Episode 42 | The Badass Vegan – John Lewis | Everything You Need To Know To Be A Vegan

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Kathy Smith: John, it’s great to have you here.

John Lewis: Thank you so much. I need to take you on the road with me. You make me want to meet myself. That was nice.

Kathy Smith: You’re quite the man. I’m just so impressed and especially your story which I want to get into. You’re from Arkansas originally. Your family owned a barbecue restaurant. You moved to Ferguson in your younger years and, then, kind of a junk-food-junkie raised like we all were with a lot of processed foods and stuff.

So, why don’t you pick up the story. I know when you got into high school, you started playing ball. Why don’t you just pick up the story from there?

John Lewis: That’s actually where I was last weekend for my family reunion was Little Rock, Arkansas. So, I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. We moved to Ferguson when I was two years old. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was basically just eating junk. You think you’re eating good. Your parents do the best that they know. It was so bad in my household because it was only two of us. It was me and my mom. My siblings were much older and already moved out. I honestly remember having about 10 to 14 boxes of cereal on top of the refrigerator at a time and everything was always processed. Even if I ate vegetables, they were cooked in butter or something else, so I never really got to enjoy the actual fruits and vegetables as a grew up.

Fast forward to about the age of 13, my freshman year in high school, you don’t pay attention. I’m 315 pounds but I’m still playing sports, so I didn’t really think about it. I lost all the way pretty much by my sophomore year because once I got to high school, I really incorporated more of a practice regimen. When you’re in little leagues, practice really isn’t practice. You just throw the ball out and let the kids do what they want to do, then practice is over. When you get to high school, it was more of two-a-day practices, two hours at a time and my body frame just basically soaked it up.

Kathy Smith: I would imagine, also, with that heat from the Midwest you were also sweating quite a bit. It’s amazing that you were such a big guy and still could move so well.

John Lewis: I was the fastest 315 you’ve ever seen. I got up and got moving. I think the thing was because I was so used to the weight, it didn’t really seem as a burden to me. Because I was so used to it. I never stopped playing from when I was a kid to when I was in high school. So, there was never this point of where I had to start all over. So, I think that’s maybe what it was to where it didn’t really affect me as much.

Fast forward from that, I went from really big, pudgy. Pudgy’s what I used to help me go to sleep at night. I was actually fat. Let’s be honest. I was fat. So, I went from fat to skinny. In fact, I was so skinny that my sophomore coach walked past me the first day of school and didn’t even recognize me almost. I’m like, “Hey, coach.”

He’s like, “Oh, my God. John?” You could see the excitement in his eyes. He was so excited, like this year’s going to be way different.

So, it was a big transformation for me. I went from there to college. I went to college in St. Louis as well. All this time, Ferguson was a good place, but it had its troubles. I’m sure if you’ve seen in the news, things of that nature. That wasn’t new. In my sophomore year in high school, I lost six friends. It was just a bad time, but growing up in it, you don’t realize it.

Kathy Smith: So, all of the racism and all of the issues between the white police and African American black kids, that was there? So, you were in the middle of all that. Everything that we’re hearing in the news every day now, you lived it.

John Lewis: Yeah, there was a rule. If you have to stop, you don’t stop in Ferguson. You keep going. Because you never know how they’re going to mess with you. I know a lot of people think that stuff doesn’t exist, but literally, there was a story where I had to go to a friend’s house. This was in college. We had to finish our paper we were doing together. I rode up to her house and the police just flagged me down.

The funny thing was that I didn’t do anything. I was sitting there and luckily, I had a cell phone. I called her and said, “Hey, I just got pulled over right outside your house. I’m not sure what happened but I should be in soon.” She lived in a better neighborhood in Ferguson.

I remember asking the officer what I did wrong. He said, “Your car and you fit the description of a guy that just robbed the grocery store around the corner.”

I’m like, “Oh, my God.” He was sitting there with his hand on his gun the whole time.

Luckily, the other student’s father was a public official and after me being out there for so long, he finally comes outside and he’s asking what’s wrong and asking what’s going on. After a long talk, he’s like, “You’ve got to let him go. He’s here to meet up with my daughter and to finish the paper.”

The funniest part about that, after it was all over with, we checked the news, we checked all the police reports, with him being a public official. There was no store robbery at all not only for that day but for the whole month that I had went over there. That was just their excuse to pull me over and to detain me. It was scary.

