[00:03] Intro: Welcome to the Heart Soul Wisdom Podcast, a journey of self discovery and transformation. Moira Sutton and her amazing guests share real-life stories, tools, and strategies to inspire and empower you to create and live your best life. Come along on the journey and finally blast through any fears, obstacles and challenges that have held you back in the past so you can live your life with the joy, passion, and happiness that you desire. Now, here's your host. Create the life you love. Empowerment Life Coach Moira Sutton.

[00:58] Moira: Welcome to season three, episode 67, whole Food Plant Based Nutrition, with our very special guest, author, blogger, vegan Michael Dorfman. Michael was born in 1942 in Brooklyn, New York. His father and brother were butchers, so his family ate meat and dairy at least once a day. In 1976, he became interested in Eastern philosophy and became a vegetarian for the next 33 years. Although he felt good most of the time, he would get sick once or twice a year with flulike symptoms. His brother, who had been a vegan for 20 years plus years, suggested that he give up dairy to see if that was the cause of his illnesses. In 2009, Michael decided to go whole Food Plant based eating and has not looked back. Since making the change to Whole food vegan nutrition, Michael and his wife Dahlia have experienced significant health benefits while discovering a whole new way of looking at the world of nutrition and health. This discovery stems from their own personal experience and the experience of others, as well as information from experts in the field. He is on a mission to educate and inform people of the importance of including more plant-based foods into their diet and the benefits of incorporating healthy lifestyle practices. So, without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Michael Dorman. Welcome, Michael.

[02:27] Michael: Thank you, boy Ray. It's a pleasure to be here and I've been looking forward, actually, to this interview.

[02:37] Moira: I really thank you because their listeners don't know this, but we had to postpone us getting together because I got sick after three years of the pandemic or not and never got sick. And then boom, last week I came down with flu cold and really started to worry when I had chest pains. I thought, oh my goodness, maybe I have this virus. I didn't. I tested negative. But the flu alone, you realize when you do get sick just how important it's a really wake up call. What are you eating? What are you doing? What's your lifestyle? Do you have stress? All those things. And for me, I think it was stress. We're in a fairly new home, just over a year, had painters in. We have just so much that has happened, that now it's just going to be quiet for the holidays.

[03:21] Michael: It's interesting what you said about you getting sick, because I've been vegan for it's like almost 14 years now. My wife as well, so we never got sick. Once in a while I felt like, well, maybe something is going to be happening. I'm coming down with something. But I hadn't been sick. And last January, I thought I would be protected because of my natural immunity. We protected about, you know, with against getting sick from COLVID. And last January, both of us got sick, and we got the symptoms, and it was a couple of weeks, and it was pretty strong, but got through it. And, you know, here we are.

[04:15] Moira: Yeah. So, were you in contact with some other people or down because you're in Mexico, do you wear does everybody fall? We're going to talk about that today, of course, you know, in the pandemics and protocols. But were you wearing and other people wearing masks there in that? Because we know here now a lot of people are not in Nova Scotia.

[04:37] Michael: No, we actually well, here in Mexico, I think it's been much less strict what we've been asked to do, and it was basically wearing masks indoors. But this was in a restaurant. It was actually my birthday. It was my 80th birthday. And so, we were sitting there. We didn't have masks on. Nobody had masks on in the restaurant. And eight people were at the party, dinner, and music, and six of us got sick after that, a couple of days later. So, yeah, that was what happened. But in general, right now, I don't know how it is where you are, but right now it's pretty light, most of the people, and there's a lot of tourism here where I live. It's a very famous place in Mexico for tourists. But there's very few restrictions now in Mexico, except, if you're like, in really close places for people. But it's never been mandated. The president here on a federal level has never mandated either the shots or the masks. And it was up to the governors. I think it's a lot like the US. Where the governors can make their own decisions. But here in Mexico, it was pretty, you know, light the restrictions.

[06:10] Moira: I also feel that even right now, like, when we go out, people are getting sick again, and they're getting this next virus. So again, let's go back into that later and take way back to okay. All right let's talk about your first book that you wrote in 2019. What was your vision for the thriving vegan?

