Hi, I'm Ethan Sopli, welcome to American Glutton. Outside of acting, my two favorite things

to do are diet and eat. I have a very complicated relationship with food and on this podcast,

we're going to talk about all of it. Food is entertainment, food is sport, food as fuel.

I'll talk to experts and the average person, just like you and me.

Today, I'm happy to welcome Dr. Michael Greger, who is a New York Times best-selling author

and internationally recognized professional speaker on a number of important public health issues.

Dr. Greger is a proponent of a plant-based diet and I'm looking forward to talking to him

about how he uses food as medicine. You can find him on Instagram at Michael Greger MD.

Dr. Michael Greger, welcome to the American Glutton podcast.

I am happy to be here.

Dude, we have talked to all kinds of people that advocate for all kinds of diets and I have been asked

over and over and over again to talk to somebody about somebody who knows what they're talking about,

who advocates for a plant-based diet, so I'm so thankful to talk to you.

Let's do this. What is the deal? What's the deal with plant-based? Because I don't know.

Listen, I have a good friend who's a director, who's vegan, but he's vegan, I think mostly because

his kid wanted him to go vegan and then he lost weight and he's happy with that.

And I've talked to other people who have had success, but I haven't talked to anybody who said,

like, here are the reasons why it's good with any kind of data that convinced me.

All right. Well, look, besides being safe, sustainable, nutritious, and healthy,

there are 17 criteria found for weight loss efficacies. This is in my book How Not to Diet,

all proceeds for which don't have the charity. For example, the optimal weight loss diet should be

anti-inflammatory, clean, free from hormone disrupting, chemicals full fiber-rich foods to trap calories,

...