This episode of the Eat to Live podcast features Dr. Cara Fuhrman discussing her recent graduation from naturopathic medical school and her journey into becoming a licensed naturopathic doctor. She highlights her admiration for her father's unique approach to lifestyle medicine and shares the challenges she faced growing up in a household that prioritized nutrition and health. Cara talks about her experiences in medical school, her passion for battling breast cancer through diet and lifestyle, and offers practical tips for raising children with a focus on healthy eating. The conversation touches on the influences, challenges, and triumphs of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, aiming for longevity and quality of life, and the importance of making nutritious eating fun and accessible for kids.
Today on the Eat to Live podcast life is short. Right?
Totally. It's too short. I wanna travel when I'm 80. I wanna live till I'm a hundred. I want those extra years and I want them in happiness and health and just, and we were, I don't wanna say like weirdos. No, we were, we were absolutely weirdos. Everyone thought we were weirdos and I hated it.
And the food they served at the hospital was heartbreaking. Yeah. So that made me wanna do it
even more. And what are some tips you would give people to how to raise their kids making nutrition? A priority and something fun in their lives.
Dr. Cara Fuhrman, welcome to the OPE podcast. I'm so excited to have you. Thank you. It's so fun. We just get to hang out. I think people might be a little confused. Dr. Fuhrman, you have a new look. What do you mean a new look? People might think Dr. Fuhrman is, you know, dad.
Oh, you mean I'm not
a 72-year-old
man?
Yeah, so a little, a little different. Oh, okay. That's sort of new. Look. Well, yeah. Dr. Fuhrman Sr. Yeah. Is not here. Not here. So this is the new Dr. Fuhrman. So why don't you tell everyone why I'm calling you a doctor? Well, I just graduated from naturopathic medical school. Actually, when I say just, it's been a year, but I still feel.
It's like it's been pretty recent. 'cause school is such a long process. You're learning a lot. Yeah, and I just took my boards in February because my sister, who I'm staring at wedding, happened to fall on the August date of boards. So I had to take them a little bit longer, which prolonged my study time and prolonged my time of.
Being a student. So now I'm finally working in the field. It feels very good, very fresh. I am learning literally more than I did in five years of medical school in the last three months, really. So
yeah, there's nothing like clinical experience. Yeah. I know what you've been having a lot of fun with. So you're a licensed naturopathic doctor?
Correct. And you've been working alongside. Our dad, the other Dr. Ferman, my mentor, who doing kind of like a residency
program. Yeah, it's like a mini residency in naturopathic medicine. You can do a residency. Many people do because as we're talking about, you get the most experience in the clinical field.
So doing a residency with mentorship is the best way to learn, but you're not required to do it. So I decided to do an unofficial residency. With Papa Fuhrman.
Papa Fuhrman, which is honestly pretty different because I know there's a lot of people out there who look for doctors like dad, and he's just so unique.
Like do you, have you met anyone that really practices medicine the way he does?
No. I went to Naturopathic middle school. It was his idea because I wanted to learn more about nutrition botanical medicine, and more about what I wanted to practice, not necessarily everything they do in traditional medical school.
His idea. But he always says he's more naturopathic than the naturopaths because they also don't turn to a hundred percent lifestyle medicine. You don't think so? No. I think I was really surprised about that in school because our nutrition education was really lacking. It's a very biased, can I just ask a question there?
Nutrition education is lacking. I feel like you really disagreed with the nutrition education. I remember you going through this time period.
I, I think you're right with that, but also it, there isn't a good enough nutrition education in general. There's, you know, a few quarters of one class and the teacher's constantly changing.
They couldn't find the right professor for it. The professor that I had was extremely biased and bias towards vegan specifically said there's no such thing as a healthy plant-based diet. Where, excuse me sir, where's that research from? I actually. Emailed the school dean and said, this is unacceptable and we need to bring in someone else to show why a plant-based diet is also good.
When your teacher was teaching you this, did he show the research? Was it skew data or was it, you know what, he had written a book and he's pretty much, he's more like on the keto side and he wrote a book with his clinical experience that said, you know, he found people weight loss feeling better, like we know the keto diet can help.