[06:28] Michael: Well, it was interesting because this is like half a year before the pandemic started, but had been a vegan for years, but an incident that happened, which was really a turning point for me, because up until this incident, it was really my own health that I was interested in my family and my wife and the kids. So that was it. And then it was I think it was 2008. Friend of ours, Beatrice from Cozumel, that's an island in the Caribbean off right off of Mexico, and she got heart problems. And actually, she had a heart attack, and she went to the hospital in Merida, which is on the peninsula there on the eastern side of Mexico, and they did a bypass surgery, and she recovered, even though she did have a heart attack while she was on the operating table. So, she recovered, and they told her to go home, and that was it. And she was okay until a year later when she started having pain in her arm. And the doctors called her back into the hospital, and they wanted to put a stent because of the artery. Well, the vein that replaced the original artery was clogged up. So, the problem was that they couldn't fit the stent in. The vein was too narrow, and there was nothing they told her that there was nothing they could do, and they sent her home, and they told her not to exert herself too much, not to climb stairs, even though her bedroom was on the second floor. So, she went home. And the interesting thing was, and they didn't tell her this they told this to my wife, Delia, and her son that she had about six months to live, and they didn't tell her that. So, she came back. And I had already been reading lots of books on plant-based foods. I like to call it, even though my book is called The Thriving Vegan. I like to consider myself a person who's on a plant, whole food, plant-based diet, because there are many vegans who are there. They don't eat meat, and they don't eat anything, any animal products, but their main reasons are more ethical. You know, they're worrying about the animals or, you know, the planet, the destruction of the planet. So, anyway, that's the most important thing, is that my focus is on whole food, plant-based foods. So, anyway, I knew that she wasn't told how many months she had to live, and I had already been reading books, which especially a book how to prevent and reverse heart disease by called Dr. Caldwell Esselstyne. And this book was the book that changed Bill Clinton's life, because I think one of two stents had already been put into place when he had his heart attack, and he just didn't want to go through it anymore. And he just was looking for another alternative not to have a stent, because you go through the stents again, it's not a surgery, and he wasn't into it. So, he read this book by Esselstyn. And I read the book by Esselstyne, and it was amazing. Coldwell. Esselstyne was working. He was a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic in the US. It was just considered probably the top clinic in the US. And maybe even in the world, a heart clinic, heart hospital. But what happened with him, the doctor, Esselstyne, is that he was just saying how come heart disease is not being reduced, that it keeps more and more people are having heart attacks. It doesn't matter the bypass surgeries or the stents or what the doctors are getting, the different types of medications that doctors are getting, it keeps on growing. The amount of it's. Number one around the world, heart disease. So anyway, what happened with Dr. K Esselstyne is he said he found out about nutrition. He also found out that there were doctors having success with plant-based foods for heart patients. And he took the rejects from the Cleveland Clinic. These were patients who were really on their last leg that they couldn't even some of them couldn't even move to one side of the room to the other successfully. So, he took these patients, and he had amazing results with it, with plant-based foods. So, I told Beatrice about this, and I gave her the book to read. She read it, and she decided to do whole food, plant-based foods. And instead of living six months, she lived nine years. And she passed away a few years ago from something else. But to me, it was just a wake-up call. For me, it was like, how come doctors don't offer this to their patients as a default measure? And they don't. What they do is, it's the bypass surgery and the medications to manage the disease. And to me, it was a wake-up call. And I said something's wrong here. And doctors don't consider nutrition and lifestyle practices as part of preventing and reversing heart disease. And then I thought, well, if it's heart disease, are there any other diseases that could be prevented and reversed by the same diet? And it is. There is. It's the type two diabetes, high blood pressure. So, to me, it was just that. And I decided I got to really bring this message. There are so many people do bring this message to the public, so many doctors, but I wanted to do it personally, how I can share this message? So, part of it was I had a website, and then I did my blogs, and I wrote the book. And that's why I wrote the book. And hoping to help people see that there is another option. And one of the things we can do is start considering the self healing powers of our own bodies, and we can become our own doctors to a certain extent and pay attention to what we eat and how we live our life.

[13:55] Moira: So, I know you talk about responsibility in your book and thank you in taking control of our own health, as you just say, and important life decisions, like, here Beatrice, luckily, she wasn't told about the six months, because if we put the power into our doctors, then she might be just whatever with that advice. So that was good. She didn't hear that. But how do we take responsibility when we have bombarded? Sometimes there's so much conflicting nutritional advice and confusion there. We're brought up with white bread, and I remember even having we're British, Scottish, my family, we went to school sometimes with white bread, butter, and sugar. It was a sugar sandwich. That's what you ate. And that thing about how many fruits a day. But we didn't really learn that until later on in school, maybe grade six. They showed you that. So how do we do this when there's so much nutritional information and confusion going on and conflict with the advice that we're hearing? Seeing, what would your advice be for people who are just confused where to start?

