Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to The Dr. Gundry Podcast, the weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.
Dr. Gundry (00:14):
On this episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast, I am speaking with now LA-based chef, author, restaurateur and wellness advocate, Seamus Mullen. More than a decade ago, Shamus was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that causes pain and swelling in your joints, among other things that we’re going to talk about. But through diet, exercise and other lifestyle changes, he was able to turn things around. Now, he’s using his experience to help others. Seamus, welcome to the program. It’s good to see you again.
Seamus Mullen (00:48):
Good to see you as well. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Gundry (00:50):
Thank you. I was on your Goopfellas Podcast.
Seamus Mullen (00:54):
Yeah, not to long ago.
Dr. Gundry (00:54):
Not long ago.
Seamus Mullen (00:54):
We had a great conversation.
Dr. Gundry (00:55):
We had a good time, and thank you. You’ve opened multiple successful restaurants and have been featured on shows like the Next Iron Chef, Chopped, The Today Show, and like I mentioned, co-host of the Goopfellas Podcast.
Seamus Mullen (01:11):
Goopfellas Podcast, yep.
Dr. Gundry (01:13):
You’ve made a name for yourself in the culinary world, so how’d you get into that in the first place?
Seamus Mullen (01:20):
I was really lucky to grow up on a small farm in Vermont, so I was around good food from a very, very early age. And my grandmother was an exceptional cook and she was my primary caregiver while my parents were working, so I got to spend a lot of time in the kitchen with her when I was little. It’s funny when people ask me when I learned to cook, I actually can’t ever remember not cooking. Cooking was just one of the chores that my brother and I had to do when we’re growing up. There was one night a week when we had to cook starting from a very young age.
Seamus Mullen (01:52):
And the more I realized when I made food that made people happy, the more I realized this is something I actually really like doing. Being able to bring a meal to the table and then see the reaction and have my parents be proud of me, or if they had guests that came over to be impressed by the fact that there was a kid that was involved in the kitchen, I just loved it. And of course I love to eat as well. It was sort of a natural beginning. I never thought of it as a career though. It was just something that I love doing. It was more of a hobby as I got older. And then when I got out of college, I realized that it actually could become a career.
Dr. Gundry (02:29):
You didn’t go to college specifically to do-
Seamus Mullen (02:32):
No.
Dr. Gundry (02:33):
… Go to Cornell and do the restaurant thing-
Seamus Mullen (02:35):
No, no, no, no.
Dr. Gundry (02:37):
… and hotel management?
Seamus Mullen (02:37):
Nope. No, I studied Spanish literature of all things. Yeah, I was very interested in Spain. I had lived in Spain for a number of years. And in fact, after graduating from university, I went back to Spain and worked in Spain, in kitchens there, so that’s kind of where I got my foundation officially in cooking.
Dr. Gundry (02:58):
Spanish literature, a lot of great business opportunities.
Seamus Mullen (03:02):
Oh yeah. I mean, it’s great. It’s a perfect way to get into the restaurant industry.
Dr. Gundry (03:07):
Yeah. Well, yeah, and so you lived in Spain and worked in Spain.
Seamus Mullen (03:12):
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.
Dr. Gundry (03:14):
A great culture of cooking and cuisine, interesting.
Seamus Mullen (03:20):
Yeah.
Dr. Gundry (03:21):
All right, so you got into that and then what happened?
Seamus Mullen (03:24):
Well, I was really healthy when I was younger, for the most part. Actually I should backtrack and say, I wasn’t really healthy when I was younger. I struggled a lot of health issues. But despite that, I was able to still be healthy, which I think is pretty common for a lot of folks. Early on, I had a lot of digestive issues when I was a child, and then that kind of led to a variety of… a lot of sinus infections, strep throat, things like that.
Dr. Gundry (03:51):
Do you still have your tonsils?
Seamus Mullen (03:52):
I still have my tonsils. Yeah, fortunately. But I don’t think that in my family, I mean, nobody was really… and my doctors and my family, nobody made a connection between the fact that I would be bloated after every meal and I had a lot of issues that sort of spiraled and went on, on. That I was able to kind of deal with as a teenager and a young adult. But once I started to get into the kitchen and really into a stressful environment where I was working really hard, my health started to break down. And it took a long time. It wasn’t until I went through a complete transformation, an overhaul of my health that I realized that the roots of my illness of rheumatoid arthritis and my autoimmune dysfunction went all the way back to early childhood.