Kathy Smith: I’m sure it’s scary and I’m sure those kinds of situations shape who you are and your view of life. It’s interesting because one of the things that I’ve heard about you over and over again is that you’re Mr. Positivity. You’ve got the big smile. You light up a room. Yet, you’re called the Badass. So, where did the Badass come from – the Badass Vegan, I should say. Where did that come from?

John Lewis: That really came from my mom. She called me a badass the whole time I was growing up because I have my little tendencies. Really, the premise of Badass Vegan was just to change that concept of badass, to show that you can be compassionate, you can care about other people, you can care about animals, you can care about the world, you can care about helping other people out and still take care of yourself and be a badass. That’s what it was.

Doing all that really makes you a badass. That’s what makes you a badass – doing good things in a world that’s basically thriving off of negativity to be that positive person. That pretty much makes you a badass. So, that’s where it came from. Badass Vegan really wasn’t about me. It was about anybody who did that is a badass and, then, somehow my face became part of it and everybody associate it with me.

I tell people all the time, “If you do that, you’re a badass yourself.” So, that’s where it pretty much came from.

Kathy Smith: Yeah, it’s pretty amazing, your success. I see you in Whole Foods with your Badass Vegan protein powder, but let’s get back to your story. Where was this transition? Where did it happen where you decided to go from a barbecue-eating, junk food-eating kid to becoming a vegan?

John Lewis: Once I graduated from undergrad here in St. Louis at Harris-Stowe State College, I went to grad school a couple of years later down at Nova Southeastern University. It was a big transition for me, not only culturally, but food-wise. In St. Louis, I pretty much was always eating the same thing – McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, barbecue. Everything fried and processed, you name it, I had it.

When I got down to Florida, there were so many different cultures. It was a big melting pot. Anything from Hessian food to Jamaican food to Cuban food, Puerto Rican food, Dominican food, artisanal food. I was just bringing it all in and my stomach was like, “Alright, time out. I’m not ready for all this.”

So, I went to visit the school doctor there and told him I was having a little bit of complications and pretty much irritable bowel syndrome.

Kathy Smith: Yeah, I hear it was bad. I hear your roommate wasn’t real happy with you.

John Lewis:Yeah, my roommate wasn’t happy – especially when we only had one bathroom to begin with.  We started off small.

The doctor told me, “Do you eat a lot of meat?” Of course, we lie all the time because we don’t think we do.

I was like, “No, not at all.”

He said, “What I want you to do is I want you to try not to eat any meat for 30 days.”

My first reaction was resistance, like, “Yeah, right. Ok. You see how big I am? There’s no way. I’m 6’6″, 230 pounds. There’s no way. I’m not going to be able to do that.”

He was like, “Just try it.” That was actually October 15, 2004. I recall that date because 15 days later, I had a friend back home in St. Louis who passed away from sickle cell. So, that was October 31, 2004. For me, it was like an ode to him as well as myself. Like, “I’m going to take care of myself. I’ll try this out.”

To be honest, I didn’t even make it 15 days without just feeling these remarkable results of not feeling tired, not having to run to the bathroom every five/ten minutes. I actually remember being a little upset because I was big fan of Philly cheese steaks and all the other stuff, but I also listened to my body. So, after that 30 days, I stuck to the vegetarianism.

A couple of years later after that, my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. That was crazy because I was literally in my last week of graduate school. I was actually going to get my final exams when I got the call from my brother. I remember talking to the doctors and things of that nature. I’m asking, “How did this happen?”

He was like, “Well, too much animal protein mixed with processed foods, fried fatty foods.” Literally, my first question was, “Wait. This is not hereditary?”

He was like, “No, this is a lifestyle choice.”

I’m like, “Wow.” That was a big eye opener because your first reaction is, yes, you care about your family member. But when somebody in your family gets a certain disease, you do think about yourself. You’re like, “Wow, I guess I’m next.” When I heard that information, of course, I did more research. I didn’t just jump right into veganism, but I did my research just to find out how animal protein is just associated to all these diseases. Seventy percent of all cancers are related to it and hypertension and heart disease and all these other things are related directly to animal protein, which doesn’t come with plant protein.

So, right then and there, I did more research. I was like, “Alright, I’m done.” Of course, like you said, my family thought I was crazy. Eleven years later, now, I look like the baby of the family. I actually got carded for a lottery ticket two weeks ago.

