SPEAKER_00: 1:41

No, you don't need to change. No, you don't need to quit smoking. No, you don't have to stop drinking. No, you don't need to lose weight. In fact, we want you to gain weight. We want you to maintain your weight or even gain weight because treatment's really difficult. And we don't want you to lose too much weight.

SPEAKER_05: 1:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54

Uh, and the reality is that 70% of Americans are uh overweight, over 40% are obese. Uh, most Americans need to lose weight. The second leading cause of cancer behind smoking is obesity. Patients are not told this.

SPEAKER_01: 2:13

No, we have people we have helped, and they've gone in and getting results, labs going in the right direction, diabetes gone, down into pre-diabetes, almost out of that. And their doctor's going, what are you doing? And why? Why are you doing that?

SPEAKER_02: 2:28

You don't need to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 2:29

And they literally have stopped what was actually reversing their disease because someone came in in a white coat and was telling them, uh, questioning basically what they were doing that was working.

SPEAKER_00: 2:42

Right. The warlock.

SPEAKER_04: 2:45

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 2:47

Yeah, I've seen it many, many times. Welcome to the Power on Plants podcast, the home of kingdom-driven men and women who refuse to let their body become the bottleneck to their God-given calling.

SPEAKER_01: 2:58

If you're building a business, raising up the next generation, and carrying vision, but behind the scenes your energy is fading, inflammation is rising, your labs aren't great, and you're wondering how much longer can I keep pushing like this? This is where everything shifts.

SPEAKER_03: 3:12

Because here's the truth.

SPEAKER_01: 3:18

Your body simply needs a strategy that fully matches the level of assignment you're carrying. The way to eat that fuels focused, stabilizes energy, quietly reverses inflammation, and the most common diseases of our time, and still lets you enjoy every single bite.

SPEAKER_03: 3:34

We're Jared and Anita Roosevelt, Christ followers, healthcare professionals, parents of four. And once upon a time, we were exhausted, inflamed, and told that's just age and genetics.

SPEAKER_01: 3:45

But God led us to the research and back to his original design and what we discovered unlocked the high-performance, kingdom advancing level of health we'd been praying for. No dieting, no deprivation, no hours in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_03: 3:58

Just simple, completely enjoyable plant-based meals, snacks, and desserts, the way that lets you reclaim maximum energy, mental clarity, and real physical freedom. So your body finally amplifies your purpose instead of holding it hostage.

SPEAKER_01: 4:11

So if you're done being slowed down, done settling for low energy, foggy thinking, or feeling older than you are, and you're ready to show up strong, think clearly, tenet your productivity, and actually enjoy the meals that move you to optimal health.

SPEAKER_03: 4:26

You're exactly where you need to be.

SPEAKER_01: 4:28

So pop in your earbuds and let's maximize your power on plants. Hello and welcome to Power on Plants, the podcast for Christian leaders and kingdom entrepreneurs who carry real responsibility and know that your body needs to optimally support the calling God has placed on your life. I'm Anita Roussel, a nurse and integrative nutrition health coach.

SPEAKER_03: 4:51

And I'm Jared Roussel, a physician assistant and lifestyle medicine professional.

SPEAKER_01: 4:55

And each week we show you how to fill your body with whole plant foods, the simple, enjoyable, and real-life way. So energy returns, inflammation calms, your labs can improve, and your physical capacity completely matches your assignment. If you're new here, you're stepping into 370 strategic episodes built to help purpose-driven leaders feel strong and think clearly and lead without health struggles holding you back from fully living your calling. And this conversation is a powerful place to begin.

SPEAKER_03: 5:24

Today we're honored to introduce Chris Work, a dedicated husband, father, national best-selling author, speaker, and cancer patient advocate. Chris's journey is defined by a life-changing moment in 2003 when at just 26 years old, he was diagnosed with stage 3C colon cancer.

SPEAKER_01: 5:40

Following surgery, Chris made the prayerful decision to refuse conventional cancer treatment, a choice that led his first oncologist to call him insane. Instead, he radically changed his diet and he pursued natural non-toxic options. He successfully healed and has been alive and thriving for well over 20 years since his diagnosis.

SPEAKER_03: 6:01

Chris is the author of multiple books, including the national bestseller Crispy Cancer, and the creator of the comprehensive healing program Square One. Like us, he believes that the human body is intelligently designed to heal itself when given the proper nutrients and care.

SPEAKER_01: 6:16

Chris joins us today in challenging conventional wisdom and empowering you to embrace the simple changes and strategies that can transform your life and help you to regain your health. Chris, we are so happy to have you joining us today.

SPEAKER_00: 6:30

Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 6:33

We're glad to have you here. And we want you to start out by sharing a little bit about your testimony, all that happened to you in the past, and what took you on this journey to where you are today.

SPEAKER_00: 6:44

Sure. Well, I was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer when I was 26 years old. And uh I was a newlywed, had a lot, a lot of great things happening in my life that I was excited about. And I was in real estate, I was a musician and um again recently married. I mean, you know, things were things were really looking up for me at that time. And uh I was a go young, ambitious go-getter, and uh I started having abdominal pain and put it off for the better part of a year, and eventually the pain sort of got worse and worse. I thought maybe it would get better, you know, of course, as many pains do. Um, but uh it got worse, and I went to see a gastroenterologist uh after several appointments and different things. Eventually they ordered a colonoscopy to um to try to determine what was going on with me. And when I woke up from that procedure, I was told that there is a golf ball-sized tumor in my colon, and they biopsied it, sent it to the lab, and called me a day or so later and said, You're confirmed you have colon cancer. Wow. So that was um, you know, that's pretty terrible news for any for anyone at any age, but especially for a young guy. I mean, being 26. I mean, it's like, you know, you think of cancer as an old people's disease.

SPEAKER_01: 8:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 8:10

And you know, I had no family history of cancer at that time. I'd really never seen anyone uh up close and personal go through the disease. Unlike today, everybody knows somebody who's had cancer. Absolutely. We've been touched by it. You know, 20 years ago, it was different. It it cancer was more rare, right? And I can uh I can tell you that young adult cancers and especially colon cancer uh is on the rise.

