Plant-based diets in Functional Medicine & doctor degree programs - with guest Dr. Daniel Redwood, DC

In Episode #2 I chat with Dr. Daniel Redwood to discuss his plant-based journey and his experience with plant-based diets within health care & Functional Medicine. 

In this conversation we discuss:

- Comparing the US and Canadian dietary guidelines and how the democratic process can influence national healthcare guidelines, for better and for worse. 

- Tips on what to consider with your social circles when going plant-based. 

- The Functional Medicine perspective on emphasizing plant-based dietary approaches.

- The common denominators of the healthiest dietary approaches.

- Best practices to consider when transitioning into a plant-based lifestyle

- Dr. Redwood’s favourite plant-based foods and medicines. 

Resources:

 “ We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. The important thing is to not stop questioning. Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”
― Albert Einstein

- UWS Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine: https://www.uws.edu/human-nutrition-functional-medicine/

- Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: www.pcrm.org

- Dr. Michael Greger: www.nutritionfacts.org

 - Dr. Daniel Redwood’s music recording:

Songs for Animals, People and the Earth: www.danielredwoodsongs.com

Want to support the show? Help us by subscribing and leaving a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. It only takes a few minutes and helps more people find the episodes.

About your host: Dr. Travis Cox - BA, DC, MSc is a Doctor of Chiropractic with a focus on Functional Medicine and plant-based nutrition. He is the creator of PBandHealthy.com and host of the Plant-Based and Healthy podcast. Connect with him on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @yourvegandoc #pbandhealthy. And remember, individuals inspire and communities create change!

Audio credit: Thank you @katetrajanmusic for your lovely voice on the intro/outro and @craigritchiemusic for the super catchy music track for the intro/outro... many thanks!

Transcript

Dr. Travis Cox (00:00):

You see the countdown there on your screen?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (00:02):

I do.

Dr. Travis Cox (00:02):

Perfect.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (00:05):

Okay.

Dr. Travis Cox (00:06):

Okay. Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Redwood.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (00:13):

I'm glad to be with you.

Dr. Travis Cox (00:13):

Yeah, so we'll get right into it. I'm just going to have you pretend in your mind's eye that you're in the plant-based and healthy time machine. I want you to go back to when you first decided you wanted to become plant based and let our listeners know about the nuances of that journey.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (00:29):

Well, the journey had some ups and downs along the way. I grew up in a family that was eating a relatively standard American diet. I mean, perhaps a little better in terms of vegetables and fruits, but certainly nothing approaching the whole food plant-based approaches that I eventually arrived at. I would say that I started experimenting with diet back in my late teens when I was in college and did so, as many people do, in a less than fully informed way. Over time through people I met, I became a vegetarian. Particularly after moving from the East Coast to the West and spending time with people who were vegetarians at that time, I learned to eat better. I'm going to fast forward pretty far ahead rather than tell you every single detail of every six months. But what marked the major change for me was seeing a movie called Peaceable Kingdom, which has been edited into a second version later, but this was the original version.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (01:54):

In that movie, it showed animals inside slaughterhouses, and some of those images are really seared into my consciousness. And it also in the same movie showed animals of the same type, cows, pigs, and so on, chickens at an animal sanctuary after they had been rescued and were able to live normal animal lives, not being prepared for slaughter. The night and day difference between those two had a very profound effect on both my wife and myself. And when we came out of seeing that film, which was shown at a health food store in Virginia Beach, Virginia where we lived and where I practiced at that time as a chiropractor, my wife Beth said to me, "You don't have to do this, but that's it for me, I'm not having any more animal foods ever." I took about five seconds to think about that and said, "I'm with you." Basically, we went home and threw out everything in our pantry or our refrigerator that was not plant based. And we've been at it ever since. That was in 2005. And so, this is somewhere around 16, 17 years later. That's a mildly condensed version of my journey. There are various other stops and starts along the way, but hopefully that gives you some sense of where I'm coming from.

Dr. Travis Cox (03:32):

Absolutely. Wow. I find asking individuals their story about when they decided to become plant based pretty empowering because everyone always has a different experience, but it sounds like you were dabbling with a vegetarian diet to get the health benefits to eating a predominantly plant-based whole food or regimen. And then you had this experience with the movie you watched where your eyes were open to the cruelty that existed in, of course, the factory farming and, of course, just the animal husbandry industry. And now, of course, you've fully switched to veganism and have been that way ever since, and that's quite the experience for sure.

