School Food Is the Key to Fixing Our Children’s Health Crisis with Nora LaTorre

Mark Hyman, MD

Full Transcript

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Dr. Mark Hyman
We're in a crisis right now with kids, and it's sort of this invisible thing that nobody's really talking about. For the first time in human history, the average child born today will live sicker, shorter lives than their parents. Life expectancy of an obese kid is 13 thirteen years less than a kid who's healthy.

Nora LaTorre
You know, at Eat Real, we looked at the entire food system and asked ourselves, what is the best lever to create health for our kids? We really saw that schools are the big bet to create health because what you said, they're the largest restaurant chain in America. They're bigger than Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's combined. Wow. They serve 30,000,000 kids, 50% of their nutrition.

It's like, if we wanna stop disease before it starts, schools are the lever.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Nora LaTere is CEO and cofounder of Eat Real, a national nonprofit transforming school food systems and advancing evidence based nutrition policy to improve children's health.

Nora LaTorre
We've gone all in just helping kids have access to delicious nourishing food that helps them learn, grow, thrive, it's working. And it's working fast. We went from 50,000 kids to a million kids since then. And one of our schools in our program just removed 34 pounds of sugar per student per year. We can change our food system fast, and we can change our health fast.

Dr. Mark Hyman
If we fix food, we fix

Nora LaTorre
Our children's future.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Agree with that. I would say if we fix food, we fix everything. Yes. Nora, it's so good to see you again.

We're all friends. You cooked for me when I was sick in the hospital. You came and brought food for me when I was recovering. You were like my kind of, I don't know, surrogate mother for a minute even though you're like thirty years younger than me. And I was just so touched by how caring you are.

And, you know, your work is really about caring for kids. And I was I was an old guy, but he really cared for me. And I I think the work around eReal is so powerful. But, you know, we're we're in a kind of a crisis right now with kids. And it's sort of this invisible thing that nobody's really talking about.

I mean, I I've been shouting about it for forever, but it's it's so invisible. And it's this incredible chronic disease burden in children. We really need to fix it.

Nora LaTorre
Mhmm.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And you know, you know, I wrote a book years ago called Food Fix and released a new version that's out now called Food Fix Uncensored, kind of taking off the gloves a little bit more, a little bit more edgy. And as we look at, you know, our kids, almost one in two kids has a chronic disease. Their diet is crap. Like, sixty seven percent of kids' diet in America is from highly processed or ultra processed or junk food, just crap. Industrial stuff that by definition is not food.

Food is something that sustains and nourishes life. This stuff does the opposite. It harms health and it causes death. You know, one in five kids is actually obese. Forty percent are overweight.

For the first time in human history, the average child born today will live sicker, shorter lives than their parents. The life expectancy of an obese kid is thirteen years less than a kid who's healthy. And in my new book, Food Fix Uncensored, I make the case here that chronic disease is not about personal choice. When you see a diabetic two year old, it's not their fault. Right?

It's not their fault. And so it's not about personal choices, it's a systemic problem. And it's it's a toxic food landscape we live in. It's the politics that drive that. It's the policies that drive that.

It's food industry that drives that. And if we really want to fix food, have to change the institutions that are driving this. And one of the things you you say is biggest fast food chain in America is the school cafeteria. That's amazing. And and we have to change those institutions.

And you are changing all of this through your nonprofit, Eat Real, which you collaborate with a couple of really good buddies of mine. Jordan Schlain is also my doctor. Doctor. Robert Lustig, who is a good friend, and we collaborated on a movie Fed Up years ago. And it's an incredible nonprofit that is transforming public school cafeterias.

It's the largest, you know, restaurant chain in America. Right? And it and it's amazing solution for kids' health, for community resilience, for long term disease prevention. And it's not easy to do. And you're doing it.

You're doing it. You're almost up to a million kids who are impacted. You're going up to 3,000,000. I would say let's do all of them.

Nora LaTorre
Go. Let's do it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Food to fix unsensed is really about fixing the systems across the scale of of medicine, food systems. And and that involves everything from, you know, changing the kind of research we do around nutrition chronic disease, to to changing food marketing practices, food labeling practices, our dietary guidelines, to changing what's allowed as a safe food, we call GRAS, safe to eat. You know, some these things we're working on, so the definitions are on ultra processed food in California, which we're going to talk about. We need to change the SNAP program, foods programs, the programs that are the government procurement programs. There's so many things that need to get changed, and we're working on all of them.

Medical education. But where do schools fit in? Because I think, you know, we we we I want you to maybe start out by helping me and everybody listening understand that what we're doing to our kids now is so dangerous. I I don't know if you know Harvey Karp, who's a pediatrician, but he's a friend of mine. I've known him forever, and he was actually my sister's kid's pediatrician.

And he's on the board of the Inverma working group with me. And he said, if a foreign country was doing to our kids what we're doing, we'd go to war to protect them. Mhmm. So what is going on?

Nora LaTorre
I mean, I think we we do need to fight for our kids' health. It's a critical moment. As a mom, that's why I got involved so deeply with Eat Real and joined up with doctor Jordan Slane and doctor Robert Lustig because I wanted to to be in this fight to create health for our kids. And, you know, what what we're seeing, we're calling American health collapse, this phenomenon that American progress is at risk for so long as Americans. We want better, brighter, longer, healthier, happier lives for the next generation.

And for our kids, we believe in progress. And now we're seeing what you said, like, the potential for our kids to have shorter, less healthy, and less happy lives. And the number one driver is ultra processed food and ultra processed food preventable diseases related diseases. And so we really think that changing our food is the best way to change our future and to restore American health, to restore progress, to create healthy, happy lives, longer, vibrant lives for our kids. And so when, you know, at Eat Real, we looked at the entire food system, and we looked at what and asked ourselves, what is the best lever to create health for our kids upstream?

And when we looked at all the different leverage points, hospitals, restaurants, you know, there are medical facilities. There's so many different ways that you could change food. We really saw that schools are the big bet to create health because what you said, they're the largest restaurant chain in America. They're bigger than Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's combined. They've heard Wow.

They serve 30,000,000 kids 50 of their nutrition. It's like, if we wanna stop disease before it starts and change core calories and get real food to kids and fight for our kids' health, schools are the lever. And schools, we think, are the big bet. And so we've gone all in since 2019 on just helping kids have access to delicious nourishing food that helps them learn, grow, and thrive. And it's working.

And it's working fast. That's what's so exciting. We went from 50,000 kids to a million kids since then.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's amazing. I mean, I just wanna double down on what you said for a minute. 30,000,000 kids

Nora LaTorre
Mhmm.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Have school food Mhmm. As half of their diet. Mhmm. That's a staggering statistic. Yeah.

Right?

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. It's 7,000,000,000 meals a year.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So half of the kids' nutrition comes from schools.

Nora LaTorre
And some kids, Morris. Some kids we just had the Sacramento Kings. Some of the Kings players come and serve school supper. Some of our schools serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner, especially in low income communities. It's a major nutrition security net.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It is so important for kids development. Mhmm. People don't understand that, you know, we're not just educating people in schools. If we're feeding them crap, we're actually working against the sort of intellectual capital

Nora LaTorre
Mhmm.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Of the next generation. Yeah. We're forever impacting their neurological development, their brain development, in so many ways. And when you look at schools now, I was talking to a school nurse recently, and I mean, all these kids are on drugs. ADD drugs, antidepressants.

I mean, it's staggering how much mental health issues there are and and behavioral issues there are in school.

Nora LaTorre
Parents see it. Teachers see it. People were I think we're concerned as a nation.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So it's not just obesity. It's a lot of things. Mhmm. I re remember researching food fix. Mhmm.

There was a paper I found where they looked at juvenile detention centers. And there was there was a a swap out of their diet they were feeding these kids. It's violent, aggressive kids in juvenile detention centers. And they found that if they fed them real food, and swapped out the junk food for the real food, that the violence went down by over 90, I think, 7%. The the research restraints went down by 70%.