I’m like, “You’ve only got to be 18 for that.”

He was like, “Yeah, but I thought you were like 23.”

I was like, “Well, thank you man. I’m 40.”

He just wouldn’t believe it. Even with the ID, he was like, “I just don’t believe it.”

I’m like, “Well, thank you.” My skin changed. I had bad acne. A lot of things changed for me once I went the whole route of vegan.

Kathy Smith: So, get back to those initial 30 days of cutting out meat. What was the hardest part physically, mentally? What was the hardest part about the whole process, because I know a lot of people out there, a lot of listeners have thought about shifting diets, going more plant-based. One of the things I love about your story is that you’re really a proponent for you don’t need to necessarily go cold turkey and give up everything. It can be a process depending on where you’re at in your life. Tell me, what was the hardest thing for you?

John Lewis: The hardest thing for me, honestly, was other people’s negativity. It wasn’t anything else. Because people are so used to a certain way that anything different, they just think it’s wrong.

So many people were like, “Oh, man. You’re going to get sick. You’re going to do this.”

I’m like, “Well, I’m already sick. So, why wouldn’t I change it?” I think that was the biggest thing. I think that’s the biggest hurdle as well as vegan.

Even when I went the whole step of vegan, it really got crazy with people like, “Oh, man. I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I heard about this one story.” There’s always this one story that somebody heard about. Nobody knows anybody personally that has gotten sick from being a vegan or a vegetarian. It’s just that they heard this one story.

Once I kind of blocked that out, it was an easy ride from there on. Because I’m very strict with myself. If I tell myself I’m going to do something, then I’m going to do it. I believe the main component in self-confidence is self. So, you have to believe in yourself. I think that’s what helped me out a lot.

And I have a very competitive gene in me, so I like to prove people wrong. So, the more people that say I can’t do something, it kicks in and I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to prove you wrong.”

So, that was one of the biggest things, was other people. Because, yes, the food can be addictive. You have these traits that you’ve done for so long – 20, 30, 40 years. So, there’s going to be a withdrawal there.

I always say that the one thing that the government got right–they got a couple of things right–but when they named the FDA. Because food is a drug and if you really think about it, like, if you’ve been eating something for so long, once you cut it out, your body’s going to look for it whether it’s good or bad. So, that’s one of things that people get kind of caught up in is that, “Man, I’ve been eating this for so long and I see somebody else eating it or a commercial comes on TV, I ride past that restaurant,” all those things kick in.

Mentally, if you prepare yourself to tell yourself, “I can do this no matter what and no matter what, I’m not touching that. I am not touching that.” One of my biggest things I had was if I was to have any meat, I had to take an ice bath. I would not take an ice bath, because that’s one of the things I hated as an athlete. So, that was one thing that got me through it – if I eat meat, I’m going to have to take an ice bath. So, luckily, I never had to take an ice bath. That was one of those punishments I just did not want for myself.

Kathy Smith: I love that little negative reinforcement. It’s also interesting that ice baths in this cryotherapy is so popular right now. It’s so good for you. I don’t know if you know this, but I have a daughter who is an Olympic athlete and I’m heading to London in about three weeks to watch her run at World. I would watch here get dipped in these ice baths and I would just cringe watching her having to step into it. It’s really one of those things that I’ve weighed at all costs, so I understand.

I also understand the addiction side of things. My addiction happens to be chocolate, which is not necessarily that it’s excessive. One of my things though is I just know how my mind works every day if I get into the habit. Sometimes I break the habit for a month because every day at 4:00, all I want is that chocolate. Once I break the habit, not such a big deal. So, I get it.

John Lewis: Yeah, it’s all breaking habit. So, going along with what you’re saying, I’m going to be in London the same time you’ll be there.

Kathy Smith: Oh, you’ll be there?

John Lewis: Yeah. Actually, I’m speaking at an animal rights conference the 29th of July and I’ll be there until August 3rd.

Kathy Smith: Where’s the event? Do you know?

John Lewis: I would have to get the actual information. I know the host of it. But I’ll make sure to tell you while I’m there. I’m not sure when you’re coming in but I’ll make sure you get a ticket.

Kathy Smith: I come in on the 2nd but that could be fun – eating something plant-based in London. You’ve used the term vegetarian and vegan several times during the interview. So, for the audience, just explain the difference briefly so they understand.