Um, but again, he didn't say anything about the long-term research of how the keto diet can also lead to mortality. And I don't think he knew the difference between hard and soft endpoints, which I think you know what hard and soft endpoints are. But hard endpoints are anything that leads to mortality.
So a heart attack, a stroke, cancer, something that's going to kill you, and soft endpoints are like those things of weight loss and feeling better. Yeah, no more brain fog, which I think if you're losing weight. You also wanna live longer, right? You
wanna be able to appreciate that weight loss. Yeah, and I think the thing that we love what dad does, whenever he fixes diabetes, heart disease or anything, he's improving longevity with it.
So he's really prolonging life and not just. Your lifespan, but the quality of your life, which is so important. Well, it's your health
span. Yeah. Which is, it's not just your lifespan, it's who wants to live if they're gonna be living in wheelchairs. And I, I was talking to the FedEx driver that I'm really close with 'cause he picks up my packages for doc's daughters, the online business I have.
And he said his dad just went blind to 80. And I'm sorry, but I, I don't wanna live then like, you know, I'm not saying that won't going blind, but if you can't walk, like there's a hun hundred things that could happen to you at the, at that age. Yeah. You wanna increase your health span. Yeah. We wanna be walking around living in
good health at that age.
And that is probably my biggest why on why I eat this way and why I care so much about nutrition is because I wanna age well. I don't want my lifestyle to decline at all. I wanna still be really active, fit and enjoy. What life I can.
Well, life is short, right? Totally. It's too short. I wanna travel when I'm 80.
I wanna live till I'm a hundred. I want those extra years and I want them in happiness and health with no stress. I wanna do the things I love to do now then.
Totally. So I don't plan on getting sick sicker at all. And for all those people that are sick, I feel like you have the power to reverse it and improve your lifespan.
The body's very adaptable, so. That's why I'm so passionate about this. Mm-hmm. That's my why
and learning in life is so fun and I always wanna continue learning, educating, and I never wanna stop doing that. I feel like as I've gotten older, of course we're only, I'm only 31, but each year I learn something new and it makes me a happier me.
Yeah. And I hope that that continues all the way up until I'm a hundred. Yeah, totally. You're, and you need your health to do that.
Yeah. We're taking ego out of this. We're always trying to learn and grow and improve. Mm-hmm. And it in the end result, I think it just makes us happier. A hundred percent. But my question for you is I talked a little bit about why I eat this way.
What is your why and not just for. Loving what Dad has taught us and really bringing it to the public. But why do you wanna go to medical school? Like what is your why behind this decision to pursue this field?
It's funny that you say loving what Dad has taught us, because of course now I love what dad has taught us, but it wasn't always that way.
Growing up, we did competitive cheerleading, both of us, and we were exposed to a lot of candy and things like that by friends. And I think we had a little bit different experiences where I was more tempted than you were in a way. Baby. That's how I feel at least. Yeah. And so I had a little bit of beef with dad in my teenage years over the way he ate not meat, but beef.
Like Yeah, like actual, no, rolling my eyes, just tense conversations. No. Yeah. I mean, he wouldn't let me go places unless I ate first. Yeah. And then I would complain and go there and eat a hot dog. Like, you know, like I didn't listen completely when I was in those. Years. So dad and I love to laugh that we're coworkers now, and I think he's the most intelligent person I've actually ever met in my life.
Wow. What a praise. Yeah. Which is so crazy to think that when I was 15, I rolled my eyes at it. But long story short, I went to college for finance. I worked in finance. And just saw that it was really unfulfilling and during that same time period, like I just wasn't really liking it. It wasn't filling my cup.
During that same time period, I had maybe three things that happened to me that made me wanna get into what Dad does and help the business. So the first thing was acne. You know, I struggled with acne. Mm-hmm. And dad said to me, you don't eat how I tell you to eat, and if you do, your acne will go away.
So explain how old were you when you struggled with acne?