The suicide rates, which are the third leading cause of death in those teenage boys, went down by a hundred percent, meaning to zero. And so that's mind boggling to me. And and and so all these issues we're trying to medicate is really from food. And the obesity issues, the metabolic issues that are gonna give these kids a legacy of diabetes, and heart disease, and cancer, and dementia that comes such at a faster rate when they have these problems. I mean, one in three kids now has insulin resistance or prediabetes or One

Nora LaTorre
in three teens is prediabetic. It's up five percent. I I would love for you to, like, talk about, like, what but I think we hear diabetes, and it's still, like, confusing to people. Can you just talk through when a kid has prediabetes? Like, what is what is happening in their body?

And as a doctor, like, what's how is that impacting their health and their health trajectory?

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know, I mean, disease starts in the womb, really. When the mother's eating sugar and starch and crap, it's causing these kids to be epigenetically programmed to be obese, to have more heart disease, to have more cancers. And then these kids continue to eat this way. And as they grow up and in schools, they're they're actually accelerating their risk for heart disease, for diabetes, for cancer, and not just causing health issues. But the data is really clear that these kids have a lower chance of having a successful life and lower job opportunities, lower incomes.

It's just this cascade. So as I said earlier, like, if you're overweight as a kid, your life expectancy is thirteen years shorter. That's like living in a third world country that, you know, like, really is even worse than most third world countries.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. And the latest the latest research is that three out of five kids will be obese by the time they're 35. So just like obesity is soaring.

Dr. Mark Hyman
The data today is that, you know, one in two children born today will be diabetic in their lifetime. Mhmm. One in two.

Nora LaTorre
And I mean, also, think we hear diabetes, but, like, every three and a half minutes in America, there's an amputation because of diabetes. And so, like, we don't want our kids to be on a path to that. We want our kids on the playground. We want our kids running through adulthood. We want our kids thriving.

And so I think I think we hear that still as a nation, and I think things are starting to shift. But I think we still don't we're not we haven't fully grasp onto it yet.

Dr. Mark Hyman
No. We haven't. And and academically, it impacted kids. So not just health wise, but I think we're 30 something in math and reading in the world, like, below every other developed nation. I don't maybe that's some degree to do with our school system and educational system, but how do you learn and focus and concentrate when your brain is on shit?

Yeah. Yeah.

Nora LaTorre
I mean, do your kids drink a bathtub of added sugar a year? A bathtub. And one of our schools in our program just removed 34 pounds of sugar per student per year. We actually had to wheel a wagon into the school board meeting and stack 34 pounds, which is, like, almost as tall as my four year old. And that's how much sugar they removed.

And so how are we how are we going to expect kids to focus and to sit down in circle time, especially little kids if they're eating 34 pounds of sugar or a bathtub 65 pounds of sugar to, like, to then sit in circle time and focus and learn. And so, actually, our nonprofit, in addition to changing school food and raising awareness and doing advocacy and policy change, we've started to do a lot more research, which even since I think I last saw you, we've really kicked up our research. We launched a research partnership with Christopher Gardner at Stanford to study behavior change and nutritional quality. And then we're studying right now, talking about academic performance with USC and LA Children's and doctor Goran. Were studying the impact of real food in school on test scores and early results from that research.

It's not published yet. Early results indicate increased academic performance and test scores.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Of course.

Nora LaTorre
So you change food, they help focus better, they are have more mental clarity, and they're able to perform better. And that can I think it's one of the big ways that we can improve academic performance and then long term performance for kids?

Dr. Mark Hyman
I agree. Just I I I post in the show notes, but I I wrote in my book, The Ultramind Solution, about a kid I saw who was 12 years old with severe ADD. And I I wrote a paper about it, and then published it in a medical journal. There was a case report showing that, you know, this kid was 12 years old, severe ADD, behavioral issues, got kicked out of kindergarten Wow. For being that bad.

Was on Adderall. Had unable to focus. Just a mess. But his diet was just pure junk food. And he was significantly nutrition deficient.

And your brain works on nutrients, know. It's like not just protein, bad, and carbs, but like, he was vitamin deficient, mineral deficient. His his mother brought in his homework just sort of before, and and two months later after, his handwriting was illegible at 12 years old. And two months after changing his diet to real food, it was perfect penmanship. There was no like handwriting lessons.

What

Nora LaTorre
about cognitive change?

Dr. Mark Hyman
And it was one of those moments in my medical career. Was like, oh my god. What is happening here in this kid's brain? And now he's like an astrophysicist or something. Know?

That's amazing. You know, in two months, he was completely better just by switching his diet, cleaning up his gut, giving him a couple vitamins, like not a lot of stuff. And I I think, you know, kids are so close to actually doing better. It breaks my heart. Like, I see so many these parents coming to me with their kids, challenged, and you know, this was never the case.

One in, you know, six kids has a neurodevelopmental issue. Any everything from learning disabilities to, you know, ADD to Asperger's to autism. I mean, that's a lot of kids. Mhmm. You know, it's scary.

And it's getting worse.

Nora LaTorre
It's hard for the kid. It's hard for the family. It's hard for the community. It's hard for the school. It's hard for our economy and the workforce.

Like, it's it's like it's it's and it's heartbreaking.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And school's been co opted by the the food industry. And there's, like, McDonald's Monday and Taco Bell Tuesday and Wendy's Wednesday. I mean, it's it's bad. 50% of the, like, meals in there are bread, and there's all the junk in there. And, you know, it's not by accident.

So can you talk about the School Nutrition Association? Because I think it sounds nice, but it's just an industry front group.

Nora LaTorre
I think the School Nutrition Association, which it does does, you know, gain some funding from the food industry, they have a membership model as well with a lot of school food professionals. And I think that there's a big opportunity for them to become powerful, positive players in school food and to and I do think that they have incredible presence, and we've been participating in some of their local events that are really helpful and supportive to the local community, I think the opportunity for them is to think about their advocacy role and to think about how can they help really improve standards and investment and making sure that they're challenging the status quo, not supporting the status quo and really shifting to

Dr. Mark Hyman
So historically, they were bad, and now they're you think they're getting better?

Nora LaTorre
I think they can really get a lot

Dr. Mark Hyman
They can get better. They need to improve. Room for oh, that room for improvement on your your I

Nora LaTorre
think that they I mean, we we, locally, love working with them. And I think that they could be a really powerful force for good in our country.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's it's it's amazing how powerful the food is. I mean, I I remember remember that, you know, ketchup is a vegetable thing? Mhmm. Pizza was also considered a vegetable.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And, you know, initially, there was they were they're gonna sort of not allow that as something that was, you know, considered a healthy food. And and the the biggest supplier Mhmm. Of pizzas to schools in America is Swanson's. They're in Minnesota.

Nora LaTorre
Mhmm. Where I'm from.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And Amy Klobuchar is the senator, Democratic senator from Minnesota, who basically lobbied to remove that restriction on pizza and get it to be considered a vegetable. Yeah. That just kind of stuff makes me crazy. And know, the Tom Harkin, when he was the head of the health education labor pension committee, which oversees health policies, Cassie's on the committee now as the chair. He said he went to, like, visit some little school somewhere.

I don't know. And it was like, the entire classroom had Coca Cola chairs in kindergarten. So all the chairs were, like, branded Coca Cola.

Nora LaTorre
PepsiCo sponsors band.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Fund all the sports programs. And then it's just it's, you know, what what what that saying if you know, what if the Department of Defense had to do bake sales to make enough money for for defense, and schools and schools got like actual food. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. So what were the barriers that you saw when you started working on this?

Because you you basically were going into a system that was basically a fast food restaurant and saying, hey, this isn't good anymore. How do we change this with eReal?