SPEAKER_04: 8:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 8:40

And it's one of the fastest growing types of cancer uh and in terms of categories of cancer, and that is largely due to our diet, lifestyle, and environment. And I'll get into that in a minute. But so um I was told that I needed to have surgery to remove the tumor. And uh, you know, the way the cancer industry works is when you get a diagnosis, you're often rushed into treatment before you have time to think about your options. And so patients are given the diagnosis and immediately they're scheduled for to start chemo, to start radiation, to have surgery. And and they're basically put on what I call the the chemo train, right? And and that's a high-speed train. And once you get on it, it's real hard to get off, right? It's scary. Jumping off a train feels like there's no brakes on that train. No brakes on it, it's moving fast. You are pretty much you have pretty much ceded all control and authority over your life and your future to the medical establishment, and you just become a passive, you know, patient or a passive victim of disease. And one of the the tragedies of cancer treatment, and really this applies to chronic disease as a whole, but there's a lot more urgency in cancer, is that patients are victimized. And what I mean by that is they're told there's nothing that you did to contribute to your disease.

SPEAKER_04: 10:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 10:10

And because there's nothing you did, it's not your fault. It's not, no, it's not the smoking, it's not the drinking, it's not being overweight, it's not your lifestyle choices, it's uh it's not stress, uh, it has nothing to do with your workplace, environment, your home life. It's none of those things. You are just unlucky. I tell my patients bad luck or bad genes.

SPEAKER_01: 10:32

That's what we hear all the time. People are told.

SPEAKER_00: 10:35

That's right. And so when a patient is given this impression that it's either bad luck or it's bad genes, well, did your mom have cancer? Do you have a family history of diabetes, right? Or heart disease, then all of a sudden the assumption is made that, well, this was inevitable. And the truth about family history is if you have family that develop chronic diseases, you're very likely to develop them if you live the same lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01: 11:04

That's it.

SPEAKER_00: 11:05

And so diseases run in families because of diet and lifestyle choices. Absolutely. Also, environment, too. And so um, you know, I didn't know any of this, but uh patients are victimized and they're told there's nothing they can they that they've done to contribute to their disease, so there's nothing they can do to help themselves, right? And their only hope is treatment, right? This is your only hope. And you don't need to change anything about your life. Like this is what doctors tell patients all the time.

SPEAKER_05: 11:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 11:37

No, you don't need to change. No, you don't need to quit smoking. No, you don't have to stop drinking, no, you don't need to lose weight. In fact, we want you to gain weight, we want you to maintain your weight or even gain weight because treatment's really difficult. And we don't want you to lose too much weight.

SPEAKER_05: 11:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 11:50

Uh, and the reality is that 70% of Americans are uh overweight, over 40% are obese. Uh, most Americans need to lose weight. The second leading cause of cancer behind smoking is obesity. Patients are not told this.

SPEAKER_01: 12:09

No, we have people we have helped, and they've gone in and getting results, labs going in the right direction, diabetes gone, down into pre-diabetes, almost out of that. And their doctor's going, what are you doing and why? Why are you doing that?

SPEAKER_02: 12:24

You don't need to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 12:25

And they literally have stopped what was actually reversing their disease because someone came in in a white coat and was telling them, uh, questioning basically what they were doing that was working.

unknown: 12:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 12:39

The warlock.

SPEAKER_04: 12:40

Yeah, that's absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 12:43

Yeah, I've seen it many, many times. We've seen we've seen people in our community uh radically change their diet and lifestyle, uh, get a rapid, measurable improvement in health.

SPEAKER_05: 12:55

Yes, daily.

SPEAKER_00: 12:56

And and then be talked out of it or talked into aggressive, brutal cancer treatments uh out of fear. And so this is another major factor. So victimhood and fear are are major, major influences in in medical care and especially in cancer. So the patient is victimized, like I said. So they they believe they're they're essentially made to believe that they're powerless.

SPEAKER_05: 13:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 13:22

Right? They're powerless, the disease is inevitable. There's nothing they can do to help themselves, they're desperate for the doctor to save them. And then the doctors use fear, many of them, to uh manipulate and coerce patients into saying yes to brutal, destructive, and and in many cases ineffective treatments. And when I say ineffective, I mean treatments that don't cure them. Right. And there's a it's it's really important to distinguish this language that's used in medicine, which the word effective is used a lot. Right. And what it means to the doctor is very different than what it means to the patient. So when a doctor says this is a very effective treatment, what he means is this trait this treatment has been proven to shrink tumors. Right? It's effective, it shrinks tumors. Now, when the patient hears effective, they think, cure. Oh, this is effective. This is gonna cure me. But that's not what effective means. It just means your tumors may shrink for a time and then they start growing again. And uh, when they start growing again, the treatment doesn't work. They've got to try a new treatment to shrink them a little again, uh, some different way. And usually it's a more aggressive, more toxic chemo drug. And it's a vicious cycle. There's a vicious cycle of collateral damage from these drugs and surgeries and radiation. And so it's it's incredibly brutal. We've all seen people go down the cancer treatment rabbit hole and suffer and die, and it's um it's terrible. It is, and so again, I'm rabbit trailing, uh, and these are all things I learned way later. Yeah, post my diagnosis. In the middle of my diagnosis, I didn't know any of these things.

SPEAKER_06: 15:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 15:07

And so I was rushed into surgery out of fear. Uh I uh I went in, they were trying to get me in within a few days. I postponed it to um December 30th. So I'm coming up on my 22-year, it's really my 22 cancer, yeah, 22-year cancer versory is just in about a week. Awesome. And praise the Lord. Absolutely. He has preserved my life. So I um had the surgery, they removed a third of my colon. That's where the tumor was. When I woke up, they said you're worse than we thought, you're stage 3C, which means your next step is gonna be chemotherapy. And six to nine months, something like that, of chemo. And uh I'm in the hospital and heavy pain medication because they you know they cut through my abdominal, all my my abdomen, and went in there and took some stuff out, you know. And uh, so I'm trying to process what I'm being told. And uh a couple things happened in the hospital. The first thing that happened worth mentioning is that the very first meal that I was served after they removed a third of my large intestine was a sloppy joe.

