3 Powerful Things My Grandmother Taught Me About Health & Wellness

0:00Shawn Stevenson:You are now listening to The Model Health Show with Shawn Stevenson. For more, visit themodelhealthshow.com. Welcome to The Model Health Show. Today, I'm going to share with you three things that my grandmother taught me about health and wellness. My grandmother was one of a kind. She was my first love, and she was somebody who really helped to create the template for who I am today. This very special woman created a very special environment for a little boy who had some very tough odds stacked against him. So today I want to share these magical inputs and experiences with you so that you will be able to add more magic, good health, and connection in your life and with the ones that you love.

0:43Shawn Stevenson:And let's start off with lesson number one that I learned from my grandmother. Fresh food is the best food. I grew up in the 1980s. This is the golden age of fast food, after school cartoons, the WWF and fast food being taken to another level. It was a time. As a matter of fact, I had one of my earliest birthday parties, my eighth birthday party at McDonald's. All right. This was just a normal thing. You get your friends together, you get the little crown on your head and you lose a friend in the ball pit. All right. This was just a big part of our culture. And this was changing during this time.

1:28Shawn Stevenson:But my grandmother stayed anchored in in certain principles. And I'm so grateful for these things. Now, I might have fought against them, but she helped instill this blueprint for what was possible, for what was real, for what was sustainable and creating a normalcy around that. She had a garden at our house and she canned and jarred a bunch of stuff. We had a cellar in the basement, which was low-key creepy. I still might pop into a bad dream with that cellar and also trying to run up those stairs. You know how dreams be. But she would create all these incredible meals and so many of the foods that we ate were things that she grew in a garden.

2:11Shawn Stevenson:And she was also very adventurous with creating things from scratch. So of course we had these amazing family dinners, but also she would come up with ideas from the books that she would read and magazines, you know, regarding recipes. And one time when it snowed, she made ice cream or like kind of like these glorified snow cones with real snow. And so just making it magical, making it relevant and also making it sticky. It was very sticky for me because it was just a normal part of my life. My grandfather also regularly hunted and he fished. And so we would have these fresh foods very frequently.

2:48Shawn Stevenson:But again, with the emerging paradigm of ultra processed foods making its way into our culture's households in such a profound way, of course I wanted the mac and cheese. Of course I wanted the fish sticks. And I ate copious amounts of ketchup in my childhood. My blood was like five cc's ketchup at least. All right. And I even joked with, you know, when people had asked me like, so, you know, what are you? You know, being a mixed kid, I would say I'm black and white and orange because I eat a lot of cheese. It's a true story. And it wasn't real cheddar. We were eating those Kraft slices, which we've run multiple tests now to see just how profound it is with years of this cheese being out.

3:41Shawn Stevenson:not degrading from natural means as far as like, obviously cheese will get moldy relatively quickly, but you could see a craft, a quote, craft cheese single, not even break down. Of course it looks gross, but it's not breaking down and degrading like something natural because it's not natural. And so today we know the ramifications of eating foods like that. There's a profound study that was published in the journal Food and Nutrition Research that sought out to see what would happen with our metabolism when we eat a meal of what they consider to be a whole food sandwich versus a processed food sandwich.

4:21Shawn Stevenson:And the whole food sandwich consisted of whole grain bread and cheddar cheese, real cheese, while the processed food sandwich consisted of white bread and cheese product or what would be equivalent to a Kraft single. And what they found was that when test subjects would eat those respective sandwiches. When they ate the processed version of that sandwich, keeping in mind, it is the same amount of calories and also very consistent amount as far as the macronutrients. They tried to get those as close as they could, but it's more difficult with an ultra processed version. Even though the calories were the same, when people ate the ultra processed version of the sandwich that a 50 % reduction in calorie burn after eating that meal.

5:09Shawn Stevenson:Something happened with their metabolism, creating what was effectively some metabolic clogs to where their bodies simply could not process those foods efficiently. And what you find now, again, your body's going to get it sorted out in the short term. But what if you're eating like that day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and your body is constantly dealing with this conglomeration of newly invented chemical complexes, and it's suppressing the overall function of your metabolism. And this is, again, one of those underlying reasons why we see these epidemic rises in all manner of chronic diseases, but included within that obesity and overweight.