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. I think we think schools are the fastest, most enduring way to make scalable change for our kids. And so it and it is complicated. Like, so we've been heads down since 2019, and we really started with one pilot district and 50,000 kids. And we were like, we have WFIO is one of our sayings at our small but mighty nonprofit.

We'll figure it out. We're gonna figure it out. And so we stood next to an incredible food service director, Dominic, and we you know, what we do is we actually come in and we assess the school food program with our 10 science based standards that are super rigorous. We just went through a review. It includes some of the best doctors, the best research, and we looked at everything from how much sugar is in the food, what quality proteins, how local, how sustainable, how much variety, how many fresh food choices and options there are for students, and we assess them.

And then we give them a score, and then we help that food leader, that changemaker in the community understand how do they make change and what is their food action plan. And it's all about action. We're a we're a get it done group. You know, we we operate kind of like a for profit startup, but with a heart and dedication of a nonprofit. So we move fast, and we stand next to these change makers, and we give them the playbook.

And then we meet like, Dominic and I met, actually, at a school nutrition association meeting. We met with 40 of his vendors. And Lustig was on the phone at one point with one of the food suppliers explaining why that harmful ingredient leached calcium from kids' bones and what they could swap it with. And we don't do that with every with every call. We can't call a Rob Lustig and Doctor.

Rob Lustig on everyone. But we were able to have them swap out a ton of harmful ingredients, get out toxic ingredients, reduce sugar. At that point, they were removing 10 pounds of sugar, and we thought this is game changing. And so now we have we're working with over 57 of these heroes, these school food change makers in 20 states. We went from 10 states to 20 states this year, and we went from half a million kids to a million kids.

We doubled our impact this year, and we added that many more incredible food heroes in these communities. And we stand next to them, and we give them the support, the inspiration. We give them the playbook. We give them the registered dietitians and the nutritionists and the doctors that they need, and we give them the local suppliers and the other friends across the country that are making change. And then we help them get Eat Real certified, and then we celebrate with them and the families and the communities and the students.

And then we help them keep going and get eat real green, silver, gold, and keep raising the bar and making the food better and better and better for their kids. And we're seeing participation. More and more kids are eating school lunch as a result. Like, one of our districts on the East Coast is serving 59,000 more meals since they got started doing more real food for kids because it's more delicious. The kids like it more.

Mhmm. The parents trust it. Are like, okay. You can eat school lunch. The stigma goes away.

Oh, school lunch? No. Oh, school lunch is so good. This is delicious. They're, calling their cousins bragging about it down the road.

My school lunch is better than yours. Like, it's delicious. And so and it is there's like I just had school lunch, and it was they had, like, chicken teriyaki bowl with broccoli, and everybody was getting the broccoli. It was so good. They had a pizza, but it had no harmful ingredients, no dough conditioners.

It had real cheese. It had a protein crumble. It's like, I think that was a grass fed beef crumble. You went like, it was the pizza done the way if you're gonna eat pizza, like, that is a way to eat pizza. And so and then they had a salad grown on-site on on the school farm and delicious local organic cucumbers and house made ranch, which I'm Minnesotan, so we drink ranch.

It was so with fresh dill, it was amazing. So school food can be so good, and so we help make it good. And then more and more kids eat it, and the local economy thrives, the local farmers thrive, the principals are happier, the teachers are happier, the students are loving it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's amazing. Because, you know, there there's a mythology out there

Nora LaTorre
Mhmm.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That is propagated by the food industry, which is it's expensive to eat healthy. Right. It's elitist. It's discriminatory. You know, it's too complicated.

It's too expensive. And they they just you know, the food's not gonna be safe. It's not gonna be convenient. It's, know, gonna be food safety issues. And they have all this propaganda Yeah.

That they tout. Yeah. And it sounds like they're

Nora LaTorre
Too common.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Actually looking looking after the benefit of the poor. Yeah. And it's this sort of this halo of their the good guys. But it's so manipulative. And and you know, part of the problem is that, you know, people don't think that you can eat well for less.

And and I'm sure you know of this this group, but there's a friend of mine in Boston who Joe Shaw, who basically saw what was happening in school. She had little kids, and she's like, this is ridiculous. So she went into the schools and she saw all the schools only had deep fryers and microwaves. And the food was shipped in from out of state in, you know, big frozen plastic wrapped containers. They would heat this stuff up in plastic in the microwave, which is like, oh my god.

You know? Like, you do not wanna do that. It's just gonna get microplastics all over your food. Yeah. I mean, it's And all

Nora LaTorre
in children's bodies and in their brains.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Terrible. And, you know, she funded as a pilot as a philanthropist a school to get a kitchen. She hired chefs to design recipes Mhmm. That kids would like within the school lunch budget.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Right?

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. It's possible.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Within the school age guidelines

Nora LaTorre
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Because there are requirements and kind of guardrails Yeah. Those will change under the new dietary guidelines. But she was able to do it. Yeah. And then the Boston mayor was like, oh my god.

This works. Let's scale it up.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. It's possible.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Fast. Kids are performing better. Their academics are better. Their health is better. Their retention's better.

Their focus is better. How do how do you get these schools? I mean, there's this school worker nutrition workers, the cafeteria workers, they don't they're they don't know what to do. Just, you sticks out on a microwave. How do you change the culture and get these schools to actually do this?

Nora LaTorre
In public schools, there are food service directors or nutrition directors, and then they have food service staff. And so they're really our hero. They're the person that wears cape capes in our model. And so we really

Dr. Mark Hyman
The ones with the hairnets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nora LaTorre
And they they're incredible. And they're a passionate bunch, and they're really busy. It's like they have to serve you know, sometimes it's eighteen minute lunches. They have to serve hundreds or thousands of kids in a short time frame. They have they are the largest restaurant chain.

They have a huge staff. They're dealing with a ton of infrastructure, of sourcing, of service in a fast short timeline, and they have hard jobs, and they're big jobs. So we really stand next to them and give them the tools, the support, the encouragement. We make it fun to change the world. Like, that's what we it's like, do we bring some positivity?

Cook. And we help them we help them get the recipe. Yeah. They trade they recipe swap. We have monthly calls across they call themselves the eat realies.

And so they have their monthly calls with food service directors from around the country and then in regionally too, and they swap suppliers. Who are you using for that protein? Who are you using for your one of our districts were talking about dragon fruit. I just had dragon fruit. Like, they were talking about dragon fruit to give the kids some excitement and try something new.

They they we do school lunch spotlight tours. We actually just did one, and some folks from Idaho and some folks from Washington came, or we did one in Georgia, and people from North Carolina and Virginia came. And they were actually, somebody drove homeschool lunch because it was so good from Marietta, Georgia to North Carolina to show their school board what was possible. Like, they and so they, like, they they look at each other's kitchen. How how is your kitchen set up?

What combi ovens are you using? How are you training your staff? How are you like, who are your suppliers? How did you get that eat real standard? What swaps did you make?

And so it's really about creating this community of people.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Intelligence.

Nora LaTorre
Yes. And that and giving them we work with them individually and give them the data, the support, the certification, the 14 page certification report, and the action planning support, and then we connect them with each other. And they have they are a very fun group of people. And it's happening, like I said, in 20 states now. So Alaska, Washington, Idaho, California, Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, like Amazing.

Michigan. We're growing throughout the Connecticut. We're growing coast to coast and showing that this works in wintry places and urban places and rural places. This is working in red states and blue states and purple states. Like, kids thrive with real food.

And it's a better it's a better model for our school districts. And it is hard, and it is complicated. It's interesting. Different people

Dr. Mark Hyman
And they can do it at the cost.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Some of our districts save save money by by swapping, doing certain swaps, because that's really interesting. And, like, for example, going from local just for low even local like, they'll go from apples where they don't know where they're from to local organic apples. They'll start cutting them, and then the kids take what they need, and they don't just take one bite and get in their braces and then throw the apple out.

