So, welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. You know, most of us know someone who has suffered from cancer, whether it's a parent, a sibling, a spouse, or a friend.  Well, what if there was something you could do about it? Foods that you could prepare to help ward off dangerous cancers. So on today's episode, I'll be chatting with Leanna Werner-Gray, best-selling author of The Earth Diet and 10-Minute Recipes, in a brand new book. It's called Cancer Free with Food, and how the right foods can reduce your cancer risk. But I also want to talk about if you've got cancer, how the right foods can really make a difference. So, you're going to learn about Leanna's health journey, which foods to eat and which to avoid, because this is the Dr. Gundry podcast after all, and how you and your loved ones can start living healthier cancer-free lives today. So, Leanna, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Gundry. Well, we're so happy to have you here. Now, when you were 21 years old last year, I see. Thank you.  So tell me about that, and then I want you, as a segue, tell me what you thought caused that and what your medical journey was. So I grew up in Alice Springs, out back Australia, with a very indigenous-rich culture. So from age five, we were taught that the healthiest way for us to eat was to go out to our own backyard and to pull foods straight from the trees or the bush, because those were the most nutritious. So that was planted in my brain from a young age. Now when I left Alice Springs to go to Brisbane, to go to university, I was living on my own and to my own devices. So I started to indulge in junk foods and fast foods and processed foods really for the first time, and I became very quickly addicted to it. And I knew it was wrong, and I knew I was depriving my body of nutrition every single day. And so I started to notice all these health issues started to happen, but I ignored them because the impulse to eat sugar and fast foods was much stronger at the time.  I would eat pizza for lunch, KFC for dinner, McDonald's. Listeners, cover your ears, please. Oh. It's awful. Yeah. So then when I was 21, I ended up in hospital with the lump in my throat, which at first I just thought was a swollen gland. So I ignored it, and after two weeks it got bigger, it got worse. So my naturopath said, you need to go to the hospital and get this checked. So they did a biopsy, and when the results came back and they said, look, you have a 3.7 centimeter mass tumor in your lymphatic system. I went and researched what the lymphatic system was, and I learned that it's basically the body's sewerage system. And so I was like, wow, that makes sense. I put way too many toxins into my body that my body backfired and was like, you can't keep eating like this. So I knew that it was diet related. So my gut told me, this is diet related. So that's when I started my healing journey, and I wanted to get healthy once and for all. Okay. So people who are listening or watching are going to say, okay, you had a lump in your neck. It was probably just a swollen gland. You actually have a biopsy that said it was a lymphoma. Yes? Is that correct? I have a biopsy in my website that shows that I have a 3.7 centimeter tumor on the right side of my neck. I actually went and got three different diagnosis from different doctors. And they all said different things. One said I had stage one cancer, one said I had stage zero cancer, one said I had pre-cancerous. And so at that point, I gathered some information about the medical industry at the time and thought, this seems like hocus pocus, we are. And also they offered me a cervical cancer vaccination at the time. And I was like, how is this related? So that to me was enough for me to say, you know what, I'm going to opt out of this. And it wasn't stage four cancer. They weren't saying you need to go for chemo next week, you need to go for surgery next week. They were saying, look, we can do surgery and we can remove it if you want. And they've done surgery for a lot smaller lumps for sure. I also don't want to take away from people who have had stage four cancer or advanced cancer. Mine was very early and I was able to catch that very early. But it was enough for me to say, you know what, I don't want to just remove it. And that's something that the indigenous people also taught me was that if we have a sickness or like a tumor or a lump in our body, obviously tumors aren't meant to be anywhere in our body.  And I wanted to address the root cause once and for all because I knew I had to stop eating like that.  So I went and found a medical doctor who was helping people with vitamin C injections and helping people heal cancer naturally. And then I worked with a naturopath and I started juicing six times a day. So I drank six vegetable juices a day. And then every time I had a craving for junk food, I thought, OK, how can I fulfill this craving in the most natural way possible? So I got into the kitchen and I started making recipes. Ah, OK. And that's where these recipes evolved from. It was like, OK, I'm craving chicken nuggets. I'm craving chocolate. I'm craving candy. I'm craving pancakes, waffles, whatever it was I found a recipe that would nourish my body instead of poison it and make it worse. Now, were you were you brought up in a family that cooked? Yes. My father is a chef and my mom, my mom's also a really good cook. Yes. And I hadn't cooked before that. I was, you know, eating processed food for so many years. So when I got into the kitchen, I was amazed when I started putting ingredients together, just simple ingredients like to make a cookie dough, you know, like tiger nut flour or almond flour and some monk fruit sweetener now that I use my recipes have evolved since and they've become a lot healthier. So I was surprised when I was making these foods. I was like, wow, this is I can eat this chocolate brownie every single day and get magnesium from it and protein and it tastes good. And that was helping me not crave the bad stuff. Gotcha. So they didn't they didn't want to necessarily say, well, you have to have chemotherapy or you have to have radiation therapy or you have to have this cut out. Is I mean, did they propose any of those things to you? They weren't aggressive with me at all. And also, this was in Australia 10 years ago. I think Australia at that time was not as aggressive. But five years after that, my mom was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in both her breasts and they were very aggressive with her and said, you need to do surgery and chemo and radiation.  What what do you think will, you know, is the most empowering choice for you? And my mom said, honestly, I do want to do surgery because I feel like that cut it all out. I'll start fresh, then I won't have the cancer anymore. But she said, I just honestly can't do chemo radiation. I feel like if I do that, I'll put my body under too much pressure and stress and that will make my situation worse. So and then she also did a nutritional plan. So she started juicing as well, getting all that nutrition into her, lots of vitamin C. She also took vitamin D supplements as well. And that for the next six months after that, doctors kept calling her, pressuring her, like it's going to come back if you don't do chemo radiation. And my mom would call me in fear and be like, what should I do? And I said, well, what, you know, what do you feel? And she's like, I can't do it. So she never did it. And she's cancer free to this day. That's fantastic story. So you started doing all this. You changed your food. You fought the junk food temptations. When did you start noticing something changing? It took about a month for the tumor to like lose its, its, it felt very swollen and very hard. So it took about a month for me to feel like it was starting to dissolve. After three months, it was completely dissolved. Fantastic. But I made a lot of radical changes. Yeah.  