HEALTHY AT 100: AN AFTERNOON WITH JOHN ROBBINS
March 17th, 2007
You can listen or download an
MP3 of the talk by clicking
here.
On Saturday, March 17th, the Pine Street Foundation was pleased to welcome
John Robbins to Marin County to speak about his life and his new book, Healthy
at 100.
Since his first book, Diet for
a New America, John Robbins has changed the way that Americans think
about food and health. In his new book, Healthy
at 100, Robbins makes
the case that we can understand more about our own health by studying
what's
been successful for people who live in cultures that produce the happiest,
longest-lived people.
Robbins focused on four cultures (Abkhasia
in the Caucasus south of Russia, Vilcabamba in the Andes of South America,
Hunza in Central Asia, and Okinawa in Southern Japan) and found that
although they're
very different, what they have in common is their emphasis on the importance
of building community, practicing non-violence and respect for elders
and children, seeking simplicity and a different way to prioritize goals
and ambitions, naturally eating well and exercising, and working for
a low footprint on the planet. The following are some of the highlights
from the transcript of his talk.
HOW TO DEFINE HEALTH
I don't define health entirely in terms of measurable quantities
like blood pressure, blood sugar levels, or cholesterol levels. Those
things are important and we can learn things by measuring them, but they're
far from the whole story. The quality of a person's
life can never be measured by quantifiables like that and it's
the quality with which we live and interact with each other – what
we bring out of one another and the kind of people we are – that
has a lot more insight into our true health.
I know
someone who is in her late 40s and has ovarian cancer. At the moment,
the treatment doesn't seem to be working
very well and we don't know how long she'll be with
us. But she's a joyful, giving person who is a gift to everyone
who knows her and a gift to this planet. I would call her far healthier
than someone who is contracted around their problems and self pitying.
To me, the emphasis is on the living part of it. I think
about the healthspan, not the lifespan. I think about the joyspan and
the lovespan. To me, the central piece to health, healing, and living
is respect and caring for self and others because we are one in the same
intertwined reality.
DO YOU EAT ICE CREAM?
I was born into a family that was not about health and healing. It was
about eating ice cream, selling ice cream: Baskin-Robbins. My dad,
Irv Robbins, and my uncle, Bert Baskin, founded, owned, and ran what
became the world's largest ice cream company. I am an only son and
my dad's quite patriarchal and he trained me to succeed him. I have
sisters and my father was happy to offer jobs to my sisters' husbands,
but his belief was that women shouldn't work. He came from that generation
of thinking.
Growing
up, I ate an unbelievable amount of ice cream. We had an ice cream cone-shaped
swimming pool in our back yard in Los Angeles and I even invented flavors,
such as Jamocha Almond Fudge. You can see where I have some karma to
undo, or work with anyway.
My uncle, Bert Baskin, died of a heart attack in his
early 50s. He was a very big man…he ate a lot of ice cream. And
when he died in 1968, I asked my dad, "do you think there could
be any connection between his fatal heart attack and the amount of ice
cream he would eat?" My
dad looked at me and a wall came down and he said, "no…his
ticker just got tired and stopped working."
And
at that point, I realized that there was this intractable taboo that
I was coming up against and I could understand why my father would not
want to even consider the possibility there could be a connection between
ice cream and heart disease. He had, by that time, manufactured and sold
more ice cream than any human being who had ever lived on this planet.
My father didn't
want to think that the family product was harming anyone, much less causing
or contributing to heart disease, much less contributing to the death
of his beloved brother-in-law and partner.
But, I felt that the truth was elsewhere and, as I came
of age, felt pulled in two directions. On the one hand, there was a "rocky
road" paved with a lot of ice cream and money, which
was my father's plan for me. On the other hand, something inside me was
calling me in a different direction. Something was speaking an entirely different
language that defined success in an entirely different way. Because if
you buy the conventional paradigm of success – financial
abundance – my father's way had
it. But when I was twenty-one, I said to my father that I was not going
to follow in his footsteps and take over the company and was, instead,
going to walk away from the entire enterprise.
In fact, I didn't
want to have a trust fund or an inheritance. I didn't want to live by
his financial fortune. I wanted to follow my own values, live according
to them, and seek my own powers in life. I said to him, "I will
go my own way." And I have.
And here we are, now many years later, almost fifty, and I have lived
without any connection to his wealth and it's been a wild ride.
And there
were times, particularly when my wife, Deo, and I had our first son and
he was little and had certain needs and we were financially very poor
that I was thinking, "Wow...I walked
away from all that. That would have been different."
But the truth
is, I don't regret it at all because the inner riches of living with
integrity has given me the opportunity to make a difference in my own
life and in other people's lives that I wouldn't have had selling ice
cream. And the people who I mentioned whose lives I've had an opportunity
to touch include my father.
