Can Food Have a Healthy and Sustainable Future? | Ep. 259 - The Aging Well Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Welcome to the Aging Well Podcast, where we explore the
science, stories and strategies behind living a longer,
healthier, and more purposeful life.
In this episode, we talk with Charlie Surati, entrepreneur,
sustainability expert, and founder of Only Kale, about how
innovation is shaping the way weeat, live, and age.
With over 3 decades of experience in clean energy,

(00:28):
green building, and Wellness entrepreneurship, Charlie has
now turned his focus to food. More specifically, how powdered
super foods like kale can help make nutrition more affordable,
accessible, and practical for our busy lives.
We discuss how the rise of health focused innovation
intersects with environmental sustainability, what trends are
emerging in food and nutrition, and how entrepreneurs are

(00:51):
stepping up to solve some of themost pressing challenges of our
time. Charlie shares the story behind
only Kale and how a small nutrientrich packet might just
help you eat better and age well.
Charlie, welcome to the Aging Well podcast.
Let's just start by having you tell Lewis.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what's it mean to

(01:12):
you to age well? Jeff, thank you for for hosting
and I love this opportunity to talk about for myself at age 58,
sort of my journey and where I see people in their 70s,
eighties and going to maybe for us it's halftime, maybe 120, who
knows what's the AI, what we cando?
So the the quick back story is grew up in DC, undergrad as a

(01:33):
UVA architect and then my masters at the University of
Pennsylvania on sustainable design.
Nothing specific to do with foodand Wellness and aging, but
healthy smart buildings. And I've pivoted in the last
decade to healthy, smart bodies and sustainable design for the
human house. And the idea was coming out of

(01:53):
architecture, looking at LED lights.
And we found that for energy efficiency, they were great for
buildings, saving dollars, saving carbon emissions for the
planet. And some of the cannabis guys
would call in from California and they wanted to grow weed.
So we realized it wasn't just going to be weed, it was going
to be leafy greens, the superfoods like kale.
And I started a whole trajectoryand worked with Penn State and

(02:16):
that we got these unbelievable contracts to do very specific
nanometer adjusting lighting that was going to optimize plant
production for photosynthesis. Really cool.
This is the beginning of controlled environment
agriculture. Got invited down to Kennedy
Space Center, NASA, because I had one of the early patents for
the perpetual food machine with aquaponics.

(02:38):
And it was like Charlie pivoted from again, buildings to bodies.
And I've learned along this paththat there's a staggering
statistic with all the electric cars and the solar, of which I
have both. You know, you can only make a
dent in the climate. But if it's 15 or 16%, the
bigger jump is food production and transportation is over 24%

(03:02):
of greenhouse gas emissions. So talk about like 1/4 of it.
Well, what I learned is if you can reduce the waste in terms of
transit with all that refrigeration, something like
freeze drying, in our case, the only kale is freeze dried and
then powderized. You're taking basically 90% of
the weight out of this material and it's shelf stable so you

(03:22):
don't have to refrigerate it. So it's good for humans with all
the antioxidants and all the health benefits.
And then vitamins is also awesome for the planet.
So Charlie was off and running. There's the quick minute, minute
or two, maybe a little longer description of how we got to
today and now with the organic farming, which is outdoors as
well, pilots and things we're doing to build indoors.

(03:42):
It's about future food and 100% organic kale powder to help
people and the planet. And you mentioned 120, same as
me. What is your vision of what it
means to age well? So I love being active.
I trained for the Olympic triathlon.
So that's, you know, almost a mile in the in the water, 25 on
the bike and then a 10K run. And I'll tell you, I feel better

(04:04):
now at 58 than I have almost ever, you know, played high
school lacrosse, always sporty and active with skiing and
sailing and fishing and surfing and activities.
But like really start to push myself after age 50 to try and
turn it up a notch and found that with resistance training
and cardio all important, as well as the fuel.
Like it drives me crazy. The doctors spend so much time,

(04:28):
especially big pharma now on things that happen after there's
been a problem versus the preventive care.
And so I got sick of looking on YouTube at the the vegan and
then the carnivore pitches, you know, like, how can they both be
true, Jeff? It's just a crazy concept.
So I spent six months and took the the the National Academy of

(04:49):
Sports Medicine curriculum and got certified as a personal
trainer. Again, the pivot for Charlie
into sustainable bodies over sustainable buildings.
And what I found is that the stuff we put in our bodies
matters so much. Whole Foods, not some extreme
necessarily keto diet, but like stay out of the center of the

(05:09):
grocery store, right? Shop the perimeter.
If you have the resources, buy some grass fed meat because cows
don't typically eat corn or soy,right?
You don't see them going up to acornfield.
So it's really interesting that education and some means in
terms of dollars can help createa healthier lifestyle.

(05:30):
To your question about what it means to live well, it's the
combination of all those things.Great positive attitude for
mental health, motivated to hit some goals.
Just try and stay active, work with friends, could be
pickleball, could be playing squash, could be rock climbing,
kayaking. I just bought a new paddle
board. You know being active.
Get your ass moving is the way Ifeel.

(05:52):
Well. Yeah, I teach exercise
Physiology, exercise science andlittle secret.
It's all pretty easy. There's no big complications to
aging well. It's just doing it.
Moving, maintaining healthy bodycomposition, eating a healthy
diet, getting your sleep, not smoking, having good social
relationships and it's it. And it's just a rift on that a

(06:14):
little bit too. The whole idea of like the Blue
Zones. I don't know if you saw the
documentary on like the where the people live the the longest.
There was no magic formula like a shot of vodka or some special
type of yogurt. It was funny.
In Italy it was the men and women in their hundreds that had
the steepest hills to climb to go to church.

(06:35):
It was about being active but not like having to go to the
gym, right? The resistance training is
absolutely important as you age.There's some new studies that
actually lifting some weights, you know, is, is healthy as well
as the the cardio. But the idea of being active was
paralleled with having a cause. Maybe there was something in
their church. Maybe they were volunteering

(06:55):
some of their time. There was one clip where they
had the cowboy pulls up and the reporters there with the camera
asks the the guy on the horse who's riding up where the the
105 year old guy is for the interview.
He goes, I'm I'm the only 105 year old guy in the town.
He was the one for the interview, but he was like
active and I think whether it's a critical thinking or just

(07:18):
being involved in community, writing memoirs, anything is, is
part of that health. And then get some sleep, right?
The 8 hours, really try and lockit in.
I use the whoop, you know, whichis one of the the professional
athletes now use. It's pretty affordable to
monitor those things. So having some metrics, Jeff is

(07:38):
important, right? Feeling like you're
accomplishing and improving micro levels and we can keep
fielding. You know, I can keep fielding
questions, but like habit stacking, I want to touch on and
how you build patterns that I learned from the training with
the National National Academy. So how did only kale come to

(07:59):
life and what makes it differentfrom other super food products
that are on the market? Great question.
I super appreciate that. So what happened is I would have
and here is our stick pack, I would have powder that was from
lots of sources. So whether there are mixed green
powders and there was some collagen and there was whey
protein and organic protein and all kinds of stuff out on the

(08:21):
counter that my parents would have never had, right.
So we're one of the the first generations to have like pills
and powders, you know, and too many choices in many cases.
So I hated going and taking to the shore on the weekend or if I
run up to New York for business or DC, like for meetings like
zip lock bags of the powder versus big tubs.

(08:44):
It became like messy. So the idea of the single serve
was just fast and easy convenience.
And then we got into all the weeds of how we're going to
source, where we're going to grow, how we're going to freeze
dry versus dehydrate. And it opened the door for me to
this unbelievable year long exploration into creating the
Super food that is from Mother Earth, not pharma.

(09:05):
Like I've challenged Pfizer and J&J and everyone else GSK to
like go make something better than the highest dense density
nutrient pack, you know, on on earth made from Mother Nature.
So it was really an accidental entrepreneurial move that came
from self-interest. Rather than the self-interest of
the pharmaceutical companies that super.