They just take the apple slices that they need, and they're able to actually save money on organic local apples, but now they're gonna that's one example. And what's interesting, what we're studying right now, and we're we're working with a research partner on this too, we have a bunch of I can't wait to nerd out with you in the future on some of our resources coming out. But one thing we're researching how it's actually a better business model for school food businesses to switch to real food. So let me just walk you through this really quick.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So Yeah.

Nora LaTorre
They if you start sourcing real food, like, yes, you can make some swaps and save money, and some things do cost more. A higher quality protein is gonna be more expensive. Like grass fed organic beef or local chicken.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, just even you're just eating just protein, period. That's not like some processed things better than

Nora LaTorre
But in the school food, that, like, that that would be slightly more. And but as our schools invest in real food, and they train their staff, and they're serving, moving towards more scratch cooking, they're able to then increase the participation or the number of kids the number of customers, the number of kids eating school meals. If they so even if it costs a tiny bit more, if you increase your customer base, you know

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Yeah.

Nora LaTorre
30%, what increase increase, and we're seeing participation numbers go up.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You're saying this can scale?

Nora LaTorre
So I'm saying that our schools then are able to make more money as school food businesses. They they're and then they're reinvesting that in chefs, in training, in infrastructure, in new kitchens. And so it's actually they're able to have a more efficient, better school food business model when they switch to real food.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's amazing.

Nora LaTorre
And it's win win win. They have a better economic model for their school food business. They have happier students that are better performing in the classroom and on the field and in their lives. And they have a stronger local economy because they're keeping those school food dollars going to local farmers. You know, a lot of our schools go from five local farms to 11 local farms, and they're actually one of our schools is pre contracting tomatoes and and having farmers dedicate cropland for the school.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's amazing.

Nora LaTorre
Which is, like, the best thing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, these local collaborations, these centralized food systems, it all makes sense. So parents and teachers are noticing these kids

Nora LaTorre
Mhmm.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Are better?

Nora LaTorre
Oh, yeah. We're hearing from parents. We're hearing from teachers that, you know, I I was actually following a teacher to her classroom. I just wanted to, like, ask her, you know, what is what is a real food breakfast? Because also we do a lot of breakfast swaps, and that's we can talk about some things that parents can do at home too.

But it's one of the most game changing things that you can do is update breakfast where there's a lot of sneaky sugars in breakfast and a lot of sneaky items. But she said that now in her math class, her kids are sitting better at the beginning of the class and just able to, like, focus more and lock in. And she said that since they started to have a more nourishing breakfast and things like egg bites and burritos and not just sugary cereals and whatnot, she said that she hasn't heard one, I'm hungry. And she just feels like her kids are more nourished.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Well, if you're eating sugar for breakfast Mhmm. And you're eating sugar all day, you're have swings in your blood sugar up and down. It's gonna cause cravings and hypoglycemia and behavioral issues. I mean, just go to a kid's birthday party and Oh gosh.

Nora LaTorre
Spronching off the walls.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I see a lot of people talking about like more developmental work, like like Save the Children. And like I I heard Jennifer Garner talking at a conference about, you know, these kids who are in Appalachia, and they're, you know, they're they're really dull and disconnected, and their parents aren't engaged with them and playing with them and whatever. And they were talking about how well, well, just need to play more ball with them or do more games with them or do and I'm like, yeah, but these kids brains are not functioning because they're nutritionally depleted. Or there's they're depleted in magnesium and b vitamins and omega threes and even some of that protein. And they're eating all this sugar and processed ingredients and dyes that cause behavioral issues.

I mean, it's do these how do you expect to actually raise a generation of children that's gonna be helping America stay a vibrant, successful country? I mean, it's like, it's highly concerning to me.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. How do we make our kids feel better today, and then improve their short term health outcomes, and then improve their their long term health and happiness. It's

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I mean, in kids is investing in the future of our country. Right. I mean, it's like it just it's such a no brainer. Right?

Nora LaTorre
Definitely how we stop disease before it starts. And it's the it is the top solution. Like, real real food to kids is the best way to create health for generations to come. And and quickly, I think that you and I both agree, and I think we've talked about this. Like, what to me is so powerful and what I love about a lot of the work that you do across so many different avenues is, you know, humans can regenerate quickly.

That's what gives me hope. It's like Doctor. Lustig did a study that showed that in ten days just removing added sugar, even leaving starch, kids' metabolic health improved. Like, we can we if like, are you I did once your ten day Detox. Ten day detox.

And then I had and then you and I worked on a seven day national sugar challenge together. I remember that. And my family I had my family do it, the whole house, and I have a multigenerational house. So and the whole family did it, and we did we didn't just do seven days. We extended it to ten because of that research.

And then we actually did the whole month. No added or free sugar. Life changing for our family. Like, game changing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And What happened?

Nora LaTorre
The grandparents lost weight and felt better. The we changed this we I we got we had sourcing agreements pretty much at the house level where we're like, okay. It's hidden in all these these sauces we didn't know, and let's just not have it in the house and, like, just don't bring it in, and you're not it's not gonna go on the plate. It changed it just made us all so aligned, and it made everyone feel better and be more vibrant and made blueberries taste sweeter. It was life changing, but I think that's the thing is like, you we can change our children's health so fast.

If you change what you you feel you start to feel better when you eat raw food that day.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That day.

Nora LaTorre
And then you start to change your metabolic health in ten days. And you can I mean, you've seen probably so many patients reverse the prediabetes, reverse diabetes?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Diabetes. Yeah.

Nora LaTorre
One in three kids are prediabetic. If we commit to this as a country, like, Americans get things done. And, like, if we actually say we're going to right this ship and change the direction, and we're gonna take our health back into our hands, and we're going to advocate that the government aggressively make changes and quickly make changes, which there's momentum across the aisle there to do it. There's an appetite, food pun intended, for that. And then we can do it, and we can make change quickly, and we can regenerate.

It's a story of hope to me. Like, we can regenerate our health and reverse these diseases and then stop these diseases from even starting in kids Yeah. So fast. And we change the food system in schools in less than two years, like, night and day, like, game changing. And we get the data because we certify audit or assess them.

We assess the school food. Then we do the action planning, then we reassess so we get the before and after. And we can see dramatic changes, a major upgrade in less than twenty four months. And so we can change our food system fast, and we can change our health fast.

Dr. Mark Hyman
How do change our children's health? 30,000,000 kids.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. How do we go

Dr. Mark Hyman
to thirty million?

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. Thirty million. I mean, well, we're our goal so we just reached a million kids in 20 states, doubling our impact. Now we have the big bold goal to reach 3,000,000 kids in 30 states in three years, which is

Dr. Mark Hyman
fast. A zero.

Nora LaTorre
What? This looks good. Out of zero. Out of zero. So, like but that's pretty fast, and that is a tipping point.

That's 10% of the population. So our theory is if we can get to 30 states and 3,000,000 kids in three years, then we have the presence, the proof, and the partnerships to be the food systems change maker. And we have these case studies and these examples from throughout the country that show how fast real food is possible and that kids want it, that teachers are happier, that our communities are demanding it. And then we think that's how we catapult policy and change state and national policy because we have the grassroots momentum, and we have all the proof and the data and the momentum and the inertia across the aisle to say, this works. Let's do this fast.

Let's there are some major bets we can make at the state level and the national level, and here are all the examples. So our goal is reach the 3,000,000 because then let's change the whole game for all 30,000,000 kids that depend on school meals in America.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It's it's sort of existential. And, you know, I don't know what the number is, but, you know, if if if you're feeding 30,000,000 kids, that's a huge procurement Mhmm. Of food Yeah. And food service.

Right? I don't know what the percentage is of all food service, but it's it's a lot.

