Episode 115
JW Najarian on Interviewing Buzz Aldrin, Cancer… foodexposed
Video Transcription
Jackie Keller: Welcome to Food Exposed, where each week we take a close
look at what’s on your plate. My name is Jackie Keller and I’m the
Founding Director of NutriFit, Los Angeles’ leading healthy food
company. Today we’re taking a closer look at the second deadliest
disease plaguing our modern world – cancer. First, some good news on
the cancer front; death rates for all cancers combined and for the
leading cancers among men are declining. For women, those rates have
stabilized. According to the National Cancer Institute, this is true
across the fifteen most common cancers for all races and all
ethnicities combined. Still it is estimated that 35% of all cancers
are tied to our nutrition habits. We hear a lot about that these days
and how much fat is good for you. What kind of fat is good for you?
What we should be worried about. Here’s a quote that I want to share
with you. “Obesity-related cancer is now an official definition used
by both the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute,
but this does not mean that other cancers are not related to obesity;
only that there is currently not enough evidence because the cancer is
not well-studied or rare. Only lung cancer so far has not been linked
to obesity probably because of its strong association with smoking and
low air quality status. As recently as April 9th, just a few days ago,
a large published study of over 330 thousand women living in ten
European countries were followed for over 11 years. That study
concluded that high saturated fat and high total fat intake were
associated with a higher risk of breast cancer.
So it all comes down to basics. What should we be eating to provide
the best opportunity to lower our risk of cancer? Eating seven or more
portions of fruits and vegetables a day reduces your risk of death
from cancer at any point in time by 25% compared to eating less than
one portion, according to a new study that was published in London in
March of this year; eating three to five portions of fruit and
vegetables daily decreased death risk by 19%. A new study published in
the New England Journal of Medicine found that people who ate a daily
serving of nuts were significantly less likely to die from any cause
as opposed to those who never ate any nuts at all. The message is
clear. Eating healthily, plenty of fruits and vegetables, all of which
are rich in antioxidants, moderate amounts of saturated fat, not
having too much meat or full-fat dairy and having modest servings of
healthy nuts and monounsaturated fats, that will give your body the
best ammunition possible to fight cancer.
Most of us know someone that has been touched by cancer. My own mom
died from cancer and this has driven a lot of my energy and purpose.
Every time I think of purpose, I think of OnPurposeMagazine.com. It’s
an online publication that I write blog posts for and that I interact
with. My next guest is the founder of this wonderful publication. JW
Najarian spent the first 35 years of his career as a computer engineer
and a project manager before he changed to a career in commercial real
estate. He started the Commercial Real Estate Professionals Investors
Group in 2006 and then began working actively in philanthropy for
Humanities Unites Brilliance and Feed 333. A proud veteran, JW also
built a LinkedIn group of over 40 thousand U.S. veterans use the
resources of the group to connect and help each other. Since then, On
Purpose Magazine has flourished and it’s dedicated to helping people
find comfort and hope in today’s complex world; JW, welcome to Food
Exposed.
JW Najarian: Thank you for having me here.
Jackie Keller: Thank you so much for coming.
JW Najarian: We’ve talked so many times and it’s really great that we
finally get to meet in person.
Jackie Keller: I’m delighted.
JW Najarian: I’m just delighted to be on your show.
Jackie Keller: Well, thank you. Thank you. Do you like to report on
nutrition for On Purpose Magazine? Tell us about that?
JW Najarian: As we talked about in the interview that I did with you,
it has kind of been a hobby of mine over the years. I actually went to
Naturopathy School for a very short time because I thought it was my
calling to be a Naturopath and talk to people about nutrition and
things like that, but I found it was more of a hobby. I got tired of
it and got into other things, but I still really am interested in
nutrition and I do report on it quite a lot. You were just talking
about cancer. I’m a cancer patient right now.
Jackie Keller: Wow.
JW Najarian: I went from burgers and my new friend is kale.
Jackie Keller: Good. Good. You’ve met kale.
JW Najarian: I’ve met kale.
Jackie Keller: Yes. Kale is a wonderful, wonderful thing.
JW Najarian: Yes. I’ve learned I’m a nut eater, I’m a kale eater and
I’m learning how to make kale taste good and how to eat vegetables and
stay away from sugars and salts. There has been a major change in my
diet. So I’m really excited today to talk about it.