5:58Shawn Stevenson:And so again, I understand, I deeply understand afterschool cartoons, one of the best things of our reality as a human being here on planet earth that our kids, most kids today will never understand. The reason they were so valuable was that that's the only time you get them. You get a little cartoon hitter after school for about an hour and a half. And if you miss them, that's it. You got Saturday morning cartoons and after school cartoons and that's it. Today, they've got multiple 24-7 cartoon networks, of course. But for us, like, this was like, you better be there. You don't want to miss He-Man.

6:42Shawn Stevenson:You don't want to miss Thundercats you don't want to miss G.I. Joe you don't miss none of it and if you had cable of course you got the Cartoon Network the USA Cartoon Train but that's if you had cable and depending on where I was living at the time whether I was living with my grandmother or my mom when I was with my mom no mas on the cable grandma we did have that Cartoon Network after a while which was pretty dope and you got all these like weird uh eclectic you got the monchi cheese the fraggle rocks, but also the classics, the Flintstones and things like that. And so within that, and the reason I'm bringing this up with network television, cable TV, during those times, it was when I was getting fed those advertisements for ultra processed foods.

7:29Shawn Stevenson:I wanted the Lucky Charms. I wanted the Doritos. I wanted the sodas that I would see on these commercials that were literally targeting me as a small child. And multiple studies have now confirmed that this marketing does in fact deeply influence our food choices and even our perceived satisfaction from the foods that we eat. In fact, a report published in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine detailed an eye-opening study that sought to find out if placing a cartoon character on the side of a box of cereal influenced children's taste preferences. The children were asked to taste test what they believed to be different cereals and rate them on a five-point smiley face scale.

8:16Shawn Stevenson:Some of the cereal boxes had cartoon mascots, some did not, even though the cereal was actually all the same. Kids consistently rated the taste of the cartoon-featured cereals better. All right. I loved my Mr. T cereal. I love my Smurfs cereal. If we're going to be honest about the drug epidemics, New Jack City, Pookie, we need to talk about that Smurf cereal. All right. I'm glad that it came off the market because it had me hooked. All right. Just to put it bluntly, I was definitely fiending for those that Smurf Berry Crunch. All right. Now, again, just keeping in mind that this is setting the template and this moniker, the unsaid principle of getting us while we're young and you have a lifetime customer.

9:09Shawn Stevenson:And so this principle that my grandmother instilled for me with fresh food being the best food, our culture has moved further and further away from this principle. and as a result, yes, it has deeply impacted us as adults, but our children today are carrying a heavy burden because of it. According to an analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the percentage of the diet for US children today that's made up of ultra-processed foods continues to rise and it is now nearing 70 % of the average US child's diet being made of ultra processed foods. And when I say ultra processed, I'm not talking about traditional processing of food.

9:55Shawn Stevenson:I'm talking about taking a bunch of corn and chemicals and somehow, some way creating lucky charms, right? So the foods that we're eating are so far removed from anything natural or recognizable that they fall into this category of being ultra processed. And within that, within this transformation and it being a non-existent part of the human diet to maybe 10 % of our children's diet, 20%, 30%, 50 % now, it's currently 67, as of this report, 67.5 % of the average U.S. child's diet being made up of these foods. and concurrently, according to the World Health Organization, we've seen a tenfold increase in childhood and adolescent obesity in just four decades.

10:53Shawn Stevenson:Not to mention the shocking increase in type 2 diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and other chronic conditions in children in the same time span. We've got to make a change. and the power truly is in our hands, it starts with awareness because this transformation in our culture was insidious and it started off with good intentions because even though my grandmother leaned towards fresh food is the best food, the convenience piece really started to pop up its head. In addition to the marketing, this is providing all the vitamins and minerals that your kid needs to thrive. You know, this sugary breakfast cereal is part of a healthy diet to give your kid everything that they need to go out there and win the day, you know?