Dr. Gundry (04:35):
Yeah, and that’s very typical of all the patients I see. 70% of my practice is now auto immune diseases. And you’re right, when you look at people and ask them about their childhood, it starts from a very early age almost universally. There are adult circumstances where you can get an autoimmune disease kind of out of the blue, and maybe we’ll get into that. In 2007 you were actually diagnosed?
Seamus Mullen (05:09):
Yeah, I was diagnosed, but I had been sick for a long time before that for many, many years. I started having RA flareups when I was probably 18 or 19, and I wasn’t diagnosed for another 15 years. I had years and years-
Dr. Gundry (05:20):
When you say flareup, what does that mean for everybody listening or watching?
Seamus Mullen (05:24):
For me, the initial flare ups were excruciating pain in the shoulder. I would have it maybe three times in a row in my left shoulder, and then months later I’d get a flareup of my right shoulder. And it literally felt like somebody was stabbing me in the shoulder, incredible pain. I couldn’t move my arm. It would usually last a day or two, sometimes three days, and then it would go away. I thought for the longest time that I had slept wrong on my arm and I was pinching a nerve. My mom said, “You probably have bursitis. It runs in our family. You’ve got bursitis.” And I didn’t know what that meant, but just that there was some inflammation called bursitis in my shoulder.
Seamus Mullen (06:05):
Generally what happened by the time I would get to a doctor, the flareup had already passed so there was nothing really to examine. When it was happening, I usually was like, ” Well, this will go away pretty soon. It’s not a big deal.” But it was debilitatingly painful for a short period of time. What ended up happening is that they went from those kind of periodic acute attacks in my shoulder to, eventually as my health really started to deteriorate, to getting them in my hands and in other joints. And that’s when it was really clear that there was something pretty severe going on.
Dr. Gundry (06:39):
This wasn’t, growing up as a kid you went out and started throwing the baseball or the football around for the first time after six months and your shoulder was sore, but that’s not it.
Seamus Mullen (06:51):
Right, right, right.
Dr. Gundry (06:51):
This just, boom.
Seamus Mullen (06:52):
No. And the thing was is I actually thought that could have been the case. Because initially when it would happen to my right shoulder, I thought it was because I had thrown the baseball too hard when I was younger playing little league, that I might have some sort of labrum tear, but the pain is really, really specific and incredibly…. I mean, unless you’ve actually experienced RA pain in a joint, it’s very hard to describe what it’s like. I mean, when I get it even in my pinky right here, it felt like somebody was taking a hammer and smashing my finger with a hammer. I mean it was really, really painful.
Dr. Gundry (07:23):
Got it. Can you catch rheumatoid arthritis?
Seamus Mullen (07:29):
Can you catch it? Well, not from someone else.
Dr. Gundry (07:32):
Oh, okay, great.
Seamus Mullen (07:32):
Yeah, no. Well, actually that’s not entirely true. I suppose that if you think of… I mean, because we very frequently think that, “Oh, you’re genetically predisposed to this.” I’m a firm believer in both nature and nurture. And I think that a lot of what ends up happening and pretty clear when people say, “High cholesterol runs in my family,” it might run in your family probably because the people in your family have the same sort of lifestyle that you have.
Dr. Gundry (08:01):
Right.
Seamus Mullen (08:03):
In that sense, I suppose you could catch an autoimmune dysfunction like RA if there are other folks in your family that have the same kind of environmental set of circumstances and lifestyle as you do.
Dr. Gundry (08:14):
Yeah, and it’s true. I think there is a small genetic component to most autoimmune diseases or the susceptibility to develop it. I used to do family trees of all my patients with autoimmune disease and you can kind of spot these in siblings, aunts or uncles, great-grandmothers or great-grandfathers. And interestingly enough, a lot of these families have histories of lymphomas or leukemias, which is actually maybe we’ll talk about that, but [inaudible 00:08:53] all right. But you were also a competitive cyclist, right?
Seamus Mullen (08:56):
Yeah. So in my late teens and early twenties, I was very fit. I was very athletic. And it’s funny, and I think back… I ride a lot now and I’m really into cycling, gotten back into it, and I think back to what I know now about nutrition. If I had known then what I know now. At the time, there was zero emphasis put on nutrition and diet in competitive cycling, well, in most competitive sports in general.