Jackie Keller: Good. Good. What about the fitness side? Do you report on
fitness too in On Purpose or is more nutrition-oriented? Tell us a
little bit about that.
JW Najarian: First of all, On Purpose Magazine is a magazine that we
put together mainly to put out some really… There’s a lot of content
on the internet as you know, but we wanted to put out some really good
content on the internet. Just really helpful stuff, there’s a lot of
garbage out there. So we started by talking to celebrities because
celebrities bring eyeballs. They bring people to you. So talk to them
about their cause and their foundations and the good things that are
going on. I love to talk to authors. They have great stories. I talk
to authors, especially the ones that are talk about self-help and
personal development and things like that. That’s how I got into
talking to authors about nutrition like yourself and fitness and
working out. I workout, I go to the Y every day.
Jackie Keller: Good.
JW Najarian: I’m learning about stretching after as opposed to before.
One of the things you learn… I spent this last year pretty much in
bed a lot of the time because I had spine surgery from tumors in my
spine as I had stage 4 cancer. One of the things you find out is that
you lose muscle mass… I’m on Androgen Deprivation Therapy also.
That’s taking all of the testosterone out of my body which means I
lose muscle mass very, very quickly. I have to go to the gym. I have
to be a gym rat in the morning and workout really hard; harder than a
lot of people. You’ll notice right now I’m sweating a lot because I’m
going through, what women would call, their personal summer of
menopause because I don’t have any testosterone left in my body and
that’s one of the treatments I have to go through. Working out is
really essentially… You’ll notice most people say, “You have cancer.
You haven’t lost your hair and you’re overweight.”
Jackie Keller: You look great. No, but you look great.
JW Najarian: Well, thank you. I haven’t had to do the chemo therapy
that makes you lose weight or lose your hair. Not at this point.
Jackie Keller: You have to be on a special diet though.
JW Najarian: Yes. They don’t make you. Nobody comes to your door. The
cancer doesn’t come to your door and give you a hard time, but the
numbers that you talked about. They are real. You have to beat the
odds. The odds are not good for all cancers. In order to beat those
odds, you have to do the right things. That has a lot to do with
nutrition, but also mindset. It’s not easy to pass up my favorite
burger place.
Jackie Keller: Right.
JW Najarian: When you’re out with your friends and they’re eating a
bunch of fries, it’s not easy to say no.
Jackie Keller: When you think about the magazine, do you have a favorite
type of article that you like to do? Do you have a favorite type of
interview? Is it about causes and things that revolve around those
issues? What do you enjoy the most?
JW Najarian: We do highlight causes a lot of times. I came up with the
name On Purpose because I wanted to do articles with purpose, on
purpose, if that makes any sense. That means that the articles I do
mean something and teach something. They are hopefully intriguing and
educational. They make you think. They teach you something. That’s why
I love your articles. They have great recipes that you put in our
magazine and also great articles on all kinds of things for wellness
and health. Those are the things we look for. My personal favorites
are authors because of the stories that they tell.
Jackie Keller: You have celebrities that do shout-outs to the vets and to
various things.
JW Najarian: That’s my favorite thing. Every time I get a vet on, I try
to get them to do a U.S. veteran shout-out. One of my favorites was
when I was a kid I loved space and the whole Apollo thing so I’ve had
Buzz Aldrin to yell out to the vets for me.
Jackie Keller: That’s cool. That’s cool. What about authors and up and
coming authors? How do you help them out?
JW Najarian: The magazine actually makes no money. It’s just out there.
It was my outlet to put out good information and good content. I was
doing a lot of stuff in commercial real estate where I was putting out
content about the economy. I was talking to world economists and
things about finances for the commercial real estate industry, which
is a little boring. So I moved over to celebrities because it was more
fun.
Jackie Keller: Right.
JW Najarian: The question again was? I’m sorry.
Jackie Keller: How do you help up and coming authors?
JW Najarian: Oh, authors. Yes. What I’m trying to do is move to a model
where I… Because I talk to a lot of best-selling authors and one of
the things I do in the last ten or fifteen minutes of the interview is
I talk to them about their journey that they’ve taken writing the
book. Why they decided to publish a certain way? Who they published
with? What is their writing cycle like? All of those kinds of things,
this is very interesting to authors. We’re trying to move over now to
a monetization phase, where maybe we can help some authors out; up and
coming authors who don’t know how to get their books out and how to
promote their books. Nobody’s calling them up to promote their books.