(09:29):
Super affordable and just to be able to throw it in, you know,
throw it in with a, with a glassof water or lemon if you don't
mix in the powder. People even have we, we shipped
up 200 of them to New York Fashion Week.
They were making kale cocktails.Awesome.
So like we, we learned that there's places that are exciting
for this where moms with kids that are in K through 12 or

(09:51):
grade school complaining. They don't like to eat veggies.
I don't care if you put it in with the salad dressing or the
lasagna, right? The idea is we're supposed to
have three servings of vegetables every day. 90% of the
country is not getting all theirveggies.
So sure, we can have crutches, pills and and powders.
This is not going to solve everyone's problem.

(10:12):
This is a foundation that you can build on whether you take it
daily like I do or whether you build it in on days.
Keep it in your glove box, in your purse.
It's shelf stable in your backpack.
If you're a college kid. And the idea is don't miss the
days where you might only have one or two servings of veggies
without just grabbing a, you know, a stick pack if that helps

(10:33):
you. If I can do eating my junk food,
I can feel like I am I'm eating something healthy.
Well, I drink the tequila sometimes instead of having a
bunch of beer wine every every weekend, I might treat myself,
you know, with a tequila club soda and put it in and my
friends are laughing. They're like, Charlie, really.
Is this some marketing thing? I'm like, no, I'm just this is
when my my dose, my micro dose is due.

(10:53):
So it does make you feel a little better with the, with the
roller coaster of sedentary lifeand all the great shows on like
the Netflix and you know, whatever it is Paramount Plus.
Like imagine how many asses are sitting in sofas that should be
moving and they're eating chips and not something that has, you
know, all the, all the benefits for, for detox and the health

(11:16):
factors for heart and even the immune system, you know, with
kale. So what's it taste like?
So it tastes like kale. So it is literally powdered
kale. I mean, the the taste, it's like
a green, almost natural feeling like a kind of a wheat grass or
something, but it's got a littleTang to it.
And the blue curled Scotch is some of the more mild in terms

(11:37):
of when we chose like the strains.
You know, it's not something that's so extreme that you
wouldn't drink it with water. The people that put it in their
coffee or their tea, you know, aren't the ones that are the
aficionados, right? Of like try tell telling the,
the like Colombian aficionado ofcoffee to put the kale powder
in, take you take you out. But the idea was to have

(12:01):
something that from the the benefit of eyes, hair and skin
was also something for aging well.
So we can talk about aesthetics and then we can talk about the
pump and the kind of the core. So for aesthetics, eyes, hair
and skin are incredibly important to to all of us to
look and feel good, have a nice smile with teeth, all that good

(12:22):
stuff with bone strength. So now when it comes to weight
loss, it's only 5 calories. So this is, it's a weight loss
tool, not a magic pill to reduceweight.
It's just a way to consume nutrients without having the
burden of, you know, people think they get their veggies
when there's a slice of, let's call it iceberg lettuce on their

(12:45):
hamburger with a tomato that hasbeen truck ripened.
The thing is basically tan on the inside with a little red.
You know, it's like, trust me, not a lot of nutrients left.
And the iceberg lettuce is all water.
So the idea is, you know, start to build the veggies into your
lifestyle And for habit stacking, I'll wake up and drink

(13:05):
6 ounces of water I have in the morning.
I shake with the protein powder,the collagen.
I take creatine because for the training I'm working out, I
recommend that for a lot of people.
And then I throw the stick pack in.
So I built a pattern that sets my day off towards Wellness.
And then I'm not eating all the really big starchy single carb
pizzas, big hoagie rolls. You know, I'm trying to focus

(13:29):
more on the, the lean meats and the vegetables and the, and the
raw fruit, you know, not so muchlike juiced fruit.
So there's the, there's the Charlie Wellness strategy.
Keep your ass moving, get some sleep and have a mission.
In my case, it's building a kalebrand.
And it's freeze dried, so you'relike absolutely not losing any
nutrients. From when I did this study, if

(13:51):
you look at at leafy greens thatmove across the country, so much
is produced, you know in California over 90%, fifteen,
20% loss. Sometimes if you dehydrate,
which was one of our initial thoughts, you know you can lose
in that same 20 to 30% if not higher range, we're losing
closer to three. We are retaining about 97% of
nutrients. So freeze drying we did not

(14:12):
invent, we put the freeze dryingon the farms and then powder
eyes. And so you're capturing the good
stuff right there at the right there at the source.
And it seems like it's somethingyou can add almost anything.
I mean, yes, the that's why I asked about the taste, because
kale can add a little bit of bitterness, maybe just
something, but with other thingsadded to it.
You're almost I'm asking me. Throw it in with the hummus dip.

(14:33):
You know, it's just this idea ofincluding something that Mother
Nature produced that can be included.
I have friends that's sending mein like I'll take yogurt and I
buy the 5% yogurt because it's got the fat.
You know, this is part of that, that fitness.
You want some of the fats with chia seeds and frozen.
I buy the bags of the frozen blueberries because they have

(14:55):
all those great antioxidants that are nice siblings to the
antioxidants in the kale powder.And then I just scoop a few big
tablespoons of the blueberries in there and throw in up.
In this case, it's just a half stick of the kale powder because
I might have had some earlier inthe in the day, but you don't
even taste it. You know, it's in a little bit
of the raw honey sometimes too for the for the sugar boost.

(15:16):
But the the interesting thing isto keep those sugars, make
sugars like the new tobacco, keep the sugars out of the mix
and then look for veggies and look for the the way to combine
them with things you already like.
In our case with the powder soup, you don't want to put it
under extreme heat, but you knowwhat I'm saying?
You'd have to really, you have to burn it over 140°, you know,

(15:39):
to to have it lose some of the nutrients.
Yeah, I was just thinking you can add it into so many
different foods even, you know, as you mentioned sitting on the
couch something and you know, watching TV, you're eating
popcorn. I'm sure you can sprinkle it on
there. It's.
They do that. I found it for the retirement
homes. We got a great note in from one
of our our customers that said his mother at age, you know, mid

(16:02):
80s had some challenge at at thenursing home with her teeth and
the comfort of like chewing likecarrots.
OK, So she ended up he was so mad eating like, you know, it's
kind of some Mashed potato sort of porridgey stuff.
Everything was sort of just liketan and maybe some broiled

(16:22):
chicken, you know, like nothing that really had some of the, the
core, core nutrients beyond someof the proteins and said, just
throw the, throw the kale stick in with some of the mashed
potatoes. Put a little like maybe it's a
little oregano on there something so that she's getting
those nutrients. Mash up the carrots, you know,
and, and throw a little bit of the powder in.

(16:42):
So it's to me not a fix. I think of it as a spoke on the
wheel of solutions. And there's lots of great
solutions. There's electrolytes and all
kinds of things that you can addfor other ways to to stay
healthy and for the things that are important with detox and the
immune system, especially as people get older with

(17:02):
vulnerability. We saw it with COVID.
Eating more veggies was proven statistically during COVID that
people that were more on the vegetarian and vegan side of the
diet died less, got less severe cases of COVID.
So it was really interesting with the politics to see how it
unfolded, you know, with all thethe vaccines and everything, all

(17:24):
the noise. But the people that were eating
well and exercising got less sick.
Not complicated. And nobody wanted to hear that
stuff. And I was preaching that during
COVID. It's like, you know, if we
could, if everybody in the country would lose 20 lbs on
average, we would save trillionsof dollars in healthcare costs.
We would have had less COVID. Everything else, you know,

(17:45):
maintain body composition, eating healthy, exercise close
to gyms. We would have a far worst
pandemic if we were to. Spot on.
And the, the, you know, we don'thave to blame this the cell
phone, right? But like the, the, the word
smart smartphone, we may question that in a, in a handful
of decades because the sedentaryside of it is really going to be

(18:07):
a problem. We're, we're now 40% clinical
obesity in the US for adults andbreaking through 25% for
children. Scary, scary pattern and over
70% overweight for the whole US,not clinically obese, but like
catastrophic LY problematic for cost as well as Wellness.
Because pharma may keep us alivewith the lipitors and all the,

(18:30):
the statins and things, which isfine and great.
But if we can catch it and eat less of the terrible things in
the beginning politically, I don't know what's going to
happen with RFK Junior and cutting out some of the, the,
the basically the food dyes, youknow, the processed foods.
I don't think it's a terrible message at all that we need to
watch what we eat because again,the doctors are pretty busy,

(18:53):
Jeff, as you know, solving problems after they've happened.
Then the preventive side. I don't even know if they're
solving the problems. I would say they're treating the
problems they're. Even fair, fair critique.
Well, I know with the, with the habit stacking, you know, part
of the challenge for, for aging is breaking some of those
habits. And so when I see something like

(19:14):
having played a little bit of the pickleball and there's a
league, the habit of going at 2:00 PM or at 6:00 PM to join
this open where you don't have to register.
You just sign up to be on the the group and they mix it up is
an awesome habit. Because then you're going and
afterwards you're maybe getting a smoothie.
You know, that is right there inthe like the Cafe with friends.