[15:02] Michael: Well, yeah, well, that's what the problem is, is that there's so much information and for example, the pharmaceutical companies, they are responsible to their stockholders and the bottom line. So, they push the drugs. And I don't know how it is in Canada, but, for example, in the US. And New Zealand are the only two countries that where pharmaceutical drugs are allowed to be on television. And that's what you see anytime you go on TV in the US. I don't live there anymore. But you see, they push the pharmaceutical answer to these problems, and that's what the doctors learned, that doctors are learned. Doctors are taught when they go to the medical schools that the number one answer, or the number one treatment is our drugs. And then they have surgeries and chemo and radiation to treat disease. So, I think it's important that people we have to dig deeper. We have to dig deeper than just what we're being told, because the same thing happened with me when I was younger. I was told that the basic seven was meat, and meat and dairy were the most important because of the protein in the calcium for the bones. And then you can give your children a little bit of vegetables and fruit. But that's where I grew up. And the problem now is that you add to that the processed the garbage that we eat, which is the processed foods, that's much more now than when I was a child. I was living in the you didn't have the options of these processed foods, refined foods that you have today. It's interesting because I was speaking about it. My mother lived to 99 and a half, and she wasn't a vegan. And I was just saying because people sometimes say, well, I have a great grandfather. I have a grandmother who lived in the she wasn't a vegan. And I'm just thinking about that. But what did they eat healthy? My father was a butcher. We ate a lot of meat. But now they have the factory farms where the animals well, this has been going on for a few decades now. They're given the hormones and the antibiotics, and they're sick in the factory farms. And also, the processed foods. Processed foods. There were very few processed foods when I was a kid. And now it's just like, look what the children are eating now. And now you look at diseases. If you're a parent and you see there's so many children that now have type two diabetes, fatty liver disease, obesity, just look at obesity. It's also a pandemic, the obesity pandemic.

[18:34] Moira: Well, I know that when you're saying all that, it's interesting because, yes, we're in Canada, and one of my Pen pals lived in Chicago, and when I went to visit her when I was 16, it was the first time I had a McDonald's hamburger. And at the time I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I was like, what is this? Because it wasn't in Canada yet. And I was like, wow, I couldn't even get my mouth around it, it was so big. But it was sort of like considered a treat back then, right? It was like a big deal going to McDonald's because again, it wasn't in Canada yet. When you talk about your mother, Cliff, my soulmate and husband, his father just passed on last year at 104.

[19:13] Michael: Wow.

[19:13] Moira: Yeah, so good jeans, good genes. That's what we're looking at here. So, yeah, sorry, you were going to.

[19:25] Michael: Say yeah, but it's getting tougher and tougher because today I consider, you know, we know about the COLVID pandemic. I think there's a chronic disease pandemic around the world, and it's terrible and it's getting worse and worse because it's because of the Western diet. And now, for example, some of the healthiest places in the world, the healthiest people in the world, the longest living people in the world live in the rural parts of China, Japan, and parts of Africa. And also, the blue, blue zones, which were founded by well, discovered by Dan Buettner. He was working for National Geographic, looking, searching for the healthiest places in the world. And now you look Okinawa, Japan was considered one of the healthiest places in the world, and now there's a McDonald's there. So, what's happening now is the children of these people didn't have diets. These people live healthier. They've been eating the same thing for hundreds of years. And now with the new, everybody wants to be like the US. For example, and now McDonald's and all the fast foods, and they're suffering from it. Everything is changing. The younger people are getting more obese, they're getting more sick. And so that's why I'm calling this a pandemic as well.

[21:00] Moira: Oh, for sure. I'm glad you mentioned the blue zones. I have here the explorer Dan Buettner’s book. Is that who wrote that?

[21:07] Michael: Yeah, blue zones, right.

[21:10] Moira: Well, let's just dive after the blue zone comment, too, that you talk about seven lifestyle practices for a healthy lifestyle. What are those? Can you name some of those first?

