Talk to us about natto and what makes it such an incredible healing food.

Josh, this is the superfood that nobody's ever heard of that would transform the cardiovascular health of this nation, transform our bone health.

I don't even know where to start because it's so amazing, but think about this.

Natto, which is traditionally made from either fermented soy or fermented garbanzo beans, you can use other legumes as well, is a condiment in Asia and Indonesia.

They consume it regularly and it has three of the most powerful nutrients or compounds known to man.

Number one, natto kinase.

If you're somebody who has microvascular issues or, and this is huge, if you have received the COVID shot experienced COVID or long COVID, natto kinase is absolutely amazing.

So good.

[laughs]

... um, so you know what I'm talking about.

But I, I was, uh...

So I walked to the bathroom with my symptoms, which was bloody diarrhea 12 to 30 times a day.

I mean, if you think about a teenager explaining their disease to their friend, it'd be great if it was a broken arm or something that was not totally humiliating and embarrassing.

So I walked those steps, and I, I called my, to my mother.

She ran in the room.

Can you share that part of your story?

Yes

...

I was healed from inflammatory bowel disease in, uh, the ... dis- in the late winter of '96.

So '97, I come back to Florida, and a friend of my dad's wrote an article about my story in the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, which was, uh, still is an integrative medical journal that goes around the world, and he wanted to write about my diet and this dark-colored powder that I used, which we called soil-based organisms at the time.

So that created this massive amount of interest, which spawned my first company, Garden of Life, and then later was the, uh, motivation for me to write my first book, Patient Heal Thyself, then later The Maker's Diet.

And in that process, I continued to be a food-first sort of ambassador, and I visited farms and traveled the world and lectured because my story was so impactful to so many because just like you mentioned earlier, they may be struggling with IBS or IBD, but they looked at my case as more severe than theirs, and if he can do it, I can do it.

And I, again, I was an ambassador of hope more than I was anything else.

Right

Yes

...

I was healed from inflammatory bowel disease in, uh, the ... dis- in the late winter of '96.

So '97, I come back to Florida, and a friend of my dad's wrote an article about my story in the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, which was, uh, still is an integrative medical journal that goes around the world.

And he wanted to write about my diet and this dark-colored powder that I used, which we called soil-based organisms at the time.

So that created this massive amount of interest, which spawned my first company, Garden of Life, and then later was the, uh, motivation for me to write my first book, Patient Heal Thyself, then later The Maker's Diet.

And in that process, I continued to be a food-first sort of ambassador, and I visited farms and traveled the world and lectured because my story was so impactful to so many because just like you mentioned earlier, they may be struggling with IBS or IBD, but they looked at my case as more severe than theirs, and if he can do it, I can do it.

Right

Hmm

... and in 90 days you'll go from a wheelchair to working out on the beach." It w- it would've been when I was 20 'cause he said, "On your 21st birthday you'll be working out on the beach." And as a man of faith, for the first time this resonated with me.

I had j- joy for a moment because I committed once I was a year into this illness, whatever I was gonna do before doesn't matter.

I'm gonna devote my life to helping just one person overcome disease or better yet avoid it-

Mm-hmm

... and we're in a public place, some guy's office, an oncologist.

And I told my wife, Nikki, I said, "Guard the door." She said, "What do you, what do you mean?" I said, "Just stand in front of it." So I get down on my hands and knees, and I put my nose on the carpet.

I'm talking face to the ground, and I quoted Job 1:21.

And so I'd just love for you just to share your story with our audience here really briefly.

Absolutely.

The really briefly part is something that I need to work on.

But I grew up like most people in that through my teenage years, I was extremely healthy.

What was unique is that I grew up in a natural health family.

So I did have education and background, at least the basics.

Now, I didn't own it.

But I'd love for you to kind of dive into some of those biblical truths that you've found that you've placed within the Biblio diet that can actually start to serve some of our listeners.

What are you seeing coming away from COVID?

That is such a loaded question, Pastor.