(19:36):
So, so social connectivity in terms of positive peer pressure
is unbelievably healthy. To your point about how Charlie
would want to age, well, it's with other humans, right?
And this connectivity, sharing astory of what you tried in terms
of an exercise that made you feel better, maybe in your

(19:56):
shoulders or your core lower back, what you ate.
What you did to get better sleepbecause you turn this phone off,
you know, 90 minutes before you tried to go to bed.
So the circadian rhythm, Blair, bright blue light versus warm
yellow light wasn't blasting at your brain.
You know, like shockingly simplethings to your point can improve

(20:18):
Wellness, especially for the mental health.
And the whole, we call it purposeful social connection,
one of our six pillars of aging well, and we've added that
recently because it just keeps coming up repeatedly that that
is so important for us to be healthy, to age well and you
know, to have a good health span, not just longevity.
I know there's some real concerns with, say, falling,

(20:41):
aging. I've had a very tragic set of
events with a friend's father who hit his head and passed away
with my mother who would hike. Ready for this?
10 miles, four or five days a week, 4 hours in Rock Creek Park
down in DC Had climbed the Inca Trail in Machu Picchu, the base

(21:03):
of Denali, like an unbelievable fit woman.
Won the Marine Corps Marathon atage 60 and 65 in her age.
Crazy. My mom, right, fell in September
and hit her head. Traumatic brain injury, passed
away on the day. Unbelievable healthy woman.
So what happens with bone health?
And she had the titanium, you know, super mom, like my, my

(21:23):
superhero mother, the other friend's father who hit his head
had also been hiking. But like the number of falling
incidents from bone, you know, and sort of coordination and
lack of like, I guess it's a bathroom sometimes foot
stability, you know, it's something's wet.
It's a staggering number. Like I think bigger than than
car accidents, like a really scary big number from elder

(21:46):
people falling and getting injured to the point where then
they're immobilized, which is the terrible detriment to
Wellness or literally pass away.So with something in the kale
that can help with the bones andthe vitamin KS and those things
and the immune system, again, not a solution for everything.
They spoke on the wheel to startto build that pattern, but we're

(22:08):
seeing for the elderly group nowincreasing concern over slip and
fall, and they've heard from their friends.
And just like the story that I had, it's scary stuff because it
happens fast and you don't know when it when it can happen.
You know, it's not like a cancerthat is slowly building.
It can literally be a, an accident.
So as your group addressed some of that too, in terms of any,

(22:29):
you know, exercise or stretchingto help with balance.
Jeff. Yeah.
We work as we talk a fair amountof that.
I actually, I teach a class that's pathophysiology and
exercise and one of the guests that I had forgive his last
season, second season, but he was the fitness director at
Peconic Landing on Long Island, a continuous care retirement

(22:53):
community. And he had commented that they,
you know, they always preached what his staff started to call
Carmine's law because, you know,he kind of just presented it.
And that was just kind of something they presented it
there to their individuals that were working at their facility.
And so Carmine's Law is now an official law because I put it in

(23:14):
my exercise or pathophysiology and exercise textbook.
But it it's basically that strength plus balance, strength
plus posture equals balance. And so that emphasis on, you
know, yeah, we get it's great todo balance practices and stuff.
You know, I get people standing on Basu balls and on one foot
and doing all that. But you basically get better at
doing that. The reality of becoming less

(23:36):
susceptible to falls is going tobe if I have good strong bones
and muscles, I have a posture where my center of mass is going
to be under my base of support. So I'm not leaning or falling in
a direction of falling. You know, strong core, all those
types of things that's going to help prevent you from having
falls. Well, I know that with recovery,

(23:57):
one of the things that we we've had as one of the sort of the
top ten benefits for the, for the kale.
And it's not just our kale powder.
You know, you had asked a littlebit about the difference.
We're the fast, easy, most like affordable way to get it, you
know, on the on the go versus inventing kale, right?
The kale benefits include havingenergy and and recovery.
So it's really interesting as you get older, having been down

(24:20):
at the Jersey Shore with my son who's now 19 and last summer
doing push up challenges with lifeguards that are then 1840
year difference is like recoveryis shocking.
Those guys bounce back and they're good to go like an hour
later. Not to mention the next day I'm
on a 48 hour, you know, heel to tear the muscle to grow

(24:41):
stronger. What I have found personally
with the kale over the last yearis I do feel energized and can
go back day at one day after not2 or wait three days.
So for aging, well-being, able to repeat, rinse and repeat the
cycle of activity is pretty important, especially as I think

(25:02):
you might know the stat more than I do, but it's like 3 or 4%
of like muscle loss after age 50, you know, over every year or
two. Like it's a, it's a high number,
which means if you don't do the lifting with some resistance in
a handful of years, you might have a 10% less, you know,
strength. So you add that up to two

(25:24):
decades and you're, you're not and you're more risk of falling,
right? That would be part of the part
of the potential problem. If each my exercise Physiology
class it's 10% from 25 to 50 andfrom 50 to 80 it's in the 40%.
Or 0. Loss.
Yeah, and that's all avoidable. You know, if you're just simply
maintaining muscle mass and and lifting weights and doing those

(25:46):
types of things, you won't lose the muscle mass.
Well, I think. It's inevitable.
I was joking with a friend before that, like I did some
research with the Amish community for my master's thesis
on sustainable design. Because they don't use
traditional electricity sources.I was curious how do they how do
they live? How do they keep meat?
You know, build the houses with a shaded a deciduous tree on the

(26:06):
South side shades in the summer and then lets the warm air and
the sunlight in in the winter. Good.
So what I learned is they would they would laugh if they're
churning butter. That's like a tricep extension.
Why are you paying to go to the gym?
Like they actually are working. There's no gym in Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania. Like no gym.

(26:28):
Their kids are working. These guys are these guys are in
shape, right? And the women, too, you know,
carrying things, carrying pails,bushels, you know, what is it of
Hay, right? So I think that what happened
with modern technology, automation is we stopped doing a
lot of work, right? There are machines we'll know
with robots. Can you imagine?
I grew up without a remote control, Jeff.

(26:50):
So I have to get up, turn the dial.
There were three channels, right?
And then you got a remote control.
OK, so that changed it. By next summer, maybe there's a
robot that doesn't even make youget off the sofa to get a soda
out of the fridge. That's game over.
Like, not a good winning game. Big butts game.
It's going to be interesting to see how it how it unfolds,

(27:13):
right? I always like to point out that
movie Wally, you know, with the the robot and they, they have
these people that have been like500 years or so up in kind of
this spaceship circling the earth because they destroyed the
Earth. And when they finally realized
they can go back, you have thesemorbidly obese individuals who
for their entire lives have beensitting in these like motorized

(27:35):
chair things with computers in front of them.
And they walk off of the spaceship on earth.
And it's like, tell my students it's like that ain't going to
happen because they have not hadany weight bearing activity.
They would crumble under the sheer weight of their bodies and
you know, free become that inactive.
We're destroying our future health.