Dr. Travis Cox (04:12):

Now-

Dr. Daniel Redwood (04:12):

Yes. Yes. It's been a very important change in our lives.

Dr. Travis Cox (04:16):

Doing the transition to becoming, I guess, it sounds like vegan back in 2005, what were the obstacles like as far as micronutrients concern or any kind of other negative experiences when you transitioned into that vegan diet?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (04:33):

I was already decades into eating a largely whole-foods diet, even though it was not all plant based. So some of what some people find to be a bumpy part of the transition in terms of switching away from junk foods toward healthier foods was not an issue for me. But at that time, there were far less vegan options available. The plant-based food industry was at a much earlier stage of its evolution. So finding soy milk, let's say, that was unsweetened and didn't taste horribly beany was a very difficult find. You had to look hard.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (05:32):

Various other examples in terms of availability. I would say for me and for my wife, the biggest challenge in the transition, and it's less so now but it's still to some extent with us, were the social aspects, where the going out to eat at a restaurant, pre COVID of course, but going out to eat or going to a party where all sorts of animal food was available and my not wanting to necessarily make that the primary area of conversation but not wanting to avoid it if people asked me. Sometimes that, frankly, can create distance between people, and it can be for some people, has been to some extent for me, a challenging thing, because I don't want to exist solely within a bubble populated only by vegans. I want to be able to relate with other people on other areas of common ground, of which there can be many because people are mixtures. It's an ongoing process.

Dr. Travis Cox (06:53):

Okay, so what would you say would be a tip for our listeners if they're considering becoming plant-based or transitioning more strictly plant based? Is there any tips you'd give them with that social element in mind?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (07:10):

Yes. Let me think for a moment. I would say, first, practice your good listening skills. This is not a situation where we have to be in a debating society mode where the goal is to win, to just show that they're wrong and I'm right. It's more to share my story. I mean, a person might say, "Yes, but I love the taste of meat or [inaudible 00:07:49], never give up cheese or I'll starve or it'll all taste like straw." I think that to the extent that I can share that, yeah, I had those concerns too. Not all vegan foods taste great, just like not all non-vegan foods or non-vegetarian foods taste great. I mean, the goal in part is to find foods that are consistent both with our taste and with our values, which might be, "I don't want to eat animals because I don't want to contribute to their suffering or deaths." And to our health. I mean, all of those influences enter into how I would relate to someone or how I would advise others who are in conversations like that, whichever side of the conversation they're on, to enter that conversation.

Dr. Travis Cox (08:56):

Yeah, I really like that. I find I keep hearing that over and over again from other plant-based eaters, whether it be vegan, vegetarian, or otherwise. It seems like there's a lot of mentality around it's us versus them or it's we are right, you're wrong. And that's not conducive to embracing community to say, "Hey, you eat plants on occasion. If you want to eat more, great. If you don't, hey, we'll celebrate our differences." But it's not combative, it's more of a communal, or it should be more communal. I like that. It's more approachable of a conversation and not so adversarial and combative, right?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (09:32):

Yeah. I think there's a time and place for adversarial interactions. But if we're trying to either develop or maintain a friendship, that's probably not the direction in which we are most likely to achieve our goals. Our goal is to share our own experience, to ask them about theirs, and to see what we can learn from each other.

Dr. Travis Cox (10:03):

I like that. That's great. My next question is sort of switching gears but in the same kind of viewing lens.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (10:11):

Sure.

Dr. Travis Cox (10:11):

I was just talking to a colleague the other day who practices functional medicine in a chiropractic clinic. He is, let's just say, not on board with a predominantly plant-based whole-food diet for him and his patients. He's very focused on being keto, et cetera. But within functional medicine from your experience since obviously you're quite involved with the UWS program, where do you feel like plant-based diets place is in the functional medicine spectrum of dietary approaches?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (10:46):

Well, these are conversations that I have been engaged in in the past, as you might suspect. I would say that from my point of view, the functional medicine model is able to accommodate a variety of different sets of dietary choices. I mean, I've had this conversation, for example, with one of our faculty members who you probably remember, Travis, Dr. Deanna Minich. I mean, one of the things that she, and to a reasonably growing extent the Institution of Functional Medicine, one of the perspectives that they're incorporating is that it is possible to have a healthy diet following foundational, functional medicine principles and choosing different foods, different, healthy whole foods to comprise the elements of that diet. And so, IFN, the Institute for Functional Medicine, which our program at the University of Western States collaborates with, they will often show how to achieve certain goals with a vegan diet, how to achieve goals with a vegetarian diet, how to achieve goals with a ketogenic or Mediterranean diet.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (12:23):