SPEAKER_01: 16:28

Yeah. And that's that is a real shame. It's awful.

SPEAKER_00: 16:33

I mean, it's a real shame because they're disgusting. Well, that's I would have preferred a cheeseburger, frankly. Can I just get her just a regular cheeseburger, not a sloppy joe, please? Which is like prison food. Uh but you know, they plop this thing down on a tray in front of me, and I'm like, just gross. Like, why are they serving this horrible prison food to sick people? The other thing that happened was the day I was told I would be able to go home. My surgeon came in, he was doing his rounds, came in to check on me, we had a little conversation, and I just happened to say, Hey, you know, is there any food I need to avoid? Because they had just cut out a third of my large intestine, right? And stitched it back together. I mean, everything you eat is going through the through the tube, right?

SPEAKER_06: 17:24

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 17:24

It's mouth to anus, it's one long tube. Everything you eat's going through there. They cut us, they took a section of the tube out, and so I didn't want to mess it up, right? Didn't want to eat, you know, so I'm just thinking, like, you know, is hot sauce a problem or whatever. And he says, uh says, no, no, no, no, just don't lift anything heavier than a beer. Wow. Wink wink. That's that's what he said. That was it. There was no other advice, nothing. And my instincts and intuition were telling me you should probably make healthier choices.

SPEAKER_01: 18:02

That's right. There has to be something. Did you just think there has to be something?

SPEAKER_00: 18:09

I I how can I help myself, right? I think that's a question a lot of patients have. How can I help myself? They they get to this sort of critical, you know, rubber meets the road crisis in their life. And they they have the wake-up call, the epiphany, whatever it is, and they're like, I I gotta make some changes, right? I okay, right? I'm at rock bottom here. I need to help myself. And so I'm to use every analogy I can take up, right? Every cliche. But uh, so I, you know, I was in the same boat. Like, I I what can I do? I I need to help myself. How can I help myself? Well, so they gave the medical community had no answers for me. Go home, drink beer if you want, just don't strain yourself, eat whatever you want, and you know, we'll we'll we'll connect you with an oncologist, and uh, you'll you can learn more about the next step in your cancer journey.

SPEAKER_01: 19:03

And that is common with so many diagnoses. I know it's rampant with cancer diagnosis, but we've seen it over and over again with multiple diagnoses handled the same way. Even our own story. When we were dealing with different things and mounting diagnosis, when I hit 40, it was awful. And we didn't find any, and we were in the healthcare system. Jared's a physician assistant, I'm a nurse. There, we did not find any answers there. We so we started digging, like you said. What can I do? Yeah, what can I do?

SPEAKER_00: 19:34

One of the biggest wake-up calls for healthcare professionals that in my experience is when they get sick and become a part of the system. That's it. And then they they realize how terrible it is.

SPEAKER_01: 19:43

Yes, we got and we realize we've been managing disease and we didn't go into medicine and nursing to manage diseases.

SPEAKER_03: 19:51

No, not initially, but then you go through school and your instructors, they're the authorities, and that's what they're teaching you. So you realize this must be the best that we have to offer. And I remember thinking it seemed like there should be more to it, like you're saying, personal things that you can do to improve your health, but they just don't teach that. They teach very basic nutrition stuff, and that just that didn't sit well with me and until learning about lifestyle medicine much later. Then I had that aha moment. It's like, finally, now I've got something of hope to offer people.

SPEAKER_01: 20:19

He went to a conference, and this doctor was sharing about when a doctor when a patient has this blood pressure, you give them this medicine. And when the hat it goes up to this, you give them this one, you stack it and you stack.

SPEAKER_03: 20:31

He came home, he said, just we gotta do better.

SPEAKER_01: 20:34

There's something not right. I cannot exist anymore.

SPEAKER_03: 20:38

Just how to manage.

SPEAKER_01: 20:39

Yeah. Manage.

SPEAKER_00: 20:41

Yeah. That's and you know, your your audience, I'm sure, has heard this, but um, there's uh there's a lot of money, you know. I mean, healthcare is a trillion dollar industry, and there's a lot of money in treating disease, there's very little money in curing disease. And um, you know, the pharmaceutical industry really they're the puppet masters of medicine.

SPEAKER_02: 21:03

They are.

SPEAKER_00: 21:03

And so the more drugs that they can convince doctors to prescribe, the more money they make. And so med school is largely about learning anatomy and then learning drugs to prescribe for diseases that don't cure the diseases in for the most part. They just reduce the symptoms so the patient becomes so the patient can function. So they're vertically ill. Yes, as opposed to horizontally ill.

SPEAKER_05: 21:32

Good point.

SPEAKER_00: 21:32

Right? They can get out of bed. Yes, yes, and get through their day, they can slog through their day with these medicines. So Yeah, it's it's a major problem. And uh, but there's hope because uh so many chronic diseases can be healed, can be prevented with the right diet and lifestyle choices, with with life's changes. And if a person's willing to make those changes, and that's the key. It's not a quick fix, it's not a magic bullet. Yes, right. It's it requires massive action, diet and lifestyle change. And um so I'm at home, I'm recovering from surgery, I'm weaning myself off the pain medication. As I sobered up, I really started thinking about my life and my health and my future, and and uh really started seeking the Lord for guidance. And, you know, one of the first verses that came to me after my diagnosis was Romans 8.28. And it says, We know that God works all things for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. And you know, Paul wrote that after being beaten, left for dead, shipwrecked, uh, imprisoned multiple times, being hungry, like sleeping out in the cold. I mean, incredible. He had he had suffered a lot an incredible amount of persecution and hardship and affliction. And he writes, We know, right? Not we think, not we're so good. We know that God works all things for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. And so, you know, I I grabbed onto that verse, and uh, and it's kind of a hard verse when you're faced with adversity because you feel like, why me? Like this feels so unfair. It feels so unfair to be diagnosed with cancer at 26, right? It feels so unfair for to lose a parent, you know, as a kid, to have your parents divorced, to be abused, right? It to be betrayed. It feels so unfair. And life is so unfair, right? But God's promise is that He is with us and He's working those hardships for our good. There's a bigger purpose at work.