Nora LaTorre
Mhmm.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And when you change the food service Mhmm. You change the incentives for the the farmers

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. You change the management. Providers.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And yeah. And it changes the whole system from the farm to the field

Nora LaTorre
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
To the fork to the mouth. Yeah. You know?

Nora LaTorre
In just Northern California, in one year, we generated over $1,000,000 of grass fed organic beef ranchers across this like, just Northern California. Like, you changed you changed the economy. They had to go start converting to more regenerative ag. We changed cropland.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yes. Like when Walmart decides they're not gonna do something or they're gonna do this or that. And Yeah. The industry has to change. Otherwise, they're not gonna be in Walmart.

Nora LaTorre
No. It changes what crops are being grown the next season. It changes what farmers invest in. It changes our society fast Mhmm. And our economy.

That's why it's like, it's so exciting to me, the momentum and the the power of school meals and how fast local communities and it's cool. We have eatreal.org/parents where people go, and there's a template that people use to email their school districts. And we're seeing parents and students engaging their food service director and saying, hey. I'd love to introduce you to this nonprofit eat real, and their school districts one district signed up within twelve hours to our program. And of a parent reaching out with our template email saying yours.

And so and then they got into our program. And within a couple years now, they've reregionalized their whole food system. They're buying more organic, more local. I just had such a good meal at that school district in Southern California. So in Capistrano.

So it's happening. It's happening fast.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And so people feel powerless. Mhmm. You know, they go, oh god. We have a food system that's broken. We have a health care system that's broken.

Mhmm. Chronic disease is rising. The health care costs are rising, health insurance premiums are Yeah. Everything's just a mess. Right?

Our kids are behaviorally challenged. They're cognitively challenged. And mental health in kids is a massive crisis than ever in human history. Where do they start? Like, how does a parent or a school listening to this podcast, how do they where do they go?

Nora LaTorre
I think they could start with goingtoeatreal.org/parents. There's a template email where they can send an email to their local food service director and nutrition director telling them about Eat Real, which because of incredible philanthropists and some government funding, we're able to offer our program free of cost to school districts. And so we parents can then reach out to their school district and say, hey. I heard about this awesome nonprofit Eat Real on doctor Mark Hyman's podcast. I'd love to introduce you.

Thank you for doing everything you do, and thank you for feeding our kids, and I wanna connect you with this nonprofit that can support you more. And so that's one way that they can get involved is get their tell their local school district and their local nutrition director about us. And then I think that we also have Eat Real certified on Instagram and our newsletter, which is there are a lot of different ways then in terms of advocacy and campaigns that people can plug in and just get active and start to join the conversation and join the real food movement with us and continue to help us build it as we have calls to action about various opportunities to create change.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's amazing how simple things make a big difference. You know, our friend Tim Ryan, is congressman from Ohio, his wife is a fourth grade teacher.

Nora LaTorre
I wonder I wonder if we're in her school. I need to find out.

Dr. Mark Hyman
She's great. But she she instituted a whole bunch of things in her classroom. Like, kids could eat anything they want at any time in the class as long as it was real food. The kids would go home and say, mom, dad, go let's buy carrots. Let's buy apples.

Let's buy this so I can eat it in school. And then she would have this policy where, you know, kids had to drink water. Yeah. And they get to go to the bathroom. They have to ask.

They could just get up and go to the bathroom. Yeah. And it was, like, encouraging them to, like, compare their pee. Is your pee clear or not? Because they wanna be hydrated.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. Are they having, like, championship level pee that's clear? Or are they, like, are they drinking enough water? It's like, no.

Dr. Mark Hyman
They had, like, fiber fun Fridays where they talked about their poop. You know? And so they you know, teachers can do this too Yeah. In the classrooms in ways that Okay. Gonna make it fun.

You know, I think it really changes kids' framework. And think I what happens at home too is important. Oh, yeah. Because I think, you know, then the the parents hear the kids actually feeling better, doing better, and they actually goes up to the home. Yeah.

Because, you know, the home is where a lot of the problem is Because, you know, these families are struggling.

Nora LaTorre
Mhmm.

Dr. Mark Hyman
They're they're working hard, maybe two jobs. They have, you know, not any education about how to cook or shop or

Nora LaTorre
eat food. Food industry has made it so confusing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. The food industry deliberately confuses people. Like, CoolWhip is a, you know, zero trans fat, healthy dessert topping, which is almost all trans fat because it's almost the air. It it goes through a loophole, which the FDA allowed because of the food industry that it has less than half a gram per serving. They can say it has less than zero it has zero trans No.

Nora LaTorre
So what's to fix?

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's so broken. But but, you know, it's not that hard. We're almost like one meal away from educating America about how to actually cook. One of things Brianne and my wife and I are doing as part of a Food Fix Uncensored launch and education is to do a SNAP challenge, where SNAP is food stamps, otherwise known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. There's no n in there.

It's not nutrition, it's I don't know what it is, something else.

Nora LaTorre
It Supplemental can be, eventually.

Dr. Mark Hyman
We're gonna show how, on $7 a day Mhmm. You can eat healthy, delicious food. Mhmm. It's not hard to make. It doesn't take a long time.

You have to learn a few basic skills. You have to know how to chop an onion.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
How to stir fry something, like, not you know, how to open a can.

Nora LaTorre
Some knife skills and some kitchen confidence.

Dr. Mark Hyman
A few pots and pans. Yeah. And that's it. Yeah. And, you know, I'm excited.

Like, we're gonna make one of my favorite dishes, which is this my mother used to make this, a Spanish omelet, a Spanish tortilla. Like, basically, you take onions, garlic, chop them up, stir fry them in some olive oil. You take these red potatoes, right, potatoes, you slice them really thin. Yeah. And then you layer them flat, then you pour water over them, and salt and pepper, and you let them sort of cook with a cover so that it kinda cooks the potatoes.

When the water's all gone, you pour like a dozen eggs over it. And and you stick it in the oven for ten, fifteen minutes, so it kinda bakes. Yeah. And it's the most delicious thing, and it's like 82¢ a serving.

Nora LaTorre
So nerdy. For breakfast. Filling. You just, like, give a few a few big pots of food in a week, a few batch cooked meals so that you're set up for the week, some bulk cooking with

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Nora LaTorre
Your neighbors, or I bulk cook with my friend, Chef Natalia. And then you can really get those kind of key recipes that you can use on your budget with, like, your local grocer and that your kinda go tos for your family that are health changing. Like, they'll that can be, like, the kind of anchor key dishes for your family.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Even meat. You know, there's there's a cow share program

Nora LaTorre
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Where you cut out the middleman.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. Buy direct. Just got my I just went to my rancher. Yep.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. So it's it's actually can be extremely affordable Mhmm. Even to get regenerative beef

Nora LaTorre
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know, if you go direct to the farmer. And I talk a lot about this in Food Fix. And we have a lot of resources on foodfixuncensored.com. I think, you know, people don't know how easy it is cause we're convinced how hard it is by the food industry. And I think, you know, you've shown with schools how it can be done.

Mhmm. Like, it's one thing to talk about it. Yeah. There's a great I don't know saw that cartoon. The one who says it can't be done should not interrupt the one who's doing it.

I

Nora LaTorre
hope that's us. I hope I hope that's

Dr. Mark Hyman
you real. Shows like a Chinese Tai Chi master's like walking around the edge of a wicker basket without it falling over. You know? Like

Nora LaTorre
like And it's both. It's like, how do we make it easier for people to take individual action and to to take their health in their own hands and make it and give them the skills and the knowledge and the support to do it and and more resources? And then how do we also change the systems Yeah. So that and and push back on the food industry?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, let's talk about that because you you've been instrumental in some really key initiatives in California that you almost single handedly have done. I mean, like

Nora LaTorre
In collaboration with some incredible orgs.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You need, like, a superhero costume, I think, actually. Because you are a force of nature in a unassuming package that I think is disharming, but you're kind of a lioness underneath all that taking no prisoners with a smile. And and maybe you can share some of the key key things that you've done policy wise. Because, you know, food fiction really makes the case that that food policy is health policy. Yes.