I mean, from my point of view, looked at neutrally without coming into it with the preconception like I want everyone to be vegan or I want everyone to be keto, functional medicine diagnostic and analytic model for understanding what a particular patient or client will benefit from is really neutral in terms of what we might call nutritional ideology so to speak. I mean that you can go different directions with this. I think it's important, and we emphasize this in our program when training our students, we want our students when they graduate to be practitioners who can be helpful and evidence based or evidence informed in a supportive way consistent with their patient's values. Which in a place like the United States where I live, and I think Canada is relatively similar in terms of the pluralism of the society, different kinds of beliefs and groups and ethnicities and so on, I mean, depending on where you live and who you attract as patients or clients, you're going to attract people who are seeking your help, who come to you from a variety of different perspectives. And what we want to do is to be able to help them to come as close as possible to optimum health consistent with their values, rather than trying to say every single patient needs to adapt themselves to be consistent with my values. So that's a delicate, what should we say, a thin needle to thread, but I think it's one worth honoring.

Dr. Travis Cox (14:24):

100%. Yeah. It's very interesting that you say that because of how there are these ideologies within any health profession, but within specifically functional medicine, there seems to be these different camps of what would diet or what approach to foods is the best. And of course, not just with practitioners' preferences but with patients' preferences, and we need to honor that and value that as far as what I'm hearing you say, which is totally spot on.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (14:53):

If I could go a little further on this-

Dr. Travis Cox (14:55):

Absolutely.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (14:57):

... one of the things that I've seen over the years is that while a ketogenic diet, a Mediterranean diet, a whole-food plant-based diet seem on the surface to be quite divergent in their approaches, there's also a whole lot of common ground among them. What I would emphasize is that if properly done, all of those, I would say, can incorporate the following: first of all, to get rid of ideally 100%, but at least in large measure get rid of the junk food in your diet. I mean, practitioners of all of those approaches or ideologies I think can agree on that, if they are scientifically based. I mean, that shouldn't be in dispute. There are other differences among them, but frankly, if people can get rid of the processed foods in their diet, the added sugars, the high fructose corn syrup, the potato chips, the processed fats, and I could go on and on. All of us know what these foods are.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (16:24):

We know that they're not good for us. We probably still think they taste good because they have been engineered to do that. But if we can move in the direction of whole foods, particularly getting rid of the sugars and the processed fats, I think that takes us, and there's no exact number on this, in my view, that takes us what? 85% of the way that we need to go to achieve an optimal diet. And then, yes, there are differences on whether or not to include dairy, whether or not to include meat. I would also add that in terms of plant foods, having the vast majority of one's diet comprised of foods derived from plants, that grow in the ground, that's the mainstream view now. I mean, to me, if you want to know what does the mainstream nutritional view in a society look like, probably the best place to go is the national dietary guidelines.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (17:37):

The US dietary guidelines for 2020 to 2025 and the Canadian guidelines, which I actually consider superior to the US guidelines at this point, the document that the Canadians published in 2019, those are quite frank in telling you to eat the vast majority of your food from plants. On the US, my plate, if the whole left side of the plate is all fruits and vegetables, and this is explicitly meant to tell people that half of the food you eat by weight should be in these categories, so it's fruits and vegetables, that's the whole left side of the plate, that's 50% of your diet, ideally, and we want to strive for the ideal. And the other side, the right side of my plate, has a little more than a quarter, 30% or so, composed of grains, which I would say should be whole grains. The US waffles a bit on that, so to speak. Pun not entirely intended, because you can have whole food waffles.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (18:48):

And then the fourth piece is the proteins, which include meats but also include legumes, which are peas, beans, and lentils. So, if you look at 50% fruits and vegetables, 30% grains, preferably whole grains, and then a maximum of, let's say, 20% meats, and that could be 0% because you could just have that protein piece come from legumes and nuts and seeds, the idea, and I don't think this has sunk in broadly enough in our society, the idea that you should eat the vast majority of your food from plants is not some fringe controversial claim or assertion. It's the mainstream view of the nutrition science community and the nutrition policy community. So this is something I do my best to emphasize in classes I teach. And since you've invited me to speak to your audience today, I want to share that with anyone who's listening.