What kind of keeps you on track now that thing's not there anymore? Well, I suffered every single day for five years eating junk food, even though I felt like that high for five or 10 minutes, eating all the sugar and the fast food. After that, I would crash and was absolutely miserable. So that was enough suffering to me. And I just remember like saying, God, if you can heal me from this addiction and these cravings and this tumor, like I'll be happy and grateful every single day of my life. I promise. And so I've not wanted to go, not wanted to go back to that at all. But also there's no desire impulse in me at all. When I see these foods, to me, they just look dead and there's no appeal. So I'm more excited about making these kinds of foods instead. I'm excited about making like a healthy cookie dough or healthy chicken tenders. All right. So your initial experience resulted in the earth diet, right? Yes. And so how how is this new book, you know, the cancer free with food different than the earth diet? Well, the earth diet started because I needed something at the time to hold me accountable to sticking to me, only eating natural foods. And at the time it started as a blog for 365 days, I said, I'm only going to eat foods that come straight from the earth as wholesome as possible for one year. And I want you, the world, my readers to hold me accountable. So after the blog, then my readers will like put this into a book. Can you put all of these recipes into a book? And I thought, ah, that's a great idea. So Hay House published my first earth diet book. And then after that, I wanted to make it more specific for people with cancer or people that have cancer in their family like myself. My both of my grandfathers also passed away from cancer. And so for people that are predisposed to it, I wanted to say here are some research that show which foods help us to reduce our risk of ever getting cancer.  So I wanted to do research just for that. And yeah, I love the cancer community and love helping people with cancer because it's a it's a terrible disease and a terrible feeling.   So I, you know, I want to help people that are in that in that situation. So when you did the earth diet and you did this year long journey, did you didn't have to move back to the outback and eat native plant? I mean, you were doing this from from Brisbane, right? Exactly. The big city. Right. I wanted to find a way to make the natural indigenous lifestyle fit into our very fast-paced, busy, modern lifestyle. Yeah. And can you do it? Obviously you can. And you're going to teach us some of those things. So the new book is, you know, cancer free with food. So one of the most toxic foods that everyone should avoid. The most obvious one is sugar, white sugar and corn syrup. The body just doesn't know how to break that down. It's just way too much toxicity for the lymphatic system and the liver and the whole body. So that one's obvious one. Also a lot of preservatives like fillers, additives. I found a lot of research on those that have proven that those create toxins in the body, carcinogens, which lead to cancer. So obviously avoiding anything genetically engineered and and then also even microwave foods because that's considered a form of radiation. So I thought that was fascinating. And then also I found some studies that were linked to foods that have been sprayed with pesticides. So fruits and vegetables sprayed with pesticides is incredibly toxic and does increase your chances of getting cancer.  I just want to be able to go to the supermarket and buy fruit and vegetable. I know so do I. But if we're in this country, you know, in America, we have to buy organic produce or grow it ourselves because we are at risk of getting a lot of pesticide exposure. And then also farmed seafood was really toxic. I was surprised about how toxic farm seafood was. I didn't think it could be that awful. It's really bad.  And we're beginning to see actually tricks. I saw on a restaurant menu actually this past week that they were advertising Ocean Raised Seafood. And yeah, it's that. That's called farmed seafood.  And there was the word raised, caught my attention.  No, it's not. Yeah, they're smart with their marketing. That's something people need to be cautious of is the pocket might look natural or like, say, Ocean Raised Fish, but it's just marketing. Yeah, very true. OK, so a lot of my listeners know that I've been talking about the importance of vitamin D and off camera. We're talking about that. So what are your recommendations for people in terms of vitamin D? Well, I recommend getting blood work every 12 to 24 months and just checking your vitamin D levels. And if they're down, take supplements, but also go out and get sunshine and don't be afraid of the sun. I also do a lot of research on skin cancer. And there are legit studies that say that more cancer is caused from skin cancer and the carcinogens in skin cancer. Sorry, sunscreen and how toxic sunscreen is versus the sun. Very true. Yeah, there's that's part of my seven deadly disruptors. And sunscreen is right up there on carcinogens. And it's interesting, the University of California, San Diego, just kind of down the road from here, publish a number of papers on the effect of vitamin D and cancer. And they've found that most people with cancer have low vitamin D levels. And there's a very strong association in their opinion between low vitamin D and the development of cancer. And I've certainly seen that in my practice. In fact, shockingly, they think the average American should take 9600 international units of vitamin D three a day to have an adequate level. And in their published research, they have never seen vitamin D toxicity at up to 40,000 international units a day routinely.  And I see a number of my cancer patients who I run their vitamin D is 100 and 120 nanograms per milliliter. And their oncologists say, you're vitamin D toxic and get that down. And next time I see them, their vitamin D level is like 40. And I go, you know, what happened? I said, oh, my oncologist said, I'm killing myself with vitamin D. And I said, well, that's funny, you know, the data shows it just the opposite. Yeah, it's because they're trained in such old school things, same as nutritionists. It's all old school, we're still trained that we should be promoting corn and grains. And that's awful. Look at the health stats. So I personally take vitamin D supplements myself. And it's also something free that we can get straight from the sunshine, which I talk about in my book. Also, I talk about here are some free, like natural treatments that you can do if you have cancer or want to prevent cancer. And getting sunshine is one of them. Yeah, absolutely. All right, now for some controversy. You know, I tell my patients and readers to avoid foods like quinoa and whole tomatoes and that you have to detoxify the quinoa with a pressure cooker or you have to get rid of the lectins and tomatoes by peeling and de-seeding them. I actually like tomato sauce that comes from peeled and de-seeded tomatoes. And we actually have some recipes for that. But you recommend both of these things in your new book. How come? OK, disclaimer, all the fruits in this book, even though there might be anti-cancer, they have to be for the right person. Same as mushrooms. Mushrooms are great, but not for every person. Personally, I can't eat a lot of mushrooms. They just my body just doesn't like them that well, even though they're super healthy, natural food. So with tomatoes, the research I found with them is mostly because of their lager pain. Those studies showed that that helps, especially with prostate cancer and other cancers. So for some tomatoes work well, but also for others, it might cause inflammation. And then some people's doctors are telling them to stay away from nightshades. But the studies I found, I felt like tomatoes were really helpful and preventative and for healing cancer. So I included that. And then quinoa, there's a lot of studies that trace back to ancient civilizations that use quinoa as their fuel source. And that's something that they would eat to keep them energised for days. And it quinoa, it depends on where someone's at with their grains. So I wouldn't say to someone who's completely cut or grains, like go and add a grain into your diet. But for someone who eats a lot of breads or a lot of other processed grains, I would say try quinoa and fill up on that instead to help you cross that bridge so that you're not craving the worst types of grains. Yeah, you know, part of what I've done throughout my life is to study indigenous cultures and ancient cultures to figure out how they actually detoxified what appeared to me as a very toxic grain, for instance. And most people don't know, and I write about this, that the Incas actually had three detoxification processes before they would eat quinoa. They soaked it for 48 hours, then they allowed it to firm it. They let it rot, and then they cooked it. And it's not on the package direction. See, not a lot of people know this. I didn't know this. Yeah, that's why I write about this. This is awesome. For instance, last fall, I went to Sicily because Sicily is a heavily based tomato culture. Almost everything is tomato sauce based. And so I would go and interview chefs and even in small villages. And I said, you know, what do you think? Why do you guys eat so many tomatoes and how do you fix them? And everyone said, well, everyone knows you have to peel and de-seed tomatoes before you can make sauce. And I said, well, how do you know that?  