And and it and you've you've done it through both what's happening in schools schools, but also in in some major bills that got passed in California around food dyes, around ultra processed food. And so take us through some of those key initiatives and what you've done and and showing that it is possible to change policy.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. And quickly. Again, like, that's what gives me so much hope is, like, this can happen so fast and together with incredible advisers like yourself and incredible other nonprofits and partnerships and our school food hero. And, really, we look to our school leaders, and they beam us. They tell us what to do.

They say, you know, I wanna change a food in my school, and I wanna change it in the state, and I wanna change it nationally. So our group of eat reallys really determine our policy approach and determine what we advocate for, and they tell us what do they need to really change the whole game. So some fun ones, we helped advocate for school meals for all. And then we actually, with senator Skinner in California and some of our eat real heroes, our school food service directors, we helped pass the first sugar bill ever in America's history for kids. There had never been a sugar standard in school meals.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wow.

Nora LaTorre
So we wonder why kids drink a bathtub of added sugar, or there are 250 sneaky names for sugar, and it's hidden all throughout our food system. And so just hadn't been done before. There have been no no challenge and no accountability there. And so we helped pass it in California, and then we actually passed that nationally. And so there the USDA did just begin to implement its first sugar bill nationally, which will benefit all 30,000,000 kids.

So throughout the country, they're starting to reduce sugar burden and sugar exposure for our kids, which is one of the most powerful, like, health changing initiatives So we can I think you and I saw each other, and we were high fiving? I was like, I'm bursting, and I came out to you. I'm like, it's passed. It's so exciting. And senator Skinner was a new grandma at the time, and she was like, she wanted to make change, and she worked with her incredible chief of staff and so many others to champion it and then to help advocate it for it nationally.

And then we helped advocate for the first food dye bill, which was passed the first one was in California, and we also worked on it in West Virginia and helped roll it in other states. But what what's so powerful about our model is that we were able to present to lawmakers when they were worried, is this feasible? Or they were getting, you know, food industry pressure. This is too complicated. This is gonna raise costs.

This is not gonna be possible. Kids aren't gonna want it. It's gonna

Dr. Mark Hyman
hurt either. It's gonna up in the garbage.

Nora LaTorre
Right. It's gonna hurt our budget supporting the schools, like, all this because the that is real. That food industry pressure is I think people hear it, and they're like, that's conspiracy and

Dr. Mark Hyman
Definitely not conspiracy. Read my book. It's so documented with hundreds

Nora LaTorre
of I won't go there, but it's Yeah. Scary, and it's real. It's like it's terrifying and it's like dangerous and it's like really harmful for our kids. And as a mom, it makes me so mad. Yeah.

But it's real. And we were able to say, no. That's not true. And push back on that and being able to say, actually, we already, with Eat Real Standards, remove those harmful dyes. We already removed the sugar.

We've already done it in 500 schools or in a thousand schools or now 1,700 schools. And so

Dr. Mark Hyman
So they can't really say, oh, it can't be done.

Nora LaTorre
Because we did it. And we're like, the numbers are going up. More kids are eating it. The teachers are happier. The kids are happier.

Talk to this mom. Talk to this dad. Talk to talk to this food service director. Talk to this supplier. Talk to this local farmer who's winning because of this.

Talk to this principal who's happier. Talk to this teacher who's looking at the test scores go up. And we're like Yeah. Yeah. Exhibit a b c d e f g.

It's working. Like, no. This works.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like I said like I said, don't don't those who say it can't be done should not interrupt those who are doing this. That was

Nora LaTorre
food. The most exciting one that we just did in six months

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Nora LaTorre
We partnered with your the now probably where you're on the board, environmental working group, Scott Faber, who I'm like a huge fan girl of. We partnered with Scott Faber, and we also partnered with Food Fight. They're incredible. Todd Wagner's group. Yep.

I love Laurie over there and Todd. They're wonderful. And so we really built this group that was really championed by Assemblymember Gabriel, who I think is another national hero. He's out of California. And so

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I met him.

Nora LaTorre
Oh, you did? Okay. Good.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I met him with Todd Wagner at a at a American cinema event.

Nora LaTorre
Oh, wonderful. Okay. Good. Okay. Yeah.

Two two incredible change makers. And so I knew

Dr. Mark Hyman
lieutenant governor who was very interested.

Nora LaTorre
Oh, good. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Governors are can be major change agents in this.

AB twelve sixty four was introduced. This was it was introduced in It's called AB twelve sixty four, and it's the first bill to define what are harmful ultra processed foods and to basically prevent big food from selling those dangerous, most dangerous, most harmful items into schools. So we passed the sugar bill. We passed the food diet bill. And then it was about, well, let's make sure that the most harmful ingredients just and products, high in sugar, salt, fat, harmful toxic ingredient list, banned in other countries, known to cause cancer, known to be dangerous to our kids' health, known to hurt their outcomes.

Let's just not let those be served in our public institutions, in our schools. And so we championed it. We

Dr. Mark Hyman
Anyway, we should be feeding our kids poison?

Nora LaTorre
Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe not a good idea. Maybe not a good idea.

I don't know. I don't know. Maybe a failed experiment. I think a failed experiment. Like, tried it.

It's not working. Health is going in the wrong directions. Try something new. And so we worked with them in the spring. Then we were able to they invited Eat Your World to testify, which was so wonderful.

And we were able to say, look. We already removed the most harmful ultra processed foods from kids meals in California. We did it in 500 schools over hundreds of thousands of students. We're seeing really strong results. We had farmers come in, meet to, and testify.

We had local school food heroes come from across the state and say they wanted it. We had the data. We had we met with lawmakers. We met we worked with tons of orgs, and we met with lawmakers across the aisle. And there was major pushback, and there was some major tactics that were not cool.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Tell tell us about that. You don't wanna tell

Nora LaTorre
wanna live, Mark. I wanna live. Like, I don't I wanna

Dr. Mark Hyman
You go want a big bullseye on

Nora LaTorre
your back? Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, I would I would just share one.

Nora LaTorre
Okay.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And then we can go back to your story. To to share the the extent to which people go in the food industry, that it's so corrupt and so many and it was in California when Jerry Brown was governor. Second time, he was the probably the most liberal governor in the history of America. They called him governor Moonbeam. I remember he ran for president in '76, but he he was so liberal.

And in California at the time, there were starting to be a lot of soda taxes. Berkeley was the first, and then other cities and towns started to do them, and the food industry freaked out. Mhmm. So what they did was to put a ballot measure on the ballot in California. They would make it mandatory for any law or bill to be passed to any local state government Mhmm.

Would require a two thirds majority. Which means because, you know, most legislatures are not, like, two thirds of a party. They're, like, half half. Right? Or more or less.

Right? Like, to get a two thirds majority of the senate, impossible because, you know, it's like 53 senators are Republican or whatever. And they it had nothing to do with food. Yeah. It had nothing to do with soda tax, but they knew it was gonna cripple the entire state government.

Mhmm. And they spent millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars driving this ballot initiative. And they went to Jerry Brown and said, unless you put in a prohibition against any future soda taxes in California, and if you wonder why there aren't more Right. And there haven't been since then, we're going to pass this measure. And we and he's like, okay.

He's like, basically blackmailed by the food industry. And there's a picture of him in the Governor's Mansion with all the heads of Coca Cola and the American Beverage Association, Pepsi. And it was

Nora LaTorre
like So many front groups. So bad. So many front groups with shady, seemingly healthy

Dr. Mark Hyman
So I said it. You don't have to say it. But that kinda is the kinda nonsense that goes on behind the scenes.