SPEAKER_01: 23:52

Yes. I love how you call it a divine tap on the shoulder. I've heard you call it that before. Just that wake up.

SPEAKER_00: 24:00

That's right. Cancer is a divine tap on the shoulder, and it's a wake-up call. And the message is the way you're living is killing you. That's the message. And so, you know, some people bristle at that notion, right? They bristle at this idea that that it maybe it's your fault, right? Maybe you're sick because of the choices you've been making. But it falls back to the victimhood mentality. Right. Victims don't want to be at fault, right? Right? They want to blame something else. They victims don't blame themselves, right? Uh, and the most powerful position you can take in life is to take responsibility, to take the blame, not to beat yourself up or to wallow in self-pity or regret or guilt or shame, but to just take responsibility and own it, right? And say this I may have caused this problem, right? It's the logic is like this I have a problem. I may have caused the problem. But either way, whether or not I caused it, it's now my problem. Right. Right? Yes. And so I have a responsibility to myself to work to solve this problem. I've got to become a problem solver. And don't you don't have to do it alone, yes, but you have to put on that like I am responsible for my life and my health, and no one else is, and seek help, seek guidance, but ultimately it's like the buck stops here. And so that that's what I call the beat cancer mindset. It's part of a larger idea, which is I talk about in my first book, Chris Beat Cancer, the about the beat cancer mindset, but it's accepting total responsibility for your situation and believing that healing is possible.

SPEAKER_01: 25:49

Yes. And do you feel like that it's a good thing? I mean, to realize it really is a good thing because if you realize, and this is kind of what we came to the conclusion of when we were dealing with our own health struggles, we felt like this is a good thing because if I realize that there's something I did that caused it, there's something that I can do to undo it.

SPEAKER_03: 26:10

It's it's right initially, but it's empowering because now you have power to do something about it, not just waiting for someone else to come and potentially save you, but we know the medical system any time to undo that.

SPEAKER_00: 26:23

What I like to say is everything in life happens for a reason. And most of the time, the reason is you. You're the reason.

SPEAKER_01: 26:32

You're the reason. Right? Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00: 26:35

You're the reason. Yeah. Most of your problems can probably be traced back to some decisions you made. Not every single one, but many of them. And I think it's it's just so healthy and freeing and empowering to take that position. And again, you know, there's there's this, there's a resistance in the world, uh, which we've we've seen in the last, I don't know, maybe 10 years or more. It's like, don't blame the victim.

SPEAKER_04: 27:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 27:00

Right. Right. Don't blame the victim. And uh that to me is actually a really that's really bad advice. It it sort of it's it sets itself up as this sort of like self-righteous, you know, empathetic uh position. But really, when you when you say don't blame the victim, uh, the victim stays a victim.

SPEAKER_04: 27:20

It's true.

SPEAKER_00: 27:20

Yeah. And so what I'm not what I'm doing is I I'm encouraging people to look at cancer and look at their problems the way I did. Right. So I'm not telling you to do anything I didn't do. What I did was I said, maybe this is my fault, right? And if this is my fault, if I contributed to my disease, maybe I can contribute to my health and to my healing. Absolutely. And that gave me hope. And so I pray about it. You know, my wife and I are praying about it, and I'm just trusting the Lord. And the other big verse that came to me really early in the process, which I just love Psalm 34 so much, it's just and it's such an incredible chapter of Psalms where uh David is crying out to the Lord. It's it's a it's really a psalm for a person in crisis. And and it's and it speaks of God's promises to us in crisis, that he hears us and that he will deliver us. And so Psalm 34, 19 says, the righteous man may suffer many afflictions, but the Lord delivers him from them all.

SPEAKER_04: 28:30

Yes, all.

SPEAKER_00: 28:32

All. And so I I when I read that verse, I was like, this is my banner verse. Yes, right here. You know, God's working all things for my good, He's gonna deliver me from every affliction. I'm putting my my faith, hope, and trust in the promise of God. And so that was very, you know, the those those verses, and there's so many more, but they built me up. And uh, and I prayed about him and just said, God, if there's another way besides chemotherapy, just please show me. Because I had I didn't have peace about it. Yeah, you know, I didn't know a whole lot about chemo, but I knew it was super toxic and it was like poison and your hair falls out. And I had seen cancer patients that should be more aptly called chemo patients, right? I'd seen chemo patients in the world, like how bad they they look after round and round and round of chemo or years of chemo. It's like, you know, it's it's frightening, it's alarming, it's you know, it's concerning. I'm not trying to disparage anyone. I'm just saying, like the the the human body in that state uh of that brutalized state.

SPEAKER_03: 29:40

My grandmother had breast cancer that later spread to the bones and the brain and and went through several years of all that.

SPEAKER_01: 29:46

So I mean, you saw my mother actually had glioblastoma. My sister is right now currently by battling cancer. I mean, it's like you said, it touches everybody so many people. My best friend indirectly.

SPEAKER_00: 29:59

Yeah, yeah. So I had a resistance to it and I prayed about it and just said, if there's another way, please show me. And uh this was like, you know, first week of January 2004. And two days later, I got a book in the mail, and this book was sent to me by a friend of my dad uh who lives in Alaska. I'm in Tennessee, and he my dad had told him he you know about my diagnosis, and he had the audacity to send me a very controversial book about healing with a raw plant-based diet.