[21:22] Michael: Let's see. Yeah, well, the most important part is the food. That is, throughout all of the blue zones, there are the five blue zones and food. And in these places, the basic foods are plant-based foods, although there are occasionally, they'll eat some meat or fish that they caught, probably not processed that much. So that is the basis of it. And then they have their exercise. They do exercise. And their lives are much more active than the lives in the Western society, especially now we have with cell phones and the screens, and our children don't go out as much as we did when we were younger, playing with our friends. So that's part of it. Sleeping well, having caring relationships, very important. We lost that during COVID We weren't allowed to see people. It was like, you should stay away from that. But now we get back to that. And having caring relationships with people we love, very important. And sleeping well. And also, very important to have purpose and to move around. And when purpose is what happens to me, I sort of think about people when they get older, they think of retiring. Okay. At 65, I'm going to get my Social Security. I don't know how it is in Canada, but now I can do whatever I want. So it ends up they don't do anything. They just sit back. And then for sole purpose, is finding a meaning in your life, something to continue, okay, maybe you don't have to do a nine to five job anymore, but what do you love to do? Is there something is there a gift you have? Or do you like to sing? Do you like to make people laugh? Do you like to take care of people? You like to play musical instrument? Do you like to paint? Do you like to write? Which I do. So, there's things sometimes there are things we did when we were younger that we sort of put on the side, and now that we're getting older, so having something, a purpose is extremely important. And a lot of people in the Blue Zones, the women especially, they do gardening. So that's what we have. We have our garden in the back here, vegetable garden, which we organic foods, which we eat from, so something like that. And being active to even taking your pet out for a walk and moving around because it's unhealthy to sit, and so many people sit too many hours during the day, and you have to remember that, okay, we need to get up and move around because you don't want to have problems with circulation. So anyway, those are some of the things. And I've discovered new things because I used to have sleep apnea, which I went through a whole process with that it was pretty intense. And I finally found out I read this book by Patrick McCune called The Oxygen Advantage, and he gave me the cure for sleep apnea. And I know so many people have sleep apnea now or snore while they're sleeping. And the reason is we're breathing through our mouth when we sleep, and that's why people snore. And we have to learn to breathe through our nose, because the nose is for breathing and the mouth is for eating and speaking. But we haven't been taught that. So besides what these the Blue Zones are their way of life, their life choices. I've come up with my own because of my own personal situation, which I think people need to do also because we're all different. We're the same, but we're different because we have different lifestyles, and we have different issues with. So, it's really important to find out, well, this is something I had, what do you call it? Heart palpitations for a long time. And I found out that the diet helped me out. So that's what I find. So, I think each person can do this, but you know what it would take and where it takes really initiative. We can sit back. Same thing with everything. There's so much information going on around the world we don't even know what to believe anymore. But the only way we could find out is that okay, make the initiative and find out. There's so much information online about healthy eating, healthy lifestyles, but if we don't do anything about it, if you don't make the effort, what can you expect?

[26:55] Moira: It's also changing our habits. We get into habits and then it's really a good thing. And making a conscious choice because you talk about conscious living a little bit in your eBook, which will talk about too, but knowing that we have choice in every moment, and we can consciously choose to do this or not do that or whatever way. That way. I love the organic garden. We're going to put one of those in next year here on our because we have some property now and I'm going to be having a woman's retreat hopefully next summer. But when it unfolds and ferry gardens and all this stuff. So, love the organic eating. That's wonderful. I noticed you're under stress reduction. You did something, you practiced something called Prim Rawat’s – meditation.

[27:37] Michael: Yeah, I've been doing that for more than 40 years now. He's a teacher. He's a peace ambassador now. He travels around the world, and he has a couple of books out and he speaks around the world. And he teaches a meditation technique which techniques how to focus inside and discover our resources. We have resources inside of us. We have resources like we have inner strengths, we have appreciation. We have clarity inside. So, there are different things that we can touch base with our inner self. And when you're able to do that, if it's a good meditation or a good yoga or maybe Tai chi and you get to a point where you can separate from everything that's going on around because we get stressed out because we get so identified with all of the issues that are going on. Everything surrounding us, our environment, the people, we get so involved in it. We don't realize that there is something else happening that we are not everything else. We are also a human being inside. And when we can touch base with that and connect with that, we could sort of see everything else, almost like watching a movie. And we still get involved with people, but there are times when, okay, I got to be alone. I got to be away from this for sure. I got to be silent. And then it gives you strength. And so that's what I was talking about. And it helps reduce stress because the stress is because we're so effective. We become part of everything, and we believe everything, and somebody says something to us, we get upset, or it's just that we get angry at people. Just pretty much everything. I remember this quote by Buddha. He said that when we get angry, it's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

[29:59] Moira: Wow. I haven't heard that one.

[30:03] Michael: That's what stress does. This is what we do and what happens with stress, it's chaos to our body, and it's especially to what we know now about the gut microbiome, it just causes problems for our health and our immune system.

[30:26] Moira: Well, now that you brought that up, you share here a healthy and a diverse microbiome leads to a robust immune system. And what I had asked you here was, is it time for a new health and nutrition paradigm based on what we know about the gut microbiome? So, tell us more what that is. I don't know that term before today, and I know a lot of people who have got issues and stomach issues a lot.