(27:57):
Let me let me jump on a couple other things like eyes, like
eyesight. So now also with aging and this
is good for anyone. I mean the kale, it's not like
it's for old people, it's for everyone.
But like the Lutean, the Z ax anthin and the vitamin A great
for eye health. OK, I love that again, spoke on
the wheel. Not going to improve your

(28:18):
eyesight. I think it's going to reduce the
potential likelihood of some themacular degenerates.
You know, whatever whatever bad things can happen if you eat
Whole Foods and exercise and do those things, maybe you slightly
reduce the chance of some terrible, you know, unfortunate
things happening again, no big guarantees.
I have to always say, you know, with the, the sort of the

(28:40):
disclaimer that we're not the the doctors that are promising
to cure cancer by any by any means, but these are not FDA as
the supplement market has from a, from a disclaimer, you know,
not FDA reviewed and approved. We are in supplements outside of
big Pharma, right? It's kind of the cousin to big

(29:01):
pharma, but because it's just from Mother Earth, I have the
luxury of not inventing some, some snake oil, right for, for
healing. The, the other one was the skin.
So there's also the, the play with the, the vitamin C And so
that's, that's nice. Also one thing to lose the
eyesight, another thing to startto feel like, you know, you're
losing some of the, the tautnessin the skin.

(29:22):
So again, living well to me is also looking pretty good and
feeling good as a, as a combination hair.
There's some, there's some science too in that, you know,
they think the vitamin A and theC can help maintain the hair.
So again, we didn't invent vitamins and we certainly didn't
invent kale, but it's interesting to see that Mother
Earth basically made something that's pretty constructive for

(29:44):
Wellness. Might as well might as well take
it not a cheeseburger at A at a fast food restaurant that's 400
cows ground up. You know, eating like food they
should have never had. With what?
Antibiotics. I'm not sure kale is strong
enough to overcome the Armstronghair jeans.
You know, anybody who actually watches this podcast knows that
I'm bald as a cue ball. That's quite that bald.

(30:06):
I'm not going to grow. That's right.
If you if we do this in a year and you have a full head of
hair, then you can send me some fries.
Yeah, I'll be investing in your company, putting every penny I
have in it. Exactly.
Like the like the Chia pet. Yeah, that's what'll happen.
I'll grow this green hair on thetop of my head.
It is it is funny for the mentalhealth.
Tell me a little bit about because I liked it this.

(30:28):
I hope it's OK if I ask some questions.
No, that's what I like about this podcast is we're
conversational. It's not just, you know, me
asking a bunch of. Maybe three things that you do
or that you would recommend doing that are not on people's
like immediate radar, like the exercise and the food stuff.
What are the three sort of Jeff tips and I'll?
Exercise, you know, that's, that's pretty much out there.

(30:52):
I would say, you know, probably 1 is really tracking and
monitoring sleep. I hadn't thought as much about
sleep. I, I am pretty good about having
a bedtime and it had for a while, You know, I go to bed
right around 9:00. I get up about four in the
morning and so I can end up working out and everything.
So I'm really focused on sleep hygiene.

(31:14):
But like you, I track my sleep parameters and everything and
trying to figure out what's helping me sleep the most,
what's not helping me sleep, youknow, to RIP a little bit more
on the medical community. I about a year ago, after
talking with a couple guests that are brain health doctors,

(31:35):
decided I need to look into my sleep and just confirm whether
or not I have sleep apnea because I do snore.
My whole family complaints aboutthat.
My wife has said I've been better.
And I know I think some of the behavioral changes have helped
with that, but I wanted to get checked.
So I sent a message to my doctorthat I was, you know, looking

(31:55):
to, you know, just be tested forsleep apnea.
This was like about a year ago. And then it was finally probably
in about October or so when I had to check up like, oh, yeah,
I noticed you had a note that you wanted to, you know, be
tested for sleep apnea. You still want to do that?
I'm like, well, duh. Yeah.
So there was like another couplemonths before I could actually
get in to have the first consultwith the sleep doctor.

(32:19):
And then it was like another month or more before I could
actually get in and get the test.
And now it's been like about a month, month and 1/2 for my
device to come in after getting,you know, diagnosed with sleep
apnea. And I have another week yet
before I get to actually go in, pick up the device, get fitted
for it and actually start using it.

(32:39):
So it's like a year to get through all this.
And, you know, my cholesterol was high and I know exactly why
it's high. It's I'm not sleeping enough.
I haven't been exercising as much as I typically do.
And I haven't been able to really lose weight no matter how
much I diet. And so I know my cortisol levels
are up. And so I'm wondering, you know,

(33:00):
let's look at things like, you know, where is my testosterone?
Where is my cortisol? Where's my sleep at?
And immediately the doctor wantsme to go on the statins and I'm
like, hell no, I am not doing statins.
There's too much negative stuff that could happen from from
taking the statins. And I know lifestyle can fix all
this. So let's look at the lifestyle
stuff 1st. And he's like, well, at least

(33:22):
let's have a, you know, calcium CCT scan.
OK, I'll do that. So I came back, I have like I
scored a 20, which is, yeah, youwant to be a 0, but I'm at a 20,
which for 62 year old is perfectly normal.
You know, they expect that. And he consulted with a

(33:42):
cardiologist that did not even meet with me or anything.
And his cardiologist like, you know, he's, he's got what is it?
Was it familial? I think that's what they call
familial hyperlipidemia, you know, basically, you know, the
genetic and he immediately prescribes aggressive dosage of

(34:05):
Lipitor and, you know, some other drug.
I'm like, he hasn't even met with me.
He doesn't know anything about me.
He's making these predictions. So for me, sleep is kind of that
priority thing. And so sleep would be one thing,
limiting alcohol has been another.
I've just pretty much almost completely cut out alcohol.
And I've I've referenced puttingthe kale powder in with the the

(34:26):
tequila club soda. I've cut way back.
It's really interesting just to have after a workout a treat.
Like I've told people, when you do behavioral change, don't take
something away entirely that gives you like some joy with
friends at that social level, especially like a cocktail or
two. But don't go out.
Don't make it a night to go out drinking.
Make it part of like a glass of wine with dinner.

(34:48):
Different, different concepts. Entirely different.
And, you know, so I'm looking atit that way.
You know, I'm not just habitually consuming any
alcohol. We'll do it on occasion.
Never. Well, I've never for years.
I need a drink. You know, it's always just,
yeah, you know, it's, it's kind of an opportunity.
Let's sit down and have a drink.So that's been probably #2 and

(35:10):
#3 is #3 that would be a little bit out of the the ordinary.
I mean, talk about the exercise.Anything you eat that's sort of
a surprise that people might think of is not so typical.
I have a pretty regimented, pretty typical diet.
Here's one would be we started adding flaxseed powder, ground

(35:32):
flaxseed in our coffee in the morning.
So when I brew the coffee, I put, you know, a scoop of
flaxseed in there to get a little bit extra Omega threes.
And then I'm also adding turmeric to my coffee.
Very well, I take the turmeric, just the pill.
But yeah, that's that's a great way to combine it.
It's messy, but you know that you know, so little bit of the
flaxseed in the in the coffee, coconut oil and then the

(35:57):
turmeric makes a pretty nice coffee.
It's messy. You know, it's you got to be
careful not getting on your fingers and then touch anything
really seems to be helping with kind of any kind of chronic low
level inflammation that my body has.
I got that's my 3:00. I could probably go on.
I've got a couple that I've justkept sort of in my back pocket
over the past past few years, which is the it's the LOT the

(36:20):
lot strategy, which is about learning something.
So this isn't smell much a specific thing, but like going
to an Arboretum, finding excuse to bring a friend and learning
something about like the native plants doesn't feel like that's
going to be changing your, you know, heart, you know, level in
terms of blood pressure. Anything but the idea of being
proactive in any given week, month or season to learn