John Lewis: A vegetarian can be someone that doesn’t necessarily eat meat but still eats animal products such as milk, dairy and eggs. A lot of them would call it ovo-lacto vegetarian.

Vegan is the total elimination of animal products whatsoever. They don’t do honey, they don’t do eggs, they don’t do dairy, they don’t do milk, they don’t do meat. They totally just avoid all animal products whatsoever.

Kathy Smith: And an extension to your lifestyle as well. It’s not just food going in your body.

John Lewis: Yeah, you don’t put milk-derived lotions on your skin or milk in your hair. Honestly, I don’t wear leather or I don’t have leather in my car. I don’t have leather jackets, none of that. I’m not saying I started off with that. I slowly transitioned. I made sure to replace an item, then I would donate the item that was leather, things to that nature made.

But, yes, it’s a total Zen lifestyle, mental clarity, things to that nature all involved with it. Yes, I don’t wear anything of any animal any longer.

Kathy Smith: How do you deal with social situations – let’s say, going out to dinner, things like that? How do you deal with that in a world that’s not necessarily vegan?

John Lewis: Or like a family reunion last year in Little Rock, Arkansas? For me, it’s actually exciting and fun. I like to show up with my own food and, of course, you get the looks and the weird comments. Family can be the harshest critics cracking jokes and all that, but I like to show them what I’m doing, what I’m eating and occasionally, I’ll let them taste my food. I’ll ask before I go get it, “Hey, does anybody want anything?” Most of the time, they say, “No.”

So, when I get the food, when they ask, “Can I get some now,” I’m like, “No, I asked you beforehand. I’m going to eat all of my food now.” They’re really intrigued because it looks good, it smells good and I like to do that. I like to be around those people. Granted, it can be tough for a lot of people to start off with because they’re thinking that they might slip and eat this and that.

For instance, Sunday at the main picnic, my mother made this dessert–which that was another contributor to my 315. My mother made desserts. She could sell them if she really wanted to. It was called gooey butter cake. The smell hit me. I’ve been a vegan for 11 years now and the smell hit me and I was like, “Oh, my God. I remember that.”

But I love to show up and bring my own food. I went to Whole Foods, grabbed some food for the week, left it in my hotel and every day, I just brought my own food to the events. It was funny because people started asking more questions because I have a lot of overweight people in my family. I have a lot of people on medication.

I’m 40 now and I’m not taking any of these medications. I’m not in the best shape of my life but I’m very close to where I want to be. It’s very intriguing to people. Now, if I was to shy away and not show up and not go around people, they would never see that. They would never see that example. So, for people that are vegan and want to help their family, I always tell people it’s not like beating down someone’s door with a religious pamphlet and you’re like, “Hey, you’ve got to go vegan or you’re going to die.” No, be that example. That’s what I strive to be is to be the example for my family members to see that genetics, as they say, doesn’t have a play in what we eat and how our body reacts to it.

A lot of people think this disease is genetics. You’re in shape because of genetics. I’m like, “Hey, if you see my family portrait, genetics has nothing to do with my shape.” It’s the work and the eating and the things that nature–you never know what genetics can do unless you push them to the limit, so that’s what I try to tell people.

Kathy Smith: Yeah, I love that you’ve become this role model. You’ve been on this mission, I know, to break the stereotype of vegans and that you’ve become a role model for an entire population, but specifically for African Americans. We know that a lot of times–I know because I’ve been in the business for so long–that a lot of times the messaging, the food choices, the images, what’s out there is really almost directed to more of a white population, and not take into consideration sometimes black culture, black food, the type of foods that people like to eat and they’ve been raised with.

So, what I love is that, as I say, you’re role-modeling for everybody. But here is an entire population that has a lot of risks that are much higher than the normal population. So, that must make you feel good.

John Lewis: It does. It makes me feel amazing to see and just to get the emails and the countless messages that people tell me that–because you don’t see everything, while you’re going through it, when I make these posts, when I go out and speak. You just get these messages from–I’ve been following you forever, I follow everything you do, I follow your advice and I’ve lost 100 pounds since following you. It’s amazing, because you don’t know all the time. You don’t know if your message is actually reaching the people. It’s just great to see that that’s happening. It’s great to get to talk to 100 people at a time, 1000 people at a time. To know that it helped that one person, it is always a great thing to know.