When I struggled
with acne, I started, so my struggled for acne started in freshman year of high school. Yeah. And that's when I started making the changes. And Dad said, you don't eat the way I do. And I, you know, I completely cut out any sort of added sugars and. Dairy. Dairy. Dairy, right. So I did that then, but I would still, you know.
Go off of it a little with friends and I wasn't the perfect high school student.
Quick little story. So dad told you with acne, I remember specifically chocolate and dairy, avoid chocolate and dairy and we took the dairy thing both of us to heart. Our best friend Raquel was. Always took the cheese off her pizza when she ate it.
So we're like, oh, not eating cheese is cool. And I feel like you took that and ran with it. I You avoid cheese like the plate.
It's so true because growing up I would walk off the bus from like in like middle school and stuff. I'd walk off the bus, go to my friend's house for a cheese stick. Like I loved cheese.
When he told me that dairy was contributing to my acne. The next day I never had dairy again. Yeah. Like to this day, I do not know what dairy tastes like. And you don't want to. And I don't want to. It genuinely pul, but it's crazy because as a kid, like I actually loved it.
Yeah, no, the ta, I'm sure these foods have an addictive quality.
They taste really good. They're loaded with salt, but salt eating them, you actually forget what they taste like. Absolutely. It's
all up here. That's why a mental game and you, you rewire taste buds. But yeah, so dairy went and chocolate, mental and physical. Cut, cut, cut. But that was the main things I cut with this acne thing and then.
What was the other thing that really pushed me this way? Oh, okay. So I, when I was working in finance, I needed extra money because I was making a, you know, entry level finance job. I'm pretty sure it was very bad. And I asked mom and dad how I could get extra money and they said. Transcribe dad's lectures.
This was before technology was like as big. Oh yeah. So I said, okay, sure. And in my free time, I was writing word for word what dad would say in all of his lectures. Mm-hmm. And I think that moment was really big for me because That's crazy. I didn't know that it was, it was the science where I was like, oh my God, this is kind of making sense.
And like I don't do any of this. And then. There's a few more things that led me to this path, but I would say a big, the third big one is my love for baking, and when I was transcribing the lectures, I decided to make all of my baking recipes. The things that I was learning in the lecture is so healthier and I just love cooking.
So I got really, really into how I could make things taste good and be what the principles were of the Nutter diet.
Mm-hmm.
So all that happening around the same time, I was like, I'm gonna go to med school.
And you, I remember you came home, we were living together at the time. Yeah. And I remember you came home and you're like, so I'm gonna do what Dad does.
I was like, what? Which not. Yeah. I, I want people to understand that. I do feel like you were really big fan of healthy eating by that time. The time you were like 21. Yeah. In college I definitely
like made sure to eat a salad every day and I had my, you know, ups and downs with going to social gatherings, stuff like that.
But I did prioritize eating my salad every day and I was healthier than. 90%
of college students. Totally. And I think our childhood we're like the first people in generation that really grew up prioritizing nutrition, especially to dad's standard. And I feel like, oh yeah, we
ordered things from
places like we couldn't get them at our grocery store.
Totally. And I think doing that with mom and dad taught us all a lot. Like we as children, learned a lot. I think mom and dad see where they could have improved things and. Or what they did really well. I think majority, they did it really well as best they could in the nineties. Nineties were a tough time where like fruit rollups, you had these like packable lunches and we were, I don't wanna say like weirdos, but No, we were, we were absolutely
weirdos.
Everyone thought we were weirdos and I hated it. No, because at a time I hated it. Obviously. I love it now. Yeah. But they did like we. I think we were a little subconscious. I have friends whose parents would be like, you're deprived at home. Let me give you this. Yeah. So when I'm hearing that from other people, and that's mainstream, my parents didn't go to the parties and do all these things that my other friends did.
Yeah. And I was getting used to that.
Dad is such a confident person and he's so confident being on his own island with his own views and his own ways. But growing up, me and you were not like that. Mm-hmm. Necessarily. We, we had a lot of friends. We were very social. So having this. Lifestyle where you brought like steamed broccoli to lunch I think was something we adapted to.