(36:43):
something new. I think for Wellness and aging,
he's like mad crazy important. And I saw this with my mother,
who was a teacher that would travel around the world and come
back with unbelievable stories, like a things that she learned
about how people would make textiles or do things.
And it was just shocking to me that it wasn't National
Geographic where we think we've learned about another country,

(37:04):
smell it, hear it, taste it. So the learn is the first in the
LOT, then the optimize is like small things like instead of
just the least expensive olive oil, you know, I think Brian
Johnson has some line. There's some high polyphenol
extra virgin olive oil. So optimizing that a handful of

(37:26):
things, buying some of the specialty grass fed beef, not
just defaulting the lowest cost per, you know, pound is the
middle. Like don't do it for everything
because you can't. You know, obviously paper towels
at Costco are great. You know, I don't need to buy
optimize like whatever it is. But the idea of finding those
handful of things that are special and then the last one

(37:47):
that the T is teaching it. So the act of learning, then
implementing through optimizing some things and then teaching
it. And it could be, I have interns
for years, over 110 on the staffof some different companies that
are high school and college kids.
The joy of sharing information, I think also keeps you young.
And the questions and the response and the feedback is so

(38:09):
uplifting for aging that you feel not like the sensei in the
village, you know, like the townelder, but in the trenches with
them. To then do some research and
teaching is another form of learning.
So this idea for me of aging andWellness starts with the human
shell, the body and the things we put in it, the food,
exercise, sleep, all those things.

(38:30):
But the mental health and the true Wellness comes from that
learning, some of the optimizingand the teaching to go forward
and share a life with the peopleyou care about in your family
and the friends and relationships.
Yeah, before I started this podcast, I kind of wrote a lot
on, well, kind of my perspectiveon Wellness, which I call well

(38:51):
centered fitness. And I was referred to, you know,
the kind of the five kind of pillar areas you have spiritual,
physical, intellectual, emotional and social.
And good friend of mine from high school, Jay pointed out to
me he's like, D, are you intentional in how you order
that? And I was like, well, you know,
I kind of put spiritual first because I think it's a priority,

(39:12):
but I haven't really been intentional anything because
he's like, because it's spell spies.
And so now it's like we keep referring to spies.
And of course, every time I bring it up, I got to give
credit to Jay and he's one of our probably biggest fans of the
podcast. And I think he's going to start
wanting, you know, some royalties for using.
Spies you touched on it with thespirituality because in that the

(39:34):
Blue Zone documentary, having faith in something and a sense
of that purpose and and being a member of the community can be
face based. So we just had recently Easter.
I don't think it's any surprise that Easter is in the spring
with the resurrection when we see plants from mother Earth in
effect coming back to life, right.

(39:56):
So like whatever people's formalor structured religion is,
having faith in some higher power that we're part of
something bigger is, I think, sofundamental to Wellness too,
that we're not alone. And just sort of isolated part
of something bigger is I think part of part of that solution.
As well, what were some of the challenges and opportunities you

(40:17):
encountered in bringing only kale to the market?
Love that you circle back to it.Thank you.
One of the biggest challenges iscreating demand for something
that people aren't immediately seeking.
I reference at Costco the role of paper towels.
People need that all the all thetime.
So you have the double burden ofeducating about advantages of
kale to those who don't know or have heard that it's kind of in

(40:41):
the category of some super food,but maybe had a negative
experience when they tasted it because it either wasn't like
sauteed put with olive oil incorporated into a salad with
some others, right? Like anything in life, if you
eat something in isolation, it'snot always great unless it you
love chocolate, whatever it happens.
So the kale has had that sort oflike burden of being deemed the

(41:05):
healthy food that didn't taste great for everyone.
I've gotten accustomed to it where I actually grow 60 heads
of kale in my residence. So I have both the powder and
the and the fresh. But the hurdle then became
single serve stick packs as the tail of powdered.
So it's like, first there's the category of kale, convince

(41:26):
people it's a good idea to at least include it in their diet.
Then there's the category of freeze dried powdered kale,
which is you can have in tubs and scoops, which we are
launching. And then there's the stick pack
for the convenience. So it's like we set out on a
tough journey and fortunately there's some Trail Blazers with
the electrolytes. You know, there's like a liquid
IV. So people now see in the in the

(41:47):
stick packs, right that this shape form form factor is not so
new or strange to people. They understand that this can go
in whether it's a camping supplystore or a convenience store, a
grocery store, health food store, doesn't matter.
They know that's something you mix in with with typically
liquid. So the biggest hurdle was
getting that done. The crazy complexity with the

(42:09):
USDA and the organic and certifications.
Happy to follow all the rules, but they're real.
You know, to get that was a big coup for us.
Then the friction with the Amazons, the online portals,
just the like little minutiae ofthings that you totally take for
granted. And with packaging, you know, we
have this stick pack box of 15 and the, the tear away the

(42:33):
little, the density of the perforation, you know, so how it
could be displayed, the little folding tabs, you know, so that
it can be at a point of purchaselike things is it when they're
done, right? I think, Jeff, people take
totally for granted, right? And then you see when it goes on
the shelf, the pride, it's like having the baby photos.
You know, you get, you get excited and the response from

(42:55):
the people and the testimonials when they're traveling.
We had our first run went overseas to Madeira Island off
the coast of Portugal. So one of the friends that had
it sent back the photos, you know, and she was great to be
able to have it for the for the Internet.
So starting to build messaging into how it can be included in

(43:15):
people's lives. And the reference I gave you to
the fashion show, New York Fashion Week with, you know,
having the models, 200 of the stick packs with cocktails,
total surprise for us, but fun. So the answer is difficulty.
Nothing we can't overcome and haven't overcome but exciting
journey for sure. Yeah, imagine there's a little
bit of challenge trying to overcome, you know, these

(43:37):
generations of Americans that, like you said, it's iceberg
lettuce is a vegetable to them. And you know, it's many, many
steps to get from iceberg lettuce to kale, just in its
natural form, let alone in a powder form.
Well, I'll be curious to see andif we can pull it off with the,
with the US veterans, we're going to try and do some
controlled environment agriculture closer to cities.

(44:00):
The idea is bringing food closerto where people eat.
So instead of that farm to tabledistance being across a
continent and there's so many empty buildings now from COVID
where people working from home. So the, the big vision for us,
the audacious vision is to have in hundreds of U.S. cities and
small towns locally grown kale that is either on farms,

(44:20):
rooftops, greenhouse or actuallyindoors year rounds.
And then the freeze drying rightthere on the spot as well as
just just leaf kale. Only kale does not say only
powdered kale, right? But it's the idea of the, the
value of the, the kale as we as we roll out.
And I think that's going to be achallenge in the next century,
honestly, for for US and World Food supply chains.

(44:43):
How do we bring food closer to where people eat because it's
fresher, has more nutrients and reduces the carbon cost of, to
the environment of, of moving itand the physical and time cost
and the freaking dollar dollar cost.
So I'm shocked that we got so centralized so fast and the
family farmers have all been bought out by, you know, these
big corpse to such a high degree.

(45:05):
I'd love to see cities and townsas more dynamic agriculture hubs
where you can stack and rack forindoor farming and have
something you know, as simple askale and romaine lettuce and you
know, baby spinach all grown right with within a mile or two
of where people sleep and eat. Not 2000 months.
Well, that's another amazing thing about how bad this country

(45:26):
has gotten with food is that theaccessibility to any kind of
healthy behavior has gotten really, really bad.
And you look at people, I heard a story a number of years ago
where I think it's Fresno, CA grows the most amount of produce
any place in the country. And yet the people that are
growing that food have no accessto it because it gets loaded up

(45:48):
on trucks, goes out to groceries, and when they go
home, they don't have access to grocery stores nearby.
It's. Like a food.
It doesn't even get to the farm.It's not like North Philadelphia
that has a food desert or parts of Atlanta and Detroit.
This is a food desert next to the farm.
Right. Ultimate hypocrisy, right?
Yeah, it's insane. And and I think that's one of
the big steps that we have to take in this country is to get

(46:12):
to where, you know, I, I always promote, you know, it's not
about universal health care, it's about universal health.
We have a right to be healthy and to get to that health, we
have to have access to exercise,to physical activity, to healthy
food and all those types of things.
And that's where I hope you know, something like RFK is
going to be taking this country is where.