[30:55] Michael: Okay, well, I think that we are in the west, especially a drug-based society, we take drugs for almost everything. And what the drugs do is also because we are a phobia for germs. This especially happened during the pandemic. It's like we became afraid of germs. I mean, you're getting to the point where you don't want to be careful what you touch. Make sure that you wipe down or you clean the boxes before you open. Everything was germs. We were afraid of germs. What happened is that through the microscope, the electron microscope, this started in the 90s. They started getting deeper and deeper into the microbiome. What we're really made of, and the microbiome is what we're actually more microbiome cells than we are human cells with trillions of them throughout our body. It's bacteria, its microbes’ fungi, it's yeast, protozoa, different types of one cell organisms. So, we're swimming in that. We're absolutely swimming in that. And most of the microbiome is located inside our colon, which is the gut. And the second part, the next biggest part of the microbiome is on our skin. So, we are so we have so much phobia. The germs. We try to get rid of the germs all the time. We use mouthwash to get rid of the germs. We use what do you call, soaps to get rid of the germs? 99.9% germ free. So that's what we do? We try to kill Germs. And the microbiome was saying, no, no, no, we don't. We don't have to get rid of the Germs. We have to learn to be healthy in order to live with the Germs. And that's what the microbiome is growing, is the whole study of the microbiome, the main studies that started in around 2007 because of the intensity of the electromagnet microscope, electron microscope. And they're finding out that we have to take care of our microbiome and we haven't been taking care of our microbiome because we haven't even known you know, we haven't known so much about our microbiome as we do now. And the microbiome, especially the bacteria, they eat just like we eat. We eat food. And what they eat is the fiber. The favorite food of the microbiome is the fiber. And when they eat the right food, they eat the fiber. They turn it into it's called short chain fatty acids. And that helps it strengthens it supports our health and our immune system. We eat that, and if we don't get enough fiber and we're not feeding the right foods, we're feeding junk foods and too many fats and sugars to the well, the microbiome, the bacteria that lives there, then there's going to be problems, because it will help to grow bacteria that are not favorable to health. And what happens is, it's not only what you eat, it's also the antibiotics that we take. It's the stress we have. It's the things from our environment. It's the drugs we take. These are things that are not good for the microbiome and eventually could lead to leaky gut and leaky gut. What we eat should stay inside the intestine. And the intestine is because when you get out of the intestine, you go into the bloodstream. So, when you start getting things that are not favorable to the microbiome and the microbiome is not getting the fiber to be healthy, then it starts going through what's inside the intestine starts leaking through openings into the bloodstream. And what happened when it goes into the bloodstream, there's a reaction from our immune system that said, oh, something's wrong. And it starts to produce the antibodies. And the antibodies, when they get produced, and they're not needed because there's no sickness going on yet, it causes increased inflammation, and the inflammation starts causing problems within our body, and the inflammation could go anywhere because it's in the bloodstream, it can cause autoimmune diseases. And so that's why it's important that we have to treat the body with what it needs to eat and what it needs to be healthy. And we didn't know this. I always thought that fiber was the oh, fiber is important so that you have regularity, but no fiber is really important, and that's what they're discovering. But very few people on the Western diet get even close to what they should be eating. As far as fiber, you should be getting. About 30, 40 grams of fiber, and you're getting about 15 the average American, for example. So that's why we're having these diseases. One of the main reasons is because we're not recognizing the needs of a microbiome. And it's important to understand that we need to take care of ourselves so that we can live in harmony with the microbes that are within us.

[37:06] Moira: So, with fiber, with a vegan diet, what kind of things do you eat and how do you get your protein from your vegan diet?

[37:15] Michael: Okay, well, the famous question was when do you get your protein from? So, my answer was always my first answer was always well, I get my protein from the same place that gorillas and elephants and water buffaloes and even the brontosaurus from the prehistoric times. They eat the leaves off of trees where they got their protein from, and it's from plants. And in fact, all protein initially comes from plants. The cows eat the plants, supposedly, because they don't even eat plants anymore. They get a diet that's really not made for them. The cows that are in the factory farms, they're eating the genetically altered corn and soy mostly, which is not their natural food. But that's why they're doing it, because it's fattening them up, it's cheaper, and you can keep them in very tight where they are. They don't have to go and graze the land. So, you can put them in a small thinking with pigs and chickens. That's what they do. What was the question again?

[38:37] Moira: No, it was around protein and how you arrived.

