcountertop. So that you use it
cuz I didn't do this. So youwould just shove it up on the
shelf. I want you to make therecipes and eat the food. And

(59:52):
it's kind of a fun book, but Itell some stories about things
in it too. So there's that and Ihope you'll enjoy it. It's and
oh, your independent booksellerif you go and ask for it,
because, yes, we want to supportour booksellers. If you ask for
it, they can get it from theirwholesaler. Ingram Spark is the

(01:00:15):
wholesaler that everybody buys.
They're one of the bigwholesalers that everybody buys
books from. So just ask for it.
And they'll order it for you.
And they can get it.

Arwen Bardsley (01:00:24):
Yeah, totally second that, let's support our
local bookstores, where we canrather than giving Amazon more
of our money. But yeah, if you,and probably I would say
probably some of our other, youknow, we've got a local online,

(01:00:46):
and I'm sure you have otheronline book bookstores as well,
which we have here. And thenames just gone. booktopia
booktopia. Yeah, so I'm sure wecan get it through there as
well.

Lynne Bowman (01:01:00):
Yeah, so please ask for it. Wherever you want to
buy books. And you can you canlook on Amazon at the reviews
and so on and see how peoplehave received it. And I and my
website is Lynnebowman.com L-y-n- n- e, B-o-W-m-a-n.com. I love

(01:01:20):
hearing from people. I lovegetting questions from people.
And there's a little contactform on the website that you can
send me a note and I will getit. I'm happy to get it. You can
sign up there on my list if youwant to. And I send out recipes
when I come up with something Ithink oh this is amazing. I want
everybody to know, I will sendout more recipes. So you'll get

(01:01:43):
stuff not every week because alot of work but you'll get it
every once in a while and

Arwen Bardsley (01:01:50):
well I think that's better because we all get
way too many emails

Lynne Bowman (01:01:53):
we get way too much. But do send me pictures
when you make something and youthink wow, look at this came out
amazing. I love gettingpictures. Because that proves to
me that somebody out thereactually used the recipe and is
making their family and theirown health better.

Arwen Bardsley (01:02:12):
Right. And you on social media Lynne?

Lynne Bowman (01:02:15):
Yeah, it's yeah, all of them. Instagram and
Facebook and everything. And soif you go on the website, that's
the easy way to find out you canthen click through social media
and see me on all those otherplatforms YouTube channel, yes.

Arwen Bardsley (01:02:34):
Okay. All right, great. Well, I have it's been
really fun and reallyinformative. I really appreciate
your time. And thanks for comingon and hopefully you get lots of
book sales from Australia andthe other places in the world
where people are listening orwatching this interview.

Lynne Bowman (01:02:53):
Well, I hope you'll enjoy the book,
everybody.

Arwen Bardsley (01:02:57):
Thanks, Lynne.
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