And I think there's things we did really well. And then there were times a lot in our childhood where we rebelled and we're like, we are not eating that. We want the, you said even hot dogs. I don't. Hot dogs. So that we wanted to get invites over our friends' houses for food, which is crazy. Totally. I went for play dates for food.
Yeah. Because we didn't get that stuff at home. I think when we were home, we liked what we ate as well. Totally. But it was almost this un forbidden fruit or forbidden fruit that we Totally,
we
had to chase
and not to get after. And I do think now, like when I raise my kids, I can look at my childhood and improve that.
I don't think the way we rebelled necessarily means that every child will do that. I think there is, I do think mom was right in allowing us to rebel, because look where we are now. And we did come back to this way of eating. Yeah. But I think, yeah. The foods were really ugly back then, and kids want exciting things, like they wanna be made popsicles and they want their dinners to look pretty.
And I think now there's more access. In order to make your kids to healthy food, to healthy food is to make your kids think this way of eating is really cool. Yeah. Like I don't think at 14 years old, it has to be weird anymore.
No, a hundred percent not. And there's farmers, but back then it was just a lot harder.
And farmer's markets are really cool if you have access to that. It's all about perspective. Because we had friends come over and we're like, watch this Vitamix that we have. We could. Frozen fruit in some soy milk and we can make these awesome colored smoothies. And these friends were like, whoa, this is so cool.
Mm-hmm. This is revolutionary to us. Oh, they love the
cantaloupe
Slush. Cantaloupe, slush. So it tastes amazing. So, which is just cantaloupe ice mixed in the Vitamix. Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. So I am grateful for, you know, us rebelling. All, all of us siblings, and there's four of us, I feel like decided to really promote dad's lifestyle and eat this way in our own way.
And I, and we all were so different with it
and we each had different relationships with food growing up as well. Mm-hmm. Like we all decided to do our own thing in different ways and came back to it. I feel like our older sister, Talia really would never rebelled actually. She always ate healthy. Yeah, she's good.
She's a great eater. Yeah. No, but you know, like it, she probably did. Maybe she did. I don't know, but I just, I don't know. We'll have to ask her. She's seven years older than us, so, uh, yeah. But another thing that I will say really brought me to this lifestyle is when I decided that I wanted to go to medical school.
I came home from work that day and I was like. I'm doing it. Yeah. I decided to volunteer a lot because getting into medical school was hard and I needed to career change and do a lot of volunteering and make my resume look good. So at George Washington Hospital, I did the George Washington Hospital and the food they served at the hospital was heartbreaking.
Yeah. So that made me wanna do it even more. Yeah. And then I volunteered for a camp. For a camp that kids have cancer or had cancer, and it's a place for kids that have cancer or had cancer to disconnect from their medical treatments, hang out with kids, be a kid, but also connect to other kids that are going through what they th they, they went through.
And to have medical care accessible to them. Yeah. During that time, the whole camp was surrounded by, you know, ice cream making night. If you won a sporting event, you got candy. And it just was so heartbreaking to me that I decided. There is nothing more important for my life than to make healthy eating accessible.
Cool. And educate the public like nothing else. I want kids to love what I do, and I have had people on Instagram tell me that my kid wants to eat healthy because you do. Because I'm making it look young and fun, and it gives me the chills, like I just want. To educate people and I am so happy I career changed.
Yeah, because I will say people's intentions as a whole, when they're feeding children and trying to make exciting ice cream nights and pizza nights, it's to build memories. Connection, community. It has such good intentions. They want life to be fun for these kids. But if you think about the harm that some of these foods, especially being as attic, as addictive as they are, it's not.
Really fun. No, it's
not. And in life, what you're real, what we're, what we've realized is that life does not have to set, be centered around food. Yeah, of course. You have to be intentional. We do precision nutrition. We're very intentional with what we put in our bodies. We love food, but. We play games, we go outside, we go to the beach.
