#1175 - Chris Kresser & Dr. Joel Kahn

Joe Rogan (0:02)

Five, four, three, two, one.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. Really appreciate it. Dr. Kahn, before we get started, why don't you tell everybody what your background is. You will be representing the vegan portion of this discussion. Tell people about yourself a little bit.

Dr. Joel Kahn (0:20)

Thank you. I feel like the head broccoli in the United States today. But I am from Motown, Motor City.

Badass, born and raised, University of Michigan School of Medicine, summa cum laude.

Internal medicine training, cardiology training in Dallas, Texas. Very hard to be vegan in Dallas, but I did it in the 80s because I've been doing this. 42 year vegan. 42 years. 42 year vegan, thank you. That's impressive. Age 18 And then Kansas City, Missouri, another tough town to eat plants in only, the Steakhouse KC Masterpiece, did training in stenting. I was blasting open heart attacks from 1990 on. Came back to Michigan, very active cath lab, heart attack. You're dead, I bring you back practice 24 hours a day with great partners.

And about three to four years ago, I used all these decades of plant-based medicine I've been basically bringing my family up with and teaching patients, but opened a completely preventive cardiology practice.

And along the way with my wife and son, we now own three plant-based restaurants, two in Detroit, one in Austin, Texas. I write books, do TV, write blogs, teach, teach, teach. Not gonna stop them 150 Because there's a lot of irectile dysfunction to stamp out. That's my passion.

Joe Rogan (1:31)

That?

Dr. Joel Kahn (1:32)

Oh my God, what else? What better purpose in life?

Joe Rogan (1:36)

Well, we can get to that later.

Dr. Joel Kahn (1:39)

Heart disease is somewhere in that mix too.

Joe Rogan (1:41)

Okay, and if people want to read more about you, website is?

Dr. Joel Kahn (1:46)

Yeah, drjoelkaahn, Dr. Joel Kahn.

Joe Rogan (1:51)

And you've written a ton of books, right?

Dr. Joel Kahn (1:53)

Five books, a bunch of medical papers, a whole lot of blogs.

Joe Rogan (1:56)

Awesome. And Chris?

Chris Kresser (1:59)

Yeah, Chris Kresser. I did my undergrad at UC Berkeley, and then got a master's of science and co-director of the California Center for Functional Medicine, which is a functional medicine clinic here in California up in Berkeley.

And I came to this from my own experience with chronic illness. As you know, Joe got really sick back in my early 20s when I was traveling around the world, and conventional medicine didn't have much to offer for me. And so that led me on a path of trying to figure out the best approach from a diet and behavior and lifestyle perspective to heal from my own chronic illness. And then that evolved into me starting to write. I started a blog and a website and then wrote a couple of books, and now have an organization that trains practitioners in functional medicine and also trains health coaches.

Joe Rogan (2:58)

And you at one point in time were vegan?

Chris Kresser (3:01)

I was a macrobiotic vegan. I was apprenticing with a macrobiotic chef.

Joe Rogan (3:07)

What's the difference between a macrobiotic vegan for folks and a regular vegan?

Chris Kresser (3:11)

Macrobiotic is a particular philosophy. It's a particular approach that came from Japan. And it's vegan, but it's heavily influenced by Japanese tradition and cuisine, and it has some kind of different beliefs than a typical vegan approach.

So when I was originally studying Chinese medicine, I was working and apprenticing with a macrobiotic vegan chef, and we were going around cooking for people who were really ill, often people with cancer who were following a macrobiotic diet. And before that, I had been a vegetarian for quite a while as well. When I was traveling around the world and got sick, actually, I was a vegetarian at that point, too.

Joe Rogan (3:54)

And you discovered through your own personal... What are you doing over there, buddy?

And you discovered over there through your own personal practice that your body worked better and your illnesses went away when you changed your diet away from macrobotic.

Chris Kresser (4:13)

Yeah. For me, personally, vegetarian diet and particularly vegan diet was a disaster.

But I'm just one person. I don't put a lot of stock into a single person's experience one way or the other. But certainly, that did lead me down the path of questioning some of my earlier beliefs that I had about vegetarianism and veganism. And it led me to make some different choices.

Joe Rogan (4:37)

And that is important to discuss here, that everybody's body really is different. And different people's bodies and lifestyles, they're going to have different requirements.