Because, you know, my grandmother taught her. And I could not find a chef in Sicily that didn't tell me you had to peel and de-seed tomatoes before you could use them. In fact, I was lecturing in Toronto a couple of weeks ago getting interviewed by a reporter. And the reporter, I was talking, we were talking about tomatoes. And the reporter said, well, you know, I love it. The fact that you say you have to peel and de-seed tomatoes because everyone in Canada knows that the seed in a tomato is very acidic and toxic and you have to get rid of it. And everyone knows that. And so you start looking at cultures and say, isn't that interesting? In fact, the Italians didn't eat tomatoes for 200 years after Columbus brought them back. They're native sun because they knew how toxic they were. Oh, wow. Interesting. Well, and also what I learned from the Aboriginals is that you don't eat the seeds in any fruits or vegetables because if you do that, basically you're screwed. You won't have any more food. They had to eat the food and keep the seeds and replant them because they couldn't just grow the supermarket and buy seeds that didn't exist. So that was a way of keeping that cycle going. So it totally makes sense to me to remove seeds from all fruits and vegetables because we weren't designed to eat them. It's just not the design of nature or the human body. No, it's true. You know, when I was doing mission work in Brazil years ago as a surgeon and cashews started in South America and the Aboriginal South Americans would actually take the cashew nut off and throw it away because it was toxic. And they'd eat the fruit.  They'd go, don't touch that. You know, that's that's lethal. Just eat the fruit. So does this mean you might be coming to Alice Springs sometimes? I would love to come out there because I have not studied that that culture. Oh, that'd be awesome. I'm your girl. Can introduce you to them. All right. Very good. Dr. Gunry goes to the outback. That's right. Oh, that would be fun. I'm going to be looking out for you in the outback, folks. OK. OK, I always ask my guests because my new book, The Longevity Paradox, what's the one thing listeners can do today to help them live a longer, healthier life? Drink chlorophyll every single day. So that's my number one tip for everyone always. And that's something that I've continued to do now every single day for the last decade after I healed. I thought, why not consume chlorophyll every day? It just makes me feel so alive, so energized. It helps purify the blood, helps put oxygen into the blood and chlorophyll could be the form of eating a big green salad, leafy greens or a smoothie or a juice or even chlorophyll droppers or a greens powder, which I use also that has it's a dried broccoli sprouts, collard greens, kale, spirulina, and I just mix that into water. OK, but make sure editorial note that your greens powder doesn't have wheat grass or barley grass. Evil stuff. OK, so what are your top three cancer fighting foods? You brought us some. And for those of you who are listening to the podcast, we're going to try our best to describe them for you and to make a munching noises that aren't too gross. OK, so what do you got? OK, so I made a few different dishes today. So do you want to start with the dessert? I always go straight for the dessert. Life's too short. Eat dessert first. Is that what you're saying? OK, OK, so I made two different desserts. So first of all, these are chocolate coconut cups. So this is a great replacement for someone's craving the Reese's or chocolate peanut butter cups. So this is something I also ate a lot of during my healing. Yeah. OK, so it's made with real cacao powder, real cacao butter and also some coconut mana inside. So that makes it nice and creamy. And then when you bite into it, you get that coconut mana buttery inside and it sweetened with monk fruit. So this would be kind of like, you know, Easter was a little bit ago. This could be a Cadbury egg replacement. Totally, yes. But also, would you like to try one? Yeah. So one of the studies I found is that cacao is actually does have anti-tumor activities. And it's a functional fruit, which I was so happy about. And so would all your chocolate lovers be happy to hear that it's a chocolateous medicine. Oh, gosh, yes. Has huge amounts of polyphenols.  We want everyone in ketosis. And so coconut has MCT oil, which will get you into ketosis pretty easily. But yeah, that's that's delicious. I like it. Uh-huh. OK. OK, I'm going to put that down. OK. So then I use these for the chocolate chunks in the cookie dough recipe. Ah, OK.  Big fan of. I've actually been writing about it for years and we have it in our recipes and people go tiger nuts.  Yeah, people are they are not. Well, no, they are root vegetable. Correct. Same amount of iron as red meat. So these are excellent. You're getting a lot of iron from eating cookies. Yeah, so tiger nut flour sweetened with monk fruit as well. I put a bit of sea salt in there. Now almost looks like you have two kinds. Yeah, so I rolled these ones in cacao powder. Ah, OK. So I just love that richness of the cacao powder and then bite into it and you get that soft, moist, sweet cookie dough inside. And then with the chocolate coconut chunks. Delish. Now these so these are raw. These are raw, no bake. And these are a legit five minute recipe. Now you just saw everything into a bowl and it's done. Now you can bake them for seven minutes in the oven. Ah, OK. If you want a hot melt in your mouth, chocolate chip cookie. So this is actually OK for me. This is a great replacement, a great upgrade, actually nutrient rich cookie dough.  And I think that's what we have to do. One of my very good friends, Jimmy Schmidt, who's won three James Beard Award, saying there is no way we are going to stop people from eating the textures and flavors that they crave. Exactly. And we basically have to convince them that they can get all those flavorances and textures using things that will make them healthy. Yes. And that's what I aimed for my books to do because I came from that place of being a junk food addict and now being a health and nutrition coach for the past decade. If you tell someone who's addicted, like you can never eat this again. You can never have cookies, chocolate bread. They're like, OK, bye. See you. No, that's exactly right. You know, and all of our books and the new one, the Plant Paradox Family Cook book will be out this fall.  Chicken tender, yeah. So OK, so help me with this. How are we going to do that? So this is organic chicken. Very important that meat has to be organic. I coated this in macadamia nut milk, but people could also coat it in pastures eggs as well. And then the coating is tiger nut flour with turmeric and some black pepper and some sea salt. And then you can bake them or fry them. But guess what? Olive oil, I fried these in Dr. Gondry's. Which one? Dr. Gondry's Olive Oil. Oh, my gosh, the best there is. OK, I know you know, but tell our audience why the black pepper and turmeric together. Well, from the studies that I found that combining those two together, they have more powerful effects in the body. These are one of my favorite recipes sprinkled with broccoli sprouts. So I try and encourage everyone to sprinkle broccoli sprouts. And these are good cold as well. Yeah, they're cold right now. You can put them on a salad. Yeah, you can wrap them up in a coconut wrap. So we could take this for a tailgate party for game day and fool everybody? Yeah, exactly. So this is an immune-boosting turmeric black pepper tea. So this has lemon, ginger, turmeric, black pepper and some garlic. And some garlic. Yeah. So nice anti-inflammatory. OK. Very detoxifying. This is new, or did you have this during your treatment course? I didn't. I didn't really know about the turmeric at that time. I did a lot of ginger though. Every day I had ginger, a lot of ginger. Talking about preventing cancer naturally or treating cancer with food gets a lot of critics going. And particularly healthcare professionals and nutritionists.  