(46:34):
The other thing that comes with it is the stigma of farming as
being blue collar. We are also trying to pivot,
having done so much of the indoor agriculture into what
we're calling agritech or agriculture technology.
So you would be studying and we're going to hopefully have
the launch for one of the programs, which would be either
with the veterans or members of the underserved community to

(46:55):
start to teach techniques for Agri technology in the
controlled environment. That brings the local community
the fresh food. And what's nice with even moving
anything from indoor farming or outdoor farming is if you have
to go through the burden of a plastic clamshell in a cardboard
box and a tray and a pallet and a truck to a distribution center

(47:16):
and a grocery store, it's touched 5 or 6 times.
That's where the cost goes way up.
If you took the local and you cut out some of that need for
all of the refrigeration and thehand holding along the way and
had people from communities cometo farm, right, like literally
not to farm themselves, but to the farm, you could have a
really dramatic delta and the cost and the cost coming down,

(47:40):
nutrients going up. Family members have had
community gardens in Washington,DC and you know, in other cities
where they they would have a plot and you get the fresh
veggies. I had one with our kids and we
had so many cucumbers and cherrytomatoes that their first job
was not a lemonade stands. This is in the suburbs of Philly
was a produce stands. Have a photo.

(48:01):
Kids are like, yeah, I'm a six foot six son and a six foot
daughter that are 19 and 15. They were then like maybe 8 and
four years old. But the fun and neighbors come
by and give them a dollar for 10cherry tomatoes.
Imagine that. We went back to that Victory
Garden approach from the Second World War, where so much produce
was leaving for the soldiers. I don't know who was.
It said we ought to start growing some veggies.

(48:23):
But it wasn't rocket science. There's less food making local
farming at home, windowsill farming, the vertical gardens,
the local building that was leftto ruin because someone left it
and there's no tenant, you know,and the city's not getting the
tax dollars. Is Charlie now his architect.
You see, I'm pulling you. You started me on a roll, which

(48:43):
is self-sustaining communities that are healthy is a whole
different animal than an unhealthy US with unsustainable,
you know, buildings and food supply.
So that's a separate podcast discussion there.
So here's a question for you anddon't take it as me being
negative because I I kind of know what hell I would answer

(49:05):
the question. But how do you respond to those
who might say this is ultra processed?
I believe processed foods are bad for us.
It's a great, great point because ultra processed and
processed is, is an interesting distinction right When you have
the the tube of potato chips, I'm not going to throw out the
brand where it looks kind of like a saddle and they've taken

(49:26):
out the fiber and they've added the salt.
So now ultra processed, high processed is the fiber tells
your brain to stop eating the chips.
So I've taken that out and the salt tells your brain to eat
more. OK, Thank you, guys.
You know, you're gonna eat the whole tube, which people do.
So then there's a whole categoryof just sort of process where

(49:47):
something has gone through a step to get from what is grown
to to where it is. So right.
Like pesto sauce, right. Yeah.
Like so I grow here basil in my residence and like we'll add
olive oil and make little pesto.OK, It's technically been
processed because it's not just the raw.
I don't think that processed in our case, freeze drying falls

(50:11):
into any negative category because it happens to have AP
word right? Instead of ultra high processed,
it's processed. Freeze drying in the vacuum is
really taking the source and just converting it into a
different form. So my case would be you're not
adding things, you're not transforming it into something

(50:33):
else. You're almost reductive, right?
You're you're taking basically moisture out.
So I have a a pretty good case that it doesn't fall into the
bad, the P word category. Fair, Fair enough, Jeff that
it's, it's freeze drying. We didn't invent freeze drying
either, right. We're we're the ones that just
want to make it easy and fast and affordable for.
People, I think, you know, we, we have to be careful in how we

(50:56):
use those terms processed and ultra processed because there's
a lot of really healthy stuff that is ultra processed.
I mean I I drink whey protein every day that's ultra
processed. And I do too.
I mean I have it in the creatine.
I guess they process it from something.
And we did a whole episode on, you know, how ultra process
isn't as bad as people think andit's just rethinking it.

(51:17):
What are the benefits that I'm getting from this in are there
negative health implications fortaking this?
And I don't know anyone it wouldbe able to make a viable
argument to say that kale in a powdered form, if nothing else
added to it, is detrimental to your body.
I have seen no science that would ever even come close to

(51:38):
any negatives. Now, if you ate so much raw kale
or so much of any vegetable in one single afternoon, you might
get an upset stomach, right? It's like, So of course,
anything in moderation. And we have, by the way, the 5
grams is the equivalent to a cupof the leaf kale.
So this is sized to be a serving.

(52:00):
So you don't need to take more than one because you don't want,
you wouldn't need 3 servings of kale in a day, right?
You'd have one, and then you'd have some other things that are
called. That some variety in there,
yeah. But what what's so interesting
to your point is that instead ofan extreme category, ultra
processed bad, you know, all those things.
To your point, it's like when the pendulum swings politically.

(52:20):
There are some crazy things thatboth sides have done on the
extremes that I don't I think most Americans agree with.
In the middle there are nuanced areas where we can all agree.
And like your point, there's some process where human brain
power took something from natureand made it either easier or
better for us to use. Great.

(52:42):
That's not the case for all of them.
The big category in the center of those grocery stores is a lot
of things with what is it, high fructose corn syrup.
I mean, like the ability, don't start me, right?
We subsidized corn in the UnitedStates, so now we're putting the
syrup in. OK, separate discussion.
Tell your your members right notto eat as much high fructose
corn syrup because that can't becan't be good in volume for the

(53:05):
for the like lifelong and Wellness aging for sure.
Yeah, there we can go down a whole long list of the different
things that we should not be eating and why we should not be
eating those things and how the food industry is basically, you
know, they're they're like crackdealers.
They, they want to feed you foodthat is going to get you
addicted to it. I always tell my students, it's

(53:25):
like Frito Lays. At least they're honest to us.
You know when they advertise youwon't be able to eat just one,
right? They're literally telling you
that our food is addictive and you won't be able to stop eating
it. And of course you're going to
get obese eating it. They don't tell you that you're
going to get a beast doing it, but they're just going to tell
you it's so good that you're notgoing to want to stop eating it.
The the one thing that I think Iwould also just reinforce in

(53:49):
this conversation today is the idea of doing something new on
that sort of learn side and finding, in our case with the
kale, how to include it, share it with friends, do some things
is healthy for the body and the and the brain, right?
And it's not just like how you look.
It's this idea of being mentallyactive and being curious.

(54:10):
I think that that's something that is hard.
It's hard to define and it's hard to to teach, right?
Because being curious falls intothat also category of like grit,
you know, not giving up on stuff.
So I like the idea for the agingand the longevity and Wellness
of being a curious, gritty guy who's staying pretty healthy and

(54:31):
pretty active. And so that's why the learning
and the experimenting and tryingthings that maybe taste terrible
to go. And I've had great fortune to
travel all over the world and work in Tokyo and Eastern Europe
and Central America, trying somethings that at first were not
great at the palate, but then found with combinations of
things. It was that again, that learning

(54:51):
and being curious and and understanding that not
everything comes in the the fastfood comfort of like the same
thing that you would expect to get on the menu.
But going and ordering things where I'll ask in restaurants
traveling, you know, what are some of your favorites?
Or, you know, to the to the server or to the, the, you know,

(55:12):
the, the manager, that's the maitre-d'.
They're like something or the little woman in the soup shop in
Tokyo and Shinjuku. What's the most popular noodle
dish? Right.
To just try it and it's fun. It's fun.
I think as we age to build thosestories too, right?
That it's part of the the dynamic.
So what advice do you have for older adults or busy

(55:32):
professionals? And really we start, we talk on
this podcast that, you know, aging well begins at conception.
So even the most youngest peoplewho want to eat healthier and
maybe the youngest people don't want to eat healthier, but they
need to. How can they eat healthier
without over complicating their routines?
So I love the idea of the simplerecipes.