Seamus Mullen (09:21):
And now, we understand this notion of marginal gains and that every little aspect of… Look at somebody like LeBron, for instance, who’s controlling his sleep and controlling his nutrition and his recovery, using every minimal advantage point he can, every lever to, to, to be the best possible athlete he can be. And I look back at like what we would do. I was, literally, eat a jar of peanut butter, eat a big bowl of pasta the night before all of the classic what we were told. Just load on carbs, you’ll be fine. That’s what you need to do. There was no emphasis put on recovery, on sustainable nutrition.
Seamus Mullen (09:59):
But despite that, it’s remarkable when you’re 18, 19, 20 years old, you can pretty much deal with anything. And I was really fighting at a deficit because I was ill, but the real genesis of my illness didn’t present itself until 10 years later. But in many ways, I think that period of time when I was really competing very seriously on the bicycle, it’s so stressful and taxing on the body that if you are dealing with something like an auto-immune dysfunction, eventually systems within the body are going to start to deteriorate.
Dr. Gundry (10:33):
I mean, looking back would you have ever put together that maybe that pasta load the night before would have a negative context?
Seamus Mullen (10:42):
No, not at all. It’s funny, even for many years, even up until my early thirties, I’d eat food that ma would make me feel like crap, but I’d still eat it. I’d still like, “Oh yeah, well, I love spicy Thai food. It’s not going to make me feel good, but I love it anyway.” And I continue to do it. And it took a really long time for me to really be able to thread the needle and say, “Okay, if I eat this, this is how I feel.” And eventually start to change.
Seamus Mullen (11:13):
And even to this day, I still make mistakes. And I think that’s part of the challenge with being human is that the temptations of things like sugar and salty, crunchy carbohydrates, they’re desirable to all of us. It’s sort of we’re pre-wired to love these things or to want these things even when we know they may not make us feel so well.
Dr. Gundry (11:35):
No, you’re absolutely right. I used to have a collection of, I don’t know, a hundred hot sauces, and my brother-in-law would have actually competitions to see who could eat the hottest stuff. And of course, it would tear up my insides. I thought it was kind of normal that you spent the next day in the bathroom. The old joke was, it should hurt more coming out than it did going in, and it’s true.
Seamus Mullen (12:05):
The infamous ring of fire.
Dr. Gundry (12:06):
Yeah, the ring of fire.
Seamus Mullen (12:08):
Yeah.
Dr. Gundry (12:09):
Yeah. Back in those days, I didn’t ever make the connection. It’s like, “Oh, that’s normal.” Well, no-
Seamus Mullen (12:16):
It’s not.
Dr. Gundry (12:17):
… it’s not.
Seamus Mullen (12:18):
No.
Dr. Gundry (12:19):
Did the rheumatoid arthritis, as a chef and you’re busy in the kitchen, you must have noticed it then?
Seamus Mullen (12:27):
Yeah, I was having major problems. Briefly, when the flareups became more and more frequent, I wouldn’t be able to reach to grab a pan or to get something from overhead, even to pick anything up. I man, when I was running service, you’d have to grab the dupes that are printing out of the printer to say what to make. And I remember, I have one very specific memory of seeing these dupes print up where it was a busy, busy service, and I couldn’t lift my arm to get them. In the kitchen we call it, going into the weeds. You’re in the weeds. You’re getting weeded because there was just no way that I could actually read the tickets to run service, so something as simple as lifting my arm up to grab a ticket. That was when things really started to go downhill for me.
Dr. Gundry (13:15):
Did you know at that point, I mean, that you had rheumatoid arthritis-
Seamus Mullen (13:20):
No, no idea.
Dr. Gundry (13:20):
… Or this was just a pain in the neck or a pain in the arm?
Seamus Mullen (13:23):
No, it was just pain. I mean, it was pain. And unfortunately, the world of the kitchen is a very 19th century world where you don’t complain. You put your head down. There’s a lot of pride in who’s worked the longest and the hardest and gone the most number of days without a day off.
Dr. Gundry (13:38):
It’s like a surgical resident. I know exactly what you’re talking about.
Seamus Mullen (13:40):
Yeah, exactly. There’s a lot of machismo. It’s very, very militaristic in many ways. And also, it didn’t help that when I would go to my doctor, I didn’t really have any answers. And I found that this is a very common situation with folks when they’re going through a diagnosis of autoimmune dysfunction. It’s changed a lot now because there’s so much awareness about it.