How do you deal with that? Yeah, I mean, I'm very passionate about the subjects and it's a personal story for me. So when I was thinking of my next book with my publisher, I was like, well, what I'm really passionate about is helping people with cancer. And I was like, well, I'm not an MD. I'm not even a certified dietician. And I'm blonde and young. So that doesn't really help my case to be real. But I was like, you know what, I just wanna go for this. So I pitched it to my publisher and they were like, yes, we love it. This is meaty. This is good. You can do it. And at the time I had support from people in the industry that are helping a lot of people with cancer. So I felt more empowered and confident. And then I wrote the book, submitted it. And then I was like, oh, actually, I don't wanna do this. I changed my mind. Because the backlash is gonna be crazy. Every time I post something about cancer, I would get some really aggressive things.  Like just really hurtful things. Then I was like, you know what, I need to stop focusing on the critics and those people that are going to try and attack and focus on the people that I'm helping. Because when I think of them, the people that have cancer and that there have been many case studies. And I interview a lot of cancer survivors in the book and talk about specific foods for specific types of cancer. When I focus on that, that's what keeps me going. I think this actually works. And this isn't rocket science. Food is medicine. And this can work in conjunction with a treatment plan. So if someone can do chemo and also be healthy at the same time, there's no point doing chemo or surgery and eating a sloppy joe that the hospital gives you.  Yeah, I think that's a great point. There are numerous studies that show certain supplementation, getting your gut microbiome as healthy as possible will either prevent or at least minimize the effects of chemotherapy on your gut, on your digestion, on your brain fog. And you talk about that in the book. So at the very least, I mean, even in our cancer center in Palm Springs, there are graham crackers and saltines in the waiting room while you're waiting to go get your chemo treatment. And the head of our center is actually a big fan of mine and follows my program. And I'm always picking on him and I say, you know, what are you doing? And he says, well, they want that. And, you know, we're in business and, you know, they're not, they need this. So we just need them to have these kinds of options. Yeah. Yeah. Or have like a healthier cracker. Okay, well, so the critic will say, well, this is really expensive to do.  That's five minutes? Yeah, five minutes to throw it in, tiger nut, monk fruit, chocolate chunks, vanilla sea salt done. So this is very time effective, but also I realized that we can't put a price on our health. You know, if you want to stay living, we have to invest in food and maybe if we start investing more in organic foods, we'll spend less on other things that we don't really need. But also there's ways to shop more effectively. You know, I found a website that's like Amazon that you can buy all of these ingredients like tiger nut flour that's much cheaper than if you were to go to a health food store. So, you know, I'm all about supporting local health food stores for sure. But if you're on a budget, you know, shop online and get these things at a discounted price. Okay, so for those of tiger nuts, I want to talk about tiger nuts. For those of you who are listening, these tiger nuts that I have in my hand look like little almost dried berries, but they're actually a tuber and they're not a nut. They actually support indigenous Africans and having just come back from Ethiopia where 85% of the population of 110 million people are subsistence farmers. You actually, by eating these, give support to people who really need it. But these guys actually are tubers. They feed good gut bugs. They're one of the best foods for feeding gut buddies. And these are hard as a rock in this form. And maybe I can click them. So, having personal experience over the number of years do not try to eat these things just like this. They are potentially tooth breaking. So how do we use them? How do we find them? Yeah, so they can be shocking to someone who just tries to eat them like this. So I would recommend getting the peeled tiger nuts and you can also get sliced tiger nuts also. But if you do get the whole tiger nuts, I'll soak them overnight and then you can eat them. Now they're nice and soft. They're also great for a breakfast. But then also you can just buy the tiger nut flour. Or you can grind these up yourself in a food processor and make your own tiger nut flour. The one that I use, and Dr. Gandhi uses I believe is organic, Gemini. And you can get that. Well, I shop at vitacost.com. So. Good spot, good spot. So you can get it from there. Just type in tiger nuts and it'll come up. I also have a code if I can say that. You sure can. It's earth diet.  So vitacost.com, type in tiger nuts and then put the code earth diet when you check out. That helps people who are really tight for money because I don't want people to have money hold them back from living a healthy life. Yeah, and if we, like you say, if we spent our money on food, we wouldn't have to spend our money on treatments like people have to go through. Exactly. And people feel more alive, have more energy and then they can do other more creative things that bring in more money. So it's like a whole cycle. And fun fact, if you get the sliced ones, you can actually use them like slivered almonds. And they make a very attractive addition to a salad. Yes, and also a dessert too. You can roll the cookie dough in the sliced tiger nuts. Oh yeah. They look beautiful and fancy. But my favorite way to use tiger nuts, I would have to say overall number one is making a tiger nut milk. So I'll do one cup of tiger nuts and the recipes in the book. One cup of tiger nuts to four cups of water and that's it, blend it up and it comes out white and creamy and delicious. So since tiger nuts are naturally sweet, just like a sweet potato is, there's no need to add any extra sweetness.  And some amazing studies I found on tiger nuts is that when we consume more tiger nuts, it helps detox our liver and also protect our liver. So I include these studies in the book. I actually list tiger nuts as the number 10 top anti-cancer food in the book. So if someone is going through chemo, it would be really helpful if they're drinking tiger nut milk every day to help their liver. So ditch the cashew milk, ditch the oat milk. We're going on a tiger nut milk craze. All right, very good, finally. These guys need recognition. Okay, so where do we find cancer-free with food? So you can find it at Amazon, also Banzan Noble or any bookstore will also have it. It's a best seller, number one oncology on Amazon. It's a top 100 on Banzan Noble and also a top 100 on Amazon overall as well. So yeah, please get the book, enjoy it and then share it with anyone that you know who has cancer or anyone who wants to prevent cancer. Well, thanks so much for joining us and thank you for the great healthy food. See, you can have junk food that actually heals you rather than kills you. All right, so that's it for today. I'm Dr. Gundry and we'll see you next week. 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 because I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you.