Nora LaTorre
Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. Do they do they do they have done major researches But there was threats. They've like it's like Yeah. Really bad.

Yeah. And we're up against a lot, and Americans have had it. I think we're just like, we're gonna stand up.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Why I haven't been taken out yet.

Nora LaTorre
I'm I'm like, that's what I'm saying.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I wanna like I've read in my mind. I said, you need a bodyguard. You need, like, a security force. I'm

Nora LaTorre
like He does. He does have bodyguards. He does have security, actually.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I have angels.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. Just

Dr. Mark Hyman
I have like angels. So so No.

Nora LaTorre
But it's real, but I think the You're tie amazing. The ties are changing, and we're able to stand up.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But there was lot of pushback. And how did you over how did you overcome that?

Nora LaTorre
So we were able to meet with lawmakers face to face, and we were able to have them meet with local school food professionals and say, this works. My kids are happier. My numbers are going up. Like, I'm able to do it. It's works for the school food business model.

It's actually better. And any of their their concerns, we're able to work with them. And then and we worked with with ag, and we worked to show that this was better for the local economy and better for local farmers. And within six months, it was about six months from the spring to the fall, we were able to pass a b twelve sixty four nearly unanimous sorry. Nearly unanimously unanimously in the senate and one naysayer in the assembly, which I asked as member Gabriel.

Was like, was has anything been this, like, bipartisan? One naysayer, unanimous in the senate, almost unanimously in the house. I said, as somebody member, rolls, is there anything that has had this much bipartisan collaboration and, like, this much inertia behind it? He's like, maybe naming a freeway. Maybe.

Maybe maybe they agreed on that. But, like That's crazy. To come together

Dr. Mark Hyman
Crazy. And

Nora LaTorre
to have Republicans and Dems and Independents say, we're going to protect our kids at school. We're going to make sure that the most harmful ingredients and products aren't in their menus, and we wanna stand up for our kids. And we're going to do what's right, and we're going to make history and define what are ultra processed foods. And they did it. We did it.

We did it in California. Gavin Newsom signed it into law. And now we're already advocating to then do that at the national level and we're working with other states. And we think that we can really make change fast. And it starts at the district level with school leaders showing it's possible.

States can take bold action and just change their policies, and then we can do it at the national level.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I always say I always say change doesn't start in Congress. It ends in Congress. You know? It all comes from grassroots, then it goes up to the local levels, then it goes up to the state levels, then it goes up to the federal levels.

And I think that's true for everything. Whether it's civil rights, I mean, whether it's women's rights, gay rights. Yeah. Like, it happens, and then it's like a wave.

Nora LaTorre
It's a movement. People are powerful, and people coming together and advocating for change can build a movement and make massive change fast. And it this is this this our children's health is what can bring people to the table and what is the greatest opportunity of our lifetime.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I mean, you look pretty bad if you're, like, unwilling to protect children

Nora LaTorre
in America.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Yeah. It's like

Nora LaTorre
I don't want my kids to live longer and healthier. Wait. What? No. You're wait.

No. No. I think this is something we can all agree on. We can all agree that our kids should have healthier, happier, longer lives. Like, that's that's easy.

That's that's what we fight for. That's that's what we exist to do as parents.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Okay. We're gonna do these wrap up questions. I'm gonna answer the question, and you're you're well, you go first, and I'll go after you. So what's one nutrition myth that we both wish parents would stop believing?

Nora LaTorre
Juice is a health food.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Juice is good for you. Juice boxes.

Nora LaTorre
Juice? I just wanted to break this down. And this I grew up on orange juice. I was a Tropicana kid. Like, I drank juice, and I, like, did not I thought it was starting a healthy day.

But when you drink juice, you were they juice the fiber and remove it down, and it just spikes your sugar levels. Yeah. And so it spikes our kids.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's basically Coca Cola with a few vitamins.

Nora LaTorre
And I was like, it's extra pulpy. It's good for me. It's like such a myth, and I had to, like like I had to stop my orange juice addiction. And I like and it was a health game changer for me. I'm about to be like 40, and I'm feeling the fittest and the healthiest ever and vibrant.

And coming off of juice was one of those things that I got rid of in my in my in my recent history. So

Dr. Mark Hyman
Amazing. Well, I would say the biggest myth is, well, my kids won't eat anything because they only eat mac and cheese and pizza, and otherwise, they won't eat, and they're gonna starve to death. And I'm like, what do you think kids eat in Japan? Raw fish and seaweed. They eat what you give them.

Right. And eventually, they'll change. It just reminds me of the story my my mom told me about my sister when she was little. She didn't want any bags she made for breakfast. So she's like, okay.

You don't have to eat them. But she fed her the same eggs at dinner, and the same eggs at lunch, same eggs at dinner, and the next morning, the same eggs for breakfast, and she finally ate them.

Nora LaTorre
Honestly, it's 15 times of exposure can change a kid's palate. So it is about, like, interesting, letting try one bite, give it to them one way, let them try the eggs another way, keep exposing them, keep exposing them, eat it together, eat eating together is huge. Like, we can kids change their eating habits fast.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Alright. What is the most powerful lever for fixing our food system?

Nora LaTorre
Our US public schools are the fastest, most scalable, biggest lever to create health and to change our food system fast.

Dr. Mark Hyman
This is a hard question for me because there's so many levers. I would say the thing that came to mind right away was food marketing. Just as we don't market cigarettes anymore in newspapers, magazines, TV, online, I mean, just prohibit it because it's harmful and it kills you. Foods that kill you should not be allowed to be marketed. Period.

Nora LaTorre
Mhmm. Wait. Can I give one more magic wand? Mhmm. If schools are the big bet to change some school food policies that would, like, rapidly change things nationally are changing commodity subsidies.

We subsidize corn, soy, sugar, and wheat. Mhmm. And if we change those, it would change as it also flows into school food, and there are school food commodities that get Yeah. Pumped into schools. And so we could do cash in lieu.

You can give more flexibility to use those. They're called commodity dollars for local schools. So that's, like, change what the sourcing options for schools and yeah. Change what the Starting with, like, what's happening at the government level, and then increase actual reimbursement rates. And so schools get reimbursed for their meals.

And I just called McDonald's this morning because McDonald's, a Happy Meal in Texas, costs $4.80. Schools are reimbursed $4.50. You can't even get a Happy Meal for how much we expect schools to cook a real food meal. So if we were to actually invest in higher reimbursement rates and spend a few billion dollars, some billions, spend some bills to save trillions of dollars in health care costs, we would rapidly convert our school food program to be more real food. And so and, like, it it's about 40% of that is food cost, so a dollar 80 per school meal.

We expect them to serve real, delicious, amazing local food. We it would be game changing to double down and raise the reimbursement rate and actually invest and make the bet a few billion more.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Pay now or pay later.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. Pay now and spend a few billion to save a few trill.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Medicaid dollars would go dramatically down. I mean, the state's budget, a third of it is Medicaid.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. A third of it

Dr. Mark Hyman
and the same thing for federal. The third of our entire federal budget Yeah. Is our chronic disease.

Nora LaTorre
Yeah. 17% of our GDP, almost 4,000,000,000,000. So a year is spent on preventable ultra processed food related diseases. If we spend a few billion on real food for kids through schools, we'll save trillions of dollars a year. So

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like, pretty good pretty good return on investment.

Nora LaTorre
Pretty instant like, pretty fast, not the fastest as we like it, but fast ROI. And so I think that is like if if I were to have a magic wand, it would be invest in the power of school meals, update the commodities, increase in reimbursement rates, actually do more farm to school grants, do kitchen infrastructure grants, give schools kitchen money, like actual let them get the combi ovens and the stoves and the chefs and the training for their staff. And if we bet on school meals, we will have instant return in returns of our children health.

Dr. Mark Hyman
100%. Alright. What's the most underrated family habit for health?

