The Future of Food x FRESH Med NYC
The Future of Food
Last month, Dr. Graham had the opportunity to give a guest lecture at Hotelschool the Hague. Dr. Graham’s connection to the school began when he met a great friend Joost de Vos at the 2019 Food Inspiration summit in the Netherlands. Joost now facilitates a minor at Hotelschool the Hague, called “The Future of Food.”
Dr. Graham first greeted the class by sharing his intention to discuss food in the past and present, with a small introduction to the future.
“By the future of food, I mean the intersection of Doctor and Chef,” he explained. “These two passions of mine have been hit tremendously hard during this COVID-19 pandemic. You realize how fragile both our food systems and our health systems are when something like this hits.”
To understand this fragility in the present, Dr. Graham took the students on a little stroll through the past. The pandemic has exposed long-standing inequities across the globe. Dr. Graham discussed the demographics of severe COVID-19 cases (meaning hospitalization, ICU and/or death), noting “It’s hugely about social determinants of health. One of the greatest predictors of death [with COVID-19] is not only your age, but your zip code. It is deadly. And it attacks the most vulnerable, along racial and ethic lines.”
These types of catastrophic injustices demand a systemic rewiring to correct. “Our task is to identify where the future of our food system and our healthcare systems lie.”
This is where Dr. Graham introduced his integrative medicine practice FRESH Med, which he co-founded with his wife, Julie. They created the FRESH model to use Food, Relaxation, Exercise, Sleep and Happiness as medicine. And recently, Julie spearheaded the launch of their new e-learning program, FRESH Med U, to teach people to best use these tools in their everyday lives.
“You can use food as a preventive medical tool to augment current medical treatment, which unfortunately currently amounts to… drugs.” Dr. Graham told the Future of Food students. “You have to shift the way things have been done.”
After class, the students were challenged to practice doing just that. Their assignment was to “FRESHify” their favorite dish, to add nutritional value. Check out the FRESH Instagram to see some of their creations featured in Stories!
But before that, they got to ask for a few pointers from Dr. Graham following the lecture -- and their questions were too astute and engaging not to share! Here they are:
Q&A
Q: What are the differences in the challenges faced by people in the U.S. vs. people in Europe?
Dr. Rob: The number one driver for global rates of obesity is westernization. Not only the food, but how it is grown, stored and delivered. Wherever our food goes, our diseases follow. It’s a cautionary tale for all of you around the world. Do not follow our food and healthcare systems. If you don’t know where it’s going, you’ll find yourself there. Stay true to how you have traditionally raised your food, how you produce your food, how you store your food and how you deliver your food.
Q: You talk about treating diseases with healthy food. I am a Type I diabetic. Is something like that possible for me?
Dr. Rob: Once you have a chronic disease, one of the goals is to reverse it. At FRESH Med, we use a whole-food, plant-based approach and have success with this. Type I Diabetes is one that may not be fully reversible, so lessened utilization of medicine is what my goal is.
Q: Can a carb-heavy diet lead to depression?
Dr. Rob: First of all, depression is multifactorial. One of the things COVID-19 has done is really highlighted the epidemic of mental illness we have in our society. Diet can be a component, but so can any number of environmental, financial and social stressors. Rather than stigmatize, we need to treat it as a health condition, like we would a heart attack.
To address the root of any nutrition problems, we have to recognize that 95% of serotonin, which is the major driver of happiness in our brain, is manufactured in our gut. So I think optimizing our health has to start there.
Driven by a high reliance on unethically raised meat and highly-processed foods, the western diet is destructive to our gut health. Carbs are not the enemy! There are plenty of quality sources -- like the carbohydrates in whole, grains, fruits and vegetables. And we are aiming to consume those alongside other nutritionally dense carbs like brown rice, quinoa, farro, bulgur, barley, oats and 100% whole wheat bread.
What you may want to do is temporarily eliminate certain carbohydrates from your diet and see if you notice any effect. As I said, depression is multifactorial and it’s also individual. I also recommend my friend Drew Ramsey’s book: Eat to Beat Depression.
Q: How are you bridging alternative medicine with traditional medicine?
Dr. Rob: I don’t like the world alternative so much, because it sort of implies one or the other. But integrative medicine means looking for the best evidence available in the conventional, traditional, alternative and complementary fields and “integrating” it into one practice. That’s what we’ve done at FRESH Med. Conventional medicine doesn’t have all the answers. Because if it did, we wouldn’t be here right now!
Q: What’s the best diet out there right now?
Dr. Rob: Diets don’t work. Or, every single diet out there works great… if short-term weight loss is the goal. Lifestyle changes work.
Q: How do you stay up-to-date with what constitutes a healthy diet?