Seamus Mullen (14:04):
But when I was diagnosed, nobody really… I mean, I had never heard of rheumatoid arthritis. I knew very little about autoimmune dysfunction. If you went to your doctor, the first thing the doctor would give you some NSAIDs and maybe a cortisone shot in whatever joint was bothering you and send you on your way. And it wasn’t as though there was any understanding of the underlying cause of these symptoms, what was driving it?
Seamus Mullen (14:30):
It was in many ways, you kind of had to be your own advocate and I just didn’t have the time, the resources. In a way, I actually didn’t even have really the desire to be my own advocate. I think that there’s an emotional component for many people, and I know this is certainly the case for me, being sick was somewhat comfortable. There was an element of being a victim that kind of excused me from the responsibility of trying to take care of my own well-being.
Dr. Gundry (15:01):
Well, it’s interesting. A lot of my patients, and particularly women who do get more autoimmune diseases than men do fall into this, “This is my life. This is my cross to bear,” if you will. And just kind of, “I need to suck this up. I need to be strong.” Yeah, so that’s interesting for you to say that.
Dr. Gundry (15:29):
As you know, I’m a self-proclaimed veg-aquarian. When I eat animal protein, I eat wild-caught seafood. Why, because seafood is rich and some of the most important nutrients in the human diet. But in order to ensure you’re getting fresh nutrient rich seafood without hormones or toxins, it needs to be wild caught. As I always say, you are what your food ate, and farmed fish are fed an inflammatory fat diet filled with lectins like corn and soybeans. Long story short, if you eat farmed fish, it’s absolutely horrible for you.
Dr. Gundry (16:03):
Fortunately, I’ve come across a great solution. It’s called the Wild Alaskan Seafood Box. The company works with small boat fishermen to deliver the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious Alaskan seafood right to your door every single month. They offer three different boxes: the Salmon Box, the Whitefish Box, or the Red & White Combo, which is what I order, plus, a customized box you can change it any time. Believe me, this is some of the most nutritious seafood on the planet.
Dr. Gundry (16:31):
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Seamus Mullen (16:52):
Yeah, it’s unfortunate, and I certainly once I was diagnosed and then I kind of settled into this routine… I mean, I was diagnosed with RA, which was to a degree there’s a relief that came along with that because I had a diagnosis to hang my hat on. There’s an explanation that, okay, there is in fact something wrong. It’s not just in your head, which was also kind of my fear for a long time, having gone to the hospital over and over again and being sent away with NSAIDs. I did begin to think that I was being a hypochondriac or maybe I was overreacting.
Seamus Mullen (17:24):
But once I was diagnosed, then there was confirmation that there was something wrong, and there was this treatment path, if you will. But the treatment path was really, you’re going to be on biologic drugs for the rest of your life. And that to me was kind of a jagged little pill to swallow. Initially, I kind of, as I said, I settled into it. I became very much of a kind of, “Woe is me, I’m a victim. There’s nothing I can do about this.” You can only go one of two directions with that. And I realized pretty quickly that if I didn’t change, I wasn’t going to be around for very long.
Dr. Gundry (18:01):
Let’s go down that. Okay, so they make the diagnosis. And congratulations, there’s these wonderful biologic drugs and you’re going to be on them the rest of your life.
Seamus Mullen (18:11):
And if this one doesn’t work, there’s another one.
Dr. Gundry (18:14):
That’s right. We’ve got-
Seamus Mullen (18:15):
Plenty.
Dr. Gundry (18:16):
… 10 of them now, or 12 of them now. And like I tell my patients, “Look, if you don’t have a heart transplant, a lung transplant or a kidney transplant, what the heck are you doing on these drugs that I use for this?” Okay, and you said… Did you take them for a while?
Seamus Mullen (18:35):
Yeah, I did for years. And what I noticed what happened in going down the conventional path for treatment for AI disease was I stopped having the acute attacks. The acute flareups where my joints were so painful that I couldn’t actually move, like say I couldn’t move my arm or my leg, that went away. And it was replaced by this sluggish, malaise, depression, weight gain, susceptibility to illness and infection. And I was in and out of the hospital over and over again with these secondary problems that were a result of the meds that I was on.