Maybe if they’ve got any interviews [inaudible 11:19] in Kenosha,
Wisconsin it’s not on a site like mine that gets a lot of attention.
So we’re working on something now to put something together that will
cost a little money, but we’re going to try to make it fair where we
can help you promote your book.
Jackie Keller: That’s great. Do you ever discuss religion or politics? Do
you get into controversy?
JW Najarian: No. We really stay away from those kinds of things because
they are non-academic subjects to us. We don’t want to really… It’s
hard to talk about those. We are going to start something called “Talk
Summit”. That’s coming up, watch for TalkSummit.com. That’s going to
be a blog/talk radio show with me and a couple of my friends. We’re
going to pretty much tear it up.
Jackie Keller: That sounds great.
JW Najarian: We’re going to let loose.
Jackie Keller: Alright.
JW Najarian: It should be fun.
Jackie Keller: Well, we’ll watch for that. In the meantime, I thought we
might spend a couple of minutes in the kitchen together cooking up
some great antioxidant-rich cancer protective foods. What do you
think?
JW Najarian: I think that’s a great idea.
Jackie Keller: Alright. Well, let’s cook.
JW Najarian: Alright.
Jackie Keller: OK, JW we’re ready to cook and I thought it would be good
to structure a recipe that anybody can make at home; something very
simple, something very nutritious and something very appropriate for
guys with cancer, or guys that want to protect their prostate because
I know that we have a high incidence of prostate cancer, it’s a very
common one. We also know a little bit about how healthy it is for guys
to have tomato products. Particularly, cooked tomato products because
tomatoes…
JW Najarian: The lycopene or something?
Jackie Keller: Exactly. Tomatoes have a lot of lycopene and when you cook
the tomatoes, the little cells in the tomatoes burst and more lycopene
is released, so that is a very cancer protective element and we want
to get more of that in our diets. So here’s a great simple vegetable
casserole that is designed with guys in mind.
JW Najarian: Wonderful. Perfect.
Jackie Keller: Are you ready?
JW Najarian: Yes.
Jackie Keller: Simply, we’re going to take out a warm skillet and I’m
going to spray it with just enough oil so that we don’t burn our
vegetables. I’ll start with some of the harder vegetables first. I
have some zucchini here and we’re just going to get that in so that it
has a little bit of time to soften up before we add in some other
stuff. You’ll notice that I did start with some healthy oil, but I
don’t want to add more to it because we talked a little bit about
healthy fat and obesity and the fact that so many cancers are tied to
obesity. So we want to let the vegetables kind of get started. Whoops.
I confused it. We’re going to let the vegetables get started this way.
JW Najarian: When you were talking about fats and cancers, the fats and
cancers, were you talking about omega-3 fats too, just as much?
Jackie Keller: Omega-3 is…
JW Najarian: Or just saturated fats?
Jackie Keller: It is really more saturated fats that contribute to a
higher incidence of cancer. There have been studies that have shown
that the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are very healthy,
helpful fats, but a lot of people don’t know when you’re eating out,
particularly what kind of fat is the restaurant using? A lot of
restaurants use highly saturated fats. You want to make sure that when
you’re cooking at home, you’re cooking with either an extra virgin
olive oil, or you’re cooking with canola oil that you know is not GMO,
which is high in polyunsaturated fat. A little bit of coconut oil is
considered very healthy. There are a lot of organic coconut oils out
there right now. I started with the zucchini, but now I’ve added the
tomatoes because I want to get that tomato base.
JW Najarian: It’s starting to smell good already.
Jackie Keller: We know those tomato based dishes are so good. Smell is so
important. It really has to smell right; otherwise you don’t want to
eat it, right? It has to look pretty and smell right. We’re going to
add in some color now with some cauliflower and broccoli. These
vegetables are very high in [inaudible 15:23] which are a chemical
that is contained in vegetables…
JW Najarian: Easy for you to say.