11:49And so, again, the convenience piece, the well-intentioned drive for parents to make sure that their kids are eating, first of all, eating something,

12:00Shawn Stevenson:but also getting the things that they were being marketed towards that these are the things that are really going to help your kid to thrive. They're filled with, they're fortified. They're enriched with vitamins and minerals. And so how do we take advantage of this, this very powerful principle, this thing that my grandmother taught me about health and wellness, fresh food is the best food. Well, some simple tips to employ this is to simply make it an intention. Prioritize real food. And sometimes, and again, I'm saying this to make it an intention because I didn't know the difference. I didn't know the difference.

12:43Shawn Stevenson:Once I moved out of my grandmother's environment and moved in with my mom, which I'll talk about in a moment, my culture completely changed to where ultra processed foods was the bulk of my diet. And so growing up with that, it starts to just fade away into the background. and the discernment between fish sticks and wild-caught salmon, it started to become blurred lines. Shout out to Pharrell and Robin Thicke. But keeping this in mind, once I became aware, or once I remembered, to put it more bluntly, once I remembered, I made it a priority to have the bulk of my diet to be real food. Now, of course, we could take those real foods and create wonderful meals out of them, but whole food-based, the ratio that is most attainable for a lot of people and also providing that wiggle room to have some ultra-processed stuff in the mix, because again, we live in this reality.

13:52Shawn Stevenson:There's stuff out here, the accessibility, the cost, all those things. 80-20. The 80-20 rule when it comes to our prioritizing real food, eating a minimum of 80 % real foods that our ancestors ate. All right? So make it a mandate, prioritize real food. And tip number two here is to educate our children. Educate our children. along with these food choices comes an education and an opportunity. And not to harp on them and hammer down, you can't have this, can't have that. It's simply to provide the information because our kids are growing up in this environment where they're inundated, they're surrounded by ultra processed foods.

14:42Shawn Stevenson:In high, high, high probability, they're going to dabble, If not, dive face first into ultra processed foods when they are out of the house. And I'm imagining one of those after school cartoons, DuckTales. Ooh, okay. He dove into the money. We're diving into ultra processed foods. All right, Scrooge McDuck. But this is happening to our children. If they're not aware, like they can start to make a more conscious choice not to villainize anything, but to have some education around it. And also them having the opportunity to be educated on how they feel, paying attention to what's going on in their bodies when they have some Skittles or a soda or whatever the case might be, versus when they're eating real food, you know, so they can have that discernment.

15:33Shawn Stevenson:Like, okay, I had this thing, but I don't feel the best. So let me get back on those things that make me feel good. But this leads to the other point, which is it's much easier to make those choices when we make food fun. Many of us grew up in the paradigm of don't play with your food. All right. So I'm not saying necessarily to play with the food, but I am saying to make the food fun, make it enjoyable, real food, creating real healthy meals from scratch. Or of course, there are more and more companies that have this mandate to provide real healthy foods for families, but we can make some incredible meal experiences with real food.

16:16Shawn Stevenson:And it just makes the whole thing a lot easier when you're having joy attached to it, right? So, you know, recently my wife made some protein pancakes, right? And we love to make like sweet potato protein pancakes. And this is in my book, Eat Smarter, by the way, the Eat Smarter Family Cookbook. And we have all these wonderful meal experiences that are based on real food. And so finding ways to make it fun, finding ways to get our kids involved, right? So maybe this is making some frozen yogurt pops, you know, for the summertime, get yourself a popsicle mold and, you know, or maybe some fruit pops or whatever the case might be.

16:56And just inviting our kids into the experience, providing an education and just so that they know why you're doing the things that you're doing and

17:04Shawn Stevenson:creating that template, that blueprint that will hopefully guide them throughout their lives. And by the way, feeding your family high quality food does not have to break the bank. Wild Pastures delivers 100 % grass-fed and grass-finished beef, pasture-raised pork, pasture-raised chicken, and wild-caught seafood right to your door. Born, raised, and harvested entirely in the U.S., raised on regenerative family farms, and raised on pastures free from pesticides and other chemicals, No antibiotics, no added hormones, no added steroids, no feedlots, and absolutely no GMOs. Fast delivery from their farms right to your door.