Like there is so much more to life. And once you make that a part of your lifestyle, you realize how food, it does not have to be the center of it. Like we from the East coast, I feel as if what you do to have fun is go out and eat and drink. But now it's not like that at all.
In some of the communities we, we were in.
Yes. That was definitely a huge part. But I also feel like to your point of activities and you tell any fur and child that we're going on a hike, like we get excited, like we, our heart starts pumping. Oh, cry. Don't even get me started, man. Yeah. Like we absolutely love it, but also to getting excited about the foods we've rewrote and we've rewritten those stories.
Right. So when we have ice cream, we do have ice cream. Yeah. But it's a different type of ice cream with. Fresh, just freshly ground vanilla bean powder. We have, I mean, I was like, I want a veggie lasagna for my birthday. I don't wanna go out. 'cause I don't want all of that salt disrupting how great the vegetables and this lasagna tastes.
So me and Jacob made one totally. We do parties and we really enjoy these foods, but they're just foods that are elevated so that vegetables are the star and that we are not overloading with these salt sugar oil things that are going to make them Franken foods. We're just happy to enjoy nature's.
Produce and I love it and oh, we actually are so
happy to enjoy nature's produce. We have fresh fruits from the trees that we bring into things. Yeah. That we get really excited about. Like when it's fig season, all of us are out there like, where can I get more figs? Yeah. Dad hides his mangoes from me because he knows I want them.
Yeah. You know, we've made food a big part of our lives, but what people really need to realize is your taste buds change so much, and why are we eating things that make us sick? Mm-hmm. 'cause it feels so freaking good to feel healthy.
Yeah. Freedom from food is kind of what I call it because you're free from all the foods that bog you down and are not helping you live your best life and you're able to enjoy other activities, but at the same time you can enjoy and be like that.
Those handful of blueberries, you know, the type I'm talking about, there's nothing like it.
And after, so we went to Croat, Croatia together and we bonded over. Looking up healthy restaurants on TripAdvisor. Mm-hmm. And what did I make you do after every meal in Croatia? Walk up those stairs at midnight. We didn't go to bars, we walked stairs.
Exactly. And after we ate, we were able to walk stairs for exercise because we craved looking at those cool streets and the exercise. Yeah. And that's what you should be able to do after you eat. Yeah. Yeah. When we were young, we would go to friends' houses, or we would have Thanksgiving and I would be so sick I'd be sitting in a corner not wanting to talk to anyone.
Mm-hmm. My stomach is going to explode and I wanna, I have thrown up after meals like,
yeah, it's not good. No. Yeah, you don't wanna experience that. It doesn't feel good. Never again, man. And then also what you're reminding me is. We have a lot of memories. I mean, you have lists and lists of memories being best friends for over 30 years, but a lot of them, the best ones don't revolve around food.
Mm-hmm. Like it's not just sitting at a dinner revolving around food. Like I'm thinking back to Croatia and climbing those stairs and how great it was. So these physical
and the boat ride. The boat ride, these physical memories, we don't even remember really the food and Croatia besides that one vegan chef.
That was really good. Oh yeah, she was. I still follow her on Instagram. We do. She was great. Yeah. I mean, we could just, we could get into it and we, I'm sure we will about how we live our lives very unconventionally like, it, it truly is different and I think now we're in a really good place where we're happy with that.
I love being different. Yeah, totally. Finally, yeah, she's here. So, Dr. Ferman, if I, if I may ask, um. You're kind of, I feel like everyone's getting a sense that you really like kids. You really love kids. You used to carry around 20 baby dolls at once. That's true. But kids aren't your spec specialty. You're really actually doing a lot of cancer research.
Mm-hmm. So can you explain why that is and how you got there?
Sure. So there's a few ways that I got here, but one thing that really brought me here is who doesn't know somebody that's had breast cancer? I can guarantee you walking around the streets, if you ask someone, if they know anyone who's had or has breast cancer, they will say yes.
Mm-hmm. Right. One in eight people. In the US have breast cancer,
and correct me if I'm wrong, but those statistics are just going up year over year every year. It's, I know. It's really, and
it's increasing in people in their twenties. I have two, three friends from high school that have had breast cancer below the age of 35.