Seamus Mullen (19:19):
And in fact, at one point, I was prescribed a neurologic drug for neuropathy, for fibromyalgia, another garbage pail diagnosis. That in conjunction with the litany of pain medications that I was taking and biologics caused a severe grand mal seizure. And then later I got an infection that spread to my brain and that nearly killed me, and that’s when it was really clear that I had to take a completely different approach to caring for my health.
Dr. Gundry (19:58):
That would probably get your attention.
Seamus Mullen (19:59):
Yeah. Well, you’d think. It doesn’t necessarily though. I mean, it still took a little bit. But yeah, that was definitely, that was a wake up, an aha moment where I was like, “Listen, I really have to change.”
Dr. Gundry (20:12):
How did you take back your health?
Seamus Mullen (20:15):
Well, I mean, the first thing was to really understand that there is not any one cause to autoimmune dysfunction. I think that we often like to look at causality and we think in allopathic medicine. If this is what is the problem, fix that and everything else is going to be okay. But the human body, as you know, is a really complex system. And when we expose ourselves to myriad paper cuts throughout the course of our lives, eventually the systems are going to start to break down.
Seamus Mullen (20:42):
And for me, it really started with, ironically everyone likes to focus on what are the super foods that you to eat, or what do I need to eat to cure my disease? And unfortunately, it has much more to do with what should you not be eating? Because it’s easier to say what should you not eat, because those things are pretty much broad strokes versus what should you eat. That has much more to do with the individual. I know what I ended up doing that worked really well for me, but even that changed over time. There were times when things that I couldn’t eat before that now I’m more tolerant of.
Seamus Mullen (21:16):
I mean, the big strokes are not that surprising, it was taking out sugar and taking out any processed food, which is a bit of a… I don’t like the term processed food because all food is processed unless you’re literally pulling it out of the ground. But taking out foods that have been processed say in a factory or that have additives, and really trying to eat… I mean, I took out all dairy, all sugar, all grains, most lectins. At the time, people weren’t really talking much about lectins. Later, I started taking out more of the nightshades and lectins or modifying how I was preparing them. I mean, that was the main thing, and focusing on a balance of healthy meat and fat and vegetables and using as many cruciferous vegetables as I could. And initially I did a lot of raw vegetables, and then I learned over time that actually do much better with vegetables that were cooked. As much as I love a lot of raw vegetables, I try to keep a mix of both raw and cooked vegetables.
Seamus Mullen (22:23):
I mean, that was the beginning. And then of course, there was there a lot of supplements, acupuncture, meditation, yoga, believing that I could get better mindset was incredibly important. I often say that the moment I stopped thinking of myself as a sick person was the last moment I was actually sick, and that was really important. If you can’t visualize, you don’t actually believe that you can get better, no amount of science or lifestyle change will actually affect that. You really have to believe that you can get better.
Dr. Gundry (22:53):
No, that’s very true. And I like what you said that the first principle of the plant paradox is, it’s not what I tell you to eat that’s important, it’s what I tell you not to eat.
Seamus Mullen (23:04):
Not to eat, yeah.
Dr. Gundry (23:05):
You’re right. It’s so much easier to remove certain foods than it is, “Oh, eat these superfoods and you’ll be fine.”
Seamus Mullen (23:12):
Yeah, this will do it. Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Gundry (23:15):
Being a chef and being in restaurants is dangerous for your health.
Seamus Mullen (23:21):
No doubt.
Dr. Gundry (23:22):
I mean, you see it, I see it. I have multiple friends who are restaurateurs or chefs. What do you tell your colleagues about the health threats of being a chef?
Seamus Mullen (23:39):
Well, I think that we have a unique position as chefs and that we have a bit of a bully pulpit. You have people that are coming into your restaurant on a daily basis and you can make decisions about what you choose to provide them to eat. You can decide whether you’re going to fry food, and if you are, what are the fats you’re going to fry that food in? If you’re using cooking oils, what kind of cooking oils they are and what temperature? Where you’re sourcing your product from? There’s lots of choices that we make.
Seamus Mullen (24:06):
And in the past 20 years with the rise of interest in cooking in the United States and chefs coming out of the kitchen and becoming public figures and spokespeople, I feel like we have a bit of a responsibility to be advocates for eating well, and also for demonstrating that eating for your health is synonymous with eating delicious food. It shouldn’t be about this idea of an indulgence or a cheat day. And if that does happen, that you feel as though you need to indulge in something, by all means you should do it and do it wholeheartedly, and just be cognizant of how you feel after doing it. It might affect your decision next time. And if it doesn’t, be glad that it didn’t, but it doesn’t mean it’s not carte blanche to repeat it every day and all the time.