Dr. Travis Cox (19:57):

No, that's perfect. I couldn't agree more. I feel like there is this underlying commonality with plant-based foods being at the core of all these best helpful diets or dietary approaches. And like you alluded to, the government agencies that are, of course, summarizing these research literature reviews and systematic reviews are saying that just a resounding plant-based fundamental is actually at the core of all these healthy diets. And we know that, of course, it's not fringe, it is mainstream, but it should be more well understood amongst all communities and all peoples because, of course, it's in their best interest.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (20:38):

The other thing I'd add is that the term plant based can be and is defined by different people in different ways. I mean, from my point of view, I got used to a plant-based diet meaning 100 plants, but it is used by various people to mean vast majority of food is from plants or more plants than animal foods. So that's why surveys of how many people follow plant-based diets, what percentage of the population, can be kind of confusing. Because you can get people who say, "Yes, I follow a plant-based diet," or even some people who say, "I follow a vegan diet," who are saying further down in the survey, "I only eat meat three or four times a month or a couple times a week." So it's important for us in our conversations with people, if we're using the term plant based, to define it such that both people or all people in the conversation know what the other is talking about.

Dr. Travis Cox (21:48):

100%. Yeah. I think of plant-based diets as being that spectrum where if you eat literally one pea a week, you're eating plants, right? Of course that's really extreme, but then if you're 100% vegan, there's no trace of any animal product in your food whatsoever and everything that you eat is derived from the earth, then that's, of course, most people's definitions of being vegan. But there's somewhere in between that most people where they're at, and I think it's important to, of course, yeah, like you said, define that definition of plant based for each individual. And, of course, if you're reading or interpreting a research or a blog post or listening to a podcast like this one, is understanding what do people mean? But of course, leading more towards the more plants and more plants as your core intake of food and calories would be more helpful is the takeaway here. But it's good to clarify for sure.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (22:43):

Yes.

Dr. Travis Cox (22:44):

So next question would be, because we kind of answered that next one, in the context of, I guess, functional medicine but more, I guess, stepping back, looking at these different educational programs for healthcare practitioners, whether it be the Doctor of Chiropractic program or Master of Science in Human Nutrition to Functional Medicine or any other healthcare provider program, what is your viewpoint on including information, research, and of course, course material on plant-based diets and their health benefits and the dos and don'ts so to speak?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (23:23):

From my perspective, any legitimate academic program needs to share with its students the evidence, pro and con, the research evidence about all sorts of different approaches rather than to leave certain ones out and rather than to essentially convey the message that only one of these is legitimate. I mean that's a foundational principle for me in our program at the University of Western States. I would actually go further and say that the University of Western States, which has integrative healthcare as central to its mission statement, I mean, all of our programs aspire to achieve that. We don't want to train disciples who only know part of the truth. We want people to learn how to evaluate evidence, look at the evidence for the whole spectrum of different approaches, and then think for themselves, basically, rather than to say, "This is the only thing that's true."

Dr. Daniel Redwood (24:45):

I mean, the one exception I'd make, and it's not really an exception, maybe it is, is that our program is committed to a whole-food based approach. But I don't consider that controversial at this point. Let me give an example with regard to whole foods because you can have whole-food diets that are everything from whole-food plant-based, as I said before, to Mediterranean, to dietary approaches to stop hypertension, to ketogenic, to paleo and so on. But in terms of whole foods, that's the mainstream view. I particularly appreciated the way the Canadian dietary guidelines, which were formulated, and I'm speaking about this in some detail because you're in Canada, as I assume some of your audiences, the Canadian dietary guidelines approach said that the people on the panel who were writing the guidelines, these are nutrition experts, dieticians, and epidemiologists and others, they could not interact with, they could not have conversations with people from the food industries who would want to lobby them until the final guidelines were published.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (26:14):

In the United States on the other hand, there's no prohibition on that at all. And once the scientific advisory committee, which is supposedly free of conflict but not quite, once their report comes out, it goes through an entire lobbying process at the US Department of Agriculture where Congress people, where industry representatives push hard to weaken what I would consider certain good scientific approaches. And so, what I now teach in my whole food nutrition and supplementation class, which you were a student in once upon a time, Dr. Cox, we used to teach just the US guidelines. But once that 2019 Canadian guidelines came out, we show both of them and look at what do they have in common, what's different.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (27:13):

And from my point of view, without question, where they differ, the Canadian guidelines are superior. And I think one of the main reasons for that is the way the process was structured, the fact that you couldn't have the meat industry or the processed grain industry or whatever industry it is, the high fructose corn syrup industry, they can't carry the day unless the research shows that what they're pushing for is valid. In many of these cases, it's not.