Jackie Keller: Vegetables from the cruciferous family. They all have this
chemical in common and chemical properties in common. These are very
cancer protective. They are very high in antioxidants which combat the
free radicals that attack our bodies internal systems, disrupt us and
become carcinogenic, some green peas. This is a vegetarian dish, so we
want to be concerned about protein because do want to have protein in
our dish. Of course, peas are part of our legume family and everything
in the legume family has protein. So we add the peas in, not just
because they’re colorful and they’re pretty, but because they have a
protein element; some carrots as well, I just love that panoply of
color.
JW Najarian: I can’t help it because I’m an interviewer at heart.
Jackie Keller: Sure.
JW Najarian: I have a couple of questions.
Jackie Keller: Ask me. Yes.
JW Najarian: First of all, you’ve heard the talk now about antioxidants
causing cancer? Have you heard any word on that?
Jackie Keller: I have not found anything in my research that
substantiates that.
JW Najarian: I just heard it on this on the news just recently that too
many can cause cancer too. I’ll have to send you that one.
Jackie Keller: You send me that one because that I’m not familiar with.
JW Najarian: The other thing is, I notice that what I hear all the time
is colors.
Jackie Keller: Mm-hmm.
JW Najarian: All the colors. I see every color in there.
Jackie Keller: Every color I can find. The more color, usually the higher
the vitamin and mineral content. This isn’t always true because you’ll
notice we put in cauliflower. That’s white. It’s not a whole lot of
color, but cauliflower is loaded with calcium and loaded with vitamin
C, so poor little cauliflower gets left out a lot because it doesn’t
have that deep rich color. Yes. Generally speaking, you want to eat
from every color of the rainbow and you want to put in your dishes as
many colors as possible. That’s always a good indication. Now for
seasoning, I’m going to use one of my salt and sugar-free spice
blends. This is a Mediterranean blend because this is kind of a
Mediterranean style casserole, but you can use basil or oregano or
whatever herbs and spices you have in your cabinet that you love the
most. I love the Mediterranean seasonings so we’re going to get some
of that in there to get some flavor going. Then I’m also going to add
in… This will surprise you maybe because it surprises some people,
but I’m going to add in some other tomato. Again, we are trying for
maximum lycopene here.
JW Najarian: Right.
Jackie Keller: Ketchup. I know people think of ketchup and think high
fructose, corn syrup, bad, bad, bad, bad, condiment, and bad sugar,
whatever. You can add find now, very reasonably priced organic ketchup
that is not sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. It has natural
cane sugar in it, but it’s lower sugar, lower salt and of course it’s
pure tomato.
JW Najarian: I’m on a low salt, low sugar diet.
Jackie Keller: So you want to be sensitive to that. This is a really
great product. You could use a little tomato paste instead of a little
bit of ketchup if you wanted. I kind of like the idea that there are
healthy ketchups out there and that it’s a product, if you know what
to look for, you can find it and still enjoy something as kind of old
fashioned and homemade as ketchup. If you were using tomato paste, you
might want to adjust the seasonings a little bit because ketchup does
bring more to it than just tomato paste.
JW Najarian: It makes it more exciting because I used to like to put
ketchup on everything.
Jackie Keller: Were you one of those kids?
JW Najarian: Yes.
Jackie Keller: Ketchup on everything?
JW Najarian: Oh yes.
Jackie Keller: Now, who cooks at home for you?
JW Najarian: Me. I’m the cook.
Jackie Keller: You’re the cook in the house. Well this is an easy, easy,
easy dish. This has grown as you’ve seen. You start with a little bit
of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of what’s in your
refrigerator and before you know it, you have a very full sauce pan of
absolute pure health here.
JW Najarian: I love this idea because one of the biggest problems I
have is that I go out to the store and I get all these vegetables and
they all look really good. Then I put them in the fridge and I mean
well, but about three days later I’m like, “I haven’t cooked any of
the carrots. I haven’t cooked any of the peas. What am I going to do?”
Jackie Keller: Right. This is what you do. If you get to the end of the
week and you have all of these vegetables and you still haven’t made
your casserole or used them up in a salad, you make soup.
JW Najarian: Oh yeah.