When I left, my father was really upset. And he's
not a man who handles his anger very well, so we didn't talk for quite
a while. And I tried to be respectful, but at a certain point, whenever
we were together, there was an argument and I just didn't want to fight
anymore.
There was nothing to fight about, really. The die
was cast...I've gone my way, I've made my choice, life would unfold.
He couldn't change me, I couldn't change him. We had to come
to terms with that reality. And it was hard for him. He had worked his
whole life and attained a level of financial success most people can
only dream about and he wanted to share it with his only son. And I'm
sure he thought he had the only kid in the country that would turn that
down. I do understand how he felt and I was very sorry to disappoint
him. That was painful for me as well as it was for him.
Then, in the mid-1980s, my dad developed very serious problems – high
blood pressure, diabetes that was out of control, heart problems – really
the same predicable things that happen to men of that age who live the
way he had lived.
He still held in his mind,
though, that there was absolutely no connection between diet and health.
That was just one of his tenants of his philosophy. But he was getting
more and more ill and he was taking a lot of drugs and they were having
a lot of side effects, especially the blood pressure medication.
And he went to his
physician in 1988 (Diet for a New America was first published
in late 1987) and this physician did something rather unusual: he leveled
with my dad. He said, "Mr.
Robins, at this point, there isn't a lot we can do for you. We can juggle
your medications, we can try to control some of the side effects that
are bothering you, but unless you make major changes in the way you live,
all we can do is try to make your few remaining years a little more comfortable." He
put the responsibility on his patient.
My dad said, "What do you mean?" The
doctor gave him a book and said, "you might want to read this book," and
it was Diet for a New America, my first book, and I wish I could
have been a fly on the wall to see my dad's expression at that moment.
Because in his world, this is the high priest of Western medicine and
he was, in effect, blessing this book written by his maverick son. This
is a karmic collision.
And the interesting piece of this is
that the physician did not know that the John Robbins who had written
it was related to his patient. And my dad didn't tell him.
My father started to make some
small changes and he got some small results. Then he made some medium
changes and got some medium results. Then he made, what to him, were
very large changes and got, what to him, were very large results.
He started to have a mind shift and a life shift.
That was the late-1980s, almost twenty years ago, and my dad's still
with us and he's had a wonderful twenty years.
He won't have a whole
lot of years left now, but there's been an opportunity for a rapprochement
between us and he's very proud of me now. And I have been able to give
him something, I think, that is really of more significance than if I
had taken the business forward. It certainly grew plenty on its own...it
didn't need me. And I don't think the world needs more ice cream.
I'm not saying one ice cream cone is going to hurt
anybody or kill anybody. But the more ice cream you eat, the reality
is, the more likely you are to have diabetes, like my father has, or
heart disease, that killed my uncle. It's not just Bert Baskin. Ben Cohen,
founder and former owner of Ben & Jerry's, had a quintuple bypass
in his late 40s.
And now I will tell you, because I know I've
been asked this a lot, "Does he eat ice cream?" No, I don't
anymore. But don't feel sorry for me, please, because I ate enough in
my childhood for twenty lifetimes.
SOCIETY & CONNECTEDNESS
Humans have a deep need to be connected to the planet, to the rhythms
to the earth, to understand that connection, and to honor it. And every
native people I've ever known or interacted with, and certainly the
healthy cultures that I profiled in Healthy
at 100, all have deep connections to earth rhythms and to their
own biorhythms.
There's something about our society that disconnects
us from the earth and alienates us from something very profound in ourselves,
in our natures, and in our needs.
RESPECT FOR CHILDREN & ELDERS
One of the things that stands out about the four cultures I write about
in Healthy at 100 is the way they treat their children, which is with
tremendous respect. In none of these cultures is there anything equivalent
to our child abuse. They never hit their kids. And the kids, in turn,
are very, very respectful. And they grow up to be respectful, self-respecting,
caring people.
Another thing that stands
out is the way these cultures treat their elders. In our society, if
someone lies about their age, they usually lie downwards, giving a smaller,
younger number than their actual age. This is because in our society,
a person is seen as more attractive, more desirable, and having more
to offer if they're younger.
But in Abkhasia, and in the other cultures I
write about, if people lie about their age, they lie upwards. Because,
in their societies, the older you are, the more status you have, the
more prestige you have, the more wisdom you're assumed to have, and the
more you're listened to.
It's almost unimaginable to think
about this happening here, but in Okinawa, the leading cause of sibling
rivalry is when elderly parents need to be cared for and the siblings
will fight over who gets to take the parent in to their home.
In Hunza, there was an American
investigator who was talking to people there with a translator and was
trying to tell them about assisted living facilities and nursing homes
in this country, which is how a lot of older people are living.
The investigator was met
with utter disbelief and the people stood up and said, "We respect
cultural differences and understand that something that is funny to us
might not seem funny to you. And that something that is funny to you
might not be funny to us. But we ask you please don't joke like this.
