December 2, 2017
Click here for the full written transcript of this podcast episode.
Ever since a high school biology teacher informed Daphne Miller that clover produces a hormone similar to human estrogen, she has been fascinated by how our external ecosystem is linked to our internal one. Miller is a practicing family physician, author and Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California San Francisco. For the past fifteen years, her leadership, advocacy, research and writing have focused on the connections between food production, ecology and health.
Her writings and profiles can be found in many publications including the Washington Post, the New York Times, Vogue, Orion Magazine, Yes! Magazine, Food and Wine, The Guardian UK and Harvard Medical Magazine and JAMA. She is the author of The Jungle Effect: The Healthiest Diets from Around the World, Why They Work and How to Make Them Work for You (HarperCollins 2008) and Farmacology: Total Health from the Ground Up (HarperCollins 2013). Farmacology appears in four languages and was the basis for the award-winning documentary In Search of Balance.
Miller is an internationally recognized speaker in the emerging field of planetary health and a leader in the Healthy Parks, Healthy People initiative, an effort spearheaded by the National Parks Service to build linkages between our medical system and our park system. Her 2009 Washington Post article “Take a Hike and Call Me in the Morning” is widely credited with introducing “park prescriptions,” a concept that is rapidly gaining traction across the United States.
In 2000, Miller founded WholefamilyMD, the first integrative primary care practice in San Francisco. She is a graduate of Brown University where she majored in medical anthropology. She received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed a residency and NIH-funded research fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. She was a Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Food Institute and a Bravewell Fellow at the University of Arizona Program in Integrative Medicine. She serves as an advisor and/or board member to a number of non-profits, including the Institute of the Golden Gate, Education Outside, Mandela Marketplace and the Edible Schoolyard Foundation and Prevention Institute.
Miller lives and gardens in Berkeley, California, where I visited her to record this fascinating podcast about her books The Jungle Effect: Healthiest Diets from Around the World–Why They Work and How to Make Them Work for You and Farmacology: Total Health from the Ground Up
During our discussion, you'll discover:
-How Daphne first discovered the jungle effect…[8:10]
-The meaning of a hot spot and a cold spot…[12:00]
-A fascinating example of an indigenous diet that leads to a health effect, including a Mexican Taramuhara diet affecting diabetes…[14:37]
-What do you do if you can't trace your ancestors to one specific indigenous diet…[19:40]
-Why Daphne sometimes has wine for breakfast…[26:22]
-What Daphne found about some ethnic food restaurants now using ingredient substitutions that cater to North American palates…[34:30]
-What first got Daphne thinking about the “soul of soil”…[44:20]
-What we can learn about the social behavior of humans from social behavior of chickens…[46:40]
-How Daphne learned about cancer management from a winery…[52:30]
-How dangerous microbes may actually be beneficial…[56:45]
-What a hydrosol is and why you can use it for “sustainable beauty”…[60:40]
-And much more!
Resources from this episode:
–The Facebook Live Version of this Podcast!
–Farmacology: Total Health from the Ground Up
-Hydrosols in Fruitland, Washington
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Do you have questions, thoughts or feedback for Daphne or me? Leave your comments below and one of us will reply!
Regarding Cool Spots vs Blue Zones, Buettner wrote in his 2005 National Geographic article that the term Blue Zones was coined by demographers. For Daphne to state that her “book came out before blue zones” (not true) and that Cool Spots was “maybe some sort of an inspiration who knows for that concept” gave me a chuckle.
The nicest thing would have been to say that it was a coincidence that she uses a similar topic and term to an article that was written three years earlier. Their books were both released in 2008. I imagine there was a mad dash.
Listen to your grandparents, simple effective but unfortunately not sexy which is why people don’t listen
Ben – When you were in Berkeley – you forgot – The Original “Farm to Table” restaurant – Chez Panisse and Alice Walters for 40 years … Alice is the author of fifteen books, including New York Times bestsellers The Art of Simple Food I & II and The Edible Schoolyard: A Universal Idea. http://www.chezpanisse.com/about/alice-waters/
www.70GoingOn100.com the Centenarian Diet,
Dude, lots of people talks about the different healthy diets around the world, but few of them talk about their relation with the enviroment in wich they take place. You have to take into account the season and the geographical location and adapt the diet. Sincerely, Dr. John Douillard is one the few pointing up the importance of this.
Anyway, greeat podcast mr greenfield