17:43Shawn Stevenson:And right now with a Wild Pastures subscription, you're going to receive 20 % off for life. 20 % off for life. Plus free shipping and$15 off your first order. Just go to wildpastures.com forward slash model to take advantage. That's W-I-L-D-P-A-S-T-U-R-E-S.com forward slash model to take advantage. In addition to utilizing wild pastures, we could save a ton of money by going to farmer's markets. And now it's easier than ever to just go do a Google search or ask, chat, where are the local farmer's markets in my area? And take advantage, get closer to our food. And also this is a great opportunity and experience and environment for our kids to be around so they could see closer where their food is coming from.

18:39So there's also community driven,

18:42Shawn Stevenson:you know, CSAs and things like that. There's so many great ways to save on our food when ultra processed foods, again, even though they're very cost intensive to make, they come at this extremely low price oftentimes. times. They're operating under the premise of quantity, getting you to buy a lot and definitely have moved away from the quality of that food. And so we have some decisions to make and the power is in our hands, but sometimes we just need to slow down, create a plan. Maybe we go to the farmer's market once a week or maybe once a month, but like put it on your calendar and take advantage of these other resources and make it a priority, most importantly, to know and to teach our kids that fresh food is the best food.

19:31Now, moving on to number two on this list of the things that my grandmother taught me about health and wellness. Number two was to go outside and play. I lived with my grandmother from kindergarten through second grade. And after some health challenges with my grandfather, they decided to move back to where he grew up in the country. So they called it the quote country down in Southern Missouri. And so again, I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, but they moved to the country and they had a decision to make. And it was well involving my mom, who I also had two younger siblings, my brother and sister, who were about five and seven years younger than me living with my mom.

20:18And was I going to now move back with my mother or go and live in Piedmont, Missouri, where there was very few people who look like me and grow up in that environment? And so coming from a biracial background, the fact that my grandmother even loved me like she did under those conditions, you know, like there were not many. year. Now, of course, all right, we're out here. But at the time, the schools that I went to, there might be one or two mixed kids. And so having this like difficulty with identity and also just dealing with some of the things that people would say, obviously, and, you know, being with this, you know, my white side, my white grandmother, and this little boy with the little curly Afro and, you know, her navigating those terrains.

21:10And I remember incidents happening, like adventures not adventures but at ventures so this was a like a you know target before target came along and you know in kmart that kind of stuff there was ventures and somebody said something to her you know about me at this store like and you know close to the checkout line and so just and she loved me so much she really made me feel like i was important like my life mattered like i was going to do great things in this life and really instill this in me and also protected me. She protected me with her life. So I'm so grateful. And so with this paradigm, we spent a lot of, when I lived in St.

21:53Louis, I was outside all the time with my cousin Candy and just outside playing, definitely in the backyard heavy with the bucket and the, you know, little handheld shovel digging up. I was about the bug life. All right. Lift, you know how you lift up that rock and it's crazy. It's crazy town, all this stuff, you know, the, uh, the worms and the, the roly polies and the centipedes and all that stuff. But, you know, and also just playing with my friends in the neighborhood, but moving from the big city to the country was a huge adjustment for me moving back with my mom. And now I'm in this inner city life where now it's more difficult in ways to navigate the terrain of being outside.

22:35You know, we are now exposed to drug use in the environment. We're exposed to violence. We're exposed to, you know, you just kind of got to watch your back more when you're outside. But this is not to take away from the beauty and the value and the joy that's experienced in these environments as well. But here's the thing and why number two is so powerful for me, and I want to extend this to you, go outside and play. when my grandmother and my grandfather moved to Piedmont to the country, I got to spend entire summers in that environment, you know, for years. And so I would spend those summers fishing with my grandfather on riverbanks and in tiny motorboats and also swimming in the rivers and the creeks and riding bikes on gravel roads.

