Today, on what is a day of Thanksgiving here in the United States,  we want to take a few minutes to honor three extraordinary men—Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Baxter Montgomery, and John Robbins—who we’ve recently lost. These weren’t just leaders in the whole food, plant-based movement—they were trailblazers, mentors, and fearless advocates for health and hope.

Dr. McDougall taught us that food is medicine and that living your principles matters more than pleasing critics. Dr. Montgomery showed us the power of compassion in medicine and the importance of giving everyone access to real, whole-food nutrition. And John Robbins…he opened hearts and minds, inspiring millions to think deeply about how our choices on the plate affect the world.

So today, as we continue their work, let’s remember: living plant strong is about courage, consistency, and compassion -and- it’s about taking their message and carrying it forward in our own lives and communities.

They didn’t just teach us about health—they gave us hope. For that, we're thankful.

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I'm Rip Esselstyn and you're listening to the Plant Strong podcast. I want to welcome you all to a special episode of the Plant Strong podcast.

Today, on what is a day of Thanksgiving here in the United States, I want to take a few minutes to honor three extraordinary men. Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Baxter Montgomery, and John Robbins, who we've recently lost.

These weren't just leaders in the whole food plant based movement. They were trailblazers, mentors and fearless advocates for health and hope.

Dr. McDougall taught us that food is medicine and that living your principles matters more than pleasing the critics.

Dr. Montgomery showed us that the power of compassion in medicine real and the importance of giving everyone access to whole food plant, strong nutrition.

And then John Robbins, he opened hearts and minds, inspiring millions of us to think deeply about how our food choices on our plates affect the world. I feel humbled that I was able to stand on their shoulders. And because of them, countless lives have been transformed.

They didn't just teach us about health, they gave us hope. So today, as we continue their work, let's remember, living Plan Strong is about courage, consistency, and compassion.

It's about taking their message and carrying it forward in our own lives and communities. This episode, which features a few short clips from their guest appearances on the Plan Strong podcast, is my tribute to them.

And my invitation to you is to honor their legacy by living boldly, eating wisely, and spreading health and hope wherever you may go. For them, I give thanks to today and every day.

I had a another enlightenment there on my plantation and that I was taking care of first, second, third and fourth generation people. First generation being born in their native land. In this case, we're talking about Koreans and Chinese and Japanese and Filipinos primarily.

And the first generation, they learned a diet of rice and vegetables, and then they moved to the Big island to start a new life. And they had their families, and their families were influenced by western eating.

So the second generation, they ate more rich food and they got more overweight and sicker.

And by the time you got to my third generation patients and I was taking care of all four generations of people, my practice, I could see it right before my eyes. You know, the genes didn't change. The environment on the plantation hadn't changed for 100 years.

But here I saw this drastic change in health where my first generation, they never were overweight, they were hard working into their 80s and sometimes 90s. You know, they had never had diabetes, never had heart trouble, breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, no autoimmune diseases.

This is my first generation.

But as I mentioned, as the second generation, third generation learned the western diet, they became progressively more ill because they were being poisoned. This is food poisoning, Rip. The. I have to explain on those terms, and I do these days so that people can understand it. This is food poisoning.

You know, there's two basic beliefs that most people hold that I think you would say are not true. And the first is as we age, we naturally become fatter and sicker. That. That is a complete falsehood.

Correct.

As we age, we become patterns like that. But most people think that's the case.

I learned that from my plantation patients. Absolutely untrue.

Yeah. So it's the food. It's the food. It's the food.

It's the food. Yeah.

Again, I want you to know, John, what a giant you've been in, in my life.

I love your, your passion, the way you've always challenged the system, the way you have led with the truth. And you're, you're unwavering. You were absolutely unwavering. And, and I love that about you.

And the world is a better place because of John and Mary McDougall. So thank you so much.

Well, thank you, Rip. We've got an army to build. You know, it's going to take, it's going to take a lot of us.

And so, you know, the fact that you've got a following that's dedicated and understands the truth and they're trying to spread the word too. Whatever your talents are, I just want to say something to your viewers.

Whatever your talent is, use that to spread the word, because we have to do it. The stakes are so high.

And so I started looking outside of the medical literature. I started reading the lay press, and you read a lot of things about this snake oil, know potion, et cetera.

But the common denominator was a healthy diet. And the common denominator of the healthy diet was plant based foods. And that was one thing that I noticed.