Seamus Mullen (24:55):
I think that as chefs, we have a real responsibility. And I’ve been really happy to see that as I’ve gone through my own journey and my own transformation, so many of my colleagues have done the same. So many folks that I know that came up with me in the kitchen that I’ve known since my early twenties, that we’re now in our mid forties, and it’s really clear that you can’t continue the lifestyle that we sort of started out with. And the folks that I know that haven’t changed, made changes.
Seamus Mullen (25:25):
I mean, I have lots of colleagues who’ve died in their early forties from heart attacks, from side effects from medication they’ve been prescribed, from strokes. I mean, it’s incredible the amount of stress that comes along with that lifestyle. But I have lots of other friends who have gone from being alcoholics to be being sober and becoming athletes, to changing their diets, to even changing their concepts. That’s really as inspiring to me, and I see them then becoming advocates and inspiring so many other people, which is really great. I do believe this idea that health is as contagious as illness.
Dr. Gundry (26:04):
Yeah, absolutely. Stay around healthy people-
Seamus Mullen (26:07):
Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Gundry (26:08):
… and you’ll catch it.
Seamus Mullen (26:09):
Yeah, you’ll catch it.
Dr. Gundry (26:10):
Yeah, you’ll catch it. Now that you’re back to health, you’ve written books, Hero Food and Real Food Heals, and you started actually offering better options in your restaurants that you ran, right?
Seamus Mullen (26:26):
Yeah. And initially it was very subtle changes. For instance, the choice to rather than bringing bread to the table, just not offering it. And if somebody asked for it, then we would bring them a sensible portion of bread made from the quality ingredients we could find. Even though I personally didn’t eat bread, I understood that I couldn’t impart upon everyone else my own style of eating. Although looking forward now, this is many years later, it’s not uncommon to find restaurants that don’t offer things like bread. But yeah, making changes-
Dr. Gundry (27:03):
Or making a surcharge for the bread.
Seamus Mullen (27:05):
… Or make a surcharge for the bread, exactly. Since so much of it actually ends up in the trash anyway, which is totally wasteful. That was a very simple one.
Seamus Mullen (27:15):
Removing all the refined sugar from our desserts. That was a more complex move to make, but one that was not met with any resistance and really surprising to see that people… It’s amazing that oftentimes when you provide something that’s really, really good, people don’t think about what they’re not getting. They don’t understand that there’s something that’s missing. And I love when I cook meals for folks purely for people that don’t necessarily follow the same style of eating as I do.
Seamus Mullen (27:42):
And after the end of the meal I’ll say, “Did you notice something missing?”
Seamus Mullen (27:46):
And they’ll say, “No, that was amazing. That was an incredible meal.”
Seamus Mullen (27:49):
And I’ll say, “Well, the bread was missing. The dairy was missing. The refined sugar was missing. The refined carbohydrates were missing.” They weren’t there, but you don’t miss it when you have bright, vibrant, flavorful food.
Dr. Gundry (28:01):
Yeah. my favorite expression is, I want to give you food you love that loves you back.
Seamus Mullen (28:07):
Loves you back, exactly. I say the same thing.
Dr. Gundry (28:09):
Yeah, and it is possible. And I think more people, like yourself and others, are beginning to realize that this is possible.
Seamus Mullen (28:18):
Oh yeah. It’s, give you food that loves you back versus giving you comfort food that makes you uncomfortable.
Dr. Gundry (28:23):
Yeah, that’s good. That’s exactly right.
Seamus Mullen (28:24):
Because that’s the shift. It’s a mindset shift for us to understand that there are so many wonderful foods that actually make us feel really, really good, but it’s about dialing it in and understanding what works for you.
Dr. Gundry (28:35):
Now, you mentioned lectin-containing foods and they’ve kind of left your diet for the most part, or you’ve learned how to handle them with peeling and deseeding or pressure cooking. Have you seen other people benefit by getting rid of or taming lectins in their diet?
Seamus Mullen (28:54):
Yeah. I mean, it’s surprising I think a lot of people that I know didn’t realize that things like beans, for instance, caused them so much trouble, or something as innocuous as the eggplant could have a tremendous effect on how they felt. And I think a big part of that is not really… I like to say when you’re looking at life through dirty lenses in your glasses, it’s really hard to pick up the details. But once you clean your lenses and suddenly you’re looking at things with a new set of eyes and crisp HD vision, you’re able to pick out the things that start to become offensive to you and that can cause problems, and I’ve definitely seen. My feeling on lectins, like so many other things, is that everything in moderation, and it certainly depends a lot more to what’s going on in the rest of your life.