[38:41] Michael: That's what they eat, the animals. I get it from there. In fact, Patrick Baboumian, he's one of the strongest men in the world. He's a German. And somebody asked him once, well, where do you get your protein from? Well, he's vegan, so he said, I get my protein from how do you become as strong as an ox? And he said, well, I get my protein from the same place that an ox gets. So that's what my first answer my second one is, and this is really becoming more popular. There are so many elite athletes around the world now that are eating plant-based foods, and they're finding it to be better for them. They do have their best performance eating plant-based food, getting their protein from there, and their recovery time is faster. But not only that, and maybe most important, their lives are healthier. They can live longer. It doesn't end up that, you know, at 50, 60 years of age, they're having health problems like everybody else. So, it's really a win win situation when you start eating plant foods. And the fiber comes from the beans and the cruciferous vegetables, the cauliflower, and the spinach, and we eat a lot of tofu, a lot of fiber. And that and you don't need as. The amount of protein that people need is a myth. And it's been a myth that's been promoted since the early one nine hundred s. And we don't need that much. We need maybe I think you measure it's 0.8 milligrams per kilo. You don't need much protein unless if you're an athlete, you may need a little bit more. But the average how many people do we know that died of protein deficiency? You never hear of anybody dying of protein deficiency. It's easy to get protein. There's no problem if you get if you eat a healthy, whole food, plant-based diet. Whole is very important. So as least as refined as processed as possible. Sosa beans, it's the lentils. Well, the chickpeas, it's what else is there? The rice, the corn. Just things we really enjoy eating as comfort foods. So, there's no problem with protein. And I see I go to the gym three times a week and I see what you think really believe you're supposed to be. They're the way that special formulas to get the protein from animals, you don't need that. You really don't need that. And people that's one of the things I'm trying to say is that you got to really get into reading about what we really need, you know, to survive and be healthy.

[41:52] Moira: We were just introduced to vegan, like making them either you want it for muscle buildup, or you just want it for your diet. You get the scoops of the in the big jars, you get them. So again, I mentioned to you that we just had our house painted. And the two gentlemen that were the painters, one had the vegan for just eating during the day and the other one was having his protein whatever in his jar for building muscles, right? So, I was like, oh, this is interesting. Again, just opening up new doors. What is your feeling around these protocols that we have right now with the lockdowns, the mass and as we're still continuing, I know some people are traveling the world and we're not booked until a year from now to really travel. And that proximity of being close to people along with eating healthy, do you think it's important just out of interest because again, we still wear masks and, you know, we don't have a lockdown now. People come in because my mom's 95 and we don't take any risks. Let's just put it that way. And then with my husband also with his immune being compromised, we don't take risks there either.

[43:06] Michael: Yeah, okay. One of the things that I really got upset about from the very beginning of the pandemic was I was waiting because we knew from the very beginning, we knew the comorbidities, there were heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, the smoking, I forgot what else? Lung disease. And we knew that. And to me, it's like knowing what I know, I was just waiting. I was waiting for one leader of one country to say, we are going to help the people while they were in lockdown, especially the older people like myself, the older people who are the ones who are most at risk of serious symptoms. And I waited and I waited, and it never, ever happened and it still isn't happening. And to me it was like, okay, if you're going to lockdown, what better time? You're not doing anything. What better time to be guided towards better health so you don't have to worry so much. You don't end up in a hospital, you end up going into dying. So, for me that was a problem. And from then I knew, something is wrong, we're not being fed. And then I got to the point where I said, as far as what I see, younger people shouldn't have been a problem. The problem was the older people, we were most at risk, and we should have been more specific to them. We should have been taking care of the older people because they were the ones who were getting the most serious and they were the ones who were passing away and we should have focused on them. But then you have the problem of, well, what about unhealthy people? But I think they're still coming out with statistics and seeing what's going to be the end result. It's a very personal thing. I come from a background. When I was young, the only two vaccines I ever got in my life were the smallpox and then the polio vaccines. That was before I was ten years old. And I went through because I got all those diseases. It's like going back to this whole thing of like living in harmony with your germs. So, I went through it and everybody in my age, I don't know if is that case with your husband or you, but we went through measles mumps, chickenpox, got those illnesses, got through them, and we were protected for life. And then it came out, the triple came out in late 60s, early seventy s the MMR vaccines so you don't have to get sick again. So, at that time, I know in the United States it was almost nonexistent, the measles mumps in the chickenpox, but they wanted to them started with the vaccines so that people wouldn't get sick again. So, I don't know, I really don't know. Is that better or is it better to get sick? We get sick. People always get sick from one issue or another. But you know, we can't to me it's if you really want to, you can't get a situation or an environment that's going to be completely clean of all germs and that's not healthy either. We have to like going back to that. We need to be healthy in order to be, you know and if we get sick once in a while, no big deal. But we're afraid of that's why we have a phobia against germs and that's why we depend on our pharmaceutical drugs and which, you know, the side effects. I also wrote about that the side effects kill so many people and every year.