I think there was sort of a point of demarcation or delineation when it came to COVID, and we were on sides, um, sadly.

And in fact, that was when we became more acquainted with World Outreach Church because the church we were going to in Nashville area was closed, and we were doing our cowboy church thing, but you all had a lot of options.

But I remember like it was yesterday, and it lasted so long, where you'd say, "We're not passing offering plates, and we may never pass offering plates," and talked about, "It's gonna be a week.

It's gonna be two weeks." It was a very interesting time, but I do think that in, gosh, now five, six years since that time, I'm seeing the toll that whether it's the virus, whether it's viral shedding or the shot is taking on people.

And so I'm seeing personally in my, uh, friends and friend group and people who communicate with me a real significant set of issues on the cardiovascular side, on the immune system side, particularly related to cancer.

Amen

Right.

It's humiliating, and it's debilitating.

And so for me, it was easy to sit there and say, "I have every reason to not do anything right now in faith." But when God impressed upon me that I needed to document the worst of the worst, we call it the valley of the shadow of death, I took seven steps.

And Maddie, I could give you every reason why I shouldn't do it.

In fact, I would walk from the bedroom I was being taken care of in, like an infant.

I had left the house, then my parents downsized 'cause they were empty nesters, and I came back and lived in some...

I think I kicked my sister out of her bedroom, my younger sister, come to think of it.

[laughs]

Yeah

...

the accelerator.

And this man named Bud, who's-... passed away since told me, "If you come to San Diego, California," I lived in South Florida at the time, it was in the spring, he said, "By your 21st birthday," which was in July, "you will be working out on the beach." Hmm.

Now, I was 100-plus pounds.

I'd been sick for, call it a year and nine, 10 months.

Wow.

Uh, now, now is-Now faith is the stubs- the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Mm.

And living that out took all my effort.

So I ate a raw food omnivorous diet.

So you're referring to raw salmon.

So I had salmon ceviche, but not just any salmon, Alaskan sockeye salmon.

I didn't just have any green juice.

I had a special blend of organic greens with lemon juice.

Yeah.

Okay.

I, I was lucky enough to work with a chef in the Boston area.

I took a job, uh, as a, an assistant.

This was a couple years later.

I kinda went back to cooking, just working in a, in a hot kitchen, and there was an opportunity to work at this sushi restaurant.

And I called the guy.

It was like a Craigslist ad or something.

Just to explain.

Mm

... to make a joke.

I just happen to be an extraordinary fan of fat-soluble vitamins, and I think it's interesting that half of your nutrition training in medical school was spent on dealing with overdoses that nobody sees relatively, compared to, let's say, what I'm gonna get into, inflammatory bowel disease, which now plagues millions.

And when I was diagnosed 32, almost 33 years ago, yeah, coming up on 33 years, it was super rare.

In fact, I, I did know some people that had Crohn's disease diagnoses, but it was so out of mind for me, I think I thought it was called Chrome's disease, like chromosome.

I, I didn't even relate to it at all.

But I grew up as the son of a chiropractor and a naturopathic doctor, so this health and wellness movement was a part of my upbringing and my home.

Mm

And again, in my opinion, and every once in a while meat, I don't think it is one of the healthiest meats out there.

Yeah.

And I think that we are only going to see more and more information speaking to the fact that what God calls filth actually is best not to be eaten.

And I know that we get into it with some of the paleo or keto or carnivore crowd related to our meat choices.

But my answer to that is this, Stephen, if somebody's really sick and they're eating occasional or moderate or significant amount of pork and shellfish, it's worth trying to eliminate those and focusing on beef and bison and lamb and venison or poultry or fish with fins and scales, just to see if we may be right or the Bible may be right.

And this message to me really hit home when I read a book that was published, I want to say in the 70s, where a pastor was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and he was dying and yelling at God, holding his Bible up, saying, I lived by this book.

Why am I dying? And he said, because you're not following it.

It's not ideal.