Seamus Mullen (29:45):
One of the most common questions I get is folks that say, “Oh, well, I was in Italy and I had this pasta and I felt great” or “I had this Buffalo ricotta and it was amazing. But if I eat it here, I feel terrible.” And it’s really easy to jump to, “Well, in Europe, they do things so much better than we do.” There’s elements of that that are true, but there’s a lot of that that’s not true.
Seamus Mullen (30:08):
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that if you’re in Italy and you’re on vacation and you’re not thinking about the rest of your busy, stressful life, and you’re in a beautiful environment and you’re excited to be there and celebratory. Those are all things that are, if you think about your resources, your resource tank is drained down when you’re in your busy life every day. And your ability to deal with inflammation, your ability to deal with some of these offenders is marginalized. But then if you go to Italy and suddenly you’re on vacation and you’re feeling great, you have a greater capacity to handle things that may be a little bit more difficult for you to handle here in the States.
Dr. Gundry (30:41):
I’m glad you brought that up. What do you think about the presence of Roundup and glyphosate in our food versus say in Italy or in France?
Seamus Mullen (30:53):
Well, I mean, I think one of the major problems that we have here in the States is not only the presence of glyphosate in our food, but in our water source.
Dr. Gundry (31:02):
Right. It’s everywhere. In our wine.
Seamus Mullen (31:03):
In our wine, exactly. I mean, in Europe, glyphosate exist [crosstalk 00:31:08]-
Dr. Gundry (31:09):
I does, it rarely does.
Seamus Mullen (31:11):
But it doesn’t exist to the degree in which it does here. Our water table is infected with antibiotics. And so, as I said earlier, with that idea of paper cuts, that’s like part of the paper cuts. We’re getting these paper cuts. We’re exposed to them environmentally throughout the course of our daily life. And I think you’re less likely, and because we don’t have GMO-labeling laws in the US like we have in the European Union, I mean, it’s not nearly as regulated. The chances of consuming as much glyphosate in your food in Europe is lower than it is in the United States, and I think that’s a factor.
Dr. Gundry (31:57):
What’s next for you? You’ve moved to LA.
Seamus Mullen (31:58):
Yeah.
Dr. Gundry (32:00):
You currently don’t have a restaurant.
Seamus Mullen (32:03):
No, I don’t have a restaurant right now. I’m taking a break from operating restaurants. And the reality is, the sad reality is that it’s very difficult. And as much as I’ve tried to strike the balance, it’s still very difficult to work as a chef on a daily basis and to be healthy. The two things, it’s not that they’re in congress, but it’s very, very difficult. And then the industry is changing and it needs to continue to change so that that can be a reality for the people that work within the industry. But if you think about it just from a logistics standpoint, we work in an environment in the kitchen where most people are, are resting when we’re working. The idea that you’re going to eat a healthy meal when the optimal hours of eating a meal you don’t have access to eat because you’re cooking and preparing food, it’s very difficult.
Seamus Mullen (32:55):
I may do a restaurant here in LA, but I’m not sure yet. I’m thinking about it. In the interim, I work with a lot of different clients consulting on how to make their brands healthier. I do as much as I can to raise awareness around the importance of food and the food choices we make and how that impacts our well-being. Because if you look at as a nation we’re facing a healthcare crisis unlike anything we’ve ever experienced before, and at the core of that is that we’ve really lost the connection with food. We’ve lost this relationship with food.
Dr. Gundry (33:31):
Is there one tip for going to a restaurant to eat healthy?
Seamus Mullen (33:38):
Sure. I mean, one tip, I think that this is something that people are often scared to ask, to modify a dish. And I think everyone should know that, as chefs, we go into this business because we love caring for other people. We love making other people happy. And if making you happy means taking the almonds or taking the peanuts out of this dish or making something without fresh cheese or using olive oil instead of using canola oil, we will be happy to do that.
Dr. Gundry (34:12):
Really?