Nora LaTorre
Eat together.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I I would say

Nora LaTorre
cook together. I like that even more.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Cook together.

Nora LaTorre
Oh, and go to the farmers market together. I had a purple day at the farmers market with my daughter who's really into purple right now. We just got zucchini, purple peppers, and it was like, we had a purple day, and then we had purple food throughout the week. It's like, you know, we I also go to the grocery store and go to the farmer's market together.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And, you know, and and the thing about cooking together is that kids like

Nora LaTorre
it. Mhmm.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like, you know, there was a book by Molly Kasson for kids. I forget the the title of it, but it was one woman who wrote the Muslim cookbook. Yeah. And it was an enchanted broccoli for us is one of her cookbooks. It wasn't that.

It was another cookbook for kids. But it was basically recipes that you can make with your kids that they would love to eat that are healthy. Oh. And and I did this with my kids, and they love and we they made a mess and whatever, but they're part of it. And they see how to make food and cook food.

And now my kids both know how to cook. They don't didn't go to cooking school. Yeah. But they just learn

Nora LaTorre
It's like help kids learn to love real food. Put on some music, have cooking time, maybe have another family overcook together. My my son's really into chopped eggs, Nico's chopped eggs. I'm like, cool. Let's make Nico's chopped eggs if that's what you're into.

You won't eat them scrambled, but if they're chopped, it's just basically scrambled. But he's like, he's doing it, and he's like cracking the eggs and learning this kitchen. It's so much fun, and we it tastes better, and we all have so much fun eating it. So I agree with you. I'll change mine from eat together.

Cook shop for food together, cook together, and then eat it together.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Alright. We we answered this one, I think, which is the biggest obstacle to real food in schools, food industry. Think what's one policy change that would immediately improve kids' health?

Nora LaTorre
One policy change. Yeah. Invest in school food. Bet make a bet on school food.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I would say that. And I would say, you know, changing the school lunch standards Mhmm. Which which are now gonna happen with the new dietary guidelines because they actually have essentially said eat real food, no highly processed food. So if The US dietary guidelines say no highly processed food, that means the schools have to follow the dietary guidelines. That's one of the reasons why dietary guidelines are so important because they influence school lunches.

Nora LaTorre
We've actually designed our eat real standards to be plug and play, and states can implement eat real standards. The national government can implement higher real food standards. So I fully agree with you that going towards real food standards at the state and national level is game changing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
If kids grow up eating real food, what changes most about their future?

Nora LaTorre
I think their happiness. I think it's like food changes kids' gut health, their mental health. It changes how they feel. It changes how they grow and learn and thrive. It's literally about giving our kids more happy years, and that's that's what life is all about.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And more years. I mean, flips the script from shorter, sicker lives than their parents to healthier, longer lives than their parents. So that's what I think.

Nora LaTorre
And, like, how do you feel vibrant and fully alive and live your best life possible? Like, real food helps fuel that. And so I think it's about giving our kids happier and giving our feeding our kids happiness.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Eat happiness? Mhmm. Eat real and eat happiness. I like that. That's a good one.

Just write that one down.

Nora LaTorre
What is that?

Dr. Mark Hyman
What what gives you the most hope right now?

Nora LaTorre
What's giving me the most hope is that individuals, like the folks listening to your podcast, leaders like you, our food service heroes, our rock star team, and our board, and the real, like, the community members, but individuals who are coming together and who are individually making change, but then are coming together to advocate for more change together, and showing what's possible, and who are changing our food system at their homes, at school, and then advocating in national policy. It gives me so much hope because real change can happen really fast. And we believe that real change starts in our cafeteria, and people are showing that it's possible. And when you change the food for kids, you change the future.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Absolutely. I think what gives me most hope right now is just this awakening in America around health

Nora LaTorre
Mhmm.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That I've been shouting at the rooftops about for the last thirty years. I was like, wait. Everybody is finally paying attention. Yeah. And and then we're seeing actual real policy change at the federal level and state levels.

Super exciting. Alright. Finish this sentence. Last question. If we fix food, we fix blank.

Nora LaTorre
Our children's future.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Our children's future. I would say if we I agree with that. I would say if we fix food, we fix everything. Yes. We fix our chronic disease epidemic.

We heal our children's and catastrophic futures that they're facing. We save trillions of dollars Mhmm. From the federal budget and state's budgets. We help restore the environment by improving soil health, water resources, and saving them, and preventing damage to our waterways through runoff of the pollution and fertilizers that go into there. We help reduce climate change by sequestering carbon.

We increase the overall mental health of America. We we end so much violence in the press ends and the violence in our society. We improve social justice at at every level. So I think, to me, literally, it's almost fixing everything. Mhmm.

Because food is a nexus where everything comes together. Right? Mhmm. Fix our economy. I mean, that's the subtitle of the book of which well, the first book was, you know, food fix, how to save our health, our economy, our communities, and our and our our future.

Nora LaTorre
I love that. I'm Midwestern, so we talk On our planet. I'm Midwestern, so we talk about twofers. And I think fixing our food is what you say. It's a tenfer.

Yeah. It's a tenfer, and it's it's at least a fourfer. You fix food, you change our children's health, you strengthen the local economy, you actually regenerate the planet, and you improve national security, which I know you talk about in your book

Dr. Mark Hyman
a lot.

Nora LaTorre
Forgot forgot It's like yeah. It's probably more like a tenfer. Like you fix food, and you change everything. There really is.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Love that. So people wanna learn more about Eat Real, they go to eatreal.org?

Nora LaTorre
Eatreal.org. If they wanna get their district involved, they can go to eatreal.org/parents. They can go to eat real certified on Instagram. I'm on LinkedIn, Nora Latore. I'm Nourished with Nora on Instagram.

They can find me on Instagram. They can find eReal certified on Instagram. They can sign up for our newsletter at ereal.org, and they can also donate to the nonprofit. We're a small but mighty nonprofit, but donations help us reach more kids and say yes to more schools and reach 3,000,000 kids in 30 states. So we can get more schools and communities on board and help change our food system.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Amazing. Amazing. And for those listening who wanna know more about Food Fix Uncensored, go to foodfixuncensored.com. You'll learn all about what we're doing with the book and resources and ways to activate across not just schools, but every sector that might touch you. So this is feels like a really consequential moment.

It feels like Cory Booker said this to me. Feels like 1963 in the civil rights movement is what it feels like. And I think that's right. I think so.

Nora LaTorre
It's right with everyone getting involved. With everyone getting involved, we're going to change the future for our kids fast.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Margaret Mead said, never doubt what a small group of highly committed people can do. In fact, it's the only thing that's ever changed the world. Mhmm.

Nora LaTorre
Well, thank you for everything you do to change the world, and thank you for all your generous support of Eat Real and of me and of our team. So thank you.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Let's go.

Nora LaTorre
Let's go. Let's do it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Alright. What if the greatest threat to your health wasn't bad choices, but bad design? In America, chronic disease isn't accidental.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's the predictable outcome of a food system built for profit, not people. A web of corporations, lobbyists, and policymakers all feeding off your plate. They call it choice, but your options were engineered. From the grocery aisle to the school cafeteria, big food, big ag, and big pharma wrote the rules together. The food pyramid distorted.

The science, bought. The front of package health labels, designed to deceive. This isn't a broken system. It's a perfectly functioning machine producing disease, dependency, and distraction exactly as intended. Foodfix Uncensored pulls back the curtain on the collusion shaping your health, your choices, and your future.

Because once you see how it works, you can never unsee it. Food Fix Uncensored, the truth they never meant for you to read.

Dr. Mark Hyman
If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Doctor Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the doctor Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Doctor Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on The Doctor Hyman show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health where I am chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions.

Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center at ultrawellnesscenter.com, and request to become a patient.

It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed health care practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public. So I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Thanks so much again for listening.