Ep 15: Dr. Mark Hyman on What Kids Should Eat
Boston Public Schools is overseeing a massive transformation of its school food program - away from pre-packaged, processed meals, prepared outside of schools, to whole, real, delicious meals, cooked on-site by BPS employees. Collaboratively, the City of Boston and the BPS have worked together to build or improve kitchens in all schools, and shift menu planning, procurement, hiring, training and logistics operations to support a system that values great tasting, nutrition rich menus that put kids in the driver’s seat.
This program - called My Way Cafe - is a game-changer, leading the way as an example of how school systems, including systems that rely entirely on a USDA subsidy to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner to all children (in Boston’s case, 24,000 students in 125 schools) can transition programs that rely on manufactured and processed food products to thriving programs that serve densely nutritious and delicious meals that kids love, and which help fortify students and keep them in a “ready to learn” state.
Today we talk with Dr. Mark Hyman, founder and director of The UltraWellness Center and a twelve-time New York Times best-selling author. Dr. Hyman has devoted his career to helping others achieve a happy and healthy lifestyle through the usage of real food and has been nationally recognized and acclaimed for his work.
The Head of Strategy and Innovation for Functional Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Hyman has pushed for legislation and advocated for changing the food system on a national scale. Having testified in front of the Senate Working Group on Health Care Reform on Functional Medicine, he has also presented for the Clinton Foundation’s Health Matters conference and the Clinton Global Initiative, the World Economic Forum on global health, TEDx, and more. In 2015, with the help of Tim Ryan, Dr. Hyman helped introduce the ENRICH act to Congress for funding nutrition in medical education.
In this episode, we talk to Dr. Hyman about provocative data from research currently being done in food and nutrition, and what both unhealthy and healthy meals mean for our youth, including impacting academic performance, and physical and behavioral health. We also press him to help us define what “good food” is - and isn’t.
Dr. Hyman’s brand new work, Food Fix: How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities, and Our Planet--One Bite at a Time, will be on sale starting February 25, 2020 and can be pre-ordered now.