Dr. Travis Cox (27:51):

Well, it sounds like I might have to retake your whole foods and nutrition and supplementation course. I don't remember that being a part of it, but I think that that is so valid because yeah, of course, if there a government body or some kind of high level information being dispersed amongst the public, if it's flawed or at all biased, of course that should be flagged. But it's good to know that, of course, you guys in that course are reviewing the pros and cons for either guideline. And of course, nothing's perfect, I'm sure even the Canadian guidelines are not perfect, but there is definitely pros and cons to various levels of information. And I'm glad you guys do that in course now, it's great.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (28:35):

We do, and I am very pleased to do that. We spend one full week in that whole food class on the dietary guidelines.

Dr. Travis Cox (28:45):

Wow. Well, like I said, I might have to retake that just to make sure I don't miss anything. Next question, if you could please share your favorite plant-based food with our listeners, what would it be?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (29:00):

Well, it's a tough choice because there are so many good choices to choose among, but if I had to choose one it's blueberries. It's fresh, organic blueberries. I mean, I eat blueberries all year round. My wife and I have maybe a dozen blueberry plants in our yard, and the ones we grow are my favorites, of course, but I would say blueberries are it. They're marvelously tasty, marvelously nutritious. Kale would be up there, but blueberries, number one.

Dr. Travis Cox (29:35):

Okay, so blueberries. Do you freeze them after you harvest them to save them for the rest of the year? Or do you just eat them while they're fresh and try to not overload yourself on blueberries?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (29:46):

Well, I'm not worried about overloading myself on blueberries. You might even consider that I do overload myself on blueberries with what I'm about to say. But no, the amount of blueberries that we grow on those dozen or so plants, we eat all of fresh, so there's none left to freeze. Whereas tomatoes, we get some to freeze. And we also [inaudible 00:30:11] farmer's market here in Portland, Oregon, and some from the store when it's in season, but I eat fresh blueberries when they're in season. I mean in season relatively locally, Pacific Northwest, maybe California. And then I eat organic, frozen blueberries the rest of the year with my oatmeal in the morning.

Dr. Travis Cox (30:31):

Good. I was worried you're going to deprive yourself of blueberries for the rest of the year when they're out of season, but I'm glad to hear you don't.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (30:39):

No, I would choose frozen blue blueberries from a good health food market, the organic ones, over... I'm not ruling these out, but I don't buy them, the ones that are fresh this time of year, which is winter, are coming from Chile or Peru or someplace like that. I'd rather go with the frozen ones from here.

Dr. Travis Cox (31:04):

Absolutely. In the same context, what would be your favorite medicinal plant-based food?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (31:15):

Also challenging choices, but you're asking me to narrow it down to one, so my one would be turmeric, which is both culinary, that is to say you can use it in cooking, and it's a wonderful anti-inflammatory from a medicinal point of view. Best eaten either cooked or possibly raw with black pepper, a small amount of black pepper, which magnifies the beneficial nutritional interactions that will take place in our body. Turmeric is the orange colored spice native to India and other places in that general part of the world. It's the orange color in Curry.

Dr. Travis Cox (32:08):

I have to ask you now, what would be your second choice if you could hardly narrow it down to one?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (32:14):

For the medicinal?

Dr. Travis Cox (32:14):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Correct.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (32:18):

Man, let me think. I didn't prepare for this, so give me a second.

Dr. Travis Cox (32:25):

Maybe to give you a hint, I think you told me it was mint previously.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (32:29):

Oh, oh, well, and thank you for the reminder.