Wow. Um, we have family relatives that have had breast cancer. Yeah. Um, my fiance's mom's had it. You know, it's just so prevalent in society and one of the craziest things, it's, it's a disease that is so. Correlated to diet and lifestyle. Wow. There is so much we can do for breast cancer, all ca, a lot of cancers.
But I'm so passionate about this because it's such an epidemic.
Yeah.
I wanna work with kids still. I wanna help people raise their kids healthily and that's still something I'm very passionate about. I wanna have a lot of kids and I can't wait to show people how I'm raising my own kids. Yeah. But this breast cancer epidemic is.
Unbelievable. Yeah. Lives are, and the crazy thing is, is that people are being treated for breast cancer when they don't even have it. That's an episode for another time. But people are being treated for breast cancer that don't need it, and breast cancer treatments increase your risk of cardiovascular disease.
So my point that I'm making here is it's a cascade effect when you get diagnosed with breast cancer. Mm-hmm. It's not just one problem. Mm-hmm. It becomes 10 problems. Mm-hmm. And
we can avoid it. Yeah, there's a, I think, and there's a lot of new treatments coming out, which I think is a really exciting time to hopefully win the war in cancer.
After all, there's a lot we can do to battle it every single day when we choose to eat flaxseeds. There's a lot of things that we can do on the nutrition front and a lot of new advanced technologies that are coming out to help eradicate this. Disease that it, it's really derailing people's lifestyle and I think the change in our ability to change lives for the better is so great.
And I think that's what you're really falling in love with. It's so, I'm so excited to see where you go.
I never knew I was going to do this. If you asked me a year ago what I was gonna do when I graduated med school, I wouldn't have even said this. Mm-hmm. And it falling into my lap feels like the perfect thing for my career because of exactly what you just said.
Yeah. It's so needed. But technology has also advanced so much that we have better screening tools. We have. Tests that can detect cancer earlier than ever before, which I hate to say it, but is a kick in people's butt for motivation.
Yeah. And if we're catching
it really early, then we can, they can change their lifestyle a lot faster and have a lot more success in treating it.
Yeah. There's just so much we can do. Yeah. And that's why I love it so much. I love it too. I'm very excited and we're working together forever. We
always planned on that, but I think we thought we were gonna be, we always said growing
up too, that we were gonna be neighbors and have a tunnel that goes from your house to my house, and currently we're neighbors.
We just need to work on that tunnel. I really hope we can build it and pull it off. We absolutely
will. We should take pictures if it ever happens. Yeah. I have no doubts. Oh my gosh, that's so cool. You got me back on it. So. Circling back to how we were raised, and because I think we do have such an interesting past and experience, what are some tips you would give people to how to raise their kids, making nutrition a priority and something fun in their lives?
Well, the first thing here is don't introduce your kids to things that they. Don't know about what you introduce them to is what they're going to eat. So I should not be seeing a 1-year-old eating a lollipop because the lollipop, the 1-year-old did not know what a lollipop is. Yeah. If you give them an orange, they're gonna eat the orange.
Totally. That's the first thing I would say. Don't get their taste buds to be rewired incorrectly
and avoid. Processed foods or avoid these foods for as long as possible because they will be introduced by friends, but let it be by
friends.
Yeah, well, exactly. If you can, if you can push it down the road, like if you can avoid it even for the first two years.
Mm-hmm. Three years, that is giving your kid such a leg up.
Totally. And my next biggest piece of advice is get your kids involved in the kitchen. What made me so excited to eat this way was making foods that I like. So tell them, if you don't like this. What do you like and it figure out how to make recipes with them.
Have them help you chop the veggies, have them help you create the dishes. Mm-hmm. So that they feel invested in what they're eating and work with them.
Wait, I wanna piggyback off what you just said because I think what dad did really well, and I remember dad doing this in particular, is he get me really excited the same way other people would get their kids excited about ice cream, about like this cold orange we'd have after gymnastics class.