SPEAKER_04: 30:42

Wow, imagine that. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 30:45

And the author of that book is a man named George Malcolmus. And I start reading it, and I learned that George found out he had colon cancer back in the 1970s, had watched his mother suffer and die from cancer. She went through treatments, they didn't work, and um, then he gets this diagnosis. He was a pastor, and he had another buddy who was kind of like a I think a fellow pastor, uh, who was a real health nut, said, Man, you need to go back to the Garden of Eden, you know. Yes, go back to the Garden of Eden. Singing our song, you need to start eating fruits and vegetables, organic fruits and vegetables, start juicing carrots. That's what you need to do. And uh, and so he did it. That's what he did. And his body healed within a year, no tumor. Awesome, right? His body healed, and that was so encouraging to me. I mean, that his story just lit me up. First of all, it showed up two days after I prayed. So I was like, Yeah, this is it. Uh I asked for something, this showed up, this is it. No coincidence, and I was I mean, I was overwhelmed, overwhelmed with gratitude to to tears because I just experienced, you know, still am. Like I told this story a thousand times, and and I still have a hard time telling it because the emotion is still raw and real to me, and not the fear part, it's the overwhelming sense of gratitude to the Lord for his faithfulness and um for answering my prayer for uh being with me in my my most desperate times of life. This was one of them. I've had others, and um so I'm like, I'm doing this and uh overnight, uh you know, like I mean not overnight, but immediately I'm I just made the decision. Like I hadn't even finished the book. I just knew this is what I gotta do.

SPEAKER_03: 32:40

Well, you just knew in your spirit the next day, you just knew in your spirit that this was it, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 32:45

Yeah, this is the path. Yeah, there was no, I wasn't like, I need to read some more books, I need to ask my doctor if this is right for me.

SPEAKER_04: 32:52

Exactly, exactly. You already know where that would have headed.

SPEAKER_00: 32:55

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I just knew in my spirit, like and I was excited about it. I was like, whoa, at that time, so here's the thing, you gotta remember January 2004, nobody knew what a raw food diet was. Like, no one you knew or I knew knew what a raw food diet was. If you we said a raw food diet, people were like, What's that? I'm like, that's where you only eat uncooked fruits and vegetables. And they're like, Why would you do that?

SPEAKER_01: 33:22

I'm trying to even think about the Daniel fast. I mean, how long? When did the Hallelujah diet and the Daniel plan? Do you know when all that came out? I mean, maybe that was the George.

SPEAKER_00: 33:30

George wrote the Hallelujah diet. So it that's that was his other book. This one was called God's Way to Ultimate Health, but it's the same message. Um, so that was way before the Daniel thing came out 10 or 15 years later. But um, so I again I knew it was what I wanted to do. I was excited about it. I was intrigued. It made a lot of sense to just like go back to this simple diet of food that God made for us: fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, whole grains, herbs and spices, like the simple plant food. And, you know, uh, I went to Whole Foods, I loaded up the cart with vegetables and fruit, I bought a juicer. Those back in the good old days when Whole Foods was like sold juicers and had a juice bar and everything, and they would make wheatgrass shots for you. Like it was a legit healthy grocery, not owned by Amazon.

SPEAKER_04: 34:25

Yes, but anyway, we digress, we we understand, we agree. We totally agree 100%.

SPEAKER_00: 34:31

So I I just was like, I'm doing it. I'm like, here we go, and I'm gonna figure this out. And so I did, and um quickly, you know, uh figured out that the easiest way for me to eat the largest um variety and volume of vegetables uh was to make giant salads. Just giant bull broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, onions, mushrooms, peppers, sprouts, uh lots of lots of spices like curcumin, well, turmeric, uh, oregano, cayenne pepper, um, garlic powder, sauerkraut, kimchi, olive oil, apple cider vinegar. I mean, I just it was just like this massive concoction that ended up being called the giant cancer fighting salad. It's on the cover of my cookbook behind me. It's called Beet Cancer Kitchen. There's this beautiful picture of the giant salad on there. And and my my photographer made it look so amazing, and it's never looked that good when I make it. That's okay. It tastes good. All the ingredients are there, right? It's all the ingredients. He just had arranged them so beautifully for the cover. Not that it can't be done, it can. Uh, and I'm also I should mention nuts and seeds on there and avocado too. So, like um, you can make this incredible salad. So I made that, uh, and it was and put all that stuff in there, spices and all this kind of stuff, and uh started eating it. I was like, Man, this is great. Yes, this tastes so good. I got all these flavors in here, and like I could eat this every day. I could do this. And then I and then I thought, well, shoot, if I can I I I should just eat this twice a day, lunch and dinner, every day. This is it. Like this is all the vegetables, right? It's like, so not technically all of them, but it's it's a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 36:15

But Chris, think about this. People tell us it's so hard. It's so hard. And you took something and you made it so simple, and you pack a lot of things in that one bowl. And so we tell ourselves lies, which I think a lot of these lies come from our enemy through different avenues they come to us through. We teach about this in our program. It's the lies, the avenues they come through, and they're not, and it's the same old lies. It's like, oh, this is hard. You can't do this. Look what Chris just did. I mean, you took all these God-given foods that we know heal and they have tons of nutrients in them when they're not stripped out of their package that work amazingly well, and you put them into this genius salad, and you did it twice a day.