(55:55):
It could be the fish that if youcan get it wild caught, great,
or a quality piece of meat with the olive oil and a Himalayan
sea salt. Just trying to reduce complexity
where instead of thinking lots of sauces and lots of courses
and things, it's like a nice protein source.
I happen to have the veggies with the growing on the window

(56:18):
sill and the and the towers right at right at home getting
some veggies. So it's more like staying
hydrated and like not getting caught into like too many
choices of like which exotic water, you know, have like the
brittle, like the water filter. But then I'll have like lemon,
you know, a squeeze or sometimeseven just the lemon concentrate

(56:39):
because the lemons are supposed to be good.
So it's almost like I envisionedmyself not on an island, but if
you had to live without the ability to go choose everything
at the grocery store. I've shrunk down the choices to
some, you know, wild. What are they?
Cut wild caught fish, you know, free range chicken and some

(57:01):
grass fed beef and then a bunch of veggies that are the leafy
greens, including the actual kale in the case of my case, the
powder and cut out. Really a lot of the the desserts
and the breads, you know, just of those simple processed right
food, bread is technically processed right is simple carbs.
So going for more of the complexcarbs with the vegetables, sweet

(57:24):
potatoes instead of just the regular potatoes.
You know, little things like that is in that Charlie
optimization side and go througholive oil.
Some of the notes are telling meon the, on the, the research,
you know, 3 tablespoons a day, almost a tablespoon with each
meal because of the polyphenols.So cooking with olive oil,
basically those three types of proteins.

(57:47):
And then when I chop things up, I might put them in a big bowl
and the, the greens are underneath it and they sort of
warm up with the protein, you know, So I'm not actually
cooking the raw veggies, but I'malso not just eating them
entirely raw. They're in the sort of the the
saute kind of at least heated. So there's the Charlie kind of
the power bowl food strategy anddon't eat dessert for breakfast.

(58:12):
So check this out. Belgian waffles were invented in
Belgium as dessert. America is one of the few
countries that eats dessert. Waffles, pancakes, the cereal
when I lived in Tokyo eggs. You know, there'd be like fish
veggies in bowls. Like the the distinction between
breakfast, lunch and dinner wereactually very small here.

(58:34):
It's like big fatty breakfast with sugar, a sandwich for lunch
with a whole bunch of bread and then a dinner in front of like
like ATV show without exercise afterwards and and some cake.
It's like it's like terrible. So that's my tip, which is find
the reduced sort of inventory and spend the money on the

(58:56):
quality of the things you put infor proteins and and veggies and
then fresh fruit is the other big one and that's the mix.
Does that answer your? Perfect.
Yeah. So you've worked extensively
with or in ESG, which is environmental, social,
government governance. The ESG.
Space. How does only KL align with
these principles? So thank you for asking the, the

(59:19):
reference I'd made earlier with the, with the good for planet as
well as good for people is if it's 110th of the weight and it
does not need to be refrigeratedfor multiple years when you move
it, it's literally that same fractional cost.
So imagine that the kale coming to the Whole Foods, the gourmet,
you know, Fresh Market from California looks beautiful.

(59:42):
It has been kept at close to 38°for almost four or five days.
And so it is then spritzed. So it's nice and crisp looking
and wet and it is basically beenkilled a week ago and it started
to die. So it's so interesting is
because of that refrigeration need, you have that massive
impact on the environment. So it's it's interesting having

(01:00:03):
built a house here with solar, solar house at the shore.
Electric cars plug into both. Like those are very visual
things that people see as quote,helping the environment.
Like maybe we feel good about recycling the bottle.
It's a billion bottles a minute now, by the way, it's a
staggering 9 billion number. We should use basically, you
know, reusable containers when Igo to the gym, right, It's the

(01:00:27):
shaker that you wash out that are aluminum, right?
Or plastics, something that lasts longer than single use.
So the long and short is this happens to be with the powder.
One of the most eco friendly ways to consume vegetables
because we also have full recycling on all the, you know,
the packaging. So that's part of the the ESG

(01:00:48):
model, our full production in San Diego, all solar.
So the the actual packaging is net zero off the the grid for
the energy consumption there too.
Yeah, and I would avoid the plastic bottles as well.
And the single use, it's staggering.
I mean, and we're eating the fish that have been eating the
micro plastic. It's, you know, I told the kids

(01:01:08):
you don't throw anything actually ever away.
It just goes somewhere else, right?
It's coming back. We are eating the waste from
those single use bottles in the fish that we have caught in the
ocean so bad. And one of my recent interviews
was with the doctor Jolene Gershon, and he throughout the
statistic that we on average eat, I think it's like one

(01:01:32):
credit card of plastic a month or.
So bad. I mean, it's like it's a
ridiculous amount of plastics and that stuff, you know, kills
our testosterone levels or hormonal levels, who knows what
it's doing in regards to dementia and, you know, all
forms of, you know, Alzheimer's and whatnot.
And it's like we can do so much better.
With the environment and the social and the government's, I

(01:01:53):
can tell you for sure that we have to be careful with Mother
Earth and resources. So instead of the green movement
from Earth Day, being a liberal 'cause I'm a very sort of
moderate independent voting, youknow, progressive with the
environment 100%, but you know, like to see the businesses can
thrive. So I have no political favorite.

(01:02:14):
I'm shocked that the green movement got so lumped in with
liberal cause and such pushback from the conservative right
because we invented solar panels.
Now they're made in China. Like owning the save the humans
and the clean technology economyversus save the planet.
I think it was actually mismarketed from the very first

(01:02:35):
Earth Day planet. If you've ever seen an empty
parking lot in the city for overa summer that doesn't, you know,
it's repair or something. Chest high weeds, Jeff grow out
of this that the asphalt. I don't even know how they get
the seeds. Right, right.
Humans have been here for what since the Second World War?
And there's half the fish in theocean.
Can you imagine with the AI whenthey figure out how to

(01:02:56):
communicate with dolphins? The the big computer will
eventually by maybe next summer,sync up the the, the the
dolphins You'd be like, will youplease stop putting your trash
in our house since they've been 200 million years.
Dolphins predate the dinosaurs, right?
And we're 100 years since the Second World War with with all
this waste. OK, I'm not a naysayer on like

(01:03:20):
humans on Earth. I just think we ought to be
conscious that we are residents of a bigger ecosystem.
And my faith goes to the powers that helped create this
unbelievable sophisticated system that we should respect.
Take care. Of I use as an exercise in my
pathophysiology and exercise class.
I make the students read the 1968 article by Garrett Harden,

(01:03:41):
The Tragedy of the Commons. And we apply it to your
healthcare. But you know, for me, it was
such an influential assignment that I did my undergrad just
kind of looking at any kind of resource that we have that's
limited, we have to consider howhow are we impacting with that
so-called Commons. And yeah, we're just like

(01:04:03):
dumping more and more trash in our Commons and it's it's
unsustainable. I think the the good news, and
I'm the optimist for humankind is that we have pendulums that
swing and you hope that they swing back.
We, we realize that that things are going too, too far.
I know for our place down at theJersey Shore, we have furniture

(01:04:23):
that is made from the plastic that is, it's a combination of
trash bags, bottles, sawdust, you know, it's composite
material that is good for like decades, if not longer.
So the idea of reuse is really, really interesting to me.
Not that you would turn plastic soda bottle into another one
because I just hate those. But the idea of repurposing old

(01:04:47):
buildings, finding the ways to use materials in new ways was
back to my sustainability thesis.
It wasn't just perception of like solar power, because we
have, I think in the US, 4 1/2% of the world population and use
about 25% of the energy. So we are obese on consumption

(01:05:07):
with food and fuel right now. If you took that to the level
where everyone used as much power as us, you just you run
out of electrons and wood and food.
Making more power to me was lessinteresting than having natural
ventilation, which we did and made sure at the beach house we
can have temperature control with shade and overhangs.