Mm-hmm. You'd be like, and we'd be sitting on the counter. Laughing together, and he'd be like, how good is this orange? Gimme something like, he made the vegetables and fruits become the prized food jewels for us, that he's like this Haitian mango. Mm-hmm. And he got you riled about Haitian mangoes. Totally.
And you can make foods look really cool too. You can make. A wrap out of lentils now. Yeah. Make your kid a wrap and have a be out of beans and put broccoli inside and they're gonna love it. Mm-hmm. Totally. So you just know, have to know what to do with Sean. Our brother came to me in high school and said, my school lunches look weird.
Can you help me make them look better? And things that I really like. Oh really? And I ended up making him toast. Ezekiel bread toast with almond butter, banana raisin cinnamon vanilla. And he took it as a sandwich to school and said it was the best thing he ever had. Oh, really? So all you need to do is have a conversation with these kids.
Yeah. Communicating is really important. Communicating is so important and not allowing them to choose what they eat. They will eat what you put in the house. Oh, totally.
And yeah, if you, and you don't need to have your kid eat a different diet than you either really? No. Like you don't need to buy your kids chips and be like, they're for the kids.
Like, no, that's you saying they're for you and you wanna have a bite. It's. Parents, kids are very perceptive. We really do pay attention to what our parents do. So if your parent you're doing, you can also really lead by example here. Huge. Absolutely. You have to walk the talk. You absolutely have to. Even in our
career, really, by example.
Yeah. Living this lifestyle is the only way that I can help my patients. Mm-hmm. Totally.
It's a great motivator. We know all the cracks, all the issues. All the obstacles. Totally. No one knows those obstacles like we do. Totally. Which is really important. And even so, I feel like as a cook and someone who eats this way and cooks this way, I'm really finding the most efficient way to do it, how to save time and what matters and it's achievable.
What I think is really cool too, is as a kid, let's say your kid is already introduced to foods. You didn't, you just found this lifestyle, and their favorite thing is ravioli. Mm-hmm. This is just an example. Yeah. So make a ravioli, nutritarian. And give it to your kid. Yeah. They won't know the difference and even help them make it with you.
Yeah. I like that. Getting your kids in the kitchen. I actually think that's huge. Huge. Yeah. Making beans and then they become really attached and connected to these foods. And also,
you know, when it's done, give them a spoon and say, try this. Mm-hmm. Like how good is it? And just making it fun for them I think is really important.
Yeah. So your
first tip was. Make it. Oh, don't, don't introduce, introduce. Don't introduce. Yeah. Don't introduce till, you know, avoid and fill your house with all those healthy foods. Right.
Second tip was you can make a wa a cake out of watermelon for your one year old's birthday. It doesn't have to be a cake, out of cake.
You can do so many pretty things. You can do so many pretty things. Fruits and vegetables are
so colorful. Yeah. Wait. Second tip. Your kids love fruits and vegetables. My second tip was get your kids in the kitchen. Right. Get them cooking with you. And you said you have three. So I wanted to make sure we got that third tip.
Did I not give it already? Third tip
was talking about foods. Oh, talking about it. Communicate. Communicate. So to have them, if they say their favorite food again, is like spaghetti. Make it out of a bean pasta and ask them, do you like this pasta brand? If not, we'll find, we'll try another. There's glass noodles, there's bean pasta, and that's just one thing.
Of course make, if they love baked zdi, make a baked ZI make my bake Z out of. Sweet potato and nutritional yeast and cashews. Yeah, totally. That's the cheese. You know, like you can find ways to communicate with them and turn their favorite dishes into healthier ones. Like how we made my birthday dinner dinner this year.
Exactly. It was so good. Exactly. I made your cookies,
man. Do I love them?
Exactly. And that's actually one of the reasons I started Doc's Daughters was because it's a passion project because it makes it easier to get kids involved. The baking mixes are intentional for kids to make. Yeah. With their parents.
Yeah. And. Again, you could eat them for your birthday dinner.
