Episode 25 - Momo Vuyisich of Viome and the Future of Health

Welcome back to The Marian Flaxman Network Podcast. On today's episode, Marian sits down with author, scientist, fermenter, advocate, and chef, Rich Shih. They discuss Rich's path to the kitchen, how and why he first learned to cook, and how he came to discover that fermentation could be harnessed to make food more delicious, more nutritious, and more sustainable. Marian and Rich met at The Georgetown University Food as Medicine and the Microbiome Conference, where Rich spoke about the power of koji to transform food scraps into delicious condiments and more. Since then, they have found a shared calling for promoting the use of fermentation to improve human health, and prevent food waste. Rich is the co-author of the book Koji Alchemy, which can be found here. Rich is the co-organizer of an event that teaches about fermentation- KojiKon. You can find tickets to this event, and learn more, here. Follow Rich on Instagram - @ourcookquest For more about Marian, please visit www.marianflaxman.com Follow Marian on Instagram- @marianff Connect with Marian on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marian-flaxman/ Learn more about our sponsor - www.informedsolutionsconsulting.com

Welcome back to The Marian Flaxman Network Podcast! On today's episode, Marian speaks with Dr. Brad Moore about the current healthcare landscape, the future of "food as medicine", and the importance of shifting a patient's overall lifestyle to promote healing.Dr. Moore is passionate about being a doctor and supporting his patients. Years ago, he noticed that his patients were not getting better when he simply followed the western medicine rulebook, prescribing medications and sending them on their way. He looked at his own life, where he used nutrition and physical activity to manage his health, and became curious about how he might integrate this approach into his medical practice.Dr. Moore is now Board Certified in Lifestyle Medicine, and he teaches, and practices, Lifestyle Medicine at George Washington University. He is also an advocate for the integration of nutrition into healthcare, or "food as medicine", and he and I first met while visiting Capitol Hill to advocate for these policies. Dr. Moore in a high integrity physician, who leads by example and cares deeply about the future of health. In this conversation, he shares a vision for how Lifestyle Medicine could transform the way medicine is practiced in the US, and how policy could play a role in promoting this transformation. For more information about Dr. Brad Moore- https://gwdocs.com/profile/brad-mooreFor more information on Lifestyle Medicine, and to find a Lifestyle Medicine doctor near you- https://lifestylemedicine.orgFollow Marian on Instagram- @marianffConnect with Marian on LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/marian-flaxman/Work with Marian- www.marianflaxman.comMore information on our sponsor- www.informedsolutionsconsulting.com

Welcome back to The Marian Flaxman Network Podcast! On today's episode, a conversation with Melissa L Jones, aka The Edible Activist. Back in the early 2000's, Melissa had an experience that changed her entire perspective on food and health. In her words, she realized she had been "duped" by the food system. This experience started her on a journey of understanding where her food comes from, how it is produced, who is involved in the food system, and how it is impacting her health, the health of her loved ones, and the health of the planet. It also sent her down a path that would lead her to create a podcast focused on the intersection of food and social justice- The Edible Activist Podcast.Melissa is an activist who is as passionate as she is informed, and she is a gifted interviewer and conversationalist. Her podcast has reached nearly 200 episodes, and she has interviewed farmers, food producers, business owners, and policy makers. In today's conversation, she shares about some of her favorite podcast episodes, how her journey began, why she is so passionate about bringing people of color into the food justice conversation, and how thinking about food more deeply has shaped her life. Find Melissa and her podcast on Instagram- @edibleactivistTo listen to The Edible Activist Podcast, including the episodes discussed on today's episode, please click hereLearn more about Marian and connect- www.marianflaxman.comFollow Marian on Instagram- @marianffLearn more about our sponsor- www.informedsolutionsconsulting.com