Dr. Rob: That’s a million dollar question because health is so personalized. We often overcomplicate things. That’s all we’ve done in the past 30 years -- demonize different food groups. A healthy diet is actually simple: Eat mostly whole foods. Limit meats. Cook as much as you can.
Of course, I keep up to date with the medical literature, looking at peer-reviewed research from reputable publications. But from a more accessible point of view, I follow some professionals I really respect in this field: Dr. David Katz. Mark Bittman. Dr. Mark Hyman.
In the food community, like in the global community, we need to find things that unite us. Eat more plants… I don’t think many people can disagree with that!
Q: Should I be taking supplements?
Dr. Rob: Dietary supplements have a role to do just that -- supplement. Diets are not what you eat in a day so much as what you eat in a pattern, like over three days.
Particularly for the vegan community, if you want to supplement I think it’s worth testing, supplementing, then testing again. I recommend B12, Vitamin D, and iron supplements for vegans. Test, though! If you don’t need it, I’d rather you get it in a dietary form. And when it comes to supplements, quality matters. Supplements are not regulated as drugs, but as food. So buy or beware!
Q: How do we affect Big Food?
Dr. Rob: All food -- and especially healthy food -- should be Convenient, Affordable and Tasty (C.A.T.), as Dr. Peter Klose puts it. And I would add an “S” for Sustainable. Big Food focuses on taste more than those factors, because regardless of how much healthy stuff you want, if it doesn’t taste good you’re not going to come back and buy it. As a consumer, we have a responsibility to make these choices.
But basically, I don’t believe Big Food will ever change because they are altruistic and compassionate. I think this will only be driven by policy.
Q: How do you monitor that people stick to healthy products?
Dr. Rob: One of the things I focus on when designing my meals (for Performance Kitchen): it has to be familiar. People like eating what brings them comfort. So a Chef’s role in this: we have to make things with authentic flavors that remind people of the positive experiences they had as a child. We can do this and keep it nutritious!
Right now, we’re making the unhealthy the easy choice. So that’s where the whole shift has to happen. With food, we have to make the healthy the default.
Q: Is there a certain diet you think is “best?
Dr. Rob: Diets don’t work. Or, every single diet out there works if the goal is short-term weight loss (6 weeks to 3 months).
Instead, focus on a healthy lifestyle -- what we call FRESH. Food, Relaxation, Exercise, Sleep and Happiness as medicine. I love the way the Rastafarians frame it: they don’t call it diet, they call it live-it.
Shoot for good, healthy food 80% of the time. We all should be able to enjoy life too, but 80% of the time, eat the right diet. And guess what? Weight loss is the greatest side effect of healthy living.
Q: Are there certain foods I should definitely eliminate from my diet?
Dr. Rob: It’s very individualized and very intuitive. You are what you eat, but you are also what THEY eat.
My own dietary theory is virtually vegan and a conscious carnivore. So I would say eliminating poor-quality animal proteins is a great place to start. I understand that animals can have a place in our diets, but we have a responsibility to care for them. And we have to care for ourselves, because poor-quality animal proteins lead to an increased risk of chronic diseases later in life.
And westernized farming practices are unsustainable for the planet, too. To better animal, human and planetary health, I prescribe a predominantly plant-based diet with occasional, ethically-raised animal proteins.
Q: Should I drink “complete meal shakes”?
Dr. Rob: My question back to you would be, What’s your goal?
If your goal is to get 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, I say go for it. Four simple ways to increase your consumption: Smoothies, shakes, stir-fries and salads. I’ll make myself a smoothie with dark leafy greens some days to get in my servings! But if you’re going to drink three smoothies a day and nothing else, I would say no, I can’t recommend that.
Q: Should meat substitutes be a part of my diet?
Dr. Rob: This is a question I get a lot from patients who are interested in eating vegan. What I tell them is that I believe a vegan diet should still be a plant-based, whole-food diet. So the question to ask yourself is whether your meat substitutes check those boxes.
Impossible and Beyond Meat do have a role. People are experimenting with them in hopes of reducing their meat intake. Now, I don’t consider them whole foods. But I do consider them a transition to eating more fruits and vegetables. I put them in the same category of a healthy, organic, grass-fed hamburger. How many times a month should you be eating that? I would say, maybe 1 time a month? Use it as a holiday, use it as a gift to yourself. But have a predominantly plant-based, whole-food diet. 1-2 times per month is what I would recommend to my patients for those kinds of meat substitutes.
Q: How do you define “processed” foods?
Dr. Rob: As Michael Pollan says, “If your grandmother can’t read the food label, you shouldn’t be eating it.” If it comes in a box, it’s probably processed. That’s what I’m trying to change with my meals at Performance Kitchen Crafted. They’re medically tailored: low sodium, healthy fats only, conscious animal welfare and nothing processed. The science shows that if you give people healthy food, it reduces healthcare costs and produces better healthcare outcomes.