And to speak on what you’re saying about the people of color and African American demographic, that’s one of the reasons why we’re doing the documentary now, which is Hip-Hippocrates, which is I think you’ve probably heard on the other podcast that we talked about. I teamed up with the makers of CowSpiracy and What the Health and we’re making a documentary about my life growing up in Ferguson, being overweight, how food impacts our mentality and our way of life and how hip-hop was a big influencer for me.

A lot of people don’t know but hip-hop was probably the number one genre ever. If you think about it, you can go to a hockey game and hear a hip-hop song now, which is unbelievable. It’s on Broadway. Hip-hop is all-influential and hip-hop actually started to stop the violence and to save lives in New York City, but if you listen to a lot of it now, it’s not really the premise.

So, what we’re doing is we’re interviewing a lot of hip-hop and R & B artists who are vegan – plant-based. We’ve got Styles P from the LOX, Stic from Dead Prez, Mýa the singer. I reached out to Jermaine Dupri. He’s actually interested. Russel Simmons and many more, Erykah Badu, KRS-One, RZA from the Wu-Tang. We’re reaching out to all these people and we’re going to interview them and ask them why they went plant-based vegan and why they think others should do it and the effects of it.

I think because of their influence over so many people, people are going to be so shocked to see that somebody from where they’re from within the African American community, probably not the best neighborhoods, they’re still thinking about their health and they’re doing this and it’s not just a fad.

Because that’s one of the stigmas is it’s a rich, white kind of thing to only do vegan or a hippy thing to do vegan. That’s not the case at all. So, we’ve got a lot of great traction with it, we’ve got a lot of great following with it already and we’re going to start filming with it probably before 2018, so it’s going to be exciting.

Kathy Smith: Oh my gosh. When I heard about this project, I just fell in love with it. I did go online and I started to research Russell Simmons, the different artists that have gone vegan through the years. You’re absolutely right. It’s a powerhouse of celebrity, it’s a powerhouse of musicians, and it completely blows your mind. It’s not what you expect from–when you think vegan, you think, “Oh, there’s the guy over there that’s kind of skinny,” and as you say, smelling maybe like patchouli.

I don’t want to be condescending, but that’s the image that so many people have. So, when I heard about it, I thought it’s going to open up this concept to so many more people.

Along with the idea of being a vegan, what I like that you bring to the table is this idea of that it doesn’t have to be that expensive also, because that’s the other excuse people make. Like, “I can’t afford to be a vegan. It’s too expensive. Vegetables or whatever are too expensive.” One of the things I’ve heard you say and, honestly, that you like to kind of eat the same meals almost every day. I’m very much into that also. I feel my best when I have–

John Lewis: A routine.

Kathy Smith:Yeah, a routine going. Thank you. One of the things I love is a very simple thing. People say they don’t have enough time. Always in my cupboard, I have rice, beans. I always have a stock of avocado on hand. I always have some salsa and usually get something that’s green around, be it spinach or kale or whatever. But you can whip up some rice, beans, throw some salsa and avocado and I mix it up and you feel full, you feel great, and it’s cheap.

John Lewis: It’s cheap.

Kathy Smith: And it tastes good.

John Lewis: And it tastes good.

Kathy Smith: Yeah, exactly. So, what are your go-to foods for eating on a daily basis?

John Lewis: I’d say berries from season to season. One of my favorite things I love to do is – I call it badass sweet potato soup. It’s pretty much just sweet potatoes, dates, jalapeno peppers, a little bit of sea salt and, then, I blend all that up and I make–especially if it’s the wintertime. That’s one of my biggest things in the wintertime. That’s so cheap and so healthy. For anybody who’s tried it, the recipe’s on my website. When people try it, they’re like, “Man, I did not know that was going to taste that good.”

I was like, “I told you. It’s not that hard.” Oh, and I also put avocado in it to give it that creaminess. Yeah, that’s one of my major ones. I have a tendency to call everything badass something. I have a badass beautiful mess, which is actually quinoa, grilled onions, black beans and avocado and sweet plantains. I put it all into a bowl and it’s a beautiful mess. It’s not pretty, it’s not meant to be on the cover of any cookbook, but it tastes amazing.

Kathy Smith: Oh, it sounds so good. I’ll have to try that. Listen, I know it’s about time to wrap up here. But I wanted to ask you. I know your philosophy–I saw this on your website–can be summed up in this simple Buddhist word. It’s called–I think I’m pronouncing it right–dukkha. Can you kind of explain why you picked that word and what it means to you?