Fforydd ddiddordeb. Fforydd ddiddordeb yn ystafell 23 diwrnod y Baeth Cymru. Mae Cymru ymwyfyr ar y Cyntafol Llyfridog yn 2023.   Kate, can you start with you? I don't believe that I have any relevant interest to declare. Alexander? I have none other, but I'm delighted to return to this committee. I sat one of those for years in the past session, so I look forward to it. Thank you very much. I'm not aware of any direct interest, although I should, in the interests of transparency, say that my partner is the Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development. Thank you very much. Our second agenda item is the decision on taking business in private. Can we take agenda item 4 in private? Thank you very much. Our next agenda item, I can just point out that we're joined in a hybrid meeting. Our deputy convener, Donald Cameron, is joining us remotely, so, hopefully, we'll be able to manage questions and interactions on that basis. Thank you once again to the Office of the Internal Market. We have Murdo MacLennan, chair of the Office of the Internal Market, and Rachel Merrily, senior director of the Office of the Internal Market, and a warm welcome to committee. I wonder if I could open questions with just... What? My apologies. Can we have an opening statement from you? Good morning, deputy convener and committee members. For those who don't know me, I'm the panel chair, Murdo MacLennan, panel chair of the OIM. Rachel Merrily is the senior director of the Office of the Internal Market. Rachel, I really welcomed the opportunity to meet with you this morning and to update the committee on the recent work of the OIM and with the committee's permission. I just want to briefly set out some key points. It's only a couple of minutes, but it's a helpful background. As the committee is aware, the OIM launched in September 2021. Our role is to assist Governments, legislatures and other key stakeholders across the UK in understanding how effectively business can trade their products and services across the four nations and the impact of the regulatory provisions on this. Our advice and reports are non-binding. The OIM is not the regulator of the internal market and, unlike other parts of the CMA, we have no enforcement role here at all. The OIM also works even handedly in relation to all four Governments. It's also about mentioning that the Northern Ireland protocol matters are really outside our scope of the functions under the UKM Act. Since our last evidence session before this committee, which was in January 2022, the OIM has achieved several milestones. We published our first monitoring reports on the operation of the UK internal market and the effectiveness of the UK internal market regime. The reports are the first of their kind on the UK internal market. We've also published our intra-UK trade data strategy roadmap, which looks to promote the collection and publication of intra-UK trade data. I'll come back to this again and again in the meeting that I made because we're trying to build up as strong a database as we possibly can to make not our job easier but to make it more relevant to the Governments. We continue to have excellent engagement with businesses and other stakeholders in Scotland, including Scottish Government officials, and just to register, convener, if I may, our sincere gratitude to the amount of work that they put into that, too. They've been very, very helpful. The OIM has developed open, equal working relationships across the four nations, and we welcome our on-going engagement with and invitation from this committee to appear today. I hope that's helpful as a sort of intro. We're very happy to answer any questions, and then I'll be coming back and asking for some help and support, if I may. Thank you very much. That was indeed helpful, and I'm sure that it's a scene for our deliberations today. I wonder if I could open with a question that has been an area of concern raised by this committee, as a scrutiny committee of the Scottish Parliament in terms of the transparency around the common frameworks as they tend to be done at officer to officer level. It's difficult to scrutinise the development of common frameworks and to understand exactly what negotiations have taken place. We'd be interested to know if you're aware of those concerns that I know were shared across some of the other legislatures. To understand, I believe that you issue a questionnaire asking about whether exclusions from the market access principles have been requested or granted, and I was wondering if there was an intention to publish that data to make it available to the parliaments. Shall I pick that one up? Thank you very much, and I also welcome the opportunity to be in front of the committee today. I mean, common frameworks, first of all, to take a step back, I suppose. We recognise that they're a really important way in which regulatory divergence or, indeed, regulatory alignment between the four nations can be managed. But we're very open to supporting the process so far as our statutory duties allow. I think in our periodic report, we flagged up the question of transparency, as you rightly say. We found when we were gathering evidence at our roundtables that a lot of people were not aware, particularly on the business and trade association side, people were not necessarily aware of the common frameworks that they were. They didn't really have a lot of information about what those common frameworks, what the discussions were about and what the key issues were that were under consideration. So we'd certainly support your suggestion that there should be greater transparency. Obviously, it's not for us. It's not our process. That's something for the governments to think about. But we certainly support the idea that there should be greater transparency. There's something that's really important in our work in general. There's always a trade-off between transparency and confidentiality that needs to be taken seriously. As the CMA, we're very used to carrying out that balancing act. But our default is to be transparent. It's something that we feel strongly about because we think that that way we get the best inputs and we get the best evidence, which, as Murdoch said, is something that's really important to us. In terms of the publication of some of that data, is it an indication that you might actually publish the request or some data around the number of requests? You're talking about exclusion requests. Yes. Those are not really for us to do. The exclusion requests are things that come through the common frameworks process and are managed by the governments. Obviously, when we do our periodic, our statutory reporting, we're interested to understand how well common frameworks are working and, as you've seen in our last report, we have published the information that we've gathered across the four Governments and, as I say, from a range of different stakeholders about how that's happening. Thank you very much. I'll move to questions from the committee. Any kind of advice for Mr Bibby? Thank you, convener. Good morning to the panel. The report repeatedly mentions issues with businesses not understanding or appreciating that regulatory divergence could occur across the UK. Is there or could there be more work done to educate businesses and those likely to be affected on that possibility? That's a very good point. Certainly more can be done. I think that if you're in business, you don't really worry about anything. If you're trading effectively across the four nations, then why does no problem? So don't get concerned. For the future, yes, it's important that they understand. I think that the trade associations and the contact that we've had with them has been very effective. They get it and some of the larger companies get it. Basically at the moment, that's very early days for the OIM. But as they don't have any problems really trading across the four nations, they don't show a great deal of interest in that particular point. As time moves on, it's a certainty. That's one of the things we'd appreciate your maybe helping guidance about how to get in contact with the business world on a broader base. We have plenty of engagement at the moment, but it's never enough. That's probably one of the most important aspects of that at the moment. We're working on it. Thanks for the work that you are doing on it. I know what you've said about the engagement that you are carrying out with Scottish Business. Are you concerned, after three years of the UK Internal Market Act, that there is still a lack of understanding? If you're in business, you're too busy trying to trade effectively, part of our job is to make sure that companies across the four nations can trade effectively unencumbered for the benefit, not just of their businesses, but the benefit of consumers and to keep competition going. It's just early days. It's not a problem at the moment. Do you think that the primary reason is