[47:29] Moira: Michael, thank you for sharing that. What is the relation between the universe, our planet, and our human body? You talk about it being the three harmonic systems. I think that would be very interesting for our listeners.

[47:41] Michael: Yeah, well, I think that yeah, I talk about that. As far as the universe is, if you look at the universe, the one thing you notice when everything is moving, everything is moving. Everything is the Earth goes around the sun. The moon goes around the Earth. The sun is traveling through the universe. The Milky Way is going around the universe. It's such harmony. It's like you really have to be blind not to see it. And then I take that harmony and then I look at the harmony on our planet the way it's supposed to be, the harmony in nature. If you take the human equation, human beings out of nature, nature would be in harmony. Everything would be working clockwork. All of a sudden, you put the human being on the scene, and what does a human being do? The human being decides, you know what? We're human beings. We're created in the image of God. We're the top of the line. We're going to control nature. So what they do is they start destroying the land. I mean, this is what we're living at. They're focusing the focus now is climate change, and before it was warming. Now is climate change. And that's what they're focusing on. And they're focusing on they think that, well, if, you know, we get the fossil fuels out, it's going to take care of things, and that's what we need to do. To me, it's just a little part of it, you know, besides the fossil fuel. And there's so many people arguing whether, you know, is climate change real? Is it natural? Is it really a big problem? And I put that aside. To me, let's focus on what we're really doing. We're destroying the forest. We're destroying arable land. We're killing off so many species that are going into extinct now. And now we're in danger of going extinct because we're destroying the soil. We're destroying the soil because we're the pesticides, the glyphosate. We're adding to it, which we also consume, which is also destroying our health. And we don't seem to care. We don't seem to care. We're letting it happen right now. In Mexico. In Mexico, the president has said that we are not allowing glyphosate and GMOs into Mexico because we have beautiful corn here that we've been creating. We have like 15 or 20 different species of corn in Mexico because that's where this corn was discovered, and we want to maintain it. We've been importing the genetically modified corn from the US. Over the last few years. And now the president of Mexico, Obrador, is saying by the time he leaves office in 2024, we're not going to allow any more GMO corn into Mexico or Glyphosate. And now they're being threatened by the companies that are producing it, threatening Mexico because of the treaty they now have with Mexico and Canada. With the US. And Canada. So now he's faced with this and its money is the bottom line. So, this is what we're facing in Mexico and that's what's going on. That's the situation we're facing. So, I'm not sure if the president is going to cave into the demands by Monsanto and the US companies.

[51:53] Moira: So, Michael, do you feel that humanity is a crossroads right now and literally this could be a new beginning for us to, as we said earlier, about conscious decisions, but make healthier decisions about our planet, about our own bodies, about environment, the decisions we make in our lives. Do you think that we're at this crossroads now?

[52:14] Michael: I really do. But I think that the decision has to be we have to take responsibility. Because I don't believe that up until now, I don't think just going back to that the government didn't really help us get healthy during the Pandemic. I think that there are so many hidden agendas and reasons why corporations and governments tell us what to do that I think that we have to take responsibility. It really is incumbent on us to take responsibility for our future because I think that's the only way. Not so much maybe on a personal decision or maybe it is a personal decision, but on a grassroots decision. In other words, I think it may be working with communities that you know, that think alike, that want the same things, that really want to become healthy, that really want to subsist and continue because the way we're going to look, what's happening, the war now and it's just terrible. And that's why people are suffering. That's why people are in fear, anxiety. We don't know what's going to happen. It's a scary situation to be in and I think we have to really pay attention. Otherwise, I don't know. I don't know. Listening to our leaders all the time and what the decisions from corporations are, I doubt that it's taking us on the correct path.

[54:09] Moira: I think that we have the potential of building a future and for ourselves and future generations and for our Mother Earth and the planet. And I think one person at a time, I think you already know this, and I think you wrote it in your book, that once each person does something, it can create a snowball effect for your community and outside your community and it can just expand. If we all, like you said, take responsibility. And even if we do something every day like you're saying, even like to become a vegetarian or vegan, just start eating, start incorporating that into your life so you have a healthier lifestyle and you start understanding that all these animals, how they're being brought up. And my best girlfriend, Judy Sherman, I told her about you that I was going to be interviewing. And I said, oh, Michael's, community is your community, because she does art with animals who are like holding up knives or something. So, they're sort of saying, back off. And she's a vegetarian, just that whole thing. And people love the art, and the people are vegetarian or vegan that buy her art and other people too. But it's just funny plays on words with animals. Turning around and saying back off is sort of the bottom line. Michael, I would love you to read an excerpt from your book today, and it was very inspiring to me. This one excerpt, if you can read that for our audience. And it just leaves our audience with inspiration and a feeling of empowerment and empowerment in a way that's very gracious and giving. I think it's called the body is Where the Gift of life Resides.