Dr. Travis Cox (32:32):

But I was curious as to why. Why did you choose mint?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (32:39):

I chose mint because historically... First of all, I love the taste, so that's not medicinal per se. But mint is well known for its gastrointestinal calming qualities. There are other herbs that are too, but for the combination of great taste plus calm your digestion, and for me personally, I think all of us have some system or some organ in our body that's our weakest spot. That's a view I've come to over the decades in practice. Mine is probably the gastrointestinal tract or maybe the lungs.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (33:23):

So, we grow mint. I make an herb tea from three herbs that we grow in our garden every summer. And those plants are mint, and some of it is peppermint, some of it is spearmint. So mint, lemon verbena, and stevia. Now, stevia, most people know it in the processed form, some white powder that some company puts into little packets or something. Stevia is a plant that has leaves that have that sweetness. I mean, a milder version of the sweetness than the processed stevia. We grow it. We love it. And those three put together into herb tea, I drink that regularly, probably from, I don't know, June to almost December here in Portland, from the garden. Eventually, the plants just reach the end of their cycle. But yeah, I use those three. I think of it as both a delicious cold drink or hot and as something that's herbal as well. I mean, botanical in terms of its effect.

Dr. Travis Cox (34:45):

Yeah, I didn't realize stevia... I mean, it makes sense that you can grow it, and then you actually cultivate it. I've never seen it in its whole-food plant-based form just in the, of course, ingredient list in different food products, but, huh, I'll have to check it out.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (35:03):

It is, by the way, stevia is native to Paraguay.

Dr. Travis Cox (35:05):

Okay. I didn't know that. I'll check that out. I might put some link in the show notes for that for anyone else that's curious about stevia.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (35:14):

Great.

Dr. Travis Cox (35:15):

And before we end the show here, Dr. Redwood, what advice would you give someone just starting a plant-based life journey? If they were deciding today to give up the standard American diet, go into a version of a plant-based diet, what be your number one tip?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (35:33):

I would say find versions of foods that you like that can be put together from plant-based foods. If you like salads, keep having salads. Maybe don't add the goat or cow-based cheese to it or meats, the bacon. I would say find tastes that you like. I would say actually, let me say... It's a little more than one thing, but let me give this a try. I would say in most of your meals, include a whole grain, a legume, particularly in dinners but you could do this in other meals too, a legume like a bean or soy or peas, a whole grain, a legume, some vegetables and some kind of sauce, some kind of flavoring that you like from before you became plant based. If you really like teriyaki sauce or Mexican flavoring or whatever it might be, or ketchup, bring it in so that it's not totally unfamiliar.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (37:10):

And the other thing I'd say is be patient with yourself. Try different things. If you try something and the recipe didn't turn out wonderfully, which happens to all of us sometimes, still it happens to me when I'm trying something new, "Yeah, that was great. Not so much on that one." Be patient with yourself. It's important that if at some point, for whatever reason, you fall off the wagon so to speak, you went to a party or you went to your grandmother's house or your mother-in-law's house and there was some food there that you didn't want to offend her by not having and so you had it, I would say don't kick yourself too hard for that. Just go back. It doesn't mean you were a failure as a person. It doesn't mean you were a failure as someone trying to bring their diet into a healthy plant-based zone. Just pick up where you left off and you'll be fine.

Dr. Travis Cox (38:20):

Totally. Yeah, progress not perfection. And of course, keep on chugging along there. That's great. So, Dr. Redwood, where can I send our listeners to follow up with you or any of the information you discuss regarding the University of Western States program?

Dr. Daniel Redwood (38:38):

Well, University of Western States, the main URL of the university website is www.uws, University of Western States, uws.edu, as schools are. Look for the human nutrition and functional medicine program. Just go to the little search place where you've got the magnifying glass on the UWS website and type in nutrition, let's say, and you'll get there. I actually will give my college email address if people want to reach out to me directly, which is dredwood, D-R-E-D-W-O-O-D, @uws.edu. I'm open to being approached through that. I think those are the main resources that I'd mentioned. Although, if someone wants to really pursue high quality resources on a fully vegan plant-based whole-food diet, among the resources I would recommend are pcrm.org, the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine, and also nutritionfacts.org, which is Dr. Michael Gregor's website. He's got tons of short videos based on his reading of the research on plant-based and other non-plant-based ways of eating.

Dr. Travis Cox (40:19):

That's fantastic. I'll include a link to those resources in the show notes as well in case any of our listeners want to follow up with those recommendations. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Redwood. I really appreciate having you here.

Dr. Daniel Redwood (40:32):

My pleasure.