Welcome back to the Marian Flaxman Network Podcast. On today's episode, Marian speaks with Kristin Sukys, a strategist and consultant who has spent nearly a decade working on the development of food as medicine policies. Kristin once thought she wanted to be a doctor, and her desire to help and heal people has led her down various paths, including forays into working with food, agriculture, and eventually policy. She has been able to combine her education and interests into meaningful and impactful work, at the forefront of figuring out how to integrate nutrition and food access into health care.For more information on Kristin and her work in the "food is medicine" policy landscape, visit www.fimstrategies.comFor more information on Marian, please visit www.marianflaxman.comFor more information on our sponsor, please visit www.informedsolutionsconsulting.com

Welcome back to the Marian Flaxman Network Podcast. On today's episode, Marian speaks with Dr. Janel Gordon, MD. Dr. Gordon is Board Certified in Family Medicine, Obesity Medicine, and Lifestyle Medicine, and she is also the medical expert for WISH-TV.Dr. Gordon always knew that she wanted to be a doctor, but it wasn't until medical school that she chose family medicine. As she witnessed the many factors that impact a person's health, she saw that treating the whole family could be more beneficial to her patients than trying to treat them in isolation, without any knowledge of how their relationships and home life were contributing to their health. Following this approach, and allowing her patients' questions lead the way, she found herself more interested than ever in the role that nutrition plays in health.In this episode, Dr. Gordon shares so much about her experience as a physician, and also about her journey as a curious person who is always willing to ask questions, do further research, and try new things. She shares stories of times when a patient's question, and her subsequent research, caused her to totally change her mind, as well as her own diet.Finally, Dr. Gordon talks about public health, and the role that policy, and people, can and should play in creating a healthcare and food system that work for all of us.For more information on Dr. Janel Gordon, please visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjanelgordon/To learn more about her work with WISH-TV, please visit https://www.wishtv.com/news/getting-to-know-dr-janel-gordon-wish-tvs-new-medical-expert/To learn more about Marian, visit www.marianflaxman.comConnect with Marian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marian-flaxman/To learn more about our sponsor, visit www.informedsolutionsconsulting.com

Welcome back to the Marian Flaxman Network! On today's episode, Marian speaks with Emily Callahan RD MPH. Emily is a consultant working in the "food is medicine" research and policy development space. he currently works with the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University to advance the conversation about integrating food and nutrition into health care.As a kid, Emily loved to read, write, and perform. She imagined that she might become an author, or perhaps an actress. However, she also loved pouring over nutrition and physiology textbooks, and learned at an early age that eating well had the power to improve a person's overall health. She found herself on a path to becoming a dietitian, and soon learned that by getting involved in advocacy and policy, she could reach more people than would typically be reached in a 1-1 clinical relationship.Emily is a devoted mom to 4 young kids, and she and Marian discuss the ups and downs of juggling an exciting career in a field you are truly passionate about, while also carving out the time and attention to be a present mom and wife.For more information on Emily, please visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-a-callahan-mph-rdn-250a9a7/For more information on the exciting work Emily is doing with Tufts, please visit https://tuftsfoodismedicine.orgFor more information on Marian, please visit www.marianflaxman.comFor more information on our sponsor, please visit www.informedsolutionsconsulting.com

Welcome back to The Marian Flaxman Network Podcast! We are kicking off season two, committed as always to reintroducing personal narratives into critical public health topics.Perhaps the most critical public health topic, broadly speaking, is food. Food touches so many areas of human life and society. It fuels our bodies, provides the building blocks for our minds, entertains us, drives the economy, and contributes to human health and disease. The way we grow and process food also impacts the climate, and environmental pollution. Laborers are exploited in the food system, plastic waste is created for the food system, and antibiotic resistance is driven, in part, by the use of antibiotics within the food system. Food is the epicenter of public health.This season, we will speak with chefs, policy pros, doctors, dietitians, farmers, and others who work at the intersection of human and planetary health, and food. We will hear from doctors who prescribe food as medicine, and from activists who promote healthy food access for all. Throughout these conversations, we will learn how food is more than "just food", and how we cannot tackle the topic of improving public health without talking about the changes that need to be made to the systems that support us, starting with how we grow and distribute food. In this episode, Marian introduces season two, the complexities of the food system, and discusses how everything is connected.To learn more about Marian, visit www.MarianFlaxman.comFor more information on Marian's consulting group, Informed Solutions, visit www.informedsolutionsconsulting.com