that companies have been operating on the basis of a single market across the EU and they're assuming that the UK Internal Market is operating with the same standards across the UK? Do you think that that's the primary reason why there's a lack of understanding about it? It's just that assumption. It's not so much the assumption, it's just the basic trading. If you don't have any barriers to trade, then you're not bothered. That's it. Maybe I can just interject for a moment because of course we gathered quite a lot of evidence from businesses as part of our statutory reporting. As Murdoch says, the vast majority have no issues trading across the UK. I think we said something like 15% trade across the nations and then of those only less than 10% flagged up issues with differing regulations. Murdoch's absolutely right that the vast majority can trade seamlessly. A lot of businesses I don't think even think about the fact that they're trading cross-border. They have no particular reason to do so. I think it's something that will become more evident as time goes on and obviously there hasn't been a huge amount of regulatory divergence either since post-transition but as that builds, if it does, then that is something that they will need to be more aware of. Thank you. Can I bring in Alexander? Can I just have a supplementary on Mr Bibby? You've talked about data and I think that data is vitally important here. Trade associations and federations may collect that for their own sectors. How well do you manage with that because, as I say, some sectors are very proactive in ensuring that they have the data for their own sector but others do not seem to have that robustness and it's trying to manage that so that there's a much better understanding because even as you identify in different parts of the country some federations and organisations are much more robust at putting that together. We use the data and volumes of entry UK trade as a priority indicator basically you're right assessing the effectiveness of the market but again, it's early days we put this as a major priority for us because that will improve our effectiveness. There is a resource for you for businesses for other stakeholders and that's the way we see ourselves operating very much on an even handed basis across the four nations. Can I bring in Mr Cameron? Thank you Thank you, convener Also a question on data and I'm very sorry not to be there in person I should add a preface my question with that I was very interested in your experience of finding data on intra-UK trade and in your report you said that the available data on intra-UK trade was limited with long lags and no data at all for England and you also mentioned inconsistencies in the way data is collected so I'd wondered what Governments can do to improve that or how anyone really including businesses can do to improve that and a more specific question about the data strategy roadmap and the Scottish Government's commitment to publishing single export statistics and whether we need more regular statistics on exports for Scotland than that which is currently promised I'm happy to pick that one up as Murdoch says this is a very important area for us and we believe that we can add value by bringing together the data and evidence that already exists and helping to improve that and as you refer to we published our data strategy roadmap alongside our statutory reporting in March we've been working very closely with the Office for National Statistics and the equivalent bodies across the nations so we've been bringing together the national pictures that do exist as was referred to though we do recognise that the data that we collect that has been collected so far isn't collected on an entirely consistent basis and the Office for National Statistics is trying to bring together the experts to first of all put forward a sort of experimental methodology for having more consistent data between the nations and then to populate that methodology so by the end of next year we hope we'll have better data across the nations it won't solve all the issues partly because we're relying to a large extent on survey data rather than customs data that is mandated so it's more of a voluntary process but we are trying to build in a number of different sources to get a more robust picture of trade across the nations because we do think that's very important Did you want to come in? I completely agree with Rachel at present there are significant limitations on the entry UK data that you pointed out between the nations the development of the entry UK trade data is absolutely vital for us so the strategy roadmap that we've produced sets out the initiative by partners including the Scottish Government the ONS that can improve the collective understanding here so the purpose of that is to act as a catalyst for the improvement on this evidence base and it's really building that up it's going to be very helpful for you and all of us Thank you Mr Cameron Did you want to come in again? The only, I mean the question on export statistics Scottish export statistics I wonder if we need to try and achieve more regular publishing of that if that's feasible I don't know if that's feasible but you may have an observation on that or not I'm not sure I mean anything that can be done to improve the data is certainly to be welcomed Thank you Thank you I'm wondering to what extent you still have an eye on the European Union because arguably European Union is the world's most successful single market which manages a degree of regulatory divergence between member states within that market do you still look across to Europe to see how good practice is developed, how businesses are managing regulatory divergence within sectors and what can we learn from that? Yes, I'm happy to pick that up I think there are things that we can possibly learn from a number of different single markets the European Union clearly being an important one we also I think had a brief look at Australia, Canada, Spain and a number of different federal organisations nations I think the internal market within the UK does have some specific characteristics and we started from a position where we were pretty unified and that does play into the way in which the internal market operates so certainly it's very it's of relevance and anything that anybody would like to flag up that we can learn about how that is relevant to the operation of the internal market we're very open to so I think it's a good question and something that we are we do keep an eye on but probably no more than an eye because I think the relevance we have to be we have to think carefully about the relevance of lessons there for the UK When you're working with businesses I mean other particular scales or types of businesses that are more integrated within that European market who perhaps have got more experience of working within different territory set-ups I was just thinking about it because you mentioned in your report about deposit return schemes and we've got different DRS schemes operating across member states in Europe I guess some companies will be supplying to any one scheme some will be working across the continents that are engaging in different models so I'm interested in what business sectors are particularly adept at working within that larger kind of internal market which are perhaps got concerns around divergence if they're working to one particular market but not others It's a really interesting question and we I suppose that what we've prioritised so far are the sectors in which we've seen the most potential for divergence within the UK but I think quite often they will also be sectors that have experience of trading across the EU there's no doubt so I think we flagged up in our report that the environment food and drink agriculture a couple of others are really important areas to us and certainly talking about something like the deposit return scheme we would want to learn to the extent that we get involved in any work on the deposit return scheme we'd certainly want to learn lessons about how that operates in other countries I was thinking about how we would have been used on that basis but the deposit return scheme or in fact any other a new item of business that comes up before you consider putting something into legislation it's worthwhile asking the OIM this is a sales pitch really for the technical