SPEAKER_00: 36:56

Twice a day. And and the thing is, I'm I'm a reductionist, and so I knew I knew I had to make it easy for me, or it wouldn't be sustainable. And so I even I got some raw food cookbooks and different things, and everything felt complicated and and overwhelming. And so I just realized like this giant salad is easy. I don't have to cook anything. Yes, I don't have to follow a recipe, right? I know exactly what to buy at the grocery store. I all I have to do is open the fridge, pull the stuff out, put it in a bowl, and eat it. Like I the food, the prep time is quick. It's portable. I can pack it and take it with me places. Like like I was like, this is this is like fast food. Yes. And it's like the healthiest, most nutrient-dense, specifically anti-cancer nutrient dense meal possible. Like it's not possible to eat a more anti-cancer meal than what I've concocted. And so, so anyway, I I got that in place. Um, I and again, there's a lot more details in the book, but uh I, for sake of time, I uh found, I had a kind of crazy experience at the oncologist, never went back. I found a naturopathic doctor and then started working with him, and then he connected me with an integrative oncologist who supported my decision to take care of myself and to say no to chemotherapy. So I made that decision. And um, and I really just walked away from conventional medicine uh because I I just I knew the Lord had opened up an alternate path for me. And so I had a lot of fear, but I also had faith and confidence, right? Charting my own course. And this is the part that's um that I think people struggle with, right? They struggle with this fear is a major, major factor in cancer, right? Patients are rushed into treatment out of fear, and it's really scary to to do treatment, and it's really scary to not do treatment. Both options are scary. Yeah, you know, both are scary. And it is, I think there's a misunderstanding in our in the the Christian community and as believers that that being afraid it does not mean you do not have faith. Yes. Okay, you can have faith while you're afraid. You can't have faith and doubt. Okay, but you can have fear and still move forward in faith. Yes. You understand? And so, like when soldiers go to battle, they're they're afraid, right? But they charge ahead out of faith, right? That's courage. And so faith and courage are moving forward in spite of your fears. Yes, and that's what I did.

SPEAKER_04: 39:45

Love it.

SPEAKER_00: 39:45

And I believe me, I there's courage is not the feeling. Courage is the is what describes the action. The feeling is fear. Yes. Okay, nobody feels brave, they don't feel courageous, they feel afraid, and then they it's what they do it with that feeling. They either move forward or they run away. So um, but the Lord He gave me peace in the storm, and he gave me joy in this really scary season of life, and where I didn't have assurances. I didn't know if I was gonna get better or worse. I didn't know what suffering lied ahead. Um, I didn't know how much time I had left to live. I I didn't know I didn't have any guarantees. Um, and by the way, most cancer patients doing conventional treatment don't have guarantees either.

SPEAKER_04: 40:40

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00: 40:41

Uh they have a lot of false hope. They're they're misled, they're led to believe treatments will work better than they often do, and um their bank accounts are drained, treatments are so expensive, they can't work. Um, bankruptcy is a major problem with in with cancer patients. Um and it's it's a really tragic, terrible industry in general. But there are some bright spots in there, and immunotherapies are getting better, and chemotherapy, I think, will will fall by the wayside in our lifetime, and immunotherapies are improving, and you know, those treatments some have some side effects, but they don't poison your whole body in the way that chemo does. So there are some there's some improvements there, and I'm glad to see it because the if for and immunotherapy has been around since the late 1800s. I mean, it's you know, it was it it was discovered early, it was researched by a number of brilliant researchers, then it was shelved at really shelved right around the time of radiotherapy and Then chemotherapy came along, and these were massive profit generating industries. And so the idea that that we need to empower the patient's immune system to help them heal uh was pushed aside because hey, there's no money in that, right? And so, but that's come full circle now, and so now they figure out how to make money off immunotherapy, and so that's where a lot of most of the research money's going. And hey, you know, there's some positive things happening there, but I digress. So I uh, you know, I got the simple takeaway is I created a daily routine for myself, a healing routine. I I cobbled together a small support system, right? And I just day by day I got in the word, I got I I confessed God's promises over my life, I took massive action to help myself because I believed that healing was possible. And um eventually I got to the five-year mark and had a scan and cancer free. And, you know, I kept going. And after, you know, around six years, I was like, I guess I should, I feel like I should tell my story. I don't, you know, I didn't really want to think about cancer, talk about cancer. Like I was in real estate and musician, and it's like that's what I wanted to do, that kind of stuff. I didn't want to just want to get as far from cancer as possible. It's understandable, but you know, I just had a nagging feeling, and I just feel like it was the Lord was prompting me, you know, like you need to share your story, you need to encourage people. Um, there are people that need to know that healing is possible and that there are things they can do to help themselves get well.

SPEAKER_01: 43:29

And now you're at the point where not only has your store story helped so many people, but you've talked to countless other survivors of cancer, various types of cancer, that have gone through it and triumphed over it. And I feel like you've gained profound insight into the mechanics of natural healing and doing this. And you've just so much, yeah, and you've distilled it.

SPEAKER_00: 43:50

I've learned so much. I mean, my own story taught me a lot, right? My own experiences. But then I started crispbeatcancer.com. There's what's you know, it's like I started, it was a blog, you know. People don't even talk about blogs anymore. But, you know, I was like, I'm gonna start this blog, I'm gonna start writing about my experience and what I've learned. And then I then YouTube was picking up, so I started making videos talking about what I've learned. And then, and then people started coming out of the woodwork and finding me and said, Oh, hey, I just your story's great. I healed cancer too, and here's my story. And the first person that did that was named Courtney Campbell, and she had healed her lymphoma. Right. And Courtney is just a few years younger than me, and she had completely healed lymphoma with nutrition, no treatments. And I was like, This is amazing. Let me what do you think about me interviewing you? Right, right? Because, you know, my story's great and all, but like, oh, yours is even better. I had surgery, you didn't even have surgery, you right? You can't have surgery for lymphoma, but you know what I'm saying? You didn't have any treatments. She was like, Okay, so I interviewed Courtney, shared her story. I've I've followed up with her several times. She's like, you know, almost 20 years out herself, still thriving. She's had five or six kids since then. Just has this great family. We've become very close. Uh, and so that started me interviewing survivors. So I've interviewed dozens and dozens of people who've healed all types and stages of cancer on the crispy cancer podcast. I've interviewed a lot of doctors, integrative practitioners. And so that it turned into a big thing of this is not about me and my story, right? I know that it just takes sometimes just one story, right, to change the course of your life. Like one story can give you that spark of hope that you need.