(01:05:29):
Like I mentioned, the deciduous tree on the South side that
shades your house in the summer but lets the sunlight in in the
winter when the angle of the sunis lower.
Northern hemisphere, because thetilt, 23° tilt.
All those passive things are about living well on Earth, not
just in aging, but as members ofa larger community of plants and

(01:05:53):
animals, not just us, cooking, cooking around.
And I think that's an important thing to under score with this,
the Aging Well podcast, is that we're not just talking about us
as an individual being able to live longer and healthier.
It's the sustainability of really the entire universe.
So kind of on that line, how do you envision the future of food,

(01:06:14):
particularly in terms of health,sustainability and
accessibility? So I believe there needs to be
decentralization. So we talked a little bit about
it, but localized farming, it could be rooftop, it could be
greenhouse, it could be infill where there are townhomes and
one was, you know, left vacant or something.
And there's a lot, we're seeing some of that with urban farming.

(01:06:37):
So you bring it local, then you have a conversion of some
commercial properties as people are working more from home.
That's not going to turn around 100%.
People have gotten used to this now.
So there are plenty of buildings.
Imagine racketing and stacking four or five rows high.
So local farm production in someform, Indoor with the LEDs,
outdoor, outdoor or outdoor greenhouse, All three.

(01:07:00):
Then you cut a giant piece out of the equation for the
transportation burden with the refrigeration.
So that's great for the future of food.
The next one is going to be the big play for supplements where
it's our category that is some freeze drying that is all kinds
of processed ways like you mentioned with the whey protein

(01:07:22):
where you're taking animal and plant material and you're
turning it into something that can be powder eyes and shipped.
Like almost think Mars. You can't take a cow on the
ship. You need the protein.
You can't take the kale unless you take the kale seeds with the
lights. OK, Point is, we will move
towards some Jetsons level food,you know, which is coming in

(01:07:43):
sort of like parts. We will also move towards the
impossible meats. The third piece on the future of
food is the synthetics where we've taken some form of a
vegetable protein source and we made something that maybe is
flavored like something we feel comfortable with, like a
hamburger. Those guys are doing

(01:08:03):
gangbusters. That will be those guys meaning
the category. And the final piece is the the
craziest one, which is the genetic thing where you're
growing. They've grown people's like ears
and pig ears and stuff in dishesand and actually synthetically
creating at a cellular level themolecular science of the future
of food, which I think is a little scary and maybe overkill,

(01:08:25):
not quite necessary. Now if we can bring #1 Charlie's
vision would be food closer to where we eat.
Makes things a lot easier. I think they should have.
For chickens, we saw the cost ofeggs, homestead laws where in
the suburbs you can keep a little chicken coop and get some
eggs. Like we created zoning codes
that actually took away the rights that Americans had since

(01:08:48):
the founding of the country, right?
No one would ever imagine in America the frontier spirit.
You'd go in your wagon with yourfamily heading West and not be
able to like raise chickens. You know what I'm saying?
So like that idea of self-reliance in home in
community, in region different than in California to buy
veggies powders and support thatcan happen at the Charlie and

(01:09:11):
corporate only kale level and others and then the future of
like hybrids veggie, the veggie burger type things on its way to
some synthetics. So does that answer the?
Yeah, perfectly. I mean, I'm going to ask you the
questions. We start to wrap up here.
This is a question and ask everybody and you've kind of
alluded to some of it already, but we'll bring it all together.

(01:09:32):
In summary, what are you doing personally to age well?
And are there any habits, routines that you've adopted
that help you stay energized andmore well centered?
OK, so the the biggest one for the personal side is the is the
rhythm at the gym is setting a benchmark of every other, you
know, day. So I'm in there, I'm working,

(01:09:53):
you know, upper body, I'm working lower body, I'm getting
the cardio. I'm doing this training for the
the Olympic triathlon. That's a real commitment.
I don't make it like hope I havetime that is building do
schedule. That's number one.
The second is the balance we talked about with the Whole
Foods, which is the quality grass fed beef, wild caught fish

(01:10:13):
and the free range chicken. Fresh vegetables, including some
of the sweet potatoes and the stuff that I grow here along
with the the fresh and the raw fruit.
Plenty of water, at least a couple if not 3 tablespoons of
olive oil cooked in with the with the food and then 8 hours
of sleep. Did not invent this.
This is not some need to write abook about it.
Fundamental people generally nodthat those feel like good good

(01:10:35):
ideas. So exercise, sleep quality food,
OK in terms of habits, 6 ounces of water when I wake up, having
the shake that includes, you know, the, the, the creatine
with the protein and the powder simple.
And then walking at end of day separate from gym, being with
friends and finding time to do activities that are not gym

(01:11:00):
stuff. Biking, hiking, walking,
running, paddle boarding, fishing, swimming, outside
action, soaking it up, enjoying it.
So where can our listeners and viewers learn more about Only
Kale and how can they try it? Soonlykale.com and there are
plenty of options there to buy atest a box that has just 15 and

(01:11:22):
they're, you know, less than a dollar a day.
Now if you want to roll in and get some in your, in your system
to try it out. And then we have a 2 pack and
then there's a six pack, which is almost like 90 days.
And there's a cost break that comes down because it cost us
less to ship. We're paying for the the
shipping. So the idea is to build some

(01:11:44):
loyal followers that see the value.
And then we can also have with some, you know, apparel and
messaging, you know, a way for people to feel good submitting
if they like on the social media, some story of a recipe
and being part of a community. We have a rewards program with
an affiliate structure to be able to say thank you for people

(01:12:06):
that participate and refer to a friend, They friend gets a
discount at 10%, They get a Commission.
You know, it's we didn't invent the idea of creating a family
of, of benefits. So we're, we're hoping to create
a little bit of a movement that the kale got a good buzz early,
you know, years ago and that kind of plateaued out and we're
going to give it a surge. So what's 1 simple change

(01:12:29):
listeners and viewers can make today to eat better and age
well? And I know one of them's going
to be purchase only kale. So yeah, it's less, it's less
about just specifically our, ourproduct, but it's like getting
the water and getting something that is a supplement that maybe
you hadn't considered that feelslike it's, is it a turmeric?

(01:12:50):
Is it an ashwagandha? Is it something, is it maybe the
creatine if you're starting to get more active in the in the
gym or something? But finding something to add
that you wouldn't have thought of when you were growing up or
even a decade or two ago opens up this whole discussion of
like, wow, you probably not going to stop at just one pill
and you know, ginkgo and whatever else.
You know, I have a few things, but the idea there is to is to

(01:13:14):
pick one thing and start to in that habit stacking, build it
into your, your daily ritual andstart to look for those things.
And in my message about learningand optimizing and then teaching
and tell some friends, you will be shocked in the conversation.
It could be at the gym at the end, sitting in the sauna or the
steam room. It's like the dialogues are so
dynamic. So I would also say the other

(01:13:36):
thing you can do is start to build in a day a question that
you might search online or ask afriend about Wellness.
And so over multiple years of aging you, you start a
commitment to continuous learning.
That's a real push for me is that you don't sit and expect it
to just be the fix that you are dynamic and how you learn.

(01:13:57):
So asking a question about fitness daily friends are on the
Internet and taking one thing maybe to start with water would
be a way to way to build a pattern for health.
Great way to end this podcast. So is there anything we missed
today? We covered a lot and again,
thank you. It's fun to be able to show off
what the baby the baby we've built and appreciate the the
time and all the great work you guys have done, you know, for

(01:14:19):
this for this podcast for sure. We're trying to to get people
aging well. Well, just keep doing what
you're doing. Keep trying to push that
sustainability, healthy eating, healthy living, and just keep
aging well. Thank you, Jeff.
Really appreciate the time today.
You're welcome. Thank you for listening.
Hope you benefited from today's podcast.

(01:14:40):
And until next time, keep aging well.

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Can Food Have a Healthy and Sustainable Future? | Ep. 259

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Can Food Have a Healthy and Sustainable Future? | Ep. 259