23:28To get to my grandmother's house, it was like literally gravel roads, very, very close. Like it's difficult for two cars to be on the road at the same time. And just that crunchy sound. And this is actually on a gravel road is where I learned how to ride

23:43Shawn Stevenson:a bike in the first place, which I don't recommend for children. Okay. But you better believe I learned fast. I fell once. I didn't fall again. My grandfather, shout out to my grandfather. father, he taught me how to ride a bike on a gravel road going downhill. It wasn't super steep, but it was steep. All right. I scratched up my knees once, you know, had the weepiness. He was like, get back on that, get back on there. And, you know, then I rode that bike and, you know, been doing it ever since, you know, it's like, you know, it's like riding a bike. But these are the experiences that I had. And, you know, she had the tire swing outside and there was just so many adventures in this environment.

24:29Shawn Stevenson:And what's so often overlooked is that those inputs were giving me very, very powerful epigenetic inputs that were creating a level of health despite the other negative things that I might've been exposed to. So those inputs of sunlight, of fresh air, of natural terrains. There are multiple studies on just how natural terrains, like my grandmother basically lived in a forest. All right. And so being able to see these natural terrains every day, these, you know, the rivers and the things that we would do in the cold water, like I was cold plunging. Little did I know, you know? And so these inputs were creating these epigenetic changes that were creating more and more help for me and also creating this template, this psychological blueprint that I wasn't even aware of to the degree that when I became an adult, I somehow, some way, despite growing up and even going to college, living in the inner city, I found myself living in essentially a cabin-like house out in the woods and exposed to wildlife every day.

25:46Shawn Stevenson:You know, the wild turkeys, which you don't want to mess with them. All right. Fox. Is it plural? Foxes? You know, the deer in my backyard every day, you know, and just seeing all this wildlife, you know, the natural terrain and the quiet. That's such a powerful thing. We rarely understand today, the value of quiet. Something that we evolved having access to and more so, I mean, having access to a quiet mind. Even when it's quiet in the room, in the city, there's still this electrical buzz. There's still the Wi-Fi networks and the cellular and the radio and all the things that are creating this noise.

26:36Shawn Stevenson:And so it takes more of a mighty decision to create quiet. And so this was just natural for me. This was just something that I was experiencing. And the easiest way to get access to this today in some capacity is simply to go outside and play. I was just talking with my neighbor, Stan, and I see Stan just about every day when I'm out walking. He's walking his puppy, Bruno. All right. Bruno's walking around like this, but he's a little dog. Bruno loves me. Apparently, I'm his favorite person. As soon as he sees me, show me the belly. All right. And but Stan was sharing some insights with me about the neighborhood.

27:19He's been there for decades. And also Stan has been married for 53 years, for 53 years. And I could see the love in his eyes that he has for his wife. And these are the people that I want to learn from. I just want to know what made you so successful. He was an entrepreneur. He had his own business for decades and he worked with people and he helped people and he loves his puppies. You know, so he's had Bruno for about a year, year and a half, but he had, you know, two dogs previously and, you know, they passed away. And just when he talks about it, you could see the love in his eyes for his pups.

27:59And so talking with Stan, he was like, the neighborhood that we live in used to be ripe with like activity and kids outside playing. There are lots of kids that live in the neighborhood, by the way. There are plenty of kids, but they spend most of their time indoors. And if they're outside, what I've noticed, if they are outside, they're outside with their parents. All right, so they're not just going outside and playing. Now, of course, we want to think about the safety construct.

28:29Shawn Stevenson:But also, the pendulum has swung so much to where, again, when I was, you know, 8, 9, 10 years old, again we live in this time where in the 80s you just go outside you just gotta be back before the street lights come on you know you just go outside and play you get on your bikes and you go we were living that stranger things life all right and we see that and we have that nostalgia this was just normal you know but of course we keep this in context we want to make sure that our kids are safe we live on a very like a little cul-de-sac you know what i mean Like there's not a lot and just being able to maybe keep your eye on your kids out there, but people are less apt to have their kids outside.