SPEAKER_05: 45:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 45:31

You know, in a in a desperate time. Yes. Because that's what George Malcolm is did for me. And so I put my story out there. That's why I still do interviews, obviously. But I'm also sharing all these other stories that are just awesome. Stage four healing. We just posted one today, Rick Hill. He's a 50-year cancer survivor, stage three survivor, what was basically terminal, walked away from chemo and radiation, and uh, and now he's 50, he's 50 years out. Yes, cancer. It's incredible. Just yeah, it's amazing. And so, you know, the those there are so many people out there that have healed against the odds. And I want the world to know, right? The world needs to know that cancer can be healed, that healing is possible. And if you study those stories, as I have, inner I've obviously interviewed all these people and a lot of cancer doctors. If you just pay attention to those stories and listen to them, you see the common threads.

SPEAKER_01: 46:34

Yes, the golden threads. We love to call it that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 46:37

The golden threads over and over and over.

SPEAKER_01: 46:39

You see, like these people are all they're all doing the same thing. So, what are they? That's what we want to know.

SPEAKER_00: 46:45

Okay, it's a huge part for every almost every single survivor. Plant-based diet, whole food plant-based diet. A lot of times it's a lot, mostly raw juicing is a big part of their stories. It was a big part of mine. I was drinking 64 ounces of vegetable juice every day for several years. Uh, I was my goal was to flood my body with it and in my in my mind, I I sort of had a joke, which was like, I'm I'm gonna try to overdose on nutrition.

SPEAKER_01: 47:12

That is one of my favorite things that you say because I think that just kind of that's one of those sayings that can just shake you to your core. It's like overdose on nutrition. It's not something we normally think about, but it can make all the difference in the quality and longevity of life that you can lead.

SPEAKER_00: 47:30

Right. And and by the way, you can't do it, you can't overdose on nutrition. I tried, I really tried, and the only the worst thing that happened to me was I turned to orange. Uh-huh. That was it. That was the worst side effect was orange. I would think after which from all the beta carotene and the carrots. So uh, like what happens to babies if you feed them too many times. That actually happened to me as a baby.

SPEAKER_03: 47:56

I guess mashed up carrots were one of my favorite, and my mother fed them, and yeah, happened.

SPEAKER_00: 48:01

Carrots and sweet potatoes will turn a baby orange. So I turned orange for a season of my life, you know, in 2004. Uh I was I was pretty orange. But um, but yeah, you know, you when you flood your body with all these wonderful vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, water, fiber, and good bacteria. Yes, all of these things come from plant food. Not to mention you're getting protein, you're getting healthy fats, you're getting all every single ingredient that you need to survive and thrive. 100%. Plus, all these thousands and thousands of what are called phytochemicals or phytonutrients. These are nutrients only found in plants that have specific anti-cancer properties and anti-parasitic properties, antimicrobial properties like alicin in garlic or elagic acid in berries, uh, sulfurophane and broccoli and cauliflower, kale cabbage, and the cruciferous vegetables. So, like there's this massive, massive field of research called nutritional science, where, you know, over a hundred plus years, I mean, researchers and scientists have learned so much about the constituents of plant food and all these wonderful compounds. You don't have to know it all. You'll learn some pretty cool stuff if you read my book. But the point is you just have to eat it. Yes, right?

SPEAKER_01: 49:25

Yes, eat it.

SPEAKER_00: 49:26

You just have to eat it. Like you don't have to understand how a car works to drive it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 49:31

Yes, just pick up the do what works for you.

SPEAKER_03: 49:35

I tell people it just boils down to three words. Just eat plants.

SPEAKER_01: 49:38

Just eat plants.

SPEAKER_03: 49:39

Just do it. You'll get the results. You don't have to know why it works.

SPEAKER_01: 49:42

And you had mentioned protein, Chris. Do you think the fear and obsession around protein today is in any way driving health outcomes, including cancer? I'd love to hear what you think about that.

SPEAKER_00: 49:51

Yeah, it is. It is. Uh, you know, so I I've gone down a lot of research rabbit holes in 20 years, and one of them was um trying to understand, you know, what is the healthiest diet for healing, and then what is the healthiest diet for longevity? And uh there's a lot of overlap. But if you look at the the healthiest, longest-living people groups around the world, the Blue Zones is a great project that uh highlights this. China Study is another good one. Um, but what you find is that these exceptionally long-living people typically eat about 95% plant-based, right? So they're not vegans, they're not vegetarians, but they're just predominantly plant-based. They just eat a lot of plant food, all types, and they're not worried about lectins or phytase. Yes, thank you. You know, oxalates or all these like boogie, you know, plant, you know, plant compounds, anti-nutrients, it's all this, all this, all this stuff that's total nonsense.

SPEAKER_02: 50:52

Garbage trying to kill you.

SPEAKER_00: 50:54

They're just eating whole plant food because it's it's abundant in their region and they enjoy it. And and they eat a little, just just a little bit of animal food here and there. And it's more for flavor than it is like for the meal, right? It's not like a giant steak with a potato. It's like if you're in Asia, it's you know, traditional like Asian diet. You might have a bowl of rice with vegetables and a couple little strips, a couple little strips of beef in there for flavor, or a little bit of chicken, just a little bit for flavor, or pork or something. So it's very different. And so what we know is that we just I even posted a short reel about this today because it comes up all the time about protein.

SPEAKER_01: 51:34

All the time.

SPEAKER_00: 51:34

And um, we just don't need that much protein. Every fruit, vegetable, every plant has amino acids. Your body assembles those amino acids to make proteins. The some of the strongest animals on earth, gorillas and yes, elephants, don't eat animals, right? They're herbivores. Cows are herbivores. How do they get so big? You know, horses are herbivores. So you can get all you need from plant food. And um, there's uh there's an incredible documentary called The Game Changers with like pro-athletes and bodybuilders and and strongmen and Olympians and all these incredible, incredible athletes that all just eat plant food. And they're at the highest levels of competition in the world. And it's like if they needed to eat animal protein to thrive and compete at the highest level on the planet, well, they wouldn't be successful because they're not eating animal protein. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 52:36

It's like the common sense that sometimes doesn't seem so common.