Seamus Mullen (34:13):
Yes. Yeah, yeah, and I think it’s really important. I think most people are like, “Oh, they’re going to spit my food if I tell them that I want the spinach sauteed in olive oil.” And the reality is, no, we’re not. I mean, in the kitchen, we’re happy to make those changes. Now, within reason, if you’re going to redesign the whole dish to become something else or if it’s not possible. The way that I always suggest doing is to be as gracious as possible and say, “I hate to be a bother, but is there any way that we might be able to make this without that?” If it’s doable, 99% of the time the answer will be yes.
Dr. Gundry (34:45):
Yeah, I wrote in my first book, a good friend of mine, Tom Guy used to say, “Steve, the menu just tells you what the chefs got in the back.” If they won’t do that for you, it’s a fairly simple request, you don’t go back. There’s plenty of other places to go.
Seamus Mullen (35:01):
Exactly. There’s plenty of other places to go.
Dr. Gundry (35:03):
Yeah. Okay, great. Great advice. How can people find you, learn about you, where are the books, where do they go?
Seamus Mullen (35:10):
Yeah, so the books you can get anywhere that fine books are sold. I won’t say amazon.com, but that’s where you can get them.
Dr. Gundry (35:16):
But you just did. But that’s okay.
Seamus Mullen (35:18):
But I just did. And you can find more information about me at my website, which is seamusmullen.com. You can find out about the podcast if you go to goop.com/goopfellas, and you can follow me on Instagram at @SeamusMullen. It’s very simple to find me there.
Dr. Gundry (35:34):
Very good. Well, keep up the good-
Seamus Mullen (35:36):
Thanks so much.
Dr. Gundry (35:38):
… And we’ll stay in touch.
Seamus Mullen (35:39):
Yeah.
Dr. Gundry (35:40):
Yeah, very good.
Seamus Mullen (35:41):
Thanks so much.
Dr. Gundry (35:42):
Thanks for coming on.
Seamus Mullen (35:42):
Great to see you.
Dr. Gundry (35:43):
All right, it’s time for the audience question. Brian McGann of YouTube asks, “Does brushing your teeth with hydrogen peroxide and baking soda kill off good bacteria?” Hey, that’s actually a really good question, and it’s actually been studied, and I’ve mentioned this before. First of all, you really, really want a nice oral flora that’s teaming with good bacteria, and there’s increasing evidence that certain bad bacteria in your mouth is a major cause of coronary artery disease. And my good friend, Dr. Dale Bredesen, who I just spoke with this week again, is convinced that much of dementia is powered by oral bacteria getting into your brain. If you think about it, your nose and your mouth is a direct shot into your brain, and we have to be cognizant that oral health is probably paramount to good brain health and good heart health.
Dr. Gundry (36:51):
Having said that, you also need bacteria to generate nitric oxide, which is an amazing compound that dilates your blood vessels. And without the right bacteria in your mouth, you will not generate the appropriate amount of nitric oxide. And people who use mouth washes that kill off 99% of germs in their mouth actually have raised blood pressure compared to people who don’t use those mouth washes in a placebo-controlled trial in human beings.
Dr. Gundry (37:24):
Hydrogen peroxide and baking soda that is not going to decimate your bacteria as much as that swig of a healthy mouthwash. Please do not use mouthwashes as they are currently configured. Great question. Your mouth microbiome is every bit, maybe more so important, than your gut microbiome so feed those bugs what they want to eat too.
Dr. Gundry (37:53):
Okay. Review of the week in response to our podcast on lectins, Michael Chow on YouTube wrote, “Is there a button for loving this video?” I don’t know. Is there? We should have a button for loving this video. “Thank you for educating us about how lectins shouldn’t be in our plates. My girlfriend and I truly love to binge on your podcast and videos.” I thought he was going to say binge on lectins. “We appreciate you very much.”
Dr. Gundry (38:24):
Well, thank you very much. I mean, that’s why we do these podcasts. We bring you fantastic information like Seamus Mollin here today, and thank you for liking us, and love us whenever you can. And you’re loving me by sending me your response, so please keep them coming in. That’s it, and we’ll see you next week on The Dr. Gundry Podcast.
Dr. Gundry (38:49):
On The Dr. Gundry Podcast, we provide a venue for discussion and the views expressed by my guests do not necessarily reflect my own.
Dr. Gundry (39:00):
Thanks for joining me on this episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to watch each episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast, you can always find me on YouTube at youtube.com/drgundry, because I’m Dr. Gundry And I’m always looking out for you.