They're so good. Made from Whole Foods only screened with dates, like all the principles of nutrient debts eating. Totally. Which is amazing. And I also wanted to say that when communicating with kids. Dad was so good at this. I mean, mom told us she loved us a lot too, but we got into more conflicts with dad because he was a little more regimented.
He was a little more, eat this, not that, and he would say, but I just want you to prioritize eating this way. I want you to pick these healthy foods because I love you. He really pushed that narrative of, because. It makes a difference with your, the whole, the whole longevity of your life. Mm-hmm. Like I'm doing this now as a child so that you become healthy and do not have disease, and do not have mortality and obstacles and medications.
I,
that actually brings me to a fourth point about raising kids is I think sharing the science with them is extremely important. Yeah. Because they will understand and if you teach your kid that a certain food is really good to prevent cancer and teach them what cancer is. Yeah. Or there's a food that's gonna help them sleep better.
And, you know, you explain it these ways. They're gonna be
motivated. They wanna feel good. The way we prioritize nutrient-dense eating and healthy eating. It's almost like we're brainwashed in a sense. These conversations were always being had in our home, and we do make it such a priority in our lives because we were taught to, I still remember mom to this day saying.
If like, if that's not healthy, if that's not worth it, don't eat it. Like you, they weren't finished your food, they were eat till you're satisfied and then move on with your day. Mm-hmm. Like they were preaching these healthy principles almost like a religion to the point where me, you, Sean, and Talia are very cognizant about what we put in our body.
That that is our religion. We treat our body like a temple. Genuinely. They taught us that. We do. We do. Yeah. Which is
crazy. Yeah. And they also did a really good job of leading by example. We keep saying the leading by example, but they. Do everything they want us to do. Yeah.
Which helps. Totally. Yeah. I, I still can't believe sometimes when I think about it that dad found a partner that was so willing to with dad and mom worked at McDonald's before she met dad, so, yeah.
Yeah. I don't Did she eat it? We should always ask. We should ask her. No, she did. I mean, she was a
really picky eat. She said she ate bread and ice cream. Yeah.
Wow. That's bad. Now she eats completely nutritarian. It's wild and loves it. I mean, so open-minded, so willing to change. Mm-hmm. And very interested by it, I think.
Excited by it. Definitely excited by it. Yeah. They make a good team. Yeah. Which is cool. And we're lucky we
found partners like that too.
Yeah. Well, I can't wait to see whose lives you change and I'm just gonna be along for the ride and helping so. Well, you're changing lives too in the process because we couldn't do it without you.
Thanks. Wow. Thank you. I'll have you on again. Okay. So. Thank you for joining me for this awesome episode and little tidbits about what it's like growing up Nutritarian, but I can't wait to get into later episodes where we dive into real science on cancer, osteoporosis, the things that you're gonna be doing to change people's lives from the inside out.
Mm-hmm. And sharing real case examples in real time, because I'm seeing patients now. Yeah. So it's gonna be really exciting and I can't wait to be a part of the Eat Live podcast because it's such an amazing time for us to connect to people and also show them. How we do this, what our lives are like, and put science
in there as well.
Totally. This is a firm and family podcast. We had Grandma Isabelle on it last week. We're having you on it. And you're gonna be back and back with me again. Again in addition to Dad. Yeah. So I think we're gonna have everyone on here and it's gonna be, even the three of us are gonna be on here together. I can't wait.
Yeah, don't get me started. Let your dad Okay. Yeah, it's gonna be a wild ride. Let's do it. We high five when we're done with episodes.This episode of the Eat to Live podcast features Dr. Cara Fuhrman discussing her recent graduation from naturopathic medical school and her journey into becoming a licensed naturopathic doctor. She highlights her admiration for her father's unique approach to lifestyle medicine and shares the challenges she faced growing up in a household that prioritized nutrition and health. Cara talks about her experiences in medical school, her passion for battling breast cancer through diet and lifestyle, and offers practical tips for raising children with a focus on healthy eating. The conversation touches on the influences, challenges, and triumphs of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, aiming for longevity and quality of life, and the importance of making nutritious eating fun and accessible for kids.