Because this is so painful to hear." And
this investigator continued to try to explain about how we treat our
elders and the Hunza just walked away.
THE IMPORTANCE OF RELATIONSHIPS
When writing Healthy at 100, I was most surprised by the importance
of relationships. I've always known that the quality of our relationships
are very important to our emotional well-being, but I had no idea, really,
how significant they are to our physical well-being. It turns out that
relationships where you feel disrespected, shut down, dismissed, depreciated,
overlooked, or ignored actually take a toll. They make it harder to breath,
harder for your cardiovascular system to be open, and harder for your
immune system to function. They impair the body.
At the same time, relationships
where you feel upheld and cherished and where you feel your love makes
a difference to another person and you can feel that their love makes
a difference to you, those kinds of relationships are thrilling to the
body. And they enhance the functioning of the respiratory system, cardiovascular
system, and immune system. That's how connected we are with one another.
DIET AND LONGEVITY
For the Okinawans and the other cultures I write about, these people
are, by our standards, vegetarians. They eat so few animal products
compared to us. And yet, they're far from deficient in protein. They're
lean, strong, and fit people.
Their diets are all
low-calorie diets compared to what we typically eat in the United States.
But it's not that they're low calorie, it's just that we're really high
calorie compared to them. I think what we're eating is excessively high
calorie and just look at the results. Look at our waistlines. Look at
the illnesses and distress and suffering that ensue from consuming more
than we need and consuming things we don't need in our bodies.
Interestingly
enough, in the four cultures I profile, people in their 80s and 90s have
very low rates of dementia and very low rates of any perceivable cognitive
impairment. Compare this to the United States where 50% of those of us
over the age of 85 have some form of dementia. These cultures also have
very low rates of most forms of hormone related cancers, heart disease,
and obesity.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT COFFEE?
I love it. It's a vice, what can I say. I have vices, don't
we all. The issue is always proportionality. Moderation versus excess.
I do restrict myself to one cup a day, personally. Now, It's getting
to be a bigger cup and a stronger one...12 ounces going on 14. It's
a jolt, it's a rush, which I like. The health implications with moderate
consumption seem to be fine.
IF YOU COULD CHOOSE THREE THINGS THAT ONE SHOULD DO TO LIVE A HEALTHY
LIFE, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?
I wouldn't choose for another person, but I would ask you to
listen to your own experience, to the signals you get from your own body,
from your inner wisdom, and then experiment. Play them out with a tentativeness
and see what happens. You might learn that a raw food diet is best for
you. You might learn that you don't do well on raw foods at all. You
have to learn to hear clearly your own intuitive wisdom...that inner
voice within.
I don't make
rules for other people. All I can ask is that you make it thoughtfully,
consciously, and connected to your reason for being here in the first
place.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT GOVERNMENTAL RESTRICTIONS ON TRANSFATS?
I think it's great. I'm not opposed to the use of governmental
policies to steer us in a positive direction, although I don't
want to rely only on that.
I think it would be great to see a tax put on white
bread. Then I would like to see the revenue from that used to subsidize
whole-wheat bread, making it cheaper and white bread more expensive.
Tax the junk food, so it's more expensive to purchase and use that
revenue to make healthy food cheaper.
IF ONE MUST WORK AT A FAST PACE, WHAT SHOULD WE DO TO REMAIN HEALTHY
AND LIVE A LONG AND HEALTHFUL LIFE?
Slow down. At some point,
you're going to hit a wall. You can't sleep fast, right? Some things
take time. Everything worthwhile takes time. A human being takes time.
That's why elders are so special.
If you must work at a face pace, enjoy it and find a way
to get out of that obligation if you can, at least for part of your day.
Meditate. Do yoga. But don't make that into another self-improvement
project that you're driven to perform.
WHAT IS THE SEX DRIVE LIKE FOR THE OLDER PEOPLE IN THESE CULTURES THAT
YOU STUDIED?
Absolutely amazing, by our standards. For example, in Okinawa, a four
year study funded by the Japanese Ministry of Health found that 90-year-old
men there have testosterone levels the same as 60-year-old men in the
United States.
WHICH CULTURE WERE YOU MOST IMPRESSED BY WHEN RESEARCHING HEALTHY
AT 100?
I was most impressed by our culture and how mad we've become. A little
madness is good for a person, but we're out of balance, horribly, in
some very basic ways.
It was somewhat painful to see it doesn't
have to be this way, seeing cultures who are living with vastly more
respect for life and gaining vastly healthier lives out of it.
I'm not suggesting, however,
that we should simply copy these four cultures nor should we project
the idea of the "ideal
society" onto
them. But I want to try to disentangle the underlying factors for these
people's phenomenal health and longevity by looking at some of the things
they all have in common. Then the question is how do we translate that
to our own lives.
More about John Robbins can be found on his website: www.Healthyat100.org.
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