Welcome back to The Marian Flaxman Network Podcast. On today's episode, Marian speaks with the Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at Viome Life Sciences, Momo Vuyisich. When he was in graduate school, Momo struggled with a mysterious autoimmune disease. He realized that doctors and drugs did not offer him any solutions and, empowered by his background in scientific research, got curious about the role that the gut microbiome was playing in his illness. He then went on to work for more than a decade as a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he and his team made discoveries about how to analyze and identify components of the microbiome, their interactions, and their functions.Understanding the power of this technology, and seeing the potential to shift the healthcare landscape and help millions of people, Momo founded Viome, a company that empowers consumers to understand and improve their health. On this episode, Marian and Momo talk about the role of the microbiome in health, and about the importance and complexity of diet-microbiome interactions. They discuss how companies like Viome can help bring clarity to the often confusing advice to "eat healthy", and about their shared experiences overcoming autoimmune disease by reconditioning their microbiomes and tailoring their diets, As they look ahead to the future of health, Marian and Momo talk about Viome's latest products, which are designed to promote the health of the oral microbiome, and Momo explains the role that the oral microbiome plays in total-body health and disease.For more information about Marian, please visit www.marianflaxman.comFollow the Podcast on Instagram - @themarianflaxmannetworkTo learn more about Viome, please visit www.viome.comFollow Viome on Instagram- @viomeProduced by - @lucasashbysbraintrustSponsored by- www.informedsolutionsconsulting.com

Welcome back to the Marian Flaxman Network Podcast. On today's episode, Marian speaks with the founder and owner of Simple Kneads Gluten Free Sourdough Bread, Tristaun LeClaire.As a child, Tristaun faced a series of traumatic setbacks that led him to feel angry at the world. He turned to self-indulgent, self-destructive behaviors as a coping mechanism, before having a wakeup call that changed the course of his life.When his first son was born, Tristaun experienced another wakeup call, when he realized that his plant-based diet was not working for his son's body, and the whole family would need to go gluten free. Scouring the grocery store shelves for a healthy gluten free bread option, Tristaun was horrified by what he found- sugar-filled, fiber-depleted junk foods that did not align with the diet he wanted to feed his family. So, he began to innovate. After many long hours in the kitchen, Simple Kneads was born.Marian and Tristaun discuss the issues with the current food system, and related issues in the healthcare system. They also address the many challenges faced by small businesses, and why "carbs" are not inherently problematic until they are heavily refined.For more information on Tristaun and his company, Simple Kneads, please visit: https://www.simplekneads.comTo read the Simple Truths Blog, please visit: https://www.simplekneads.com/simple-truths/Follow Simple Kneads on Instagram: @simplekneads_gfFollow Marian on Instagram: @marianffConnect with Marian on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/marian-flaxman

Welcome back to the Marian Flaxman Network Podcast. Today's guest is Gabriele Nicolet, a professional speech language pathologist and parenting coach, and the host of the Complicated Kids podcast. This conversation brings together nutrition and neurological function, behavior and survival instincts, and discussions about walking a winding path through life, and finding your passion and purpose. Gabriele was a French major in college, passionate about language learning and communication. Ultimately, that passion for communicating with others led her to return to school to train as a speech language pathologist, working with young children who are struggling to communicate with those around them. During her time in this field, Gabriele has witnessed remarkable changes and advances, including the growing understanding of the role that neurological function plays in speech development, and the role that the gut microbiome plays in neurological function. For more information on Gabriele and her impactful work, please visit: https://www.speechkids.com/ For Gabriele's broader coaching business, please visit: https://www.raisingorchidkids.com/ Follow Gabriele on Instagram- @speechkidsdc Follow Marian on Instagram- @marianff Connect with Marian on LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/marian-flaxman/ Learn more about our sponsor: www.informedsolutionsconsulting.com