John Lewis: The way it came about was actually I met somebody of a different religion – not Buddhist. I don’t know if a lot of people have heard of Jainism. One day I was sitting on a plane and I was sitting next to this guy. As you see, I fly a lot and it was late-night red eye and this guy gets on the plane and I had the window seat and he’s with his three daughters – two of them were twins – and his wife. He sits there and he’s like, “Hey, I’m so sorry. Is it possible that my little girl gets the window seat? She’s scared and it helps her to look out the window.” In my head, as nice as I try to always be, I almost thought about saying no, because I was so tired and I had already planned to just lean up against the window and go to sleep all night.

So, I switch seats. I go ahead and do it. I’m sure I had a little attitude. I was trying not to have it and he sparks up a conversation with me. He’s like, “Hey, do you want some of these snacks – whatever he had?” I was like, “You know what? Thanks, I have to read the package.” I was like, “I’m a vegan.”

He was like, “Oh, really. Yeah, I was actually raised vegan.”

I was like, “Really?

He was like, “Yeah. Have you ever heard of a religion called Jainism?”

I was like, “No, I’ve never heard of it.” For those that don’t know, Jainism is like the original hippies of the earth. They take care of the earth. In fact, the original Jains, they sweep the ground before they walk, not to step on any bugs, and they eat a plant-based lifestyle. Really, the whole flight, I literally didn’t go to sleep, which I thought I was. At the end of the day, we exchanged–we didn’t even exchange names the conversation was going so well. He said, “What’s your name?”

I’m like, “John Lewis.” I shake his hand.

He said, “Yeah, my name is Vip Jain.” He was actually a descendant of the original Jains that started the religion. This religion is older than Buddhism, everything. He told me that he follows a lot of teachings of Buddhism. Long story, short, I looked up the seven principles of Buddhism and this word, dukkha, just stood out. The word dukkha, in this context, means suffering. And they believe that if you understand that there will always be suffering in your life, no matter what you do, no matter how good of a person you are or how bad of a person you are, there will always be suffering. Once you understand that, then you can truly be happy.

You’re not sitting there thinking, “Why me? Why did this happen to me? Why did I lose my wallet? Why did my car get stolen? Why did this person die in my life,” or “why did I get injured?” You understand that that was supposed to happen and you don’t dwell on it. Yes, you can have a little bit of time where you can relish in it, but you don’t dwell in it. That literally has helped my life out tremendously. When people ask me why I’m always smiling, why I’m always happy, I’m not saying that things don’t happen in my life. It’s just that I understand that they’re going to happen regardless of what I do, so I might as well enjoy life and help other people enjoy life. That’s where it all comes from.

Kathy Smith: I love that. I appreciate you sharing that. It reminds me when I was a teenager, I lost both my parents. Through the years, that’s what propelled me into my career. I found my escape and my optimism through running and exercising and, then, through the way that I ate and the process of, then, helping other people.

I’m bringing it up because one of the things through the years as I share this story, this concept you’re talking about has helped me tremendously. Because when people say, “Oh, my God. I can’t believe that that happened.”

I say, “Things happen to everybody and we all go through big, small, in between challenges on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.” Just that acceptance that they do happen allows you to not just wallow in grief or anger or despair or that sort of thing, so I love that. I appreciate you sharing it, and I appreciate you being on the show.

I want to just make sure that everybody knows that there are a lot of practical tools and ways of learning how to eat a more plant-based diet. If you want to find out, just check out the BadassVegan on Instagram or Twitter – @BadassVegan. Or go to his website, which is BadassVegan.com. I guarantee that you’re going to find some nuggets. You’re going to find inspiration. You’re going to find recipes. I also want to put it out there. You don’t have to decide today that you want to be a vegetarian. You might want just decide you want to eat more plant-based foods because that is a step in the right direction.

Also, you guys, if you like this podcast and you’re interested in other ones, you might want to check out Dr. Oz that I interviewed recently on the single, most underappreciated problem in America or there’s the Diana Nyad who shared her story on how she swam from Cuba to Florida and how you push past your limits or even Dr. Sara Gottfried who shared how to reset your genes and reverse aging with dealing a bit with your hormonal makeup. So, if you love it, check it out.

John, you’re just doll. Thank you for being on the show. I can’t wait to help you spread the message.

John Lewis: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.