Encore Episode: Breaking the Cheese Habit: Dr. Neal Barnard

What You’ll Learn in this Episode:

• How he came to study cheese.
• The science behind cheese addiction.
• Why the cheese habit is so hard to break.
• What cheese does to your body.
• How to break the cheese habit.
• Easy cheese swaps.
• The positive health gains from ditching cheese.
• More from his book The Cheese Trap: How Breaking a Surprising Addiction Will Help You Lose Weight, Gain Energy, and Get Healthy.

High Five Highlights:

• What made you fall in love with medicine? The year before medical school, I was an autopsy assistant at Fairview Hospital in Minneapolis. One day, a man died of a heart attack. The pathologist showed me the man's diseased heart, and I felt the atherosclerosis with my own hands and it was stunning to me. That day they were serving ribs in the hospital cafeteria, and I just couldn’t eat them. As time went on, I realized I had to help people understand how nutrition affects our health, and I’ve been talking about it ever since.
• What was the best piece of advice you were ever given? When it comes to changing any habit, it’s good to set up rules. Set up guidelines and stick with them. It’s better to do that than tease yourself with moderation.
• I ask most of my guests about joy... what bring you joy in life and how can we all experience more joy in our own lives? Researchers have found that dopamine is released (the brain reward chemical). The healthy ways to trigger dopamine (the feel good in your brain) is 1) Being around other people. 2) Physical activity. 3) Music. Feeling good in a natural way.
• Do you have a favorite quote you can share? “I’m not an optimist, I’m not a pessimist, I am determined."
  
• Finish this sentence: “Throughout my life the most important thing I’ve learned is...” Life is short. We have a window of time to make this world a better place.

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