[55:50] Michael: Yes, it is. And yes, I have it here, right here. And I think it's important because it's sort of like a foundation of the way I see things and the way I see our health and what life all is about. So here it goes. I have always felt that our greatest gift is the gift of life. Yes, we have the gifts of sight and hearing, the ability to think and imagine and to feel joy and love, among other things. But none of this would be possible if we hadn't first received the gift of life. However, I'd like to call your attention to another gift which we don't often perceive as a gift and as a result, take it for granted. It is this container or vessel called the body. It is only through our body that we can experience the gift of life. Without it, life for you and me could not happen. That is the truth. The question is, if we truly accept and understand that our body is a gift and is our life's only home, shouldn't we do our utmost to respect it and take care of it so that our experience of this once in a lifetime life becomes a wonderful and enjoyable journey? On the contrary, if we do not accept it and understand its preciousness, taking proper care of our body will not be that important. Instead, it will take its place at the bottom of our list of priorities below making money, having a career, getting an education, buying a car, etc. As a result, and as the years pass by, we may find ourselves a victim of the pain and suffering from illness and chronic diseases that can surely make the journey of our life a nightmare.

[58:03] Moira: Thank you, Michael. That's very powerful.

[58:07] Michael: Thank you. I want to just add one little thing. When you're younger, you think that getting sick, having a chronic disease only afflicts the older people. And that when you're young, you think you're going to live forever. And I just want to make a strong comment on with this point that heart disease, cancer, especially heart disease and cancer, they start out when we're young, when people go, and the women get a mammogram, or they get tested or with a prostate. People have prostate cancer. They think it's happening when you're older, all of a sudden you get a mammogram. Women gets a mammogram and there it is. They could see something growing there and a little tiny little tumor. But I just want to remind people that tumor has been growing for a very long time, and it only reached that point where it's visible on their mammogram recently. So, the tomb has been growing for maybe even decades. My father. He was a painter during World War II. He was exempt from going to the army because he had two children, so he was a painter. So, he used to paint inside the hulls of ships. He even painted the Queen Mary, which is the biggest ship at that time. And so that was it. And then it was 40 years later he collapsed, and they discovered he had mesothelioma, which is the disease, cancer caused by asbestos. And it took 40 years. He was very healthy. My father thought he was going to live well into his 90s. He died when he was 78. And it was that. And so, his cancer took 40 years to get to the point where it was going to affect him. So, I want people to realize that with your heart, with cancer, with things like being overweight, obese, just things like that, take care of yourself. Because it may present itself when you're in your sixty s and seventy s, but it's growing, you know, in your twenty s, thirty s, forty s and fifty s. So that's what I wanted to mention, and I think that is.

[01:00:40] Moira: A good mention because this whole topic today and to bring us to the Heart Soul Wisdom community is just for people to explore this idea of becoming a vegetarian or a vegan or even just start introducing more plant-based foods into their diet and starting to see the benefits of incorporating this healthy lifestyle practice. So, thank you for sharing that. Michael, can you share with our community the gifts you would like to give them today? Again, all the links to find Michael and your gift will be below in the show notes.

[01:01:12] Michael: Okay, yeah, well, I want to invite people to my website also, which you leave for them. I recently created a 46-page eBook and it's called it's The Nutrition, Lifestyle and COVID Connection. And I worked a lot, spent a lot of time on it, and I think it's something that your readers would like to read, and I'm offering it free. All they have to do is go into my website and it's immediately there. They subscribe and they'll get the eBook.

[01:01:53] Moira: I started reading it. It's perfect timing. Also, the nutrition lifestyle COVID connection. Thank you, Michael. Also, thank you for sharing today from your heart and soul your wisdom on whole food, plant-based nutrition. Namaste.

[01:02:09] Michael: Thank you and I appreciate your invitation.

[01:02:12] Moira: Thank you, Michael.

[01:02:19] Outro: Thank you for listening to the Heart Soul Wisdom podcast with Moira Sutton. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please join our community at moira Sutton.com and continue the discussion on our Facebook page. Create the Life you Love you will be part of a global movement connecting with other heart-centered people who are consciously creating the life they love on their own terms. Together, we can raise our consciousness for the greater good of humanity and for our planet.