advice the paid report that we produced that's the only report so far that we produced gives a very good indication of the quality of work from economists from on the legal side as well so the technical support that's offered there is considerable so I would implore people to think about that as a as a resource an important resource to look for information to the committee and to the government the great thing is at the end of the day you don't have to take the advice but the technical advice is there to be used that's the best way of looking at the OIM does that advice then get fed into the common frameworks process are there particular issues around single-use plastics or anything else would you offer that advice or have you been asked so the people who would come to us asking for advice would be one of the governments and it's of course for them to work out how to use the advice that we offer but it certainly could be fed through into the common frameworks discussions it certainly would make sense for that to be the case that's the important part just back to the question of transparency that would be helpful in that sense I suppose the last question is just about the value of having divergence in different markets is that something that comes through at all in the evidence that you get from businesses is it just seen as a barrier or is it about saying well actually there's maybe a different market for this product in this particular area is there value in that kind of diversity within markets or is it just seen as a well it's all a bit of a pain having different markets operating in different places I think it's really important to recognise that divergence can be both a benefit and have some downsides clearly businesses want to be able to trade seamlessly across the UK and that's some of the issues that we look at innovation for example and I think we pulled out a couple of examples of that in our report the trialling of the charge on carrier bags in Wales the smoking ban in Scotland so there are things that I think can usefully be trialled in individual nations as part of a sort of innovative process and then taken on board more widely okay thank you very much miss Forbes Mr McLean mentioned in response to Neil Bibby the fact that most businesses don't think of trade barriers when they are trading quite freely I suppose reflecting on the last few years there has been a huge amount of upheaval which may have more commonly than in other times pushed businesses into new markets so for example whether that's rising costs Covid or indeed trade barriers associated with Brexit might have encouraged Scottish-based businesses to trade more within the UK having been trading within the EU and vice versa I can think of one business in my constituency that used to trade primarily in the UK that now trades in Europe and I can think of one that has done the opposite so in that sense you've obviously taken a lot of qualitative evidence from businesses and come across that a lot where businesses are having to adjust to operating within the UK that might have been trading more frequently in Europe and having to deal with some of the challenges that that brings across the UK it's a really interesting question actually and I don't think we have had a lot of evidence to that effect but would be really interested to hear from businesses who were adjusting to trading within the UK but I do take your point one thing that we did hear from businesses or certainly through the independent research that we commissioned as part of our statutory reporting we heard that businesses were more accustomed now to dealing with regulatory change obviously with the position with the EU they had increased their agility I think it would probably be the way they would have looked at it and therefore if they encountered issues within the internal market they felt that they were better equipped I think that was certainly true of larger businesses I think smaller businesses perhaps have more challenges in that respect okay and my second point was around again this notion of raising awareness you mentioned that the issues on which you received the most submissions are probably the issues that have been most widely in the press and whether the fear perhaps that's created by some of the press creates more concern amongst businesses that may actually be reflected by the genuine trade barriers that exist thinking of anything in particular? I suppose that your reports obviously considered five areas glue traps, food and drink, genetic technology single use plastics to positive return scheme, all of which are perhaps more in the press than other issues you are one of the major stakeholders so you would bring that to our attention and ask us for advice on that we don't react to the press so it's the unit on the OIM is technical support but at very high quality support in that sense and if you raised it with us and asked us to investigate it then we would look at that and take it very seriously My question was more about the quality of evidence that you've taken from businesses in terms of what they've expressed to you you know do concerns largely get raised on issues that are a focal point in the media or are they largely because of direct experience that businesses have had? Well my experience of business it's more the effect on the company I would be running than the media certainly from my experience I wouldn't pay too much attention to that It does I suppose raise awareness in a way that you are saying needs to be done in your earlier comment Yes it does in the sense that when I was saying we were looking for further assistance on the data collection side that's true I wonder if I could just ask a supplementary on Ms Forbes question with around the issue of businesses that have been agile and pivoted we're also unfortunately aware of a number of businesses that have ceased trading as a result of this and I wonder on the right data on the number of businesses in particular sectors or the size of the trading in those particular sectors to try to understand if businesses are just ceasing to trade at all as a result of post-Brexit relations? It's a good question going back to the question of what trade data we can collect at the moment at a national level it's been tricky to get data by sector or by region at the moment but we're working to get more granular data and that's part of the kind of road map that we've set out Thank you Mr Brown Thank you very much I'm new to this I have to say but just listening to it and also to your point that started off with a more unified situation I suppose the implication of which is that we're about to become less unified or experience more diversity or divergence and it does seem a little bit absurd if you've started off in a single market and now you're going to what even by its name appears to be a much more insular approach of an internal market if it's been a single market previously surely the benefits were there in the first place and do we need to have bureaucratic superstructures that are regulating or seeking to monitor a situation where we had a single market before it just seems odd that we'd have to do that If everyone was trading effectively and there were no issues across the four nations then yes, there's no need but as I think you'd understand there could be some serious divergence going forward into the future and we are there as a back to the business of being a technical support not making decisions on that rest entirely with Government Just on that I'm trying to be helpful here you've mentioned suggestions about meaningful data and so on one way that you could perhaps build that whether it's at your own hand or through others is through an examination of the approved lists of public bodies so contractors are successfully placed on the approved list of public bodies information which is probably more easier to gain than elsewhere and the purpose of that would be of course to say that if innovation and efficiency are rewarded then you would see huge numbers of Scottish companies servicing Welsh local authorities or English serving Northern Ireland and that might give you a better indication especially how it develops over time as to whether the internal market is working more efficiently so I wonder if it's possible to either see yourselves maybe O&S to get that kind of data and to monitor it over time whether