Jackie Keller: That’s another you can do which is a very useful, creative
way of doing all of this. We’re cooking it in a frying pan as though
it was a vegetable casserole, but we could have used a stockpot and
made a tomato based soup out of it and we would have called it mock
minestrone instead of vegetable casserole. So there you go. It’s that
simple. I also brought just a little bit of brown rice because again,
we want this to be perceived as a complete meal, so we want a complex
carbohydrate with it other than just what’s in our vegetables; so a
little bit of cooked brown rice along with the peas. Now follow me on
this. When you combine a grain and a legume, a whole grain and a
legume in the same dish or same meal, a complete vegetarian protein is
formed. All of the amino acids are present so you don’t need meat. By
adding the grain of brown rice in with our peas which was our legume,
remember, we’ve created a complete vegetarian protein in this dish.
JW Najarian: Wow.
Jackie Keller: So good to know because saturated fat of course is found
in foods of animal origin predominantly. You want more plant-based
meals in your diet. You don’t want to sacrifice your protein, so it’s
good to know about the rules of combining so that you can make
complete vegetarian proteins out of your meals. It is just that easy.
JW Najarian: That’s why I love talking to you. When we interviewed you
the first time, I had some really wrong information about, if you
recall because I listened to the interview again today, I had wrong
information about whole grains.
Jackie Keller: Right.
JW Najarian: How we could take them out of our diet and we would be
fine because of the paleo thing. You set me straight and thank
goodness because it really has rounded out my diet to add some good
whole grains.
Jackie Keller: Yes. You should have it. In fact, would you like to try
this one?
JW Najarian: Yes. It smells amazing.
Jackie Keller: OK. Well, let’s grab a plate.
JW Najarian: OK.
Jackie Keller: I’ll dish up something that’s maybe not too big of a piece
so you can actually get to it. It’s a little hot and of course if you
have a little bit more time, you can let it cook and it will just get
softer. You do it according to your taste.
JW Najarian: Another thing on my bucket list. I’ve watched all of the
cooking shows and never been able to taste until now.
Jackie Keller: Oh. OK. Hot? It’s alright?
JW Najarian: Mm. That’s so good.
Jackie Keller: Oh. Thank you.
JW Najarian: The texture makes a really big difference.
Jackie Keller: Yes. It’s just that little bit. Well I hope you’re not too
busy to tell people how to follow you. Everybody will want to find On
Purpose and want to follow all of the various things you’re doing and
that talk radio show that’s coming out. It all sounds so exciting.
What’s the best way for them to find you?
JW Najarian: Thank you so much, Jackie. What you can do is go to
www.OnPurposeMagazine.com. You can find me there. On Facebook at
JWNajarian and you can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter all the same
address. On Twitter we have OnPurposeMag and my name at twitter. Just
go to On Purpose Magazine. You’ll find all of the links there. Watch
for Talk Summit coming up. TalkSummit.com.
Jackie Keller: Great. Great. Thank you for joining me today. I hope
you’ll come back and visit us again. Good luck with your cancer
treatment. You look like you’re doing great.
JW Najarian: Thank you.
Jackie Keller: Keep up the good fight.
JW Najarian: Thank you. Thank you.
Jackie Keller: What five goals do you believe will lead you to lasting
happiness? In her book, “Creating Your Best Life”, Caroline Adams
Miller describes research tested happiness boosters and techniques for
building self-efficacy. The book collects and integrates studies and
research on relationships, passion, self-regulation, positive
emotions, flow, strengths, exercise, values, savoring and grit as they
relate creating an ideal life. When I did this exercise, my goals were
to number one, savor. This means slowing down some which is really
hard for me to do. Number two, to strengthen, in my world, that means
physically strengthen, which I do daily to emphasize the positive, as
in looking at a glass half full instead of half empty and to develop
my personal relationships which means taking more time for people. To
be more mindful in the moment was my fifth goal and this means being
less distracted, but to accomplish these goals and most others it is
important to remember that goals need to be smart, specific,
measurable, action-oriented, realistic and timed, but they also have
to be value-driven. They have to be intrinsic and they have to be
enveloping. They need to be exciting for you. If you can make sure
that your goals are approach goals, not avoidance goals, your value-
driven goals will compel you. They’ll have a better likelihood of
being pursued. Goals that foster independence and empower will help
you to create a life that is filled with vitality. If you want to
share your goals with me, contact me at empowerme.tv/foodexposed.
Thank you for joining me today. I hope you’ll tune in next week for a
closer look at what’s on your plate? For more Food Exposed, check me
out on empowerme.tv and until next week remember make food your best
friend and exercise your companion for life.