SPEAKER_00: 52:39

Well, yeah, it doesn't, and it does. I mean, see, it is it is shocking when you learn that. Even even for me, you know, eating a plant-based diet, when I saw that, I was like, wow, that's incredible. Man, these people are really incredible athletes, and they're doing it on plants, like, you know. So, but the the protein industry, you know, it's a billion-dollar industry selling this, selling the powders and whatnot, and the protein bars, and then the the meat and dairy industries thrive on pushing protein on the protein area. You need more protein, so you need to eat more meat and dairy uh and eggs, you know. So, like there's a lot of money pushing that protein idea, uh, the high protein diet idea. And there's a number of ways that protein fuels cancer growth. And I've got a really extensive article on this. If if somebody, if anyone wants to go, if you go to Chris BeatCancer.com and type in protein in the search bar, you will find an article called um uh the the animal protein cancer connection. And uh, without getting into it, there are there's a long list of ways that animal protein can cause cancer and or fuel its growth when you eat excessive amounts. And so the low protein diet really is the best diet for prevention and healing. And we've just seen it over and over and over with in our community with all the survivors I've interviewed, with my own story. Same here.

SPEAKER_01: 54:01

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 54:02

Folks, you just don't have to worry. You don't you don't have to let it go in your protein uh grams, you don't have to do it. And uh by the way, I'm a very, very active athlete. Yes, I I've been doing CrossFit type workouts for uh almost 15 years, like four or five days a week. Uh I'm I'm extremely fit. I'm the healthiest, fittest, strongest I've ever been in my life at 48. And again, this is just eating lots of delicious plant food.

SPEAKER_05: 54:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 54:34

So if you eat, if you eat well and you exercise and you lift weights, you'll get healthier, fitter, and stronger. Absolutely. And again, you don't have to count count count calories, you don't have to count your macros, you don't have to do any of that stuff, you don't have to take the the the powders and all the junk. Uh you can achieve it just with simple, healthy choices. Yes. The truth is simple. I say this I'm like a broken record. The truth is simple, lies are complicated.

SPEAKER_01: 55:01

Yes, absolutely. That is so good.

SPEAKER_03: 55:08

People just ate food. Yeah. We just ate we didn't know about macros and micros and vitamins. We just ate food and we did just fine. That's right. For thousands of years.

SPEAKER_01: 55:17

And that's having written our cookbook, we know that we only put our favorite things in our cookbooks. So I know you have a lot of favorites in your cookbook, but what are a couple, just a couple that you're eating? I know you're not just eating the big giant salad, but you probably still are sometimes.

SPEAKER_00: 55:33

Yeah. Well, thanks for yeah, thanks for asking. So, so for years, it's so funny. So I wrote Crisp Cancer. That book was published in 2018 by Hay House. So that was 15 years after my diagnosis. Right. And I had learned so much in that time, right? I didn't rush out and publish a book right away. And it would have been a crappy book, frankly. So I just kept reading and researching and interviewing people and learning, and finally I was like, I'm ready to write this book. Like, I'm I'm bursting. And so um, I it just it's on Amazon. You can get in bookstores.

SPEAKER_06: 56:06

Fantastic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:07

But I thought, you know, people are like, you should write a cookbook, you should write a cookbook. And I kept thinking, Well, you know, what's the point? I'm just telling people to eat the same thing every day anyway. Like it's gonna have like two recipes, a salad and some juice.

SPEAKER_03: 56:18

It's gonna be more of a pamphlet than a book.

SPEAKER_00: 56:20

Yeah, there's a two-page cookbook. But you know what, Chris, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 56:24

If they had paid a lot of money for just those two pages, and just think about it though, like the money that's in the industries that we're talking about with disease and that well-old machine. And if they, if people just understood, if you could just start with those two pages, you could heal so many people would be a bit of the value. It's worth it's worth way more than you're ever gonna pay.

SPEAKER_00: 56:47

But so the reality in our family is that yeah, I I ate the giant salad every day, twice a day for years. But then we just see you know, I sort of expanded. I started eating more cooked plant food and just normal, normal plant-based meals. And my wife's a great cook. And so we had we just started developing recipes and and had a lot of great recipes that we enjoyed. And finally, I was like, you know, we got a lot of great stuff to share. And there was a lot of demand from my community. Like, please give us recipes. Like, we want ideas, we want to know what you like. And so, anyway, we we put this cookbook together during the pandemic, and there's two sections. The first section is like the hardcore anti-cancer diet, which is the giant cancer-fighting salad and some variations on the salad. There's a soup version, there's like a sheet pan bake, there's a bunch of juice recipes and smoothie recipes, and that's for like the person that's like hardcore. I'm trying to heal cancer, reverse heart disease, like reverse diabetes, like hardcore healing. Then the second section of the cookbook is all plant-based recipes that are still packed full of nutrition, right? And delicious and super healthy and easy to make, but they're just like for you know, the normal folks that just want to eat healthy and they're not like trying to reverse disease.

SPEAKER_03: 57:54

Like when the alarm bells are sounding and going off.

SPEAKER_00: 57:57

Yeah. And so that's uh that's what it's comprised of. It's full color, and you know, the recipes are great and and the reviews have been great and all that. So um, yeah, so it's been like about out a few years now. I think it think we published it in 2021, if I remember right, uh, and put it together during during during 2020 uh or 2021, 2022. I don't have to, I'd have to look at the inside cover, but anyway, it's great.

SPEAKER_01: 58:23

And we want people to go and get that now. Go to crisbeatcancer.com, but also something we had not mentioned that you have to get right now. And it's coming from somebody who has gone through it. Get on his website and get the square one program. It is seriously a no-brainer. He even offers a buddy pass that you can share with someone when you get this. It's absolutely that good. I want you to go and get it right now because you will not regret it. This has been such a life-changing discussion. And if you've been with us this far, I'm sure you're filled with hope by all that Chris has shared. So please take a moment to share this video right now with the people you care about to help us reach even more people with this incredible message of hope that you can heal, that your body was created by your creator to heal so that you can fully enjoy living your God-given call. And Chris, we thank you so much for taking your time. And everybody, as always, know that you are loved, you are prayed for, and we will see you again very soon.