And out of some strains, for some strange reason, I happened to take this raw vegan chef course. I took a weekend crash course to become a certified raw vegan chef. And in that crash course, I was introduced to plant based nutrition.

We learned how to make wonderful raw dishes. And my life turned around in an amazing way. I felt 18 years old and I was somewhere around, I don't know, 39, 40 at the time.

And that introduced me to this world of plant based nutrition. I not only continued that lifestyle, but I started applying it to patients.

What I noticed that, you know, applying this natural food diet to patients had an amazing impact on their lives. These patients, I mean the patients I see are, they range from being in the ICU to barely out of the hospital. The hearts are beating at 10%.

They've had bypass, they've had stents, they have devices. And so these were the patients I was managing. So I remember in particular one lady who had an injection factor of 10%.

The heart and marmor should beat about 55 or 60%, hers beating at 10%. She had had four vessel bypass, three stents since the bypass. She was a diabetic, she had arthritis, in a wheelchair, on oxygen.

When her husband wheeled her into my office, she was on 21 medications. I looked at the medication list and I thought to myself, well, my goodness, you know, am I going to add medication number 22, 23, 24?

And so I asked them one question, said, do you have a juicer? And they said yes. I said, great, here's what we're going to do. And I started writing out these juicing recipes.

So don't eat for the next 10 days, do this raw juice detox. And I would call her and check on her and we adjust medication on the phone. But she came back in 10 days. Walking, talking, no oxygen, feeling great.

This is just 10 days now. I work in the world's largest medical center. I've been working in world's largest medical center for 25 years.

We have three heart transplant centers and walking distance. There's few places in the world that has a technology equal to or greater than what we have here.

So I've seen the best that medicine has to offer, the greatest that medicine has to offer from the traditional standpoint. So, and my center is just four miles south of that. I refer to them as Goliath and we're David.

And so for me to have the impact on these patients lives who had gone through everything that the world's largest medical center had to offer was very impressionable.

Not only that, over the years I've had a number of patients who were too sick to get bypass surgery, too sick to get interventional cardiology procedures. I've had in those patients, we've Been able to turn around in the hospital with detox, some patients for hospice.

With heart faith, we turn around with detox. You know, as John McDougall says, it's the food, the food, it starts with the nutrition and the body has to cleanse and heal first and foremost.

And, and this is something that we learned, you know, over two decades ago.

Do you know how many copies has Diet for New America sold? Is it like over 2 million?

Yeah, 30 something languages and.

Yeah, that, that it is phenomenal. I mean, that you really, that book launched the modern health, health food movement. I mean it literally did.

I mean it was like the linchpin of the zeitgeist that made this all happen. Because I think you for the first time connected all the dots as far as, well, this is the best way to eat for health and the environment.

And if you really want to be compassionate for the animals. I mean it was such a, such.

A piece and to address world hunger issues. I mean, I made a decision for my conscience and for my. I didn't know why I was on earth. I wanted to find out why.

I knew it wasn't to make more ice cream and sell more ice cream. And this whole idea, the commercialism of our culture that's taken over and made people feel.

I mean, it's, I think it's a disgrace how, how the inequality of wealth that we have, the degree of it. I mean, it's not, it's not right and it's not healthy and it's not good for anybody.

And the pursuit of wealth for its own sake and the measurement of who we are as people, that we feel bad about ourselves and ashamed if we, if we, if our income isn't to a certain level, I just find that degrading to us as human beings. Like when I sit down to a meal and say grace, take a moment just to relax and center and feel the gratitude I feel to have this food.

I'm also thinking about the farm workers.

I'm thinking about the guys that drove or the women that drove the trucks, the people that dug the wells, all the people whose labor, you know, on, on the, in the, in, in the process of food production made it possible. The, the companies that are risking their investments, the, the investing in healthy food.

But you know, there's some risk in that for them financially. Everyone's involved is making sacrifices and, and undertaking efforts. And I'm, I'm the, I'm the recipient of this food and I get to eat it.

Yeah, I paid for it, but I don't want to forget the people. You know, I don't know where our compassion is, but we better find it.

Yep. Well, I think you say in the book that our society needs to regain its soul.

Yeah. And we have this ethic of that the goal is unlimited consumption. I would love to see our goal be unlimited compassion.

You know, why don't we work to create a world where it's safe for people's hearts, safe for their love, safe for their. Their. Their. Their joy, safe for their. Their peace. You know, that. That's the world where I think the human spirit would most. Most thrive. And who knows what problems we could then solve.