it's through or otherwise That's really interesting I'm not aware that we've looked at that today but we'll certainly take that away and think about it, thank you Okay, one last point and this is counter to the last point you just made but that's the way that I think of these things there's also a fairly developed movement of, I forget the term of it it's not quite a circular economy but it's seeking it's a north of England area and it's spent by public bodies it's spent in a local area, recycled if you like and I don't know whether that would be termed as divergence or not but is that something that you've either come across or you would take into account in these figures because there is quite a strong movement across having moved from CCT decades ago to best value and now to a more liberal regime more recently in the last 10 years to say that local authorities can place a contract with somebody who's not given them a cheapest price but there are wider benefits from placing it with that company I suppose that kind of works against the idea of an internal market, is it just to see if it's come across your radar yet or not No, not really our focus is very much on regulatory divergence or alignment rather than in terms of the money spent so I suppose it's quite maybe one answer to that but no, it's something that we haven't done so far I think that you're right, it probably wouldn't come under divergence but it certainly would come under the efficient operation of an internal market In the report you talk about the actions of Governments across the nations when it comes to food that may be high in fat sugar and salt content and the future divergence may come from that that may well create some real difficulties going forward because for certain businesses and for certain manufacturing or supply bases they may then have to deal with different processes across different locations How do you see that going forward as a possibility or is it a real issue that is going to become much more apparent as time progresses It's a good question and it is an area that we're interested in looking at more closely I think that we as you say, there is scope for divergence between the nations about the way in which promotions or labelling or other things take place so it is something that we're monitoring quite carefully I don't know, did you want to come in on that? From that I think that the possibilities of having different locations and different things happening may well become a real issue for the market and for the supply and also for the consumer depending on what they wish to take and how they wish to plan that I'll be interesting to see what data you may well create from that from the future Yes, it's certainly something we may well return to in our next report I'm looking out to see any other hands going up I wonder if I could have a final question and we've just been discussing our committee this morning about the EU tracker and the ambition of the Scottish Government the Welsh Government to keep pace with European legislation and the requirement on Northern Ireland to do so anyway and I just wondered if it's something you are considering or something it would be possible to actually look at the trends as to where the internal market act and divergence is happening if you see a pattern in health or environmental issues or indeed in product development or in the food and drinks industry and is that something that you would be hoped to be able to report on in the future? It's certainly the idea that we track or we identify trends that are where there's more divergence that's what we start to pull out in our statutory reporting already and we'll get more information on that as time develops so it's certainly something we're interested in it's not necessarily divergence from the EU but that may well then have an impact on the UK internal market so to that extent we'll certainly be picking up those trends over time Any final questions? Mr Brown Donald Cameron raised about the figures which are there for in that example of Scottish exports I think you'll find there are huge numbers of very key figures in the economy which really rely on pretty will be survey data and that's true across the UK and I think in Scotland's case we often have to rely on DFT or whatever they're called and HMRC for some of the figures but Donald Cameron's point is true the figures are very woolly which seems really surprising for a so-called advanced economy in the 21st century but is it part of your intention to see if you can start to not just in Scotland obviously but across the UK start to nail down those figures? Yes absolutely I mean that's the conversations that we're having with the various expert statistical bodies across the UK to try to get to improve our collection so yes absolutely I think that's exhausted conversations from the committee this morning can I thank you once again for your attendance at the committee it's been really helpful and no doubt we'll be seeing you at some point in the future again and on that note we'll go into private session absolutely yes absolutely Just a small point because we continue to engage and if the committee have any ideas of other stakeholders that we could talk to I mean we've been involved with the Institute of Directors Food and Drink Federation Federation of Small Businesses Law Society the National Farmers Union so that engagement's a key part of our work but you're closer to it The Senate very kindly pointed us in the direction of the royal wealth show to engage with their businesses in that fashion so anything you can think of would be helpful but just to say again we are a resource to be used and it's not saying it you'll be silly not to use it when you're putting things into into law and even after you've done that and at the end of the day the committee doesn't have to take the advice of the OIM but it's there to be used if needed That's extremely helpful we'll put our collective heads together in terms of what this committee might do but also we have a conveners group for all the subject committees all the conveners of the Parliament that our report to them might be helpful to engage with the subject committees who generally will do much more in-depth analysis of their sectors and what might happen than the constitution committee in itself so we'll take that on board and we'll feed back to you


Bridges of Hope spends all of its resources helping others, but last weekend the organization received help from the community. Reporter Anthony Scott takes us to Niswa for this week's Northwood's adventure. And they're off, raising money for Bridges of Hope while getting some good exercise at the Run For Hope. Today was the Run For Hope, which is a fundraising, fun run to support Bridges of Hope. There truly was something for everyone and the funds from the event support Bridges of Hope, a non-profit organization that helps families and communities across Crow Wing County. Bridges of Hope is a good organization and we support it as a family, so it's good to get some exercise too early in the morning. Bridges of Hope also partnered with the Niswa Chamber and the Run For Hope kicked off this year's fall fest in Niswa. I think it's a great way to get people in town and kick off the event. They can run, then go have pancakes and then hang out and join some barbecue, do some of the kids' activities and just kind of spend the day in Niswa. And if you were fast enough to finish in the top three in either the five or 10k, you were rewarded with the sweetest taste of victory you could imagine.  So these pies were just baked yesterday. I've never won a pie in a race, so it's been pretty unique. I do have small kids that will enjoy the pie. This year's Run For Hope grew by over 50 people and the organization wants to see it continue to grow. We are really excited that it grew and there is definitely room for more. So if people are looking for something to do in the fall, we're here. I would say that it was well organized, well organized, everything from the course layout to the refreshments at the end of it and just in general it's a good cause to support. And if you weren't fast enough to win a pie, you could still enjoy the barbecue after the run at Niswa's Fall Fest. Reporting from Niswa for this week's Northwood's Adventure, Anthony Scott, Lakeland News. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.